This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at|http: //books .google .com/I
A.1J.J.X <>■ ^'\' "•>-■ ^11-
Harvard University
UBBARY OF THE
Graduate School of Education
TRANSFERRED
HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
3 2044 097 034 854
JuLiTR Cabsab. Tlie Kkplea boat.
ALLYN AND BACON'S SERIES OF SCHOOL HISTORIES CHARLES KENDALL ADAMS. Gbmbral Editor
ANCIENT HISTORY
TO THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE
BY
WILLIS MASON WEST
ALLYN AND BACON Voston an)) jtj^ioigo
n
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF EDUCATIOH
ALLYN AND BACXDN'S SERIES OF
SCHOOL HISTORIES l2mo, halfleaiher^ numerous maps, plans, and Ulustrathns
ANCIENT HISTORY. By WUlis M. West of the Unfyersity of Minnesota.
MODERN HISTORY. By WQlis M. West
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles M. Andrews of Yale Uniyersity.
A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charies M. Andrews.
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By Charles K. Adams, and William P. Trent of Columbia Uniyerslty.
THE ANCIENT WORLD. By Willis M. West.
Alto in two volames : Past I : Gbkscb and the Bait.
Past II : Rome and the Wstr.
-sp-ip'^^ 'y:^-'*'
*^
>^-«
COPYRIGHT. 1902. BY WILLIS MASON WEST.
KDO
KorfoooQ 9Ttss
J. 8. CushlDir Go. — Berwick h Smith Co.
Norwood, MsM.f U.6.A.
PREFACE.
The study of history in secondary schools offers many problems. Foremost in demanding decision stands always the question of the proper distribution of time. The old one- year course in universal history is confessedly inadequate, unattractiye, and destitute of disciplinary value. No possible series of courses on single countries can be sufficiently com- prehensive. Some compromise is inevitable.
The most promising plan yet proposed is the one outlined in the memorable Report of the Committee of Seven to the National Historical Association in 1899.^ In accordance with that plan, the series of school histories of which this book is the first will give two volumes to a general survey of the world's history. The present volume deals with the early development of those historic elements whose interworkings have since produced our modern world. As is explained more folly in the opening pages of the text, it deals with those Oriental peoples who were to contribute directly to European civilization, and, more in detail, with Greeks, Romans, and Teutons, whose life in each case was to be taken up, almost as a whole, into our modern life ; and the story is traced until these formative elements have been brought together and until their fusion is well under way in the empire of Charlemagne. A second book will treat the subsequent working of these forces in "Modern History." The present volume, however, may be followed instead by the study of England, France, or Germany, or by intensive topic study; it is designed for the first year's work in history in high schools, but, by expanding or contracting the suggestions for topical reports and for library work, it may be adapted to older or younger students and to courses of varying length.
i 27k€ Study qfHUtory in Schools, The MacmUlan Co., 90JS0.
ill
IV PREFACE.
In selecting subject-matter within the wide limits of ''An- cient History/' I have desired especially to emphasize the unity in historical development and to bring out the value of the past in explaining the present. The expansion of civilized life is followed from the early patches in the Nile and Eu- phrates valleys, first over Western Asia, then around the Medi- terranean coasts, and, finally, into the British Isles and the German forests ; and at each new advance an attempt is made to show something of the reaction of the environment upon the older germs.
To do these things effectively calls for rigid economy in the use of space. Two particulars may be mentioned : —
a. Wars receive little attention. Military history is valua- ble, no doubt, if one really studies strategy ; but compromises that tell the story and leave out the strategy are not valuable as history, whatever they may be as literature. Of course, ''civilization has come riding on a gun-carriage;'' but this truth can be taught better by compact treatments of condi- tions preceding a war and of the results that followed it, than by lengthy, but necessarily imperfect or misleading, stories of battles and sieges. This sentiment may have a familiar sound, but its radical application in this volume justifies its repetition. Thus, twenty-eight pages are given to the Athe- nian Empire and less than four to the Peloponnesian War, — these four, too, mainly to the internal revolution in Athens; two pages contain Alexander's wars, while- five are given to his constructive work and twenty more to the results in the widespread Hellenic civilization that followed; and of the four- teen pages allotted to Caesar, two suffice for his campaigns.
b. Critics have long regretted that our school courses dwell upon the legendary or romantic early periods of Greek and Roman life to the strange neglect of the later periods, more complex, but so much richer in historical teaching. More important than the semibarbarous Spartan camp is the great Hellenic world after Alexander, with its suggestive experi- ments in federal government and with its political and social
PBEFACB. T
ocmditions so like the modern world ; more valuable even than - the ill-understood quarrels between plebeians and patricians is the Boman imperial world, on which later European life is so directly based. I have intended the present volume to do somewhat toward remedying this neglect, especially in the case of the Koman Empire. Here, too, a space-saving device has been adopted. A fundamental difficulty has always been the many imperial reigns with the wearisome repetition of like details. This volume groups the outlines of the reigns, by periods, into some four pages of tables, for reference, and ^ so secures ninety pages for topical treatment of organic move- ments and of the growth of institutions. As a rule, the emperor's individuality was but a trifling factor in determin- ing the trend of development in the complex society of which he was a part ; and it is manifestly unwise to sacrifice a simple and logical arrangement for an arbitrary and confusing one, depending upon accidents to single lives.
On the other hand, the biographical element is sometimes an essential part of historical explanation, and, with right, it is attractive to students. Even a book of this kind permits and demands a few individual portraits ; and I have hoped, in particular, to give a vivid impression of the personality, as well as the work, of Themistocles, Pericles, Socrates, Epami- nondas, Philip, Alexander, the Gracchi brothers, Sulla, Caesar, Augustus, Constantine, Theodoric, Clovis, and Charlemagne.
A text-book in history for high schools should assist the teacher in securing that training which history alone in the high school curriculum can give. I trust that my several years' experience in teaching the subject in high schools has not been without profit here. Attention is called to a few features in which this volume is designed to be helpful.
CL It aims to help teach the use of a library, by giving spe- cific references upon many topics, and by naming many topics to be looked up from more general references. The teacher.
Yl PREFACE.
of course, will modify or extend topics and references at will, but to leave him to do all work of this kind is to throw un- reasonable burden upon him and to compel neglect. The many quotations woven into the text ought also to be made a means of introducing students to standard books. In the reference lists <^for advanced students " the needs of teachers also have been kept in mind. The text omits all the stock anecdotes; they are easily found, and they come with more effect from the teacher or from students to whom they may be especially assigned for reports. More books are sometimes referred to, especially in the general lists at the close of chap- ters, than any one school library will contain, but every library should have some of those mentioned on each topic. Books are often indicated by abbreviated titles or by the author's name ; in any case of uncertainty, the full title can be found easily in the classified bibliography in the Appendix. This bibliography itself, with its prices and especially with its dates, will be, I hope, not without use.
b. The Table of Contents gives a minute analysis down to the content of each paragraph in the book. More important still, it shows, by its tabular form, the logical relation of the paragraphs within each larger subdivision and the relations of these larger units to each other. This feature, I think, is somewhat unique. To keep the analysis clear compelled a strictly logical order in writing the book. Whether this scientific arrangement has been secured at the cost of other merits the public must decide ; but secured, I think, it unques- tionably has been. The syllabus, therefore, should be used constantly both in advance and review.
c. Various forms of review exercises are suggested at appro- priate points (see pages 76, 127-128, 198, 245-246, 371, and 467) ; but the value of the Index for review deserves special notice. As the Syllabic Table of Contents gives a bird's-eye view of a period, so the Index affords direction for cross review. A number of the topics most important for such study are indicated in the Index by black italic type. The
PBEFACE. Yli
many cross references in the text should be helpful in a like maimer.
d. Brief suggestions for map study are given in one instance in the text (page 76)| but of course every map should be the occasion of some study in class. In particular, a series of progressive maps like the last eight or nine, showing the civilized world at short intervals of time, affords material for comparison and discussion that should not be neglected. The book is unusually rich in maps for the confused period from 400 to 800 A.D., when the face of Europe was changing so rapidly, and when the germs of modern nations were beginning to take form.
To enumerate authorities for the treatment of so many periods and countries would be perhaps graceful in the author, but wearisome to the reader. In general, the views presented are strictly orthodox. The question of '< race " belongs not to history, nor to philology, but to ethnology ; and in conformity to the verdict of its proper science, the Aryan race supersti- tion is discarded. On the vexed problem of Roman patricians and plebeians, I follow the usually accepted and better estab- lished theory, rather than a recent one which would make the patricians simply the chiefs of plebeian tribesmen. The new idea has the merit of simplicity, but it is based apparently apon that ignorance which the imscientific Roman historians always displayed on all difficulties about their early history ; and, despite some vehement criticism, the other theory not only has the support of the greatest names in Germany and England, but it is also in accord with what the comparative study of primitive societies makes probable. On the other hand, the older view of early Greek civilization, by universal consent, needs restatement, though that statement, perhaps, has not yet been found. I have preferred, therefore, to use, in some measure, Professor Ridgeway's theories, recent as they are, rather than solemnly to repeat an undoubted error.
It is inevitable, of course, in a book of this kind, that cleri"
VUl
PREFACE.
cal e^rrors and more serious ones should have slipped in; I shall be grateful to teachers or readers who will call my attention to any of them.
It remains for me to express my obligation to friends who have helped in the preparation of the volume. Dr. Charles Kendall Adams, the editor of the series, so long and widely known as an eminent historical teacher and writer, read the manuscript, and I owe much to his searching comment and kindly encouragement. The ill health which has compelled his lamented withdrawal from the presidency of the Univer- sity of Wisconsin has of course made it impossible for him to give the proofs the critical attention they would otherwise have received from him, but here too he has offered valuable suggestion. Dr. John E. Granrud, of the department of Latin in the University of Minnesota, whose excellent Eoman Con- stitvMonal History has just appeared, read critically the proofs for the Roman period; Professor John Sinclair Clark, head of the Latin department, read part of the same period; and Professors Frank M. Anderson and Albert B. White, colleagues in my own department, have read the proofs for the Eoman imperial and the Teutonic periods. I desire to record my sincere gratitude to all these gentlemen for many suggestions, and, at the same time, to absolve them from responsibility for errors I may have retained. I am under particular obligation to my wife, Elizabeth Beach West, who read the manuscript, as it progressed, with constant and invaluable criticism. Her close touch with the subject from the teacher's point of view made her suggestions especially helpful. I should be ungrate- ful not to acknowledge also her material assistance in prepar- ing maps and tables and in work upon the proofs.
WILLIS MASON WEST.
XjNIVBRSTrY OF MINNB8OTA,
MiKirBAPOLis, March 1, 1902.
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
I. What History shall wb study f
wonoir piai
1. Prehifitorio life excluded 1
2. Some historio races excluded 2
3. The field selected and the periods 8
4. The two great divisions of history 6
6. The subject of this volume 6
11. '*Racb^* in Histobt.
6. The Aryan fiction 6
7. The three great races . *. 8
& Someof the ** white*' races 8
9. European nations and these races 9
10. Conclusion as to treatment of race 9
PAET L — ORIENTAL HISTORY.
CHAPTER I. —A PRELIMINARY SURVEY.
11. The rediscovery 11
12. The three centers 12
13. The periods 14
CHAPTER II.— EGYPT. I. Geoobapht.
14. Territory 15
15. Significance of the Nile 15
Itt, PoliticalgeQgraphy — growth of a kingdom . • • • 17
ix
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTBNTa
IL POLITIOAL HiBTOHT.
uonov PAOi
17. Memphite period 17
18. Theban period: a. early Theban; &. Hyksos role; e. later
Theban . 18
19. Salte period 20
20. Under foreign rale — Alexandrian period 21
III. People, Society, CiYiLizATioir.
21. Races and population 22
22. Social classes and government 22
23. Position of woman 27
24. Industries and art . . • 27
25. Literature and the hieroglyphics 80
26. Science 31
27. Religion 82
28. Morality 34
20-36. IV. Illustratiyb Extbacts ... 36
• CHAPTER IIL— THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES STATES.
37. L Unitt of the East Ifter 1600 B.o. . . 40
II. Geografht.
38. The two rivers 40
39. Natural and political divisions 41
III. Political History.
40. The first Chaldean Empire 42
41. Assyria . . . ' 44
42. The new Babylonian Empire 46
IV. Society and Culture.
43. Races 46
44. Cuneiform writing 46
46. Literature and science 48
46. Industrial arts and applied science 60
47. Social classes 61
48. . Architecture and sculpture 62
49. Religion and morality 63
60-66. V. Illustrative Extracts .... 64
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi
CHAPTER IV.— THE MIDDLE STATES.
■BOnOV PAGB
66. TheHittiteB 67
L PnoBirxctAKS.
57. The first men who went down to the sea In ships ... 67 68. Function — disBeminators of civilization and inventors of the
alphabet 68
59. Political and social conditions 59
II. Hebrews. A. PolUicca History.
60. Men of the desert ; the age of the patriarchs . . . .01
61. Settlement in Canaan ; the period of the judges ... 61
62. The kings and the prophets 61
63. Division — Israel and Judah : decline 62
6i. PriesUyrule 62
B. The MiMion of the Jews.
65. The first monotheistic people 63
fil&. The infiuence of race or of environment 63
67. Historical growth of the faith 64
CHAPTER v.— THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. I. The Map obows.
68. New states : Persia and Lydia . . . . .66
69. Rise and extent of the Persian Empire . . . .67
IL The Persian Contributions.
70. Religion and morals ; • 68
71. Political contributions 69
III. Persia and the Sctthians.
72. Persia the champion of civilization 69
rv. Imperial Gk>VBRNMENT.
78. The old kingdom-empires . . . . • . • .70
74. (jrovemment by satraps 71
75. The system i>erfected by Darius 71
76. Post roads 72
77. Fennanenoe of the system « • .72
Xii ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VL— A RETROSPECT.
SEOTION PAOB
78. Progress in Oriental history 74
79. Limitations in Oriental culture 74
PART IL— THE GREEKS.
CHAPTER L — INTRODUCTORY SURVEY.
I. EUBOPBAN AND ASIATIC TtPBS.
80. Differences in civilization 76
81. Basis of the distinction found in physical differences . . . 77
II. Gbbscb typical of Eubope.
82. The ** most European of European lands ^* .... 78
83. Special geographical features and their influence: a. many
small units ; b, the sea the bond of union ; c. certain prod- ucts are incitement to trade ; d. vicinity of the open side to Asia ; e. diversity and beauty of natural features ... 78
84. A problem : results due to land or race ? 80
CHAPTER IL— PREHISTORIC GREECE— TO 1000 B.C.
L SOUBCBS OF CUB KnOWLBDOB.
85. '* Homer ** and his age 82
86. Archaeology confirms Homer, but reveals earlier ages also • 82
IL Two Pbbhistobio Civilizations.
87. Mycenaean culture 86
88. Achaean culture 88
HL SOCIBTT OV TRB ECONOMIC SiDB.
89. Simplicity M
00. Occupations and classes 91
rv. The Tbibb — Units and Tibs.
01. The clan : the clan religion .01
92. Phratry and tribe 92
03. The tribal city .98
94. The city the limit of political organization in Greece ... 96
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii
y. Rarlt Political Organization.
twjnam PAoa
96. King 94
96. Council of chiefs 94
97. FollL-moot 94
CHAPTER III.— FROM THE MIGRATIONS TO THE PERSIAN WARS, 1000-600 B.C.
I. SUB-PBRIODS AND ChARAGTBR.
98. The gap in the cYidence 97
IL "Backs."
99. Ionian (Pelasgic), Achaean, Dorian, Aeolian .... 98
UL What madb a Grbek a Greek ?
100. Unity of Hellenic culture. Bonds : a. language and literature ;
b. belief in kinship; c the Olympian religion, with its games, oracles, and Amphictyonies • 99
IV. Thb Map: The Dorian Invasion; Colonization. A. First Period, i^ea(^««fment« in the Aegean, to 900 B.C.
101. Character and cause 101
102. Result to civilization 101
103. Political results 102
101. The Hellenizing of the coast of Asia Minor .... 102
jB. Second Period, Wider Colonization, 800-600 B.C.
106. Character and cause 102
106. Distribution of colonies 103
V. The Political Revolution.
107. The kings overthrown by the chiefs 103
106. The oligarchies overthrown by the tyrants .... 104
109. The tyrants pave the way for democracies . • . • 106
VL Thb Ribb of Sparta.
110. Eariy Sparta — reforms and growth 106
HI. Political constitution 107
112. Classes in Laconia 108
118. Social institutions 110
xiv . ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
VIL Athbns to 600 b.o. A. Preliminary ConMeratiom,
BBOTIOir PAOB
114. Two peculiar conditious Ill
115. Other causes favoring a many Hsided development . . .112 110. A type of other Greek states 113
B. EupatriA Bule — afier the First Political Bevolution,
117. The decline of the Homeric kingship 113
118. Political rule of the Eupatrids tl4
110. Economic oppression 114
120. The order of reform : social and political . . . .115
C, The Early (^Political) Attempts to overthrow the Eupatrids.
121. Eupatrid supremacy shared with the hoplites . . .115
122. The four classes : political power based in part on wealth 115
123. Imperfect results : attempts at tyranny 116
124. Draco : fixed laws 116
D. Solon — Overthrow of the Eupatrids,
125. Continued strife ; appointment of Solon as dictator . • .117
126. Social reform : the shaking off of burdens (a, &, c, (2) • .118
127. Political reforms 119
128. Minor reforms 120
129. Summary of the Solonian reforms • 120
E. 7^ TyrantB.
130. Anarchy renewed 121
131. Peisistratus, 560-527 b.c 121
132. Expulsion of the Peisistratidae 122
P. Cleistfienes — A l>emocraey,
133. Vigor of free Athens 123
134. The conditious and alms of the new constitution . . . 123
135. The demes and geographical ** tribes*' 124
136. The state enlarged 125
137. The power of the Assembly greatly enlarged .... 126
138. Minor reforms 126
189. Ostracism . 126
Tabular review of Athenian constitution 127
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV
YUI. Intellectual Development and Soglal Life.
■aCTEOH PAOB
140. Architecture, painting, and sculpture 129
141. Lyric poetry 129
142. Piiilosophy 131
143. Religion and character 132
144-161. E^. Illustrative Extbaots . . . 134
CHAPTER IV.— THE PERSIAN ATTACK.
L A New Era.
152. Expanding Greece thrown back upon itsdlf .... 130
153. The subdivisions of the epoch 136
IL Conditions vor Resistance to Persia.
154. Three sections of Hellas 137
155. Magna Graecia and Carthage 137
156. Greece : wars, class strife, the Peloponnesian League . . 137
III. The Ionic Revolt.
157. Condition of the Asiatic Greeks 139
158. Revolt ; Athenian aid 139
IV. The First Two Attacks upon Greece, 492-490 b.c.
159. Relation to the Ionic revolt 140
160. The call for earth and water 140
161. Marathon 140
162. Moral importance of Marathon 141
V. Athens from Marathon to Thbrmoptlab.
163. Themistocles and the interval of preparation .... 142
164. The oligarchs crushed (ruin of Miltiades) .... 142
165. Aristides banished ; Themistocles^ naval policy . . . 143
VL The Main Attack, 480-479 B.C.
166. The Persian preparation 143
167. The Greek preparation 144
168. The three lines of defense : Tempe, Thermopylae, the Isthmus 144
169. Loss of Thessaly 145
170. Thermopylae 145
171. The strategy of- Themistocles 146
xvi ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
BKOnOV PAGE
172. Salamis 140
173. lUastrative incidents after the battle 160
174. The temptation of Athens 150
176. Plataea 161
176. The significance of the Greek victory 162
CHAPTER V.—THE AGE OF PERICLES (FROM THE PERSLA.N THROUGH THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR).
I. Growth of the Athenian Empire.
177. Preparation at Athens : the building of the walls and Peiraeus 164
178. A fleeting vision of a united Hellas 166
170. The new prominence of Athens 167
180. Athens assumes leadership of the Ionian Greeks, 470 b.c. . 167
181. The confederacy of Delos, 478 b.c 158
182. Work and growth of the Delian League 160
183. Changes in the character of the league 160
184. The league develops into an Athenian empire .... 161
185. The rift between Athens and Sparta 162
186. Marvelous activity of Athens : growth of a land empire . . 163
187. Loss of the land empire 164
188. The Thirty Years' Truce and Peace with Persia ... 164
II. The Empire and the Imperial City in Pbacb.
A. Material Strength,
180. Relative power 166
100. Population 165
101. The imperial revenues 166
B, Government of the City and Empire,
102. Steps in development from the constitution of Cleisthenes . 167
103. The generals (strategi) and the "leaders of the people" . 167 194. The Assembly 168
105. The waning of the Areopagus 169
106. The dicasteries 169
107. State pay for public service 170
108. Political capacity of the Athenians 171
100. Imperfect nature of Athenian democracy . . . .172
200. Leaders and parties : Pericles 173
C. Intellectual and Artistic Athens,
201. The true significance of Athens in history . . . .174
202. Architecture and sculpture . . • • . . .175
• •
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. XVll
•CCTIOV PAOB
203. PaiDting 180
204. The drama 182
206. Pericles' policy as to theater money 184
206. History 186
207. PhUoeophy 186
208. Education 188
209. Sammary : extent and degree of culture 190
210. Summary — limitations: a militant civilization, and for males
only 191
III. The Pbloponnssian War.
211. Causes 192
212. Resources and plans of the contestants 193
213. An unforeseen factor — the plague 198
214. Summary of events and traits 194
216. The closing years : rule of the Four Hundred at Athens ; Per- sian gold to aid Sparta (who betrays the Asiatic Greeks) . 194
216. Aegospotami; the capture of Athens 196
217. IV. The Western Greeks in the Fifth and Fourth
Centuries 196
CHAPTER VL— FROM THE FALL OF ATHENS TO THE FALL OF HELLAS, 404-238 B.C.
