^TSTl fST^ST! |*^^vr THE LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES F THE EAST BY E.. ANDERSON LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOR Class THE LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES THE MOABITE STONE. See fifigp 22. THE STORY OF EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST BY ROBERT E. ANDERSON, M.A., F.A.S. AUTHOR OF EARLY ENGLAND, THE STUART PERIOD, ETC. NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1909 COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION 9 I. ORIGIN AND RACES OF MANKIND ... 13 II. CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA 23 III ANCIENT EGYPT . . . ... .45 IV HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS . . 67 V, THE ARABS 108 VI. IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA 138 INDEX 209 193711 MAPS, ETC. PAGE The Moabite Stone. ..... Frontispiece. Hieroglyph . . . . . ... . . IO Cuneiform inscription 27 Map Egypt .45 Hieroglyph ......... 60 Map Khita 68 Spain . 109 " Iran ......... 139 " ... A noble end it is to inquire into the remains of long-departed races, and to inquire, not by theory and conjecture, but by an exam- ination of actual facts/' PROF. MAHAFFY, D. D. " He says it is part of his creed that history is poetry could we tell it aright." EMERSON, speaking of CARLYLE. EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. INTRODUCTION. IN the present century two events, which at the time seemed unimportant, have vastly increased our knowledge regarding several very early king- doms and empires which, to the ancient and me- diaeval historians, were known only by name. In 1802, the Rosetta Stone was brought to England, and presented by George III. to the British Mu- seum. Only a rude block of black basalt, though called " a priceless jewel " by the archaeologists, it bears an inscription in three languages ; and as soon as one of these, written in " hieroglyphs,' 1 was, by means of the other two, interpreted by Young and Champollion, a key was put in our hands to open the sealed book of Egypt's mighty past by reading the records on her numberless monuments. Thus the " wisdom of Egypt," so long inscrutable, became known, and a new sci- ence arose called Egyptology. The second event was in 1842, when M. Botta was sent as French envoy to the banks of the Tigris, and began to dig for Assyrian antiquities. His unexpected suc- cess, reinforced soon after by the more famous explorations of Layard, led to the building up of a second new science, Assyriology, which includes 9 10 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. many .chapters relating to the extinct civilization of Babylonia the precursor of war-like Assyria, her great mother in letters, art, and science. ' The following cut shows the symbols con- tained in one of the cartouches on the Rosetta Stone, and is read from left to right, as we read words in modern English, &c. HIEROGLYPH. ENGLISH. p L O A I O S T M i. e. PTOLEMAIOS, the Greek name of the King Ptolemy. Each symbol represents a letter, viz., the initial letter of the name of the object pictured. The objects in order are a mat, a half-circle, a noose, a lion, a hole, two reeds, and a chair-back. The first object (mat, or door according to ., they be- longed to the yellow or Mongolian family, which have already been mentioned. The Akkads, there- fore, were not at all allied to the Assyrian and other Semitic races, who long afterwards adopted their civilization, and combined with them in building up the kingdoms of Chaldea and the mighty empire of Babylonia, Of the Tartar CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. *5 type, they had high cheek-bones, curly black hair, and looked upon the lands of the Median and Armenian Mountains as the centre of the world, the cradle of their race. Those "early Chal- deans," strange to say, had attained to a degree of art, learning, and culture in their native coun- try such as to suggest the conclusion that not only the Aryan race, but even the Chinese and Egyptians may have been indebted to them for some germs of primitive civilization. They had two kingdoms in the Chaldean plain, u Akkad " i.e., the Higher Land in the north, with its capital, Sippar (afterwards called " Sepharvaim " by the Hebrews), and Shumir, the flat country in the south, which is the " Shinar " of the Book of Genesis. Their first capital in the south was Uruki (the " Erech " of Genesis), the second Ur, and the last Babilu, better known by its Greek name Babylon. The first king of Shumir and Akkad united appears to have been Hammurabi, a soldier and statesman, who has left many in- scriptions. Babylon was his native town (which his father had ruled under its native name), and he was, therefore, all the more disposed'to make it the capital of his new monarchy, Babylonia, after expelling an Elamite army, which had in- vaded the south. To Hammurabi is due a work of national importance ; the huge excavation, afterwards called the Royal Canal of Babylon, which 1500 years later, was still an object of ad- miration, indispensable for purposes of irrigation. The patron-god of the new capital, Merodach (Bel, or "Baal"), at once rose into importance, and soon had a temple far surpassing those of the old capitals in the Euphrates Valley. He became one of the " twelve great gods " or dii majores of the 26 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. nation, and, as represented by the planet Jupiter, was prominent on the Tower of the Seven Spheres. With more taste for the fine arts than the suc- ceeding races, the Akkads have left admirable specimens of skill and delicate handiwork. Some of their sculpture proves that that art had been cultivated for generations: their statues surpass- ing those of the Assyrians, and sometimes show- ing knowledge of anatomy. Certain details re- semble those of King Kephren of Memphis. We have seals of all kinds of stone, beautifully en- graved and polished. Music was an important branch of study, and at a very early date the harp, pipe, and symbals are mentioned; we infer singing also, since so many sacred hymns have been recorded in their tablets. It is as a nimble- minded and inventive people, however, that the Akkad people chiefly excelled. They invented the cuneiform letters to which we owe all our knowledge of Babylonia and Assyria. In their social and domestic relations, they were simple and peaceful, treating women kindly, and show- ing especial honour to mothers of families. A wife could own property apart from the hus- band. Slaves were by law to be treated justly, and many of them were apprenticed to trades. All children were taught to read and write. We find land-leases drawn up by conveyancing law- yers ; and the judges in court, like our own, often had to quote precedents of a much earlier date. The taxes included tithes, levied for re- ligious purposes. Some of the artisans were weavers, dyers, potters, smiths, and carpenters, and some Assyrian sculptures show skilfully em- broidered clothes, and carpets ornamented with designs. CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. 27 CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTION. Brick found at Warka, the site of Erech, the ancient capital of Akkad or Chaldea. see pp. 26, 43. [" The beginning of NimrocTs kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Akkad, in the la/id of Shinar" Gen. x. 10.] Written on the occasion of a temple being built to a goddess (Beltis) by one of the earliest kings. The English of the inscrip- tion runs : u Beltis his lady has caused Urukh the pious chief, King of Erech and King of the land of the Akkad, to build a temple to her." This civilization of the earliest Chaldeans im- plied a good knowledge of science in several lead- ing branches. The sun-dial was known and the clepsydra or water-clock ; the lever and pulley ; some of the libraries contain tablets with very minute letters, and some lenses of glass are found which are supposed to have been used to assist the reader's eyesight. On one tablet we find the 28 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. squares and cubes of a series of numbers ; there are also calculations of area and geometrical propositions. Some tablets seem to refer to the four moons of the planet Jupiter, which would imply that telescopes were known in Chaldea. As astronomers and astrologers they used a regular calendar, the prototype probably of all those now adopted, dividing the year into four seasons, twelve lunar months, or 360 days; and they also knew the exact length of " the sidereal year." The latitude of stars was reckoned from the zenith of Elam, in their original Median mountains, just as we every- where refer longitude to the Greenwich meridian. Each month had a Sabbath, called Sabbatu, on the 7th, i4th, 2ist, and 28th days, besides a fifth one on the iQth. As early as 2200 B.C. they named the twelve signs of the Zodiac and divided the equatorial into 360 degrees, these results probably first suggesting to them the number of months and days in a year. Each degree they divided into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds, as is still done universally, because 60 was their divisor generally. Their silver currency embraced the talent and the shekel two coins which be- came familiar to Europeans, from having been adopted by the Hebrew kings of many centuries later. That the Akkads or early Babylonians were essentially a literary people is also proved by the " libraries," or stores of inscribed tablets and cylinders left in their palaces and temples. At Sippar, the capital of Sargon I., a library of that king was found 3200 years afterwards, and many of its books on astronomy and astrology were copied for general use. By this means the date of Sargon is now fixed at 3800 B.C., and is prob- CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. 29 ably the oldest which is authentically exact. A French Assyriologist remarks : " Of all the na- tions who have bequeathed written records of their lives, we may assert that none has left monuments more imperishable than Assyria and Chaldea. Their number is daily increased by new discoveries : that of the tablets from the Nineveh Library alone exceeds 10,000. If we compare these texts with those left us by other nations we can easily become convinced that the < history of the Assyro-Chaldean civilization will soon be one of the best known of antiquity." It may be noted here that, though the term Chaldea is used for Babylonia, and the Akkads are called " early Chaldeans," yet strictly the general name Chaldeans was only applied to the mixed popula- tion of the whole valley, after the Assyrians and others had become consolidated into one nation with the Akkads. The first Chaldeans settled near the Persian Gulf, and being more warlike than their neighbours, soon became masters of Mesopotamia. Thus the words Chaldea and Babylonia came to be used interchangeably. After the close of the Babylonian empire the name Chaldean implied a magician, soothsayer, or "wise man of the East"; because they had inherited from the Akkad priests many super- stitious beliefs and practices in astrology, fortune- telling, exorcising, &c. "fmga" in Akkad was a priest, which the Assyrians pronounced maga, the Rabmag, or u chief priest," being an official of their kings. Probably the Persian Magi derived their name from the Akkad word. Hence magus in Latin, and " magic," " magician," &c. What do we know of the religion of the ear- liest Chaldeans, a creed believed and acted upon 30 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. from 6000 to 7000 years ago. At first, like other men of the yellow race, they believed that every object was the abode of some spirit, and their priests, therefore, were medicine men who con- stantly practised exorcism, and used an intricate system of spells and charms. As culture spread, and the religious ideas assumed higher forms, their conceptions of deity and the supernatural bore resemblance to those of other early civilizations, and their more philosophic teachers almost for- mulated a monotheism. Many of their liturgies have been found, and some contain sacred hymns which in tone resemble those of the He- brew psalms. On some ancient bricks (date, 2500 B.C.) found at Ur, occurs a litany with these words : " In heaven who is supreme ? Thou alone art supreme. On earth who is supreme ? Thou alone art supreme. The word is proclaimed in Heaven, And the angels bow their faces down." Another hymn; suggesting a somewhat pure form of monotheism, runs : " Long-suffering father, full of forgiveness, whose hand upholds the lives of mankind : Lord, thy deity is as the wide heavens, and fills the sea with fear." *, Tammuz (Akkad, Dumuzi) is addressed as the "Sun of Life," "the only begotten one." His worship extended from Babylonia to Syria, and is denounced by the prophet Ezekiel on account of the rites accompanying the yearly festival. The chief sun-god was Shamash (" Shemesh " in the Bible), who had a temple at Sippar, the capi- tal of N. Babylonia. The sculpture shows him CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. 3! with a long flowing beard, seated on a splendid throne, with a ring, as symbol of eternity, in his hand, attended by winged creatures somewhat re- sembling the Cherubim described by Ezekiel the prophet. Mullil, the Bel of the Semitic creed, was called " Lord of the world of Spirits," " Ruler of Mankind," and to him one of the inscriptions ascribed the Deluge. The Akkad triad of gods was Na, the sky; Ea, the earth; and Mul-ge, the lord of the underworld. Dumuzi is the hero of a solar myth a Babylonian epic of great beauty one episode being the descent of Ishtar to Hades to claim him from her rival, the dread Queen of the Dead. Some parts of what has been found are said to be " scarcely surpassed for splendid poetry and sombre grandeur." The opening lines of the poem are : " Towards the land whence there is no return, towards the house of corruption, Ishtar has turned her mind towards the dwelling that has a way in but no way out, towards a road on which one goes forward but not backward, towards the hall whence the light of day is shut out, where hunger feeds on dust and mud, where light is never seen, where the shades of the dead dwell in the dark, clothed with wings like birds. On the lintel of the gate and in the lock dust lies accumulated." The Chaldean " cosmogony " account of the Creation or origin of things was one of the very few points known before the Assyrian explora- tions, because it had been described in Greek by Berosus, a learned priest of Babylon at the time of Alexander the Great. The accuracy of Bero- sus has been confirmed by the inscriptions, and his version bears a remarkable resemblance to the cosmogonies of the Hebrews and the Phoenicians. Both of these races claimed by tradition to have migrated from Chaldea, and no doubt derived $2 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. from it much of their mythology and religion. " Assur, the chief god of^ Assyria, in many re- spects," says Prof. Sayce, " closely resembles the local god of Israel." The national epic of the Akkad hero king, Ishdubar, contains on one tab- let a Deluge legend which agrees closely with that in Genesis. In the British Museum is shewn a very ancient Babylonian cylinder with a tree bearing fruit and a human couple stretching out their hands towards it, while a serpent stands be- hind the woman as if to whisper some suggestion. The " Sacred Tree " is continually reproduced on cylinders and sculptures, sometimes very promi- nently. The sculptured winged bulls or other creatures at the gate of a temple or palace repre- sented guardian spirits called Kirubu, whence the Hebrew Kerubim, English " Cherubim." King Esarhaddon, speaking of one of his immense pal- aces, writes: "In its gates I placed bulls and colossi, who turn themselves against the wicked according to the command impressed upon them [by the high priests and soothsayers] ; they pro- tect the footsteps, causing peace on the path of the King, their creator." A remarkable feature of the religion of the Chaldeans has been used to explain the shape of their palaces and temples. They " lifted their eyes to the hills " on the northeast, " the Father of Countries," and imagined it the abode of the Gods, the future home of every great and good man " a land with a sky of silver, a soil produ- cing crops without tilling," " the mountain of Bel in the east, whose double head reaches unto the skies, like a mighty buffalo at rest whose double horn sparkles as a sunbeam, as a star." The type of the holy mountain was therefore reproduced in CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. 33 every palace and temple, sometimes by building it on an artificial mound with trees and plants watered from above ; and on a larger scale by the Ziggurat, or " Mountain Peak." The latter device was a sort of pyramid of three, five, or seven stages, each being square, and less than the one under, with a shrine at the top. The numbers three, five, and seven were sacred, the first repre- senting the divine Triad, the second the five planets, and the last the seven stars of heaven. Religion being bound up with star-worship and astrology, the Akkad pyramids served as observa- tories, if not originally partly designed for that end, and therefore have their corners adjusted to the four cardinal points. The great mound, Babil, among the ruins of Babylon, represents the tem- ple of Bel, which was a pyramid of eight square stages, with a winding ascent to the top platform. There stood an image of gold forty feet high, two other statues of gold, a table (forty feet by fifteen), and two other colossal objects all of the same precious metal. The famous mound, Birs Nimrud, has been proved to be the ruins of the " Temple of the Seven Spheres," a national struc- ture finally rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar the Great, who informs us that the original tower had ex- isted many ages previously. The entire height of this temple was only 156 feet, but the general effect of its appearance would be very striking to any modern observer, since each of the seven stages was a mass of one colour different from all the others, and representing symbolically one of " seven stars of heaven." The first, Saturn, black, the masonry being covered with bitumen ; the second, Jupiter, orange, by a facing of orange bricks ; the third, Mars, blood-red, by bricks of 34 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. that color; the fourth, the Sun, covered with plates of gold ; the fifth, Venus, pale yellow, by suitable bricks ; the sixth, Mercury, blue, by vitrification, the whole -stage having been sub- jected to intense heat after building ; the seventh stage, the Moon, probably covered with plates of silver. The " happy valley " of Babylonia, watered by the twin-rivers, had long been possessed by the Akkads and allied tribes of Turanian descent, when new races began to join them from the south and west. These strangers were from the Semitic or Syro-Arabic race, which has already been described. There are proofs that from a very early period this mixture of races had be- gun, and at 4000 B.C. the Semites were already part of the population in North Babylonia. A leading German Assyriologist therefore argues that the culture of the Akkads must have reached its completed form between 5000 and 6000 B.C. It is evident, further, that in their previous homes, before they reached the Euphrates Valley, those Turanian mountaineers must have passed through a long process of primitive civilization, so as to become much more humanized and cultured than the nomadic tribes of Arabia and Syria. The Semitic new-comers, after gaining a settlement in the richer towns for trading purposes, speedily learned the language of the country by adapting themselves to the religion and manners, and as- similated the Akkad civilisation. As the years go by, Semitic words become more and more fre- quent in the cuneiform inscriptions, and faces of a Semitic cast which now appear in the sculptures prove that the new-comers have become an inte- gral part of the population. Thus was formed CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. 35 the Assyrian literature and language, as well as the Assyrian race, although there was not yet any Assyian State or kingdom. The country was to be called Babylonia or Chaldea for centuries before Assyria should prevail. Sargon I, a dis- tinguished King of Babylonia, was, however, of Semitic blood, and though a usurper, did perma- nent good by religious reforms and attention to learning and libraries. The mode in which his date was fixed has already been referred to : how in 550 B.C. the last king of Babylon, when ex- cavating at Sippar to rebuild the great Sun Tem- ple, found the cuneiform cylinder left by Sargon when laying the foundations of the first temple 3,200 years previously. On a statue of Sargon in his capital there is a remarkable inscription to say that, when an infant, his mother placed him in a basket of rushes, and, after closing the door of his ark with bitumen, launched him on the Euphrates, whence soon after he was rescued by a water-carrier, who brought him up as his own child. He was afterward, he says, chosen leader of a band in the mountains, and in due time be- came king. Sargon left great buildings at Sippar and Nipur, as well as in Babylon. A foreign dynasty, that, for six centuries, held South Babylonia, were the Kosseans, a warlike and enterprising race, who descended from the mountainous lands of Elam on the east. The Egyptian inscriptions mention that their kings sent letters and presents to the Pharaohs. It is not known whether they are akin to the Elam- ites, a people who had always been at war with the Babylonians, and one of whose recorded in- vasions (to which reference must be made when speaking of Esarhaddon) was several centuries 36 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. before the advent of this dynasty. During the Kossean rule, beginning about 1749 B.C., many improvements were made in Babylonia, includ- ing the building of two great temples one in the capital to Bel, and another at Borsippa to Nebo. The Elamites on the east were often descend- ing on South Babylonia to plunder and destroy, and one of their kings, known to readers of the Bible as Chedorlaomer, not only annexed part of Chaldea, but marched westward across the Ara- bian desert and gained a celebrated victory in the district of the Jordan and " Lake Siddim." This was the battle of " Four Kings against Five," in which Lot was taken, and carried away from Sodom "with all his goods." Lot's uncle, the patriarchal founder of the race of Israel, having pursued the victorious army of the Elamites and Chaldeans as far as Damascus, attacked them by night, and rescued " and brought back Lot and his goods and the women also and the people." One of the four kings is called " Amraphel, king of Shinar," and is no doubt Amarpal, a king of Babylon, since u Shinar," as we have already seen, was merely the Hebrew spelling of Shumir, South Babylonia. Amarpal had a son Hammurabi, more famous than himself, of whom mention has already been made. In the fourteenth century B.C. Tiglath Adar of Assyria took Babylon and established a new Semitic dynasty. Till then Assyria had grown in the northern part of the Tigris valley from a province into a petty kingdom, which long re- mained a dependency of Babylonia. The first capital was Assur on the Tigris, and when the government was transferred to Nineveh, further CHALDEA AND BABYLONIA. 37 up the river, the worship of Assur (giving name to the kingdom, Assyria) was also transferred. Travellers, on seeing the immense mounds at Nineveh, Nimrud, and Khorsabad, in the north- ern part of the Tigris valley, wonder why the Assyrians persisted in using only crumbling bricks to build their temples and palaces, since the district abounds in good building-stone, lime- stone, and basalt, &c., and the Median mountains on the east are close by. In fact, the Assyrians did use stone to case and protect their brick- work, but so lacked the inventive and adaptable genius of their Akkad neighbours that they con- tinued making and piling up bricks as they had been taught to do when they lived in the lower Euphrates valley. The Semitic races generally excel in trading and finance, and some of them, as the Assyrians, became warlike, but none of them have equalled Europeans, or even the Turanians, in the mechanical or fine arts or in science. The new empire was distinctly a more formidable state than its predecessor, the whole, country becorfling a land of soldiers; and from their later conquests and grandeur, Rawlinson^' calls the Assyrians the " Romans of Asia." ^ An inscription belonging to the middle of the., Ramses the Great) conquered not only Arabia but advanced to Thrace and the river , Don, and one of his expeditions is even said to have " crossed India and the Ganges." Tacitus, at a later date, confirms some of these distant marches : and his list of countries, translated from the inscriptions by the priests in Egypt, in- cludes Libya, Armenia, Media, Persia, and Scythia. Shishak, the last king of Egypt who deserved the name, was of Semitic descent, and received Jeroboam at his court when he was a fugitive from Solomon's capital. Afterwards, when Jero- boam was king of the ten tribes, Shishak, as his ally, invaded Judah with 60,000 horsemen, 1200 chariots, and a large army on foot, composed of Lybians, Ethiopians, and Troglodytes, as well as Egyptians. A bas-relief at Karnak records how Shishak carried away from Jerusalem the treas- ures of the temple and the king's palace. The ' list which it gives of Jewish towns sacked by the Egyptians is of interest in sacred geography. Shishak, the first Pharaoh whose name is given in the Old Testament, made Bubastis, on the eastern side of the Delta, his capital, as being convenient for making war upon King Solomon, his enemy. The power of Egypt became weaker after the time of Shishak, till the whole land was split up into contending governments, headed by petty ANCIENT EGYPT. 65 chiefs. At last came the Assyrian invasion of Egypt (B.C. 666), as related in the cuneiform in- scriptions, when Assur-banipal treated the capital Thebes "as a conquered town, despoiling it of gold and silver, precious stones and costly stuffs, horses, treasure of the palace, booty which could not be counted, men and women, works of the sculptor, all of which were carried to Nineveh." Thebes suffered yet another blow in the following century from an Asiatic enemy, when Cambyses entered it as conqueror of Egypt, after defeating King Amasis in the battle of Pelusium, on the northeast frontier, and taking Memphis. In the days of Strabo, the geographer, there was no city or even town on the site of Thebes, the great population, as well as the wealth and power, having already long disappeared. Then, as now, the famous City of Thrones was repre- sented by a few villages scattered among its temples and tombs. Some reference has already been made to the state of letters and literature amongst the Egyp- tians, both at the time of the earliest race and at later periods. Of Egyptian poetry, one of the finest lyrical inscriptions is that found at Karnak by Mariette. Amun, the god of Thebes, thus celebrates the conquests of Thothmes III. in Asia and Africa : " I am come, to thee have I given to strike down Syrian princes, Under thy feet they lie throughout the breadth of their country ; Like to the Lord of Light, I made them see thy glory, Blinding their eyes with light, the earthly image of Amun. " I am come, to thee have I given to strike down Asian people, Captive now thou hast led the proud Assyrian chieftains ; 5 66 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. Decked in royal robes, I made them see thy glory, All in glittering arms, fighting high in thy war-car. "I am come, to thee have I given to strike down island races . . . I am come, to thee have I given to strike down Lybian archers. All the isles of the Greeks submit to the force of thy spirit ; . . . ** I am come, to thee have I given to strike down the ends of the ocean, In the grasp of thy hand is the circling zone of waters ; Like the soaring eagle, I made them see thy glory, Whose far-reaching eye there is none can hope to escape from." The Egyptian code or codes of law must always be an evidence of their reasoning power and love of order. Bossuet said that Egypt was " the source of all good government." Judges who condemned an innocent man to death in- curred as much guilt by law as if they had ac- quitted a murderer. Soldiers, who had deserted their colours or disobeyed an officer, were not punished with death, but with disgrace and dis- honour. The laws for protection of women were very severe. The interest on a debt must not accumulate to more than the principal, and im- prisonment for debt was in no case allowed ; but anyone who had not paid his debts was forbid- den the honour of being buried in the family tomb. HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 67 CHAPTER IV. HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. I. The Hittites. In recent years the most startling result connected with extinct civiliza- tions is the discovery of an empire which had absolutely been forgotten. Ancient Egypt and Babylonia were unknown to us historically till the disclosure of the hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions, but the names at least of those two empires always remained, with some traditional echo of their greatness ; whereas of an empire called Khita nobody had ever heard or dreamed for over two thousand years. The Khita, or " Hittites," were only known formerly from some meagre references in the Old Testament; and in the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica they are disposed of in a single short paragraph, as being "one of the tribes of the Canaanites" who u lived in the mountains round Hebron." Even the great Dictionary of Dr. Sir William Smith, in 1878, finds material for only a very few lines on the Hittites; whereas in the next edition as many pages will no doubt be found necessary. We now know that the Hittites were for cen- turies a warlike and conquering race, rulers over a very large territory which contained many dif- ferent peoples, and not only far more powerful than the Hebrews ever were, but able to cope with the greatest rulers both of Egypt and of Babylonia. Since 1880, when Professor Sayce wrote " The Monuments of the Hittites," several important works have been written on this sub- ject; and more information is expected as soon HITTITES, PHCENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 69 as the Hittite inscriptions are fully interpreted. At the height of their power the empire of the Hittites extended over northern Syria and the whole of Asia Minor, with a fortified capital, Carchemish, on the Euphrates, to guard the east- ern frontier, and its most westerly outposts on the distant Egean Sea. To the north it reached the shores of the Black Sea, and in the south it had the principal capital, Kadesh, and other large towns on the Orontes, the chief river of Syria. The tribe of Hittites in the south of Palestine were probably a colony from the great confedera- tion in the north. Except in the phrase "the kings of the Ilittites," the Old Testament ignores the- empire which ruled from Mesopotamia across Syria to the seas of the west. It was from the detached tribe living in Judah that Abram bought the " cave of Machpelah," and that Esau got his two wives, Judith and Adah; two of David's famous captains, Uriah and Ahimelech, were also of this tribe ; and if Bathsheba, wife of the for- mer and afterwards mother of Solomon, was also of that race, then all the lineal descendants of the royal line of Judah, including our Lord, must have had Hittite blood in their veins. Our present knowledge of the empire of the Hittites is mainly derived from the hieroglyphic and cuneiform records compared with some rock monuments of their own. We take, there- fore, in order, first those of the Nile Valley and afterwards the historical tablets and sculptures of Babylonia and Assyria. The Egyptian monuments show that the Hit- tites, like the Akkads of early Babylonia, were of Mongolian or Tartar race with the oblique eyes, yellow skin, and unattractive features which dis- 70 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. tinguish that large division of the human family. One dynasty of the Hyksos or shepherd-kings who ruled over Egypt was Hittite, according to Mariette, and after their final expulsion from the Nile Valley the Pharaoh Thothmes I. led his army not only into Syria, but as far as the bank of the Euphrates, which is called the " front of the land of the Hittites." We at the same time read of certain Canaanitish tribes who then pos- sessed Palestine long before the Hebrews existed as a nation, and how a treaty was made between the Pharaoh and Saplel, the Hittite, who then bore rule on the banks of the Orontes. Thoth- mes III. is the king of whose reign we have a memorial in the famous obelisk on the Thames Embankment in London ; and of him we learn that as " tribute from the great King of the Hit- tites " he received gold, black slaves, man- and maid- servants, oxen. On the walls of Thebes he boasts of thirteen victories over the Hittites, de- scribing the battles of Megiddo, Carchemish, &c. In another inscription one of his officers relates how he " had taken prisoners near Aleppo [a Hittite town] and waded through the Euphrates when his master was besieging the mighty Hittite fortress of Carchemish." This eastern capital of the Hittites has only recently been found, though the name Carchemish or Kar-Chemosh (the fortress of Chemosh) fre- quently occurs in ancient writers. It was strongly fortified to guard that distant frontier, and being dedicated first to the god Chemosh, and after- wards to Astarte (Ashtaroth), the Moon-goddess of the Hittites, came to be called Hierapolis, the Holy City, by the Greeks, just as they gave the name Diospolis to Thebes the Egyptian capital. HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 71 The word Hierapolis was detected in the modern name " Jerablus," and thus at last Carchemish has been identified. The name of the other capital, Kadesh, on the Orontes in North Syria, also means " Sacred City." The Egyptian court and ministers soon dis- covered that the victory over the Hittites was anything but a real one, and that the King of Kadesh had enormous resources of men and money. One of the Pharaohs not only formed an alliance with the strenuous northern race, but married a Hittite princess who soon made great innovations, especially in religion, and is there- fore repeatedly referred to in the records. She introduced the solar worship of the Hittites into Thebes, and her son Amenophis IV. even assumed the name Khun-Aten " the brilliance of the solar disk " a title recalling that of which Louis XIV. was so vain. This Hittite King of Thebes built a capital