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 •efcentp Centuries 
 
 of tJ)e %ih of i&an&ino 
 
 A SURVEY OF HISTORY 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST KNOWN RECORDS 
 
 THROUGH ALL STAGES OF CIVILIZATION, IN ALL 
 
 IMPORTANT COUNTRIES, DOWN TO 
 
 THE PRESENT TIME 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF PREHISTORIC 
 
 PEOPLES, AND WITH CHARACTER SKETCHES 
 
 OF THE CHIEF PERSONAGES OF EACH 
 
 HISTORIC EPOCH 
 
 By J. N. LARNED 
 
 EDITOR OF THE FAMOUS "HISTORY FOR READT REFERENCE," AND AUTHOR OF 
 
 "A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS," 
 
 "A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR SCHOOLS," ETC. 
 
 Illustrated by over one hundred and fifty reproductions of famous historical 
 paintings and portraits in black and white, and colors. 
 
 3Tn Jibe Volumes 
 
 Volume I 
 Pages 1-278 
 
 WORLD SYNDICATE COMPANY, Inc., 
 
 110-112 West Fortieth Street, New York City 
 1915
 
 COPYRIGHT 1905 AND 1907 BY J. N. LARNED 
 
 COPYRIGHT I9I4 BY S. J. LARNED 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Revised, Enlarged and Up-to-date Edition specially prepared by 
 
 C. A. NICHOLS COMPANY, Springfield, Mass. 
 
 (Publishers of Larned's "History for Ready Reference" and subscription 
 editions of this work) 
 
 For distribution through newspapers by 
 
 WORLD SYNDICATE COMPANY, Inc., New York 
 
 who are the Sole Licensees for such distribution
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I think of History as I do of the life of a man, 
 whose days are but an epitome of its years. 
 They instruct and interest us alike, by showing 
 how that which is has proceeded from that which 
 was, and how things that had been went into the 
 making of things that came to be. The pro- 
 cess of evolution is too complex for our under- 
 standing of more than some very small part. 
 We can trace but a few of the countless influ- 
 ences from countless sources that stream into 
 the simplest of single lives, and still fewer of 
 the innumerable lines from cause to consequence 
 that run through them all; but there is in 
 every life a certain personal configuration, so to 
 speak, which gives a trend to all the forces act- 
 ing in it, turning them, more or less, into main 
 channels, mingling their currents or leading 
 them in parallel courses. The true biographer 
 is one who recognizes and represents that trend 
 in the life he depicts, seeing and showing what 
 can be seen and shown of movements in it from 
 birth to death, toward the out-come of charac- 
 ter and destiny that appear at the end. This 
 is done very finely sometimes in no more than 
 
 a biographical sketch. 
 
 ° r in
 
 iv Preface 
 
 So, too, it is in History, with all its illimit- 
 able complexities. There are trends in it, every- 
 where and always, drawing events into more or 
 less definable courses or movements, through 
 what may seem to be a trackless tangle of 
 threaded consequences and causes, from be- 
 ginning to end. It is so in the history of a 
 nation, in the history of a people, in the history 
 of a period of time, and even in the general his- 
 tory of mankind at large. In the latter we may 
 not always be able to trace the many differ- 
 ing movements of events to a union of results, or 
 find parallel tendencies, for example, in Europe 
 and Cathay; but we can, after all, traverse 
 most of general history along courses and cur- 
 rents that are as visible as in the history of a 
 single state or in the life of a single man. 
 
 To do so is to obtain the real teaching of 
 History, — to find its meanings, — to draw its les- 
 sons, — to enjoy it with the deepest interest it 
 can awaken in our minds. Not to do so is either 
 to miss everything in it worth reading or else to 
 get no more than the entertainment that the 
 gossip of a newspaper may give. Events that are 
 dealt with like unstrung beads, — broken, that is, 
 from the relations that thread them, and thrown 
 in mere handfuls together, — may have some 
 fragmentary, anecdotal interest in themselves, 
 but they are not History. Not a little, however,
 
 Preface v 
 
 of what passes for History, especially in abridg- 
 ments and compends, is given to readers in 
 that granulated form. They find the granula- 
 tion so often in works of the smaller scale that 
 they may think it goes necessarily with abridged 
 statements of historical fact, which is not at 
 all true. The proper abridgment of a narrative 
 of history is neither a process of dessication, nor 
 one of crushing and packing, but a work of 
 discriminating selection and luminous arrange- 
 ment, applied to its most significant incidents 
 and larger facts. This is sometimes made the 
 means of bringing the prominences of history 
 into impressive relief, opening large views in it 
 that might be narrowed or obscured by much 
 amplitude of details. Some remarkable illustra- 
 tions of that effect are seen in the essays of 
 Macaulay. It is notable, too, in Bryce's Holy 
 Roman Empire, in Bishop Stubbs' The Early 
 Plantagenets, in Dean Church's Beginning of the 
 Middle Ages, in Alexander Johnston's The United 
 States (written originally for the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannic a), and in many other books of 
 pregnant brevity that might be named. 
 
 The method of historical composition which 
 these writers have illustrated so finely is one that 
 appeals to my admiration, and to my judgment 
 of values in historical work. I have given much 
 thought to its principles, and am bold enough,
 
 vi Preface 
 
 in my present undertaking, to attempt the 
 largest possible application of them, in a com- 
 prehensive survey of the whole of human history, 
 from its dawn to the present day. The result- 
 ing exhibit differs essentially, in mode and char- 
 acter, from any other of like scope that I know. 
 The aim in it has been to sift out almost every- 
 thing that does not contribute importantly to 
 a clear disclosure of the main movements in 
 events, the occasional changes of direction in 
 such movements, the marking thereby of epochs 
 and periods that are more or less distinct, and 
 the continuity of the forces that act in them 
 throughout. If I have succeeded even partially 
 in my undertaking, I can feel that I have not 
 done an uncalled-for work; because success will 
 mean some helpfulness to those who read it in 
 comprehending History as a whole, and in sub- 
 sequently seeking a better knowledge of its parts 
 with a livelier interest in the details. 
 
 My first essay toward this work was made in 
 a general sketch of European history, published 
 in my History for Ready Reference, readers of 
 which sketch have often urged me to extend it, 
 or extend the plan of ,it, as I have now done. 
 In parts of the present writing I have made 
 consiJerable use of the former essay, but with 
 extensive recasting, revision and enlargement, 
 so that even the European sections of the 
 survey are essentially new.
 
 Preface vii 
 
 The story of the life of mankind is divided 
 naturally, by great changes of circumstances, 
 into six epochs; and I have grouped for each 
 epoch the chief actors and the personages most 
 illustrious in its history, with brief character- 
 izations, and with portraits of many. This 
 seems to be preferable to the scattering of such 
 comments and illustrations through the body of 
 the narrative text. Each group is, in itself, a 
 significant and an interesting characterization 
 of the epoch to which it belongs. 
 
 What is shown in successive periods, of events 
 in different countries, and of movements and 
 developments, progressive or retrogressive, in 
 morals, or religion, or politics, or public educa- 
 tion, or science, or literature, or arts, or trade, 
 or general conditions of life, may be linked 
 together and made continuous, from beginning 
 to end, by reference to the Index in the last 
 volume, which is carefully synthesized on every 
 important subject and made very full. 
 
 J. N. Larned.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 THE PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 
 
 Historic and prehistoric knowledge. — The unrecorded period of 
 human life in different countries. — The paleolithic stage of 
 primitive culture. — Flintworking and other arts in the "Old 
 Stone Age." — The geological period of that Age. — Glacial and 
 interglacial times. — Intermixed remains of arctic and tropical 
 life. — The neolithic stage of culture, or "New Stone Age." — Re- 
 mains of its arts. — Lake-dwellings in Europe. — The finding of 
 metals. — Copper, bronze and iron. — Genesis of variations in the 
 human species. — What is fundamental in the racial differences? — 
 Classification of men by color. — Classification by language. — The 
 Aryan hypothesis. — Searchings for the primitive Aryan home. 
 — Classification by forms of the human skull. — The "cephalic 
 index." — Long-heads and broad-heads. — Blondes and brunettes. 
 — Prevalence of certain physical features in different parts of the 
 world. — Various hypotheses relative to the primitive peopling of 
 Europe 1-18 
 
 HISTORIC EPOCH I. 
 
 EPOCH OF THE EARLIEST CIVILIZATIONS AND 
 KNOWN EMPIRES 
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE EPOCH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FROM .'(THE EARLIEST KNOWN RECORDS 
 TO THE SUPPOSED AGE OF ABRAHAM 
 
 (Approximately B. C. 4700 to 2200) 
 On the Nile: How Egypt was made by the river. — How its age 
 is told by the depth of the soil. — Prehistoric discoveries of 
 Professor Petrie. — Beginning of alphabets and written language. 
 
 IX
 
 x Contents 
 
 — First decipherment of the hieroglyphics. — The Rosetta Stone. 
 — Manetho's list of the pharaohs. — Its recent verification. — The 
 builders of the pyramids. — The finding of the tombs of the first 
 pharaohs in 1898-9. — Seven thousand years of Egyptian history 
 now disclosed. — Religious ideas of the Egyptians. — High moral 
 precepts of Ptah-hetep. — Invasion and conquest of Egypt by the 
 Hyksos. — Supposed time of the visit of Abraham. On the 
 Euphrates and the Tigris: Deep burial of the old civilization in the 
 Mesopotamian valley. — Dissolution of its clay-built cities. — 
 Wonderful preservation of its written memorials on tablets and 
 cylinders of baked clay, in the heaps of their ruin.- — Modern 
 excavation. — The cuneiform writing and its decipherment. — 
 Astonishing discoveries in recent years. — American work at 
 Nippur. — Historical records from B. C. 4500. — The Babylonia 
 of Abraham's time. — The Sumerian civilization. — Conjectured 
 connection of early Chinese civilization with the Sumerian. — Rise 
 of Babylon to supremacy. — Hammurabi, founder of the Babylo- 
 nian Empire. — His identification with the Amraphel of the Bible. 
 — Discovery of his code of laws. — The Babylonian legend of the 
 deluge. — Time of the migration of Abraham from Babylonia to 
 Canaan. Elsewhere: Glimpses of a rising civilization in and on 
 the yEgean Sea. — The Aryan peoples of India and Iran. — Earliest 
 Chinese records 33—61 
 