218. The decline of the city state . . .199
I. Spartan Sufremact, 404-371 B.o. A. General Character.
219. Harmosts and decarchies 199
220. A famous example: the ''Thirty'' at Athens .... 200
221. Spartan decay 201
B. Wars and Leagues to ■ the Peace of Antalcidas,
222. March of the Ten Thousand ; renewal of the war with Persia 202 ^3. The Corinthian War — a league against Sparta . . . .202 224. Conon at Cnidus — ruin of Sparta's maritime supremacy ' . 203 22>5u Iphicrates' peltasts — Sparta's supremacy in land warfare
disputed 203
226. Peace of Antalcidas — Persia and Sparta support each other,
387 B.C 204
xviii ABTALYHCAL TABLE OF CONTBaTTS.
C. From the Betrayal of Hellas to Lettctra, 387S7L
BXOnON PAOI
227. High-handed aggressions 204
228. The Chalcidic Confederacy crashed 205
229. Revolt of Thebes ; the new Athenian Confederacy . . .206
230. Leuctra ; oyerthrow of Sparta 206
IL ThJSBAK SUPBBICAOT.
281. Brief sapremacy of Thebes 208
III. RiSB OF Macbdon.
232. Political demoralization in Hellas : decline of the city state • 209
233. Macedonia a national monarchy 209
234. Progress of the conflict 211
286. The Macedonian army 212
236. Chaeronea ; congress of Corinth 212
237. The history of Hellas merged in that of a wider Hellenism . 213
PART III.— THE GRAECO-ORIENTAL WORLD.
CHAPTER I.— THE MINGLING OF EAST AND WEST. I. The Conquests of Alexander of Macbdon.
238. Alexander's youth and training 214
289. Accession and restoration of order 215
240. Persian campaigns 217
241. Campaigns in the Far East 218
II. RE3UI.T8 OF AlBXAITDER^S WoRK.
242. Alexander's expanding views : design to merge East imd West
in a common civilization . . . ' . . . 219
243. Hellenism the active factor : the many Alexandrias . . 220
244. Reaction upon Hellas : economic and scientific development . 222 246. Summary 223
CHAPTER n. — TO THE ROMAN CONQUEST. L The Political Story.
246. The wars of the succession, 328-280 b.c 226
247. The situation in the third century : parallelism with modem
Europe 226
ASALTnCAL TABLE OB* CONTEina SIX
nonov PAoi
248. The Gftllio Invasioii, 278 B.C. 226
MOi The decline of the Hellenic world 227
n. Thb Lsadino States in Outliks.
250. Syria 228
251. Egypt 228
252. Macedonia 220
253. Rhodes and Pergamnm 229
IIL SOOIETT.
254. General cultare 230
255. Literatore 280
256. Painting and flcnlptare 231
257. Pkiloeophy 232
258. libraries and museums (''nniyersities**) .... 234
259. Sdenoe 235
CHAPTER m. — GREECE FROM ALEXANDER TO
ROME.
L The Pbderal Chabacteb of the Period.
200. The political situation 237
261. Earlier and minor federations ....••• 237
262. The Aetolian League 238
XL The Achaean Lbaoub.
263. Origin 238
264. Constitution . . 239
266. Expansion beyond Achaea ...••.. 241
266. Conflict with Sparta (social reform at Sparta) . • • • 242
267. Macedonian supremacy restored 244
26a Final decline of the league 245
PART IV.— ROME.
CHAPTER L— INTRODUCTORY SURVEY.
L The Place of Rome in History.
h The exponent of organization and law 247
V%. The Roman and the Greek : work and character . . . 248
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
II. Thb Land.
271. Limits : the Apennine peninsula 249
272. Relations of its geography to its history : a. political unity ;
b. direction of first outside effort toward the West ; c. Medi- terranean dominion 249
JIL Pboflbs of Italy. ^
273. A land of mingled races 261
274. Leading peoples : Italians, Greeks, Gauls, Etruscans . . 251 276. ** Fragments of forgotten peoples'^ (Ligurians, etc.) • . 264
IV. Gbogsaphigal Adtantaqbs of Rome.
276. Rome differentiated from other Italian cities by: a, central
position ; b. commercial advantages ; c character as a **mark'* state ; d. the group of hills, and consequent tend- ency to federation 254
y. Lbobndabt Chabactbb of Eablt Histobt.
277. Old writers and their sources 256
278. Abstract of early legends 257
279. Attitude of scholars toward them to-day 268
CHAPTER n. — PROBABLE CONCLUSIONS AS TO
REGAL ROME.
I. Thb Gbowth of the Citt.
280. Unification of the ''Seven Hills" 260
281. Growth beyond the walls 260
n. Citizens and Non-Citizens.
282. Patricians. 262
283. Clients 263
284. Plebeians 264
m. Patrician Oroanization.
286. The family : pcOria potestas 264
286. Gentes and curias 265
287. Exclusion of the plebeians from the curias .... 266
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTBNTa xxi
IV. Rbliqiok. ncnoy pagb
888. Sources: a. ancestor worship; b. nature worship; c Greek
inflaence 206
289. Character : abstract and formal 260
290. Priesthoods : augurs, pontifEs, vestals 267
' 291. The Roman religion a political instrument : prevalence of legal
fiction 267
y. Eablibst Political Ihstitutiowb.
292. King (rex) 269
29S. Patrician Assembly (comitia ouriata) 269
291 Senate 270
YL PSBHISTORIG RbYOLUTIONB.
A. A Centuriate Assembly (containing Plebeians also) replaces the Curiate (Patrician) Assembly.
295. The ** census of Servins *^ : the army of centuries . . . 270
296. The assembly of centuries 271
297. Aristocratic character of the centuriate assembly . . . 272 290. The real gain of the plebs .273
B. Overthrow of the Kings.
290. The older and later kingship (the " tyrants **) ... 273
40O. Interpretations of the legends of Tarquin^s expulsion: an
aristocratic and gradual change 274
YII. Thb Consulship a Modification of the Kingship.
301. The consuls and the royal imperium 276
802. The chief limitations : the mutual veto and brief term . . 275 303. Minor checks : the independence of the officials and the Vale- rian appeal ^ 275
904. Roman political moderation the real check .... 276 Ji05. The dictatorship : a temporary reviyal of the old kingship to
meet a crisis 277
VUL Thb Sbnatb aftbb thb Expulsion or thb Kings. 306. Indirect augmentation of influence 277
807. IX. Summabt: Thb Dbbt to Regal Romb . . 277
• •
XXii ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER HL— CLASS STRUGGLES IN THE
REPUBLIC, 610-S67 B.C. SMfnoir PAoi
808. L Charaotbr of the Period . . . 279
n. Position of the Classes after 610 b.g.
309. Rome a patrician oligarchy 279
SIO. Plebeian loss politically 280
311. Plebeian loss in standing at law 280
312. Plebeian loss economically: patrician monopoly of public
land ; increase of plebeian taxation ; plebeian losses in war 280 813. The result a contest between the orders: the progressive
standard of the plebeians 282
• III. Steps in the Progress.
A. Tribunes of the Plebs.
314. First secession of the plebs 282
316. Tribunes and their veto on single executive acts . . 283 316. Subsequent growth of the tribuneship : veto on state action ;
judicial power 283
B, Bise of the Plebeian Assembly,
817. Ancient plebeian organization by tribes 284
318. This assembly wins recognition (for plebeian concerns) in the
state 284
319. The result a double state ; violence over agrarian questions . 285
C. The Decemvirs.
320. Plebs demand written laws ; the two boards of decemvirs . 286
321. The patrician counter-revolution (Appius Claudius) . . 287
322. Second secession of the plebs. The Twelve Tables and the
Horatian law, 449 b.c. Plebeian assembly on a par with
the centuriate 287
)23. The result : two states, plebeian and patrician. The problem to fuse them. Social fusion, 446 b.c, and demand for political fusion 288
D. Admission to the Consulate,
324. Consular tribunes . . . * 288
326. Continued patrician resistance : creation of censors ; consuls
or consular tribunes to 400 b.c 288
326. The Licinian Rogations, 367 b.c 289
827. Political fusion completed, 367-300 b.g 290
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXIU
CHAPTER IV.— UNIFICATION OF ITALY, 807-366 B.C.
L PROORE88 BEFOBE 867 B.C.
gnmoN PAOB
828. Gains ander the kings^ and the reaction to 449 b.c. . . 292
329. Slow gains after 449 b.c 298
330. A brief intemiption : the Gauls sack Rome, 890 b.c. . . 298
n. The Real Adyance, 867-266 B.G.
331. Latiom and southern Etruria 294
333. Campania (first Samnite War) 294
333. The great Latin War of 388 b.c 294
334. Struggle with the Samnites for supremacy (second and third
wars) 296
336. Magna Graecia ; the war with Pyrrhus 296
CHAPTER V UNITED ITALY UNDER ROMAN RULE.
L Classes of Political Communities. A, The Soman State.
336. Extent ; classes of citizen-communities 297
337. Adaptation of the tribes to expanding citia^eDship . . . 298
338. Rights and obligations of citizens 298
B. Political Classes in Subject Italy.
339. Latin colonies .....' 299
340. Praefectures . ' 801
341. Allies 801
C General Besult — A Confederacy under a Queen-city.
342. Advantages and disadvantages of subjects .... 801
343. Power and policy of Rome 802
n. The Perfected Constitdtion of the Republic.
A. A New Aristocracy.
344. Rule of the nobles 804
B. Political Machinery and Working.
346. The three popular assemblies : apparent growth toward de- mocracy 804
846. The administrative officers 306
XXiv ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
SSOTIOK PAQB
347. The senate and its all-directive power 806
848. C. Democratic Theory and Aristocratic Practice . • 807
UL SociETT IV Bomb and Italy.
»
840. Economic conditions 808
850. Moral character and ideals 808
361. The reaction of Magna Graecia upon Rome • • • . '809
rv. The Armt.
352. The flexible legion (contrasted with the phalanx) . . . 810
853. The Roman camp .810
354. Roman discipline 811
355. Changes with extension of service : a professional army ; pro-
consuls • . 811
CHAPTER VL— EXPANSION CONTINUED, 264-146 B.C. THE WINNING OF THE WEST.
L The Two Rivals in the West.
356. Italy in 266 b.c. one of five great Mediterranean powers • . 818
357. Carthage the only rival in the West ...... 813
358. The issue at stake 815
II. First Punic War (**Thb War for Sicily").
350. Occasion . . . « 816
360. Relative strength of combatants 816
361. Value of the sea power 817
362. Special events illustrating Roman public spirit and the need of
permanent military organization 818
III. From the First to the Second Punic War.
363. Completion of the widening of Italy to her natural limits
(Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and Cisalpine Gaul) . . 810 864. Organization of " provinces " 819
IV. Second Punic War (**Thb War for Spain").
365. General character (the Hannibalian War) • • . . 820
366. Occasion : Carthaginian dominion in Spain .... 320
367. HannibaPs invasion of Italy : to Cannae 822
368. Fidelity of the Latins and Italians to Rome .... 323
369. Rome's grandeur and constancy in disaster .... 323
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXV
ncmoir • paob
S70. Lukewammess of Carthage and her allies .... 824
871. Hannibal^s disappointment: changed character of the war
after Cannae 824
872. "Hannibal at the Gates" 826
878. Hasdrubal^s invasion : battle of the Metaurus .... 826
874. 8cipio carries the war into Africa : battle of Zama ; peace . 827
875. Rome*8 yengeance in Italy 827
876. The result of the war : world dominion 828
y. EZFANSIOH IK THB WbST FBOM 201 TO 146 B.O.
A, Spain*
877. Heroic war for independence 828
878. Romanization 828
B. Africa (The Third Punic War: the War for Africa),
879. Rome seeks perfidious excuse against Carthage . . . 880
880. Carthage disarmed ; Rome declares war 880
881. Heroic resistance .881
882. Carthage blotted out : the '' Province of Africa '* . . .882
CHAPTER VIL — WINNING THE EAST, 201-146 B.C. L An Attempt to stop with Protectorates.
888. Beginnings of influence in the East before 200 b.g. : the Illyr-
ian pirates and the First Macedonian War .... 884
884. Second Macedonian War (201-106 b.c.) : Macedonia a depend- ent ally ; Greek states '' allies '' 834
385. The war with Antiochus : Syria an *♦ ally " . . . . a36
886. Borne drawn on to a i^stem of protectorates .... 835
IL AhNBZATION ! THB PROTECTORATES BECOMB PROYIKCES.
887. A gradual process 836
888. Change in Roman policy and its causes 837
889. Steps: Third Macedonian War; Greece, 146 a. d. ; the *» Prov-
ince of Asia," 138 B.C., etc 887
IIL Result vx 146 b.o. — A United Graeco-Romah World.
890. Rome the sole great power 3.S8
891. Distinction between the Latin West and the Greek East . . 830
XXVi ANALYTICAL TABLS OF CX)NTEHTa.
CHAPTBB Vm.— NEW CIVIL STRIVE, 146-49 B-C.
I. PsBLDflNABT SUBYBT* SBOTIOV PAOB
892. Summary of the periods of the repablic 840
393. The republic unprepared for wcnrldrdominlon .... 340
394. The four great evils: internal strife between rich and poor;
Rome and the allies ; Italy and the provinces ; barbarian
attacks 841
896. The need of a new system : preparation for the empire . . 841
IL Thb Evils nr Detail. A. In Borne,
896. Economic and moral decline due to the wars (extremes of
wealth and poverty) 342
397. Continued decline of the yeomanry after the wars (*^ economic
laws") 843
808. Violence of the rich as an added camse of the decay of the
yeomanry 344
899. Political results : decline of the senate and growth of the mob 846
B. In Italy,
400. Sharpened distinctions and growing Roman insolence . . 846
C In the Provinces,
401. Deterioration of the provincial system 846
402. " Marks " of a province 847
403. The governor 347
404. ** The estates of the Roman people ** 848
D. Slavery.
406. Extent and brutal character 849
406. ^lave wars 849
m Thb Gbacchi: Attbmfts at Pbaobful Rbfokx.
A. TXherius Qracchue,
407. Previous suggestions for reform : error of Cato and hesitancy
ofScipio 860
408. Character of Tiberius 361
409. Tiberius* agrarian proposals : reclaim public land ; let out in
small, inalienable leases ; create standing commission . • 861
ANALYTICAL TABLE OP CONTENTS. xxvii
0OnOH TAQM
410. Tbe struggle and the yictory 862
411. Farther propoeals ; Gracchus murdered 852
412. The work stands nine yeanimtil the senate attempts a reaction 853
B. Ccdus OracchuB.
413. Character and alms 864
414. Political measures to win allies : the populace and the knights 354
415. Economic reform 855
416. Personal rule: an uncrowned *^ tyrant** 855
417. Attempt to extend citizenship : Caius killed .... 866 413. OTerthrow of the work <^ the brothers 356
IV. Mabius and Sulla, 106-78 b.c.
419. The new character of Roman politics 857
420. The war with Jugurtha : new leaders 857
421. Marius 'Hhe savior of Rome " (Cimbri and Teutones) . . 858
422. Civil disorder ; retirement of Marias 859
423. Proposal of Drusus to extend citizenship ; tbe Social War . 859
424. Italy becomes one state 859
425. Civil war between Marius and Sulla ; first rule of Sulla . . 360
426. Rule of Marius and Cinna ; the massacre . . . . 361
427. Sulla in the East ; the new civil war . . . . .861
428. Sulla *' permanent dictator** ; stamps out the democrats. • 862
429. Restoration of senatorial rule 863
480. ^* Sulla the Fortunate ** i character and place in history . . 863
y. POMPBT AKD CaBSAB.
431. Hie wodc East and West 864
A. Pompey^s Leaderah^
432. Pompey and Crassus 864
483. Pompey's first chance for the crown 864
434. Second chance (Roman expansion in the East) . . 865
435. New leaders in Pompey*s absence ; Catiline's conspiracy . 36Q
B. The Bise of Caesar,
436. Caesar forms tbe first trimnTirate : his consoiship ; reforms at
Rome 368
437. Caesar in Gaul : expansion in the West 369
488. Rupture between Caesar and Pompey 870
XXviii ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAKT v.— THE E0MA2f EMPIRE: GRAECO-
ROMAN WORLD. '
CHAPTER L— FOUNDING THE EMPIRE, 49 B.C.-14 A.D.
L Thb Fiyb Ybarb of Julius Cassar, 49-44 b.o.
A. The Moral Question.
i6^. Monarchy at Rome inevitable — from (a) cormption at the capital, (h) danger on the frontiers, (c) misgovemment in the provinces 872
440. Monarchy right : Caesar the hope of the subject nationalities . 873
441. The question relative : *^ Caesarism" not always right, nor an
unmixed good even at that time 874
B. The Civil War.
442. Caesar crosses the Rubicon ; campaign in Italy . . • 875 448. Campaigns in Spain and Greece (PAar«aZtt«, 48 B.C.) . . 876
444. The four remaining campaigns (Thapsus and Munda) . . 876
G» Caesar^s Constructive Work.
445. Caesar^s policy of clemency 877
446. His plan for the form of the new monarchy - . . . . 877
447. General measures of reform 878
448. The provinces 879
449. The unforeseen interruption 880
450. Caesar^s character and place in history 881
n. Fbom Julius to Octayius, 44-81 b.0.
451. Antonius and Octavius ....
452. Formation of the second triumvirate ,
453. Proscription
454. Final overthrow of the oligarchs ; Philippi
455. Dissensions among the triumvirs ; Actium
456. HL Octavius Augustus, 81 B.C.-14 a.d.
882
883 883 883 884
884
CHAPTER n.— THE EMPIRE OF THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES: AUGUSTUS TO DIOCLETIAN.
L Table of Emperors.
457. Nature of the treatment : topical not narrative • • • 887
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxix
A, Two Centuries of Order, 31 £.0.^193 a,d. ncmoir paok
458. The Julian Caesars (Romans) 887
450. Plavians (Italians) and Antonines (Proyincials) . . . 388
460. General character of roleis • 389
481. B. A Century of Disputed Succession, 193-^84 A,D. («' The
Barrack Emperors'*'') . . , ... . 889
n. The Constitutioh.
A. The Central Government
402. Bepublican forms . .' 890
463. The imperial power 391
404. The establishment of the empire a gradual process : Important
steps at the death of Augustus 392
465. Nature of the succession: the weak point in the imperial
constitution 398
B. Local Government.
466. Municipal institutions 893
467. The provinces ; representative assemblies .... 395
nL IXPBBIAL BbFBNSK.
A, The Army.
468. NnmbeiB 896
469. Sources > . . 896
470. Industrial and disciplinary uses ...••. 896
B. The Frontiers.
471. As Augustus found them 897
472. As Augustus corrected them 397
473. Later additions : Britain 398
474. The greatest extent — under Trajan — and the earliest sur-
renders . . 399
475. Frontier walls -899
rv. Society in the First Two CEirruRiBS. A. Peace and Prosperity.
476. ** The good Roman peace*' 400
477. Good government, even by bad emperors .... 401
478. Material prosperity 401
479. Forms of industiy 402
XXX ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
B. The World becomes Soman.
8BCTI0K PAOB
480. Politically, by extension of citizenship 403
481. Socially, in patriotism and aspiration 404
482. Consequent diffusion of social life 405
C, Education in tke First Three Centuries.
488. UniverBitles 406
484. Grammar schools and lower schools 400
D. Architecture.
485. Characteristics 408
486. The Age of Augustus in architecture 409
487. Famous buildings and types 409
488. The Roman basilica and early Christian architecture . . 411
E. Literature.
489. Before Cicero 413
490. The Age of Cicero 413
491. The Augustan Age and the first century a.d 414
492. The second century A.D 414
jP. Pagan Morals and Religion.
493. The dark side ; the court and the mobs 415
494. Danger of exaggerating the evils : the brighter side ; Pliny,
Aurelius, the middle classes 416
Special evidence of improvement in : —
495. a. improved position of women 417
496. 6. charity . . . . ' 418
497. c. kindness to animals 419
498. <2. mildor slavery . 419
499. 6. broader humanity 420
500. /. gentler spirit of imperial law 420
501. Scepticism and religion 420
502. Change in moral standards 421
G. Extracts to illustrate the Higher Pagan Morality.
503. From Marcus Aurelius 421
504. From Epictetus 422
H. Christianity.
505. Some inner sources of its power 423
606. Its debt to the empire^ s humane tendencies and political and
social unity 424
I
ANAI.YnCAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXXi
uonos PAoi
507. The eaiiier persecationa 424
fi08. Causes of persecation 426
600. Attitude of the imperial government 427
610. Summaiy of the persecutions 428
V. Tbb Gbkbral Dbclinb ik tub Third Centurt.
511. Renewal of barbarian attacks 428
512. Political disintegration: the *^ barrack emperors'* . . . 420
513. Decline in population ; the plague 480
614. Decay in literature . ^ 481
616. The decline not marked until after Alexander Severus ; and at
its worst through the middle of the century only . . 481
CHAPTER III.— THE EMPIRE OF THE FOURTH CENTURY: DIOCLETIAN TO THEODOSIUS,
284-896 A.D.
61(^19. L Tablb of Re ions and Etbnts . • 488
n. Restoration and Reforms.
620. Diocletian^s ^* partnership emperors'' ; the Caesars ; the four
prefectures 484
621. A complex hierarchy 486
6g22. Separation of civil and military powers in the provincial
govemoiB 436
62S. Growth of a bureaucracy 436
624. Despotism avowed ; despotic forms 487
625. General result: a huge complicated machine temporarily
efficient 487
626-^7. nL Excursus: Thb Nature of Burba ucra'Ao and
Centralized Governmbnt .... 488
iV. The Church of the Fourth Centurt. A. The Empire becomes Christian.