on the Nile in honour of the new re- ligion, and from the explorations in its extensive ruins, Tel el-Amarna, we learn that in the century before the Israelitish exodus the Babylonian lan- guage was used as an international medium of cor- respondence. Many of the clay tablets contain dispatches sent to Khun-Aten from his officers in Babylonia, Syria, and Palestine. These official letters show that the dreaded Hittites were then a cause of alarm to the governors and allies of the Egyptian king. One dispatch, preserved in the Berlin Museum, begs that assistance should be at once sent to Northern Syria to repel a Hit- tite invasion. The sculptures prove that Pharaoh Khun-Aten was in face and appearance quite dif- ferent from the Egyptian type, and some of the bas-reliefs show that his officers were probably 72 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. of Hittite or northern descent as well as him- self. The chief event in the earlier history of the Hittites, as learned from the inscriptions, is the battle on the Orontes, fought in 1383 B.C., the fifth year of Ramses II., the great Pharaoh. So momentous was the struggle in the opinion of the Egyptians that a national epic was composed by Pentaur, the poet laureate, and inscribed on the walls of one of the Theban temples a poem bearing a date much more ancient than even the epics of Homer, and of the greatest value to lit- erary men as well as historians. This national poem, venerable from its antiquity, has been found in many of the wall inscriptions, and a copy of it on papyrus is preserved in the British Museum. As a graphic illustration of the Hit- tites and their contemporaries from the Egyptian standpoint, and as vividly recalling, after being buried over 3000 years, " . . . old, unhappy, far-off things And battles long ago," it seems advisable to cull a few passages from Dr. Brugsch's translation. " The youthful king [Ramses II.] with the bold hand has not his equal. . . . Terrible is he when his war-cry resounds. Wise is his counsel. . . . All his warriors passed by the path of the desert and went on along the roads of the north. Many days after the king had arrived as far as Kadesh . . . and when the king approached the city, behold there was the miserable king of the hostile Hittites. He had assembled all the peoples from the uttermost ends of the sea their number was endless, they covered mountains and valleys like grass- hoppers. " The miserable Khita-Sira [King of the Hittites] and the many nations had hidden themselves in an ambush to the north-west of the city of Kadesh, while Pharaoh was alone. HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 73 The King of the Hittites was in the midst of his warriors, but his hand was not so bold as to venture on battle with Pharaoh; therefore he drew away the horsemen and the chariots, which were numerous as the sand. And they stood, three men on each war-chariot, and there were assembled in one spot the best heroes of the army of the Hittites, well-appointed with all weapons of the fight. They did not dare to advance. And Pharaoh had placed himself to the north of the city of Kadesh, on the west side of the river Orontes. . . . [When he heard that an Egyptian legion to the south of the town had been driven away] he arose, he grasped his weapons and put on his war dress. Completely armed he looked like the god of war in the hour of his might. . . . Urging on his chariot, he pushed into the army of the vile Hittites alone. . . . He was sur- rounded by 2500 chariots, and the swiftest of the warriors of the vile Hittites and their numerous allies. He invoked Amun, the great god of Thebes : * I prefer Amun to thousands of millions of archers, to millions of horsemen, to myriads of young heroes all assembled together. The designs of man are nothing ; Amun overrules all.' ' I am near,' replies the god ; 1 my hand is with thee ; I am the lord of hosts, who loves cour- age ; I have found thy heart resolute, and my heart has re- joiced ; the 2500 chariots shall be crushed before thy horses. . . . They shall be able to shoot no more arrows, and shall have no strength to hold the spear. ... I will make them leap into the water as crocodiles ; they shall be thrown one on another and kill each other before thee.' . . . Strengthened by the word of the god, the King rushed on the Hittites, and opened for himself a blood-stained passage over their corpses. . . . Six times he crossed the ranks of the enemy ; six times he struck down all who opposed his passage. . . . [On rejoin- ing his guards he reproached the generals and soldiers, and when the main body of the Egyptian army arrived recom- menced the battle.] The Hittites fought ' to avenge their bravest officers, and the Egyptians to wipe away the re- proach of cowardice cast on them by King Ramses.' Seeing the flower of his army destroyed the King of the Hittites sent a herald to say to Ramses, ' son of the sun, the Egyptians and che Hittites are slaves beneath thy feet, . . . we are prostrate on the earth, ready to execute thy orders. O valiant king, flower of warriors, give us the breath of our lives. Better is peace than war Give us freedom.' When Pharaoh assembled all the leaders of his army, his chariot-fighters, and life-guards, they answered, after he had spoken : 74 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. " ' Excellent, excellent is this ! Let thy anger pass away, O great lord our king.' . . . Then the Pharaoh went in peace to the land of Egypt, . . . and reached his capital [Thebes], and rested in his palace in the most serene humour." The value of the epic to us is in the insight it gives of the relations between the Hittite and Egyptian Empires. Amongst the allies of the former had come Dardanians and Maeonians from the distant coasts of the Greek Egean, Eastern warriors from the Euphrates, Semitic tribes from Syria and Arabia, mingled with num- berless barbaric peoples from the highlands of Asia Minor. It seems possible, from their haste in con- cluding the treaty of peace with the Hittites, that the Egyptians found those opponents stronger than they had expected. Kadesh, the capital, was not taken ; and when a permanent treaty was concluded sixteen years later, " the great king of the Hittites " was treated on equal terms with Ramses himself. " The alliance thus formed," says Dr. Brugsch, " laid the foundation of the intimate friendship, so often mentioned by the chroniclers of the time, between the two great empires of Asia and Africa />., between Khita, the Hittite Empire, and Egypt. The lord of the former, called Khitasir, first made the pro- posal, and sent to Ramses a plate of silver on which were inscribed the terms of an offensive and defensive alliance. The following are some extracts from this important and most interesting treaty, as translated by Dr. Brugsch : " In the year twenty-one, in the reign of King Ramses, there took place a public sitting ; . . . then came forward the ambassador of the king and the Adon of the great King of the Hittites." . . . This is the copy of the contents of the silver tablet which the great King of the Hittites had caused HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 75 to be made a good treaty for friendship and concord, which assured peace for a longer period than was previously the case the agreement of the great Prince of the Egyptians in common with the great King of the Hittites, for the people of Egypt and for the people of Khita that there should be no more enmity between them for evermore. Khitasir, the great King of Khita, is in covenant with Ramses, the great Prince of Egypt. " He shall be my ally, he shall be my friend. I will be his ally, I will be his friend for ever. The sons of the sons of of the great King of the Hittites will hold together and be friends with the sons of the sons of the great Prince of Egypt." To this remarkable instrument, one of the most curious documents which have survived the lapse of ages, are duly appended >the names and titles of certain gods and goddesses as witnesses of the treaty. It abundantly proves that then Khita, the land of the Hittites, was equal in rank and power to Egypt itself. The Hittites held the sov- ereignty of Western Asia, and had compelled Ramses, the king of mighty Thebes to accept peace on equal terms the great " Sesostris," known to the Greeks afterward by tradition, the last of the really great Pharaohs. The friend- ship between the two states led to an important marriage, recorded in the hieroglyphs at Ipsam- boul, in the thirty-fourth year of the reign of Ramses. He then married the daughter of the Hittite king a grand state function, when the lord of Khita himself attended in national cos- tume. The bride, who now received an Egyptian name, is, in the inscription, celebrated for her .beauty, but there is no indication of her having possessed the force of character shown by the Hittite princess who became mother of the Pha- raoh Khun-Aten. The son of the great Ram- 76 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. ses, Meneptah, the "Pharaoh of the Exodus," was also on friendly terms with the great Syrian power, since there is a record of his sending corn to the Hittites during a famine. At a later period we find that the Canaanites had suffered disaster both from the Hittites from the north and from Ramses II. on the south, and this, according to Professor Sayce, explains why they "offered so slight a resistance to the invad- ing Israelites." The Exodus was shortly after the death of Ramses II., and " when Joshua en- tered Palestine he found there a disunited people and a country exhausted by the long and terrible wars of the preceding century. The way had been prepared by the Hittites for the Israelitish conquest of Canaan." Taking now a different page of the world's history, if we turn from the Egyptian inscriptions to the cuneiform records of the Euphrato-Tigris Valley, we have evidence that even under Sargon I. the Hittites were formidable enemies />., not later than the twentieth century B.C. Other Assyriologists place that reign some centuries earlier. Probably the Hittites were originally neighbours as well as kindred of the Akkad race } before the latter descended upon the fertile plain between the Euphrates and Tigris, and there de- veloped the civilization which, for so long a period afterwards, kept them superior to the Assyr- ians and all other Semitic races. There are also important notices of the Hittites during the twelfth century B.C., under the powerful King Tiglath-pileser (see Chap. II.). He led the Assyrian army into mountainous Armenia, and harried much of the Hittite country, though the fortress of Carchemish on the Euphrates was too HITTITES, PHOENICIANS. AND HEBREWS. 77 strong to be taken. He did not even attack it, and therefore never reached Palestine, or Phoeni- cia, the " Back-Country " behind the Mount Lebanon. In the ninth century, however, Assur- nasrpal of Assyria took the eastern Hittite capi- tal, and passed the Euphrates, after being bribed by the rich citizens of the right bank to spare the wealthy town. Rich and luxurious by their commerce, the Hittites on this frontier had become unwarlike, and bought peace with the Assyrian conqueror by such presents as " golden cups, golden chains, golden knives, 100 talents of copper, 250 talents of iron, copper images of wild bulls, copper bowls, copper libation cups, . . . couches and thrones of rare wood and ivory, 200 slave girls, variegated cloth and linen gar- ments, masses of black crystal and blue crystal, precious stones, elephants' tusks, a white chariot, . . ." war-chariots, war-horses, and other accre- tions of imperial dignity. Near Aleppo, Assur-nasrpal took Azaz, a smaller Hittite capital, and again received large bribes. His son, Shalmanezer (860-825 B.C.), was similarly tempted to invade the lands of the Hittite princes for the sake of spoil, and soon formed the design of becoming master of the high road between Phoenicia and Assyria. Alli- ances were repeatedly formed against the warlike Assyrians; but in vain. Ahab, the King of Israel, contributed 2000 chariots and 10,000 sol- diers to a large army of northern as well as Syro- Arabic allies, who fought at the battle of Karkar, and helped to make the " Orontes run red with blood." This conquest by Shalmanezer was the death stroke to the Hittite supremacy, because now the Semites of Phoenicia and Palestine 78 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. became more united to the Semitic Assyrians, and the Hittites were now mostly tributary to the new empire of the Euphrato-Tigris Valley. The Assyrian inscriptions began to use " Hittite " as meaning Syrian. Carchemish, on the Euphrates, still, however, remained a Hittite capital till the following century, when Sargon II. took it by storm, and its last king, Pisiris, was made captive by the Assyrians, 717 B.C. The Semites of As- syria, or Babylonia, were now masters of all the west of Asia, and the Khita Empire had come to a close. The Hittites, like their kinsmen the Akkads, had, from some unknown period, invented an alphabet or syllabary of writing words. The Hittite letters, however, are hieroglyphics, and so entirely different from the Egyptian or Chinese characters, that scholars are unable as yet to decypher them. Specimens of this unknown lan- guage have been found at Carchemish, the east- ern capital, as well as at Hamath and Aleppo on the Orontes, and Lykaonia in Asia Minor. In various places occur sculptures of figures which differ in features and dress from all those repre- senting the ancient Babylonians, the Egyptians, or the Semites, &c. So far as those records go, the Hittites wore a short-skirted tunic, and strange boots with up- turned toes. The latter has been explained as a survival of some form of " snow-shoe," because the original race had for generations lived among the snow-clad mountains to the north of Syria, and north-western uplands of the Iran plateau. Many of the figures are sculptured with fingerless gloves, which is considered another proof that the earliest home of the Hittites was a cold HITTITES, PHCENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 79 northern region. They were beardless, like most of the other men of the yellow race, and to mod- erns appear rather ugly, as they did to the ancient Egyptians. Students of heraldry may wonder at the statement that the two-headed eagle of Ger- many, Russia, and Austria has been derived from the extinct art and symbolism of the Hittites. Certain it is that the figure occurs prominently in the Hittite monuments; and after being" adopted in later days by the Turkoman princes," was brought to Europe by the Crusaders, and thus " became the emblem of the German Emperors, who have passed it on to the modern kingdoms of Russia and Austria/' At Eyuk, in Asia Minor, near the River Halys, which flows north to the Black Sea, can still be traced the walls of a large Hittite palace, with huge squared blocks of stone, and an approach guarded by lions, the main entrance flanked by two vast granite masses, bearing sphinxes carved in relief. Many details of the architecture suggest an imitation of Egyptian art, while the site is, like that of the Babylonian palaces, raised on an arti- ficial platform of earth. It is suggested that this must have been a summer-palace, to which the kings of Kadesh resorted when " the burning sun of Syria " made the Orontes valley too warm for them. The Hittites appeal to us " on account of the debt which the civilization of Europe owes to them," since u the first beginnings of Greek cul- ture were derived from the Hittite conquerors of Asia Minor." Obtaining their civilization from an Eastern source, as Bactria or some other un- known centre, they transmitted it westwards to the distant shores of the Egean. Thence the 8o EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. early Greeks conveyed it to the European conti- nent. Ionia was the origin of the Greek culture, and in many other parts of Asia Minor there are traces of refinement and civilization, long extinct, which the Hittites probably began. Some of the greatest men of the earlier Greeks were born in Asia Minor, such as Homer, Thales, Pythagoras, and Herodotus, and whoever thinks of these in connection with the towns on the Egean may cast his thoughts still further back to the Hittite or Khita civilization. A famous line in the Odyssey, which had from age to age puzzled the readers of Homer, is now conjectured by Mr. Gladstone to refer to those singular Khita or Keta. " . . . his comrades, the Keteians, Around him fell in numbers," says the poet ; and certainly the name or race, so long a trouble to ethnologists and geographers, may very well be merely a variant of Kheta or Hittites. II. The Phoenicians. In many points the Phoenicians contrast strongly with their neigh- bours the Hittites; and, though their history has much less of the romantic interest, due to being so recently and unexpectedly brought to light deterres, as Pope said of Samuel Johnson, the unknown Grub Street writer yet from being more in touch with some of our modern ideas, and from the constant allusions to them in classical writers, the extinct civilization of Tyre and Sidon is almost as attractive to the student of history as that of the " Forgotten Empire." Napoleon nicknamed the British race la nation boutiqutirc, " shopkeepers," and a French historian informs us that he copied the phrase from Louis XIV., HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 8l who applied it disdainfully to the Dutch ; but in any case, both the modern races may be proud to be bracketed with the ancient Phoenicians, owing their wealth and importance to trade and com- merce, and having acquired a bias thereto from the natural environment. What was the site of Phoenicia? Merely a narrow strip of sea-coast on the west of Syria, less than 200 miles in length northwards from the Bay of Acre, and only 12 in breadth. The strip was narrow, being hemmed in between the Lebanon mountains and the Mediterranean, but the soil was very fertile, ow- ing to the many streams which watered it. This belt of country is of great beauty, some travellers preferring its scenery and situation to those of the far-famed Riviera, between France and Italy. To the east parallel to the coast runs the lofty range of Lebanon, " the glory of Phoenicia/' which, being steepest on the side which faces the Assyrians, formed a magnificent wall of defence. The western slopes, with well-watered forests, supplied timber abundantly for the navy and for building purposes. "We will cut wood out of Lebanon (wrote the King of Tyre to the King of the Jews), and bring it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa, and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem." More important, however, for the national growth of this small maritime state was its excellent sup- ply of natural harbours. These were a constant stimulus to boat-building, sea-faring, and foreign trading. Herodotus, in the fifth century B c., sailed to Tyre to visit the famous temple of Hercules (called Melcarth by the Phoenicians), and was told it had existed 2300 years; the foundation of Tyre has therefore been assigned to 2750 B.C., 6 82 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. when the Memphian Pharaohs ruled Egypt, and more than fourteen centuries prior to the Hebrew exodus under Moses. Sidon claimed to be older than Tyre, and in the Bible and Homer the Phoe- nicians are called Sidonians rather than Tyrians, as if Sidon were the first capital; but during the history of the country, as now known, Tyre was undoubtedly the head. In the fifteenth century B.C., accordingly, there were already busy ports at Sidon, Tyre, Byblos, Beiroot, and Acre, though under different and less famous names. Except- ing that of Beiroot, these harbours have long been rendered useless by silting. This busy people called themselves Kend, and no doubt belonged to the Canaanitish tribes, who gave both the Egyptians and the Hittites so much trouble till they were cleared out of Palestine, and their country afterwards taken by Joshua and the Hebrews. The name we use, Phoenicians, was given them by the Greeks on account of their dark-red complexion the wor&phoinos or fihoenus being "blood-red." Others say the Greeks ap- plied that name from the colour of the famous purple dyes which were a staple of their com- merce. In the cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria, Phoenicia is called Akharru, the " Back-land," i.e., the land behind the Hittites and west of the range of Lebanon. The Phoenician language was almost the same as the Hebrew, as has already been shown in describing the Moabitish stone (p. 22), but in race the two nations differed more, though both were undoubtedly derived from that division of the White Men which is called Semitic, or Syro-Arabic. The native annals of the Phoenicians being lost, we have to glean notices of their early his- HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 83 tory from other nations, as has been done in the case of the Hittites. In the seventeenth cen- tury B.C., Thothmes III. placed Egyptian govern- ors at various points to collect tribute from Phoe- nicia, just as was done in Syria and Palestine. In the fourteenth century B.C., Phoenicia became more independent owing to the increased power of the Hittite empire, and the weakening of Egypt's foreign rule. Then began the growth and rapid development of the Phoenician trade and commerce ; which placed her in the forefront of ancient states. The capital, Sidon, was noted for the manufacture of glass, and Tyre for its purple, but other towns joined in those indus- tries, and also in cloth-weaving and embroideries. These arts were no doubt originally borrowed from Egypt and Babylonia, though as merchants and carriers they obtained full credit amongst the ancient writers as being the inventors of the wares in which they traded. Pliny's apocryphal story of glass being accidentally made on this coast by boiling a pot on the sandy shore and propping it with some lumps of natron is absurd, yet some writers still call the Phoenicians the inventors of glass-making. The " Tyrian dyes," proverbial in every language, were got from the murex, a shell fish still abounding on the coast; and excellent sand is still found near Sidon and in the Bay of Acre. The Phoenicians excelled in bronze-work, ivory-carving, and gem-engraving. Two bronze gates brought from Tyre to the British Museum are covered with groups of figures representing the bustle and various occupations of a commer- cial port. Homer, when mentioning gold or silver cups or bowls, or prize vases, &c., generally calls them Sidonian ; and in his letter to Solomon we 84 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. find the King of Tyre promising to send " a cun- ning man, skilful to work in gold and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen and in crimson ; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device that shall be put to him, with thy cunning men." Of the artistic productions of the Phoenicians few traces exist. Their sculp- ture and architectural remains show no great re- finement. According to several writers the Phoe- nician temples, on which such enormous expense was lavished, were closely similar to the Hebrew temple. " In the domain of art," says Professor Socin, "originality was as little a characteristic of the Phoenicians as of the Hebrews," and it was not till the country became subject to Persia that art came to be appreciated or systematically studied. The neighbourly interchange of civilities be- tween the Phoenician King Hiram and the two chief Jewish kings is one of the most interesting references to our subject which the Old Testa- ment contains. King Hiram's friendship with David was confirmed by commerce and inter- marriages; and his construction of splendid tem- ples to Melcarth and Astarte probably suggested to David and Solomon the building of a palace and temple in Jerusalem which should be worthy of the new dignity of the Hebrew nation. After assisting King. David to build his palace, Hiram supplied Solomon with cedar, fir, and stones for his great temple, besides sending skilled workmen to carry out many designs which the Hebrew artizans were unqualified for. He also lent him 120 talents of gold for the interior decorations. To compensate this favour Solomon agreed to HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 85 make annual payments of oil and wine, and after- wards gave him some territory in Galilee. Sev- eral details of the temple in Jerusalem corre- sponded exactly to those of Phoenicia, e.g., the two pillars at the entrance called Jachin and Boaz. Hiram supplied also sailors and pilots to assist Solomon in certain commercial plans, such as exploiting the gold mines of u Ophir," which was probably on the west coast of India, a place already visited by the Phoenicians. The Phoeni- cians, besides trading on their own manufactures, were from the beginning international shippers and carriers; a large proportion of their freights consisted of Egyptian and Babylonian wares which were to be sold by barter on the Mediter- ranean coasts. Their settlement on the Island of Cyprus was mainly for working the copper mines (for which that island was famous, as the name of the metal proves) and procuring timber. On the Grecian coasts, according to Homer, they trafficked in slaves and sold trinkets, and on some of the Grecian islands they had mining sta- tions and dye works. Phoenician idols have re- cently been exhumed at Mycenae " objects of amber and an ostrich egg side by side with rich jewels of gold Oriental decoration " and images of Asiatic plants and animals. On the Isthmus of Corinth, a prehistoric centre of commercial ac- tivity, the national god of Tyre was worshipped under the Phoenician name. A well-known incident in the Odyssey vividly reproduces those far-off times when the Phoe- nicians were known as crafty traders and kid- nappers on the Egean and Grecian coasts. Ulysses asks Eumaeus, " the goodly swineherd, a master of men," how he happened to have 86 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. wandered so far from his country. Eumaeus, after describing his 'native isle, over which his father was king, tells how there came there some " Phoenicians famous sailors, but sharp fellows in bargaining, who brought in their black ship countless trinkets," and how, as there was in his father's house a " Phoenician woman, handsome and tall, skilled in the finest handiwork," one of the visitors made love to her. She told the Phoenician she had come from " Sidon, rich in bronze," where her parents were wealthy, and how she had been seized when returning from the field by some Taphian pirates, brought to the island and sold to her master for a goodly price. " Wouldst thou return home with us," asked the Phoenician, " to see again the lofty house of thy father and mother, and look on their faces?" She eagerly assented, promising to bring on board, not only whatever gold she could find, but the little son of her master. " Him would I lead on board ship to fetch you a countless price from whatever men of foreign lands you might sell him to." At last, after the ship was fully freighted for departure, one of the cunning Phoenicians brought to the house " a golden chain strung here and there with amber beads ; " and, " as my lady mother," continues Eumaeus, " and her maidens were handling the chain and admiring it, the sailor gave the signal to the woman. She led me forth from the house, . . . hid three goblets in her bosom, and 1 followed, in my innocence, to the haven, where was the swift ship of the Phoenicians. For six days we sailed, but when Zeus added the seventh, then Artemis, the huntress, smote the woman that she fell as a sea-swallow falls, with a plunge into the HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 87 hold. . . . Wind and water brought them to Itha- ca, where Laertes bought me with his wealth. Thus it was," concluded the swineherd, " that I came to look upon this land." The Greeks first learned the use of an alphabet from the commercial Phoenicians, and therefore called them the inventors of letters, just as they gave them credit for having first made glass and dyed cloth purple. That is now completely dis- proved, as has been seen in Chapter III. Not only the Egyptian hieroglyphs, but the cuneiform alphabet of the Akkads and Babylonians, and the strange alphabet used by the Hittites in their inscriptions, were all of far older date than the trade and civilization of Phoenicians, who were certainly clever enough to learn one or more of these modes of writing. It is likely, from their commercial habits and business-like desire to save time, that they simplified that form of alphabet which they had adopted ; but if so, that is all for which the modern world of letters may thank the ancient nation boutiquiere. Centuries after the Phoenicians, the Greeks were the chief sea-faring race in the Mediter- ranean, but for a long time they merely imitated the skilled mariners of Tyre and Sidon. They themselves say that their ships were inferior in speed ; and when they had to use the Polar Star in longer voyages, their name for it was the " Phoenician star," a single fact which proves the source of their navigation. Xenophon acutely remarks upon the admirable order and arrange- ment, with every economy of space, observed on board the Phoenician ships. The Assyrian sculp- tures of Sargon and Sennacherib show the galleys with a double tier of rowers. 88 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. It was, perhaps, of her colonies that Phoenicia had most reason to be proud, excelling Greece, her successor, and almost rivalling in enter- prise the modern British race, who live in more favourable circumstances, and with greater re- sources at command. It was mainly towards the western parts of the Mediterranean and outside the Straits of Gibraltar that this commercial energy was shown. The famous trade with Tar- shish or Tartessus, on the Guadalquivir (where they founded Cadiz and Seville), often referred to in Jewish history, was of the first importance, not only from the valuable fisheries, but for the quan- tities of silver and other ores procured there. So cheaply did the simple natives supply the Phoe- nicians, there being no other buyers, that the profits were immense; and the historian Diodorus tells us, for example, that some ships on their return from that far western land had their anchors made of solid silver. The Phoenician voyages for tin are known to every reader of English his- tory, and how they first introduced the southern parts of England to the civilized world. Besides Cornwall, however, and the Scilly Islands, their merchants found tin in north-west Spain. The Scilly group they named Tin Islands, and seem to have followed a route across France, in order to tranship the valuable ore at Marseilles, already a busy port. The Phoenician commerce with Spain and the West led to many colonies ; Tarshish, founded soon after the Trojan War, according to Strabo ; Gades and Utica, about uoo B.C. ; Carthage, 814 B.C. The last two were on the coast of Africa, where also the Phoenicians had numberless smaller settlements. There were many others on the HITTITES, PHCENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 89 coasts of Spain, Sicily, &c. From such a number of colonies the mother state derived its chief wealth and power, since all had to pay tithes to Melcarth, the god of Tyre. Even up to the sixth century B.C. we find Carthage herself sending the colonial tribute to Tyre, with envoys to assist in the ceremonial feast of the national god. A brilliant picture of the trade and wealth of this state is given by the prophet Ezekiel in his " dirge of Tyre," when he compares the city to a fair vessel launching forth in majesty to be finally wrecked and brought to nothing. " O Tyre, situate at the entry of the sea, a merchant of the people for many isles, thou hast said I am of perfect beauty. Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy boards of fir- trees of Hermon, they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars, thy benches made they of ivory, . . . thy sails of fine linen with broidered work from Egypt ; blue and purple from the isles. . . . All the ships of the sea with their mari- ners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise. They of Persia and of Lud [Lydia] and of Phut [Libya] were in thine army, thy men of war : they hanged the shield and helmet in thee. . . . Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches silver, iron, tin, and lead. [Greece and other lands] traded in thy fairs in slaves, horses, mules, ivory, and ebony : [Syria] in emeralds, purple and broidered work, and fine linen and coral and agate : [Judah and Israel] in thy market-wheat, and honey, and oil, and balm : [Damascus] in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches, in the wine of Helbon, and white wool : [Dan and Javan, i.e., Greece] bright iron, cassia, and calamus : [Dedan] precious cloths for chariots : [Arabia and Kedar] lambs, rams, and goats : [Sheba, a part of Arabia] spices, precious stones, and gold : [Sheba and Assyria, &c.] blue cloths and broidered work, chests of rich apparel, made of cedar. . . . Thou wast replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas ; thy rowers have brought thee into great waters ; the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas. Thy riches and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners and thy pilots and all 90 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. thy men of war that are in thee shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin. . . . All that handle the oar, the mariners and pilots, shall take up a lamentation for thee, say- ing, What city is like Tyre, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea ? Thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and thy merchandise. . . . Thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depth of the waters. All the in- habitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid. Thou shalt be a terror ; thou shalt be no more for ever." When Pharaoh Necho, with a view to com- merce, and perhaps from some natural motives of curiosity, wished the coast of Africa to be ex- plored as far as was possible, he applied to the Phoenicians as the first navigators of his time the beginning of the seventh century B.C. Some picked ships being "chartered," the daring sailors started southwards from the Arabian Gulf, and prosecuted their voyage till they " had the sun on their right hand," i.e., at noon they saw the sun to the north instead of the south. Historians quoted the saying as something incredible, just as Dr. Johnson laughed in scorn at Bruce the Abys- sinian traveller, when he said that he had seen steaks cut from a live ox. The statement only proves that they had really " crossed the line." The Phoenicians rounded the Cape and returned to Egypt by the Straits of Hercules, the voyage occupying three years. More than a hundred years later, another Phoenician, Hanno, a chief magistrate of Carthage, explored the west coast of Africa with a fleet of sixty ships, and on his return put up in the temple of Moloch an inscrip- tion on a tablet, of which a Greek translation re- mains. He seems to have reached the Bight of Benin, establishing on his way many trading sta- tions, and several of his geographical references have been identified. HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 91 Carthage, chief of the Phoenician colonies, waged a great war against Europe from the be- ginning of the fifth century B.C. First, with the Greeks in attempting to take the island Sicily ; and afterwards against all the might of Rome, in what Latin writers called the " Punic," i.e., Phoe- nician wars. The great generalship of such Phoe- nicians as Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, and especially Hannibal, nearly made Carthage mistress of Europe; but the struggle between the Semites and Aryans at length left the latter supreme, as they have remained ever since. The defeat of the Phoenician race by Rome was a " gain to the world at large." In the Punic wars, Carthage really represented the Phoenician race, since Phoenicia, the mother- state, had already dwindled to be subservient to Persia. From the beginning of the seventh cen- tury B.C., Phoenicia felt the power of Assyria, and after the fall of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar sacked Sidon with shocking carnage, and then sat down before the proud island-capital in one of the most famous sieges known to history. Tyre had resources enough, we are told, to resist him for thirteen years. The Phoenician king was then taken to Babylon, and the maritime confederacy was reduced to a Babylonian dependency. In 527 B c., Phoenicia was conquered by Cambyses, and thus became part of a Persian satrapy, the other parts being Syria, Palestine, and Cyprus. The closing dynasty of Sidonian kings reigned from 460 to 333 B.C., when at last Phoenicia ceased to be a state on its conquest by Alexander the Great. After Sidon, Byblus, and Aradus had accepted the terms of the Macedonian conqueror, Tyre 92 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. proudly refused to do so, because he insisted on possessing their city and its fleet. The Phoenician citizens trusted to their walls, 150 feet high, and the wide deep channel which separated their island from the coast. Alexander, however, had a will like that of Hannibal, or Julius Caesar, or Napoleon, and after seven months of unremit- ting toil, an isthmus was completed, which re- mains to the present day. To carry out this enormous scheme of engineering, Alexander had to repel the attacks of the Tyrian war-ships, and drive away the Arabs who were preventing the workmen from cutting timber in the mountains. Once the whole of the work was undone by a storm, but the great captain only pushed on the undertaking with greater vigour. Whole trees in thousands were sunk in the sea, and then covered with layers of stones, on which other trees were heaped, till at last the deep strait was filled up. The mole being finished, the wall breached, and the island capital taken by storm, 8000 defenders were put to the sword, 2000 crucified for the murder of some Greek prisoners, and 30,000 sold as slaves. Before the siege began, the Tyrians had sent their wives and children by sea to Carthage. The only persons spared were the king and leading magistrates, who had taken refuge in the great temple of Melkarth. The mole of Alexander can- still be traced as the back- bone of the real isthmus which has since been formed by alluvial deposits. Tyre, or Tyr, was originally Sur, or Syr, as the Arabic name is to this day, and hence came the word Syria. The island town has now a popula- tion of 4000 or 5000, according to M. Booet, in " Visit to Sacred Lands " (ed. 1882), much of the HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 93 ancient site being occupied by large hewn stones and enormous columns of porphyry. The only export trade now is in wheat, brought on camel- back by the Damascus merchants. In the history of Polybius an oath is men- tioned which was made by Hannibal to Philip of Macedon, containing two triads sacred to the Phoenicians " Sun, Moon, and Earth " ; " Rivers, Meadows, and Waters." These objects typified tne essential ideas of their religion. Rivers were "sacred to gods, trees to goddesses." The cen- tral point was the worship of the Sun-god, or god of the heavens, whose wife was therefore the Moon, Ashtoreth, or the Earth. El was the name given to Baal, the Sun-god, in the town Byblus ; and in Tyre he became more famous as u Melkarth." The Phoenicians, in their images of deities, avoided any human likeness, and wher- ever they travelled or settled, worshipped the gods of the mother country with the same rites. Herodotus says that the figure-heads of their ships were images of their gods. The chief temple of the Phoenicians, that of Melkarth in Tyre, con- tained no image, according to Herodotus. Their various divinities, according to some theologians, arose from one type, so that at an earlier period, perhaps, their religion was, in a certain sense, fundamentally monotheistic. M. Lenormant says that the Phoenicians founded their religious system " on the conception of one universal divine being." Among the Hittites he was called Set or Sutekh, " the omnipotent." Among the Phoenicians and Canaanites he was called El, tJu god, and sometimes Jaoh or Jah, "the being," "the eternal." The usual name was Baal, " the lord," a name once widely spread 94 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. over many countries, and brought by the Celts even to Britain ; the word "Beltane," Baal's fire, is a survival of that ancient worship. Baal, the sun, and Ashtoreth, the moon, were applicable to any god or goddess. From the classical writers we know that human sacrifices took place on certain state emergencies : at Carthage, for example, a brazen image of El was heated to a glow to receive in its arms chil- dren offered by their parents. The priestly theory was that such sacrifices were instituted by El himself, who, in a time of universal danger, had offered his only son upon an altar. Most of the pre-histonc religions taught that the deity, to be appeased, required a man to sacrifice whatever he valued as holy and most precious, such as an only son, a first born child, or a virgin daughter. Some writers find evidence that this was a rite among the primitive Hebrews, and, besides other notable instances, quote the case of Jephthah, one of the "Judges," who, in consequence of a vow, offered up his daughter as a burnt-offering. III. The Hebrews. From their tribal reli- gion based upon the distinctive faith in El, the god of their fathers, this race originally assumed a special name " Isra^/." The modern name, " Jews," arose after the division of the nation into two small kingdoms, and the subsequent diminution of that remnant of the kingdom of Judah in which the Hebrew nationality still for a time survived. When discussing the two great divisions of the White Race of Mankind, we showed that the Hebrews, as Semites or Syro- Arabians, owed kinship to the Moabites and Phoenicians ; and their own records speak of " their brethren the Edomites, the Moabites, and HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 95 the Ammonites." In fact, these four small no- madic races, living on the skirts of the Arabian Desert, were all of the same stock as the Arabians. The cousinship is easily proved from the Hebrew history ; as neighbours, speaking the same tongue and of the same occupations, the four tribes must originally have really formed but one "clan." Professor Duncker, indeed, be- lieves that the Hebrews were a sept from the Edomites who had settled on and .near Mount Seir, between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. Esau is called "father of the Edomites," and married one of the Horites, a tribe kindred to the Edomites ; Moses married a Midianitess, Midian being a part of Moab. Naomi took refuge among the Moabites, when there was dearth of corn in Canaan, and her two sons married two daughters of that people. One of these was Ruth, who, on their return to Bethlehem, became wife of Boaz, and thus transmitted a Moabitish strain to the royal line of Judah, and even to Mary, mother of our Lord. Another proof of kinship between the tribes is the statement that one of the wives of Solomon, mother of Rehoboam, his successor, was an Ammonitess. About two hundred years (210 exactly, ac- cording to some) before the " Exodus," which is now a fixed date, the Hebrew tribe, or a section of them, settled in the neighbouring district of Goshen, under the authority of the Pharaohs, retaining there their simple and patriarchal mode of life as nomadic shepherds. For some time they were well treated, especially whilst Joseph was prime minister to one of the Hyksos kings of Egypt, as was referred to in Chapter III. Afterwards, 96 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. "... fallen on evil days, With danger compassed round," they were harshly ruled, being subjected to forced labour and other severities. In the Egyptian moriuments of the reign of the despotic Ramses, (see page 60), the Hebrews seem to be mentioned as being employed on public works; and some sculptures represent prisoners of Semitic race making bricks and building walls, each gang in charge of an Egyptian wielding a long whip. They built the two towns, Pithom and Ramses (the latter named from the king) east of the Delta; and, according to some writers, the real object of this Pharaoh was to crush them by severity or force them to take refuge in the Arabian Desert. At last, in the following reign of King Meneptah, their national spirit and love of independence led to a revolution, led by Moses. This leader had been trained in Egyptian ideas, and owed much to the culture and learning of that country. By earnestly reminding the He- brews of the god of their fathers, and intensi- fying the conception that El, who was the god of various Syro-Arabic races, regarded Israel with special favour, and would deliver his people if they devoted themselves to the true worship, Moses established a theocracy. Its formula and essential dogma was that " Javeh (the sacred name of El) is the god of Israel, and Israel is the people of Javeh." After maturing his plans for escaping to the wilderness, Moses and the Hebrews left Goshen secretly, and directed their march towards the former settlements of their race. This important date is now fixed at about 1320 B.C. Encamping by the Red Sea, they were overtaken by an HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 97 Egyptian army, and the latter suffered a notable defeat, afterwards the theme of many Hebrew hymns of praise and rejoicing. According to Professor Wellhausen, the Egyptian disaster is explained, first by the sea being forded before the pursuers arrived, because it had been rendered shallow by the " strong east wind " of the narra- tive; and secondly, by the Egyptians finding the ground on the eastern side " ill suited for their chariots and horsemen." Thus, " falling into confusion, they attempted a retreat. Meanwhile the wind had changed, the waters returned, and the pursuers were annihilated." The first settlement after the Exodus from Goshen was at Kadesh, bordering Palestine on the south, and there, near the tribal well, was established the first Hebrew sanctuary and taber- nacle. The earliest form of "the law," which afterwards was the main feature of their faith and worship, was probably formulated here, and several generations of the shepherds and goat- herds passed away in this Arabian tract before an attempt was made to invade the more desirable land which lay further north. When in Kadesh, the Hebrews consisted of only six or seven small tribes ; but under the teaching and discipline of Moses they soon formed the nucleus of an endur- ing nation. The national unity had for its centre the symbol of the divine presence, " the ark of the covenant," the seat of tribal worship ; which, when by the well in Kadesh, was sometimes a standard or rallying-point in fighting hostile tribes. El was " primarily Israel's God, and only afterwards did He come to be regarded as the God of the universe." Rising in dignity as the national idea was enlarged ; El became more 7 98 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. just and righteous, more and more superior to all " the other gods," till at last he was defined to be the supreme ruler of Nature, the One and only Lord. The conquest of Canaan by the Hebrews under Joshua was undoubtedly assisted by the wars of the Hittite Empire already referred to. The local races were, in many cases, overcome without difficulty ; but in some parts, a large pro- portion of the native inhabitants remained. When the country was distributed among the tribes there was still mu,ch to be done to make the settlement permanent. Even in the moun- tainous land of the south, the Canaanites held the site of the future Jerusalem and other im- portant points; the plain of Jezreel also, and that along the sea coast remained in native hands. The result of this unsettled conquest was that, after Joshua's death, in the middle of the thir- teenth century B.C., there followed the long heroic period of the " Judges," lasting for 180 years, a period of sturm und drang, a prolonged and dreary struggle for national existence. Tribe after tribe of the Hebrews succumbed, whether to Moabites, Ammonites, Amalekites, or Philistines, &c., and thus from time to time leaders arose to distinguish their patriotism in various ways, and afterwards become famous in the nation's annals. The chief oppressors of this disjointed Hebrew race, in the process of being welded into a nation, were the Philistines, who, from the plains by the sea coast, whence they were never completely ousted, pressed north into the plain of Sharon and thence into that of Jezreel. Defeating the Hebrews in a pitched battle, they carried off in triumph the u ark of the covenant," that symbol HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 99 of the divine presence, without which it were vain for Israel to appear in battle. They also destroyed the sanctuary at Shiloh. For twenty years, ac- cording to the chronicler, the Philistines held them in subjection, and all that time Samuel the Prophet, whom alone they had to look to, kept himself apart in solitude and meditation. To in- dicate the humiliation at this time, the chronicler says that the Israelites were compelled to go to the Philistines if they wished to sharpen their ploughshares or axes. This is possibly an exag- geration, due to the colouring which tradition naturally assumes, just as the statement that under Deborah, the Prophetess, when " she judged Israel," there was no shield or spear throughout all the Hebrew land. The terrible disgrace of the nation and the national religion, enhanced by their own feuds and quarrels, and by threats of predatory invasions on every side, drove them to the alternative of altering their form of govern- ment by turning the theocratic republic into a monarchy. The first king was chosen by the aged prophet Samuel, who then exercised the greatest authority as " a man of God," and as having formerly been one of the "Judges." King Saul (1067 B.C.) was an excellent soldier, but no statesman. His successor and son-in-law David, was the greatest king of the Hebrew race. His reign, and that of his son Solomon, may to- gether be termed the " golden age " and " Augus- tan period " of Israel. This short culmination of the Hebrew kingdom in the eleventh century B.C. may partly be explained by the decay of the Egyptian empire. The Canaanitish tribes and others on the bor- ders had by this time been completely overmas- 100 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. tered by the Hebrews, and the boundaries of the kingdom extended in all directions. The strong- hold " Jebus," in the hill-country of Judah, being taken from the native tribe, was made the site of a new capital, and called* Jerusalem, " the City of Peace." A magnificent temple was built, and thus Jerusalem became also the ecclesiastical metropolis ; the religious rites and orders of priesthood being at the same time rendered more dignified and imposing. Various arts were also encouraged in imitation of Phoenicia, and some important foreign trade existed for a time. The creation of this short-lived but brilliant kingdom of Judah is entirely due to David. The later Jewish traditions, according to Professor Wellhausen, have too much canonized him as a " Levitical saint and pious hymn-writer " ; and no doubt his treatment of military prisoners and of the sons of Saul proves that he was " an antique king in a barbarous age." The qualities of man- liness and kindliness, however, must be granted to the poet-king. The "most daring courage " was combined in him with " tender susceptibility." The charm of David's muse is permanently evi- denced in the lament for the death of Jonathan and Saul on the heights of Gilboa : " The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places : How are the mighty fallen ! Tell it not in Gath ; publish it not in the streets of Askelon Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, Neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offerings, For there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away * Probably David only revived the ancient name, since a cunei- form tablet (found in 1890 at Tel-el- A nmrna), written centuries be- fore the Hebrew period, seems to reier to that place under the form Urusalem. HITTITES, PHCENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. IOI The shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, The bow of Jonathan turned not back, The sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan Were lovely and pleasant in their lives, And in their death they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul Who clothed you in scarlet with other delights, Who put ornaments of gold on your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle ! Jonathan, thou art slain on thine high places: 1 am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan ; Very pleasant hast thou been to me : Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished ! " Solomon had no military genius, and allowed the Syrians, Edomites, and others to regain much of their former power. He showed, however, great wisdom in the internal management of his kingdom. Imitating Egypt and the great Asiatic kings in grandeur and display, he spent so much on architecture, court ceremonial, and his harem, that his people were overwhelmed with taxes; and he finished his reign as a voluptuous sultan, an idolatrous despot, 977 B.C. The Hebrew state soon became divided into two kingdoms Judah in the south and Israel in the north. In the latter kingdom for 250 years scarcely any king succeeded to the throne, unless by the murder of his predecessor; and at last the Assyrian Shalmanezer invaded the country and carried most of the people into captivity. To colonize the country round Samaria, capital of the northern kingdom, he then deported Assyri- ans, who, by mingling and intermarrying with 102 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. the Hebrews left there, formed a new race called Samaritans. The chief of the two Hebrew kingdoms, that of Judah or the " House of David," had a suc- cession of twenty kings, many of whom were idolatrous. Under these the little state became subject to Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia ; and at last Jerusalem was stormed, and the temple of Solomon plundered and burnt, 588 B.C. This was done by the great Nebuchadnezzar, on a second visit. Eleven years previously he had taken Jerusalem, and sent the king captive to Babylon ; and now, in indignation at the national resistance, he ordered the capital to be destroyed, most of the inhabitants to be removed to Chal- dea, and the king Zedekiah to have his eyes put out. The captivity of the northern kingdom (called "Israel," or the Ten Tribes), under Shalmanezer, and that of the southern kingdom (called Judah, or the "Two Tribes"), under Nebuchadnezzar, may together be said to close the history of the ancient Hebrews. The ten tribes, when deported to Assyria and the Median mountains beyond, entirely lost their nationality, and no trace of them has ever been found. The two remaining tribes, which had formed the kingdom of Judah, found, in due time, an opportunity of returning to Jerusalem, but so kindly were they treated in Babylon that less than half of them chose to re- turn. Some reliable writers inform us, indeed, that, excepting the priests and Levites, those who returned from the captivity were all of an inferior sort. The first " extinct civilization " due to the Hebrew race, therefore, came to an end when Judah was taken captive to Babylon. When the HITTITES, PHCENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 103 remnant returned, after a gap of fifty years, the circumstances were so altered that the nation formed an entirely new point of departure, and thus, with the vitality derived from their residence in Babylon, began to build up a second form of civilization. This came to an end when their ex- istence as a territorial nation was finally extin- guished by the Romans. The captivity of Judah (/>., the Hebrew race) in Babylon was therefore really a boon ; and, from the end of the sixth century B.C. till the second century A.D., the u land of exile " was in many respects more highly respected than even the " holy land " of Palestine. " Jews " now became the name of the nation, since all professed to be Judaeans, or descended from the kingdom of Judah; and ignored that remnant of the north- ern kingdom who had remained around Samaria. Many characteristic institutions of the Jewish synagogue had been a growth of their stay in Babylon; the "oral law" was there developed, and the mysterious belief in a " Messiah," the divinely sent deliverer from thraldom. Some of the finest chapters in Isaiah, and many of the Psalms, are attributed to this time ; and many theologians hold that, by assimilating the culture and higher philosophy of the Euphrates valley, the Jews then first realised that the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul are essential dogmas of the true religion of humanity. When the new Hebrew, or rather Jewish, na- tion began to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, a curious difficulty arose. The Samaritans, or mixed race, who had held the district north of Judah since the eighth century B.C., requested to 104 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. assist in this pious work, as they had always maintained the Hebrew worship, even when the Jews were in exile. The latter refused, alleging that some of the Samaritans had mixed the wor- ship of idols with the true worship of Javeh. In revenge the mixed northern race did all they could to hinder the building of the temple, and were so successful that the work was stopped till the year 520 B.C. They further tried jealously to interfere with the rebuilding of the walls of Jeru- salem. Hence the bitter enmity between these small kindred races, expressed in the History of Our Lord by the phrase, " for the Jews have" no dealings with the Samaritans." The Jewish na- tion, on their restoration to the south of Pales- tine, was not a kingdom, but under the long reign of Darius, their Persian ruler, they lived prosperously, and identified their patriotism with the new form of their monotheistic religion. King Artaxerxes authorized Nehemiah, who was his cup-bearer, and of Jewish descent, to fortify Jerusalem and restore the Jewish affairs to a state of order, 444 B.C. (see page 182). Much religious reform was now carried out, and the sacred records were compiled the basis of the Jewish "Holy Scriptures." The Samaritans built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, and created orders of priesthood independent of those in Jerusalem, so as to render reconciliation between the north and south absolutely impossible. When on his march to conquer Persia, Alex- ander the Great was entertained by the Jewish high priest in Jerusalem, and showed respect to the national religion. During the next century, under the Ptolemies of Egypt, the Jews had much communication with that country, mainly because HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 105 one of Alexander's generals had taken Jerusalem and settled nearly all its population in Alexandria and Gyrene. Two important results of this period are the Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament, and the development by Philo and others of that system of religious philosophy which some writers call the basis of Christianity. Becoming subject to the Syrians, the Jews of Palestine suffered greatly, and one of their tyrants, Epiphanes (or Epimanes, " the madman "), outraged all the religious, and therefore national, instincts of the much-enduring race. To compel them to adopt the Greek faith, the temple of Jerusalem was dedicated to Jupiter, altars to idols were built throughout the land, and the people were even forced to offer swine as daily sacri- fices. Many became martyrs rather than submit. The whole community were in fact goaded to in- surrection, as described in the Books of the Mac- cabees, a part of " the Apocrypha." Maccab, " Hammer," was a name given to the bravest of the five sons of Mattathias, the Jewish patriot, just as the rude tomb of the great Edward of England bears the inscription, Malleus Scotorum, and as the conqueror of the Moors in France was called Charles Martel or Marteau. The patriotic Judas Maccabaeus and his two brothers had some success as generals, and in the second century ;j.c. John, nephew of Judas, actually assumed the title of king. The Jews, however, were incapa- ble of establishing a real estate or nationality, and it was only under an Edomite, Herod I., that the south of Palestine was for a time again to become famous. This occurred after Pompey, with his Roman legions, had besieged Jerusalem, taken it, and included Judea under the province 106 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. of Syria. As a servant of Rome, then the might- iest power of the world, Herod was appointed king of Judaea by the emperor Augustus. Like Solomon, he aimed at grandeur and magnificence in constructing his public buildings; rebuilding the temple on a scale to rival all that Jewish tra- ditions extolled in the ancient one, and to excel it in style and expense. He also erected amphi- theatres and other great works, and rebuilt Samaria and Caesarea. Herod's chief character- istics, however, were his cruelty and love of shock- ing atrocities, almost surpassing those of the worst Roman emperors. On the death of Herod, in the year 4 B.C., the very date frequently assigned to the birth of our Lord, the land of the Jews, as a part of the Roman province of Syria, was ruled by " procurators " appointed by the emperor to choose officials, col- lect taxes, and keep the population in subjection. Insurrections naturally arose, with dreadful con- fusion, intensified by the race antipathy between Jews and Samaritans, and local hatreds in various districts between the populace and the Roman soldiers, till at last the Roman legionaries under the emperor Vespasian appeared on the scene. The rebellion and its consequent bloodshed was finally terminated, 70 A.D., by Titus, son of Ves- pasian, who took Jerusalem, destroyed the tem- ple, and after frightful massacre, scattered the poor remnants of the last Jewish nation to all parts of the world. "Judaea is conquered never again to be called Judaea." During the second period, as we have called it, of their ancient history, the Hebrews adopted the chronology used by the Syrians and Greeks all round the Levant. The Arabians are said still HITTITES, PHOENICIANS, AND HEBREWS. 107 to use that " Macedonian era," as it is called, dating from the time of Alexander's successor. This adoption by the Jewish remnant was but an- other proof that the national vitality was already ebbing and degenerating. Another proof was the loss of almost all traces of the Hebrew language. The Jews in Palestine used the " Ara'maic " tongue, a kind of Babylonian dialect mixed with Syriac, many words of which occur in the New Testament. " Hebrew," says Shiirer, in his great work on the Jews, " was so little current among the common people that the lessons [read in the synagogues] had to be translated word by word into the Aramaic." All the educated classes of the Jews, as well as Syrians and Alexandrians, naturally used the Greek language in the form used by the writers of the " Gospels " and " Epis- tles "; though in many cases Latin became com- mon as soon as Rome created the new province of Judaea. The contempt with which Horace, Juvenal, Tacitus, and other authors refer to the Jews proves that the race had then sunk low ; even the virtuous and cultured Marcus Aurelius speaks of a traveller, cum Palestinam transiret, Judaorum foetentium et tumultuantium saepe taedio percitus, alleging that in dirty and lazy habits they surpassed the worst of the savage races of middle Europe. Since that final destruction of Jerusalem the Jews have had no nationality. Their continued existence and differentiation as a race have been intensified by the persecutions and injustice which they have undergone in the leading Chris- tian states, not only in mediaeval times, but even in our own days. That, however, is a matter outside of our present discussion. The results to 108 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. mankind of the extinct civilization of the Jewish nation which began after the Babylonish captivity are mainly indirect, such as those which grew from the Alexandrian culture already glanced at ; and no doubt a large element there is due to the Grecian ideas which had pervaded Syria and Egypt* as well as other lands. CHAPTER V. THE ARABS. THIS noble and powerful race had not only in prehistoric times developed an extinct civilization in their native peninsula, but during the seventh and following centuries of the Christian era created an empire greater than that of Rome, extending from beyond India to the Atlantic, and embracing the richest nations in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Cordova, Baghdad, and Damascus, when the Moslem Khalifs ruled in them, were the most brilliant capitals of the world ; and the civilization then developed contained the germs and seeds of much of the science and philosophy of modern Europe. The sandy peninsula, which was the home of the countless Arabian tribes, is (see map on p. 46) but a piece of Africa a continuation of the Sahara. There is the same hot, dry climate, the same stretches of absolutely barren ground, and a similar- deficiency of rivers and lakes. Arabia, however, is not all barren ; a central tableland occupies about one-third of the area, and is sur- rounded by a succession of deserts, but the slopes -so 40 SPAIN UNDER THE ARABS. THE PLACES NUMBERED BELONGED TO PHOENICIA AS IN CHAP. IV. l.Belerium (LandsEnd) 2. CassiteritlesrSaUy I?) 'IctLs'lemg prvlaUyStMichaett Mount. Z.Tartessus ( 'Tarstdsh ') the district cuboid the Ouadalauivir. English Miles. 4.Gades (Cadiz). 5Jfa2aca(Mdtaga). 110 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. of the coast-ranges on the west, south, and south- east are in many parts fertile and cheerful ; throughout the central tableland also are many beautiful valleys, suited for pasture, and rich garden land. The ancient geographers, follow- ing Ptolemy of Egypt, divided the peninsula into Arabia Petraea (i.e., where the great Roman town Petra was capital), Arabia Felix, and Arabia Deserta : the first in the north-west, the second in the south-west, and the third the interior gen- erally. "Felix," in the second division, was a mis-translation of Yemen, which means " on the right hand," by which phrase the Orientals meant south, looking to the rising sun as their chief "cardinal point." Yemen, the south-western cor- ner of Arabia, was the chief seat of population in early times, and is more fertile than the other parts, being watered regularly by the tropical monsoons. Counting the north and middle of Arabia as part of the Sahara, we may call Yemen (in its landscape, flora and fauna) a continuation of the Soudan. Date-palms abound in the cen- tral plateau and every oasis; they form the staff of Arab food, so that Mohammed said, " Honour the date-palm, for it is your mother." The Arab belongs to the Semitic or Syro- Arabic division of the " White Men," and his kin- ship to the Hebrews, the Phoenicians, and other races of Canaanitish origin, as well as to the an- cient Assyrians, has already been glanced at. All these, however, were inferior to the Arab in physique and appearance, in mental and moral qualities. Tall and handsome, spare, but well- formed and muscular, with brown complexion, black eyes and hair, white teeth, and skin always scrupulously clean ; sharp-witted, clear and de- THE ARABS. Ill cisive in judgment, imaginative and fond of poetry. " Independence looks out of his glowing eyes; courage, temperance, hospitality, and good faith are. his leading virtues." The Arab has never submitted to foreigners ; from his early infancy, sleeping only on the hard ground, ex- posed to a sun of African intensity, and often doing without rest or food for days, health and physical endurance have for ages been part of his nature. So independent and "self-contained " was this ancient race, that when the conqueror Alexander reached Asia, and all the States and peoples were of necessity submitting to him, or sending em- bassies to avoid a war, the Arab took no notice, but stood apart with dignity, in spite of the great general's threats of exacting a punishment later on. This independence of Arabia explains why its early history is so uneventful during all the centuries before the time of Alexander the Great. The Assyrian inscriptions give little informa- tion as to the early Arabians, and those men- tioned probably belonged to northern tribes skirting Syria. One pillar, built at the sources of the Tigris by Shalmanezer IV., in the time of King Ahab, speaks of " 100 camels of Gendib the Arab," probably a Sheik. Isaiah speaks of the camels and dromedaries of Sheba, " the flocks of Kedar, the rams of Nebaioth," these being two Arabian tribes. King David took refuge with the former tribe, when in difficulties, and Solomon's Egyptian bride said of herself, " I am black but comely, O daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar." At various times the early Hebrews traded with the northern tribes, and frequently fought 1 12 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. with them, under the names of Ishmaelites, Midi- anites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites, &c. Two sheiks of the Midianites slain by Gideon "had golden earrings because they were Ishmael- ites," and " he took away the ornaments that were on their camels' necks." When the "prey" was collected, there was an enormous weight of earrings, "besides ornaments, and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and besides the chains that were about the camels' necks." It seems probable that the patriarch Job was an Arabian sheik, since there was a " land of Uz," near Damascus. His friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Elihu certainly belonged to the northern tribes of the peninsula ; and the attack made by the Sabae- an or southern Arabs indicates most probably a tribal quarrel. Job's first messenger said : " The oxen were plowing and the asses feeding, and the Sabaeans fell upon them, and took them away." The second, " the fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them." The third: "The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants." In the life of King Solomon, one of the most interesting episodes recorded is the visit of the Queen of Sheba; how "she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold and precious stones," and how, after she " had seen all Solomon's wis- dom, and the house that he had built," &c., &c., she said to the king, " It is a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom." Where or what was her THE ARABS. 