 CHAPTER II > 
 
 FROM THE SUPPOSED AGE OF ABRAHAM 
 TO THE DEATH OF DAVID 
 
 (Approximately, B. C. 2200 to 960) 
 Egypt: The rule of the Hyksos. — Their expulsion. — Probability 
 of the story of Joseph. — Amenhotep, the sun-worshiper. — Discovery 
 of his foreign correspondence at Tel-el-Amarna. — Ramses II., the 
 pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites. Babylonia: Development 
 of schools, libraries, arts, literature, trade. — Rule of the Kassites. 
 — The rise of Assyria. Canaan and Aramea: The exodus of 
 Israel from Egypt. — Babylonian influence in Mosaic institutions. 
 — The Israelite conquest of Canaan. — The period of the Judges. 
 — Wars with the Philistines. — The founding of the Hebrew mon- 
 archy. — Saul. — David. — David's conquests. — His decline in charac- 
 ter. — Strife for the succession to David's crown. — Triumph of 
 Solomon. The Phoenicians: Former overestimate of the civilizing 
 influence of the Phoenicians. — They were not the inventors of the 
 alphabet. Greek Regions: Early civilization in and on the 
 iEgean. — Knowledge from the work of excavation. — Light on the
 
 Contents xi 
 
 Homeric poems. — Tyrians and Mycenae. — Astonishing discoveries 
 in Crete. — The labyrinth of King Minos. — Cretan writing. — Ap- 
 parent origin of the Phoenician alphabet. — The Cretan age. — The 
 Mycenaean age. — Divisions of the Hellenic peoples. — Movement 
 of the Dorians. — Ionian preservation of the early culture. Else- 
 where: Probable state of other parts of Europe. — The lake-dwell- 
 ers. — Stonehenge. — Lydia. — Phrygia. — The Trojans. — The Aryas. 
 —The Vedic hymns.— The Avesta 62-105 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF DAVID TO THE 
 
 ADVENT OF CYRUS 
 
 (Approximately, B. C. 960 to 558) 
 The Period: Transfer of leadership in civilization to Aryan 
 races. The Hebrew Kingdoms, and Assyria and Babylonia: Char- 
 acter and reign of Solomon. — Division of the monarchy. — The 
 kingdoms of Israel and Judah. — Introduction of idolatry. — The 
 prophets Elijah and Elisha. — Assyrian conquests. — Transplanta- 
 tion of conquered peoples. — Overthrow of the kingdom of Israel. — 
 No mystery concerning the "lost ten tribes." — Resistance of 
 Jerusalem to Sennacherib. — The prophet Isaiah. — Destruction of 
 Babylon. Egypt: The Assyrian conquest. — Independence re- 
 covered. — Exploring expedition round Africa. — The first Suez 
 canal. Assyria, Media, Chaldean Babylonia and the Kingdom of 
 Judah: Assur-bani-pal (Sardanapalus). — His great library at 
 Nineveh. — Last years of the Assyrian empire.— Destruction of 
 Nineveh. — Secrets of history preserved in its ruins. — Nebuchad- 
 nezzar. — His destruction of Jerusalem. — Babylonian exile of the 
 Jewish people. — End of the kingdom of David. — Magnificence of 
 the new Babylon. In the Lands of the Greeks: A new era of culture 
 opened by the Greeks. — Evolution of the first democracies. — The 
 Ionian genius. — The Homeric epics. — The two great literatures of 
 antiquity, Hebrew and Greek. — Political development of Athens. 
 The Latin Region: Beginnings of Rome. — The unions that gave 
 birth to it. — Origin of patricians and plebeians. Phoenicians and 
 Carthaginians: The founding of Carthage. — Settlements in Spain. 
 — Phoenician manufactures. India: Development of Brahman- 
 ism. — Creation of caste. China: General disorder. . . 106-149 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FROM THE ADVENT OF CYRUS TO THE 
 AGE OF XERXES 
 
 (B. C. 558 to 480) 
 The Period: Its two notable marks. — Trial of racial strength
 
 xii Contents 
 
 and character between Asiatic and European branches of the 
 Aryan-tongued peoples. — Religious movements in the Asiatic world. 
 Ancient Persia: The nationality of Cyrus the Great, a problem. 
 — Primitive Persia and the Persians. — Xenophon's account of Per- 
 sian education of the young. — The Avesta. — Zoroaster. Early 
 Religious Reformations in the East: Zoroaster's reform of the prim- 
 itive religion of the Aryas. — Gotama, the Buddha, and Buddhism. 
 — Teachings of Lao-tsze and Confucius. The Persian Empire: 
 Overthrow of the Median empire by Cyrus. — His conquest of 
 Lydia.— Crcesus, his wealth and his downfall. — Subjugation of 
 Asia Minor. — Submission of Babylon. — Restoration of captive 
 Jews to Jerusalem by Cyms. — The empire left by Cyrus. — Conquest 
 of Egypt by Cambyses. — Reorganization of the empire by Darius. 
 — His invasion of Europe. — His pursuit of the Scythians beyond 
 the Danube. — Submission of Thrace and Macedonia to the Per- 
 sian. — Peril of the Greek states. The Greeks: Brief experience of 
 tyranny at Athens. — Pisistratus and his sons. — The democratic 
 constitution of Cleisthenes. Persian Invasions of Greece: Athens 
 sends help against Persia to Ionian cities in Asia Minor. — Wrath 
 of King Darius. — His great expedition sent into Greece. — Its 
 defeat at Marathon. — Second Persian invasion by Xerxes. — 
 Leonidas and his Spartans at Thermopylae. — Athens in ruins. — 
 Destruction of the Persian fleet at Salamis. — Disastrous end of the 
 Persian invasion. The Romans: The Romans under their kings. 
 — Aristocratic constitution of the early Roman Republic. — 
 Formation of the democratic commonwealth 150-178 
 
 HISTORIC EPOCH II. 
 
 EPOCH OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS 
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE EPOCH 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FROM THE AGE OF XERXES TO THE AGE 
 OF HANNIBAL 
 
 (B. C. 480 to 200) 
 The Greeks: The rebuilding of Athens. — The Confederacy 
 of Delos. — Despotic use of Athenian power. — The Age of Pericles 
 — The Peloponnesian war. — Triumph of the enemies of Athens. 
 — Decay of the Persian empire. — Retreat of the Ten Thousand. 
 — Breaking of the Spartan yoke by Thebes. — Subjugation of 
 Greece by Philip of Macedon. The Macedonian Empire: Over-
 
 Contents xiii 
 
 throw of the Persian empire by Alexander. — Great results from 
 his conquests. — Division of his dominions after his death. — The 
 Syrian monarchy of Seleucus. — The new Egyptian kingdom of the 
 Ptolemies. — Degeneracy of the Greeks at home. — Their activity 
 and influence in the field of the Macedonian conquests. — Alexandria. 
 — The Jews of the "diaspora." India: The kingdom of Magadha. 
 — Asoka. — Establishment of Buddhism. — Evolution of Hinduism. 
 The Roman Republic: Roman subjugation of all Italy. — War 
 with Pyrrhus. — The Punic wars. — Hannibal in Italy. — Fall of 
 Carthage 208-244 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FROM THE AGE OF HANNIBAL TO THE 
 
 DEATH OF CESAR 
 
 (B. C. 200 to 44) 
 
 Eastward conquests of Rome: Roman subjugation of Greece. — 
 Defeat of the Syrian king Antiochus. The Syrian monarchy and 
 the Jews: Oppression of the Jews. — Revolt of the Maccabees. — 
 Rise of the Asmonean monarchy. The Zenith and the Decline 
 of the Roman Republic: Evil effects of the Roman conquests on 
 the character of the Republic. — Rise of a new aristocracy. — Mis- 
 chievous features of the democratic system. — Increasing use of 
 slave labor. — Aristocratic monopoly of public lands. — Agrarian 
 agitations. — Fate of the Gracchi. — The Jugurthine War. — De- 
 struction of Carthage. — Popularity and power of Marius, the 
 successful soldier. — Optimates and Populares. — The Social War. 
 — Rivalry of Marius and Sulla. — Civil War. — Triumph of Sulla. 
 — His dictatorship and retirement. — Intrigues and struggles in the 
 next generation. — The great game played by Pompey, Crassus, 
 and Caesar. — Pompey in the East. — His suppression of the Syrian 
 and Asmonean monarchies. — Caesar's conquest of Gaul. — Civil 
 war between partisans of Caesar and Pompey. — Triumph of 
 Caesar. — His supremacy. — His assassination. — His great place in 
 history. China: The Han dynasty 245-278 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF CESAR TO THE 
 DEATH OF ALARIC 
 
 (B. C. 44 to A. D. 410) 
 
 Formation of the Roman Empire: Aspirants for the succession 
 to Caesar's power. — The Second Triumvirate. — Defeat and death 
 of Caesar's assassins. — Division of the Empire. — Mark Antony in
 
 xiv Contents 
 
 Egypt. — His overthrow and death. — Supremacy of Octavius, as 
 Imperator and Augustus. — His organization of the Empire. Birth 
 of Jesus and rise of Christianity: Judea at the time of the birth 
 of Jesus. — The kingdom of Herod. — Roman government when 
 Jesus began his teaching. — Jewish institutions. — The Great San- 
 hedrim — Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes. — Their hostility to Jesus 
 and proceedings against Him. — The spreading of belief in Him 
 after His death. The Roman Empire from Augustus to Diocletian: 
 The first emperors. — Nero, the madman. — Vespasian. — The great 
 Jewish revolt. — Trajan's conquests abandoned by Hadrian. — The 
 Antonine emperors. — Marcus Aurelius. — Happy state of the world. 
 — The evil conditions that followed. The new enemies of Rome: 
 A new Persian monarchy. — Impending avalanche of northern 
 barbarians. — Franks, Alemanni, Suevi, Goths— Beginning _ of 
 Gothic invasions. The Roman Empire from Diocletian to Arcadius: 
 Reorganization and division of the Empire. — Spread of Chris- 
 tianity. — Civil war, and triumph of Constantine. — The Christian 
 church corrupted by imperial patronage. — Julian and the pagan 
 revival. — Admission of Visigoths to the Empire. — Beginning of 
 their ravages. — Final division of the Empire. — Decay in the w r est. 
 — Alaric's attacks upon Rome. — The city taken and plundered. 
 — Frontier defenses broken. — The barbarians swarming in. 
 China: Introduction of Buddhism 279-326 
 
 HISTORIC EPOCH III. 
 