628. CoDStantine's motives 489
629. Christianity tolerated and favored after 814 a.d. ; Edict of
Mihm 440
680. Established after 890 a.d. ; persecutes in turn .... 440
631. Outward effects of the conversion of the empire 441 632„ Importance of the conversion's coming before the barbarian
oonqaest 448
XXxii ANALYTICAL TABLB OP CONTBNTS.
JB. OrganUaUon of the Cfhureh.
BBOnOir PAOB
633. Debt to the empire ; growing tendency to monarchic form • 443
C. The Catholic Doctrine.
634. Cloe^r definition of doctrine, and the rise of heresies . . 444 535. Arianism: Council of Nicaea, 325 a. d 444
v. LlTBRATUBB AND SciBNCB.
536-538. A. Table of Authors and Works . • . 445
, B. Decline in Learning.
539. Hostile attitude of the charch 446
540. A few illustrations of the church's attitude .... 447
541. Active persecution of pagan learning 448
542. The result 440
VL SOCIBTT Iir THB FOUBTH CbKTUBT.
A. Introductory Survey.
543. Growing exhaustion of the empire 449
544. The causes political and economic rather than moral • . 450
B. The Organization of Society.
545. Classes 450
546. a. Senatorial nobility 451
647. 6. Curial nobility 461
648. e. Artisans 462
649. d. Peasantry: coloni 462
560. The approach of a caste system 464
551. C. Taxation 454
D. Summary of the Causes of Decline.
552. Economic 466
563. Political : inherent weakness of centralized despotism . . 456
564. Infusion of barbarian blood and customs: a reinvigorating
but disintegrating force 456
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. XXxiii
PART VI.— ROMANO-TEUTONIC EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.— THE TEUTONa
ncnoH PA«B
656. Early home and peoples « . . 468
660. Stage of culture 468
667. Character 459
568. Religion . . • .461
669. Political organization 462
500. The ''companions** 463
601. The charm of the South 463
•
CHAPTER IL— THE INVASIONS, 876-666 A,D.
I. Thb Tbutons break oybr thb Babbibbs.
A. The Danube.
602. West Gtoths admitted into the empire ; Adrianople, 878 a.d. . 466 568. Alaric in Greece, Illyria, and Italy ; sack' of Rome, 410 a.d. . 467 60i Visigoihic kingdom in Spain, 419 a.d 468
B. The Bhine.
605. The barrier bursts, 406 a.d 468
506. Kingdom of the Burgundians 469
507. The Vandals and Suevi in Spain ; Vandal kingdom in Africa . 469 608. Franks and Romans in North Gaul 469
n. Thb Hubs.
600. Toranian peoples 470
670. Ch&lona 470
571. Attila in Italy ; Pope Leo ; Venice 471
III« Italt abd thb Eabtbbb Empirb: fbom Alaric to
THB Lombards.
678-673. A, Table of Emperors to the Last Western Emperor:
Theodosius to Bomulus Augustulus^ 396-476 A.D. . 472
SIL B. Odovaker 473
C. The Ostro-Gothic Kingdom.
675. The Goths before entering Italy ; Theodoric . . • . 474 W(L Their conquest of Italy 474
XXxiv ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTBNTa
BBOnON PAOB
677. " Theodoric the Civilizer,^' 403-626 a.d 476
678. Theodoric*8 *• empire " 476
670l Elements of weakness : Arianism 477
D. Bevival of the Empire <U Constantinople.
680. The " Greek Empire " . 477
681. Slay inyasions 477
682. Justinian: restoration and reconquests of Africa, of parts
of Spain, and of Italy . . . . . . . .478
688. The Justinian Ck)de 478
S. The Lombards in Raly.
684. Called in by Narses 470
686. Final break-up of Italian unity for 1300 years ; Italy divided .
between Lombard and Greek 470
IV. Thb Fbanks.
686. Preeminence among Teutonic conquerors, because (a) they
expanded rather than migrated, and (b) adopted Catholic
rather than Arian Christianity 480
687. Clovis : early conquests (Soissons and Strassburg) . . . 480
688. Clovis' conversion ; motives and political results . . 481 680. Later conquests of Clovis and his sons ; the Frankish empire
of the seventh century ........ 481
600. The Frankish state under the later Merovingians . . . 482
V. Britain.
601. The conquerors and their early kingdoms ; victory exceedingly
slow 483
602. Causes for the delay 484
603. Result of the slow conquest : England a Teutonic state . . 484
604. Conversion to Christianity ; political results .... 484
CHAPTER m. —THE STATE OF EUROPE, 600-800 A.D.
606. I. The Dark Aobs .... 486
II. The Barbariaks Aim the Romak Cfvilization.
606. Small immbers of the invaders ; weak Roman resistance . . 487
607. Small amount of direct destruction . . . . . . 487
608. Relation between the conquerors and the older populations . 488 500. Permanence of the idea of the Roman Empire .... 480
600. The Teutons and Christianity 480
601. Moral preaching in the Dark Ages 400
ANALYTICAL TABLE OP CONTENTS. xxlV
in. MOMA8T1CI8M.
ticnov PA«a
002. Eastern hermits and western monks 490
003. Growth of western monasticism 491
601 The three ?ows and the monastic life 492
606. Relation of the monks to the older clergy .... 492
rV. Dbyslopmbnt or Tbutonig Law.
606. Codes 492
607. Personality of law 493
608. Methods of trial : compurgation, ordeal, battle ... 493 600. Money atonement for crime ; wer-geld 494
V. Dbyblopm£Nt of Tbutonic Political Imstitdtionb.
610. Kingship becomes hereditary and more absolute . 494
611. Growth of a new territorial nobility ; the germ of the later
feudal system 494
612. Popular assemblies lose importance 496
VL SUMMABY OF COKTBIBUTIONS TO THB LaTBB EuBOPBAN
ClYILIZATION.
613. Soman . 496
614. Teutonic 496
616. Influence of the mixture 496
CHAPTER rV. —POLITICAL EUROPE, 600-800 A.D. L Thb Fbanks to Chablbs Mabtbl.
616. Rivalry of Austrasia and Neustria 497
617. *' Do-nothing** kings and mayors of the palace . . 497
618. Pippin of Heristal : Testry ; supremacy of Austrasia and re-
founding of the Prankish state 498
610. Charles Martel : restoration of authority over outlying prov- inces in time to meet the Mohammedan onset . 498
n. Thb Mohammbdan Pbbil.
620. Arabia before Mohammed 499
621. Mohammed to the Hegira, 622 A. D 600
622. From the Hegira to Mohammed^s death, 632 a.d. . . . 600
623. The seventy years of conquest 602
624. Attack upon Europe in the East : repulses at Constantinople
in 678 and 717 A.D 602
XXXvi ANALYTICAL TABLE OF* CX)NTENTS.
sBonoir PAav
625. Attack in the West : repnlBe at Tours, 732 a.d. ... 603
626. The splitting of the Mohammedan state ; later Mohammedan-
ism; elements of degeneracy 604
in. Thk Papaot. A. Bise to Ecclesiastical Headship,
627. Claim : doctrine of the Petrine supremacy .... 605
628. Six factors that helped to support the claim in the West . 506
629. Eastern rivalry removed by the Mohammedan conquest and
by the Great Schism 607
B. The Pope becomes a Temporal Sovereign.
680. Indefinite authority as a civil officer of the distant Greek
emperor 608
631. This virtual independence avowed by open rebellion after the
image-breaking quarrel 608
632. Recognition and protection by the Franks .... 600
IV. Tub Franks and the Papacy: from Charles the Hammer to Charles the Great.
633. The new Carolingian dynasty ; papal sanction .... 610
634. Pippin saves and enlarges the papal state: "donation of
Pippin" 510
635. Different views as to the nature of the papal authority ; the
forged " donation of Constantino " 611
CHAPTER v.— THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. I. Expansion or Civilization.
636. Importance and character of Charles* wars .... 613
637. Winning of the heathen Saxon lands to the Elbe . . . 614
638. Additions in Spain, Italy, and Bavaria 615
639. Result : a union of the Teutonic peoples of the continent . 616
640. Defensive wars against Slavs and Avars : buffer states on the
East 616
II. Revival of the Roman Empire in the West.
■
641. Reasons and pretexts 616
642. Election and coronation by Pope Leo, 800 a.d. • • . 617
643. Theory of the empire 617
644. Distinctive character of the Western Empire .... 618
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTfiNT& XXXvii
IIL Social and Political Oboahizatioit.
VEOnOU PAGB
646. Political : counts, missi domlnici, Mayflelds . • • . 610
646. Relation of Charlemagne to the Church . . • . • • 620
647. Advancement of learning 620
lY. SUMMABT.
64a The four great powers in 800 A.D 620
649. The place of Charlemagne in history 621
Each chapter as a rule gives at the close a bibliography and suggestions for review. Such exercises and references are also given oftentimes at the dose of the subdivisions of chapters.
APPENDIX.
L Tablb of Evbntb and Dates 623
IL CLASsmsD Biblioorapht, with Datbs, Publibhbbs, and
Pbicbs 632
INDEX AND PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY. ... 643
MAPS AND PLANS.
^ PAGI
1. First Homes of Civilization. Full page, colored . facing 12
2. Ancient Egypt 16
3. Syria 62
4. Lydia, Media, Bgypt, and Babylonia. (The World jost before
the' Rise of Persia.) Full page, colored . facing 66
6. The Persian Empire and Greece. Fall page, colored facing 68
6. Greece and Adjoining Coasts. (General Reference.) Donble
page, colored following 76
7. Greater Hellas. Double page, colored . . . following 102
8. Attica 147
0. Athens and Vicinity 156
10. Athenian Empire at its Greatest Extent Full page, colored
facing 166
11. Flan of Athens 175
12. Plan of th^ Acropolis. Full page 177
18. Greece at the Beginning of the Peloponnesian War. Full page,
colored facing 192
14. Plan of the Battle of Leuctra 207
16. Greece under Theban Leadership. Full page, colored facing 208
16. The Growth of Macedonia 211
17. Campaigns and Empire of Alexander the Great. Full page,
colored facing 217
18. Ancient Italy. (General Reference.) Full page, colored /acin^jr 249
19. Peoples of Italy 268
20. Rome under the Kings 261
21. Rome and Ticinity 292
22. Italy about 200 b.c. : Roads and Colonies 800
23. Plan of a Roman Camp 311
24. The Mediterranean Lands at the Beginning of the Second Punic
War (The Five Great Powers). Double page, colored .
following 312
26. Roman Dominions and Dependencies in 146 b.c. . . 336
26. The Roman Empire at its Greatest Extent (showing also Stages
in Growth). Double page, colored . . following 898
27. Rome under the Empire 407
xxxviii
ICAPS AND FLANa XXXix
S8. The Roouui Empire diyided Into Praefectures and Dioceses.
Doable page, colored following 484
29. The Rhine-Dannbe Frontier before the Great Migrations. Full
page 466
do. The Migrations. Doable page, colored . following 468
31. Eorope in the Reign of Theodoric (600 a.d.). Full page,
colored facing 476
32. Europe at the Death of Justinian (666 a.d.) Full page, colored
facing 478
33. Germanic Kingdoms on Roman Soil at the Close of the Sixth
Centory. Double page, colored .... following 480
M. EiDgdom of the Merovingians. Full page, colored . facing 497 86. £nroi>e at the End of the Seventh Century. Full page, colored
facing 610 86. Europe in the Time of Charles the Greiat Double page, colored
following 618
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Julias Caesar. The Naples bust ..... FronH^ieee
PAOB
1. Three Stages in Fire-making 2
2. Portion of the Rosetta Stone, containing the hieroglyphics first
deciphered 11
8. Sculptured Head of Thfttmosis III. of the eighteenth Egyptian
dynasty 19
4. Name of Psametichns in hieroglyphics . . . .21
6. Name of Neco in hieroglyphics 21
6. Photograph of a Modem Egyptian Woman sitting by a Sculp-
tured Head of an Ancient King — to show similarity of
features 28
7. Shoemakers. Eg3rptian relief from the monuments ... 25
8. Levying the Tax. Egyptian relief from the monuments . . 26
9. Sphinx and Pyramid 27
10. Obelisk and Temple of the Sun at Kamak 28
11. Aisle in the Ruins at Kamak 29
12. A Capital from Kamak .... w ... 80
13. Egyptian Numerals 81
14. Sculptured Egyptian Funeral Couch, representing the soul
crouching by the mummy SS
16. Rock-hewn Colossi of Rameses 11 84
16. Fragmentof Assyrian "Deluge Tablet'* 48
17. Name of Nebuchadnezzar in Cuneiform Characters ... 46
18. Assyrian Tablet, showing older hieroglyphics and the later
cuneiform equivalents 47
19. An Assyrian " Book.'' An octagon Assyrian brick, now in the
British Museum ; after Sayce 49
20. Assyrian Contract Tablet in Duplicate 61
21. Colossal Man-beast in Alabaster, from the palace of Sargon
' (now in the Louvre) 58
22. Parts of Alphabets 58
28. Bronze Pitcher from Mycenae 82
24. Bronze Dagger from Mycenae, inlaid with gold • . • 88
26. The Gate of the Lions at Mycenae 8S
xl
ILLUSTRA'nON&
PAcn
26. The Vaphio Cnpe 88
27. The Scroll from the Yaphlo Cape 89
28. Greek Warrior 116
29. Bay of Salamis 148
90. Pericles. A portrait bust, now in the Vatican .... 178
31. Tbe Parthenon To-day, from the Northwest .... 178
82. Figures from the Parthenon Frieze . * 178
83. The Hermes of Praxiteles 179
84. The Acropolis, as restored by Rehlender 180
35. The Acropolis To-day, from the west 181
36. Aeschylus and Euripides. Portrait busts now in the Capitoline
Museum .182
87. Sophocles. A portrait statue now in the Lateran . . . 183
88. Theater of Dionysus at Athens, Present Condition . . . 184
39. Theater of Dionysus at Athens restored 185
40. Thucydides. Capitoline Museum 185
41. The Wrestlers 188
42. The Disk Thrower. After Myron. Now in the Vatican . . 189 48. Philip IL From a gold medallion ...... 210
44. Alexander: Head, and Alexander in a Lion-hunt. The two
sides of a gold medallion of Tarsus 215
46. Head of Alexander Rondanini 216
40. Alexander as Apollo. Now in the Capitoline . . . . 220
47. The Dying Gaul . . .227
48. Venus of Melos. A statue now in the Louvre .... 281
49. LaocoOn. Now in the Vatican 232
60. Hie World according to Eratosthenes 285
61. Remains of an Etruscan Arch at Volaterrae . . . . 252
62. The Cloaca Maxima 262
68. Remains of the Wall of Servius 263
64. Cohi struck by Pyrrhus in Sicily 296
65. The Appian Way To-day, with Ruins of the Claudian Aqueduct 803
66. Carthaginian Coin struck in Sicily 314
67. Coin of Hiero IL of Syracuse 815
68. Decree of L. Aemilius Paulus, Praetor of Spain, regulating the
position of a client-community 829
69. Coin of Sulla struck in Athens 862
60. Pompeius. A bust in the Spada Palace 865
61. Cicero. The Vatican bust 867
62. Julius Caesar. The British Museum bust 868
68. Marcus Brutus. A bust in the Capitoline Museum . . 880
6i Octavius Caesar as a Boy. A bust now in the Vatican 883
65. Augustus. The Vatican statue 385
66. A German Bodyguard. A detail from the column of Marcus
Aurellus 896
xlii ILLUSTRATIONS.
TAQM
67. Detail from Trajan's Column : Trajan sacrificing at the Bridge '
over the Danube 390
68. A Section of the Pantheon as at Present 408
69. The Coliseum To-day 409
70. Arch of Constantine To-day 410
71. Trajan's Column To-day 411
72. Plan of a Basilica . ' 412
78. Interior of Trajan's Basilica as restored by Canina . . . 412
74. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. A bust now in the Louvre . . 417
75. Faustina, the wife of Marcus Aurelius. A bust now in the
Louvre 418
76. Hall of the Baths of Diocletian. Now the Church of St. Mary
of the Angels 442
77. A Dolmen of the Ancient Germans 469
78. Battle-ax and Mace : arms of Teutonic chieftains in an early
period 460
79. Church of San Vitale at Ravenna (time of Theodoric the
Great) 476
80. Sepulcher of Theodoric at Ravenna 476
81. Throne of Charlemagne at Aachen 616
ANCIENT HISTORY.
INTRODUCTION.
I. WHAT HISTORY SHALL WB STUDY f
The whole series of human generations should be regarded as one man, tver UvinQ and ever learning. — Pabgal.
Through the ages one increasing purpose runs. And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns,
— Tbnnyson.
1. Prehistoric Life excluded. — The first steps towai'd ciyiliza- tioD must have been uncertain and slow. No doubt these beginnings took long periods of time, but we can know little about them, for no people leaves records that the historian can use until it has advanced a long way from primitive savagery. To be sure, there are tribes still in primitive stages ; and, by comparing them with what can be gleaned from traditions, customs, words, and early records of our own civilization, scholars have learned something of how our forefathers must have lived before Homer and before the oldest inscriptions upon Egyptian stone. But this study of early cultures, fas- cinating though it be, is not properly history. History is based always upon records, and these older stages in human life we call prehistoric.
Still, it is well for us to remember that our imposing and nuied civilization rests upon this unrecorded work of prehis- toric man through slow, uncounted ages. The development of language ; the invention of the bow, of making fire, of pottery
1
INTRODUCTION.
[§2
to stand the fire ; the domestication of the dog and cow ; the learning to live together^ not in droves^ but in families and tribes; the rude beginnings of agriculture; the smelting of metals to replace stone tools; — these are steps any of which are infinitely more important than the discovery of electricity or the growth of federal government : but all this, and much
Thbkb Staobs nr Firb-kakino.
more^ had become the common property of many races before history began anywhere.
2. Some Historic Races excluded. — Even when limited so in time, the history of all the civilizations of the world is too vast and complex for our study. We must narrow the field. Now, we care chiefly to know of those peoples whose life has boniQ
1 3] WHAT HISTORY SHALL WE STUDY? 8
fruit for ours. We study that part of the recorded past which explains our present. This principle gives oneness to history, and, at the same time^ simplifies it by shutting out vast areas. In this hemisphere we can neglect the Aztec and Inca civilizar tions; likewise in the Old World we can omit the isolated Hin^ doQs and Chinese, though these two peoples were among the first to emerge from barbarism and though they still count half the population of the globe.^ Nor are we concerned, until modem times at least, with many peoples, like the Russians, who have been drawn only recently into the current of our development.
3. The Field selected and the Periods. — Thus we bound our study in space as well as in time. Until long after Columbus, OUT interest centers in Europe, and mostly in Western Europe. The life of man there, through all historic time, is the soil out of which grows our life to-day. And when we look for the early peoples who have shaped this European life, we see three —Greeks, Komans, and Teutons — towering above all others.* We shall group our study around these three life-directing centers. But the civilization of the Greeks and Romans was not wholly original. It was modified by certain older civilizations outside Europe, near the eastern shores of the Mediterranean ; and the history of these Oriental states makes the dim ante-room through which we pass to European history.
I The Hindoo Baddha (sixth century b.c.) is perhaps second only to Christ in greatness and parity among the founders of religions, and the Chinese Con- fndos of the same centory mast rank among the great moral teachers of the world ; bat oar Western thought has not been influenced by either of them to tny considerable degree. It now seems probable that these countries wiU iSed OUT civilization in the future, but in the past the only important con- tribotion which we can trace to them, positively, is the "Arabic" notation fn>m the Hindoos.
'The inhabitants of ancient France, Spain, Britain, and of southern and eastern Germany are not included. It is true that they constituted a large psrt of European life, but that life was given its peculiar characteristics largely by the three elements named. The reason that the Jews are not mentioned^ tepite their great influence, will appear in later chapters.
4 INTRODUCTION. [J 3
Now we can answer the question that heads this chapter. As the panorama unfolds> we see civilizations, already old, in the fertile river-valleys of Egypt and of Western Asia. Their story is Oriental History. It covered thousands of years, but we view only fragments of it, and this by way of introduction to European history.
About 600 B.C. the proper history of our civilization begins, in the far southeast of Europe, when the Greeks take over the work and shift the scene west in patches along the Mediter- ranean. They make marvelous advance in art, literature, phi- losophy, and in some sciences. Their chief contributions are intellectual ; but after about three hundred years, under Alex- ander the Great, they suddenly conquer the East and form a Graeco-Oriental world. This mingling of East and West gives the first basis for modern civilization.
Two centuries later, political leadership has passed to the next peninsula west. There the Romans supplement the Greek work by peculiar contributions in law and government, gathering together, too, whatever has been preserved from the older civilizations. By conquest, the Eomans unite under one sway all the historic peoples of the East, and extend civilization over the barbarians of the West, so that at the birth of Christ they have organized the fringe of the three continents border- ing the Mediterranean into one fairly uniform Graeco-Roman society. This is the second basis for modern civilization. The Eastern world, largely Greek, was to be lost again for a time, later on, but the development of the West was to be continuous to the present day. This Roman Empire is the central "lake in which all the streams of ancient history lose themselves, and which all the streams of modern history flow out of/' The Graeco-Oriental world of Alexander, upon the conqueror's death, broke up politically into fragments, but the Roman dominion maintains its political unity for five centuries. The combined period of Greek and Roman history, from 600 b.c. to 400 A.D., is Classical History.
Toward the close of this thousand years the Romanized
§4] WHAT HISTORY SHALL WE STUDY t 6
races seem exhausted. Then, in Western Europe, Teutonic barbarians break in, to reinvigorate the classical world. They destroy much at first ; but by what is left they slowly educate themselves up to the level of the older culture, and so prepare to go beyond it. This Romano-Teutonic Europe is the third terrace on which our civilization rests. What the Teutons did in Western, or Roman, Europe, the Slav barbarians did, not quite so successfully, in Eastern, or Greek, Europe, but their work does not affect our development until a later period. The process of Teutonic education is a long one, really lasting another thousand years; but the fusion of Teutonic and Romanized elements is well under way by the year 800 a.d., and we take this convenient date to mark the close of ancient history. The final four centuries, from 400 to 800 a.d., are the period of the Teutonic Infusion, This is the last division of ancient history, and it forms also a transition to modem history.