113 land the country Sheba ? It is now generally believed to have been Sabaea, the south-western part, corresponding to Yemen, of which we have already spoken, where there appears to have been a civilization developed at a very early period. The Arabs of this district, a fertile tableland, claimed to be of an older and purer stock than those of the northern parts. The Sabaeans were more allied to the Ethiopians or Abyssinians, and the northern, or " Ishmaelitish " Arabs, more allied to the Hebrews and Syrians. The map at once shows that Abyssinia on the west is separated only by a narrow strait from Sabaea or Yemen, and both countries seem to have been .always closely allied, and in many points similar. " Gee'z," the Ethiopic or ancient language of the Abyssinians, resembles the Yemen Arabic more than that of northern Arabia, and the chronicles written in Gee'z preserve some curious traditions relating to the visit of the Queen of Azab [or Saba] to the northern King of Jerusalem. " The annals of the Abyssinians say," to quote Bruce,* the great traveller, " that when she left Azab she was a pagan, but, being full of admiration of Solomon's works, she was converted to Judaism in Jerusalem, and bore him a son whom he called Menilek, and who was their first king." The queen seems to have gone by sea from Egypt to Phoenicia, since " she was attended by a daughter of Hiram's from Tyre to Jerusalem." The son Menilek, we are further told, "was sent to his father to be instructed, and he was anointed and crowned King of Ethiopia [or Abyssinia] in the temple of Jerusalem, and at his inauguration took *See Dr. Adam Clarke's " Commentary on the Old Testament." 114 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. the name of David." On his return to Azab he brought a colony of Jews, with a Hebrew tran- script of the law, which formed a basis for the future constitution of the kingdom. The motto of the kings of Abyssinia is, according to Bruce, "The lion of the race of Solomon and tribe of Judah hath overcome." From the kinship between the Abyssinians and the Arabs of Yemen, many argue that the latter were originally of African Origin, and after de- veloping an early civilization in that centre, sent colonizing tribes to Oman and other parts of the peninsula. The Roman naturalist, Pliny, how- ever, says that the upper Ethiopians were Arabs, and de Sacy, a French writer of authority, con- cludes that the emigration was from Yemen across the Straits of Babel-Mandeb, and that the popular legends respecting Solomon and the Sabaean Queen were brought to Abyssinia. Whether it was from the Arabian Yemen that the Queen of Sheba came, or from the neighbouring country of Abyssinia, in Africa, we know that in early times there were queens in the former country. Lenor- mant relates that even in modern warfare some of the Arabian tribes marched with a young woman on camel-back in their midst, singing patriotic songs to encourage bravery and denounce cow- ardice. This at once recalls how Deborah, the prophetess, was one of the bravest leaders of those "who judged Israel," a people akin to the Arabs of the desert ; and how she sang " Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, . . . the villages ceased until that I, Deborah, arose : awake, awake, Deborah, awake, utter a song: the kings came and fought. They fought from heaven ; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera [cap- THE ARABS. 115 tain of the enemies] : . . . Curse ye, Meroz, be- cause they came not to the help of the Lord." Of Miriam, also, the sister of Aaron, we are told how, after the overthrow of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, she " took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her. . . . Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." Our Saviour said : " The Queen of the South . . . came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon " ; and that descrip- tion of her kingdom would apply to either South- ern Arabia or Abyssinia. Mentioning those two countries together will remind the botanist that both of them boast of having first used the grateful bean of the coffee- plant the first infusion being due, it is said, to the pious ingenuity of the Superior of a monastery, whose monks frequently fell asleep during the services at midnight or early morn. The nomad shepherds had remarked that their flocks, after browsing on the coffee-plant, became lively and wakeful ; whereupon the holy father inferred that a medicinal infusion duly blessed, no doubt would be serviceable to his weaker brothers. In any case, he unconsciously con- ferred a great boon upon mankind. The " Queen of the South " gave Solomon " an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones : there came no more such abundance of spices as these which the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon." Throughout the Bible and many of the ancient writers there are many references to the spices and perfumes of Sheba, Sabaea, or Arabia Felix. Our own classical Milton speaks of sea-breezes which 116 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. "... waft Saboean odours from the shores Of Araby the Blest ; " and the Tyrians, as already mentioned, traded in Sabaean " spices, precious stones, and gold." Of the real history of primitive Arabia, however, little is known. Nearly 1000 years elapsed between the time of Alexander the Great and that of Mohammed, yet there are only three events to record during that interval. First, the arrival of a large number of Jews, when expelled in the year 70 A.D. from Ju- dea ; and, secondly, the partial introduction of Christianity in the fourth century, after an inva- sion of Yemen by the Abyssinians, their kinsmen. Both these events seem to have modified the re- ligious ideas of the Arab, there being many prose- lytes to Judaism as well as to Christianity. The third important event of that period was an in- vasion by Aryat, an ambitious Abyssinian prince, with 70,000 Ethiopians. He brought South Arabia under the power of the kindred race, and Chris- tianity was proclaimed till the Arab, with the help of some Persian soldiers, regained his native free- dom. In 569 A.D., the year of the birth of Mo- hammed, the King of Abyssinia marched to Mecca, intending no doubt, to plunder the famous shrine, but received a repulse before the walls. The Koran explains this Arab victory by a miracle wrought by Allah in honour of the birth of Mohammed. The great crisis in the history of this race being now at hand, let us glance at the conditions and preliminaries of the national uprising the motives of a revolution so unprecedented, so far-reach- ing, and so complete. Long before the birth of Mohammed the religious feelings of the Arab THE ARABS. 1 17 tribes were concentrated upon the " Kaaba," a rude shrine made to show an ancient black stone, which, like the " Shield of Mars " among the earliest Romans, was probably an aerolite, fallen from the sky, and therefore accounted very sa- cred. With this worship may be compared the regard shown by the early Hebrews in Kadesh and Canaan to " the Ark of the Covenant." Dio- dorus, the historian, informs us that all the tribes worshipped this sacred shrine, and made pilgrim- ages to Mecca to see it. In the course of ages, many precious offerings had been made to Allah (called El by other Semitic races), so that the possession of the shrine became naturally a cause of rivalry among the leading tribes. At last, in the beginning of the fifth century A.D., the chiefs of the Koreish tribe got permanent possession of the little temple, and, as hereditary custodians, became of great importance. They also increased their wealth and influence by traffic between the ports of the Red Sea. Besides the Kaaba, and the yearly pilgrimage to it, there was another ancient institution which helped to make Mecca the religious capital and centre of national worship, and which may remind one of those famous games of unknown antiquity, celebrated at Olympia by the Greeks, and re- newed this year, 1896, by the modern kingdom, after the lapse of many centuries. A national festival was every year held at Okad, one day's journey from Mecca, to precede the ceremonies belonging to the Kaaba pilgrimages, so that the, tribes might contend with each other for prizes in horse-races, athletic games, poetical recitals, and composition, &c. This yearly festival at Okad was as essential a part of the national life tl8 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. to an Arab as were the Olympian games to an ancient Greek. When Mohammed came to wield the will of the whole Arab race he found it advisable to utilize the institution of the sacred Kaaba, just as early Christian missionaries have everywhere left many "survivals" of the earlier worship. More than twelve centuries have passed since, and still the Black Stone of Mecca is visited every year by many thousands In order to be seen and kissed. The Kaaba, or shrine, which holds the aerolite has been again and again re- built, the last time in the year 1627, but still retains the shape and dimensions of the small pagan temple which had existed from an un- known antiquity. Its height is only thirty-six feet, and in length and breadth it measures eighteen paces by fourteen. The walls are of large unpolished blocks of stone, without win- dows, with a door of silver, seven feet above the ground. This shrine is surrounded by the Great Mosque of Mecca, a quadrangle capable of hold- ing 35,000 spectators. Every orthodox Moslem believes that the Kaaba was built by Abraham and Ishmael, assisted by the angel Gabriel. To touch it opens the gates of Paradise to every be- liever. It is to Mecca, birthplace of the prophet, the " Holy City," that Mohammedans all over the world (one-eighth of the whole human race) turn their face when praying. Who was this Mohammed, who could bend to his will the minds of a whole race a nation one of the most powerful that ever existed ? He was a poor Arab lad of the Koretsh tribe, left an orphan in charge of his grandfather, one of a race of herdsmen, carriers and traders, sometimes THE ARABS. 119 robbers, as so many of his people were wont to be. No schooling fell to his lot, but plenty of hard work. In the employment of an uncle he had to travel to Syria and Palestine, and no doubt his keen observation of men and nature supplied him with instruction. From the first, we are told, his thoughtfulness and sincerity were remarked; and from his character in busi- ness he acquired the title Faithful or Trust- worthy. " This deep-hearted son of the wilder- ness," says Carlyle, "with his beaming black eyes and open social soul, had other thoughts in him than ambition." No historians now assert, as was formerly done, that Mohammed was a vulgar im- postor. He retired every year to a mountain near Mecca to live for some time in solitude ; and at last, after much study, meditation, and prayer, told his friends that he no longer had doubts re- garding the will of Allah, or regarding the duty of mortal men ; he saw that idols were nothing, only miserable bits of wood ; that there was one God over all and in all. " God is great, and nothing else is great ; God is great : we must submit to God." Two phrases summarize his whole system of religious belief : Allah akbar, God is the great One, and Islam, submission or resignation. The latter term has therefore come to be used for Mohammedanism as a religion one of the lead- ing faiths of humanity. However intense and earnest as an apostle of reform, he only gained thirteen disciples in three years. He incurred such persecution, espe- cially from the Koreish, his own tribe, that he had to hide in caves, escape in disguise, and run 120 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. constant peril of his life. He at last decided to escape from Mecca, his native town, to a place 200 miles off, where he had friends and disciples. This place was now named Medinat-Anabi, " City of the Prophet," or shortly, Medina, " the City," as it still is. The Moslems, as his followers be- gan from this moment to be called, 314 in num- ber, defeated an army of Koreish from Mecca more than three times greater; and in 629 A.D., seven years after the flight to Medina, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca with 2000 followers. Soon after he took the capital from the Koreish, and destroyed 360 idols which surrounded the Kaaba. At his last pilgrimage to Mecca in 632, the year of his death, he was at the head of 100,000 Mos- lems. The year 622, date of his escape to Medina, now became the epoch of a new era, one of the greatest in the world's history ; and called Hedjra, or Hegi'ra, " the Flight." It is held on the New- Year's day of the Moslem year, which is, of course, a lunar year. In his last sermon, after fixing as a permanent institution the ceremonies of the Hadj or pilgrimage to the Kaaba, the prophet laid down to the faithful every where the duties of piety toward Allah, righteousness towards fellow- men, and protection of the weak, the poor, and the women. It was by such practice and teach- ing that Mohammed proved himself one of the greatest and wisest of reformers. " I like the Moslem," said General Gordon ; " he is not ashamed of his God ; his life is a fairly pure one." The Khalifs, or " Successors of the Prophet," speedily extended Islam, the new religion, to other lands and races, mainly by compulsion at the sword's point, just as the great Charles of THE ARABS. 121 the Franks offered " Baptism or Death " to the men of Saxony and Friesland, when he resolved to convert them to Christianity. Mohammed had converted Arabia : soon the Arabians, by their enthusiasm and unity of purpose, converted half the whole world. Jerusalem capitulated to Khalif Omar; Aleppo and Antioch soon followed. After the defeat of a large army sent against the Moslems by the Emperor of Constantinople, Damascus was besieged and taken, remaining ever since a Mohammedan and Arabian capital. As an instance of the terrible fury of the Arabian zealots, it is said that at the battle of Hiero- max, an eastern tributary of the Jordan, 100,000 Greeks perished. Within six years from the death of the Prophet, the Arabs were masters of the district extending from the mountains of Asia Minor through Syria to the Red Sea : so far as language and customs are concerned, that region is still Arabian. Victories were then gained throughout the Euphrato-Tigris Valley ; and in 641 A.D. the whole of Persia came under Moslem rule after a battle near Ecbatana. Pres- ently the Oxus became the eastern boundary of the Arab Empire, and the whole of Asia west of India was now ruled by the Mohammedan Khalif of Damascus. India, of course, was com- pletely conquered at a later date. The westerly progress of the Arabian armies was equally star- tling to all the nations. The Delta of Egypt be- ing overrun, Cairo was taken, and so, after a siege of fourteen months, was Alexandria, the learned and wealthy capital, which the conquer- ors now degraded to the place of second city. The Copts, or native Egyptians, gladly ex- changed their Greek masters for the Arab Mo- 122 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. hammedans ; and socially, they still retain abun- dant traces of the latter. Continuing westward, the Moslem conquerors soon held Tripoli, Car- thage, and Tangier, till the authority of Constan- tinople or the Greeks was entirely abolished all along the southern coast of the Mediterranean to the Atlantic "Ocean. Africa, like Egypt and Syria, was now become Mohammedan. In three separate expeditions the Arabs be- sieged Constantinople, but without success, and it was not till the famous attack by the Turks, in the middle of the fifteenth century, that the great capital of the Eastern Empire came under Moslem rule. On gaining Syria, they easily took Cyprus and the chief islands of the Egean Sea, taking care, in their hatred of images, to destroy the famous "Colossus " of Rhodes. Sicily, also, was made Mohammedan. Their non-success with the Byzantine metropolis during the seventh century has been attributed to the u Greek Fire " used in repelling besiegers a mysterious chemical then first used, the precursor, apparently, of gun- powder, if not of dynamite and nitro-glycerine. Professor Freeman was thankful that Constan- tinople was not taken by the Mohammedans at that earlier time, else "it would seem as if the Christian religion and European civilization must have been swept away from the earth." The next great step for the Arab Mohamme- dans, after taking Africa, as then known, was to invade Spain, and that expedition was one of the greatest items in their magnificent conquest of nations. What was the state of Spain in the seventh century ? After the fall of the Roman Empire, Spain was overrun by the Visi-goths, Suevi, Vandals, and other barbarians from the THE ARABS. 123 north. The Vandals gave name to Andalusia (i.e. Vandalitia] ; and both they and the Visi-goths, or Western Goths, were nominally Christian. Before the arrival of the Moslem conquerors, the Visi- goths had become the rulers, but from their severity they were loved neither by Spain nor by the Berbers of the neighbouring African coast. The latter race readily adopted the re- ligion of the Arabs, and have ever since been bigoted Moslems. The Romans called the Ber- bers Mauri (Gr. mauros, dark), and thus when the mixed army of Arabs and Berbers arrived in Andalusia, their Spanish enemies called them Mauros or Moros : therefore the name " Moors " afterwards became equivalent to Mohammedans. Another name, familiar at a later time, was "Sar- acens," applied to the Arabs by themselves, and meaning Men of the Desert. The only point on the African coast not held by the Eastern conquerors was Ceuta, the fortress facing Gibraltar. Julian, the officer in charge of Ceuta, had quarrelled with Roderick, the Visigoth king, and therefore invited Tarik, the Berber lieutenant of Musa, the Moslem governor, to land some troops on the European coast. According to another tradition, the sons of the late king, whom Roderick had unjustly dethroned, were also in the intrigue, assisted by Jews in all the chief towns. After sending four ships and 500 men successfully, Tarik crossed to Spain with 12,000 Arabs and Berbers, landing at the famous rock named from him, Gebal-Tarik, or " Gibral- tar," the Hill of Tarik. King Roderick marched against the Moslem invaders with a large army, and met them by the small river " Guadalete," near the town "Xeres " (both names of Moorish 124 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. origin). After seven days' righting, according to tradition, Roderick, " the last of the Gothic kings," commanding, in a splendid chariot of ivory, clad in cloth of gold, was killed, and the Moors were victorious, though in numbers only one to six. Southey, Sir Walter Scott, and other poets have surrounded this " last of the Goths" with some false glamour of romance. The Span- ish ballads tell that the king's horse, cloak, and buskins, adorned with pearls and precious stones, were found on the banks of the river, but his body could nowhere be seen. Lockhart's version says : "... The hosts of Don Rodrigo were scattered in dismay ; He saw his royal banners where they lay drenched and torn ; He heard the cry of victory, the Arab's shout of scorn. . . . Last night I was the King of Spain, to-day no king am I ; Last night fair castles held my train, to-night where shall I lie ? ' Such was the end of the rule of Spain by the Western Goths. In the fifth century, descending from their wild German forests, they had ravaged "France" (using its future name) with fire and sword, then taken possession of Spain, just as the Eastern Goths, after passing the Danube, had overrun Greece and Italy, every step marked by copious bloodshed. After the success of the Arabians at Xeres, now centre of the " sherry " trade, named from it the Moor Tarik took several towns, including Cordova and Toledo, the Gothic capital ; and when his army was joined by that of Governor Musa, the whole of Spain became subject to Moslem rule in less than three years. At the approach of the dreaded " Infidels," most of the leading Christian nobles had taken refuge in the Asturias and the north, and some of THE ARABS. 125 the towns, owing to Jewish intrigue, were ready to open their gates. Toledo, the Gothic capital, was delivered by its Jewish citizens; and of Cordova, we are told that Tank's army approached the walls by night under cover of a hailstorm, which deadened the sound of their horses' hoofs, and, by means of a shepherd, found a breach in the walls, perhaps left on purpose. The breach was some feet above the ground, but by means of a fig-tree which grew beneath, an agile Moor climbed to the wall, and then used a turban as a rope to draw up some of his comrades. Thus was Cordova taken. So remarkable was the success of this invasion, that the Khalif summoned Musa to Damascus, lest he should assume an independent rule of Spain. Musa and Tarik, 713 A.D., marched in triumph from Ceuta to the distant Damascus, bringing immense booty and many Christian prisoners. Meanwhile a new Khalif had come to power, who ordered Musa, the former Governor of Africa, to be beaten- with rods, and fined 100,000 pieces of gold, because suspected of peculation a curious instance of the absolute authority of the " Com- mander of the Faithful." One point of evidence against Musa was that he had deprived Tarik of a golden table adorned with precious stones, said to have been made for King Solomon. Musa told the Khalif that he himself had found this prize, and brought it as a present; but his lieu- tenant, the cunning Berber, produced a large emerald, which exactly suited a part of the table where something was evidently lacking. Thus was Musa convicted of falsehood and deception. Such trials, like the famous " Judgment of Solo- mon," appealed dramatically and strongly to the simple minds of the Syro-Arabian races. 126 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. The Spanish population, and the Jews of the towns, found the Moslem rule much preferable to that which the Goths had so long exercised. Very soon the foundations of a great State were /aid which grew up to be the Moorish kingdom of Spain the civilized Andalusia, though at first it was governed as a Moslem province of the Khalifate at Damascus. Before being recalled to that Arabian capital, the governor Musa had stood upon the Pyrenees and surveyed the fair " land of promise " which lay beyond. Under his successors several Moorish armies invaded the south of France as far as Burgundy, which then reached the Mediterranean, and galloped over the fertile fields of Aquitaine in the west, though re- pulsed at Toulouse by Duke Eudes. Abderahman, the Moslem governor of Narbonne, resolved to annex the whole of France; and after defeating the Duke of Aquitaine on the Garonne, took Bordeaux, and thence marched northwards till the Saracens encamped in the rich ba'sin of the Loire. One object was to rob Tours of the splendid treasures which had for ages been ac- cumulated in the Abbey St. Martin. Neither Ab- derahman, however, nor the Moorish army, ever reached Tours, since one of the great " decisive battles of the world " had then to be fought, 732 A.D. This contest occurred some distance north of Poictiers, and had an issue far more important than the victory gained there afterwards by Ed- ward the Black Prince. The chief man in France in 732 was Charles, who, as Mayor of the Palace, had governed France during three reigns, and afterwards became founder of the Carlovingian dynasty, and grandfather of Charles the Great, the emperor " Charlemagne." This ruler of THE ARABS. 127 northern France was very different from the Gothic generals of Spain, whom the invaders had already met ; and the Franks whom he led were vigorous freemen, more muscular perhaps than the Saracens themselves. Six days were spent in skirmishing and partial battles, and on the sev- enth there was a hand-to-hand encounter over the whole battlefield, accompanied by the death of Abderahman and 300,000 Moslems. The num- ber seems incredible ; but there is no doubt as to the result that the Arab invasion was finally quelled, and that the western race had so far proved superior to the eastern, and the Gospel to the Koran. The Moslems who survived hurried back to Spain, and long afterwards the battle- field was in Andalusia called the " Pavement of Martyrs." By this victory over the Mohammedan in- vaders Charles obtained the name Martel (Mar- teau) i.e. " the Hammer," because he crushed them. This exploit saved France and Germany, and perhaps Great Britain, from coming under the rule of the Moslems; and it is curious to re- flect what might have been, had not Charles Mar- tel inflicted that utter defeat upon the eastern in- vaders between Tours and Poictiers. "But for it," says the stately Gibbon, " perhaps the inter- pretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits would demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanc- tity and truth of the revelation of Mohammed." Considering the importance of Charles, the "Hammer" of the Infidels, it seems strange that in a recent excellent History of France, edited by Professor Freeman, there should be no mention of that founder of a dynasty, or of his decisive 128 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. victory in 732 A.D., the centenary anniversary of the real inception of Islam. After Charles Martel the Moslems never again invaded France proper. On the other hand, France only once attempted to make a raid upon Mohammedan Spain, and that was under Charles the Great himself. This emperor had already obtained honours by converting the Saxons and other north Germans to Christianity, though his methods of convincing them were just as arbitrary and cruel as those of the Moslems. He was per- suaded that it would be a worthy undertaking to attempt the conversion of all the Spanish infidels; and that, owing to a political revolution in that country, a good opportunity was now presented. All the Mohammedan provinces had remained subject to the Khalif of Damascus till the middle of the eighth century, when Andalusia (i.e. Spain) declared itself independent. The juncture was the change of the Ommiad dynasty in Damascus for the descendants of Abbas, uncle of the Prophet. The latter dynasty changed the caliphate to Baghdad, which continued to be the Abbasid capital of the Mohammedan Empire from the year 750 A.D. To avoid being put to death, Ab- derahman, one of the Ommiad family, escaped to Africa, and thence to Andalusia, where he was received with great enthusiasm, and soon after assumed the title of " Commander of the Faith- ful." This was a renunciation of the Khalifate of Baghdad : the Ommiad Khalifs of Andalusia continued from 756 to 1036 A.D. The revolts caused in Spain against Abderah- man, the first Khalif of Cordova, gave Charle- magne, King of the Franks, an opportunity of passing the Pyrenees. Hosein of Saragossa being THE ARABS. 129 defeated by Abderahman's troops, fled to the French court ; and to restore him to power, Charlemagne invaded Spain, 777 A.D. The great emperor, however, gained little by this expedition, being soon recalled by the news that the dreaded Saxons were invading France. That, however, was not the worst of this short campaign. Much of his army had already passed the frontier, when the rear division was attacked in a narrow valley by the Basque mountaineers, a race bitterly op- posed to the Franks. Many ballads have de- scribed in detail the slaughter of the " paladins and peers " of the emperor ; and how the Basques, or Gascons, assisted by some Moorish chief, took revenge for many a previous defeat. Chief of those paladins was Roland, nephew of the em- peror, whose exploits and death in this pass of Roncesvaux have become the theme of many poems and operas. In " Don Quixote," one bal- lad is quoted : " The day of Roncesvalles was a dismal day for you Ye men of France, for there the lance of Charles was broke in two ; Ye well may curse that rueful field. . . . There captured was Guarinos, King Charles's admiral ; Seven Moorish chiefs surrounded him and seized him for their thrall." After killing his Moorish captor at a tournament, Guarinos succeeded in galloping out of the ring and escaping beyond the Pyrenees to France. Roland, according to another tradition, fought till all his companions lay dead around him, and then, breaking his sword, famous as Excalibur of King Arthur, blew on his magical horn a blast that could reach even the distant ear of the re- treating Charles^ 9 130 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. "... the voice of that wild horn On Fontarabian echoes born, The dying hero's call, That told imperial Charlemagne How Paynim sons of swarthy Spain Had wrought his champion's fall." The highest ridge of the mountain range is near the fatal valley of Roncesvaux, and a curious cleft through which the road from Spain enters France is still called Roland's breach, being cut, according to tradition, by a swashing blow of his sword. The most famous Khalif of Baghdad was Haroun-al-Raschid ("Aaron the Just"). He had invaded the Greek Empire, and Irene, the Em- press of Constantinople, was glad to purchase his friendship by a yearly tribute of 70,000 gold dinars. He greatly increased Baghdad in wealth and reputation ; and it soon became as famous in the East for Arabic learning and literature as Cordova was in the west. The " Arabian Nights," one of the world's best read books, was written under the great Khalif Haroun. " His court," says Gibbon, "was adorned with luxury and science ; he was the most powerful and vigorous monarch of his race, illustrious in the West as the ally of Charlemagne." In the beginning of the ninth century he sent an embassy with presents to Charles, one of which excited great curiosity, being a timepiece which told the hours on a bell. Baghdad, " the Home of Peace," still a pros- perous city, attained great wealth as chief capital of the Arabian Empire, partly from its position as an emporium for transit trade at a point where the rivers Tigris and Euphrates are joined by canals. Its port, Bassorah, was in ancient times the busiest in the East. THE ARABS. 131 El Hakam, the grandson of the first Khalif of Cordova, had been called a freethinker by the stricter Moslems, because he encouraged the use of wine. After his accession there were risings in Toledo and Cordova which brought out the treachery and cruel severity of his character. He invited all the leading citizens of Toledo, the old capital, to a public banquet in honour of his son, and on the arrival of the guests, said to be over 700 in number, they were successively conducted to an inner apartment and murdered. The ter- rible sight of their bodies thrown together into a common ditch fixed that event in the popular imagination as the " Day of the Fosse," the name by which it became known in history. The next Khalif of Cordova, Abderahman II., was more warlike than his father Hakam, retaking Barcelona from the Franks, burning Marseilles, and (839 A.D.) compelling some Scandinavian invaders to abandon the coasts of Spain. The easy settlement of the Moslems in Spain, and the continuance of their rule, was due to several casues which are easily understood. The previous government of the Gothic Christians had been much harsher and more arbitrary. The Moslems raised the taxes in a regular and im- partial manner, granted religious toleration, al- lowed the native Spanish to retain their own laws and judges, and treated all slaves in a humane and rational manner. This last custom was directly due to the teaching of the Koran, many passages of which prove that in this respect the teaching of Mohammed was superior tc that of nearly all forms of Christianity as understood then and long afterwards. No slave in a Moslem community was hopelessly excluded from becom- 132 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. ing free ; he had only to go to a respectable Mohammedan and repeat the official phrase 4< There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet." That short confession of faith made him a freeman. The Sultan, Abderahman III. of Cordova, may almost rank with Haroun-al-Raschid of Baghdad and Akbar of Delhi. By good government he brought all classes to recognize his authority, and put a stop to the civil dissensions formerly prevailing in the Peninsula. He also put down the misrule caused by the " Fatimites," a sect of despotic Arab mystics, who had made Cairo their capital, and held rule over Syria, as well as the northern coast of Africa. The last Fatimite was at a later date dethroned by Saladin, conqueror of the Koords, better known to most readers as the brave Saracen who opposed Richard I. of England. After putting down some Christian in- surrections in Leon, Castile, and Navarre, Abde- rahman improved the country by making roads, bridges, canals, and aqueducts ; encouraging learning, science, shipbuilding, and commerce. His navy was famous at that period, and was partly employed against the Fatimites. His li- brary, perhaps the chief collection in Western Europe, was said to number 400,000 volumes. The fame of his capital attracted ambassadors from the kings of France, Germany, and Italy, and foreign States contended for alliance with the Sultan of Cordova. The capital of Andalusia had become one of the most brilliant, wealthy, and refined cities of the world ; a great centre of learning, science, and culture, at a time when France, England, and Germany were still thickly enveloped in barbarism. As a focus of civiliza- THE ARABS. 