 EPOCH OF THE NEW NATIONS, KNOWN AS THE 
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE EPOCH 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 FROM THE DEATH OF ALARIC TO THE AD- 
 VENT OF CHARLEMAGNE 
 
 (A. D. 410 to 768) 
 The period of the "dark ages." — Differing effects of the barbaric 
 conquest. Last years of the Roman 'empire in the west: Attila, the 
 Hun. — The Vandals in Rome.— End of the western line of emperors. 
 Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric: Its brevity. — Hostility^ of the 
 church. The Roman empire in the east: Reign of Justinian. — 
 Belisarius. — Narses. — Recovery of Rome and Italy. Britain, and 
 its conquest by German tribes: Roman occupation and abandon- 
 ment of the island. — Pict, Scot and Saxon assailants— Conquest 
 by Jutes, Saxons and Engles. — Extinction of Christianity. Spread
 
 Contents xv 
 
 and influence of Monasticism: Irish schools and missions. — 
 Christian missionaries in England. The kingdom of the Franks: 
 Conquests of Clovis. — The Merovingian dynasty. — Austrasia and 
 Neustria. — Rise of the mayors of the palace. — The ancestry of 
 Charlemagne. Mohammed, and the conquests of Islam: The Arabian 
 prophet and his religion. — First century of Mohammedan con- 
 quests. — The Caliphs. China and its neighbors: Taitsong the 
 Great. The Roman empire in the east: Its struggle with Persians, 
 Avars and Arabs. — Final separation of Rome. Italy and Rome: 
 Lombard conquest of Italy. — How the bishops of Rome acquired 
 authority and power. — Their alliance with the chiefs of the 
 Franks 35^-397 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 FROM THE ADVENT OF CHARLEMAGNE 
 
 TO THE DEATH OF HILDEBRAND 
 
 (A. D. 768 to 1085) 
 
 Beginning of reconstructive processes. Charlemagne and his 
 empire: His ~ imperial coronation. — His conquests. The North- 
 men: What drove them to sea. — Forays of the Vikings. — Danes 
 in England. — King Alfred's struggle with them. — Later Danish 
 conquest of England. — Rollo's settlement in Normandy. — Norse 
 voyages to America. — Beginnings of the Russian empire. Slavonic 
 peoples: Their homes. Feudalism in western Europe: As a land 
 system. — As a political system. — Disintegrating effects. — Med- 
 iaeval cities. Dissolution of the Carolingian empire: The West 
 Frank kingdom becoming France. — Hugh Capet. — The East Frank 
 kingdom, or Germany. — Creation of the Germanic-Roman or 
 Holy Roman empire. — Evil effects in Germany. The empire and 
 the papacy: Anarchy at Rome. — Empire and papacy opposed in 
 Italy. — Rise of Italian city-republics. — Henry IV. and Pope Greg- 
 ory VII. (Hildebrand). — The "war of investitures." — Henry IV. 
 at Canossa. — Normans in southern Italy. — Their treatment of 
 Rome. Norman conquest of England: William of Normandy's 
 claim to the English crown. — His subjugation of the English 
 people. — Effects of the conquest. The Chinese empire and Japan: 
 Khitans and Kins 398-433 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF HILDEBRAND 
 
 TO THE EXILE OF DANTE 
 
 (A. D. 1085 to 1302) 
 Importance of the period. The Crusades: Provoked by the
 
 xvi Contents 
 
 Seldjuk Turks. — Their origin. — Their conquests. — The first three 
 crusades. — Sultan Saladin. — Alexius Comnenus and the crusaders. 
 — Effects of the crusades. Learning and Literature: Rise of 
 universities and common schools. — Growth of literature. — Chansons 
 de geste. — Heroic epics and romances. — Troubadours and trou- 
 veurs. — The Arthurian legends. — Icelandic sagas. Knighthood 
 and chivalry: The pride of the man on horseback. — Good and 
 evil influences. Religion and the church: Mendicant and military 
 religious orders. — Increasing clerical influence. The Holy Roman 
 empire: The Hohenstaufen emperors and the popes.— Factions of 
 the time. — Welfs and Waiblingens. — Guelfs and Ghibelines. — 
 Frederick Barborossa. — Pope Innocent III. — Frederick II. Ger- 
 many and the empire: Weakening of the German monarchy. — 
 Petty principalities. — Free cities. — The Hanseatic League. — Rise 
 of the house of Austria. Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence: Venetian 
 dominion and trade. — Wars. — Government. — Turbulent factions in 
 Florence. — Exile of Dante. — Radical democracy. The kingdom of 
 France: Its growth. — Recovery of Normandy and Anjou. — Philip 
 Augustus. — Louis IX. (Saint Louis). — Philip IV. England: Under 
 the Norman kings. — The Plantagenets. — Henry II. and his good 
 work. — His quarrel with Becket. — King John and Magna Carta. 
 — Simon de Montfort. — The Barons' War. — Edward I. and his 
 "model parliament." Spain: Rise of Christian kingdoms. — Decay 
 of the Moorish power. — Early free institutions and their loss. 
 China and the Mongols: Conquests of Genghis Khan and his suc- 
 cessors. — The empire of Kublai Khan. — Marco Polo. . 434-512 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 FROM THE EXILE OF DANTE TO THE AD- 
 VENT OF GUTENBERG, 
 
 (A. D. 1302 to 1454) 
 
 Afflictions of the fourteenth century. — War, pestilence and de- 
 moralizations. The "Hundred Years War" waged by the English in 
 France: Its beginning by Edward III. — The Black Prince. — 
 Battles of Crecy and Poitiers. — Wretched state of France. — The 
 "Black Death" in England. — Social changes produced. — Demo- 
 cratic ideas afloat. — Wiclif and the Lollards. — Chaucer. — Begin- 
 nings of a great English literature. — Renewal of the war by 
 Henry V. — Battle of Agincourt. — France half conquered. — Ap- 
 pearance of Joan of Arc. — Her wonderful influence. — Her death at 
 the stake. — Final expulsion of the English from France. — "Wars 
 of the Roses" in England. Germany and the Holy Roman empire: 
 The "Golden Bull" of Charles IV. — Reformation of Huss in Bo- 
 hemia. — The Hussitewars. Italy and the church: The " Babylonish
 
 Contents xvii 
 
 captivity" and the "great schism." — Anarchy in Rome. — Rienzi's 
 revolution. — The "Sicilian vespers." — Long strife over Naples. — 
 Rise of the despots in northern Italy. — Florence yielding to the 
 Medici. The Swiss Confederacy: Its origin. — Doubtful legend of 
 Tell. The Ottoman Turks: Their early career. — Their invasion 
 of Europe. — Struggles of the eastern empire and the Balkan peoples 
 with them. — Their capture of Constantinople. The Mongols 
 again: Horrible career of Timour. China: Overthrow of the 
 Mongol dynasty. Japan: The Ashikagas. . . . 513-574 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE HISTORICAL WORLD AT THE END 
 OF THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 (The Fifteenth Century) 
 
 The transition from Mediseval to Modern. — The known world 
 in the first half of the fifteenth century. Medieeval Scholasticism: 
 The intellectual bar to advancement in knowledge. — Logic the 
 whole of science. — Paralyzing deference to authority. Medieeval 
 Education: The Scholastic training of mind compared with that of 
 the classical education. — The finding of Nature and birth of modern 
 science. — Italy and the "new learning." — Common schools in 
 the Middle Ages. — Primary and secondary schools. — Books and 
 studies. The early Reading Public: Increasing book-trade before 
 printing was invented. Medieeval Architecture: Signification of 
 the great cathedrals. — Clerical architects. — Public enterprise in 
 cathedral-building. — How the cost was paid. Medieeval Dwell- 
 ings and Furniture: Invention of chimneys. — Glass windows. — 
 Development of home life.— Impossibility of it in fortified habi- 
 tations. — Life in castles and walled towns. — English manors and 
 manor-houses. — Peasants' homes. Medieeval Serfdom: Status of 
 the serf or villein.— His tenure of land. — Substitution of a money- 
 rental for labor claims. Town-life in the Middle Ages: Civic 
 feeling in the mediseval town. — Responsibilities and duties of the 
 citizen. — A town described. Medieeval Gilds: Gild monopolies. — 
 Classes of the gilds. Monasteries and Monks: Their early 
 influence. — Monastic colonization. — What the early monks did 
 and were. — The monasteries as democratic institutions. — Why they 
 fell. The destruction of Feudalism: Feudalism and medievalism 
 bound together. — The undermining agencies. . . 575-622 
 
 This marks the division between the Ancient 
 and Mediaeval Period and the Modern Period
 
 xviii Contents 
 
 HISTORIC EPOCH IV. 
 
 EPOCH OF MODERNIZING EXPANSIONS CALLED 
 THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE EPOCH 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FROM THE ADVENT OF GUTENBERG TO 
 THE ADVENT OF LUTHER 
 
 (A. D. 1454 to 15 17) 
 The transition from mediaeval to modern conditions. — Expan- 
 sion, liberation, re-wakening. — Invention of printing and its effects. 
 — Revival of learning. — Geographical exploration and discovery. — 
 Undertakings of Prince Henry of Portugal. — Voyages of Columbus 
 and Vasco da Gama. State of Europe when America was discovered. 
 France: Louis XL and Charles the Bold. — Consolidation of the 
 kingdom. Italy: Naples, Milan, Florence. — The Medicean des- 
 potism at Florence. — Savonarola and his fate. — Invasion of Italy 
 by Charles VIII. of France. — Its effects on France. Germany and 
 the Empire: The marriage unions of Austrian, Burgundian and 
 Spanish families. — Their immense effects. England: Absolute 
 monarchy resulting from civil wars. — Establishment of the Tudor 
 dynasty. Discovery of America: Voyages of Columbus, Cabot, 
 and Vespucius. — Papal grants to Spain and Portugal. — The naming 
 of America. — Effects of the discovery, and of the opening of the 
 sea-route to India. — The Portuguese in the east. France and 
 Italy: Italian wars of Louis XII. Spanish acquisition of Naples. 
 — The league against Venice. — Public disapproval of some 
 popes. 651-688 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 FROM THE; ADVENT OF LUTHER TO THE 
 
 ABDICATION OF THE EMPEROR 
 
 CHARLES V. 
 