4. The Two Great Divisions of History. — It should be noted that Ancient History is relatively simple. The peoples to be studied are few, and they appear, not all at once, but one at a time ; they themselves differ in character widely, and their contributions are distinct in kind. The stage, too, is compact: it shifts and expands from time to time, but the ancient world never gets far from the Mediterranean, which is its great high- road and chief bond of union. The theme of this division of history is the early edvcation and bringing together of the various peoples who were then to produce our modern world.
The later story of the multiform Teutonic^Roman civilization so produced — and, in a minor degree, of the Slavic-Greek civilization of Eastern Europe — is Modem History. It sur- veys the rise of the many contemporaneous nations of Europe after 800 a.d., the varied forms of their progress to about 1500 A.D., and, since then, their marvelous expansion into new continents, with the consequent interaction and development. Froni century to century this story has grown more and more
6 INTRODUCTION. [f 6
complex. The actors are numerous and the stage is vast. In our 4wn day it is rapidly widening as never before, and it promises in the near future to take in the whole globe and all branches of the human race.^
5. The Subject of this Volume. — This volume deals with the first of these two great divisions. It omits prehistoric times and those historic peoples who have not modified our history, and it does not enter upon the complex modern period. It prepares for modern history by treating ancient history under the following heads : —
Part I. Early Oriental civilization contributory to Euro- pean development (Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoeni- cian, Jewish, Persian).
Part II. Greek history, to 338 b.c.
Part III. Expansion of Hellenism (Graeco-Oriental world).
Part IV. History of Rome, to the Empire.
Part V. The Roman Empire (Graeco-Roman world).
Part VI. The Teutonic infusion, and the consequent confu- sion and fusion, to 800 a.d. (Romano-Teutonic Europe).
II. **RACE" IN HISTORY.
6. The Aryan Fiction. — Only a few years ago an ancient history must have begun with a rigid classification of men into related races. Invariably, too, there followed a eulogy upon the " tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed Aryans," whose subdivisions (Celts, Greeks, Latins, Germans, Slavs), it was taught, had marched in prehistoric times in successive migrations from
^ Of coutse history is really one continaoas drama, and this unity is more important than the paragraphing into acts and scenes. All diyisions are more or less arbitrary, and certainly the old triple division — ancient, medieval, modern — has lost its sanctity. Some writers begin medieval history four hundred years later than others, while there is a two-hundred-year variation in the dates for its close. Plainly, the Middle Age is an uncertain one ; and there is a manifest advantage in ignoring it and in making only two parts of history — one to include the bringing together of the chief historic elements, the other to treat their aubaequent workings.
§«] "RACE" IN HISTORY. 7
an original Asiatic home, to exterminate the smaller, darker, non-Aryan aborigines of Europe or to impose a higher culture upon them. To-day this old classification has broken *down utterly ; we do not know anything about an Aryan race, and the various " subdivisions " named above are probably not related in any such way as was formerly thought. The old doctrine was based upon similarity in languages ; but, with the rise of new sciences, scholars have discovered that language is not a satisfactory test of race relationship. To say nothing of unre- lated peoples who, in historical times, have come to speak closely related languages, as the Belgians and modern Peru- vians have done, it is seen that it is easier fop a people to adopt a new langu^e, or even to modify its complexion, than to change the shape of its skull.^
In the present lack of satisfactory knowledge upon the sub- ject, a book of this, kind ought not to touch the race question at all, except for one reason : the student will meet mislead- ing statements of the exploded theory in all but the latest books.' This makes it needful to utter emphatic caution
^ It is true, Celts, Germans, Greeks, Latins, Slays, and also Persians and Hindoos, did speak languages closely related. We call the languages Aryan. The relation between the languages points to 8ome prehistoric connection between the varions peoples — just as there is an indirect connection between the Belgians and Peruvians, through Romans and Spaniards. But the amount of blood common to Peruvians and Belgians is infinitesimal ; and just so, in the light of new sciences, we are sure that this ancient connection between Celt and Ifindoo did not amount to race-relationship.
For criticism of the older idea, see Taylor's Aryan Race^ 33 and 204, and Ripley's Race$ of Europe, 454-456. Sergl's Mediterranean Race (1901 a.d.) and Hbemes's Primitive Man contain the results of the newer scholarship in popular form. Bobertson's Saxon and Celt gives a spicy discussion on race origins (note especially pp. 29-32). In 7%s America7i Historical Review^ in. 7D3. Professor Ripley says, " Aryan is a term appertaining to a family of langyaget, possibly to a group of cultureSt but absolutely worthless as indieating any racial type." So Oppert, *' There are Indo-European (Aryan) Itngnages, but no Indo-European race." So, too, recently. Max Miiller, who forty years ago was foremost in propagating the idea of an Aryan race.
* Students in every science should form the habit of noting the dates of the books they use. Excellent works, still indispensable in many respects, are loon " out of date " in other matters.
8 INTRODUCTION. [§ 7
agaiuBt the old view; and, to back up the caution, it is worth while to present briefly the little that is now agreed upon, along with some strong probabilities.
7. The Three Great Races. — The Mongoliaiia, in farther Asia beyond the Himalayas, and the Negroes, in Africa south of the Sahara, seem true " races." Each is uniform in type. Neither has produced a civilization, except as the Chinese have done so. Some scientists look upon the Mongolians and Negroes as " primary " races, and think that they may be of different origin. Intermediate between them, in physical characteris- tics as well as in geographical location, there has been a third group, a medley of white peoples, from whom have come all our historic nations. These Whites are less uniform in physi- cal character, and we do not know whether or not they are a " race " proper. There is some tendency to regard them as a group of "secondary" races derived from the two primary ones, perhaps in a variety of ways.
8. Some of the White Races. — One important West-Asiatic group of whites are usually called Semites, because they have spoken so-called Semitic languages, although it seems probable that they are not all of the sanie stock. To this group belong all the Asiatic peoples with whom we have most concern, ex- cept the Persians and some inhabitants of Asia Minor.
Another " white " race is found in North Africa and in Southern Europe, and possibly in part of Asia Minor. It is commonly known as the Mediterranean race. The African branch is called Berber ; the European, Iberian.
The white races of Europe need a more detailed statement. There are at least three important and strongly marked groups : in the south, this Iberian branch of the Mediterranean race ; in the north, a Te\Uonic race ; between them, a so-called Alpine race. The Iberians were short, brunette, and "long-headed" (the diameter of the skull from the forehead to the back of the head being at least one-third longer than the diameter from temple to temple). The Teutons were long-headed also, but
§10] »»RACE" IN HISTORY. 9
tall and blond. The Alpine race were fair and broad-headed (the diameter from temple to temple being over fiye-sixths the other diameter).
9. European Nations and these Races. — The Alpine, or Cen- tral European race, seems to have come in from Asia at a late prehistoric time, thrusting a dividing wedge between the two long-headed peoples. At one time it was spread widely over Europe, and it survives in south Germany, central France and Brittany, perhaps in Holland, and probably in the " Slavs " of Eastern Europe.
The Teutons include, for the most part, the modern Scan- dinavians, the North Germans, and the people of eastern Eng- land and of northeastern France. For some centuries after 400 A.n. they were the ruling class over most of Southern Europe, but they were finally absorbed there in the larger native populations.
To the Iberians belong (beside the African branch of the same race) the Greeks and Latins, the ancient and modern inhabitants of Spain and southern France, and the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles and the modern inhabitants of a large part of them. They included, therefore, all the historic peoples of Europe until the Teutons broke into the Roman Empire. They were probably aborigines, and their culture is believed to have been essentially indigenous up to the point at which our history will take it up.
10. Conclttsion. — All these peoples have long since become more or* less mixed, so that scientists find it almost impossible to secure a single " pure type.'' This classification, moreover, does not attempt to be exhaustive : even for Europe, it leaves many " fragments of forgotten peoples " unaccounted for. The statements, too, it must be emphasized, are in part hypotheses ; they are of value because they give us a tolerable framework into which to fit our facts, until perhaps a better framework replaces it, as this has replaced the " Aryan " hypothesis.
Probably there is such a thing as race character. We need
10 INTRODUCTION. [f 10
not deny race as a factor in historical development, but we must be cautious in appealing to it as an explanation. We never know how much is race and how much is something else ; and we may be very sure that much of what is lightly called race-character is the result of recent training or merely the mark of a certain stage of culture.
For Fubther Reading.^ — It is not necessary that the student at this stage read farther upon the matters treated in the Introduction^ but the following volumes will giye pleasure and profit, so far as time can be secured for them.
Waterloo, Story of Ab (a novel — a dramatic picture of prehistoric development); Dodge, Our Wild Indians; Keary, Dawn of History; Chaillu, Viking Age ; Brinton, American Bace ; Mason, Woman* 8 Share in Primitive Culture; Sergi, Mediterranean Bace; Hoemes, Primitive Man.
For advanced students: Gomme, Ethnology and Folk Lore; Lang, Custom and Myth ; Lang, Myth, Bitual, and Beligion ; Spencer, Cere- monial Institutions; Tylor, Early History of Mankind; Taylor, Origin of the Aryans (a valuable book, still holding to a modified form of the Aryan hypothesis); Ripley, Baces of Europe; Robertson, Saxon and Celt ; Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece.
Topics for Written Reports. — 1. Stages of prehistoric progress — Stone Age to Iron (advanced students may consult Lewis H. Morgan's Ancient Society, 0-13, for a good classification). 2. Kitchen-middens. 8. Early weaving. 4. History of fire-making. 6. Early potteiy. 6. Early ornament. 7. Primitive counting.
1 Fuller descriptions of the books referred to in these lists, with dates and prices, are given in the Appendix.
PART L
OBIEITTAL HISTOBT.
CHAPTER I.
A PRELIMINARY SURVBY. .
11. The Rediscovery. — Our knowledge of the oldest history is, for the most part, new. Until about a century ago it com- prised only scattered statements of Hebrew writers and some fragmentary traditions preserved by the Greeks. A few inscriptions in ancient characters were known to exist in the l^ile valley, but no one could read them.
iiifiSi..
^i;£:iESifnAinf4l!fimm-?7i^:-:Biiei$^U
mJtR'ii
(y&i5r««?5:KT:;»??:^.jST.T»=s«mfr?:g:stf'«iti£rr^
Portion ov Bosetta Stone, containing the hieroglyphs first deciphered.
Then, about 1800 a.d., Napoleon's soldiers, in laying founda- tions for a fort on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, found the "Rosetta Stone." This three^foot slab of bl%ck basalt bore three inscriptions, one in the ancient hieroglyphics of the
11
12 A PRELIMINARY SURVEY. [§12
pyramids^ one in a later Egyptian writing (likewise forgotten), and one in Greek. A French scholar proved the three to be one inscription in triplicate, and by means of the Greek he was able to fix the values of the other characters. With this key the Egyptian written language was finally reconstructed. More recently, a like task has been accomplished for the Assyrian (§ 72, note).
At first, however, there was little to read ; but a new interest had been aroused, and, since 1850, vast sums and indomitable energy have been expended in exploration in the East. The sites of forgotten cities, once world-capitals but now long buried beneath desert sands, have been rediscovered. Many of them were found to contain great, copiously illustrated libraries in papyrus or on stone and brick. These have been deciphered in some measure by an army of devoted scholars, and since 1880 the results have appeared rapidly in English.^
12. The Three Centers : the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Road between. — The first homes of civilization were in the lower valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. In each of these regions a cheap food supply made possible at an early date a dense population, with a leisure and military class supported by the agricultural masses. In both districts, too, at a still earlier time, the marvelously fertile soil attracted enterprising tribes from different sources, and so brought about a mixture of races — apparently a condition favorable to progress.
These two countries, Egypt and Chaldea, were some eight hundred miles apart in a straight line. Practically the distance was greater. The only feasible route ran along two legs of a triangle — north from Egypt through the Syrian valleys to the upper waters of the Euphrates, and then down that valley. Except upon this Syrian side, however, neither country in the
^ Indeed oar knowledge of these civilizations is still in its infancy. The British Museam now contains unread inscriptions that at the present rate of reading would (ticupy scholars a century more, and the accumulation is rapidly gaining upon the readers.
§12] THE NILE AND THE ETJPHRATE& 18
time of its greatness had any important foreign relations. Africa had no great civilization but the Egyptian; and the Euphrates region was shut off from India and China by vast deserts and lofty mountains. Thus this Syrian district, inter- mediate between the Asiatic and the African states, became their battle ground and trade exchange. At times, too, it comes into prominence itself as an independent, third center of civili- zation.
A more detailed survey of Egyptian boundaries will make clearer the significance of this intermediate land. To the west of the Nile state lay Libya, stretching across the continent, — an immense but inhospitable tract. The portion bordering Egypt was particularly barren, forming a wide abatis against attack by the scattered tribes of the desert. To the south, at a distance, was a more powerful neighbor. Ethiopia, including Nubia and fertile Abyssinia, exceeded Egypt in size, and its brave and warlike people possessed some civilization, probably drawn from Egypt. However, a desert, extremely difficult for an army to traverse, extended a twelve-day march between the two states, and communication by the river was absolutely shut off by long series of rocky gorges above the cataracts of Egypt ; so that, in the days of her power, Egypt had little to fear from the less advanced country. On the other sides, the line of defense formed by the Mediterranean and the broad moat of the Bed Sea was broken only at the extreme north by the isthmus.
Thus, with sides and rear protected, Egypt faced Asia across this narrow bridge. Here, too, the immediate district was largely desert; but, after all, Arabia numbered a large popu- lation of nomad tribes, always harassing the Egyptian fron- tier, and sometimes constituting a formidable danger; while directly north of the isthmus the narrow strip of habitable land between the desert and the sea was a nursery of warlike peoples. Here dwelt the Phoenicians, Philistines, Canaanites, Hebrews, and Hittites. Usually they were all tributary to Egypt or Chaldea, from whom, too, their civilization was derived ; but at times, when both these powers were weak, there
14 A PRSLIMINABT SURVEY. [§18
arose iDdependent Syrian kingdoms, like that of the Jews under David and Solomon. Indeed, this district might have escaped the fatal consequences of its position on the road from Africa to Asia if its peoples could have united against their common foes ; but ranges of mountains and rivers broke it into five or six unequal states, all small and mutually hostile. Two of them — those of the Jews and the Phoenicians — will have special notice in Chapter IV.
IS. The Periods. — In each of the two greater centers there is a long period of development in iaokUion. Then, with exten- sion of power, comes a period of intercourse, hostile or friendly, through the intermediate region. Finally follows a period of union — at first by the dominance of one or the other, and then by the subjection of all this Eastern world to the new power of Persia. This Persian Empire almost at once comes in conflict with the Greeks, and so introduces us to European history.
CHAPTER 11.
I. GEOGRAPHY.
Egffpt as a geographical expression is two things —the Desert and the NUe. As a habitable country, it is only one thing— the Nile,
— Alfred Milnsr.
14. Territory. — The Egypt of a map includes about as much land as Colorado or Italy ; but seven eighths of it is only a wide sandy border to the real Egypt. This latter is the Talley and delta of the Nile — from the cataracts to the sea. It is smaller than Maryland, and falls into two natural parts. Upper Egypt is the valley proper; it is a strip of vegetable mold about six hundred miles long and usually about ten miles wide — a slim oasis between parallel lines of rugged, desolate hills. Then, for the remaining hundred miles, the valley broadens suddenly into the delta ; this Lower Egypt is a squat triangle of rich, level plain resting on a two-hundred- mile base of curving coast, where shifting, marshy lakes meet the sea.
15. The Significance of the Nile. — Eain rarely falls any- where in the country — a heavy shower not oftener than once in ten or fifteen years. Egypt, therefore, as the Greeks said, is " the gift of the Nile." Except for that river. Upper Egypt would be part of the Sahara, and Lower Egypt would have remained a sandy bottom beneath the Mediterranean waves.
And what the river has made, it sustains. Toward the close of the eight cloudless months before the annual over- flow, there is a brief period when the land seems gasping for
15
16
[fl5
moisture, " only half alive, 'waiting the new Xile." The rise and the withdrawal of the inundation are gradual, lasting from July to November; but during the days while the fiood is at ita height, Egypt is a sheet of turbid water, between two lines of rock and sand, marked off into compartments by the raised roads con- necting the towns and vill^es that dot the waters ; while from tbeir sandy plateau at a distance the pyra^ mids look down upon the scene, as they have done each season for six thousand years. The rich loam dressing, so brought down from the hills of Ethiopia, is spread over the fields and maintains their unwearied fertility, while the long soaking sup- plies moistiire to the soil for months to come.
Man, however, has had his share in making Egypt. In prehistoric times, the inhabitants had learned to control and distribute the overflow, by a compli- cated network of dikes, leseiToirs, and canals. This system was so complete that under the ancient monarchy the peasantry
§17] POLITICAL BISTORT. 17
cultivated more soil and produced more wealth than in modem times, until English control was recently established.
16. Political Geography ; Growth of a Kingdom. — Civilization in Egypt appears well advanced with its first records, about 4500 or 5000 b.c. We cannot know how many thousands of years it had taken for this culture to develop from the sav- agery of the surrounding tribes. Certainly the earliest dwell- ers in the valley were ia a most primitive stage, using the rudest of stone implements and practicing savage and bar- barous customs. Gradually centers of culture appeared — "perhaps as a result of conquest from Asia — and contending principalities arose. These were united by centuries of conflict into the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. The former principalities remained, however, as " nomes," or administrative units. The more important nomes seem to have been ruled by hereditary princes under the supreme monarch ; and, throughout Egyptian history, at intervals rival cities renewed their struggle for headship.
The Nile, which had made physical Egypt, played its part, too, in making political Egypt. The regulation of the an- nual inundation must have been the earliest common interest of the people. No doubt neighboring villages waged count- less bloody, semi-aquatic wars before they learned the costly lesson of cooperation ; but the waste and the danger from sep- arate or hostile action must have helped, from early periods, to force home the need of concert and union.
n. POLITICAL HISTORY.!
17. The Memphite Period. — The later Egyptians classified their native kings into some thirty " dynasties." These may be grouped further into four periods, according to the location of the center of power, — Memphite, Theban, Sai'te, and Alex-
1 The following three-page skeleton of forty-five hundred years of history is designed for reading and reference, not for close ttady.
18 EGYPT. [§18
•
andrian. The first ten dynasties ruled at or near Mempliis in Lower Egypt. This period of the " Ancient Empire " lasted to 2800 B.C. . At a very early date the Memphite princes con- quered the upper valley also, and made one kingdom of all Egypt. The monarchs of the fourth dynasty built the greatest of the pyramids for their tombs ; and these impressive monu- ments to their pitiless selfishness were the oldest source of our knowledge of antiquity until Professor Petrie, in the closing years of the nineteenth century, discovered the written records of the first three dynasties.
18. The Theban Period. — The later part of the long suprem- acy of Memphis was a time of anarchy and decay. Then rival princes at Thebes, in Upper Egypt, seized the kingdom. They, too, comprised ten dynasties (llth-20th), lasting another seven- teen hundred years, to 1100 b.c, but the period is divided by a time of foreign rule, making three subperiods.
a. The Early Theban Period: to the Hyksos Conquest, — The great eleventh and twelfth dynasties reorganized the state, and, in a century of warfare, subdued Ethiopia and the negro tribes of the upper Nile. The characteristic works of the period were vast internal improvements. With reference to these, a king of the twelfth dynasty boasts in his epitaph that all his commands had " ever increased the love his subjects bore him "; and Rawlinson says {AnderU Egypt, II. 74) : —
tt
The second Egyptian civilization differed in many respects from the first. The first was self-seeking, stately, crueL The second was utilita- rian, beneficent, jadicious. The encouragement of trade, the digging of wells, the formation of reservoirs, the protection of roads, the building of ships, and the exploration of hitherto unknown seas, . . . such were the objects which the monarchs of the eleventh dynasty set before them. Content with rude coffins and humble sepulchers [instead of pyramids], they were able to employ the labor of their subjects in productive pur-
suits."
6. The Hyksos. — Another of the intervals of decay that so strangely follow the outbursts of glory through all Eg3rptian history left the country subject %q inyading nomads froQi
I IS] POLITICAL HISTORY. 19
Arabia. These Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, maintained them- selres in Egypt about four hundred years (2000-1600 b.c). Tkey destroyed a great part of the records of the previous civilization, except those hidden in tombs, and their period itself is one of scanty remains. They harried the land cruelly for
8cin.miRCi> Bkas or ThOthosis III., of the eighteenth dynasty, who in twelve KTOat campalgna Brgt carried Egirptian arms tmm the Isihtnua to Nioeveh. His mainmy, recently discovered, Indicates that this represen- tktlon idealized bU teatiuei.
a time, as invaders ; then from some seat in the Delta they niled Egypt through tributary kings ; and finally they took on Egyptian cultiire and became themselves Egyptian sovereigns. c. The " Later Theban " Period. — The native line of mon- aicha had remained, however, as under-kings at Thebes; finally, after another long war, they expelled the Hyksos, and
20 EGYPT. [§ 19
begaxi the "later Theban" period. Shortly after this, the eighteenth dynasty raised Egypt to its highest pitch of power. The Hyksos conquest seems to have crushed internal rivalries for a season, and to have introduced a more effective and cen- tralized administration, to which the new Theban monarchs succeeded. Between 1600 and 1400 B.C., Egypt recovered Ethiopia, and, for the first time entering Asia, conquered the various Syrian states, finally reaching the Tigris and securing at least a nominal supremacy over Babylonia.