133 tion, with systematic colleges and courses of in- struction, Cordova may be said to have then been almost the only University in Europe. " Hither," says the Arab author, El Makkary, " came from all parts of the world students eager to cultivate poetry, to study the sciences, or to be instructed in divinity or law ; so that it be- came the meeting-place of the eminent in all matters, the abode of the learned, and the place of resort for the studious. . . . Cordova was to Andalusia what the head is to the body, or what the breast is to the lion." Its chief public building was the great mosque, built by Abderahman I. and his son, and after- wards improved by succeeding sultans. Men still admire its forest of pillars, brilliant mosaics, its arches, and a thousand beautiful details; with thirty-one arcades from north to south, and nine- teen from east to west, its twenty-one doors adorned with polished bronze. The same khalif built the noble bridge of many arches which still spans the river, a fine specimen of solid Moorish masonry. Of the many palaces of Cordova, two may be noted Alcazar, converted into a modern prison, and the Ez-Zahra, " the Fairest," built by Abderahman III., and named after one of his wives. Ez Zahra was chiefly due to the following Khalifate, that of Al Hakem II. , who was de- voted to books and retirement, being encouraged in that bent by his vizier, a famous prefect of Cordova, who afterwards earned great renown as a general. Risen from poverty, a student in the schools, and untrained to any military duty, he organized the army so effectually that he soon became master, not only of Africa, but of Leon, Castile, and Navarre. He also took Barcelona, 134 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. and even the distant shrine of St. James, so fa< mous to Christians over all the west of Europe. This shrine, Santiago de Compostella, is in the north-west corner of Spain, though Shakespeare seems to think that a pilgrim in Florence, who has just arrived from France, is on the way to it. An old English ballad, written when Sandwich and Winchelsey were busy ports, refers to San- tiago as a place of pilgrimage for Englishmen of that day : " Men may leave all games That sailen to Seynt James, For many a man it gramys When they begin to sail : For when they take the sea, At Sandwich or at Winchelsey, At Bristow, or where'er it be, Their hearts begin to fail." On his triumphant return to Cordova, the student-vizier (who had always, by the way, taken his favourite books with him in his cam- paigns) assumed the title Almanzor, " Victor by divine aid," the name by which he is known in history. Some of the bronze bells which he brought back from Santiago and other Christian towns were converted into lamps for the great mosque. Being successful in all his expeditions against the Christian states, he became so hateful to the monks that one of them wrote against the date 1002 A.D. : " In this year died Almanzor, and was buried in hell." Readers of " Marmion " will remember Sir Michael Scott, of Fifeshire, a scholar and mathe- matician, who, on account of his science, was re- puted to be a wizard, not only in this country, but over the Continent. Dante names the " spare THE ARABS. 135 and slender " philosopher in his Epic. Sir Michael obtained much of his knowledge directly from the Arabs by studying at Toledo ; and under the protection of the Emperor Frederick II., who was an admirer of science and philosophy, did much by his translations from the Arabic to advance the learning and culture of Europe. Sir Michael's chief translations from the Arabic were " Aver- roes " (the means of introducing Aristotle to Eu- rope) and an astronomical work. Other transla- tions from the Arabic were the " Almagest " of Ptolemy, the first Euclid, and the " Astronomical Tables " of King Alphonso, containing those Arabic numerals which are now used by all the world. Before the end of the thirteenth century, the Moslems had found their power in Spain much reduced, as the Christian states of the north had grown in power, till at last the only portion of Andalusia left to the Moors was Granada. Tole- do had been retaken by the Christians in 1085, and now Saragossa, Valencia, Seville, and Murcia followed. The Moslems still remained in Grana- da for two and a half centuries, tributary to Cas- tile, and developed there the latest form of their civilization. Their new capital was named the Queen of Cities, " the Damascus of the West," and increased to a population reckoned at 400,000. Granada was famous for its towers, more than 1000 in number, and especially by its fortress and palace Alhambra, " the Red/' said to have been, by its decoration and surroundings, " the finest home ever inhabited by a Moslem monarch." There was a double circuit of walls to protect the capital from the Christian kings, and two citadels, one on each of the two hills on 136 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. which the city was built. The kingdom of Gra- nada was too valuable to be left permanently in the hands of the Arabians, since it contained not only the modern province of that name, but also Malaga and Almeria a splendid district, trav- ersed by the Sierra Nevada, beautifully cultivated and improved, and thickly peopled. The part of this land which intervenes be- tween the mountains and the sea has been thus described by Sir W. S. Maxwell, who knew the country and its history well : " Through the glens (between spurs of the Sierra Nevada) a number of streams pour the snows of Muley- hacen and the Pic de Valeta into the Mediter- ranean. In natural beauty, and in many physical advantages, this mountain land is one of the most lovely and delightful regions of Europe. . . . When thickly peopled with laborious Moors, the narrow glens, bottomed with rich soil, were terraced and irrigated with a careful industry, which compensated for want of space. The vil- lages were surrounded by vineyards and gardens, orange and almond orchards, and plantations of olive and mulberry. . . . The wine and the fruit, the silk and oil, the cheese and the wool, were famous in the markets of Granada and the sea- ports of Andalusia." The death-blow to the Moslem rule in Gran- ada followed the union of the kingdom of Castile and Leon to that of Arragon and Sicily. Isabella, queen of the former, was married to Ferdinand, king of the latter, and thus a great Christian state was formed, the beginning of the modern kingdom of Spain. When the Moorish territory of Granada was at last invaded, the Moslems took refuge in the capital, and so strong were THE ARABS. 137 the defences that Ferdinand resolved on a block- ade. After holding out for eight months, the king and governor, Abu-Abdallah surrendered, and the Moorish rule in Spain was ended, 1492 A.D. Before leaving Spain we may ask what were some features of the extinct civilization of the Arabs as developed there, and as affecting mod- ern Europe. Some notice has already been taken of the influence on science and philosophy which was exerted by the teaching which radiated from Cordova. The Arabs in Spain were more for poetry than prose, and one of their poets, Tograi, is said to have ''furnished our own Tennyson with the model of his Locksley Hall." In many branches of science the very words still used prove that Europe owed the germs and elements to the Arabs, and sometimes the principles too : algebra, alchemy, alkali, alcohol, almanack, elixir, talisman^ zero, at once occur to one ; and under astronomy (besides the names of many stars, Alde- baran, Algol, &c.) are the terms, azimuth, nadir, zenith, &c. These and many similar words through- out Europe remain (like some geographical terms e.g. the Wady or Guada of Andalusia) as indel- ible survivals of the extinct civilization. Algebra was derived from India, but the Arabs developed it by Geber, the mathematician, and others, and taught it, as well as geometry, to Europe. Geber erected the first astronomical observatory, and was also a chemist. The Arabs taught medicine, after the rules of Hippocrates and Galen, till one of their own race, Avicenna, superseded them. In grammar and rhetoric there were manuals from early times, but Ebn-Malek, in the ninth cen- tury, drew up a work which remains a standard 138 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. book, while that of Hariri is still admired as a masterpiece of grammar and rhetoric. CHAPTER VI. IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. ASIA, the most central of the continents of the world, is also the largest and the most ele- vated. Its height is due to its great table-lands, and one of these in the western division is the " Plateau of Iran," extending from the Indus Valley on the east to the Euphrato-Tigris Valley on the west ; and bounded on the north by the large " depression " or " continental basin" (as geologists term it) which contains the Caspian Sea and the Lowland of Turan. This table-land of Iran contains Afghanistan and Beluchistan, as well as modern Persia, and has an area more than twice that of France, girt around by mountain ranges. It is named from Iran or Eron, the na- tive name of the race which have possessed it since the primeval Aryan White Men left their original home. The Aryans, at a prehistoric period, swarmed off, group after group, to found the early European nations, afterwards known as Celts, Greeks, Romans, Germans, and Slavonians, but a large section remained in Asia. The latter section, as has already been indicated, split into two groups, one to descend on the plains of Hin- dostan, the other to take possession finally of the great table-land of Iran. The earliest Persians, or tribes called Iran, seemed to have developed an extinct civilization 140 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. in Bactria, between Hindoo-Koosh and the Oxus. There was a powerful kingdom here in the early prehistoric period, and its capital, now called " Balkh," has even in modern times retained the name of Mother of Cities. Even after Bactria had become a province of Persia proper, it re- tained much of its importance, not only histori- cally, but as a great entrepot of commerce be- tween the east and west of Asia. To the Iranians especially, both Medes and Persians, it was vener- able as the cradle of their national religion, the birthplace of Zoroaster, and headquarters of the Magi. Bactria is sometimes referred to in the ancient Indian fables as if some of the Hindoo race, as well as the Iranians, had radiated from that early centre of culture; and the similarity between the Zend, or ancient Persian language, and that of the Hindoos is taken as another proof of a common origin. Modern travellers describe an oasis in the district of Bactria as being " among the most fertile of all known regions," and pro- ducing grape-vines of unrivalled size and quality. This tract, due to irrigation from the ancient river Margus, from which it takes the modern name, ^ Merv," has become well known as a frontier town of the Russian Empire. The geologist finds reasons why various cen- tres of population in this district have undergone a gradual process of "obliteration." Not only in Bactria, but in other regions in the basin of Lake Aral, which were seats of great prosperity in his- torical times, lakes and rivers have disappeared one after another, and innumerable towns and fertile valleys have long been replaced by the shifting sands which, from generation to genera- tion, are increased by the hot winds of Gobi and IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 141 other deserts. The enormous " continental basin " of Eurasia, embracing the salt Caspian Sea, with its extensive valleys of the Volga and Ural, the salt Aral Sea, with its valleys of the Oxus (Amoo) and Sir, has an area larger than the whole of Europe by 300,000 square miles; and the whole of this "depression," which is quite unconnected with any ocean, has for ages been gradually drying up. Traces of long-forgotten cities have from time to time been exhumed, such as gold and silver ornaments. The Caspian is nearly ninety feet below sea-level, and, in fact, both it and the Aral Sea are pronounced by geographers (v. Chap- ter I.) to be " fragments of an immense Mediter- ranean which at one time stretched from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean." Thus Bokhara, " the City of Temples," in the Oxus Valley, though still a great centre of trade between Russia and India, is certain to decay by loss of water, the en- croachment of the sandhills, and gradual decay of irrigation. The date and details of the extinct civilization of Bactria are long beyond recall ; and it is of the later development of Iranian history amongst both Medes and Persians that we have now to speak. The Medes and Persians were the same in race, language, and religion, and together occupied the whole of that u table-land of Iran " already de- scribed. Even the modern Persians are mainly Iranian in race, with some admixture of Turkish blood. The Medes occupied a smaller section of the table-land in the north-west bordering upon the Babylonian or Assyrian Valley, but they ar- rived at dominion sooner than their brethren, the Persians proper, who were scattered all over the main parts of the Iran plateau. Both Medes and 142 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. Persians claimed to be Aryans by descent, as most Europeans also now do; the former actually call- ing themselves Arioi, according to Herodotus, and King Darius of the latter race asserting that he was an u Aryan, the son of an Aryan." The familiar name u Persia " was originally the name of a single province in the south-west, still called Farsistan, whence the name Farsees, or Parsees, for the people of the whole nation, a word now used to mean " Fire-worshippers." Persis, or Persia, gave name to the whole empire of Iran, just as the Franks, a German tribe set- tling in the north-east of Gaul, gave name to France; so the province of Holland to the Neth- erlands; the canton Schwytz to Switzerland; the Slavonic tribe Pruszi to Prussia; a tribe of Irish settlers in Argyllshire to Scotland ; and the " An- gles " to England. In both sections of the Iranian race much of the culture and progress was undoubtedly due to, or closely bound up with, the common religion, especially in its historical form, after being re- formed and organized by Zoroaster, " the most sacred," " the teacher of mankind." Who was this great reformer of Iran, and what was his work ? The prophet of the ancient Persians was called by them Zarathustra (" Golden Splendour"), a word which the Greeks spelled Zoroaster, and his date was placed by Pliny at 1000 years before Moses. Some scholars still support that early date, although Persian tradition only assigns the sixth century B.C. as the period of his mission. His fame rests upon the Zend-Avesta or Bible of the ancient Persians, much of which " certainly dates back a thousand years or more before IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 143 Christ ; " but notwithstanding the value of his teaching and the purity and permanency of his doctrines, little has been preserved of his actual life except the traditional miracles performed in Bactria, under the Persian king Hystaspes. When thirty years of age he received his mission from God, after retiring for many years to a mountain cave; and by the display of miraculous power soon converted the kingdom to his religion. At the age of seventy-seven he was slain during a siege of Bactria by the Turanians, a race always at enmity to the ancient Persians, and irreconcil- ably opposed to the new worship. His Avesta (" the Law "), or Zend-Avesta (" Comment on the Law "), contains much that had been written in the language of the earliest Persians, and is therefore of the greatest impor- tance to philologists for comparing the various Aryan tongues. Its morality, however, and re- ligious teaching are of still higher interest. God, or Ormuzd, " the wise spirit, the good principle of the universe," is represented symbolically by fire, by the sun, or light (called u the son of Or- muzd ") : the One, the creator and " sovereign master of all things." A few passages from the Avesta may be quoted : " I celebrate the glorious Ormuzd, the greatest and best ; all-perfect, all powerful, all-wise, all-beautiful, all-pure, sole source of true knowledge and real happiness ; him who hath created us, him who hath formed us, him who sustains us, the wisest of all intelligences." "Zoroaster asked what was the Word existing before the heaven, the water, the earth, before the fire, the son of Or- muzd, before the whole existing world, before every good thing created by Ormuzd ? Then answered Ormuzd : It was the All of the Word Creator, most holy Zoroaster : and he in the existing world who remembers the All of the Word Creator, 144 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. or utters it when remembered, or chants it when uttered, or celebrates it when chanted, his soul will I thrice lead across the bridge to a better world, a better existence, better truth, better days." To account for the origin of evil the hardest of theological problems Zoroaster said that op- posed to God, the good principle of the universe, there was a wicked principle, the evil spirit Ahri- man, author of everything that is morally or ma- terially bad. This spirit, Ahriman, though with- out beginning, would, however, in due time be destroyed. Three prophets Growth of Light, Growth of Truth, and Actual Truth would arise to convert all mankind to the true religion, Par- seeism, and then evil should finally disappear, the universe become as pure as on the first day, and the Spirit of Sin be destroyed for ever. . Thus " dualism " was a distinctive feature in the Parsee creed ; God opposed by Satan ; angels and archangels opposed by demons and fiends. Ormuzd created six immortal saints, with other spirits subordinate to them, who, in their turn, ruled the genii of stars, animals, men, &c. ; so Ahriman had six evil archangels, with other demons subordinate, who ruled other evil spirits. By these man was first led astray, and so de- graded as to require the revelation of the Zend- Avesta in order to be reinstated in the divine favour. To complete the reconciliation, Mithra, " the victorious," who had driven Ahriman from heaven, came to be the guardian of man during life, and his judge after death. Mithra " seems to have sprung from Ormuzd, and to have been consubstantial with him." In Parseeism, or the religion of the ancient Persians, bodily resurrec- tion was taught as a tenet ; and several useful IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 145 practices were inculcated, such as agriculture and husbandry, keeping fire, water, and earth pure. " As perfect purity in body and mind is the one thing needful to salvation," says the Avesta, " the elements air, water, and earth must be kept from every unclean influence." " He is a holy man who has built a dwelling on the earth, in which he maintains fire, cattle, his wife, his chil- dren, and flocks and herds. He who makes the earth produce barley, who cultivates the fruits of the soil, cultivates purity; he advances the law of Ormuzd as much as if he had offered a hundred sacrifices." Zoroaster and all the Parsees had an intense hatred of image-worship ; and Herodotus, the historian, says of the Persians of his time (fifth century B.C.) : " They have no images of the gods, no temples or altars, and consider the use of them a sign of folly." This was due, he thought, to the fact " that they did not believe, as the Greeks do, that the gods have the same nature with men." The element fire, as being pure and immaterial, was the only symbol of God admitted by the Zend-Avesta. This was the origin of the Parsee fire-temples, which represented divine wor- ship, by flames kept constantly alight on the sacred altars. The antagonism between the Iranians and the Turanians was one of blood and race, since the former were White Men and the latter Mongols, or Yellow Men. This mutual repugnance was intensified by the religion of Zoroaster. The population of Media consisted of four classes priests, soldiers, farmers, and shepherds ; but only the two highest were Iranian, the great pro- portion of the people remaining Turanian. More- 10 146 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. over, the map shows that their country was part of that mountainous region north-east of the Euphrato-Tigris Valley, whence the prehistoric Akkads descended to lay the foundations of the Babylonian civilization (v. Chapter II.). Much of the substratum population in Media, therefore, may well have descended from the Turanian or Mongolian Akkads who held that region so many ages before the rise of the Iran Empire. One might even surmise that this admixture of blood from the keen-witted Mongols gave the Medians an advantage over their brethren, the Persians proper, and led to their being the first to assume pre-eminence in power and rule. The Medes appear to have shown national vigour long before the other Iranians asserted themselves, and could even match themselves successfully with their neighbours, the Babylo- nians, from very early times. After being subject to the great state for some time, Media revolted from Assyrian rule in the beginning of the eighth century B.C. Another point of difference between north- west Iran and that of the centre and south was in religion. The Medes had accepted the Bac- trian Magi as their priests, who assumed great authority, and the Persians counted this t an inno- vation contrary to the true worship instituted by Zoroaster. The religion of Media is therefore called Magism, from their priesthood, as opposed to the pure Zoroastrism of Persia. According to Herodotus, the first Median kingdom was founded by Deioces. After obtain- ing a character for impartiality and justice as arbiter in local disputes, and then as a judge, he was chosen to be king, and honoured with a IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 147 palace and bodyguard. His new capital became famous under the name of Ecbatana, the chief fortress of Media, till it was destroyed by the Arabs many centuries later. The site is identified with the modern " Hamadan." It was at the foot of a hill, crowned with the citadel, and a splendid sun-temple. " The walls," says Herodotus, " are of great strength, seven in number, rising in circles, one within another, so that each should, by its battlements, out-top the one outside of it. . . . The battlements of the outer wall are white, the next black, the third scarlet, the fourth blue, the fifth orange, the last two silver and gold." This description indicates, according to commen- tators, that, like the Babylonians, their neigh- bours, the Medes worshipped the five planets as well as the sun and moon. What we really know of Deioces is that he founded the Median Empire, and that he made Ecbatana one of the most mag- nificent of cities. There must have been a national temple and citadel here before his reign, and some of the grandeur admired by Herodotus and other travellers was undoubtedly due to Cyrus, who made it his chief capital 100 years be- fore the date of the Greek historian. In 331 B.C. Alexander the Great found it full of valuable booty ; and seven years later, when returning from his final conquests, it served for a pleasant two months' resting-place. Phraortes (middle of the seventh century B.C.) was not only master of all Media, but extended his rule over much of Persia proper. After con- quering Armenia and other districts, he made an attempt on Nineveh itself, but was defeated and slain by the Assyrians. The reign of Cyaxares, his son, who also increased the power of Media 148 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. and besieged Nineveh, was interrupted by an in- road of Scythians, who not only raided his whole empire, and, for eighteen years, tyrannized over the west of Asia, scouring and pillaging Baby- lonia, Syria, and Palestine. The prophet Jere- miah is supposed thus to describe this barbaric invasion : " Behold a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised up from the sides of the earth, . . . they are cruel and have no mercy, their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses set in array as men for war against thee. . . . The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan ; the whole land trembled." And in another passage : " I bring upon you a nation from far, O house of Israel, ... a mighty nation, an ancient nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. . . . They shall eat up thy harvest and thy bread, thy flocks and thine herds, thy vines and thy fig-trees ; they shall impoverish thy fenced cities wherein thou trustedst with the sword." This Asiatic inroad of northern barbarians may be compared to those which occurred in Europe during the Middle Ages. Besides a regu- lar tribute, according to Herodotus, they com- pelled all with whom they came in contact to pay ransom for life and property. King Cyaxares and his nobles did not disdain to rid Media of the Scythians by treachery. When on friendly terms, the leader and chiefs of the invaders, being invited to a feast and made drunk with wine, their patriotic hosts slaughtered them to a man. His kingdom being again free, Cyaxares joined Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, and marched against Nineveh for the second time. It was taken in 606 B.C., and Assyria was divided be- IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 149 tween the two conquerors. Media was now the chief power of western Asia ; and to strengthen the alliance, the king of Babylon married his son, afterwards the famous Nebuchadnezzar, to the daughter of Cyaxares. In his next war, that with the king of Lydia, which lasted six years, there occurred a famous eclipse of the sun, which had been foretold to the Greeks by Thales. "Just as the contest (in the last battle) was growing warm," says Herodotus, " day was on a sudden changed into night." In superstitious terror, the soldiers on both sides ceased fighting, and the two kings hastily agreed on terms of peace. By reckoning back, and assuming that the eclipse was total, Airy, the Astronomer-Royal, and others found the date of this battle to be 28th May 585, perhaps the earli- est occasion of an historical event being exactly fixed. A parallel modern verification occurs in Scottish history. When King Haco sailed from Bergen with his Norse fleet to punish the king of Scotland, he put in at Ronaldsvoe in Orkney, which was then subject to Norway. Next day he and all his followers were startled by the sun suddenly becoming dark, till it appeared as a thin bright ring. Sir David Brewster found, by com- putation, that there was an annular eclipse pass- ing over Orkney on 5th August 1263, about one o'clock. Two months afterwards Haco and his army were defeated at Largs, on the Firth of Clyde, and King Alexander annexed the Hebrides to Scotland. Afterwards, in Norwegian folk-lore, '' the ring at Ronaldsvoe" was naturally quoted as an evil portent.* * See the article " Chronology," by the present writer, in "Chambers's Encyclopaedia," vol. ii. p. 228, &c. 150 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. Another instance was the " eclipse of Larissa," so called because, according to Xenophon, it ter- rified the Medes when defending a town of that name against a Persian army. The superstitious panic lost them the place. Layard has identified the place with Nimroud, being confirmed by other particulars of the neighbourhood which are men- tioned by Xenophon. The date of the siege can therefore now be accurately assigned to i5th August 310 B.C. three centuries after the reign of Cyaxares. The transfer of power from the Medes to the Persians, or from North to South Iran, was due to Cyrus the Great; and before the cuneiform in- scriptions were produced as evidence (since 1880), historians generally accepted that romantic ac- count of it which we read in the first book of Herodotus. He tells that Astyages, son of Cyaxares, and last king of Media, married his daughter to a Persian nobleman called Cambyses. Afterwards, having had a dream about his daugh- ter, the Magi warned him that her infant, his grand- son, was therefore destined to supplant him on the throne. The king ordered Harpagus, a devoted at- tendant, to put the infant to death ; but Harpagus, instead, ordered a herdsman to expose him on a desert mountain. The herdsman brought the child home and had him brought up as his own. After a time the boy became known for his masterful and daring spirit, and happened one day to be brought before the king on the charge of having severely chastised the son of a noble Mede. The latter, in a game with other boys, had scoffed at the authority and commands of the herdsman's son, who, when chosen to be king over them all, royally ordered them about. The "herdsman's IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 151 son/" Cyrus, undauntedly defended himself when face f .o face with Astyages, justifying his con- duct, but ready, he said, to submit to the king's decision. " While the boy was yet speaking," says Herodotus, " Astyages was struck with a sus- picion as to who he was ; thinking he saw some- thing in the character of his face like his own, and that there was a nobleness about the de- fence; and that also his age seemed to tally with that of the grandchild whom he had ordered to be put to death." Finding by the forced con- fession of the herdsman that the boy was really his grandson, the king inflicted such punishment on Harpagus as only a barbaric despot might contrive, though he did not deprive him of life. The Magi told the king that, since his grandson had already been chosen king by the boys, the dream was now accomplished, and that there was no further danger of losing the royal crown. " Fortune has indeed played us a good turn," said Astyages; " for the child's fate was a great sorrow to me, and the reproaches of my daughter went to my heart." He therefore ordered his grandson to be sent to his father Cambyses in Persia, and for some years continued his tyran- nical rule over both Medes and Persians. Har- pagus, who had secretly watched for an oppor- tunity of revenging his injury, took advantage of the king's unpopularity, and intrigued with some leading nobles of the Persians to dethrone Astyages in favour of Cyrus, the rightful heir. Some historians assert that Cyrus was not re- lated to Astyages, but all admit that, before the Persian revolt, he resided at the Median court; and if his father Cambyses was a " King " in Per- sia, it were natural that the young prince should 152 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. be sent to Ecbatana to represent the feudatory state. The following is a summary of the ac- count given by some writers who neglect the narrative of Herodotus. Becoming suspected by the luxurious and priest-ridden Astyages, Cyrus, after alleging that his father was ill and had sent for him, obtained leave of absence for a short time, and set out from Ecbatana the same night for Persia. On the following evening, during the usual revelry of the Median court, one of the singing girls sang to the king the words: " A mighty beast, more fierce than wildest boar, Is to his marshes gone, why should he go ? When master of the country all around, To hunters he will prove a deadly foe." The verses aroused suspicion to Astyages, weak and superstitious, and, recollecting a Chal- dean prophecy in favour of Cyrus, he at once ordered a troop of horse to pursue the Persian prince. Cyrus was overtaken on the following evening, and proposed to the officer in charge that they should start next morning. The Medes had no objection, and readily accepted the prince's invitation to sup with him. By arrangement they were made drunk after supper, when he and his attendants, galloping off with a start of several hours, reached a Persian outpost where his father had some Persian troops ready to receive him. Astyages on hearing of this sent for his generals to muster all their forces and reduce Persia to obedience. Invading the revolted province in person, Astyages gained a victory on account of his great superiority in numbers e.g. 3000 chariots against 100, &c. Having lost his father, IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 153 Cambyses, in that first battle, Cyrus made his next stand at Pasargadae, near the Persian cap- ital, with his army posted on a range of hills. The Persians hurled down stones and rocks upon the Medes as the latter forced their ascent through thickets of wild olive, and on the second day, when by a fierce struggle the Medes were almost at the summit, a sudden and simultaneous charge of the Persians forced them down headlong with such slaughter that Astyages lost 60,000 of his best soldiers. Ordering fresh auxiliaries, he fought again and again ; but the Persians still rallied round their prince, and finally, in the fifth battle, near the same place, the Median army was completely routed. All the royal insignia were brought to the young conqueror and assumed by him, amidst shouts of " Cyrus, King of Media and Persia. " Astyages was made prisoner when hurrying to reach Ecbatana, his capital. The state officials of Media, as well as its dependen- cies, readily accepted Cyrus as their ruler, and the new empire of Persia at once replaced that of Media. The generalship of Cyrus was proved in this revolt, though many circumstances conspired to favour his success. The Medes had long been out of soldierly training, and their king was now not only old but effeminate, whereas the Persians were soldiers of unequalled skill and daring, led by a popular prince whom Ormuzd was believed to have endowed with every quality necessary for a successful captain. The orthodox Persians accused the Medes of having debased the true religion of Zoroaster by their fellowship with the Chaldeans and the innovations of the Magi priest- hood. " The fall of the Median Empire," says 154 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. Professor Rawlinson, " was due immediately to the genius of the Persian prince ; but its ruin was prepared, and its destruction was really caused, by the shortsightedness of the Median monarch." The cuneiform inscriptions record the acces- sion of Cyrus to the throne of Persia with some details which can scarcely be reconciled with those traditions. Taking them as the true his- tory, we now know that his father was really named Cambyses, and that he was a king of Elam, the mountainous country separating Persia from Babylonia. No doubt the nomad tribes of Elam were allied in race and language to their neighbours of Media and Persia, and Cyrus on that score may be claimed as an Iranian, as well as Astyages. In 549 B.C. this king Cyrus was attacked by Astyages, king of Media, and the latter was not only repelled, but deprived of his capital, Ecba- tana. After conquering Persia, Cyrus naturally formed a new kingdom of the three countries Persia, Media, and Elam and called himself king, 546 B.C. Cyrus was now " the great King," as he is called by the Greek writers. His next war was against the great and wealthy empire of Lydia really a renewal of the contest which had been stopped by the " divine interposition " of a total solar eclipse. The king of Lydia ruled a wealthy commercial nation occupying the western half of Asia Minor, and commanding busy ports on the Egean and Mediterranean, a kingdom rich in precious metals and merchandise of all kinds, but luxurious and degenerate. The earliest known gold coins are said to have been struck by their king, Croesus, obtained no doubt from the world-known " sands of Pactolus," near the IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 155 capital. Croesus, relying on his resources, and wishing to avenge his brother-in-law Astyages, only- asked for an opportunity of crushing the Persian conqueror, whom all* now expected to hear of soon as an invader. Cyrus, no doubt, had thoughts of the rich booty in the towns of western Lydia, and especially Sardis, its famous capital. By the treaty formerly made, after the solar eclipse, the river Halys, flowing north from the centre of Asia Minor into the Black Sea, was fixed as the western limit of the Median (now Persian) Empire. When Cyrus was making prep- arations to cross it, the Lydians made haste to invade the Persian territory and invite an engage- ment. Cyrus was speedily on the spot, and a great battle, but indecisive, took place. As the season was advanced, Croesus dismissed his troops for the winter, in order to bring together his allies from Egypt, Babylonia, and Greece during the spring. The Persian king, however, had a different notion of warfare. Crossing the Halys, he speedily marched on Sardis, the Lydian capital, though it lay at the western extremity of Lydia, 400 miles beyond the Persian frontier. Croesus had only his Lydian cavalry, and with these he offered battle in the plain before the walls. The fame of the Lydian cavalry being known to Cyrus, he ordered all the camels that had come in the train of his army to be collected in front, with mounted riders upon them accoutred as horse- soldiers. These he ordered to advance against the Lydian horse ; behind were to follow his foot-soldiers, and last of all the Persian cavalry. "The reason why Cyrus opposed his camels to the enemy's horse was/' Herodotus tells us, " that 156 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. the horse has a natural dread of the camel, and cannot abide either the sight or the smell of that animal. When the two armies joined battle, the Lydian horses immediately turned round and galloped off ... though their riders behaved manfully, leaping off their horses to engage with the Persians on foot. At last, after a great slaughter on both sides, the Lydians turned and fled. They were driven within the walls, and the Persians laid siege to Sardis." The capital being taken, and Croesus made captive to the Persian conqueror, Cyrus was now master of two mighty empires. The end of King Croesus, so wealthy that his name has become proverbial in all western lan- guages, is uncertain, but the scene at the funeral- pyre, which Cyrus had ordered for him, is well known. " O Solon ! Solon ! Solon ! " suddenly exclaimed the victim; and when the conqueror wished to know the meaning, Croesus told how Solon, the wise Athenian, had once visited the brilliant court in Sardis, and, after seeing all the bravery and glory, had said to the king, then in all the pride of his happiness, that no man should be called happy till his death. " After that," said the monarch humbly, "my beloved son was slain when hunting, leaving only a dumb brother; then in the war with Cyrus, I was totally defeated and my kingdom conquered ; now I am a poor prisoner, condemned to be burnt to death.' 