 (A. D. 15 17 to 1556) 
 
 The Protestant Reformation: How Europe had been prepared 
 to listen to Luther. — His ninety-five theses against the papal sale
 
 Contents xix 
 
 of indulgences. — Situation in Germany following the Austro-Spanish 
 marriage. — The emperor Charles V. — His opposition to the Re- 
 formation. — His suppression of freedom in Spain. — His persecuting 
 tyranny in the Netherlands. — His Italian wars with Francis I. of 
 France. — Capture and sack of Rome by the imperial army under 
 constable Bourbon. — Peasant war in Germany. — Progress of the 
 Lutheran reformation. — The emperor's undertaking to repress it 
 by force. — Religious war, followed by the Peace of Augsburg. — 
 Abdication of Charles V. — Zwingli, and the Swiss reformation. — 
 Persecution of reformers in France. — Calvin at Geneva. — Henry 
 VIII. of England. — Base motive of his quarrel with the papacy. 
 — Separation of the English church from the Roman. — Reform- 
 ation in England under Edward VI. — Restoration of Catholicism 
 under Mary Tudor. — Return of Protestantism under Elizabeth. 
 — Reformation in Scotland and Scandinavia. — Gustavus Vasa. — 
 The Council of Trent. The Spaniards in America: Cortes in 
 Mexico. — Pizarro in Peru. — Spanish colonial policy. — Aztec, 
 Maya and Inca civilizations . 689-750 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 FROM THE ABDICATION OF THE EMPEROR 
 
 CHARLES V. TO THE ASSASSINATION 
 
 OF HENRY IV., OF FRANCE 
 
 (A. D. 1556 to 1610) 
 Catholic reaction: Intrusion of mercenary and political mo- 
 tives in the Reformation movement. — Protestant divisions. — 
 Purification of the papacy. — Organization of the Society of 
 Jesus. — Malignant power of Philip II. of Spain. Spain and the 
 Netherlands: The ruining of Spain. — Philip's despotism in the 
 Netherlands. — Alva and his "Council of Blood." — FateofEgmont 
 and Horn. — The revolt. — Success of the "sea-beggars." — Heroic 
 struggle of the Dutch for freedom. — Philip's assassination of its 
 great leader, William the Silent. — Eastern trade won by the 
 Dutch and English. Religious Wars in France: The contest- 
 ants for power. — The Guises. — Catherine de' Medici. — The Hu- 
 guenots as a party. — The Bourbons of Navarre. — Admiral Coligny. 
 — Meddling of Philip of Spain. — The massacre of St. Barthol- 
 omew's Day. — Accession of Henry of Navarre to the throne.— His 
 abjuration of Protestantism. — His Edict of Nantes. Germany: 
 Events leading to the "Thirty Years War." England: Queen 
 Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots. — Execution of Mary. — The
 
 xx Contents 
 
 Spanish armada. — Half-piratical warfare with Spain. — The Eliz- 
 abethan age. America: Undertakings of the French. — Hawkin's 
 slave-trading and Drake's piracies. — Projects of Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert. — Raleigh's colonies. — The Virginia Company. — The James- 
 town colony and Captain John Smith. — French and Dutch settle- 
 ments. China and Japan: Opening of Christian missions. — 
 Reconstruction of Japan by Ieyasu. — Suppression of Christianity. 
 India: Founding of the Moghul empire 751-806 
 
 HISTORIC EPOCH V. 
 
 EPOCH OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE EPOCH 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FROM THE ASSASSINATION OF HENRY IV. 
 TO THE DEATH OF CROMWELL 
 
 (l6lO TO 1658) 
 
 England and Scotland: Union of the crowns under the Stuarts. 
 — Offensiveness of James I. to English feeling. — Weakening of 
 loyalty. — Charles I. — His falsity of nature.- — His attempts at abso- 
 lutism. — The Long Parliament and its work. — Civil war. — Rise 
 of Cromwell. — Defeat, trial, and execution of the king. — The 
 Commonwealth. — The Protectorate of Cromwell. — Restoration 
 of the Stuart monarchy. France: Aggrandizement under Richelieu. 
 — Ministry of Mazarin. — The Fronde. Germany: The Thirty 
 Years War. — Wallenstein. — Gustavus Adolphus. — Destructiveness 
 and results of the war. The Dutch Netherlands: Acknowledg- 
 ment of their independence. — Barneveld and Prince Maurice. — 
 Domination of Holland. — The Dutch maritime career. Russia: 
 Ivan the Terrible Poland: The "liberum veto." The Turks: 
 Waning of the crescent. China: The Manchu conquest. Japan: 
 The period of isolation. America: Overthrow of the London Com- 
 pany in Virginia. — Founding of Maryland. — Colonizing of New 
 England. — Plymouth. — Massachusetts Bay. — Connecticut. — Rhode 
 Island. — New Haven.— Independent spirit in New England. — 
 Cavaliers in Virginia. — Troubles in Maryland. — The English in 
 the West Indies. — Dutch and French settlements. . 837-894
 
 Contents xxi 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF CROMWELL TO THE 
 DEATH OF LOUIS XIV., OF FRANCE 
 
 (1658 TO 1715) 
 
 England: Restored monarchy. — Ignoble reign of Charles II- 
 — Protestant hostility to James II. — Monmouth's rebellion. — 
 Revolution of 1688. — Reign of William of Orange and Mary. — 
 Reign of Queen Anne. — Rise of ministerial government. — Literature 
 of the reign. — National union of England and Scotland. The 
 Dutch Netherlands: William of Orange, stadtholder. — His organiza- 
 tion of resistance to Louis XIV. France: Reign of Louis XIV. — 
 His perfidious conquests and wanton aggressions. — His revocation 
 of the Edict of Nantes. — Leagues formed against him by William 
 of Orange. — War of the Spanish Succession. — State of France as left 
 by Louis XIV. Germany: Depressed condition of the petty states. 
 — Rise of Prussia to the rank of a kingdom. Russia: Advent of Peter 
 the Great. Sweden: Extraordinary career of Charles XII. Italy: 
 The duke of Savoy made king of Sardinia. America: Founding 
 of the Carolinas. — English conquest of New Netherland. — Penn 
 and Pennsylvania. — Political character of the English colonies. 
 — Design against them by the restored English monarchy. — 
 The Massachusetts charter annulled. — Rule of Andros. — Effects 
 of the English revolution. — The Franco-English wars in America. 
 — Growth of antagonism between the colonies and the home gov- 
 ernment. India: First footing of the English East India Com- 
 pany obtained. China: Reign of Kanghi 895-953 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV. TO THE 
 ADVENT OF WASHINGTON IN THE 
 AMERICAN REVOLUTION 
 
 (l7IS TO 1775) 
 
 Momentous consequences from the wars of the period. Great 
 Britain: The first Hanoverian kings. — Walpole. — Evolution of 
 premier and cabinet. — The Mississippi and South Sea bubbles. — 
 Jacobite risings. France: Louis XV and the Regency. — Bourbon 
 "family compact." War of the Austrian Succession: The "prag- 
 matic sanction" of Charles VI. — Frederick the Great and other 
 spoils-hunters. — Results of the war. The Seven Years War in 
 Europe: Combination against Frederick the Great. — His great
 
 xxii Contents 
 
 defensive campaigns. The War in America: The French in the 
 Ohio Valley. — Washington's entrance into history. — Braddock's 
 defeat. — Dispersion of the Acadians. — Pitt's infusion of new 
 spirit into the war. — Wolfe's capture of Quebec. — Retirement of 
 France from America. — Pontiac's war. The War in India: French 
 and English struggle for supremacy. — Clive's career. — The "black 
 hole of Calcutta." — Subjugation of Bengal. — Expulsion of the 
 French. Russia: The four tzarinas. — Catherine II. Great Britain 
 and her colonies: George III. — The "king's friends." — Their 
 colonial policy. — The "stamp act" and its repeal. — Patrick Henry. 
 — Samuel Adams. — The tea question and "the Boston tea 
 party." — Punishment of Boston and Massachusetts. — The first 
 "continental congress." — Lexington and Concord. — The colonies 
 in arms. — Washington appointed to chief command. . 954-1000 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 FROM THE ADVENT OF WASHINGTON IN 
 
 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION TO 
 
 HIS DEATH 
 
 (1775 TO I799) 
 
 Continuity of revolutionary influence from the English Long 
 Parliament to the French States-general. The War of American 
 Independence: Campaigns and battles of the war. — Discouraging 
 conditions. — Trials of Washington. — Surrender of Cornwallis. — 
 Treaty of peace. ii The critical period of American history:" 
 Weakness of the Confederation. — Framing and adoption of the 
 federal constitution. The British empire: Hostilities with France, 
 Spain and Holland. — Wars in India. — Concessions to Ireland. — 
 Industrial revolution in Great Britain. France: The approaching 
 political revolution. — Its causes. — Its outbreak. — Meeting of the 
 States-general. — Assumption of supremacy by the third estate. — 
 The Girondists. — The Jacobins. — Overthrow of the monarchy. — 
 Execution of the king. — Fall of the Girondists. — Crusade against 
 all monarchies. — "The reign of terror." — The Jacobin factions 
 devouring one another.— End of "the terror." — Advent of 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. — His campaign in Italy. — His expedition 
 to Egypt, and return. — His domination as first consul. The 
 Partitioning of Poland: The three partitions. The United States of 
 America: Organization of federal government under Washington. 
 — Financial measures of Hamilton. — Lasting division of political 
 parties. — Troubles with England and France. — Administration of 
 John Adams. — Overthrow of the Federalists. British America: 
 The Quebec Act. — United Empire Loyalists. — Act of 1791. 
 
 1001-1064
 
 Contents xxiii 
 
 HISTORIC EPOCH VI. 
 
 EPOCH OF SCIENCE, MECHANISM, DEMOCRACY, 
 AND THE TRANSFORMING OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE EPOCH 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF WASHINGTON TO 
 THE ADVENT OF STEPHENSON AND 
 THE STEAM RAILWAY 
 
 (1799 TO 1S30) 
 
 The days of absolute government numbered. — History assum- 
 ing a new tenor. — Beginning of a transformation of the world. 
 The Napoleonic Wars: Second defeat of Austria. — Reconstruction 
 of Germany. — Napoleon emperor. — Austerlitz and Trafalgar. — 
 Subjugation of Prussia. — Warfare by destruction of trade. — 
 Napoleon's crime against Spain. — The Spanish uprising. — The 
 humiliation of Germany. — The making of Prussia. — Napoleon 
 in Russia. — Beginning of his overthrow. His fall. — His return 
 from Elba. — Waterloo. — St. Helena. The United States of America 
 during the Napoleonic Wars: Neutral trade. — Humiliations endured. 
 — Presidency of Jefferson. — The Louisiana purchase.- — Wrongs 
 and insults from England and France. — English claim to a right 
 of search. — Madison's presidency. — Napoleon's knavery. — W ar of 
 1812 with England. — Beginning of a conscious national life. Europe 
 after the fall of Napoleon: The English corn laws. — Reconstruction 
 work of the Congress of Vienna. — The Holy Alliance. — Revolu- 
 tions of 1820 and 1830. — Ireland and Catholic emancipation. New 
 departure in social progress: Effects of steamboat and railway. The 
 United States after the war of 1812: Steam navigation. — Canal 
 building. — "The cotton gin." — Its effects on slavery. — Question 
 of slavery in the Territories. — The Missouri compromise. — The 
 "Monroe doctrine." British America: Discontent in the Can- 
 adas. Spanish America: Revolt and Independence of Spanish 
 provinces. Santo Domingo: Revolt. — Slave rising. — Toussaint 
 L'Ouverture. Brazil: Founding of the independent empire. Aus- 
 tralia: Growth of New South Wales. India: Extension of British 
 Rule 1102-1170
 
 xxiv Contents 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 FROM THE ADVENT OF GEORGE STEPHEN- 
 SON AND THE STEAM RAILWAY TO THE 
 ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 
 STATES 
 