This was the first political union of the East. It paved the way for future unions, and so was a step toward the empires of Persia, of Alexander, and of Rome. In Egypt itself, the booty and the multitudes of captives, together with the tribute in Asiatic products, led to the introduction of new arts and to greater luxury. In science, too, this new East had much to teach the African civilization.
About 1320 B.C. a new and surprising enemy appeared. The Libyan tribes (§ 12), aided by many strange " peoples of the sea'' (Greeks among them), all but seized the Delta. A little later, the Hittites from Asia Minor attacked Syria in a long series of campaigns (§§ 41, 56). Thus in their later period the power of the Theban kings suffered some eclipse.
During this weaker period the Hebrew serfs escaped from Egypt. They seem to have come in during the rule of the friendly Arabian Hyksos; the powerful monarchs of the re- stored native dynasty reduced them to slavery ; but now, in the time of Egypt's weakness, the Israelites fled again to the Arabian desert (§ 60).
19. The Saite Period. — Then the capital returned to the Delta, and was located, after a time, at the new city of Sals. The change probably indicates internal dissensions. Certainly the dominion in both Africa and Asia narrowed, until, after six hundred years of rule in Syria and on the Upper Nile (as long a time as separates us from the last crusades), Egypt was driven again within her ancient bounds, and finally became
20] POLITICAL HISTORY. 21
herself subject, first to Ethiopia (730 B.C.), and then to Assyria
(672B.C.). yfl^. «=^ Twenty years later, Psam/eUchvSy * |' j^ , one of the
natiye tributary rulers, restored Egyptian independence, and began the later Salite period, which was to last a little over a century. Psametichus himself was probably of Libyan blood. He opened Egypt to foreigners, and especially wel- comed the Greeks, who were coming into notice as soldiers and sailors. This is probably the period of the most impor- tant Egyptian influence upon Europe. Not only did individual travelers, like Solon and Thales, visit Egypt (§ 126 and § 142), but great numbers of Greek mercenaries served for a time in the army, and considerable Greek settlements were established
in the country. Neco, **'*^ ^))M 1^ > *^® second king of this
restored monarchy, about 600 B.C., revived an ancient attempt to cut a canal through the isthmus, and apparently secured the circumnavigation of Africa by his Phoenician sailors.^
20. Under Foreign Rule. — The favor shown foreigners seems to have disgusted the soldier class, who finally emigrated in great numbers to Ethiopia. This made easy the conquest by Persia in 525 B.C., and Egyptian independence under native sovereigns disappeared forever. Egypt was ruled as a group of provinces under Persian satraps for two centuries. Then Alexander the Great established Greek sway over all the Per- sian world. At his death Egypt did become again a separate state, but under the Greek Ptolemies ruling from their new Greek capital at Alexandria. Cleopatra, the last of this line of monarchs, fell before Augustus Caesar, and Egypt became a Roman province, 30 b.c.
1 Herodotns, the Greek hiBtorian who tells ns the story, adds: " Od their retam they reported (others may helieve them but I will not) that in sailing from east to west around Africa they had the sun on their right hand." This report, which Herodotus could not believe, is good proof to us of the sailors' truthfalnMS.
22 BGTPT. [J 21
The latter part of the last period really belongs to Greek and Roman history. The forty-two hundred years of earlier history may be summar- ized briefly. The kings of the Delta unite Egypt, and rule for seventeen hundred or two thousand years (as long a time as separates us from the birth of Christ). Under Theban kings Egyptian rule is extended over nearly all the Oriental world ; this period, too, covers seventeen hundred years ; it is broken by four hundred years of subjection to the Hyksos, and the last two hundred years also are centuries of decline. In the next six hundred years, under a second period of Delta kings, Egypt contracts to her ancient limits. Then she becomes subject to Asiatic states, which in turn, two hundred years later, fall under £uroi>ean rule.
IIL PEOPLE, SOCIETY, CIVILIZATION.
21. Races and Population. — At least three race elements went to form the ancient Egyptian — Berber, Arabian, Negro, and possibly the Abyssinian ; but before the beginning of his- tory these had been welded into one type which persists to^ay after so many later infusions.
As in other countries with an hereditary aristocracy, nobles and commoners came to differ physically. The later sculptures and mummies show the nobles tall, lithe, and handsome, with imperious carriage ; and the lower classes, heavier of feature and dumpy in build. The population in historic times num- bered from five to seven millions. Herodotus says the country contained twenty thousand " towns," or villages.^
22. Social Classes and Government. — The organization of society was closely connected with the system of landholding. In theory the monarch, or Pharaoh, was absolute master of the people and absolute owner of the soil. In practice his author- ity was limited by the power of the organized priests and by the necessity of conciliating the ambitious nobles. As to the land, the monarch kept a portion in his own hands to cultivate
^ Turkish raisrnle had reduced this population in the first of the nineteenth century to about two and a half millions. After Egypt became virtually in- dependent of Turkey, and still more after it came under English control, the population increased again rapidly to some nine millions in 1897.
|8S] FBOPLB, 80CIETT, CIVILIZATIOH. 28
hj servile labor directed \>j royal stewards, but the larger part he parceled out among the nobles.
These nobtea iu return were bound to pay a fixed amount of produce, and to furnish and lead a certain number of soldiers in war. On the death of a landholder, his holding in theory reverted to the king, but it was always conferred by him at once apon the heir; so that in practice it was a family prop- erty, subject to fixed rent in produce and in service. Within
hb domain the noble was himself absolute; he executed jus tice, levied taxes, kept up his army. Like the king, he culti- vated part of the land himself by his dependents, and part he let out in large holdings to aristocratic vassale, who stood to him as he to the king.
A considerable part of the land — perhaps one third — was attached to the temples, free of any obligation except the maintenance of the temple worship. It had become really the propertyof the orgfuiized and powerful priestkoodt.
24 EGYPT. [§ 22
Actual labor upon all the land was performed by a peauMmt doss not unlike that found in Egypt to-day. Some of them rented small farms; but a great majority were day laborers or held only insufficient lots on precarious terms. They were not bound to the soil, however, as the like class was later in Europe; they could move about at will ; but, just as the great noble had a master and protector in Pharaoh, and the smaller noble in the larger one, so the peasant must remain attached to some patron, or he was liable to become the prey of any powerful enemy. Public opinion formed some check, however, upon arbitrary tyranny, and perhaps the poor were as safe as they have been in most countries in controversies with the rich and powerful. The oldest written " story " in the world (surviving in a papyrus of the twelfth dynasty) gives an interesting illustration: a peasant, robbed through a legal trick by the dependent of a royal officer, appeals to the judges and finally to the king ; the king commands redress, enjoining his officer to do justice "like a praiseworthy man praised by the praise- worthy." Such appeals were probably no more difficult to make than on the continent of Europe all through the Middle Ages.
In the towns there was a large middle class — merchants, shopkeepers, physicians, notaries, builders, and skilled artisans. The fact that laborers could win a strike (§ 35) proves that their condition was not one of universal misery. The slave class was apparently not very important.
There was no real caste in Egyptian society. As a matter of convenience, the son commonly followed his father's occupa- tion, but there was no law (as in some Oriental countries) to prevent his passing into a different class; and sometimes the son of a poor herdsman did rise to wealth and power.^ Such progress was most easily open to the scribes. This learned profession was recruited from the brighter boys of the middle
1 For a remarkable example, see an Egyptian biography of such a self-made man, in Maspero's Dawn of Civilization, 290-296. The Hebrew Joseph's experience is hardly a case in point, but rather an instance of capricioaa favor such as is always possible in an Oriental despotism. ^
i22] PEOPLE, SOCIETY, CIVILIZATION. 25
and lower classes. The majority found employment only in clerical work ; but from the abler ones the cobles chose confi- dential secretaries and stewards, and some of these, who devel- oped adminiatratiTe ability, were promoted by the Pharaohs to the highest dignities in the land. Such men founded new families to leSnforce the ranks of the nobility.
The soldiers are spoken of by the later Greek writers as a distinct class, and have sometimes been called a " caste." They were not an hereditary class, however, but were recruited from all available sources. They were kept under arms only when their services wera needed. Each soldier held a small farm, of some eight acres, exempt from taxes and dues. Besides the
Sboimakbbs. — Egn>tlaa relief from tbe
enrolled and privileged soldiery, the peasantry were called out upon occasion, for war or for distant garrisons.
There was also a numerous and complicated bureaucracy connected with the government. Every despotism has to develop such a class, to act as eyes, hands, and feet ; but in ancient Egypt the royal ofBciala were particularly numerous and important. Until a late date the Egyptians had no money, and all the immense roy^ revenues, as well as all debts between private men, had to be collected "in kind." The treasurers must receive and care for and keep account of cattle, grain, wine, oil, stuffs, metals, jewels, — "all that the heavens give, all that the earth produces, all that the Nile brings from Its
26 EGYPT. li 13
mysterious sourees," as one king puts it in an inscription. This meant an array of royal officials ; and, for a like reason, the great nobles needed a large claiss of trusted servants.
Thus we have for the superstructure of society a large ruling aristocracy of birth, another of merit (scribes and physicians), two specially privileged bodies (priests and soldiero), and the mass of privileged of&cials of all grades down to petty over- seers. To most of these, life was a very pleasant thing, filled with active employment and varied with manifold recreations, as the monuments show. Below these, the middle class — shopkeepers, skilled artisans, and peasant proprietors — ranged
Levtimo thb Tax, — An Egyptian tellet from tbs monumeDts.
from comfort to misery. At the bottom was a la^e agricultural class heavily burdened with the weight of all these others. The condition of this class is always bad enough in Oriental de^wtisms, falling little short of practical slavery. Boyal taxes, in particular, are exacted harshly, and the poor peasant is responsible for any deficit with all that he has, — even with his person or his family. All this was true in ancient Egypt; still, from the Egyptian literature, the peasants seem to have been careless and gay, petting their cattle and singing at their work, and the large population indicates that they were pros- perous. Probably they were as well off as the like class has been during the past century in Egypt or in Bussia.
fH] PEOPLE, SOCIETY, CIVILIZATION. 27
23. The PosUlOB of Wonun was decidedly better than in the iater Greek civilization, and better than in modern Oriental states. The wife was the friend and companion of the man. She was not secluded in a hai-em or confined strictly to a domestic existence, but appeared in company and at public ceremonies. She possessed equal rights at law ; and, at inter- vals, great queens ruled upon the throne, while others evidently molded their sons and influenced their husbands. In no other country, until modern times, do pictures of happy domes- tic life play so large a part.
Sphimx and Ptbaiiid, — From a photograph.
24. IndttatrlH and the Arts. — The skilled artisans included brickworkers, weavers, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, Dpholsterers, glass-blowers, potters, shoemakers, tailora, armor- ers, etc. Many of these had acquired a marvelous dexterity, and were masters of processes that are not now known. The weavers in particular produced delicate and exquisite linen, almost as fine as silk, and the workers in glass and metal were famous for their skill. Jewels were imitated in glass so art- folly that only an expert can detect the fraud by the appear-
ance to-day. Bronze was introduced at an early date, perhaps by the Phoenicians ; but there is no evidence of the use of iron until about 800 b.c.
Sculpture, painting, and architecture wRre the leading arts. In the closed rock tombs, the painting has lasted with perfect freshness, but it perishes almost immediately upon exposure.
JU] PEOPLE, SOCIETY, CIVILIZATION. 29
It is said to repFesent a high deyelopment in the use of color.
Much of the early sculpture was lifelike ; and the unnatural
coloBsaJ statues, such as the Sphinses, have a solemn power and
gloomy grandeur in keeping with the melancholy desert that
stretches about them. This art reached its best stage in the
Hemphite period. Later, it was shackled by conventions. Its
association with
religion seems to
have forbidden
change in its
methods ; and, no
longer able to pro-
pesa, it began to
decline. But the
Egyptian art was
arehUeOure, espe- cially the archi-
tectnre of the
temple and the
tomb. Of the last,
the pyramids are
the great exam- ple, although they
were, after all,
only exaggerated
reproductions in .
stone of savage i
grave mounds
like those of
oar early North
American Indians. The Nile has been credited sometimes
with an influence upon this form of Egyptian building, and
cerbunly snch structures would be better adapted than any
other to withstand the annual attack of the waters in the
valley. In their better domestic architecture the Egyptians
naed the true arch, and in their temples they sometimes made
Aisle in thb Rcmi a
so EOTPT. [| U
use of graceful columns (both of which forma they may hare taught the Greeks); but for their more important buildings they preferred massive walls, and ceilings of immense flat elaba. The result is peculiarly imposing, and gives an impres- sion of stupendous power, but it lacks grace and beauty.
26- Literature and the Hieroglyphics. — The Egyptians wrote religious and theological works, poems, histories, travels, novels, orations, treatises upon morals, scientific works, geographies, cook books, catalogues, and collections of fury stories {Cinderella among them).
The oldest writing, as with all early peoples, was a picture
story, hut on the first monuments this had advanced to a rebus
stage; that is, the pictures had become "conventionalized" into
a system of hieroglyphics — "a delightful assemblage of birds,
snakes, men, tools,
stars, and beasts."
In many cases one
of these shrunken
pictures might
staod either for
a thing or for
an idea connected
with it Thus O
may represent
either the sun or
A Cafital fboh KABKiJc. light Fiom their
sound value, too,
some symbols came to represent syllables in longer words.
Then some of these semiphonetic signs grew into real letters,
or signs of single sounds. Now, if the Egyptians could have
kept these last and have dropped all the rest, they would
have had a true alphabet ; but this step they never took. The
temple inscriptions remained to the last a curious mixture of
tbousanda of signs of things, ideas, syllables, and sounds.
When the writing was performed rapidly upon papyrus or
§26] PEOPLE, SOCIETY, CIVILIZATION. 81
upon pottery, the strokes were run together, and the characters were modified gradually into quite a different script. This << hieratic" writing was used for all purposes except religious or funeral inscriptions. It was written with a reed, in black or red ink ; and the dry air of the Egyptian tombs has pre- served great numbers of the buried papyrus rolls to our day.^
26. Science. — The Kile has been called the father of Egyp- tian Science. The necessity of resurveying the land some- times after an inundation is thought to have had to do with the early proficiency in geometry ; and the desirability of fixing in advance the exact period of the inundation may have had some influence in directing attention ta the true '^ year," and so to astronomy. Great progress was made in both these studies. We moderns who learn glibly from books and dia- grams the results of this early labor, can hardly understand how difficult a task confronted these first scientific observers, who had only the complex book of the heavens open to them. They seem to have understood correctly the revolution of the earth and planets around the sun, together with other celestial phenomena too obscure to state here ; and they cer- tainly fixed the length of the year with surprising accuracy, and invented a peculiar leap year arrangement. This year, together with their calendar of months, we get from them through Julius Caesar (§ 447). They excelled also in medicine ; and in arithmetic they dealt readily in numbers to millions, with the aid of a notation similar to that used later by the Romans. Thus three thousand four hundred twenty-three was
represented by the Romans : M M M C C C C XX III and by the Egyptians: ^^ X X ®(5(5(5HI'
All this learning is older than the Greek by almost twice as long a time as the Greek is older than ours of to-day. No
^ A good aoooant of the hieroglyphics is given in Keary's Davtn of Hist<Mry,
82 EGYPT. [§27
wonder, then, that in the last days of Egyptian greatness, the priest of Sate exclaimed to a visitor from little Athens whose fame was yet to make: "0 Solon, Solon! You Greeks are mere children. There is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science hoary with age ! " It must be remembered, however, that all the higher science was the possession only of the priests and perhaps of a few others.
27. Relis;ion. — There was a curious mixture of religions. A worship of ancestors was universal, with a dark background of evil spirits and malicious ghosts. Such worship is found among all primitive peoples, and will be treated more in detail when we come to the study of Greece.
There was also a revolting worship of animals — cats, dogs, bulls, crocodiles. Probably this was a degraded exaggeration of a form of ancestor worship known as totemism^ found among many people. North American Indians of a wolf clan or a bear clan — with a fabled wolf or bear for an ancestor — must on no account injure the ancestral animal, or " totem.'* Even Eome, with its legend of Romulus nursed by a wolf, gives some curious survivals of an earlier worship of this sort, and on several occasions late in history Roman armies permitted wild wolves to run in and out among their ranks uninjured. In Egypt, however, this worship became more widely spread, and took on grosser features, than has ever been the case elsewhere.
Above all this, there was a worship of personified powers of nature, — a belief in numerous mythological deities and demi- gods representing natural phenomena. As a concession to the populace, perhaps, these were commonly represented by animal symbols, but with the higher classes the nature worship mounted sometimes to a lofty and pure worship of one God whose name was, " / am that I am.^^ The symbol preferred by the adherents of this higher religion was the disk of the sun, for Light, Truth, and All-sustaining Power (§ 31). These higher meanings never became widespread, of course; and
|!7] PEOPLE, SOCIETY, CIVILIZATION. 33
indeed the political decline after the great eighteenth dynasty seems to have been connected with a long and bitt«r movement of the populace and the priests against the attempt of a "heretic king" to popularize the "disk worship" in its more ipiritual forms.
The universal practice of embalming the body may have originated in a belief in a resurrection or reincarnation, or per- haps only in the savage idea that the body remained the home of the ghost, and that, deprived of it, the ghost would become harmful. Indeed, with regard to a future life there seem to have been two or three st^es of belief. In the oldest
tombs, there are found dishes where had been placed food and drink for the ghost, just aa with nearly all savage peoples, and as is still done, indeed, by the Egyptian peasant after these six thousand years of many later faiths.
Such practices seem to originate in a belief that the soul remains in or near the tomb, with but a pale and joyless exist- ence. But upon some such lower basis there grew up, among the better classes anyway, a belief in a truer immortality for those who deserved it. The dead, it was thought, lived in some distant Elysium, where they had all the pleasures of life without its pains, — though this haven was only for those ghosts
84 EGTPT. [| »
who knew certain religious and magic formnlaa to guard against destmction on the perilons spirit- journey thither, and who, on arrival, should be declared worthy by the "Judges of the Dead" (5 29).
28. Horallty. — The standard of morals was not high, if measored by modem ideas. Some features of their life seem to us shocking and obsceue ; and the modesty and refinement
Roci-HEWN Colossi of Rahesib U.
that modems demand were totally absent. The ideal was soft and gentle, rather than exacting. They were a kindly people. The sympathy expressed by Egyptian writers for the poor (§§ 29, 30, 34) is a note not heard elsewhere in ancient literature; and even if mainly sentimental, it speaks some- thing for the gentleness of the Egyptian aristocracy. On the whole, all scholars agree in giving the Egj'ptians high praise among the peoples of antiquity: "More moral, sympathetic, and conscientioift than any other ancient people," says Petrie;
S20] ILLUSTKATIVE EXTRACTS. 85
^'If less refined than Athens, yet in some points both more moral and more civilized," asserts Bawlinson ; Maspero styles the profession of faith in their Repudiation of Sins " among the noblest bequeathed us by the ancient world/' indicating, as it does, " a keen sense of obligation not only to the gods, but . also to one's fellow-men "5 Simcox's Primitive Civilization says of Egyptian epitaphs, " In no other country, ancient or modern, do we find so clear and full a description of purely domestic virtues as forming the best title to regard"; while Professor Petrie sums up the matter, — " The Egyptian, without our Christian sense of sin or self-reproach, sought out a fair and noble life. . . . His aim was to be an easy, good-natured, quiet gentleman, and to make life as agreeable as he could to all about him."
IV. ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTS.
29. From the Repudiation of Sins, to be made before the Judges of the Dead. (Many of these phrases are found upon the most ancient tombs. In the later, but very old. Book of the Dead they are collected and harmonized. The parts given here show a sense of duty toward one's fellow-men. Much of the omitted part has to do with ceremonial justification. For more extended quotations, see Maspero's Dawn of CivUiza- tiany 188-190.)
**Hail Unto you, ye lords of Truth ! hail to thee, great god, lord of Truth and Justice I . . . I have not committed iniquity against men I I have not oppressed the poor ! . . . I have not laid labor upon any free man beyond that which he wrought for himself 1 . . . I have not caused the slave to be ill-treated of his master ! I have not starved any man, I have not made any to weep, ... I have not pulled down the scale of the balance \ 1 have not falsified the beam of the balance ! I have not taken away the milk from the mouths of sucklings ! . . . There is no crime against me in this land of the Double Truth I . . .
*' Grant that he may come unto you — he that hath not lied nor borne false witness, . . . but who feedeth on truth, ... he that hath given bread to the hungry and drink to him that was athirst, and that hath clothed the naked with garments ; ... his mouth is pure ; his two hands are pnre.^*
86 EGYPT. [§ 30
From an Inscription by an Ancient Noble. — ** I have caused no child of tender age to mourn ; I have despoiled no widow, I have driven away no tiller of the soil. . . . None about me have been unfortunate, nor starving in my time.^*
30. From the Precepts of Ptah-hotep, a noble of the fifth dy- nasty. (It takes some twenty pages of ordinary print to repro- duce this collection of precepts, which are nearly twice as old as Solomon's proverbs. The Papyrus, now at Berlin, which contains them is the oldest book in the world. They are in verse. A complete translation is given in the Records of the Pasty III.)
** Be not arrogant because of that which thou knowest, no artist being in possession of the perfection to which he should aspire.''
** Inspire not men with fear. [This is addressed to officers and judges.] Listen to the discourses of the petitioner ; be not abrupt with him. 1'be way to secure a clear explanation is to listen with kindness."
*' Keep thyself from every attack of bad humor."
** Treat thy dependents well."
** If thou hast become great after having been little, . . . harden not thy heart. ... Thou art only become the steward of the good things of Qody
*^ The obedience of a docile son is a blessing. . . . The son who accepts the word of his father will attain to old age, for obedience is of God. . . . I have myself in this way become ond of the ancients of the earth ; I have passed one hundred and ten years of life."
31. From a Hymn by King Khuniatonu, fifteenth century b.c, in worship of Aten the Sun-disk, symbol of God. (Given in full in Petrie's Egypt, II. 211-218.)