1 Sunt lacrymae rerum, et mentes mortalia tangunt : " We needs must weep for woes, and being men, Things mortal touch our hearts." The Persian conqueror did not know Virgil, but the sense of human pity is universal. Cyrus not IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 157 only spared the life of Croesus, but afterwards treated him as a friend and equal. Ionia and the other Grecian colonies on the Egean were soon after subject to Cyrus ; and on his return to Ecbatana, Harpagus, who, through- out all his campaigns, had been his chief adviser, was made " Satrap " of Lycia, as an hereditary sovereign of the western parts of the empire, and vassal of the Persian king. In the British Mu- seum we still see some important monuments of ais dynasty. Cyrus himself proceeded with further con- quests, till all the races which then inhabited Afghanistan, the upper valleys of the Indus, Ka- bool, Peshawr, and even Beloochistan, acknowl- edged the rule of Persia. A much greater task still remained to render him master of Asia, the overthrow of the Babylonian monarchy, founded by Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar on the ruins of the ancient Assyrian Empire. In the year 539 B.C., Cyrus, at the head of his army, marched on Babylon from near Baghdad ; but scarce had he reached the Euphrato-Tigris region than there occurred an incident which has puzzled the historians. Encamping near a tributary river, the Gyndes, Cyrus employed his whole army for several months in digging a system of canals on both banks, till all the water was absolutely drained from the channel. According to tradi- tion, repeating perhaps the explanation given by the Persian soldiers, this was done to punish the river Gyndes, because one of the sacred white Median horses had been drowned in crossing. " I will so weaken this insolent stream," said Cyrus, in revenge, " that even a woman may cross it with- out wetting her knees." Some writers, however, lijg EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST think that the astute general had already con- ceived his plan of taking the great capital, and was utilizing the time by drilling his troops in the expert use of the pickaxe and shovel, since these would presently be needed for real work on the Euphrates. Cyrus was delaying his attack upon Babylon till the spring-time, because every March, when the sun had reached the solstice, there was a great religious festival celebrated by the Baby- lonians, from the highest to the lowest a wild orgie of drunkenness and revelry, such as was common in some Asiatic anniversaries. From the cuneiform inscriptions, we now know that on the i5th of the month Tammuz, 538 B.C., the night of the great religious festival, a detachment of the Persian army entered Babylon "without fighting," after marching from Sippara. Possibly the easy entrance of the enemy into so fortified a city was assisted by treachery from within ; nor do the inscriptions give any details as to the manner of entrance, or as to how the garrison were employed when invaded by the dreaded Persians. The entrance is thus described by the Greek historians. Cyrus resolved that, as soon as the night of the Babylonian orgie arrived, he would drain off the waters of the Euphrates at a certain place some distance above the capital, and then march his Persians into the city by the channel of the river. While a large detachment were employed, above the city, in hastily digging canals to a great lake, which had been dried up, the rest of the Persian army was posted close to the walls, on both banks, waiting in the darkness for the ebbing of the river. These soldiers were fully armed, and carried also torches to set fire IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 159 to various parts of Babylon as soon as an en- trance should have been made. When the "sap- pers and miners " opened their sluices higher up the valley, the Euphrates gradually became low- er, and the Persians quoted to each other the words with which Cyrus had dismissed them from Sippara, " the river itself will give a way into the town." Meanwhile they listened to the yells and shouts of the Bacchanalian populace, which reached their ears, notwithstanding the great for- tifications. At last came the signal for action : they gladly stepped into the shallow channel and passed into the devoted city, through the river gates of bronze, which had been left open, per- haps by secret arrangement. How had the garrison of Babylon been em- ployed meanwhile ? The inscriptions merely state that there was no fighting. From the Greek and Jewish historians we know that the capital was in charge of Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchad- nezzar, and son of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylonia. Nabonidus was unpopular from his neglect of the state religion, and had escaped to Borsippa at the approach of Cyrus. Belshazzar and his court, full of contempt for the Persian king and all his army, had ordered the whole city to be plunged in wild and wanton festivity, every temple and street and mansion to be given up to music, dancing, and drunkenness. Then occurred the dramatic scene : " Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. . . . They brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple, . . . and the king and his princes, his wives and his concu- bines, drank in them. ... In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick l6o EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him. ... In that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain." Another sacred writer has also a reference to this passage in Persian history : " A sword is upon the Chaldeans and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes. ... A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up. . . . The King of Babylon hath heard the report, and his hands waxed feeble : anguish took hold of him. . . . The slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are thrust through in her streets. Make bright the arrows, gather the shields : the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes. . . . One post shall run to meet another, to shew the king of Baby- lon that his city is taken at one end, and that the passages are stopped, and the reeds they have burned with fire. . . . The spoiler is come upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken. And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her captains and her rulers ; they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake. . . . The broad wall of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned." Belshazzar was no doubt associated with his father in the sovereignty ; and in any case, being left in charge of the capital, he would naturally be addressed as king by the court and the citi- zens. Eight days after the fall of Babylon and death of Belshazzar, Cyrus arrived at the gates to be received as conqueror of Babylonia and master of all Asia. A remarkable characteristic of Cyrus the Great was his tolerance of religious opinions. The inscriptions call him a worshipper of the gods of Babylon, no doubt because he refrained from ordering their suppression, or perhaps be- cause he showed some respect " for the magnifi- cence of the service of the richest city of the world," and " the vast antiquity of the rites." All IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. l6l che countries tributary to Babylon accepted the Persian rule readily, especially Syria, Palestine, and Phoenicia. The last had already received favours from the Persians as being necessary for naval purposes. In a previous chapter, dealing with the Hebrews, who had been so long in cap- tivity by the "river of Babylon," we referred to the enormous benefit which they received from Cyrus as soon as he had fixed his reign there, and, in fact, for years previously they looked to the Great King " as the chosen one who was to humble the pride of Babylon and be the liberator of the Chosen People." In the Book of Ezra, Cyrus says: " Jehovah, the God of heaven, hath given me all the king- doms of the earth, and charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people ? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel (he is the God) which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any place, let the men of his place help him with silver and gold, and with goods and beasts . . ." The Jews were in other ways assisted by Cyrus. The new governor appointed for Jeru- salem was of their race ; and the royal treasurer, Mithradates, was commanded to. restore the sa- cred vessels of gold and silver (5400 in number, according to the Book of Ezra) which had re- mained as trophies in Babylon since the destruc- tion of Solomon's temple by Nebuchadnezzar. We have already seen how imperfectly this noble plan of Cyrus was carried out, though it afforded the Hebrew race an excellent last chance of re- construction as a nation (v. Chapter IV.). The recovery of the decree of Cyrus by Darius, at the request of the Jews, forms an interesting 162 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. passage in the sacred narrative. After searching " in the king's treasure house at Babylon " there was found at Achmetha [the Hebrew spelling of Ecbatana], in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record thus written : " In the first year of Cyrus the king [i.e., first year in Babylon], the same Cyrus made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem. Let the house be builded . . . the height thereof threescore cubits, &c and let the ex- penses be given out of the king's house : and also let the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar took forth out of the temple and brought to Babylon be restored. . . . ' Now, therefore,' adds Darius, as a new decree, ' let the gov- ernor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place, . . . that they may offer sacrifices unto the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king and of his sons. ... I, Darius, have made a decree ; let it be done with speed.' " The account of the last campaign of Cyrus, the greatest of the Persians, has also been col- oured by tradition, like the earlier chapters of his life. After having resigned the throne and retired to the north for religious meditation, according to one Persian annalist, he heard that some Tartar or Mongol races had raided the Persian empire near the Jaxartes, and therefore marched to that river, confident of victory because the invaders were led by a woman, their queen Tomyris. Ac- cording to Herodotus, Cyrus laid the following trap for the Tartar army, by the advice of King Croesus, who was his companion in the expedi- tion. He left his camp almost undefended, with the tents full of good provisions and strong wines, and drew off with nearly all his troops. '* Soon after, one-third of the entire Tartar army, led by the son of Queen Tomyris, reached the camp and speedily IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 163 took possession. When they had eaten and drunk their fill, and were now sunk in sleep, the Persians under Cyrus arrived, and after slaughtering a great number, took even a larger number prisoners, among whom was the Tartar prince. The queen sent a herald to Cyrus, calling him 'bloodthirsty,' and saying, ' Pride not thyself on this poor success, . . . restore to me my son, and go from the land unharmed, triumphant over a third part of our army. Refuse, and I swear by the sun, the sovereign lord of the Massagetae,* that, bloodthirsty as thou art, I will give thee thy fill of blood.' To this mes- sage Cyrus paid no regard : and as for the queen's son, when the wine went off he begged Cyrus to release him from his bonds, and when that was granted, he at once destroyed himself. " Tomyris collected all the forces of her kingdom, and gave Cyrus battle. . . . First the two armies shot their arrows, and when their quivers were empty, they closed, and fought hand to hand with lances and daggers, till at last the Massa- getse prevailed, and the greater part of the Persian army were destroyed. "Cyrus himself fell, and we are further told how Queen Tomyris took a skin, and filling it full of human blood, dipped the head of Cyrus in the gore, with the words : ' I live and have conquered thee in fight, and yet by thee am 1 ruined, since thou tookest my son by guile ; but thus I make good my threat, and give thee thy fill of blood.' " Ctesias, another Greek historian, describes the last war of Cyrus as being on the Indian frontier, saying that he was wounded during a battle, and died three days afterwards, and that the Persian army renewed the struggle, till they had revenged the death of the u Great King" by a complete victory, followed by the submission of the nation who had rebelled. In either case it is certain that the body of Cyrus was finally conveyed into Persia proper, and buried at Pasargadae, one of the most ancient royal cities of Persis, the province which gave name to the empire. * A race of Turanians, Turkomans, or other Mongols. 1 64 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. Alexander visted the tomb of Cyrus, just as Napoleon visited that of Frederick of Prussia four soldiers who earned the title "Great" and it is interesting to know, from the Greek account, that, 200 years after the death of the Great King, his body was still preserved in its coffin of gold, guarded by Magi, surrounded by a golden couch, a table with dishes, embroidered robes, and swords befitting a Persian prince. The inscription, as transcribed by the visitors, was: " I AM CYRUS, O MAN ! WHO WON DOMINION FOR THE PERSIANS, AND WAS KING OF ASIA." This will remind some that, about 200 years after the time of Charles the Great, his tomb in Aachen, capital of the empire, was opened by Otho III., and how the mighty dead was seen sitting on a throne of white marble wearing the imperial insignia. There were the golden cross, the crown, sceptre, globe, book of the Gospels, and sword, which were afterwards used in the consecration of the Emperors of Germany, and are still preserved in Vienna. Pasargadae, the burial-place of Cyrus, and scene of his first important victory, may possibly have been the native name of Persepolis, as the Greeks called it, afterwards so famous as capital of the empire. In any case, Pasargadse, "the treasure- city," has been identified with some ruins near the site of Persepolis. There the empty tomb and other parts of the great mausoleum of the Persian conqueror still remain, and especially some large pillars with the inscription, " I AM KING CYRUS, THE ACH^EMENIAN." Besides the IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 165 monolithic columns, there was till recently a winged figure of the king, as if deified, sur- mounted by Ormuzd. Cyrus calls himself an Achaemenian, as being descended from Achaemenes, the mythical found- er of the royal families of the Medes and Persians. Hence the whole dynasty of the Persians, till over- thrown by Alexander the Great, is known as that of the Achaemenids, as distinguished from the later Persian dynasty, founded 218 A.D. by Babegan, and known as the Sassanids. Cambyses, son of Cyrus the Great, had the ambition of acquiring fame as a conqueror like his father ; and being master of the three richest capitals in the world, he had ample resources to meet the expense. Much preparation was made to invade Egypt, on the pretext that that power had assisted the Lydians in the struggle between Cyrus and Croesus. A fleet was procured from the Phoenicians and the seaports of Asia Minor, and an alliance was made with the Arabians to secure the road across the desert. Thus, in his fourth year, 525 B.C., Cambyses met the Pharaoh at Pelusium, on the east of the Delta, the ancient " gateway of Misraim," and completely routed the Egyptians. Herodotus found the bones of the combatants still left on the battlefield in the fol- lowing century, and tells his readers that the Persian skulls were of remarkable thinness as compared with those of the Egyptians, because the latter people " from early childhood have the head shaved, and so, by the action of the sun, their skulls become thick and hard." Cambyses sent a Persian herald up the river to Memphis to offer terms, but the citizens destroyed the ship, and cut all on board to pieces. This savage piece 1 66 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. of revenge only hastened the siege of the capital, which soon fell into the hands of the Persians. Then, with barbarous severity, Cambyses exacted a punishment for the death of the herald and his companions such as Herodotus loves to detail. Two of the items were first, that the Pharaoh's daughter, accompanied by the maiden daughters of the chief Egyptian nobles, should be clad as slaves, and fetch water before the eyes of their fathers ; and, secondly, that the Pharaoh's son, accompanied by 2000 Egyptians of the same age, with ropes round their necks, and bridles in their mouths, should walk in procession to a place of execution, in order to be cut to pieces as the Persian herald had been. At Sais, Cambyses exhibited further gross bar- barity by outraging the mummied corpse of Amasis, the previous Pharaoh, on account of his having insulted the Persian monarchy. The frag- ments of the mummy were thrown into the fire an act of impiety, as Herodotus points out, to the Persians no less than to the Egyptians. The former people thought that, fire being the purest of the elements, the express symbol of deity, it was unpardonably wicked to feed it with any dead thing, and especially a corpse ; while the Egyptians, from their notion of resurrection, make it an article of faith to preserve every human body with the greatest care. In his government of Egypt, Cambyses tried for a time to gain the favour of its priests by patronizing the native cult, and obtaining instruc- tion in their rites and ceremonies. From a statue preserved in the Vatican, we learn that, after being initiated into the mysteries of the gods of Said, he restored the worship there in full splen- IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 167 dour. An ill-advised expedition against Ethiopia was the beginning of the end of his domination over Egypt. Starting up the Nile Valley with a very large army, he detached 50,000 men on reaching Thebes, the southern capital, and or- dered them to cross the desert towards the oasis of Ammon, defeat the king of the place, who had refused to acknowledge the Persian sovereignty, and burn the famous temple. With the main part of the army Cambyses continued his southern march, till he reached a bend of the Nile where there was a caravan route more direct than the course of the river. This road tempted the rash king, who, from lack of ordinary foresight, im- agined an army could march where camels had gone and come. The African desert was new to the Persians, and immense plains of sand, without forage, water, or resources of any kind, reduced the powerful army to such famine and despair, that many soldiers are said to have killed their own comrades in order to eat flesh and drink blood. Cambyses never reached Ethiopia. As for the army which he had sent to destroy the city and temple of Ammon, no man ever heard of it again. The people of the oasis afterwards spoke of a southern wind, and most probably a simoon of the desert had come upon the Persian invaders, and buried them under hills of sand. The double disaster and disgrace had such an effect on the unregulated mind of Cambyses that he seems to have actually become mad, and was, at least, subject to fits of epilepsy. Hurrying back, he found, when he reached Memphis, that the whole population were holding festival be- cause Apis, the god, had just manifested himself in a new steer, consecrated by the priests. Rag- 1 68 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. ing like a demon, Cambyses ordered the magis- trates to be brought before him, and condemned them to death ; then, after ordering the priests to be beaten with rods, and the worshippers of Apis to be massacred by his soldiers, he had the sacred animal brought into his presence. Raising a sword, he inflicted a mortal wound on the inno- cent brute, to the horror of the whole native population. The actual epitaph written on the god was found by Mariette, the distinguished Egyptologist, and is still to be read in the Louvre. In his frenzied state of mind Cambyses was fre- quently as unjust and cruel to the Persians as to the Egyptians. Twelve of his courtiers having on one occasion offended him, he ordered them to be buried alive in pits with their heads above ground. On another occasion, when in his palace, he seized a bow and shot a boy who stood in the outer chamber to the heart, asking the father, a noble courtier who stood beside the throne, " Have you ever seen mortal man shoot an arrow with better aim ? You see it is not I who am mad, but the Persians who have lost their senses." The father (called Prexasp^s, according to Herodotus) saw that the king was not in his right mind, and, being afraid of his own life, simply said, " I did not think, sire, that any but Ormuzd himself could shoot with such skill." Soon after, news came from the East that his brother Smerdis had seized the crown, and that all Persia had acknowledged him. Cambyses knew that this must be a usurper, since the real Smerdis had already been secretly put to death, and therefore prepared in hot haste and indigna- tion to leave Egypt. When mounting on horse- back he wounded himself seriously with his sword, IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 169 but refused to rest ; and, like Edward Long- shanks, in his last vindictive expedition against the revolted Scots, insisted on being carried in a litter. The fatigue of such a journey increased his illness, and the tyrant found a premature and unhappy death in a poor Syrian village, where he apparently put an end to himself. Meanwhile a short revolution had taken place in Persia : the Magi, whom Cyrus and Cambyses had favoured, wished to restore the preponder- ance of power to Media, and also to make the Magian form of Zoroaster's religion again su- preme over the purer form which was cultivated in South Persia. Two Magi, in particular, brothers, had fomented this change; and as one of them, called Gomates, or Gaumata, resembled Smerdis, he took advantage of the absence of Cambyses to assume the crown, under the name of Smerdis, son of Cyrus. Seven of the leading Persians at once united to quash this Median revolution, by putting forward one of their number as the true heir to the Achaemenian throne. This heir was Darius, son of Hystaspes, undoubtedly of the family of Cyrus, and already popular as a prince of brilliant promise. The false Smerdis was killed in defending a fortress near Ecbatana ; and soon after, all the Magi found in the capital being put to the sword, a festival was instituted in celebra- tion of the national deliverance, and of the res- toration of true Parsee worship. This account of the accession of Darius Hystaspes, 521 B.C., has been singularly confirmed by the discovery of a very famous rock inscription one of the most interesting which have been left from re- mote antiquity. This record is " the rock of Be- histoon," near the caravan route between Bagh- 170 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. dad and Hamadan, a hill which rises to a height of 1700 feet. On the limestone surface of one perpendicular face of this rock, the largest page of history known, are engraved five extensive columns, in Persian, Median, and Babylonian, the whole of them being in cuneiform characters, giving the genealogy of Darius up to Achaemenes, the provinces of the Persian Empire, and the victories gained by the " Great King" between 521-518 B.C. On the upper part of rock is sculp- tured a large group Darius himself, with a bow in his hand and his foot upon the prostra'te figure of Smerdis, while nine rebels, chained together by the neck, stand before him, and two of his own captains behind him. Above the group hovers the symbolical image of Ormuzd. Every para- graph of this huge inscription mentions Darius as the author, as a guarantee of its accuracy. A few extracts from this unequalled record may be given : " When Cambyses had gone to Egypt, the state became heretical falsehood abounding in the land, both in Persia and Media, and in the other provinces. . . . The crown or empire of which Gomates dispossessed Cambyses, that crown had been in our family from the ancient times. . . . The state feared to resist him [Gomates, the Magian]. There was not any one bold enough to oppose him till I came. Then I remained in the worship of Ormuzd ; Ormuzd brought help to me, ... in the district of Media, named Nisara, there I slew him [Go- mates]. I dispossessed him of the empire. By the grace of Ormuzd I became king : Ormuzd granted me the sceptre. . . . The crown that had been wrested from our race, that I recovered. . . . The rites that Gomates, the Magian, had in- troduced I prohibited. I reinstituted for the state the sacred chants and worship." The inscription gives some detail of a rebel- lion in Babylonia against Darius : IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 171 " A Babylonian, named Natitabirus, calling himself Ne- buchadnezzar, was the leader. ... I marched to Babylon. The forces of Natitabirus held the Tigris with boats. I placed a detachment on rafts and assaulted the enemy's position. Or- muzd brought me help : by the grace of Ormuzd I succeeded in passing the Tigris. . . . Near Babylon we fought a battle. ... I entirely defeated the forces of Natitabirus, . . . then I marched to Babylon. I took Babylon, and, seizing Natita- birus, slew him." Such a record would have been too terse and compressed for the Greek historians, who, in giv- ing details of the great preparations made against the Persians by the Babylonians, tell how they put their women to death, and how, in the twen- tieth month of the siege, Zopyrus, an officer of Darius, contrived the following stratagem for taking the capital. Pretending to have been a victim of Persian cruelty, Zopyrus showed himself to the Babylo- nian sentries with his nose and ears cut off, as if wishing to desert to their side on account of the treatment which such mutilation seemed to verify. Presented to Nebuchadnezzar as an able officer, who was now keenly revengeful against the Persians, he was presently put in command of some soldiers, and making a brave sally beyond the walls, cut in pieces a body of 1000 troops of the besiegers, placed there purposely by Darius. In succeeding engagements he had still greater success; till at last he was entrusted with the charge of the fortifications. The plot was now matured by communication with the besiegers, and on an appointed day, when Darius approached close to the walls with all his forces, Zopyrus opened two gates, and gave the enemy command of the city. Thus Babylon was for the second time taken by the Persians. Darius ordered 3000 172 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. of the leading citizens to be crucified. To reward the success of his treacherous act, Zopyrus was made governor of Babylon, with personal com- mand of its revenues for life. The inscription on the Behistun rock men- tions several rebellions in Susiana, Media, As- syria, Armenia, Parthia, &c., which occurred whilst Darius was delayed with his great army before Babylon. We have some details of the engagements by which his generals put down those risings; but after the siege he naturally had less trouble. One passage on the rock reads : " I departed from Babylon : when I reached Media, there Phraortes, who was called King of Media, came before me with an army : we joined battle, and by the grace of Ormuzd, I entirely defeated the forces of Phraortes. . . . Afterwards I sent forces in pursuit, by whom Phraortes was taken and brought before me. I cut off his nose and ears and his lips. He was held chained at my door ; all the kingdom beheld him. Afterwards, at Ecbatana, there I had him crucified ; and the men that were his chief followers at Ecbatana, in the citadel I imprisoned them." Another rebel in Media, Kamaspates, was punished exactly in the same way as Phraortes. Perhaps the details were assigned by law ; and should any modern reader exclaim against the barbarity of such mutilation before the final exe- cution, it is enough perhaps to remind him that, from the time of Edward I. to the beginning of the present century, "hanging," then " drawing," then "quartering," were severally endured by every condemned traitor. One might further ask what was the punishment inflicted upon Damiens. for having slightly scratched with a pocket knife the skin of His Most Christian Majesty Louis XV. The modern Persians are called the Parisians ot IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 173 the East, but the barbarity of the ancient King of Iran is far surpassed in refinement of cruelty by that then shown in modern Europe. Among other wars which have first been made known to us by the rock inscription of Darius was one on the north-east frontier by the Par- thians and Hyrcanians, and another in Persia itself. Herodotus gives a singular instance of astute policy on the part of the Great King which also illustrates the absolute readiness of obedience then due to an Eastern despot by his subjects, however remote. Oraetes, the satrap of Lydia, in the distant West, was suspected of aim- ing at independence, but during the revolts of which the rock inscription tells us, could not be punished openly by sending an army. Oraetes, moreover, .had committed many daring crimes, such as executing an envoy bearing commands from Darius. In a confidential council the king broached his plan of dealing with Oraetes, after explaining that force is misplaced where tact is needed. Out of thirty who volunteered to do the king's bidding, the lot fell on Bagaeus, who started for Sardis provided with a number of letters written to his dictation, and sealed with the royal signet. On his arrival he was intro- duced to Oraetes, surrounded by the bodyguard ; and then, by getting the royal secretary to read the letters in a certain order, Bagaeus had a means of testing the loyalty of the soldiers present: first he chose a letter containing the words, "Persians, King Darius forbids you to guard Oraetes." Immediately every soldier laid aside his spear. Then, in a second letter, at the phrase, " King Darius commands the Persians in Sardis to kill Oraetes," the guards 174 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. drew their swords and slew the usurper on the spot. Darius had an ambition to conquer Europe, as Cyrus had subdued Asia and Cambyses Africa; but the Scythians and other warlike races there were more powerful than any barbaric tribes whom the Persians had already encountered. There were numerous peoples, whose half-savage habits are described by contemporary historians, including the Getae in modern Bulgaria, the Sauromatae (" men of the north ") to the west of the Caspian ; and, between the Don and Volga, the Budini (^iMVf Wodini), " a numerous race, with blue eyes and red hair," according to Herodotus. The last were celebrated for their religious rites, and lived by herding and farming ; and some ethnologists find them to be the ancestors of the Norse race, who afterwards settled in Scandinavia, and in due time had a good share in making up the early English and Scottish population. The name of this Aryan race suggests Woden or Odin, the great god of our forefathers. Other races then in the south of modern Russia were Tura- nian or Mongolian. Having crossed the Bosphorus by a bridge of boats, Darius and his Persians overran Thrace, conquered the Getae, and then passed to the left bank of the Danube. The bridge for this pur- pose had meanwhile been built by a large body of Ionian Greeks whom Darius had sent north from the Bosphorus in a fleet. The Scythians, Budini, and all the other nations retired before the van of Darius's mighty army, but were pur- sued, we are told, as far as the Don. Weakened and reduced by marching and counter-marching, Darius, when near the Dnieper, sent a challenge IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 175 to the Scythian king, who commanded the mon- grel and half-savage army. The wary chieftain answered " We shall not join battle with you till it pleases us; as for lords or superiors, I ac- knowledge none, except the king of heaven and Vesta, the Scythian goddess." Instead of send- ing earth and water as a tribute of submission, which Darius had asked, the allied tribes sent him "a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows." The Persians, holding a council of war, were puzzled, says Herodotus, as to what these four things mi'ght mean : the most probable interpretation being, " Turn yourselves into birds to fly into the sky, or mice to burrow underground, or frogs to take refuge in the fens, else ye must die of our arrows." After further delay, Darius, who had heard of the terrible rigour of winter in those countries, suddenly retreated upon the Danube, especially as there had been some danger of the bridge being cut down by the Scythians. Decamping by night, the great army abandoned tents, baggage, and thousands of sick soldiers, while the enemy eagerly pursued them and destroyed most of the infantry. Darius crossed the bridge over the Danube, and ordered it to be immediately de- stroyed, as though the lives of all the Persians on the left bank were of no account when compared to his. This disgraceful retreat from Southern Russia is comparable to that of Napoleon from Northern Russia, and the destruction of the bridge resembles that ordered after Napoleon's great defeat in the Battle of Leipsic. Another more successful expedition of the Persian King was to the valley of the Upper Indus. With wood cut in Cashmere he built a 176 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. fleet on the Indus, which, under Scylax, a Greek admiral, sailed down to the Indian Ocean, and, after a voyage of three months, reached the mouth of the Red Sea. Thus the Persian Em- pire was extended to the Indus and the Indian Ocean, though the Punjaub was still to remain unexplored till the conquests of Alexander the Great. Trusting to his unlimited resources of money and men, Darius planned another European in- vasion. His chief adviser on this occasion was Mardonius, a man of great political talent and ambition, though no general, as was proved in the following reign. An enormous army, though probably smaller than the Greek historians say, was despatched under command of Datis and Artaphernes, and landed on the eastern coast of Greece at a narrow plain, six miles long, hemmed in between the seashore and a range of hills. " The mountains look on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea," as everybody quotes, when referring to the fight, one of the " decisive battles of the world." Its details properly belong to the ancient history of Athens. The Greeks (men of Athens and Pla- taea) were drawn up in line along the base of the hills under the command of Miltiades, while the invading army, with their numerous companies, were crowding the beach in front of their fleet. Before the Persians had properly taken up posi- tion for attack or defence, the smaller army of their opponents charged them with enthusiasm, and speedily threw them into confusion and ruin. The Greek spear at Marathon, like the Scottish spear at Bannockburn, was irresistible because IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 177 urged against injustice and tyranny, urged with keen and united purpose. Over 6000 Persians fell, and only 192 of the Greeks. In the mound -of earth raised over the remains of the latter by their countrymen* a quantity of burnt bones was found in 1890, with some vases belonging to the fifth century B.C. During the last five years of his reign, Darius did much to consolidate and improve his great empire. Besides reform in legislation and the state religion, he patronized literature and art. A main object in his administration was to properly organize by " satraps " the government of all dis- tant parts of the empire. The palaces and tombs of the Persians supply evidence of their architec- tural taste and skill. One palace was in Ecba- tana, already described, another at Susa, where Cyrus for a time resided, but the most famous was at Persepolis, the great capital of Darius. This palace, near the city, was built on a vast platform, which consists of great masses of hewn stone, some of enormous dimensions e.g., 49 to 55 feet long. The length of this solid base is 1500 feet, and its greatest breadth 950 feet. On it are the ruins of various colossal structures, built of dark-grey marble, in excellent masonry, with lofty palaces, colonnades, and vestibules, all of an imposing style and design. The huge pillars are especially striking, and we are told that " no traveller can escape the spell of these majestic ruins." Some of the staircases admit of horses easily going up or down, and one admits of ten horsemen ascending each flight abreast. Another is admired from its sculptures lions, bulls, and colossal Persian guardsmen. Several grand gate- ways also remain on the platform, some flanked 178 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. with colossal bulls, which in some cases exactly resemble those of the Assyrian excavations, with wings and human heads. The " Great Pillared Halls " are pronounced to be the chief glory of the palace. The grey marble columns measure 72 feet in height, and are nearly 6 feet in diam- eter : their slender and graceful appearance dis- tinguishes them from the Egyptian pillars, while in many details they also differ from the Greek orders. The rock tombs of the Persian monarchs rival their palaces in beauty and style. That of Darius has often been figured : an excavation in the side of a lofty rock, the whole of the front being sculptured, and divided by horizontal lines into three compartments of the same height. In the highest Darius himself is shown with the altar of fire before him, and the symbolical figure of Or- muzd hovering above. Both king and altar rest on a platform supported by twenty-eight human figures in a double row. The middle part of the tomb contains a door and four beautifully carved pillars. Here was Darius, " the Great King," entombed, 486 B.C., in the sixty-third year of his age and thirty-sixth of his reign. Xerxes was the son of Darius I., and also the grandson of Cyrus the Great, whose daughter Darius had married. He was, therefore, doubly acceptable to the Persians as ruler of the empire, but soon proved that he had inherited no capacity for ruling. Mardonius was still ambitious of the conquest of Greece, hoping to be created satrap of that country when converted into a province. Xerxes resolved to ensure success by the size of his armament, and the preparations for invading the small republics are said to have occupied four IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 179 years. The fleet numbered over 1200 triremes and 3000 smaller vessels, supplied by Phoenicia and Egypt. Great stores of provisions were col- lected at different points between Cappadocia and Greece, and a bridge thrown across the Helles- pont.. The number of persons altogether engaged in this expedition was reckoned at five millions; but even were that an exaggeration, his army was probably the largest ever assembled. Such a host covered the country along Macedonia and Greece like a deluge, and though the Greeks inflicted partial checks at Thermopylae, Artemisium, &c., Xerxes was scarcely aware of the fact. Athens was taken by the Persians, 480 B.C., the Acropolis burnt, and the whole of Attica occupied. On 23d September, at daybreak, Xerxes ascended a rocky promontory, and sat on a golden throne, to re- view his fleet of 1000 ships, and gaze with com- placency upon the approaching victory over the obstinate Greeks at a short distance west of their burnt capital. The result of this sea battle showed him, however, that seamanship and courage will prevail against heavy odds: most of the Persian fleet became a seething mass of confusion and horror. The huge expedition of Xerxes was utterly overthrown. The familiar eight-syllable lines must ever re- cur as we mentally recall this scene, " A king sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis, And men by nations lay below, And ships by thousands all were his. He counted them at break of day, And when the sun set, where were they ? " In greater shame and disgrace than Darius, he hurried back by land to the Hellespont, leaving l8o EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. Mardonius, with an army of 260,000, in Thessaly, to prevent pursuit, and renew the invasion of Greece next year. The consciousness of wretched failure clung to Xerxes as he urged that ambitious officer to punish Athens and her sister States. The whole of the Grecian race, however, were now united in patriotic fervour, and on the plains of Plataea, where the conflict took place, the 300,000 invaders were utterly defeated, and Mar- donius himself slain. A sea fight at Mycale, on the coast of Asia Minor, on the same day as the battle of Platsea, also brought victory and renown to the Greeks. The Great King, a few days later, lost Abydos on the Hellespont, and after that defeat, could no longer boast of any European possessions. The magnitude of the expeditions against Greece must have seriously tried even the resources of Persia and all her wealthy capitals, and for the few remaining years Xerxes seems to have lived in Persepolis, surrounded by the lux- urious state of an Eastern despot. An interesting point connected with the close of the reign of Xerxes is that the romantic scenes described in the Book of Esther and the Apoc- rypha are attributed to this time. The Hebrew spelling of " Ahasuerus," and the Persian form of the Greek word " Xerxes," are similar ; and Esther, the fair Jewess, had, we are told, the name " Hadassah," which may have been Persian, since the mother of Xerxes was called " Atossah " i.e., Hadossah. The Old Testament tells us that " ' Ahasuerus reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, . . . he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants, the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces.' Afterwards a lesser feast ' in the court of the garden of the IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 181 king's palace where were white, green, and blue hangings fas- tened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble : the beds gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble. And they gave drink in vessels of gold, and royal wine in abundance/ On the issuing of the edict by Xerxes in favour of the Jews, ' it was written to the lieutenants and the deputies and rulers of the provinces which are from India unto Ethiopia, an hun- dred twenty and seven provinces, unto every province accord- ing to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their language, . . . and sent letters by post on horseback, and riders on mules, camels, and young dromedaries.' " Such details and others in the narrative are quite descriptive of the luxurious court of Xerxes, when held in the stately halls of his capital, Per- sepolis, since the plan of the palace at Susa was, according to Professor G. Rawlinson, identical with that at the greater capital. Moreover, the arbitrary treatment of Queen Vashti, for her womanly reserve, and the dramatic judgment passed upon his prime minister Haman, exactly suit the character of the Persian despot who or- dered the unruly sea to be scourged, just as a boy punishes his senseless hoop or top. From our re- motest savage ancestors we inherit some trace of the belief that every stone, fountain, or tree has in it a soul or spirit. After raising Esther and the Jews to honour, Xerxes lost his popularity, and was finally assassinated, like some of the Roman emperors of a later age, by an officer of his own body-guard. Artaxerxes, the " Long-handed," resembled his father Xerxes in person, being tall and handsome, as well as in disposition, being unwarlike and weak. The only great event of his reign was the reduction of Egypt to subjection, under the com- mand of Megabyzus. From the influence of Esther 1 82 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. and Mordecai probably, Artaxerxes was well dis- posed to the Jews; and Nehemiah the prophet was actually a cup-bearer at the Persian court. We read in the Book of Ezra, the " priest and scribe," how " the King of Kings " wrote " ' I make a decree that all they of the people of Israel and of his priests and Levites in my realm which are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem, go with thee [Ezra] ... to carry the silver and gold which the king and his coun- sellors have freely offered unto the God of Israel, whose habi- tation is in Jerusalem, and all the gold and silver that thou canst find in all the province of Babylon. . . . And I, Artax- erxes, the king, do make a decree to all ihe treasurers which are beyond the river, that whatsoever Ezra the priest shall re- quire of you, it be done speedily, unto an hundred talents of silver, and to an hundred measures .,f wheat, and to an hun- dred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much/ After reaching Jerusalem Ezra and his companions ' delivered the king's commissions unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors on this side the river [Euphrates].' " Ezra, however, could not restore the holy city without the help of Nehemiah, whom he had left in Persepolis as the king's cup-bearer. In Nehe- miah's narrative we read how, " in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, he asked the king (" the queen also sitting by him ") " ' to send me unto Judah, unto the city of my father's sepul- chres, that I may build it ' . . . ; and how the king gave him letters ' to the governors beyond the river, and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace and for the wall of the city.' . . . After details as to the opposition and persecution which Nehemiah and his friends suffered from the Samaritans and others, referred to already, he tells how, dur- ing the building, * half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the habergeons, ... for the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded.' After being twelve years in Jerusalem as governor he returned on a visit to his royal master ; ' in the two and thirtieth year of Artax- IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 183 erxes, King of Babylon, came I unto the king, and after cer- tain days I came to Jerusalem/ " The Persian monarch probably paid state visits to his great capitals from time to time, especially Babylon in the Chaldaean province, Ecbatana in Media, and, less frequently, Sardis in Lydia, Susa, and Elam, where Cyrus had held his court before settling at Persepolis, the chief seat of government. Artaxerxes did nothing to stay the degenera- 1 tion of the Persian empire that had commenced under Darius, and the decadence was more and more marked during the following reigns. The leading events under the conclusion of this dynasty mainly belong to Grecian history, and throw scarcely any light on the extinct civiliza- tion of Iran. Cyrus the Younger gave, as a Persian prince, promise of certain high qualities; but his ambition of depriving his brother of the empire quickly procured his death at the battle of Cunaxa. His Greek mercenaries, the famous "Ten Thousand," being led north successfully through the upper valley of the Tigris and across Armenia, till they reached the welcome shores of the Black Sea, proved to the Greeks that many provinces of the " Great King " could now easily be overrun and perhaps conquered. Philip of Mace- don was in fact preparing to invade Asia Minor, when he was assassinated ; and, therefore, his more warlike son, Alexander, easily carried out the idea of successfully attacking the Persian empire when under the weak Darius III, a great- grandson of Darius II., the son of Artaxerxes I. Crossing the Hellespont in 334 B.C., Alexander advanced from victory to victory, the Grecian colonies of Asia Minor being mostly in his favour, 184 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. and Sardis, the most western of the Persian capi- tals, opening its gates to the conqueror. On at last reaching the confines of Syria, Darius met him with a large army at Issus, in a defile where the superior numbers of the Asiatic army were rather a disadvantage. All the preparations of the Persians were in vain and soon after Alex- ander conquered the whole of Phoenicia, his only delay being at the siege of Tyre, already described (Chapter IV.). When the Greeks had crossed the desert and the Euphrato-Tigris valley, an immense army of the Persians and their allies met him east of Nineveh, the ancient capital of Assyria ; and again Darius suffered dire defeat. Like Sardis, the other Persian capitals Babylon, Susa, Per- sepolis, and Ecbatana were now at Alexander's feet, with all their stores of wealth and treasure. It was at Persepolis, according to the familiar lyric, that the " royal " feast was held " By Philip's warlike son . . . for Persia won " ; followed by setting on fire all the splendid struc- ture in revenge for former wrongs inflicted by Persia upon the Greeks. " Behold a ghastly band, Each a torch in his hand ! Those are Grecian ghosts that in battle were slain, And unburied remain Inglorious on the plain, . . . Behold how they toss their torches on high, How they point to the Persian abodes, And glittering temples of the hostile gods ; The king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy ; Thais led the way To light him to his prey, And like another Helen, fired another Troy!" IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 185 The intensity of that dramatic stanza con- trasts with the pathos of a previous one, equally suitable to the stately halls of Persepolis. The same " master of the quire " " Chose a mournful Muse, Soft pity to infuse : He sung Darius great and good, By too severe a fate, Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, Fallen from his high estate, And weltering in his blood With downcast looks the joyless victor sate, Revolving in his alter'd soul The various turns of Chance below ; And now and then a sigh he stole, And tears began to flow." The pity felt by Alexander over Darius, like that of Cyrus over Croesus, Julius Caesar over Pom- pey, or (as some say) of Oliver Cromwell over King Charles, may remind one of the old Greek proverb " He who sheds tears is a good man." The phrase, " weltering in his blood," applied by the poet to Darius, was realized at Bactria, where the fallen king was assassinated by a satrap of that province. Thus the last of the dynasty of Achaemenes, ancestor of Cyrus the Great, died at a spot which the Persians regarded as the cradle of their race, the centre of the earliest civilization of Iran. In ancient Egypt, as was shown in Chapter III., there were two great empires, separated by the rule of the Hyksos, or shepherd kings; so in ancient Persia />., Iran before its conquest by the Mohammedans in the middle of the seventh century A.D. there were two great empires sepa- rated by the rule of the Parthians. The first em- pire of Iran closed with Darius III., "fallen by 1 86 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. too severe a fate" at Bactria; and then, under Iskander (as the Persians pronounced "Alex- ander "), the government was still continued by satrapies while he was marching to India, and finally resting at Babylon as his central capital. A main object of the policy of Alexander was "to fuse into one the two leading peoples of Eu- rope and Asia," establishing himself at the head of a Perso-Hellenic empire with Babylon as capi- tal. Alexander, however, had small opportunity for carrying out his great plan ; the Macedonian habit of carousing with his generals was unsuited to the malarious climate of Babylon, and when only thirty-three years old he succumbed to a violent fever in June 323 B.C. Persia with Syria fell to the Seleucid heirs of the great conqueror; while the other heirs, the Ptolemies, became rulers of Egypt. Parthia was a large satrapy of Persia to the east of Media, which was seized upon and occu- pied by a number of nomad tribes whom the Greek settlers had ousted from the mountainous country around Bactria. These tribes were there- fore called Parthians, and afterwards also Per- sians, though how far they had kinship with the true race of Iran has been disputed. Professor Rawlinson thought it "in the highest degree probable " that the Parthians were Turanian or Mongolian, and, therefore, not Ayran like the Persians. Gibbon's words are that "the Parthian monarchs, like the Mogul [Mongol] sovereigns of Hindostan, delighted in the pastoral life of their Scythian ancestors, and the imperial camp was frequently pitched in the plain of Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris." After expelling the Greeks from this north-eastern part of the IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 187 plateau of Iran, the Parthians chose their chief Arsaces to be king of Persia, and thus was estab- lished the dynasty which for 450 years intervened between the two empires of ancient Iran. They adopted the Persian dress, and modified their speech so much that it appeared in a great meas- ure Aryan. Greek became the official language during their most flourishing period. The Par- thians had a capital near the modern one Tehe- ran, but their chief seat of government after the extension of their rule westward was Ctesiphon, fifteen miles south-east of Baghdad, where there are still ruins to prove its size and magnificence. Some of their kings preferred Ecbatana, but Par- thia, from its poverty, was almost deserted. Much of the Parthian character and history is known from Greek and Roman writers, illustrated by many coins which have been found, but this peri- od as a whole has little bearing on our subject, the extinct civilization of Iran. One point to re- member is that mighty Rome herself was more than once matched in war by this Asiatic race. Crassus, the consul, on reaching his province Syria, boasted how easily he would overrun the barbarous Parthia, and dictate peace to their monarch at his capital, but not long after he had crossed the Euphrates he suffered a terrible de- feat, losing his life, three-fourths of his army, and all the Roman standards, by the superior tactics of the enemy's general. Crassus had already be- come known in Syria and Mesopotamia, for his greed of money, plundering temples and despoil- ing the rich wherever he went ; therefore, when the head of the Roman consul was brought be- fore the Persian king, some of the soldiers poured melted gold into his mouth, telling him now to 1 88 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. take his fill. Afterwards Antony, the brilliant but unscrupulous triumvir, ventured on a great ex- pedition against the same nation, approaching by Armenia : after long marches he found himself out-generalled, because the Parthians avoided a battle, though impeding his movements and cut- ting off stragglers, and at last cold and hunger compelled him to retreat. For nineteen days the enemy disputed with the Romans every step of their way, so that the sufferings undergone, ac- cording to Merivale, "were unparalleled in their military annals blinding snow and driving sleet, want, sometimes of provisions, sometimes of water, the use of poisonous herbs and the harassing at- tacks of the enemy's cavalry and bowmen . . . reduced the retreating army by one-third of its numbers." Even on reaching Armenia the wretch- ed legionaries were, by the severity of the weather, further reduced by 8000 men. Antony resolved to invade Parthia a second time, but never passed the frontier of Media ; and on his final with- drawal into Asia Minor, Phraates, the Parthian king, took Armenia, and massacred all the Roman garrisons. It was after being thus disgraced in Persia that Antony, not daring to appear in Rome, went to Egypt, and finished his life in still greater dis- grace. Antony and Queen Cleopatra, being de- feated at Actium, 31 B.C., they both committed suicide in the following year. In the second century of our era, Rome again invaded the Parthian Empire. The Emperor Trajan invaded Armenia with a large army, and taking the Parthian prince Parthamasiris by treachery, put him to death. On reducing Baby- ion and Ctesiphon, he thought himself certain IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 189 of the conquest of Parthia, because the king avoided a battle. Revolts showed Trajan that the Asiatic rule of Rome was insecure, and on his retreat to Syria, when besieging a small town in- habited by Arabs, who were Parthian subjects, the great emperor had to acknowledge defeat and failure "his troops suffering from heat, swarms of flies, want of provisions, and, finally, from violent hail and thunderstorms," he turned his back upon the petty fortress, baffled. Soon after- wards, King Chosroes regained his capital Ctesi- phon ; and in the same year, 117 A. D., Trajan's successor at Rome, Hadrian, relinquished both Assyria and Mesopotamia, which therefore became again subject to Parthia. The Parthians were inferior to the Persians in culture and refinement, so that the . two races never amalgamated, and at last the original masters of the soil of Iran resolved to assert themselves, one pretext being that the Parthian kings had spoiled the pure religion taught by Zoroaster, and introduced a form of idolatry or worship of ancestors. The leader of the revolu- tion was Babegan, a descendant of the old Achse- menian stock, who defeated the last of the Par- thian dynasty in the battle of Hormuz ; and in the year 226 A.D. was appointed Shahanshah, or King of Persia, assuming the name of Artaxerxes. This new dynasty, forming the second Persian Empire, is called Sassanian, from Sassan, the grandfather of Babegan, a patriotic enthusiast. This first reign of the Sassanidswas distinguished by the solemn and official reconstitution of the doctrines of Zoroaster as the state religion. The king ordered the sacred fire to be lighted through- out Persia, with priests to maintain it on every 190 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. altar. He then collected the precepts of Zoro- aster to serve as a canon of the true worship. The magi assembled at Persepolis, the restored capital of Iran, and from the whole body a priest was chosen, who, with proper assistance, trans- lated the sacred Avesta from the ancient Zend language into the vernacular Persian. The state administration and government, as established by Artaxerxes, are still traceable, even after the change of religion caused by the Mohammedan invasion. Sapor (/>., Shahpoor), the son of Artaxerxes, is chiefly known in history for the signal defeat which he inflicted upon mighty Rome. He in- vaded the Roman provinces A.D. 258, surprising even Antioch, and the Emperor Valerian collected forces to restore the Roman supremacy. Be- trayed, when in Mesopotamia, into a dangerous position, and completely failing to force a way through the enemy's lines, the Roman Emperor was compelled to sue for peace, offering an im- mense quantity of gold as ransom. The Persian King refused, and at last, after inviting Valerian to a conference, ordered him to be taken prisoner as soon as the Roman army had laid down their arms. The Persians then overran Asia Minor, not only depopulating Antioch and other cities, but filling whole districts with devastation and carnage. Some accounts say that after the re- turn of King Sapor with his victorious army, Valerian was daily exhibited in chains, wearing the imperial purple of Rome, and that when he died, A.D. 265, his body was flayed and the skin afterwards shown to the Italian envoys. Gibbon, however, would reject such traditions as un- worthy of Sapor ; and in bas-relief sculptures we IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 19! find no evidence of such harsh treatment. On those permanent monuments we see Valerian unfettered, though humbly bending the knee to his lord, the great king; and that surely was deg- radation enough to the man who had been unani- mously hailed IMPERATOR by the Roman people. Sapor, in the rock sculpture, looks as gallant a gentleman, with handsome profile, moustache, and long waving hair, as ever did knight or king of Christendom ; and Valerian, though with one knee bent to the ground, has no bond or fetter, but wears a sword by his side, and looks towards the mounted king with an open, undaunted counte- nance. The crown corresponds to that seen on Sapor's coins. Behind Valerian, in a double line, are seventeen Roman soldiers, evidently of dif- ferent corps, some of them also wearing swords; while on the opposite side of the group, behind the mounted king, are ten guards on horseback. The composition of the picture is skilful and artis- tic. Valerian also appears in another bas-relief, where fifty-seven guards support Sapor, while thirty-three tribute bearers stand in front, with an elephant and a chariot. A gem of this reign, together with the sculp- tures, may convince us that the Oriental writers had reason for praising the beauty of Sapor I. ; they also admired his courage and princely lib- erality. An overthrown statue, near Shapoor (named after himself), is 20 feet long, and repre- sents him with long hair, curling beard, and mous- tache, mural crown, tunic and trousers of some thin flexible material like silk. German historians are proud to tell of the de- feat of the Roman soldiers, who, in the reign of Augustus, penetrated the dense forests east of the 192 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. Rhine; how Varus, the governor, with all his army were taken in ambush by the heroic Herr- man ( u Arminius "), and how the great emperor apostrophized the dead general, " Ah ! Varus, where are my legions ? Give me back the lost le- gions ! " The annals of ancient Iran, however, show, as we have seen, and shall yet see, that that disgrace suffered by the Roman eagles in the sav- age wilds of Germany was nothing compared to the many defeats endured in Persia. Sapor II., King of the Persians, restored in the fourth century all the warlike renown of the race of Iran. Before assuming full power he had been well drilled in manly exercises, and educated carefully for the supreme rule of a large empire. As a zealous Zoroastrian, he opposed the exten- sion of Christianity, notwithstanding the remon- strations of Constantine the Great; and, on his death, in 337 A.D., at once invaded the empire, overrunning Mesopotamia, and appointing a new king over Armenia. At Singara, after crossing the Tigris, he allowed the army of Constantius to take his fortified camp ; and after nightfall, when the Romans were all asleep or feasting, sur- rounded and attacked them with shocking car- nage. The legionaries, as the only means of revenge for being thus surprised by the Persians, surrounded Sapor's son, who had been taken prisoner the preceding day, and tortured him to death. The third attempt of the Persians to take Nisibis is of interest to the student of siege op- erations. The citizens enthusiastically defended themselves, being led not only by the Roman commander, but by the bishop, St. James, who is reported to have worked miracles on behalf of the town. Sapor could not succeed by the usual IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 193 methods of attack, but, observing that the river Mydonius had inundated the plain on which Nisibis stands, he dammed the lower part of the valley and made a deep lake all round the town. Waiting till the water rose nearly as high as the battlements, and meanwhile constructing large boats and rafts to float the military engines against the walls, he renewed the siege ; and though at first repelled by the torches and huge stones of the Romans, persisted till the lateral pressure of the huge mass of water forced in the wall and made a breach 150 feet long. The Persian army began to enter, certain of victory: first the cavalry, accompanied by the horse arch- ers, then the elephants with iron towers full of bowmen, followed by some infantry. Both horses and elephants, however, became useless from the accumulation of mud and rubbish. Sapor ordered light archers to the front to prevent the ruined wall being rebuilt ; but the enemy posted heavy armed troops in the breach, while a new wall was being built behind, and in the morning the new fortifications were above the height of a man. In short, Sapor was again compelled to abandon the siege of Nisibis. On his next invasion of the Euphrato-Tigris Valley, Sapor determined first to take Amida (now Diarbekir), an important Roman stronghold and arsenal on the Upper Tigris, defended by seven legions. The besiegers were 100,000 in number; including, besides numerous allies, a ring of Persians surrounding the city, five ranks deep. Sallies were made to destroy the works of the besiegers, but in vain. Pestilence and hunger did not conquer the besieged, and seventy days had passed before Sapor made a final effort by 13 194 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. raising huge mounds to overtop the walls, and pressing the assault from day to day. One of the mounds raised by the besieged within the wall suddenly fell, forming a sort of bridge against a breach made by a battering ram, and thus the Persian troops found entrance to mas- sacre and sack with the utmost ferocity. Sapor ordered the commanders of legions to be cruci- fied, and many other Roman's of high rank were compelled to march in irons with the ordinary captives despatched to Persia. The Emperor Julian, on assuming the purple, resolved to take revenge for all that Persia had inflicted upon Rome. After reaching the Eu- phrato-Tigris Valley, however, he found the dif- ficulties so great, that he declined to invest Ctesi- phon, though the capture of this capital had been one of the chief objects of the expedition. A retreat being decided upon, the Persians gave the Roman army such trouble, that at last Julian offered battle. The enemy were defeated, but Julian