 (183O TO i860) 
 
 Era of the railway and the telegraph. Great Britain: First reform 
 of parliament. — Opening of the reign of Queen Victoria. — The 
 Chartist movement. — Repeal of corn laws. — Free trade legislation. 
 — Peel. — Gladstone. — Disraeli. — Ireland and O'Connell's agitation. 
 European Revolutions of 184.8 and after: Italy. — France. — Ger- 
 many. — Hungary. — Coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon. — The Crimean 
 War. — Liberation and unification of Italy. The United States: 
 Andrew Jackson president. — Jackson and nullification. — Jackson 
 and the United States Bank. — The financial collapse of 1837. — 
 President Van Buren. — Formation of the Whig party. — Rise of 
 the Abolitionists. — Agitation of the slavery question. — Annexation 
 of Texas. — War with Mexico. — Acquisition of California, New Mex- 
 ico, etc. — Question of slavery in the new territory. — Compromise 
 of 1850. — Fugitive slave law. — "Uncle Tom's Cabin." — Stephen 
 A. Douglas. — Doctrine of "popular sovereignty." — Kansas-Ne- 
 braska bill. — Rise of Republican party. — Struggle for Kansas. — 
 Dred Scott decision. — Lecompton constitution for Kansas. — 
 Douglas Democratic revolt. — Douglas and Lincoln debates. — John 
 Brown's invasion of Virginia. — Election of Abraham Lincoln. 
 British America: Rebellion in the Canadas. — Reunion of the two 
 provinces. Australia and New Zealand: Founding of the colonies 
 of Western Australia, Victoria, South Australia, New Zealand, and 
 Queensland. — Discoveries of gold. India and Afghanistan: Tragedy 
 of the Afghan war. — The sepoy revolt. China: The "Opium 
 War." — The Tai-ping rebellion. — Second war with England. 
 Japan: The Perry expedition. — Opening of ports to foreigners. 
 South Africa: Founding of the Boer republics. . . 1171-1230 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 FROM THE ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINC- 
 OLN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
 TO BISMARCK'S FOUNDING OF THE 
 GERMAN EMPIRE 
 
 (i860 TO I871) 
 
 The United States of America: Secession and confederation of
 
 Contents xxv 
 
 slave-holding States. — Opening of civil war. — Blockade of Con- 
 federate ports. — Battle of Bull Run. — The "Monitor" and the 
 "Merrimac." — Grant's first successes. — McClellan's peninsular 
 campaign. — Rising fame of the Confederate generals Lee and 
 Jackson. — Farragut's capture of New Orleans. — Lee's first invasion 
 of Maryland. — President Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation. 
 — Dark period of national reverses. — Political opposition in the 
 north. — Outfit of Confederate cruisers in England.— Lee's second 
 movement northward. — Gettysburg. — Vicksburg. — Grant's Chat- 
 tanooga campaign. — Lincoln's amnesty and plan of reconstruction. 
 — Grant's campaign against Richmond. — Reelection of Lincoln. 
 — Sherman's march to the sea. — Crumbling and fall of the Con- 
 federacy. — End of the war. — Murder of President Lincoln. — 
 Presidency of Andrew Johnson. — His rupture with congress. — 
 Congressional measures of reconstruction and their results. — Peri- 
 od of demoralizations. — Presidency of General Grant. — Settlement 
 of "Alabama" claims. Events in Europe: Unification of Italy 
 — Austro-Prussian and Franco-German wars. — Unification of Ger- 
 many in a federal empire. — Federation of Austria-Hungary.^ — 
 Birth of the third French republic. — Disraeli and Gladstone min- 
 istries in Great Britain. — Irish Fenianism. — Revolution in Spain. 
 — Emancipation in Russia. — Russians in Central Asia. British 
 America: Confederation of the Dominion of Canada. Mexico: 
 French conquest. — Maximilian's empire and its fall. Egypt: 
 Ismail Pasha, khedive. — The Suez canal. — Japan: Fall of the 
 shogunate. — End of feudalism and the daimiates. . 1231-1276 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 FROM BISMARCK'S FOUNDING OF THE 
 
 GERMAN EMPIRE TO THE DEATH 
 
 OF VICTORIA 
 
 (187I TO I90l) 
 
 The Peace Conference at The Hague. Great Britain and Ireland: 
 Beaconsfield and "jingoism." — The third reform bill. — Gladstone's 
 Irish home rule bills. — Rupture in the Liberal party. — Salisbury 
 ministry. — Pacifying measures for Ireland. — Death of Queen 
 Victoria. The French Republic: The Dreyfus agitation. — Public 
 control of education. The German Empire: William II. — Im- 
 perial egotism. — The new Germany. — Socialistic paternalism. 
 Russia and her neighbors: Russo-Turkish war. — Russian treatment 
 of Finland. — Development of Siberia. — Dangerous discontent in 
 the empire. Japan, China, Korea, and the Russians in eastern 
 Asia: War between Japan and China. — Treatment of China by 
 western powers. — The "Boxer" outbreak. — Russian designs in
 
 xxvi Contents 
 
 Manchuria. Egypt and the Sudan: Foreign control of Egyptian 
 finances. — Arabi's revolt. — British suppression of it. — The "Mahdi" 
 in the Sudan. — Fate of Colonel Gordon. — Egyptian conquest 
 of the Sudan. The partitioning of Africa: The Congo Free 
 State. — The Berlin Conference. — Scramble for African territory. 
 Boer-Briton war: Its causes and results. The United States: Con- 
 ditions in the south. — Monetary questions. — Greenback and 
 Silver parties. — Tariff questions. — Civil service reform. — War with 
 Spain. — Acquisition and subjugation of the Philippines. — Lib- 
 eration of Cuba. — Panama Canal. — Material progress. — Impe- 
 rialistic ambitions. Elsewhere: Prosperity in Canada. — Progress 
 under Diaz in Mexico. — Fall of the Brazilian empire. — Confedera- 
 tion of Australian colonies. — Socialistic experiments in New 
 Zealand. 1277-13 29 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA 
 TO THE PRESENT DAY 
 
 (A. D. 1901 to 1914) 
 The shifting of frontiers. — Spread of democracy. Great Britain 
 and Ireland: King Edward VII. — Chamberlain and Tariff Reform. 
 — Entente cordiale — King George V. — Power of House of Lords 
 curtailed. — Woman's suffrage. — Growth of imperialism. — Home 
 Rule. — The Ulster crisis. The French Republic: Separation of 
 Church and State. — Socialists to the fore. — President Poincare. — 
 Colonial expansion. Germany: Industrial growth. — Naval rivalry. 
 Austria-Hungary: Racial conflict. — Bosnia and Herzegovina 
 annexed. — Assassination of Francis Ferdinand. Russia: National 
 Duma created. — Agrarian reform. — Russification of Finland and 
 Poland. Italy: King Victor Emmanuel III. — Labor troubles. — 
 Pope Pius X. — Tripoli wrested from Turkey. The Iberian Penin- 
 sula: King Alfonso XIII. — Execution of Ferrer. — Industrial unrest 
 in Spain. — Anticlericalism. — Murder of King Carlos. — Portugal 
 a republic. Scandinavia: Dissolution of union between Norway 
 and Sweden. — Nobel Prizes. Southeastern Europe: The Belgrade 
 murders. — Bulgarian independence. — The Young Turks. — Abdul 
 Hamid deposed. — Cretan crisis. The Balkan War: Turkish 
 defeats. — Assassination of King George of Greece. — Disruption of 
 the Balkan league. The Second Balkan War: Bulgaria stripped of 
 her spoils. Albania: Prince William of Wied. Japan: The Russo- 
 Japanese War. China: Crusade against opium. — The Chinese 
 Republic. — Yuan Shih-kai. The United States: Roosevelt's second 
 term. — The immigration question. — Californian disaster. — Money 
 panic. — President Taft. — Canadian reciprocity. — Prosecution of the 
 Trusts. — Rise of Progressive party. — Return of Democrats to power. 
 — President Wilson. — Constitutional amendments. — The Phil- 
 ippines. Latin American Republics: Mexican revolutions. — Amer- 
 ican intervention. — Occupation of Vera Cruz. Elsewhere: Canadian 
 development. — Australia and New Zealand. — India and Egypt.
 
 ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF SEVENTY 
 CENTURIES 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Prehistoric Peoples 
 
 I 
 The Epoch of Earliest Civilizations and Known Empires 
 
 (To the Persian Invasions of Greece) 
 
 I. From the Earliest Known Records to the Supposed Age of 
 Abraham 
 
 (Approximately, B. C. 4700 to 2200) 
 
 II From the Supposed Age of Abraham to the Death of David 
 
 (Approximately, B. C. 2200 to 960) 
 
 III. From the Death of David to the Advent of Cyrus 
 
 (Approximately, B. C. 960 to 558) 
 
 IV. From the Advent of Cyrus to the Age of Xerxes 
 
 (B. C. 558 to 480) 
 
 II 
 
 The Epoch of the Greeks and the Romans 
 
 (From the Persian Invasions of Greece to the Gothic Capture 
 
 of Rome) 
 
 V. From the Age of Xerxes to the Age of Hannibal 
 
 (B. C. 480 to 200) 
 
 VI. From the Age of Hannibal to the Death of Caesar 
 
 (B. C. 200 to 44) 
 
 VII. From the Death of Caesar to the Death of Alaric 
 
 (B. C. 44 to A. D. 410) 
 
 III 
 
 The Epoch of the New Nations, Known as the Middle 
 
 Ages 
 
 (From the Gothic Capture of Rome to the Turkish Capture of 
 
 Constantinople) 
 
 VIII. From the Death of Alaric to the Advent of Charlemagne 
 
 (A. D. 410 to 768) 
 
 IX. From the Advent of Charlemagne to the Death of Hildebrand 
 
 (A. D. 768 to 1085) 
 
 X. From the Death of Hildebrand to the Exile of Dante 
 
 (A. D. 1085 to 1302) 
 
 XI. From the Exile of Dante to the Advent of Gutenberg 
 
 (A. D. 1302 to 1454) 
 
 XII. The Historical World at the End of the Middle Ages 
 
 (The Fifteenth Century) 
 
 XXVII
 
 xxvin Analytical Outline 
 
 IV 
 
 The Epoch of Modernizing Expansions, Called the 
 
 Renaissance 
 
 (From the Turkish Capture of Constantinople to the Preludes 
 of Revolution in England) 
 