** Thy appearing is beautiful in the horizon of heaven, 0 living Aten, the beginning of life 1 . . . Thou fiUest every land with thy beauty. Thy beams encompass all lands which thou hast made. Thou bindest them with thy love. . . . The birds fly in their haunts — Their wings adoring thee. . . .
The small bird in the egg, sounding within the shell — Thou givest it breath within the egg. ...
§34] IIJ.USTRATIVE EXTRACTS. 87
How many are the things which thoa ha^t made 1
Thou createst the land by* thy will, thou alone,
With peoples, herds, and flocks. . . .
Thou givest to every man his place, thou framest his life."
32. From a Dialogue between an Egyptian and his Soul {Berlin PapyruSj quoted in Maspero's Dawn of Civilization, 399).
*^I say to myself every day : As is the convalescence of a sick person, who goes to the court after his affliction, such is death. ... I say to myself every day : As is the inhaling of the scent of a perfume, such is death. . . . I say to myself every day : As a road which passes over the flood of inun- dation, as a man who goes as a soldier whom nothing resists, such is death. ... I say to myself every day : As the clearing again of the sky, as a man who goes out to catch birds with a net and suddenly finds him- self in an unknown district, such is death.^'
33. From the Address by the Ghost in the Book of the Dead. — " I live upon loaves, white wheat, beer, red wheat. . . . Place me with vases of milk and wine, with cakes and loaves, and plenty of meat, in the dwelling of Anubis [the tomb].**
*^ Grant to me the funeral food, the drinks, the oxen, the geese, the fabrics, the incense, the oil, and all the good and pure things upon which the gods live."
34. From a Writer of the Time of Rameses II., fourteenth century B.C., in pity of the miseries of the Fellahin.
*^ Dost thou not recall the picture of the farmer, when the tenth of his grain is levied ? Worms have destroyed half of the wheat, and the hip- popotami have eaten the rest ; there are swarms of rats in the fields, the grasshoppers alight there, the cattle devour, the little birds pilfer, and if the farmer lose sight for an instant of what remains upon the ground, it is carried off by robbers ; the thongs, moreover, which bind the iron and the hoe are worn out, and the team has died at the plough. It is then that the scribe steps out of the boat at the landing-place to levy the tithe, and there come the keepers of the doors of the granary with cud- gels and the negroes with ribs of palm-leaves, crying : * Come now, com 1 » There is none, and they throw the cultivator full length upon the ground ; bound, dragged to the canal, they fling him in head first [probably a figurative way of saying that he was forced to work out his tax on the canals] ; his wife is bound with him, his children are' put into chains ; the neighbors, in the meantime, leave him and fly to save their grain.**
88 EGYPT. [} 36
35. strikes among the Bgyptians (adapted from the account in Maspero's Struggle of the Nations, 539-541).
** Rations were allowed each workman at the end of every month ; but, from the usual Egyptian lack of forethought, these were often consumed long before the next assignment. Such an event was usually followed by a strike. On one occasion we are shown the workmen turning to the overseer, saying : * We are perishing of hunger, and there are still eighteen days before the next month.^ The latter makes profuse promises ; but, when nothing comes of them, the workmen will not listen to him longer. They leave their work, and gather in a public meeting. The overseer hastens after them, and the police commissioners of the locality and the scribes mingle with them, urging upon the leaders a return. But the workmen only say : * We will not return. Make it clear to your superiors down below there.* The official who reports the matter to the authorities afterwards, seems to think the complaints well founded, for he says, * We went to hear them, and they Bpoike true words to us.* "
86. A Modern Impression.
*
** Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert Near them, on the sand, Half-sunk, a shattered visage lies.
■ ■••••
And on the pedestal, these words appear :
* My name is Ozymandias, king of kings.
Look on my works, Te Mighty, and despair 1 '
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare.
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'* — Shbllbt.
Fob Eubthbr Readiko. — Maspero*s Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria^ and Egyptian Archaeology^ or, by the same author. Dawn of Civilization ; Rawlinson*s Ancient Egypt (somewhat out of date, but very readable), and his Egypt, in the Stories of the Nations series.
For advanced students : Records of the Past (edited by Sayce); Petrie's Egypt, Ten Tears'* Digging in Egypt, and Beligion and Conscience in Egypt; Maspero's Struggle of the Nations, and The Passing of the Empires.
For the vexed question of Egyptian chronology, see, preferably, Petrie's Egypt, I. 248-264. A margin of a hundred years must be allowed for error in the early period, and dates are given in round numbers until the
f aq ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTS. 89
As^rian conqnest (672 b.c). Mr. Cecil Torr, Memphii and Mycenae (1896), aigaes for much later dates; but, so far, Egyptian scholars pay little attention to him.
At the pablication of this volume, the recent diacoveries of the remains of the first three dynasties have not been treated fully in any publication available for high schools ; an interesting sketch may be found in the Mlantic for October, 1900.
Topics tor Reports or Papers. — 1. The pyramids. 2. Sacred animals. 8. What can be learned regarding occupations, manners, etc., from the illustrations in books upon Egypt. 4. Sports in Egypt. 5. Daily life. 6. Cory^es in ancient and modem Egypt. 7. Ancient irrigation system, including an account of Lake Moeris. 8. Irrigation system under English rule (see Milner's England in Egypt^ 280-322).
CHAPTER III.
THE TIGRIS-ECTPHRATfiS STATES.
L UNITY OF THE EAST AFTER 1600 B.C.
37. About 1600 b.c. the reaction against the Hyksos con- quest had carried the Egyptians, in turn, into Asia (§ 18 c). There, just across the isthmus, they came upon a new civiliza- tion, whose original home they reached, after many campaigns, on the banks of another great stream strangely like the river of-Egypt.
For nearly half all recorded time the two civilizations had been developing in isolation. The Asiatic was possibly the earlier; certainly it had spread more rapidly, and was already dominant from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean.^ The African invasion now brought the two into contact, and so marks an era. Isolated developments gave way to one great civiliza- tion — with several and shifting centers, it is true, but with these centers closely bound together. Western Asia became covered with a network of roads, garrisoned at important points by fortresses; and along these roads, from the Nile to the Euphrates, there hurried for centuries incessant streams of merchants, couriers, diplomats, and travelers.
II. GEOGRAPHY.
38. The Two Rivers. — A mighty desert stretches across Asia from the Red to the Yellow Sea. Its smaller and western part, a series of low, sandy plains, is really a continua-
1 Very recent excavations strengthen the theory that the Nile civilizalion itself was derived from that of the Euphrates ; hut, if so, all connection had long heen lost when history hegan. See Sayce's " Introduction " to Maspero's Passing of the Natioru,
40
f 39] GBOGBAPHY. 41
tion of the African desert; the eastern^ or truly Asiatic, portion consists of lofty, arid plateaus traversed by rugged mountains. The two parts are divided by a patch of luxuriant vegetation reaching away from the Persian Gulf to the northwest. This oasis is the work of the Tigris and Euphrates. These rivers have never impressed men as has the more mysterious Nile, but they have played a hardly less important part in human history. Rising on opposite sides of the snow-capped Arme- nian mountains, they approach each other by great sweeps until they form a common valley, and then they flow in par- allel channels for the greater part of their course. The land between theiti has always been named from them: the Jews called it " Syria of the Two Rivers " ; the Greeks, Mesopota- mia, or the " Between-Rivers " country; the modern Arabian inhabitants, '^The Island"; while anciently the Euphrates
itself bore the fitting name, " Soul of the Land."
•
39. Natural and Political Divisions. — This valley falls into three distinct parts, two of which are of special importance.
ChcUdea. — The lower portion consists of alluvial deposits carried out in the course of ages into the Persian Gulf. In area it equals modern Denmark, and is over twice the size of the real Egypt. Like Egypt, its fertility in ancient times was maintained largely by an annual ovei-fiow, regulated by dikes, canals, and reservoirs. Wheat and barley (which still grow wild in the abandoned bottoms near the mouth of the Euphra- tes) are believed to have been indigenous here; certainly it was from Chaldea that their cultivation spread west to Europe. Herodotus (writing in the fifth century b.c.) says : —
*' Of all countries that we know there is none so fruitful in grain. The yield commonly is two hundred fold and sometimes three hundred fold.^
^ Herodotus, I. 193. The statement is supported hy other ohservers. A Minnesota farmer sows two bushels of wheat to the acre ; two hundred fold -would mean a crop not of fifteen or eighteen, but of four hundred bushels. That of course is an impossibility. The statement of Herodotus can hold good only on the supposition that a very thin sowing was enough — a half bushel or less to the acre.
42 THE TIGBI&-EUPHRATES STATES. [§40
The leaves of the wheat and barley are four fingers wide. As for the millet and sesame, I will not state their height, for I am sure I should not be believed by those who have not lived in that country.^'
The blade of the wheat was so luxuriant, other writers tell us, that it was customary to mow the fields twice and then turn in cattle to crop it off, so as to make it ear.
The Euphrates valley has lost its ancient fertility, of which we know only from these statements of the Greeks. During the last few centuries, under Turkish rule, the last vestiges of the ancient engineering works have gone to ruin. As a result^ in this early home of human culture the uncontrolled overflow of the river now turns the eastern districts into a dreary marsh; while on the west the desert sands have drifted in to cover the most fertile soil in the world, and the sites of scores of mighty cities are only shapeless mounds, that look at first like natural hills, where nomad Arabs camp for a night.
Assyria, — To the north, the alluviSl plain rises to a broad and rugged tableland. The more fertile portion lay on the eastern, or Tigris side, and was about three times the extent of Chaldea. Here clustered many cities which were finally to be combined into the monarchy of Assyria.
Mesopotamia Proper. — The northwestern portion of the val- ley— to which part the name of Mesopotamia is sometimes especially applied — was less fertile and of little political im- portance ; but at its extreme limit this district opened upon the northern parts of Syria — the middle land destined to fall to the Nile or to the Euphrates as the prize of war.
ni. POLITICAL HISTORY.
40. The First Chaldean Empire. — Three empires rose in turn in this double valley : two in the south, with the center at Babylon on the Euphrates ; and, between the periods of their rule, a greater one in the north, with Nineveh on the Tigris for its capital. The later Chaldean scholars filled the gaps in their knowledge of their country's early history with fabulous
i«] POLITICAL HI8T0ET. 4S
annala reaching back seven hundred thousand years; but these stories are of interest only for an account of a creation and deluge similar to that in the Hebrew Genesis.^
The earliest historical date is that of Sargon the Elder, about 3800 B.C,' At this time Chaldea comprised many powerful cities, each a separate state striving for leadership. One of
FaAOMSKT OF &B8TB1AH " DkLUOB'TABLBT."
the most ancient capitals was TTr, in the south, the home of Abraham in later times. About 2400 b.c. the political center moved up the valley to Babylon — the Chaldean Thebes. Indeed, Babylon soon attained a preeminence never secured
■ Bm HHpero'B Davin of Civilization, e6!MlT2.
■KMnit ezcmvfttlons have eaUblUhed the rwlity of this soveceigii, irho, mnn laUl;, has been eomldeied mTthlcal.
44 THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES STATES. [§41
in Egypt by any one city^ and its name has been ever since a symbol for " vague magnificence and undefined dominion."
When Babylon had centralized Chaldea, her power spread rapidly over the rest of Mesopotamia, and, before 2000 b.c., over Syria to the Mediterranean. For several centuries after- ward the fashions of the Chaldean capital, in costumes and cosmetics, were copied in the cities of Syria, and her complex cuneiform script was used and her extensive literature was read by great numbers of people all over Western Asia.
41. Assyria. — Assyria appeared as a dependent province of Babylon in the nineteenth century. About 1300 B.C., the northern country temporarily became the mistress, but the next two centuries were filled with struggles between the two rivals. During this time Egypt was still supreme in southern Syria, though she had lost the north to the Hittites, a strange people who had descended from the Taurus Mountains. Finally, about 1100 b.c, the Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser /., shattered the Hittite power and probably extended his sway to the sea ; but for some centuries more the rule of Assyria in Western Asia was subject to frequent eclipse. In 745 b.c, however, the adventurer Pul, originally a gardener, seized the throne, and, assuming the name of the first great conqueror, TiglathrPileser (//.), founded the real Assyrian Empire. This was soon to become the greatest state that the world had seen so far, and it represented a higher organization of govern- ment than anything that had gone before (§ 74). Sargon IL (722 B.C.) carried away the Ten Tribes of Israel into captivity and reduced Egypt to a tributary state. This was the second complete politiccd union of the East (§ 18). Sargon's son. Sen- nacherib, is the most famous Assyrian monarch. He subdued the revolted king of Judah,^ but he will be better remem- bered from the Jewish account of a mysterious destruction of his army in a second expedition — smitten by " the angel of
1 2 Kings xviii., and the Assyrian story in this Yolume, §51; Maapero's Passing of the Empires, 289-295, giyes a fnll modem version.
1 42] POLITICAL HISTORY. 45
the Lord." This is the incident commemorated by Byron's lines: —
" The Assyrian came down like a won on the fold, His cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold ;
Like leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host, on the morrow, lay withered and strown.**
Curiously enough, contemporary Assyrian history makes no mention of this reverse. The empire certainly recovered qdckly, and the later part of Sennacherib's rule marks the height of Assyrian power. Thirty years later, Egypt revolted ; twenty years more, and Babylon followed ; then devastating Scythian hordes poured in from the north ; and in 606 B.C. the new power of the Medes, aided by Babylonia, captured Nine- veh itself. The Assyrian Empire disappeared, and the proud "city of blood," which had razed so many other cities, was given over to sack and pillage. Two hundred years later the Greek Xenophon could not even learn the name of the crum- bling ruins, when he came upon them. At last all signs of human habitation disappeared, and the very site was forgotten until its rediscovery in recent times.^
42. The New Babylonian Empire. — Babylon had broken out in many a fierce revolt during the six centuries of subjection to the northern state, and Sennacherib declares that on one occasion he razed it to the ground in punishment : —
**I laid the houses waste from foundation to roof with fire. Temple and tower I tore down and threw into the canal. I dug ditches through the city, and laid waste its site. Greater than the deluge was its annihi- lation.'^
In 625 came the successful rebellion; and then Babylonia and Media soon shared between them the old Assyrian Em- pire. This last chapter of Babylonian life was to last less than a century. The middle half of the period, and
^ Cf. Isaiah ziil. 19-22, and Jeremiah 1. and li., with Layard's Nineveh, 484.
46 THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES STATES. [§43
nearly all of its glories^ fall to the reign of NebiLchadnezzary Y>^>:f^^Yfi;if>*«6, (604^61 B.C.). Rebel-
lions Jerusalem was sacked, and the Jews carried into the Babylonian captivity; the ancient limits of the Chaldean Empire were restored, and the ancient architectural glories and engineering works renewed. But in 538 Babylon fell before the Persians (§ 69), and empire passed from the Euphrates valley until the rise of the Mohammedan state at Bagdad, thirteen hundred years later.
IV. SOCIETY AND CULTURE.
43. Races. — The first inhabitants of Chaldea whom we can trace were already a mixed race, called Accadians. After reach- ing some civilization, they were conquered at an early date by a less cultivated people, speaking a Semitic language. The union of the two elements made the historic Chaldeans. As- syria was more purely Semitic. This difference in origin may have had something to do with the fact that the quick-witted Babylonians made their country such a hive of industry and were so fond of letters and other peaceful pursuits ; while the hook-nosed, larger-framed, fiercer men of northern Mesopotamia cared mainly for war and commerce, and possessed only a borrowed art and literature.
44. Cuneiform Writing. — The early Accadian inhabitants had a system of hieroglyphs not unlike the Egyptian. These they painted at first on the leaves of the papyrus, which grew in the Euphrates as well as in the Nile ; at a later time they came to cut the characters with a metal " stylus " in clay tablets, which were then baked. This change of material led to a change in the written characters themselves. The pictures shriveled and flattened into conventionalized, wedge-shaped ("cuneiform") symbols, that look like scattered nails with curiously battered heads. The Semitic conquerors adapted this writing to their language; and in Assyria the complex
|M] SOCIETY AND CULTURE. 47
figures were written in Bucli minute characters — six lines to an inch sometimes — that some authorities believe magnifying
48 THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES STATES. [§45
glasses must have been used, — a surmise that was strengthened when the explorer Layard found a lens among the ruins of the Nineveh library.
45. Literature and Science. — In bulk the remains of this literature are immense. Each of the numerous cities that studded the valley of the twin rivers had its library — some- times several of them — of clay tablets or bricks. Originally the libraries contained papyrus rolls also, but these the climate has utterly destroyed. In Babylon the ruins of one library con- tained over thirty thousand tablets, of about the date 2700 B.C., all neatly arranged in order. A tablet, with its condensed writ- ing, corresponded fairly well to a chapter in one of our books. Each had its library number stamped upon it, and the collec- tions were carefully catalogued. The kings prided themselves on keeping the collections open to the public ; and Professor Sayce is sure that " a considerable portion of the inhabitants (including many women) could read and write." ^ The literary- class studied the "dead " Accadian language, as we study Latin, and the whole diplomatic and trading classes were obliged to know some of the contemporaiy Syrian tongues. The libra;- ries contained dictionaries and grammars of these languages, and also many translations, in columns parallel with the origi- nals. Scribes were constantly employed in copying and editing ancient texts, and they seem to have been .scrupulous in their work; when they could not make out a word in an ancient copy, they tell us so and leave the space blank.
In character, however, the Chaldean literature for the most part seems to a modern " a heap of pretentious trash," partly because it is so infused with reference to magic of all kinds, and partly because it has little in common with our modes of thought. It does, however, contain evidence of remarkable
^ For the evidence, see his Social Life among the Babylonians, 41-43. ''The ancient civilized East was almost as full of literary activity as is the world of to-day/' adds the same eminent scholar, in rather an extreme state' ment. lb, 43.
|»] SOCIETY AND CULTURE.
rTKun "Book." — Ad octagon Assyrian brick, now In the British im; sttstSayce. This repreuDlation is aboDtooe third the real size.
60 THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES STATES. [§46
advance in science and in commercial law. In Geometry the Chaldeans made about the same progress as the Egyptians ; in Arithmetic more. Their notation combined the decimal and duodecimal systems. Sixty was a favorite unit (divisible by both ten and twelve), used as the hundred is by us. Scientific Medicine was hindered by the belief in charms and amulets ; and even Astronomy was studied chiefly as a means of fortune- telling by the stars, — so that in Europe through the Middle Ages an astrologer was known as a Chaldean. However, the level plains and clear skies, as in Egypt, invited to an early study of the constellations, and some important progress was made. As we get from the Egyptians our year and months, so from the Chaldeans we get the week, with its " day of rest for the soul," as they called the seventh day, and the division of day and night into twelve hours each, with the subdivisions into minutes. They also invented the water clock and the sundial. They foretold eclipses, made star maps, and marked out on the heavens the apparent yearly path of the sun. The zodiacal ''signs" of our almanacs commemorate these early astronomers. Every great city had its lofty observatory and its royal astronomer ; and in Babylon, in 331 B.C., Alexander the Great found a continuous series of observations running back nineteen hundred and three years.
46. The Industrial Arts and Applied Science. — To a degree peculiar among the ancients, the men of the Euphrates made practical use of their scifence. They understood the lever and pulley, and used the arch in vaulted drains and aqueducts. They invented the potter's wheel, and au excellent system of weights and measures. Their treatises on agriculture passed on their knowledge in that subject to the later Greeks and Arabs. They had surpassing skill in cutting gems, and in enameling and inlaying ; and their looms produced the finest of muslins and of fleecy woolens, to which the dyer gave the most brilliant colors. In many such industries little advance has been made since, so far as results are concerned.
(«] SOCIBTT AND CULTURE. 51
47. Sodfll CloMM «nd ReUtiona. — At the top, as in Egypt, iras a despotic moaarch ruling through a large body of privi- l^ed officials; at the bottom, a hopeless mass of peasantry and slaves. The noble aristocracy of Egypt had no counterpart. Between the two extremes in Chaldea came a middle class of artisans, and of the educated and mercantile elements. Wealth counted for more, and birth apparently for less, than in Egypt. The merchant was a prominent figure. Even the extensive wars of Assyria, especially in the second period, cruel as they were, were no doubt essentially commercial in purpose — to secure the trade of Syria and Phoenicia, and to ruin rival trade
Amtbiax Comtkact Tablet iir Duplicate — The outer tablet to broken and ihowi part of tbe inner original, which could always be consnltod It the outaide was thought to have been tampered with.
centers. Deeds, wills, marriage settlements, legal contracts of all kinds, of which tens of thousands still survive, witness to tbe careful attention paid to business arrangements. The numerous signatures of witnesses, in a variety of "hand writ- ings," testify also to a widespread ability to write the difficult cuneiform text. From these contracts we learn that a woman could control property and carry on business independently of her husband ; but in other respects her position was not so enviable as in Egypt.
Assyrian royalty may well stand as a type of Oriental des- poUsffl. The person of the liing was surrounded with every-
62 ' THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES STATES. [§48
thing that could give elevation and charm to the eyes of the masses. Extraordinary magnificence and splendor removed him from the vulgar crowd. He gave audience seated on a golden throne, covered by a purple canopy, which was sup- ported by pillars glittering with precious stones. All who came into his presence prostrated themselves in the dust until bidden to rise.
48. Architecture and Sculpture. — The southern valley was destitute of building stone; but, with only their sun-dried bricks, the Babylonians constructed the marvelous tower- temples and the elevated gardens in imitation of mountain scenery, that called forth the admiration of the ancients. These ''Hanging Gardens" were built in successive terraces to a height of one hundred or one hundred and fifty feet, and were counted by the Greeks among the "seven wonders of the world."
But in architecture and in sculpture, though in no other arts, Assyria, the land of stone, excelled the land of brick. The un- trammeled power of the monarchs, and their Oriental passion for splendor and color, produced a sumptuous magnificence that the more restrained modern world probably never equals. The following description of a palace of ancient Nineveh is from Dr. J. K. Hosmer's The Jews. The passage is partly condensed and adapted.