and his army had small comfort from the victory. At last, when near Samarah, the rear- guard and van were at the same time suddenly attacked by the Persians, immediately followed by an onset upon the right flank of the Roman army. Great masses of cavalry and elephants created terrible confusion, during which Julian was pierced under the right arm by a javelin. He instinctively grasped the sharp weapon to pull it from his ribs, but only cut his fingers, and presently lost consciousness. The battle was obstinately continued with doubtful success on either side till nightfall, and soon after the ill- fated emperor died in his tent. There was only one officer fit to take the high place now vacant, IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 195 and he claimed exemption on account of age; therefore, Jovian, who had hitherto been almost unknown, was suddenly invested with the im- perial purple, and saluted as " Augustus " and IMPERATOR. Sapor II., on hearing of the death of Julian, continued to harass the retreating army, till at last Jovian and his council were willing to receive envoys sent by the Persian King, offering peace for thirty years on certain terms. The terms were very humiliating to the Romans, but Sapor would abate nothing, knowing that every day rendered his power greater. Rather than grant any one of such shameful terms, says a Roman writer, it had been better to fight ten battles. One of the conditions of this treaty was that Nisibis, the chief city and fortress of Eastern Mesopotamia, thrice besieged by Sapor II., and previously taken by his father, should be surren- dered by the Romans on fair terms. Sapor II. died in 379 A.D., after a reign of seventy years, the most brilliant of those in the Sassanid period. He appears to have despised the inscriptions and rock-sculptures which so many of the other ancient monarchs left as me- morials ; and, except from his coins, which are numerous, and show his resemblance to the first Sapor, all we know of his history and character is told by his contemporaries and successors. On some of his coins he is expressively called Shapoor To ham i.e., "Sapor the Strong." Forti nihil difficile. Isdigerd, who was King of Persia at the be- ginning of the fifth century, is famous for being mentioned in the will of the Emperor Arcadius. Wishing to have a protector for his young son, 196 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. Theodosius, who afterwards became, as emperor, noted for his unambitious and peaceable disposi- tion, Arcadius appointed Isdigerd, though so far from Constantinople, appealing to his generosity, and giving many instructions in behalf of the tender ward. One authority says that the em- peror accompanied the request with the legacy of 1000 pounds weight of gold. Accepting the charge, the Persian king sent a learned eunuch to Constantinople, who remained there as com- panion and tutor to the Prince Theodosius. It is certain that Isdigerd remained constantly at peace with the Romans; and in order to please the imperial court, he appears for some time to have even favoured the Christians in Persia. Afterwards, however, he was influenced by the Magians to persecute those who had professed the new religion ; and many died as martyrs of the faith. The coins of Isdigerd call him " the Most Peaceful," but throughout Iran, from his treat- ment of the Magian Zoroastrians, and afterwards of the Christians, he obtained the title of " the Wicked " and " the Harsh." His face is hand- some in profile, with short beard and hair, gath- ered behind in a cluster of curls. The native writers tell of his death, that it was due to his Persian-like love of a handsome horse. One day such a one, without saddle or bridle, galloped up to the palace gates, but would allow no one to approach it till the king himself appeared. He spoke to the beautiful creature, and immediately it stood still and quietly submitted to be bridled and saddled. Isdigerd confidently approached to mount, and in an instant the stranger lashed out a blow with one of its hind legs, which IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 197 stretched the prince on the ground dead. Be- fore the onlookers had realized the scene the horse had disappeared ; but many of the devout of both religions " saw in the wild steed an angel sent by God." His successor, Varahran, was perhaps more remarkable by the method of his death than by the events of his reign. When hunting the wild ass in a valley between Shiraz and Ispahan, his horse plunged into a spring of water, and neither he nor his rider ever again appeared. In the year 1810, according to Malcolm, in his " History of Persia," an English soldier lost his life in the same pool, when tempted to dive in for a swim, a singular confirmation of the tradition regarding the death of Varahran. Some explain the fact by the quicksands which are a not unfrequent feature in some parts of the Persian plains. The reigns of Kobad and Chosroes I. of Persia (sixth century) are notable for the war against the empire, and especially for the campaigns, con- ducted on behalf of Justinian, by the heroic Belisarius. Kobad, invading Armenia and Meso- potamia, found the fortress of Amida so strongly fortified that he erected a huge mound in order to rise above the walls. This work being under- mined by the enemy, fell, and caused considerable loss to the Persians. Kobad, however, persisted, till, by means of a drain under the wall, they got possession of a tower, and thus gained the place, with great carnage in the streets. The town was completely sacked, and the garrison made cap- tive. Soon after, a whole division of the Roman army was surprised on the banks of a stream, some of them bathing, and cut off almost to a man. In 528 A.D., Belisarius, to whom afterwards 198 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. the great Justinian owed nearly all the glory of his reign, was defeated by Xerxes, the son of Kobad, but the emperor had still confidence in his general, then younger than Napoleon in his first Italian campaign. A dreadful struggle took place at Daras ; in the second part of the battle the Roman right was charged with such fury by the " Immortals," a Persian body of reserve, that it was driven into retreat, and then was the opportunity for generalship. Belisarius or- dered a large body of horse to charge in flank, and thus cut the Persian column in two. The whole army of Kobad broke and fled in disor- der. Chosroes, on his succession to the throne of Persia, was at first glad to make a truce with Justinian, while at the same time the latter wished to employ Belisarius in reducing Africa and Italy. Envious of the successful campaigns of Jus- tinian in Africa and Europe, Chosroes at last re- solved to contest the supremacy. He invaded Syria, took Aleppo, and advanced upon Antioch " the Queen of the East" to Europeans, rich and magnificent. During the attack, the fall of an enormous stage of wood between two towers caused a panic amongst the Roman soldiers, so that the Persians gained the citadel, and became masters of the town. In the year 551 A.D., the Emperor Justinian agreed to a treaty with Chosroes, paying 2600 pounds of gold, and agreeing to a five years' truce. The repeated payments of money seemed to make the empire tributary to the power of Persia. By a later treaty of peace, 30,000 pieces of gold were to be paid annually by Rome, and the Christians in Persia were guaranteed full IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 199 tolerance, but forbidden to make converts from the Zoroastrians. After the death of Justinian, Chosroes, though now old, again led the Persian army, when the Romans threatened invasion. Forcing the enemy to raise the siege of Nisibis, he marched upon the stronghold of Daras. After a siege of five months, it submitted ; and Tiberius obtained a three years' peace on condition of the annual payment of 30,000 aurei to Chosroes. It was in his capital of the West Ctesiphon that the successful ruler of Iran died. A great statesman as well as a great soldier, Chosroes I. had triumphed in every quarter, commanded re- spect from all his many enemies, and restored Persia to the status of one of the greatest of nations, almost equal to that enjoyed under Darius Hystaspes. His title among the Persians was u the Just," and he seems to have deserved it by his intelligent tolerance of religious opin- ions, his enlightened legislation, the respect he paid to men of culture and letters, whether they were foreigners or not, and his patronage of agri- culture, commerce, and science. The Persian court in this reign was visited by many Euro- peans, including some Greek scholars whom Jus- tinian's laws against philosophy had made exiles. tk They found him acquainted with the writings of Aristotle and Plato, whose works he had caused to be translated into the Persian tongue." Near Susa, one of his capitals, he instituted a " medical school, which became by degrees a uni- versity, wherein philosophy, rhetoric, and poetry were also studied." The game of Chess (Persian Shah, the King) was brought from India by Chosroes, and called the " royal game," though 200 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST, afterwards taught to Europeans by the Arabs. One principle that he acted upon should be noted viz., that the deeds of a man, and not his thoughts, were what he should be judged for. In this particular alone, Chosroes was superior to many teachers among Christians, Mohammedans, and others. He tolerated Christianity : one of his wives was a Christian, and when her son in- sisted at a later time on retaining that religion, the king made no attempt to force his conscience, but only forbade his quitting the precincts of the palace. A drinking cup of this period, still preserved, illustrates the art belonging to the extinct civili- zation of ancient Iran. French and English archaeologists believe that it must have been once used on the table of the great Chosroes. Com- posed of various glass disks of various colours, held together in a gold setting, it is identified by a portrait in the sapphire stone which forms the base of the cup. The features bears a close re- semblance to the portraits given of Chosroes on his coins, and the workmanship corresponds to that age. The second Chosroes (surnamed " Parviz," the victorious) professed Christianity, and was friendly with the Roman Empire till 603 A. D. He defeated Germanus and his successor, and two years after- wards took Daras, a powerful Roman fortress, after a siege of nine months. For several years he insulted the imperial power in Syria, Armenia, and even Galatia; and afterwards took Antioch, Damascus, and other important places. Then proclaiming a " holy war against the Christian misbelievers," he invited a large number of Jewish fanatics as allies and invested Jerusalem; and IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 20 1 after taking it by storm, gave it up to his army to be sacked and plundered. The churches were burnt and much of the city destroyed : a massacre of the inhabitants, mainly due to the Jewish swords and daggers, lasted several days. The famous "True Cross," found by Helena, was brought by the Persians to Ctesiphon, and there duly pre- served by a Christian wife of Chosroes. Next year Chosroes Parviz made a still greater capture by surprising Pelusium, the gate of Egypt, and crossing the Delta to Alexandria, which was practically undefended. Persia thus for a time regained that rule over the Nile Valley which Alexander the Great had deprived her of nearly a thousand years previously. Meanwhile another Persian army was threatening Constantinople itself by besieging Chalcedon, the fortified city on the opposite side of the Bosphorus. Herac- lius, the emperor, after an interview with the gen- eral of the invaders, sent three high nobles to the Persian King, requesting peace, but Chosroes haughtily refused, saying that Heraclius must descend from the throne, and yield the sovereignty to his enemy. Soon after (617 A.D.) Chalcedon fell, and other places submitted. Thus, again, as under the first Persian Empire, the authority of the King of Iran was acknowledged as far west as the Grecian shores of the Egean, and through- out Syria and Egypt. With the view of making the new conquests permanent, Chosroes made Ctesiphon on the Tigris the western capital of Persia. Chalcedon was actually held for ten years by the Persians. Heraclius, the emperor, was in despair, and resolved to escape to Carthage in Africa, but be- fore he got on board ship, the populace, with the 202 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. Patriarch of the Church at their head, compelled him to stay in the capital and assist in repelling the Persians. The resolution was now taken to make use of the navy and carry the war into the enemy's country. The emperor landed his army at Issus, in the angle between Syria and Asia Minor, near the field where Alexander won the second of his three great victories over the earlier Persians. Heraclius drilled his troops there, and soon after defeated an army of the enemy. Next year he invaded Armenia, but had to return with- out bringing Chosroes to an engagement. In the following campaigns he gained several victories, recovered the important fortress Amida, which the Persians had held for twenty years, and gained renown for his personal bravery. On the bridge of Sarus, when the Romans were in deadly con- flict with the enemy, led by Shar-Barz, the chief general of Chosroes, Heraclius, passing forward amongst the legionaries, struck down a huge Persian with his own hand, and then threw him into the river. Chosroes at last collected a large army in order to bring the war to a close. Generalship, however, was lacking, although Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Chalcedon were still retained. Hera- clius, in traversing the interior of Persia, plun- dered several palaces and cities. Dastagherd, the favourite residence of Chosroes, had a " paradise " or park, in which the Romans found, not only gazelles, wild asses, ostriches, peacocks, and pheasants, but lions and tigers. Here Heraclius celebrated the Epiphany before destroying the palace. A report that the Persian monarch had escaped from Dastagherd by making a hole in the wall of his palace garden only enhanced the dis- IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 203 grace he had already incurred by shunning a per- sonal encounter with Heraclius; and though the latter wished to come to a peaceful settlement, Chosroes obstinately refused. His unpopularity was increased by acts of gross tyranny and by threats against Siroes, his son and successor, and others. Owing to a court intrigue in favour of that heir to the throne, Chosroes was seized when making arrangements to escape, and, after four days' imprisonment, cruelly put to death " a just but tardy Nemesis overtaking the parricide." Siroes (Kobad II.) son of Chosroes Parviz, hastened to conclude peace with Heraclius; and by the terms of it Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, &c., were surrendered, and the " wood of the Cross," which had been taken from Jerusalem, was given back to the Romans. Next year the emperor made a special pilgrimage to the capital of Judaea in order to restore the relic to its shrine. The Church feast of the " Elevation of the Cross " is still a memorial of the joy felt by those simple Christians i/jth September 629. King Kobad II. appears to have fallen a victim to a pestilence which at that time afflicted Persia, one of the many plagues which then, and long afterwards, scourged the East and West, owing to the lack of " sanitary " knowledge, especially in large towns. Meantime a formidable power had arisen un- suspected by Persia, though destined soon to overshadow the land of Iran and many others. During the struggle between Heraclius and Chosroes Parviz, Mohammed had become the most powerful man of the Arab race. He chal- lenged Rome in 630 A.D. by an invasion of Syria, and soon after led an army of 30,000 brave men, 204 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. who despised death when fighting for their com- mon faith. The date of Mohammed's death was also that of the accession of the last king of ancient Persia, Isdigerd III., the grandson of Chosroes Parviz. The war between Persia and the Moslems be- longs rather to a history of the Arabian race, and throws little light on our subject the extinct civilization of Iran. The Persians, exhausted already by foreign wars and internal strife, suf- fered many defeats, and at last hastily abandoned Ctesiphon, their capital. The Moslem army at once entered this city, then one of the richest prizes in the world, with the accumulated wealth of four centuries of Persian monarchs. The Arabian writers afterwards described in glowing colours the palaces and gardens, the beautiful streets, the luxury of the houses, and especially the royal palace, with its portico of twelve marble pillars, each 150 feet in height, its hall with vaulted roof, brilliant with stars of gold repre- senting the twelve signs of the Zodiac, under which the Great King sat on his throne to dis- pense justice. One room of the palace had a carpet of white brocade, 450 feet long, with a border of precious stones, representing a flower garden, the leaves being emeralds, the blossoms and buds of pearls, rubies, sapphires, and other precious stones. Besides these and other treas- ures found in the city, the Arabs captured a casket of Isdigerd's which was being carried off, contain- ing his robe of state embroidered with rubies and pearls, the crown and seal of Chosroes, and other valuables. One fifth of the entire booty of Ctesiphon, to- gether with all the works of art, was sent to IRAN OR ANCIENT PKRSIA. 205 Medina to the Khalif Omar; the rest, according to Professor G. Rawlinson, afforded ^312 to each of the 60,000 Moslem soldiers. By a subse- quent victory at Jalula, where 100,000 Persians are said to have fallen, each soldier obtained about 260 of booty. We are also told that 100,000 Persians (such numeration of course must mean simply an enormous number) perished at the Battle of Nehavend. It was there that the Moslem general, Nomahn, mounted on a white horse, and shouting Allah Akbar, led his men to victory against terrible odds, and fell pierced to death in the moment of victory. It was there, too, that the second empire of Iran came to a close. " The battle of Nehavend," says Mal- colm, "decided the fate of Persia, which from its date fell under the dominion of the Arabian Khalifs.* The dynasty of the Sassanid kings, the house of Babek, was now no more. Not that Isdigerd, last of his race, died on the field of Nehavend; indeed, he appears to have never even once been leader in the many battles with the Arabians ; but for the last ten years of his life he had no kingdom. He is said to have been killed by a robber for the sake of his clothes, when escaping from an offended crowd, 651 A.D. The conquest of Persia by the Arabians led to a more permanent change than that of the Greek invasion. The Moslems, by their force of character and religious convictions, introduced so many changes that, excepting the language and some traces of the administration of Artax- erxes, all the main features of the civilization of * " History of Persia," i. 177. 206 EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. ancient Iran became extinct. The religion of Zo- roaster only survived among a small body, the " Parsees." Some of the culture of Samarkand as a Mohammedan university may also be traced to the early Iranians; lying to the north of Bactria and in the same valley, it became a centre of civi- lization under the Greek rule, and throughout the Sassanid period was noted for learning and art. The Arabian writers admire it proverbially, for its climate and beautiful surroundings, as well as for the world-known colleges and mosques which attracted faithful Moslems from all lands. Even the fair district of Samarkand, however, must yield to that fate which has already been referred to as overshadowing the " continental depression " to the north of Iran. The dress of the Medes is known from sculp- tures, confirmed by the accounts of historians. In peace they had long flowing robes of many colours sometimes made of silk. The wealthy wore gold chains, bracelets, and earrings, and we read of favourite horses having golden bits and bridles. The chief amusement of the court was hunting on horseback with the bow or javelin, the Parthian sculptures showing that the custom was still very characteristic even in that later period. It is remarkable that the Persians, who, as a race, had been noted for temperance and self- restraint, were known to the Greeks as luxurious in eating, and given to intoxication whenever opportunity allowed. We are even told that "once a year, at the feast of Mithras, the king was bound to be drunk." Great attention was oaid to the education of Persian boys, early rising, bodily exercises, especially in riding, hunt- IRAN OR ANCIENT PERSIA. 207 ing, and agricultural work ; military service being compulsory at the age of fifteen. Like the Medes, the wealthy Persians wore ornaments of gold, and had also the handles of their swords and daggers of that metal. The poorer Persians had fre- quently tunic and trousers of leather, with a felt cap, and a pair of high shoes fastened by a string round the ankle. The general appearance of a Persian army representing all parts of the empire must, from the variety of garb and colour, have been very striking. The Persians arid Medes, with scarlet kilts and gilded breastplates ; Arabs, with woollen shirts; Assyrians, with helmets and linen corse- lets ; Berbers, with leathern jerkins ; Hindoos, with cotton dress of various colours; Ethiopians, clad in skins and armed with clubs ; Scythians, with loose trousers and pointed caps : arms of every form and age, rude and civilized. Then, besides the enormous number of horses and mules proper to Persians, Parthians, and Arabs, there were elephants, camels, and wild asses. Herodotus tells us that, excepting the dagger which all Asi- atics wear constantly, a large proportion of the horsemen brought only a lasso of leather into the battlefield, and, like some of the South Americans, wielded it with deadly effect. GENERAL INDEX. A. Abyssinia, 19, 113-116. Abderahman, defeated in France, 126. the Ommiad, 128. Accadian, &c. (see AKKAD). Achaemenes, 165. Ahab, 77. Ahasuerus 180 (see XERXES). Ahmes, Pharaoh, 58. Ahriman, 144. Akkad, 25, 42, 46, 76, 146. Akkads, 12, 20, 24, 34 (see BABY- LONIA). Alexander the Great, 91, 92, 104, 116, 147, 164, 176, 183-186. Alexandria, 105, 108, 201. Alhambra, 135. Almanzor, 133, 134. Alphabet, Origin of, 53, 54. Ameni, Egyptian Governor, 55. Amida, siege, 193, 194, 197, 202. 41 Ammon, Ameer, 53, 61, 65, 167. Ammonites, 95. Amraphel, 36. Andalusia, 123, 126, 128, 136. Antioch, iq8. Antony, 188. Apepi, Pharaoh of Joseph, 61. Apis, 51, 167, 168. Arabia, 38, 95, 108-121. Arabs, race and country, 108-111. religion before Mohammed, ii6-n8. Islam, 119, 120. rapid conquests, 122127. in France, 126, 127. civilisation in Spain, 131-137. in Persia, Ctesiphon, 204. Arcadius, Emperor, 195, 196. Armenia, 12, 76^ 147, 183, 188, 202. 14 Artaxerxes, the Long-handed, 104, 182. the Sassanian, 189. Aryans, 16-19, 138, 142. Assur, 36. Assur-banipal, 39-41, 65. Assur-nasrpal, 77. Assyria, 36, 39, 44, 46, 65, 82, 91, 146. Assyrians, 36-41. country, &c., 36, 37. golden age, 37-42. ^ second to Babylonians, 44. in Persian army, 207. Assyriology, 9, 76. Astyages, 150-153. Athens burnt, 179. Avesta, the " Law," 143. B. Baal, Bel, 25, 32, 33, 44, 93, 94. Babegan, 189. Babel, Babilu, 23, 25; Babil (mound), Babylon, 25, 36-39, 183. siege by Cyrus, 158-161. siege by Darius, 171, 172, 186. Babylonia, 23, 44, 46, 157. Babylonians, country^ &c., 23. culture and religion, 25-36. national epic, 42 (see also AS- SYRIA). Bactria, 139-141, 143, 185, 206. Baghdad, 130, 187. Basques, against the Franks, 129. Bedouins, 20, 21, 95, 97. Behistoon, rock inscription, 169, 170, 172. Belshazzar, 159, 160. Belisarius, 197, 198. Berbers, 123, 207. 209 210 GENERAL INDEX. Berosus, 31. Bokhara, 141. Brugsch, Dr., 49, 72, 74. Cairo, 51, 61. Cambyses, 65, 91, 165169. Canaanites, 76. Carchemish, 69, 70, 76, 78. Carthage, 88, 90, 91, 94. Cartouches explained, 10, 60. Caspian Sea, '" continental depres- sion," &c., 13, 141, 206. Caucasian race, 14-19. Ceuta, 123. Chalcedon, 201. Chaldea, 23, 25, 27 (see BABYLONIA). Charlemagne, 128-130, 164. Charles Martel, 126, 127. Chedorlaomer, 36. Chemi (Kem), 52. Cheops, Pharaoh, 49. Chess, 199. Chosroes (Parthian), 189. the Just, 197-199; court, &c., 199 200 the Victorious, 200, 201. Cleopatra, 60, 188. Colchis, Egyptians at, 59. Constantinople, 121, 122, 130, 201. Cordova, 124, 125, 128, 131-134, 137. Cornwall, Phoenicians at, 88. " Cosmogony,'' 31. Crassus, defeat of, 187. Croesus, 154-157, 162. Cross, " the True," 201, 203. " Elevation of," 203. Ctesiphon, 186-189, 194, 199, 201, 204. Cunaxa, 183. Cuneiform inscription, 27-29. Cyaxares, 147-149. Cyprus, 38, 85. Cyrus, the Great, 147, 150-165. cuneiform record, 154. tolerance of religions, 160-162. D. Damascus, 121, 125. Darius Hystaspes, 104, 169-178. government, &c., 177. rock-tomb, 178. III., 183-186. Darwin, home of first races, 13. Dastagherd, 202. David, King, 84, 99-101, in. Deborah, 114, 115. Deioces, 146, 147. Dumuzi, " Tammuz," epic, 30. E. Ecbatana, 121, 147, 152, 157, 162, 183. Eclipses in chronology, 149, 150. Egypt, 46-66, 181, 186, 201. Egyptians, habits and living, 47, 48. art and science, 48-51. letters, 54, 55, 65, 66. religion and culture, 46, 52, 53, 1 66. dress, 55, 56. national epic, 72 (see THEBES). Egyptology, 9, 52. El, 93, 94, 96, 97, 117. Elamites, 35, 36, 40, 43, 154. Embalming, 53, 166. Erech, Uruki (Warka), 25, 27, 40, 4 2 i 43- Esarhaddon (see ASSUR-BANIPAL). Esther, 180, 181. Ethiopia, 48, 113, 114, 167, 180, 181. Ethiopians, in Persian army, 207. Eurasia, 13, 14. Europe, a mere peninsula, 13, 15. Exodus, 60, 95. Eyuk, Hittite palace at, 79. Ezra, 182. F. Fatimites, 132. G. Ganges, work of, 12, 64. Geez tongue, 19, 113. Gibbon, 127, 130, 186. Gibraltar, 123. Goths in Spam, 122-124, I 3 1 Granada, 135-137. Guadalquiver, 88. H. Haco, King, at Largs, 149. Halys, river, 155. Hammurabi, 25, 36. Haroun-el-Raschid, 130. Hatasu, Egyptian queen, 56. Harpagus, 150, 151, 157. Hannibal, 91, 93. Hebrews, 21, 31, 41, 58,60,61,69, 94102, 182, 183. religion, 94, 97-99, 103. Exodus, 95, 97. Judges and Kings, 98-102. GEN ERAL INDEX. 211 Hebrews, captivity, 101-103 (see L. JEWS). Heraclius, Emperor, 201-203. Herod, King, 106. Kaaba, 117, 118. Kadesh, Hittite capital, 64, 69, 71- Hieroglyphs, 10, 60. 73,.79- Hiram, King, 84, 113. Hittites, 63, 64, 67-80. empire of, 68. allies, 74. Karnak, 56, 64, 65. Kena (see PHOENICIANS). Kephren, Pharaoh, 26, 49. Keteians (? Khita), 80. letters, 78. dress, 78. religion, 93. Khalifs, 120, 121, 125, 127, 130. Khita (see HITTITES). Khitasir, King of the Hittites, 72, H. King of Egypt, 71. perhaps the *' Keteians " of Khorsabad, 38. Homer, 80. Homer, 52, 61, 80, 83, 85. Hyksos, 55, 58, 95. Kosseans, 35. Khufu (see CHEOPS). Khun-Aten, Pharaoh, 71. I. L. India, 12, 16, 19, 85, 175, 176, i Indus, 138, 175, 176. Ionia, 80, 157. 80. Lepsius, Professor, 10, 48. Lombardy, 12. Lydia, 149, 154-156, 173- Iran or Ancient Persia, &c., r 8. country, 138, 140. M. religion, 142-145, 166 (set MEDES, PERSIANS). Isdigerd, 195-197. also Maccab, Jewish patriot, 105. Magi, 29, 146, 150, 151, 164, 169, 190. Marathon, 176. III., 204, 205. Ishdubar, Babylonian hero, 3; , 42- Mardonius, 176, 178, 180. Mariette, 10, 65, 70, 168. 44 [slam, origin and creed, 119. Israel (see HEBREWS, JEWS). Mankind, first home of, 13, 14. races of, 14-16. Mecca 116 118. Issus, battle, 184, 202. Medes, 37, 141, 145-154. dress, 206, 207 (see IRAN). J. Medina, 120, 205. Jalula, Persian defeat at, 205. Jephthah, sacrifice of, 94. Jerablus, 71. Jerusalem, 41, 84, 85, ioo(and IO2, 121, 2OO, 2OI. Jews, 103-107 (see also HEBRE captivity and results, 102 quarrel with Samaritans lote), ws). 103. 103, Memphis, 51-53, 61, 65, 165, 167-^ 168. Meneptah, Pharaoh, 60, 96. Menes, Pharaoh, 51, 52. Mesopotamia, 24 (see CHALDEA). Miltiades, 176. Miriam, 115. Mithra, Mithras, 144, 206. Moabites, 21, 22, 94, 95. 104. insurrections, 105. under Herod, 106. nationality extinct, 106. Moabitic Stone, 22 (frontispiece). Mohammed, 116-120, 203, 204. Mongols, 12, 15, 22, 24, 69, 162, 186. Moors, 22, 123. Job, 21, 112. Joseph, 58, 61, 95. Joshua, 76, 98. Moses, 95-97. Mycenae, n, 85. [ovian, Emperor, 195. J;idah, 101, 102 (see HEBREWS 1. N. Julian, Emperor, 145. Justinian, Emperor, 197-199. Nabonidus, King, 42, 159. Nebuchadnezzar, 41, 42, 91, 102, 149, fuvenal, 52, 107. w . 212 GENERAL INDEX. Necho, Pharaoh, 41, 90. Nehavend, 205. Nehemiah, 104, 182. Nineveh, 36, 37, 39, 59, 147, 148. Nisibis, siege, 192, 195. O. Okad, Arab games at, 117. Ophir, 85. Oraetes, 173. Ormuzd, 143, 165, 170, 171, 178. Orpntes, 69, 70, 72, 73. Osiris, 53. P. Parsees, 142, 144, 145, 206. Parthians, 185-189 (see IRAN). Pelusium, 165, 201. Persepolis, 164, 177, 180, 182, 185, 190. Persia, 18, 23, 142, 163 (see IRAN). Persians, 138-166. dress, 207. army, 207. Philce, 59. Philistines, 98, 99. Phraortes, 147. Phoenicia, 22, 31, 77, 184. Phoenicians, 80-94. name, 80. country, 81. capital, 82. traders, 85, 86, 89, 90. colonies, 88-00. letters, 87. religion, 89, 93. Plataea, battle, 180. Poictiers, two battles, 126. Population, centres of, cause, 11-13. R. Ra, the Sun-god, 53. Races of men, 14-16. Ramses II., 60-63, 72, 75, 96. Ramses III., 62. Renan, 19. Roderick, King, 123, 124. Roland, at Roncesvaux, 129, 130. Rome, 187. Roncesvaux (-valles), 129, 130. Rosetta Stone, 9, 10. Ruth, 95. Sabaea (see SHEBA). Salamis, 179. Snmarah, 194. Samaria, 38. Samaritans, 102-104. Samarkand, 206. Srmuel, 199. Srjitiago, 134. Sr.por, 190, 191. II., 192, 195. Srracens, 123. Sejdis, 155, 156, 173. Ssrgon I., 35. II., 38. S^rus, bridge, 202. Srssanids, 165, 189. Ss.ul, King, 99. Schliemann, 10, 91. Scott, Sir Michael, 134, 135. Scythians, 148, 174, 175. cress, 207. Semites, 19, 22. Sennacherib, 38, 39. Sfsoslris (see RAMSES II.). SI alrr.anexer, 77, 101, 102. SI amash (" Shemesh "), 30. Sheba, Sabaea, in. Queen of, 112-114. S? inar, 25, 36, 42. Sr ishak, PHaraoh, 64. Sl.umir (see SHINAR). Si ion, 82, 83, 86. Si )par, Sippara ( li Sepharvaim "), !5i 2 ^ 35, 4, 159- Srierdis, 168. Sirith, George, 401. Sc lomon, King, 69, 83, 84, 95, 101, CH--H5. Spain, 122, 124, &c. Susa ( lk Shushan "), 40, 181, 183. Syria, 38, 67-71,92. T. Tr.citus, 54, 107. Tr.mmuz, 30, 158. Tr.rik, 123, 125. Trxtan, 38. Tfrshish, 88. Ttl el-Amarna, capital of the Hit= lite Pharaoh, 71. Thebes, E r yptian capital, 53, 56-65, 167. TKeoe'osius, Emperor, 196. TJ.othmes I., 56, 59, 70. in., 56, 65, 70, 83. Ti Deriiis, Emperor, 199. Ti;lat'i-Adar, 36. Pileser, 37, 76. Teledo, 124, 125, 131, 135. GENERAL INDEX. " 2I 3 Tomyris, Queen, 162, 163. Tours, 126. Trajan, 188, 189. Treason, high, how punished, 171, 172. Troy, n. Turanians, 22, 24, 143. Tyre, 81-83, 85, 91, 92. U. Ur u of the Chaldees," 24, 25, 30. V. Valerian, Emrjeror, 190, 191. Varahran, curious death of, 197. W. Wallace, Dr. A. R., theory of earli- est men, 14, 15. White Men, probable origin, 14, 15. White Men, characteristics of, 15, 16. three sections of, 16-23. X. Xerxes, 178-181. at Salamis, 179. Y. Yellow Men (see MONGOLS). Yemen, no, 113. Zend, 140, 190. Zend-Avesta, 142, 190. Ziggurat, 33 (? Ziggurar). Zoan, 58, 60. tablet, 10. Zodiac, Signs of the, 28, 49. Zopyrus, 171, 172. Zoroaster, 18, 142, 189, 206. (9) THE END. THE LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES. Illustrated* J6mo. Cloth, 35 cents net per volume? The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West. Bj ROBERT E. ANDERSON, M. A., F. A. S. The Story of Alchemy. By M. M. PATTISON MUIR. The Story of Animal Life. By B LINDSAY. The Story of the Art of Music. By F. J. CROWEST. The Story of the Art of Building. By P. L. WATER- HOUSE. The Story of King Alfred. By Sir WALTER BESANT. The Story of Books. By GERTRUDE B. RAWLINGS. The Story of the Alphabet. By EDWARD CLODD. The Story of Eclipses. By G. F. CHAMBERS, F.R. A.S. The Story of the Living Machine. By H. W. 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A series of attractive volumes dealing with the history of literature in each country. Each volume will contain about three hundred and fifty i2mo pages, and will treat of an entire literature, giving a uniform im- pression of its development, history, and character, and of its relation to previous and to contemporary work. Each J2mo, Cloth. NOW READY. Ancient Greek Literature. By GILBERT MURRAY, M.A., Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow. $1.50. French Literature. By EDWARD DOWDEN, D.C.L., LL.D., Pro- fessor of English Literature at the University of Dublin. $1.50. Modern English Literature. By EDMUND GOSSE. $1.50. Italian Literature. By RICHARD GARNETT, C.B., LL.D., Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum. $1.50. Spanish Literature. By J. FITZMAURICE-KELLY, Member of the Spanish Academy. $1.50. Japanese Literature. By W. G. ASTON, C.M.G., M.A., late Acting Secretary at the British Legation, Tokio. $1.50. Russian Literature. By K. WALISZEWSKI. $1.50. 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Lavignac's book is written in a scholarly as well as a simple style, that makes it at once convincing, authoritative, and useful to the student and the accomplished musician. Moreover, he has strengthened his own point of view and opinions with citations from the most famous writers on edu- cational subjects and virtuoso musicians, such as Schumann, Berlioz, Rubinstein, etc., whose names carry weight. Fre- quently he has thrown in an anecdote that illuminates the subject in question and lightens the serious reasoning with a humorous touch that is particularly his own as will be recognized by those who have read his other books. In fact, it is this peculiar combination of knowledge, serious- ness, and playfulness that have contributed toward making M. Lavignac's reputation in America. "A much-needed book on musical pedagogics." Boston Daily A dvertiser. u The methods and plans suggested and the hints given are admit able, and the work is equally well adapted for the use of the teacher and the adult pupil." The Orpheitm U M. Lavignac is thoroughly competent to discuss the broad theme outlined by the title of his book. There is not a corner of the great field into which he does nor go with suggestive and helpful results everywhere. Even the slightest detail is given attention." George Seibet in the Pittsburg Gazette " It is packed with the most valuable thoughts and ideas. The style is simple, clear, and logical, and every page is readable. It is a. book that will aid the cause of musical education greatly, and we shall have frequent occasion to refer our readers and inquirers on musical matters to its contents." The Etrtde. 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