 XIII. From the Advent of Gutenberg to the Advent of Luther 
 
 (A. D. 1454 to 1517) 
 
 XIV. From the Advent of Luther to the Abdication of the Em- 
 peror Charles V. 
 
 (A. D. 1517 to 1556) 
 
 XV. From the Abdication of the Emperor Charles V. to the 
 Assassination of Henry IV. of France 
 
 (A. D. 1556 to 1610) 
 
 V 
 
 The Epoch of Political Revolutions 
 
 (From the Preludes of Revolution in England to the Napoleonizing 
 of the Revolution in France) 
 
 XVI. From the Assassination of Henry IV. of France to the 
 Death of Cromwell 
 
 (1610 to 1658) 
 
 XVII. From the Death of Cromwell to the Death of Louis XIV. 
 of France 
 
 (1658 to 1715) 
 
 XVIII. From the Death of Louis XlV. of France to the Advent 
 of Washington in the American Revolution 
 
 (1715 to 1775) 
 
 XIX. From the Advent of Washington in the American Revo- 
 lution to his Death 
 
 (1775 to 1799) 
 
 VI 
 
 The Epoch of Science, Mechanism, Democracy, and the 
 Transforming of the World 
 
 (From the Napoleonizing of the French Revolution to the Present 
 
 Day) 
 
 XX. From the Death of Washington to the Advent of Stephen- 
 son and the Steam Railway 
 
 (1799 to 1830) 
 
 XXI. From the Advent of George Stephenson to the Election of 
 Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States 
 
 (1830 to i860) 
 
 XXII. From the Election of Abraham Lincoln to Bismarck's 
 founding of the German Empire 
 
 (i860 to 1871) 
 
 XXIII. From Bismarck's Founding of the German Empire to the 
 Death of Victoria 
 
 (1871 to 1901) 
 
 XXIV. From the Death of Victoria to the Present Day
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 I." The Acropolis, from the Southwest, 
 
 Frontispiece to Vol. I 
 From a photograph 
 
 Facing Page 
 
 2. Ptah-Hetep ..... 24 
 
 From The Archaeological Survey of Egypt, Eighth 
 Memoir, Plate XXVI 
 
 3. Thothmes III .... 24 
 
 From the statue in the Turin Museum 
 
 4. Amenhotep IV .... 24 
 
 From the statuette in the Louvre 
 
 5. Ramses II ..... 24 
 
 From the Eleventh Memoir of the Egyptian Ex- 
 ploration Fund, Plate X 
 
 6. Moses ...... 30 
 
 From the statue by Michael Angelo (1475-1564) 
 made for the tomb of Pope Julius II, in the San 
 Pietro in Vinculi, Rome 
 
 7. David 30 
 
 The head of the colossal statue by Michael Angelo, 
 known as the "David of the Piazza," which stood 
 uncovered upon the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, in 
 Florence, from 1504 to 1873, when it was removed 
 to its present position in the Academy of Fine Arts, 
 Florence 
 
 8. GOTAMA . . . . • . • 30 
 
 From the ancient statue , , 
 
 9. Sappho . . . . > . , 30 
 
 Bust in the Villa Albani, Rome 
 
 10. Lycurgus . . . ' . ' 32 
 
 Bust in the National Museum, Naples / 
 
 11. Solon . . . . . . , 32 
 
 Bust in the National Museum, Naples 
 
 XXIX
 
 xxx Illustrations 
 
 Facing Page 
 
 12. Miltiades ..... 32 
 
 Bust in the Louvre, Paris 
 
 13. Themistocles .... 32 
 
 Bust in the Vatican, Rome 
 
 14. Hammurabi ..... 54 
 
 From Memoire de la Delegation en Perse, Plate IV 
 
 15. Israel in Egypt .... 68 
 
 From the painting by Sir Edward J. Poynter, R. A. 
 (1836-) 
 
 16. Homer ..... 92 
 
 From the painting by Francois Pascal Gerard 
 (1770-1837) 
 
 17. Arch of Temple of Ramses IV . 120 
 
 From a French photograph of the "Porte Triomphe" 
 of the Temple of Ramses IV., at Karnak, Thebes 
 
 18. Alexander the Great . . . 185 
 
 Head of statue in the Glyptohek, Munich 
 
 19. Pericles ..... 185 
 
 Bust in the British Museum, London 
 
 20. Socrates ..... 185 
 
 Bust in the Capitol, Rome 
 
 21. Plato ...... 185 
 
 Bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence 
 
 22. Aristotle ..... 188 
 
 Bust in the Hall Collection 
 
 23. ^ESCHYLUS ..... l88 
 
 Bust in the Capitol, Rome 
 
 24. Thucydides ..... 188 
 
 Bust in the National Museum, Naples 
 
 25. Ptolemy Soter .... 188 
 
 From an ancient coin 
 
 26. Demosthenes .... 195 
 
 Statue in the Vatican, Rome
 
 Illustrations xxxi 
 
 Facing page 
 
 27. Hannibal ..... 195 
 
 Bust in the National Museum, Naples 
 
 28. Cicero .... 195 
 
 Bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence 
 
 29. Julius Caesar .... 198 
 
 Bust in the National Museum, Naples 
 
 30. Augustus ..... 198 
 
 "The Crowned Augustus." Bust in the Vatican, 
 Rome 
 
 31. Mark Antony .... 198 
 
 Bust in the Louvre, Paris 
 
 32. Virgil ...... 198 
 
 Bust in the Capitol, Rome 
 
 33. Tacitus ..... 204 
 
 An Antique bust 
 
 34. Marcus Aurelius . . . 204 
 
 Bust in the Capitol, Rome 
 
 35. Trajan ..... 204 
 
 Bust in the Vatican, Rome 
 
 36. Antoninus Pius .... 204 
 
 Bust in the British Museum. London 
 
 37. "Death of Alexander" . . 222 
 
 From the painting by Karl von Piloty (1826-1886) 
 now in the National Gallery. Berlin 
 
 38. "Cicero Against Catiline" . . 266 
 
 From the painting by Casare Maccari (1840-) 
 
 39. " Christ Before Pilate" Frontispiece to Vol. II 
 
 From the painting by Mihaly Munkacsy (1844- 
 1900) owned by John Wanamaker 
 
 40. "Return of Germans After Battle in 
 
 Teutoberg Forest" . . . 283 
 
 From the painting by Paul Thumann (1834-), now 
 in the Gymnasium, Minden
 
 xxxn Illustrations 
 
 Facing page 
 
 41. "Paul Preaching at Athens" . 292 
 
 One of the cartoons made by Raphael (1483-1520) 
 as designs for decoration of the Sistine Chapel. 
 The cartoons are now in the South Kensington 
 Museum, London 
 
 42. "Diana, or Christ?" . . . 310 
 
 From the painting by Edwin Long, R. A. (1824- 
 1881) 
 
 43. Mohammed ..... 340 
 
 From an old print; likeness traditional 
 
 44. Pope Gregory I .... 340 
 
 From an engraving in the British Museum, London 
 
 45. Alfred the Great . . . 340 
 
 From an engraving by G. Longhi (1776-183 1), in 
 the Hall Collection 
 
 46. William the Conqueror . . 340 
 
 From a copy of a painting from an ancient effigy 
 
 47. Richard I ..... 348 
 
 From an engraving by Vertue (1684-1756) 
 
 48. Henry II ..... 348 
 
 From an engraving by Vertue 
 
 49. St. Francis ..... 348 
 
 Copy of an old engraving in the Hall Collection, 
 from the Spanish picture after the authentic por- 
 trait which is in the Cathedral of Toledo, Spain 
 
 50. Edward I ..... 348 
 
 From an engraving by Vertue 
 
 51. Louis IX ..... 351 
 
 From a fresco by Giotto (1266-1357), in the church 
 of Santa Croce, Florence 
 
 52. Frederick II .... 351 
 
 From an engraving by J. Outrier 
 
 53. Henry V ..... 351 
 
 From the bust in Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster 
 Abbey
 
 Illustrations xxxiii 
 
 
 
 Facing page 
 
 54- 
 
 Jeanne d'Arc 
 
 From a painting in the Louvre 
 
 ■ - 351 
 
 55- 
 
 VVlCLIF .... 
 
 • 354 
 
 • 
 
 From an engraving by C. White 
 
 
 56. 
 
 Dante .... 
 
 • 354 
 
 From the painting by Raphael (1483-1520). After 
 Dante's death a mask was taken, in plaster, of the 
 face. Raphael painted Dante after the mask like- 
 ness in two of his principal works 
 
 57. Petrarch . . . . -354 
 
 From the painting by Tofanelli 
 
 58. Chaucer . .... 354 
 
 From the portrait by Kramer 
 
 59. "Pillage of a Roman Villa by Huns" 360 
 
 From the painting by Georges Rochegrosse 
 
 60. Charlemagne .... 400 
 
 From the portrait by Albrecht Diirer (1471-1528), 
 now in the German Museum, Nuremberg 
 
 61. "Henry IV at Canossa" . . 424 
 
 From the painting by Eduard Schwoisser (1827-) 
 in the Maximilianeum, Munich 
 
 62. "Peter the Hermit Preaching the 
 
 First Crusade" .... 439 
 
 From the painting by James Archer (1824-) 
 
 63. "St. Louis Administering Justice" 481 
 
 From a mural painting in the Pantheon, by Alex- 
 andre Cabanel (1823-1889) 
 
 64. "Columbus at Court of Ferdinand and 
 
 Isabella" . Frontispiece to Vol. Ill 
 
 From the painting by Vaczlav Brozik (1852-1900) 
 
 65. Shakespeare . .... 630 
 
 "The Janssen Portrait," said to have been painted 
 by Cornelius Janssen (1592-1662) for the Earl of 
 Southampton
 
 xxxiy Illustrations 
 
 Facing page 
 
 66. Gutenberg r . . . . .632 
 
 From an ancient print 
 
 67. Columbus . . . . .632 
 
 From the painting in the Marine Museum, Madrid 
 
 68. Copernicus ..... 632 
 
 From an old engraving 
 
 69. Bacon . ..... 632 
 
 From an engraving by Jacobus Houbraken (1698- 
 1780) 
 
 70. Cervantes ..... 634 
 
 From the portrait by Josef del Castillo (1737-1793), 
 who made the drawings for the edition of "Don 
 Quixote" published by the Madrid Academy 
 
 71. Raphael ..... 634 
 
 "In Youth." From the original painting made in 
 1506-7 by Raphael himself (1493-1520), now in the 
 Gallery at Florence 
 
 72. Michael Angelo .... 634 
 
 From the original painting in the Hall Collection, 
 by Michael Angelo himself (1475-1564) 
 