*^ Upon a huge, wide-«preadiiig, artificial hill, faced with masonry, for a platform, rose cliff-like fortress walls a hundred feet more, wide enough for three chariots abreast and with frequent towers shooting up to a still loftier height. Sculptured portals, by which stood silent guardians, colossal figures in white alabaster, the forms of men and beasts, winged and of majestic mien, admitted to the magnificence within. . . . Upward, tier above tier, into the blue heavens, ran lines of colonnades, pillars of costly cedar, cornices glittering with gold, capitals blazing with ver- milion, and between them voluminous curtains of silk, purple and scar- let, interwoven with threads of gold. ... In the interior, stretching for miles, literally for miles, the builder of the palace ranged the illustrated record of his exploits. The inscriptions were deeply cut in the cuneiform character ; and parallel with them, in scarlet and green, gold and silver,
{«] SOCIETY AKD CULTURE. 58
nn the lepresentation of the scenes themselTes. . . . The mind ginirs dizzy with the thought of the eplendor — the processions of satraps and ennachs and tribuUiry kioga, nindiog up the stairs, and passing ia a ladiant stream tbrongh the balls — the gold and embroidery, the ivory ud the sumptuous furniture, the pearls and tbe hangings."
49. Religion and Uorality. — The worship of the dead has left plain traces. Each tomb had an altar at the head for
CoLOBUL Uam-bbast IN Alabastbb, fbom tkb Palack of Saroon (now in the Louvre).
offerings of food ; with a man were buried his arms; with a girl, her scent bottles, combs, ornaments, and cosmetics. Min- gled with this worship, as in Egypt, and as one learns to expect among all early peoples, was a nature worship, with numerous gods and demigods. The usual accompaniment of ancestor worship is a belief in witchcraft and in unfriendly ghosts and demons. In Cbaldea these superstitions appeared
54 THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES STATES. [§60
in an exaggerated form. Indeed, the medieval representations of the devil, with horns, hoofs, and tail, came from the Baby- lonians, through the Jewish Talmud. Nature worship, too, in its lower stages, is often accompanied by debasing and licentious rites, in which drunkenness and isensuality .appear as acts of religious worship. In Babylonia such revolting features remained throughout her history. At the same time, some hymns and prayers rise to a pure monotheism ; and the Assyrian felt strongly that sense of sin which the Egyptian lacked and which has played so great a part in the Jewish and Christian religions (§ 60). Along with the early belief in a shadowy existence of the ghost in the tomb, was another con- ception of a future life — for some, in a hell of tortures and pains ; for others, who knew how to secure the divine favor, of pleasures and happiness in distant Isles of the Blest.
In character the voluptuous Babylonians were gentle. The warlike Assyrians delighted in cruelty, and their kings brag incessantly of torturing, flaying, and impaling great numbers of prisoners (§ 53).
V. ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTS.
50. From an Assyrian Prayer for Remission of Sins. — ** O my
god, iny sins are many I . . . O my goddess, . . . great are my misdeeds I I liave committed faults and I knew them not. I have fed upon misdeeds and I knew them not. ... I weep and no one comes to me ; I cry aloud and no one hears me ; ... I sink under affliction. I turn to my merci- ful god and I groan, Lord, reject not thy servant, — and if he is hurled into the roaring waters, stretch to him thy hand ! The sins I have com- mitted, have mercy upon them I my faults, tear them to pieces like a garment P*
51. From a Chaldean Hynm, composed in the city of Ur, before the time of Abraham.
^^ Father, long suffering and full of forgiveness, whose hand upholds the life of all mankind I . . . First-bom, omnipotent, whose heart is immensity, and there is none who may fathom it I . . .
f54] ILLUSTBATIVB EXTRACTS. 55
In heaven, who is sapreme ? Thoa alone, thou art supreme I
On earth, who is supreme ? Thou alone, thou art supreme I
As for thee, thy will is made known in heaven, and the angels bow their
faces. As for thee, thy will is made known upon earth, and the spirits below
kiss the ground.**
52. From a Prayer of Nebuchadnezzar. — *'Let me love thy supreme lordship; let the fear of thy divinity exist in my heart; and give me what seemest good unto thee, since thou maintainest my life.*'
63. Assyrian Cruelty in War. — From an inscription of Assnr- Natsir-Pal, about 850 B.C. (The inscriptions in full are given in Records of the Past, II.)
*' They did not embrace my feet. With combat and with slaughter I attacked the city and captured it ; three thousand of their fighting men I alew with the sword. Their spoil, their goods, their oxen, and their sheep I carried away. The numerous captives I burned with fire. I captured many of the soldiers alive. I cut off the hands aud feet of some ; I cut off the noses, the ears, and the fingers of others ; the eyes of the numerous soldiers I put out. I built up a pyramid of the living and a pyramid of heads. In the middle of them I suspended their heads on vine stems in the neighborhood of their city. Their young men and their maidens I burned as a holocaust. The city I overthrew, dug up, and burned with fire. I annihilated it.*'
Of another city : *' The nobles, as many as had revolted, I flayed ; with their skins I covered the pyramid. Some of them I immured in the midst of the pjrramid ; others above the pyramid I impaled on stakes ; others round about the pyramid I planted on stakes.**
54. Sennacherib's Account of his Expedition against Jerusalem (Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, II. 161-162).
"Because Hezekiah, king of Judah, would not submit to my yoke, I came up against him. ... I took forty-six of his strong fenced cities ; and of the smaller towns ... I took and plundered a countless number. ... I captured and carried off as spoil 200,150 people, old and young, male and female, together with horses and mares, asses and camels, oxen and Bheep, a countless multitude. And Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates. . . . nienupon this Hezekiah there fell the fear of the power of my arms, and
66 THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES STATES. [f 56.
he sent out to me the chiefs and the elders of Jerosalem with thirty talents of gold and eight hundred talents of silver, and divers treasures, a rich and immense booty. ^^
65. From a Cylinder of Narbonidos, 500 B.c. — Karbonidos, with antiquarian zeal, had excavated an ancient temple to find the cylinder of its founder (Records of the Past, I. 5-6).
** I sought for its old foundation-stone, and eighteen cubits deep I dug into the ground, and the foundation-stone of Naram-Sin, the son
of Sargon, Which for thirty-two hundred years no king who had gone before me
had seen. The Sun-god, the great lord of E-Barbara, the temple of the seat of the
goodness of his heart, let me see, even me.^*
For Further Readtno. — Sayce, Babylonians and Assyrians; As- syria, its Princes, Priests, and People ; Social Life among the Assyrians and Babylonians; Ancient Empires; Rogers, Babylonia and Assyria; Maspero, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, Dawn of Civilization^ Struggle of the Nations, and Passing of the Empires; Rawlinson, Anciefit Empires (readable, but rapidly going out of date) ; Layard, Nineveh and Babylon. Advanced students will find an admirable treat- ment in McCurdy^s History, Prophecy, and the Monuments.
Topics. — 1. Assyrian numeration. 2. Babylonian architecture.
3. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. 4. The siege of Babylon by Cyrus. 5. The daily life of an Assyrian.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MIDDLB STATES.
56. The most powerful Syrian state was the strange Hittite Empire which appeared suddenly about 1300 b.c, and contended on equal terms for two centuries with Egypt and Assyria. We know little about it, however, and its chief function seems to have been to break up for a time the political unity of the East, and so to prepare the way for the rise of the Jewish nation.
The two Syrian peoples that demand notice here are the Phoenicians and the Hebrews. Each of these was to make a distinct and important factor in the development of civilization.
I. THE PHOENICIANS.
57. The First Men who went down to the Sea in Ships. — The position of Chaldea at the head of the Persian Gulf was advantageous for commerce, and Babylonia, in early times, had been a mart of exchange between Syria and the frontiers of India. But long before the year 1000 b.c. the Phoenicians so far surpassed these early traders, that we think of their country as the first land of commerce. To them the Mediter- ranean was all that the Nile was to the Egyptians. They dwelt on a little strip of broken coast, shut off from the con- tinent by the Lebanon Mountains ; the many harbors invited them seaward, and the "cedar of Lebanon" furnished the best of masts and ship timber. When history first reveals the Medi- terranean, about 1600 B.C., it is dotted with their adventurous sails, and for centuries more they are the only real sailor folk. Half traders, half pirates, their crews crept from island port
67
58
THE MIDDLE STATES.
[§68
to port, to barter with the natives or to sweep them off for slaves, as strength and opportunity might advise. Farther and farther they sought wealth on the sea, until they passed even the Pillars of Hercules, into the open Atlantic^ and until at last we see them exchanging the tin of Britain, the amber of the Baltic, and the slaves and ivory of West Africa^ for the spices, gold, and precious stones of India.
S8. Disseminators of Civilization and Inventors of the Alpha- bet,—The Phoenicians were the first colonizers — the pre- cursors of the Greeks, Dutch, and EngUsh. They fringed the larger islands and the shores of the Mediterranean with trading stations, some of which themselves grew into centers of empire, and all of which were cen- ters of civilization. Carthage, Utica, Gades (Cadiz on the Atlantic), were among their colonies. They worked tin mines, too, in Colchis, in Spain, and finally in Britain, and so made possible the manufacture of bronze on a large scale to replace stone implements in Asia and in Egypt, while they probably introduced this material into many parts of Europe. Articles of their manufacture or commerce are found in great abundance in the ancient tombs of the Greek and Italian peninsulas — the earliest European homes of civilization. Thus in the most selfish, but most effective, way the Phoenicians became the missionaries to Europe of the material culture that Asia and Africa had developed. It was their function in history not to create, but to disseminate. Especially did they teach the Greeks, the teachers of the rest of Europe.
Their chief export, some one has said, was the alphabet; and this in a sense they seem to have invented. When the
|
• J |
• • |
• |
|
"c |
5 |
§ |
|
8 |
TO |
o |
|
Q. |
6 |
QC |
|
^ |
A |
A |
|
^ |
^ |
B |
|
> |
e |
<c |
|
A |
>D |
D |
|
^ |
>£• |
E |
|
^H |
EH |
H |
|
^ |
K |
K |
|
I |
U |
I.L |
|
W\ |
h, |
M |
|
M |
N |
N |
|
O |
0 |
0 |
|
9 |
9 |
9Q |
|
q |
PK |
R |
|
w |
^2 |
^S |
|
T |
T |
T |
Parts of Alphabets.
{5d] THE PHOENICIANS. 59
Egyptians conquered Syria the Phoenicians were using the B^ylonian cuneiform script, with its hundreds of difficult characters. It was natural that, for the necessities of their widespread commerce, they should seek a simpler mode of communication ; and about 1100 B.C., after a gap of four cen- turies in our knowledge of their writing, we find them with a true alphabet of twenty-two easily-written letters. They seem to have adapted these from the phonetic symbols intermingled with the Egyptian hieroglyphs (§ 25). From this first alphabet all the other true alphabets in the world have been borrowed, — Persian, Hindoo, and Hebrew, and Greek and Latin. It is one mvention that has not had to be made twice.^
69. Political and Social ConditionB. — Important as was the part they played, the Phoenicians in themselves do not interest us particularly. They spoke a Semitic tongue, and were, perhaps, allied to the Jews ; but their religion was especially abhorrent, prominent as it was, even among the Syrian peoples, for the licentious features conuected with the worship of Astarte (the Moon-Goddess), and for the cruel sacrifice of the first-bom child to Baal (the Sun-God). Their loose confedera- cies of cities were grouped about Sidon or Tyre as leaders, but they never formed a real state, nor did they try to organize an empire of dependencies, as their colony Carthage was to do in Roman times. Satisfied with their freedom on the sea, they submitted easily, as a rule, to any powerful neighbor, — Assyria or Egypt, — quite content with the profits of the trade thereby opened to them. As tributaries, they sent workmen to construct the magnificent buildings of Assyria or to develop the mines of Egypt, and they furnished the fleets of either empire in turn. They were to these ancient empires what the Italian cities were to be to the monarchies of Europe in the fifteenth century. Tyre remained a mercantile capital under Persian supremacy, until its capture by Alexander (332 b.c). From this downfall the proud city never recovered, and fisher-
1 Bat cf . § S7, note 2.
60 THE MIDDLE STATES. [f 59
men now spread their nets to dry in the sun on the bare rock that formed its site.
Ezekiel (xxvi., xxvii.) describes the exaltation of Tyre in noble poetry that teaches us much regarding Phoenician trade and life : —
'* 0 thou that dwellest at the entry of the sea, which art the merchant of the peoples unto many isles, . . . thou, O Tyre, hast said, I am x>erfect in beauty. Thy borders are in the heart of the seas ; thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy planks of fir trees. . . . They have taken cedars from Lebanon to be masts for thee ; they have made thy benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood from the isles of Kittim [Kition in Cyprus], Of fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was thy sail, . . . blue and purple from the isles of Elishah [North Africa] was thy awning. . . . All the ships of the sea were in thee to exchange thy merchandise. . . . Tarshish [Tartessus, southwestern Spain] was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches. With silver, iron, tin, and lead they traded for thy wares. Javan [Greek Ionia], Tubal, and Mesheck [the lands of the Black and Caspian seas], they were thy traffickers. . . . They of the house of Togarmah [Armenia] traded for thy wares with horses and mules. . . . The men of Dedan were thy traffickers. Many isles were the mart of thy hands. They brought thee bones of ivory and of ebony. . . .^^
Ezekiel names also Syria^ Judah^ Damascus, Arabia and Kedar, Sheba and Raamah, and other "traffickers," and, likewise, among the articles of exchange, emeralds, coral, rubies, wheat, honey, oil, balm, wine, wool, yarn, spices, lambs, and goats.
The prophet gives us this picture to throw into darker colors his stern and terrible denunciation because Tyre had rejoiced at the fall of Jerusalem, a commercial rival.
** Therefore thus saith the Lord God : Behold I am against thee, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sen causeth his waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre, . . . and . . . thy pleasant houses. . . . And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease ; and the spund of thy harps shall be no more heard. And I will make thee a bare rock : thou shalt be a place for the spreading of nets."
§62] THE HEBREWS— POLITICAL HISTORY. 61
n. THE HEBREWS.
A. Political History.
00. Men of the Desert: the Age of the Patriarchs. — The Hebrews appear first as nomad shepherds on the edge of the Arabian desert. Abraham aud Jacobs and other patriarchal chiefs of that time and place, probably lived and ruled much as Arab sheiks do in the same regions to-day.
This life was not altered materially, at first, when the Hebrews entered Egypt and settled in the fertile pasturage of Goshen, near the Red Sea, where flitting Arab tribes have ever been wont to encamp. The incursion took place while Egypt was roled by the Hyksos nomads (§ 18 h). When the native Egyp- tian rule was restored by the Theban kings, " who knew not Joseph," the Hebrews were reduced to the position of serfs, until, taking advantage perhaps of the disorders of Egypt at the time of the great Libyan invasion (§ 18 c), they escaped to the neighboring desert, to resume for a time their old life.
61. Settlement in Canaan, and the Period of the Judges. — Apparently they were now a numerous people and had become accustomed to more fixed abodes. About 1300 b.c. they began to conquer Palestine for their home. Then followed two cen- turies of incessant, bloody warfare with their neighbors, some of whom had attained a much higher material civilization than these wandering invaders. During all this time the Hebrews remained a loose alliance of pastoral tribes. Such central authority as existed was represented by a succession of popular heroes like Samson, Jephthah, Gideon, and Samuel, known as Judges. Much of the time anarchy ruled, and bands of robbers drove travelers from the highways.
62. The Kings and Prophets. — Such conditions gradually brought out the need of more effective union. About 1100 b.c a stronger central government was set up in the form of a monarchy, which soon became hereditary. Alongside the kings, however, stood religious teachers, known as prophets,
62 THE MIDDLE STATES. [|03
who, without official station, were also real rulers of the people, and who did not hesitate to rebuke or to oppose a sovereign. The eecond and third kings, David and Solomon (1055-97S b.c), raised the state to the position of a considerable empire. The way had just been cleared. The Hittites had ruined the Egyptian power in Syria, and then in turn had been shattered by Tiglath-Pileser,while the Assyrian power itself, in someway that we do not know, had
been checked in its career (S «)■
63. Division and Decline. — The union had not be- come thorough, however, and on the death of Solo- mon, the northern ten of the twelve tribes, rebelling against heavy taxation, set up for themselves and formed the kingdom of Israel. The southern rem- nant, of two tribes, became known as the kingdom of Judah. The first of these kingdoms lasted two hun- dred and fifty years, until Sargon carried the Israel- 3TRIA. ites into that Assyrian cap-
tivity in which they finally disappear from history (§ 41). Judah lasted four centuries after the separation, — most of the time, of course, tributary to Assyria or to Babylon, — until, in punishment for rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar carried away the people into the Babylonian captivity (§ 42),
64. The Priestly Rule. — This closed the separate politick history of the Jews. The more zealous of them were allowed to return, it is true, when the Persians had conquered Babylon
fOq TH£ MISSION OF THE JEWS. 68
(§§ 42 and 69), and in internal matters the priesthood from this time exercised a controlling voice ; but politically Judea formed a strictly subject province of the Persian, Greek, or Eoman empire, except for one gleam of independence, when the heroic Maccabees rebelled against the successors of Alexander in Syria (§ 250). A series of stubborn rebellions against Eome finally brought a terrible chastisement in the year 70 a.d. (§ 459 a). After a notable siege, Jerusalem was sacked and razed, and the remnant of inhabitants were sold into slavery, to remain dispersed among all lands to this day.
B. The Mission of the Jews.
65. The First Monotheistic People. — The Hebrews added nothing to material civilization, nor did they contribute directly to intellectual or artistic progress. Their work was higher. Their true history is a record of the spiritual growth of a people.
*' If the Greek was to enlighten the world, if the Roman was to rule the worid, if the Teuton was to be the common disciple and emissary of both, it wafl from the Hebrew that all were to learn the things that belong to
another world.' ^ — Fbbemak, Chief Periods, 66.
•
Among other ancient nations, individuals had risen at times to noble religious thought, but the Hebrews first, as a whole people, felt strenuously the obligation of the moral law, and first attained to a pure worship of one God. Judaism, in one aspect, is a stern and austere protest against the revolting sensuality of neighboring religions ; in a still higher view, it is marked by an almost passionate belief in the just government of the world and in the final triumph of righteousness.
66. The Inflttence of Race or Environmeht. — In experience and character the Hebrews were sharply distinguished from their Phoenician neighbors. The desert had trained these apostles of religious thought, as the sea had trained the traders. The religious fervor of the Jew does not seem to have been
64 THE MIDDLE STATSa [§67
merely a matter of race. The Semites of the coast and of Syria — many or all of them allied to the Hebrews — practiced the most cruel^ revolting, sensual religious rites. Among the Semites of the desert, on the other hand, originated Judaism, and afterward Mohammedanism — two of the most spiritual of religions. Of course no one will try to explain these religions simply as products of physical surroundings, any more than simply as a result of race ; but it is well to recognize how favor- able to religious contemplation and enthusiasm were the soli- tude and the whole character of semi-tropical Arabian tent life.
67. Historical Growth of the Faith. — At first this religious insight and firm faith seem to have belonged to only a few — to the patriarchs and, centuries later, to the prophets, with a small following of the more spiritually-minded of the nation. For over a thousand years the grosser masses were always tending to fall away into the superstitions of their Syrian neighbors. It is the merit of the Hebrews that a remnant always clung to the higher truth, until it did become the uni- versal faith of a whole people. No doubt the Babylonian captivity assisted. The energetic minority who found their way back to Judea, were indeed a " chosen " and sifted people, among whom there was to be no more tendency to idolatry. ' The faith of the patriarchs and prophets became the soul of a nation — as a later and higher development of that faith was to become the soul of our whole civilization.
This, then, was the mission of the Hebrews. As Kenan well says {History of Israel^ I. 22) : " WluU Greece was to be as regards intellectual cuUure, and Rome as regards politics, these nomad, Semites were as regards religion" The Jews, therefore, are sometimes counted a fourth influence, with Greeks, Eomans, and Teutons, in making our world (§ 3). But, however indis- pensable, Judaism was an exclusive religion, unfit of itself to affect the world ; and the rise and spread#f Christianity belong, after all, not solely to Jewish influence, but quite as much to the history of the Graeco-Roman world (§ 606).
le?] THE MISSION OF THE JEWS. 66
"Fob, Further Rbadino. — Hebrew history, politloal and religiouB, must be studied, of course, in the Old Testament. The Jewish historian, JoMephus (first century a.d.), may be read with profit, and also the Talmud^ a collection of Jewish legends and customs. Modem authorities are numerous, but in general the valuable ones can be used only by adTanoed students. Among the shorter and better treatments are the following: A. H. Sayce, Early History of the Hebrews; J. K. Hosmer, The Jews (very readable ; two thirds of the volume is given to Jewish history since the dispersion); Montefiore, Hihhert Lectures for 1892 (the views of a liberal Hebrew scholar) ; McCurdy, History^ Propheqf, and the Monuments (probably the best view of the relations of the Hebrews to other peoples).
Spbgull Rsport. — The Talmud,
CHAPTER V.
L THE MAP GKOWS.
68. Hew States. — So f ar, we have had to do only with the territory described in § 12, — the Nile and Euphrates valleys, with Syria between them. But shortly before the overthrow of Babylon, two new centers of power appeared, one on either side of the older historic field. These were Persia and Lydia.
Lydia calls for only brief mention. It was a kingdom in Asia Minor beyond the limits of the Assyrian power, with which, however, it had had some intercourse, both friendly and hostile. Somewhat before 550 b.c, its sovereign, OroestiSy united all Asia Minor west of the Halys Kiver under his sway, and made the Lydian Empire for a brief time one of the great world-powers. The region was rich, especially in metals; and the wealth of this monarch so impressed the Greeks that we still say, after them, " Rich as Croesus." Croesus counted among his subjects the Greek cities that fringed the western cgast of Asia Minor, at that time the most civilized of the Greek people ; and through this connection the Greeks were to be brought immediately afterward into contact with the new- Persian Empire (§ 69).