 73. Lorenzo de' Medici .... 634 
 
 From the painting by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), 
 now in the Uffizi Palace, Florence 
 
 74. Savonarola . . . . 639 
 
 From the painting by Fra Bartolommeo (1475- 
 15 17), now in the Museum of St. Mark, Florence 
 
 75. Luther ..... 639 
 
 From the portrait by Lucas Cranach (1472-1553), 
 now in the Berlin Museum 
 
 76. Erasmus . . . . .639 
 
 From the painting by Hans Holbein (1497-1543), 
 in the Louvre, Paris 
 
 77. Loyola ..... 639 
 
 From the painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1577- 
 1640), now in the Gallery at Vienna 
 
 78. Charles V 650 
 
 From the painting by Titian (1477-1576)
 
 Illustrations ixxv 
 
 Facing page 
 
 79. Henry IV ..... 650 
 
 From a painting in the Louvre 
 
 80. William the Silent .... 650 
 
 From the painting by M. J. Miereveldt (1567-1641), 
 now in The Hague Gallery 
 
 81. Sir Walter Raleigh . . . 650 
 
 From the engraving by Jacobus Houbraken (1698- 
 1780) 
 
 82. "Luther at the Diet at Worms" . 695 
 
 From the painting by Anton A. Von Werner (1834-), 
 now in the Museum at Stuttgart 
 
 83. "Mary Stuart Receiving Death Sen- 
 
 tence" ..... 786 
 
 From the painting by Karl vonjPiloty (1826-1886), 
 now in the new Pinakothek, Munich 
 
 84. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS .... 814 
 
 From the painting by Anthony Van Dyck (1599- 
 1641) 
 
 85. Hampden ...... 814 
 
 From an engraving by Houbraken from the original 
 painting in the possession of Sir Richard Ellys, Bart. 
 
 86. Cromwell ..... 814 
 
 From the painting made in 1653 by Sir Peter Lely 
 (1618-1680), now in the Pitti Gallery, Florence 
 
 87. Earl of Strafford . . . .814 
 
 From the painting by Van Dyck 
 
 '88. Laud 823 
 
 From the painting by Van Dyck, in the Hermitage, 
 St. Petersburg 
 
 89 Richelieu ...... 823 
 
 From the painting by Philippe de Champaigne 
 (1602-1674), now in the Louvre, Paris 
 
 90. Peter the Great . . . 823 
 
 From an engraving by Houbraken from the paint- 
 ing by Karel de Moor (1656-1738)
 
 xxxvi Illustrations 
 
 Facing page 
 
 91. Penn 823 
 
 "The Place Portrait." From the painting in Inde- 
 pendence Hall, Philadelphia, by H. J. Wright, after 
 the original painted by Francis Place in 1696, when 
 Penn was 52 years of age, owned by R. H. Allen, 
 Blackwell Hall, Durham, England 
 
 92. Frederick II., the Great. . . 828 
 
 From the painting by Antoine Pesne (1684-1757), 
 now in the Berlin Museum 
 
 93. Earl of Chatham .... 828 
 
 From an engraving by Richard Houston (1 721-1775) 
 
 94. Samuel Adams ..... 828 
 
 From the original painting by John Singleton 
 Copley, R.A. (173 7-1 8 15), now in the Museum of 
 Fine Arts, Boston, representing Adams in 1771, at 
 the age of 49 
 
 95. Hamilton ...... 828 
 
 From the original painting by John Trumbull 
 (1756-1843), now in the Museum of Fine Arts, 
 Boston 
 
 96. MlRABEAU . . . . . .832 
 
 From the paint'.ig by J. Guerin (1774-1823) 
 
 97. Wesley ...... 832 
 
 From the painting by John Jackson, R.A. (1778- 
 1831) 
 
 98. Goethe . . . . . .832 
 
 "At Eighty." From the painting for which Goethe 
 sat in his eightieth year. "The favorite portrait of 
 Goethe" 
 
 99. Voltaire . . . . . .832 
 
 From the bust by Houdon, at Versailles 
 
 100. "Milton Dictating Paradise Lost". 834 
 
 From the original painting, made in 1878, by Mihaly 
 Munkacsy (1844-1900), now in the Public Library, 
 New York 
 
 101. Burke ...... 836 
 
 From the painting by George Romney (1734-1802)
 
 Illustrations xxxvii 
 
 Facing page 
 
 102. Kant , • 836 
 
 From the painting by Johan C. Schnorr Von Kar- 
 olsfeld (1764-1841), now in the Gallery at Dresden 
 
 103. Newton ...... 836 
 
 From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646- 
 1723), now in Hampton Court Palace 
 
 104. James Watt ..... 836 
 
 From the bust by Sir F. Chantrey, R.A. 
 
 105. "Cromwell at Whitehall" . . 854 
 
 From the painting by Julius Schrader (1815-) 
 
 106. Washington . . Frontispiece to Vol. IV 
 
 From the original painting, made in 1796, by Gil- 
 bert Stuart (1755-1828), known as the "Athenaeum 
 Portrait," now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 
 
 107.* ,Franklin . . . . .971 
 
 From the original painting by Jean Baptiste Greuze 
 (1725-1805), now in the Public Library, Boston 
 
 108. v Patrick Henry Addressing Virginia 
 
 Assembly" ..... 989 
 
 From the painting by Peter F. Rothermel (1817- 
 1895), now in the Academy at Philadelphia 
 
 109. ' f* Death of Earl of Chatham" . 991 
 
 From the painting made in 1779-80 by John Single- 
 ton Copley, RA. (1737-1815), now in the National 
 Gallery, London 
 
 1 10. " Washington Resigning Command of 
 
 the Army" 1018 
 
 From the painting by John Trumbull (1756-1843), 
 now in the Rotunda of the Capitol, at Washington 
 
 in. "Last Victims of Reign of Terror" 1038 
 
 From the painting by Charles Louis Miiller (1815- 
 1892), now in the Louvre, Paris 
 
 112. George Stephenson .... 1073 
 
 From the painting by H. P. Briggs, R.A. (1792- 
 1844)
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 Illustrations 
 
 Facing page 
 
 113. Edison ...... 1073 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 114. Bessemer . . . T 1073 
 
 From a photograph from life '_ J 
 
 115. Pasteur ...... 1073 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 116. Darwin ...... 1081 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 117. Wordsworth ..... 108 1 
 
 From the painting by Benjamin R. Haydon (1786- 
 1848) 
 
 118. Victor Hugo ..... 108 1 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 119. Tennyson ...... 1081 
 
 From a protrait by P. Kramer 
 
 120. Longfellow ..... 1086 
 
 From a portrait by P. Kramer 
 
 121. Dickens ...... 1086 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 122. CARLYLE ...... IO86 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 123. Mary Baker Eddy .... 1086 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 124. Napoleon ...... 1091 
 
 From the painting by Jacques Louis David (1747- 
 1825), in Warwick Castle 
 
 125. Pitt ....... 1091 
 
 From the painting by Anton Hickel (1745-1798) 
 
 126. Jefferson ..... 1091 
 
 From original painting by Gilbert Stuart (1755— 
 1828), in the rooms of Historical Society, New York 
 City
 
 Illustrations 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 
 Facing page 
 
 127. 
 
 Andrew Jackson . . '. 
 
 109I 
 
 
 From the original portrait painted in 1845 by G 
 
 .P. 
 
 
 A. Healy (1813-1895) 
 
 
 128. 
 
 John Marshall . . 
 From an engraving 
 
 IO94 
 
 129. 
 
 Garibaldi ..... 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO94 
 
 130. 
 
 Gladstone ..... 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO94 
 
 131- 
 
 Calhoun ...... 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO94 
 
 132. 
 
 Jefferson Davis .... 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO97 
 
 133- 
 
 General Lee ..... 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO97 
 
 134- 
 
 General Grant .... 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO97 
 
 135- 
 
 Farragut ...... 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO97 
 
 136. 
 
 Count di Cavour .... 
 
 From the original painting by Metzmacher 
 
 IO98 
 
 137- 
 
 Bismarck ...... 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO98 
 
 138. 
 
 Moltke ...... 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO98 
 
 139- 
 
 John Bright ..... 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 IO98 
 
 140. 
 
 "Summons to Waterloo" 
 
 From a reproduction of the original painting 
 
 IIl8 
 
 141. 
 
 Lincoln . . Frontispiece to Vol. V 
 
 
 From a photograph from life by Brady 
 
 
 142. 
 
 "Coronation of Queen Victoria" . 
 From the painting by E. T. Pavis' 
 
 1177
 
 XL 
 
 Illustrations 
 
 U3- 
 
 144. 
 
 145- 
 
 146. 
 147. 
 148. 
 149. 
 150. 
 
 151- 
 152. 
 
 153. 
 
 154- 
 
 155- 
 156. 
 
 157- 
 158. 
 159- 
 
 "Emperor William I." 
 
 From the painting by Emil J. Hunten 
 of the Emperor's staff 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 Woodrow Wilson 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 William J. Bryan . 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 Porfirio Diaz 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 Raymond Poincare . 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 Yuan Skai-kai. 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 Robert Laird Borden 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 David Lloyd-George 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 William II 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 King George V 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 YOSHIHITO, THE MlKADO 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 Pius X 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 Francisco I. Madero 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 Venustiano Carranza 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 VlCTORIANO HUERTA 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 Pancho Villa . 
 
 From a photograph from life 
 
 Facing page 
 . 1263 
 (1827-1902), 
 
 • 1325 
 
 1325 
 
 1325 
 
 1325 
 
 1336 
 
 1336 
 
 1336 
 
 1336 
 
 1347 
 
 1347 
 
 1347 
 
 1347 
 
 1358 
 
 1358 
 
 1358 
 
 1358
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 THE PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 
 
 Historic and prehistoric knowledge. — The unrecorded period of human life 
 in different countries. — The paleolithic stage of primitive culture. — Flint- 
 working and other arts in the "Old Stone Age." — The geological period of 
 that Age. — Glacial and interglacial times. — Intermixed remains of arctic and 
 tropical life. — The neolithic stage of culture, or "New Stone Age." — 
 Remains of its arts. — Lake-dwellings in Europe. — The finding of metals. — 
 Copper, bronze and iron. — Genesis of variations in the human species. — 
 What is fundamental in the racial differences? — Classification of men by 
 color.— Classification by language.— The Aryan hypothesis. — Searchings for 
 the primitive Aryan home. — Classification by forms of the human skull. — 
 The "cephalic index." — Long-heads and broad-heads. — Blondes and bru- 
 nettes. — Prevalence of certain physical features in different parts of the 
 world. — Various hypotheses relative to the primitive peopling of Europe. 
 