On the other side of the Euphrates and Tigris lay the lofty and, for the most part, arid plateau of Iran. This was the home of the Medes atid Persians, The Medes dwelt toward the north; the Persians toward the south. The two were
^ The preceding chapter, with its treatment of minor Syrian states, was a necessary intermption in the story of political development. We now retnm to that subject where we left H in Chapter m., at the faU of Babylon.
66
|O0] NEW STATES. 67
closely connected, apparently, and both spoke Aryan lan< guages (i.e, allied to Greek, Latin, and German speech). How this came about, history cannot say (§ 6, note 1). They ap- peared first, about 850 b.c, as fierce barbarians, whom the As- syrians found it needful to subdue and to castigate repeatedly.
Rise and Extent of the Persian Empire. — About 625 B.C. a Median leader united the tribes of the plateau into a mon- archy able to defy, and finally (606 b.c.) to conquer, Assyria (§ 41). For some fifty years after that, the world with which we are concerned remained at peace, divided between Babylon, Egypt, Lydia, and this new Median empire. Then Oynia the Oreat (558-529 b.c), a tributary Persian prince, by successful rebellion against the Medes, transferred leadership to the southern part of the plateau, and quickly built up the largest and most powerful empire known up to that time in all his- tory. His overthrow of Media involved war with her allies. The fall of Babylon (§ 42) left him no rival in the old Asia; he conquered Croesus of Lydia and seized upon all Asia Minor ; and a few years later his son subdued Egypt. Thus the new empire included all the old historic states, together with the new districts of Iran and Asia Minor.
And now again the field of history widens. The first four Persian kings added further to their empire: on the north, Armenia ; . on the east, Afghanistan andr northwestern India (the rich Punjab district in the valley of the Indus) ; and, on the west, the European coast from the Black Sea to the Greek peninsula. The eastern and western frontiers were farther apart than Washington and San Francisco, and the territory of some two million square miles (four times as large as the greatest Assyrian Empire) equaled a little more than half modem Europe, or nearly two thirds the United States, and contained from fifty to seventy-five millions of people. It was bounded on the south by seas and burning deserts ; on the north by the barren steppes of Europe and Asia, from which it was separated by the Danube, the Black and Caspian
68 THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. [{70
seas, the Caucasus^ and the Jaxartes Biver ; on the east by the Desert of Thibet and the Indus ; and on the west by the African desert, the sea, and the little Greek peninsula. Its only civilized neighbors were the populous districts of India and the Greeks of Europe.
With these last it came into conflict some thirty years after the death of Cyrus, and the heroic and marvelous success of the Greeks began a two-thousand-year struggle between Europe and Asia. The story belongs to European history (§ 157 ff.). It is enough here to note that the Persian repulse marked the limit of their empire. That empire lasted, however, a century and a half more, until Macedonian Alexander conquered it and established a modified Greek civilization over all the Eastern world (§ 240 ff.).
11. THE PERSIAN CONTRIBUTIONS.
70. Religion and Morals. — The noble religion of the Per- sians is contained in the Zend-Avesta — the Persian Bible — and had been established about 1000 b.g. by Zoroaster. According to this great teacher, the world was the scene of conflict between the two opposing powers of Light and Dark- ness, or Good and Evil. It was the duty of man to assist the good power, by killing noxious beasts and caring tenderly for other animals, by redeeming the earth to fertility, and by resisting evil within his own heart. Idolatry was not permitted; and though the older superstitions cropped out sometimes in Magism — the religious system of the Median priests — and though there arose a belief in a multitude of good and bad angels, still this faith was by far the purest of the ancient world, except that of the Hebrews. In part, no doubt, this similarity in religious thought, as compared with the idolatrous and licentious peoples about them, explains the friendly relations between the Persians and their tributaries, the Jews (§ 64). The Persian belief in a dual principle of good and evil was to affect Greek philosophy and the thought of the later Christian world.
§72] PERSIA AND THE SCTTHIAN& 69
Writers have spokea much of the decay of the early Persian Tirtue. Originally Persia was a land of hardy shepherds. The small population had now to furnish garrisons for all the great centers of the empire, while the nobles were employed as governors in the vast imperial organization. Of course the old simplicity of life was lost; it is true, too, that the atti- tude of the Persians toward their king was one of Oriental slayishness; but the charge of degeneracy is not well sus- tained. Herodotus admired their manly sports and the train- ing of the boys — " to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak the truth." To the last they fought gallantly, and the Greeks conquered in battle because of improved weapons and better tactics, not from superior bravery.
71. Political Contributiona. — The Persians were soldiers and rulers. They borrowed their art and their material civiliza- tion from Babylon; and, apart from the influence of. their religion, their three important services to the world were con- nected with their political history : (a) the immense expan- sion of the map; (6) the repulse of the Scythians; (c) the higher organization of imperial government. The first of these has been dwelt upon in connection with the rise of the empire ; the other two demand separate treatment.
III. PERSIA AND THE SCYTHIANS.
72. Persia the Champion of Civilization. — In Greek history, Persia was to £Cppear as the foe of the rising European cul- ture, and so we are apt to forget her great service as the defender of civilization. About 630 b.c, shortly before the downfall of Nineveh, the frozen steppes of the north had poured hordes of savages into Western Asia (§ 41). These destructive nomads were called Scythians by the Greeks. We do not know who they were, but the irruption seems in some respects similar to those of the Huns, Turks, and Tartars, in later history. They plundered as far as Egypt, and made a real danger to all the culture the world had been building
70 THE PERSIAN EMPIRB. [{78
up so painfully for four thousand years. Assyria and Lydia were both overrun; and empire fell rightfully to the Medes and Persians, who could and did champion the cause of civ- ilization against barbarism. The Medes drove the ruthless ravagers back to their own deserts; and the repeated and imposing expeditions of the early Persian kings into the Scythian country awed the barbarians and averted the danger for centuries. Darius, the greatest of the successors of Cyrus, seems to have justified his conquests on this ground. In a famous inscription on a rock cliff, enumerating his conquests, he says : '^ Auramazda [the God of Light] delivered unto me these countries when he saw them in uproar. ... By the grace of Auramazda I have brought them to order again." ^
IV. IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT.
73. .The Old Kingdom-empirM. — Each kingdom in ancient times was administered by a complex bureaucracy, as in Egypt (§ 22); but until about 700 b.c, the various '^ em- pires " as wholes had a very simple machinery. The tributary states retained kings from their old royal families ; the peoples kept their separate languages, religions, forms of government, laws, and customs. Indeed, they remained in almost all re- spects as separate as before they were incorporated in the conquering empire, except for the obligation to pay tribute and to assist in war, and except that their kings were expected to attend the court of the imperial master from time to time and to bring him presents. Two subject kingcToms might even make war upon each other without interference from the higher king. The brief empire of the Jews was of this nature. Solomon, the Book of Kings tells us, " reigned over dU the kingdoms . . . unto the border of Egypt ; they brought presents and served Solomon."
1 Quoted by Ranke, Universal History, 113. The translation, however, is dispated. The inscription from which this is taken is in three parallel col- umns, in different languages, and served as the " Rosetta Stone " of the cnnel- form writing (§ 11).
{7q ^ DftPBBIAL GOYBRNMENT. 71
Plainly; such a conglomerate empire would fall to pieces easOj. If any reverse happened to the dominant state, — if a foreign invasion or the unexpected death of a sovereign oc- cuned, — the whole fabric might be shattered at a moment mto its original parts. Then would follow years of bloody war, until some power restored the imperial structure. Tran- quillity and security could not exist ; and, worst of all, a sover- eign state was sure to try to check chronic rebellion by severe punishments that often ruined flourishing countries. A com- mon practice, to break the spirit of a rebellious people, was the wholesale deportation of inhabitants to colonize some distant territory, whoae old inhabitants then, without fault of their own, were transferred to the depopulated district. In this way the Assyrians transplanted Chaldeans to Armenia, Israel- ites to Media, and Arabians and Persians to Palestine.^
74. GoYenunent tyy Satraps. — The first improvement came from Assyria in her second period. The re-founders of the Assyrian power in the eighth century were organizers as well as conquerors. They left the subject peoples their own laws and customs as before, but they broke up many of the old kingdoms into satrapies, or provinces, ruled by appointed offi- cers, who in theory were dependent wholly upon the pleasure of the Great King.
75. System perfected by Darius. — The Persians inherited and perfected this advance in centralization. Darius J., the fourth Persian king (621-485 B.C.), is sometimes called the organizer of the empire, as Cyrus was its founder. Improve- ment though it was, the Assyrian system was poor enough. Each satrap remained virtually sovereign in his own govern- ment, and was always tempted to make himself an indepen- dent king. Darius introduced effective checks upon this danger.
^ Ix)iigfeUow'8 pictnrei in Evangeline, of the removal of a smaU popalation fai modern times with all possible gentleness, will help ns to imagine the mis- ery that most have come from such transportation of whole nations by oyer* luid Jonmeys of a thousand miles.
72 THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. [§76
In each of the twenty provinces, power was divided between the satrap himself and the commander of the standing army, who were separately responsible to the capital ; moreover, in each province was placed a royal secretary (the " King's Ear ") to communicate constantly with the Great King ; and, most im- portant of all, a special royal commissioner (the "King's Eye"), backed with military forces, appeared at intervals in each satrapy to inquire into the government, and, if necessary, to arrest the satrap.
76. Post Roads. — To draw the distant parts of the empire closer, Darius instituted a magnificent system of post roads, with ferries and bridges, with milestones and excellent inns, and with relays of horses for the royal couriers. The chief road, from Susa to Sardis, was over fifteen hundred miles long ; but it is said that dispatches were sometimes carried its whole length in six days, although ordinary travel required three months. Benjamin Ide Wheeler writes graphically of this great highway (Aleaxxjider the OreaJb, 196-197) : —
**A11 the diverse life of the countries it traversed was drawn into its paths. Carians and Cilicians, Phrygians and Cappadocians, staid Lydians, sociable Greeks, crafty Armenians, rude traders from the Euxine shores, nabobs of Babylon, Medes and Persians, gaUoping couriers mounted on their Bokhara ponies or fine Arab steeds, envoys with train and state, peasants driving their donkeys laden with skins of oil or wine or sacks of grain, stately caravans bearing the veares and fabrics of the south to exchange for the metals, slaves, and grain of the north, travelers and traders seeking to know and exploit the world, -* all were there, and all were safe under the protection of an empire, the road- way of which pierced the strata of many tribes and many cultures, and helped set the world o.-mixing. ^'
77. Permanency o^ the Political System. — This was as far as imperial organization went until the time of the Eoman world. It seems to us that little was done to promote a spirit of unity among the diverse peoples. Each kept its separate language, customs, and religion. Still, for the times, the organization of Darius was a marvelous work. It decayed somewhat, after a
§77] IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. 78
while^ but it remained effective enough to maintain political unity against all peril from within, and the empire lost no important territory until attacked by Europe. Certainly the Persian system marked a great advance over the earlier two thousand years of looser kingdom-empires. Indeed, it is the most effective ever used yet in the East, and it is essentially the same as that of the later Saracen and Turkish empires. It was much more like the later Koman imperial government than hke the older Asiatic system^ and it gave to large parts of Asia a better government than they have had during the past five hundred years of Turkish misrule in our era — during which time populous regions that under Persia blossomed like gardens have become desert wastes and the lairs of beasts.
For Furthbh Reading. — The best short reference on Persia is Wheeler's Alexander the Great, 187-207.
Special Reports. — 1. Zoroaster and his teachings (James Free« man Clarke, Ten Great Religions; Maspero, Passing of the Empires), 2. Persian architectare (Rawlinson, AncierU Monarchies, III.). 3. The campaigns of Cambyses in Egypt. 4. The accession of Darius. 5. Anecdotes from Herodotus regarding Persian kings, and the historical Tsloe of the stories.
CHAPTER VI.
Brief general statements can hardly avoid some element of error ; «nd adyancing scholarship is more and more modifying the sharp contrasts that used to be drawn between i>eople8. StQl, it is helpful to re-suryey the Oriental field rapidly from two points of view.
78. Progress. — This has been chiefly the point of view in the text, and it is the most important to hold in mind. Egypt gave us the beginnings of art and science^ and Ghaldea devel- oped material civilization and commercial law. Phoenicia scat- tered the germs of this progress over much of the Eastern hemisphere, to take root in many places. Persia enlarged many-fold the map of the orderly world, beat back for centu- ries the danger of barbarian invasion, and organized an effec- tive system of imperial administration. And the Hebrews gave to their pure, lofty religious conceptions a vitality that was to make them sway the world.
79. Limitations. — But this progress was imperfect. Art and science became mummy-like through their adherence to fixed patterns. Sculpture was rigid, impassive, and unlovely, even when it did not jjfiix the monstrous with the human. Architecture sought for magnitude rather than beauty and pro- portion. Most religions, however far they had progressed, continued to foster lust and cruelty. Thought cringed before superstition, and did not seek fearlessly to know. War was unspeakably inhuman and destructive. Government meant the omnipotent despotism of one man and the abject servility of all the rest. Even material prosperity was only for the few.
Whether the Oriental man could have thrown off these tram- mels if left longer to himself, we cannot say surely ; but twice
74
J 79] A RBTR08PBCT. 75
as long a time had already been consumed since these civiliza- tions had appeared in full blossom as has since sufficed for all our Western growth ; and the relatively slow progress of the East in those four thousand years^ together with the stationary history of China and India since, points to a probable crystal- lization, rather than to further progress, had new actors not appeared upon a new scene.
SUOOBSTIOKS FOB BEYnSW OF PaBT I.
Let the class prepare xeyiew questions, each member five or ten, to ask of the others. Criticise the qnestions, showing which ones help to bring oat important facts and contrasts and likenesses, and which are merely trivial or curious. Use the syllabus in the table of contents, so as to get dear the plan of this part of the book. It is not worth while to hold students responsible for dates in Part I., unless, perhaps, for a few of the later ones. Make list of important names or terms for rapid drill, de- manding brief but clear explanation of each term.
PART IL
TEE aSEEES.
Oreece — tJuU point of light in history I — Hbobl.
We are all Greeks, Our lawsy our literature, our religion, our art, have their roots in Oreece, — Shellet.
Except the blind forces of nature, there is nothing that moves in the world to-day that is not Greek in origin, — Henry Sumner Maine.
Map Studies.
Note the three greater divisions : Northern Greece (Epims and Thea- saly); Central Greece (a group of eleven districts, to the isthmuB of Corinth); and the Peloponnesus (the southern peninsula). Name the districts from Boeotia south, and the chief cities in each as shown on the map. Which divisions have no coast? Locate Delphi, Thermopylae, Tempe, Parnassus, Olympus, Olympia, Salamis, Ithaca, eight islands, three cities on the Asiatic side. Draw the map with the amount of detail just indicated.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORT SURVET.
I. THE EUROPEAN AND THE ASIATIC TYPE.
80. Distinctions in Culture. — Asia had developed the first civilizations; but, at a later date, an independent and more important culture began to rise in Southern Europe. This ne^w civilization was soon to draw from the Orient in many ways, but it remained essentially European in character. Diversity succeeded to Asiatic uniformity, moderation to extravagancey freedom to despotism,
76
§81] GREECE TYPICAL OF EUROPE. 77
81. Physical Differences. — This contrast between the cultures of Europe and of Asia is based, in part, upon physical differ- ences. We must note four geographical peculiarities of Europe.
a. It is a peninsula, oceanic rather than continental.
b. It has a more temperate climate and more varied prod- ucts than the semi-tropical river valleys of Asia.
These conditions demanded greater exertion, physical and intellectual, and led to more diverse occupations than Asiatic conditionB did. The beginnings of culture were slower ; but Man was finally to count for more, and Nature was to be less all-sufficient and overpowering.
c In contrast with the great Asiatic plain, the land is broken into many small units fitted for the homes of distinct peoples, all close together and so invited to friendly intercourse, but with natural defenses against hostile attacks from one another. This has conduced to the existence, side by side, of different but mutually helpful civilizations.
(L Europe as a whole holds a strategic position as against Asia. Physical characteristics, such as those mentioned in the last three paragraphs, were found, of course, in some districts of Asia, notably in Syria and some parts of Asia Minor ; and accordingly in these places there began civilizations marked by the "European" characteristics of diversity and freedom; but their vicinity to the earlier and mightier river-empires was fatal, and in the end the Asiatic character was always im- posed upon them. Europe was saved by its distance and by its position behind the great moat of the Mediterranean. This sea has been a decisive factor in European history in two respects, — as a road for friendly intercourse, and even more as a barrier against hostile Asiatic invasion.
II. GREECE TYPICAL OF EUROPE.
" The Greeks are modems. . . . Ptah-hotep [§ 30] or Ezekiel could not move in modem society. Aristotle or Menander [§§ 207, 255] in all moral and social questions would at once find their way, and enjoy even our poetry and fiction. Even the medieval baron would feel vastly more out of place among us than would an intelligent Greek.** — Mahafft.
78 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY. [§82
82. "The Moat European of Sttropean Lands." — Hellas, or Greece, meant not European Greece alone, but all the lands of the "Hellenes," as the Greeks called themselves. This in- cluded (a) the peninsula in Europe, together with the shores and islands of the Aegean ; and (6) colonial Greece, that is, the Greeks on the Black Sea on the east, and Greek Sicily and southern Italy on the west, besides scattered patches elsewhere along the Mediterranean.
Still, the central peninsula remained the heart of Hellas in culture, as in geography. Omitting Epirus and Thessaly, which were not properly Greek in character or history, its area is less than a quarter that of the state of New York. But in this little district are concentrated in miniature all the character- istic traits of European geography (§ 81) ; and surely it is no mere coincidence that the iirst home of typical European culture should have been this " most European of European lands."
83. Special Geographical Features and Their Influence. — Five
controlling factors deserve special mention : the breaking up into smajl districts ; the sea roads ; the incitement to trade ; the vicinity of the open side to Eastern civilization; the moderation and beauty of nature.
a. The islands and patches of Greek settlements on distant coasts were of course so many distinct divisions ; and even little Greece proper counted over twenty geographical units, each encompassed by its sea moats and mountain walls. Some of these divisions were about as large as an American town- ship, and the larger ones (except Thessaly and Epirus) were only seven or eight times that size.
b. Isolated mountainous tribes are always rude and conserva- tive ; but from such tendencies Greece was saved by the sea. Her mountains, it is true, with their many passes, were " guar- dians of liberty " rather than hostile barriers ; but it was the sea that really made friendly intercourse possible on a large scale, and that brought Athens as closely into touch with Mile-
§88]
OREECB TYPICAL OF EUROPE.
79
tas (in Asia) as with Sparta or Olympia. This value of the sea^ too, held good for neighboring parts of '' European Greece '^ itself, which, with less area than Portugal, has a longer coast- line than all the Spanish peninsula. The very heart of the land is broken into islands and promontories, so that it is hard to find a spot distant from the coast more than thirty miles. Only two divisions failed to touch the sea, and they were notoriously backward and unimportant.
c Certain products made intercourse exceedingly desirable, and invited to wider travel. The* mountain slopes in some parts, as in Attica, grew wine and oil better than grain. Wine and oil — much value in little space — were especially suited for commerce; and with their limited food supply, if population was to increase, the people in such districts were driven to trade. Now, seafaring traders, exchanging commodities, are prone to exchange ideas also ; and thus the maritime Greeks became innovators centuries before Paul commended them for *^ always seeking some new thing.''
d. These early seekers found valuable new things within easy reach. Fortunately, this most European of all European lands lay nearest of all Europe to the old civilization of Asia. Moreover, it faced this civilized East rather than the barbarous West. On the side toward Italy, the coast is cliff or marsh, with only three or four good harbors the whole length ; but on the east the whole line is broken by countless deep, inviting bays, from whose mouths, too, chains of tempting islands lead on and on, so that in clear weather the mariner may cross the Aegean without losing sight of land.
e. Most important of all, perhaps, was the element of diver- sity. A great Oriental state found its one dominant life prin- ciple in some mighty river ; it spread over vast plains, and was bounded by terrible immensities of desolate deserts. Greece contained no navigable river, and, except in Thessaly, no plains of consequence. It was a land of marvelously varied sea and mountain. This variety, and the moderation of the natural features, found a counterpart in the versatile genius of the
80 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY. [{84
people, in their originality, and in their lively imagination; while the beauty of intermingled hill and sunlit sea, the exhil- arating air, and the soft splendor of the radiant sky, helped to make their intense joy in life.
Thus in their little peninsula the Greeks produced many varieties of society, side by side. They inquired fearlessly into all secrets, natural and supernatural, instead of abasing themselves in Oriental awe; they had no controlling priest- hood; and they never submitted long to arbitrary government. Above all other peoples, too, they developed a passion for the beautiful and a sense of harmony and proportion: the same word stood to them for the good and the beautiful; and temper- ance, or moderation, became their ideal virtue.
84. A Problem : the Land or the People? — Was the work of Greece in history the result of Greek genius or of these geo- graphical conditions ? As early as the year 2000 b.o. the islands and coasts of the Aegean were peopled by a variety of tribes. Some of these were " the stuff of which the Greeks were after- ward made." Some, so far as we can tell, were wholly alien, like the Phoenicians and the Etruscans. The great body were allied to the Latins on the west, to the Phrygians, Lycians, and Carians on the east, and to the Thracians and Macedonians on the north. Nature and history gradually differentiated those tribes that we call Greeks from these neighbors, of whom they seem to have been at first only a part. So some writers make the land everything, and speak as if even Homer were " only a natural product of the smiling Ionian skies." But those same skies, in