 Our knowledge of mankind in the past divides 
 naturally into two kinds, namely: (i) that which 
 men of departed generations have transmitted to 
 us consciously, in decipherable writing, which 
 records and communicates more or less of their Historic 
 names, their doings, their experiences, or their prehistoric 
 thoughts; and (2) that which we draw by infer- knowled s e 
 ence from such mute relics and tokens of vanished 
 peoples as we sometimes fine buried and preserved 
 by chance in the earth. The former is History, in 
 the sense now given to the term. The latter 
 affords nothing of a story of human life; it 
 • acquaints us with no events, no persons, no 
 names, no definable periods of time. It only 
 informs us that most regions of the globe have 
 been occupied, at some indefinite remote time, by 
 nameless primitive races, about whose circum- 
 stances in life and modes of living we may con- 
 jecture something, from the works and marks
 
 Introduction 
 
 Historic 
 America 
 
 Historic 
 Western 
 Europe 
 
 Historic 
 Egypt and 
 Babylonia 
 
 they have left, but of whom we learn nothing 
 more. 
 
 That unrecorded stage in the life of humanity, 
 known only by inference from its remains, and 
 described as prehistoric, has ended in different 
 countries at widely different times. In America, 
 for example, there is no present knowledge of any 
 recorded history prior to the European discovery; 
 but mysterious inscriptions are found in southern 
 Mexico and in some of the Central American 
 states which many students are striving to 
 decipher, and which may hereafter shed light on 
 a past that is now extremely dark. In the British 
 islands, in middle and northern France, in Ger- 
 many and the Netherlands, the prehistoric age 
 was ended only by Caesar's conquests, nearly at 
 the beginning of our Christian era. On the other 
 hand, in Egypt, inscriptions on stone have been 
 brought to light lately which supply an actual 
 record of historical names and facts from a time 
 that appears to be hardly less than 7,000 years 
 ago; and relics of workmanship from generations 
 far earlier have been found in the same marvelous 
 land. Further eastward, in the valley of the 
 Euphrates, excavations now in progress are un- 
 earthing an abundance of writings, graven on 
 stone or impressed on tablets and cylinders of 
 baked clay, which tell of a civilization that flour- 
 ished in that Babylonian region very nearly fifty 
 centuries before Christ; and nothing yet dis- 
 covered reaches back to a prehistoric time when 
 no form of writing was known. This great exten-
 
 Historic and Prehistoric Knowledge 3 
 
 sion backward of known records has occurred in Archaeoiog- 
 both Egypt and Babylonia within a few recent ration 
 years, as the result of patient, careful and costly 
 labor in uncovering the long buried ruins of 
 ancient cities in the east. Similar labors are bear- 
 ing nearly or quite as rich fruits in other parts of 
 the eastern world, bringing to light many monu- 
 ments and much writing that is older by far than 
 scholars had believed to exist. Thus the line of 
 division between prehistorical and historical 
 knowledge of the past is not to be looked upon as 
 fixed for any region of the earth until every pos- 
 sible hiding place of decipherable writing has been 
 explored. So far as now appears, there is nothing 
 to encourage searching in western Europe or in 
 America for records older than those known 
 already; but almost everywhere in Asia, in 
 northern and eastern Africa, and in southeastern 
 Europe, the probabilities of continued success in 
 such quests are very great. 
 
 The Paleolithic Stage of Culture 
 
 The oldest traces of man, wherever found, 
 show him in a state which corresponds to that of 
 the lower savages of the present day. Through 
 what still ruder stages of existence, prolonged 
 through what stretches of time, he may have been Geikie.iV- 
 passing before any durable traces of his life be- ^pe 
 came marked on the earth, is a subject of specula- 
 tion that will not be taken up here. It is plain 
 that he could leave no signs of his existence behind 
 him until he had learned to make something,
 
 Introduction 
 
 Flint- 
 working 
 
 Antiquity 
 of man 
 
 Primitive 
 invention 
 and art 
 
 marked plainly with his handiwork, and not sub- 
 ject to quick decay nor easily destroyed. The 
 learning of that primitive lesson appears to have 
 happened everywhere in about the same way. It 
 began with the discovery that flints and other 
 stones might be chipped and splintered into use- 
 ful forms for cutting, scraping, and the like, or 
 into weapons with deadly edges and points. A 
 flint spear-head, perhaps, was one of the earliest 
 products of this great discovery. Later, possibly 
 by centuries, came the invention of the bow, and 
 the tipping of its arrows with flint. By that time 
 many simple arts would most likely have been 
 attained, but practiced on materials that per- 
 ished, for the most part, very soon, while the 
 products of the flint-working endured. Hence it 
 is that the surviving tokens of primeval mankind 
 are chiefly in weapons, implements and utensils of 
 flint and other stones. These are found in all 
 parts of the world, so buried in deposits of gravel, 
 or in the stalagmite floors of caves, — often min- 
 gled with the bones of extinct animals, — that 
 geologists incline to estimate their antiquity by 
 hundreds of thousands of years. 
 
 From their first rude working of flints, these 
 men of the primeval world went on to the making 
 of such implements as needles, awls, daggers, fish- 
 hooks and harpoon heads out of bone, horn and 
 ivory, leaving specimens which show an increas- 
 ing skill, and a slow progress in the invention of 
 new tools and utensils, giving proof of a growing 
 consciousness of wants and a growing ambition to
 
 Primitive Arts and Inventions 5 
 
 find means for satisfying such wants. Strangely, 
 too, they were developing a remarkable artistic 
 sense, displayed in surprisingly well drawn pic- 
 tures of animals, etched or engraved on pieces of 
 horn and tusk. 
 
 These things, found together, in deposits which 
 can be arranged geologically in their order of suc- 
 cession, and approximately in time, represent, 
 beyond a reasonable doubt, a state of culture that 
 prevailed for an immensely long period, the an- 
 tiquity of the beginning of which can only be 
 guessed. It is the period which archaeologists 
 have agreed to call the "paleolithic" or "old 
 stone" age of human culture, when men, having The Old 
 knowledge of no better material than stone for StoneA s e 
 tools and weapons, had not yet learned to smooth 
 or polish the stone, but only chipped it into shape. 
 The grinding of their stone implements to a 
 smooth surface and a more perfect form was a late 
 improvement, and has been taken to mark the 
 introduction of another epoch in the education of 
 primitive men, called the "neolithic" or "new TheNew 
 
 ,, Stone Age 
 
 stone age. 
 
 The deposits in which remains of paleolithic 
 men are found belong to the geological period 
 called pleistocene or quaternary. It was the 
 period in which the surface of the earth acquired 
 substantially its present features, seas, continents 
 and islands passing through a long series of exten- 
 sive changes, resulting, at the end, in very nearly 
 their present forms. At some stage of those 
 changes the Mediterranean appears to have been
 
 6 Introduction 
 
 bridged at some points by elevations of land 
 which joined Europe to Africa; the British 
 islands were united in like manner to the con- 
 tinent; the Channel and the North Sea must, 
 practically, have disappeared. Extraordinary 
 climatic changes were occurring at the same time. 
 Ages of arctic cold, in northwestern Europe and 
 northeastern America, alternated with ages of 
 Glacial and more genial warmth than those regions have 
 
 interglacial . ° 
 
 periods known since. In the latter time, plants and 
 animals from tropical Africa spread northwards 
 into Europe, as far, at least, as to southern Eng- 
 land and northern France. In the former, arctic 
 animals and plants were spread southwards to the 
 Pyrenees. Numerous remains of animals brought 
 by each of these alternating movements into 
 France, England, and elsewhere, — the lion, hy- 
 ena, elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, mam- 
 moth, bear, musk-sheep, glutton, reindeer, urus, 
 and others, some of them extinct long ago, — are 
 found mixed with the relics of paleolithic men, 
 showing that the latter lived through some if not 
 all of that long lasting glacial and interglacial 
 time. It is supposed that they retreated south- 
 wards during the ages when northern and middle 
 Europe was covered with glacial ice, and returned 
 with the returning warmth. 
 
 The Neolithic Stage of Culture 
 
 According to geological indications, all tokens 
 of the paleolithic stage of primitive culture disap- 
 pear, in the European part of the world, at about
 
 The Glacial Periods and After \ 
 
 the time of the ending of the last glacial age. 
 Then, in post-glacial deposits, relics of that next 
 stage of culture called neolithic begin to show 
 themselves, rarely mixed with even the slightest 
 traces of paleolithic remains. Many students of 
 the subject are convinced that the two epochs 
 called paleolithic and neolithic were separated in 
 western Europe by a considerable period of time; 
 that the people whose remains mark the former 
 were expelled or became extinct, and were suc- 
 ceeded by a new race, more advanced, which 
 came in from the southeast or the south. Others, 
 including Professor Huxley, whose opinion carries Huxley, 
 great weight, question the sufficiency of the proof ^j^f 
 of such a break in the prehistoric life of man in 7:318 
 western Europe, and incline to believe that the 
 men who chipped their stone implements into 
 shape were the ancestors of the men who ground 
 and polished them, and who had made progress in 
 other ways. 
 
 Of the presence of man immediately after the 
 ending of the glacial epoch, — at the beginning, 
 that is, of the chapter in geological history called 
 "Recent," — the tokens are abundant almost 
 everywhere. The earth had then received sub- 
 stantially the features and the climate of to-day, 
 and the distribution of animals and plants was 
 much the same as now. Whatever the fact else- 
 where, Europe in general is found then to have 
 been inhabited by men who had risen out of the 
 paleolithic depth of savagery, but who knew of 
 nothing better for tools and weapons than stone.
 
 8 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Neolithic 
 arts and 
 culture 
 
 Dolmen 
 structures 
 
 That they ground their stone implements to 
 smooth surfaces and edges is but one trifling mark 
 of the progress they had made. They had learned 
 to obtain fire at will, by the striking of flints or the 
 friction of wood. They were learning the arts of 
 the potter and the weaver; were beginning to till 
 the earth; had domesticated some animals; were 
 living in communities together; were construct- 
 ing dwellings for themselves, and were carefully 
 burying their dead. The graves in which some of 
 their dead were entombed, with the body inclosed 
 in a case or chamber, formed of several flat stones 
 placed loosely together, are the commonest and 
 most interesting of the memorials they have left. 
 Most of those ancient graves are covered with a 
 heap of stones or earth, forming what is called a 
 barrow or cairn. In frequent instances, however, 
 the covering mound has disappeared, and the rude 
 stone burial-cell is exposed. In this state it is 
 known as a cromlech or dolmen (signifying table- 
 stone). Such, at least, is the probable origin of 
 the great number of dolmen structures that are 
 found in southern, western, and northern Europe, 
 in northern Africa, and in Asia over large parts of 
 the southwest. But all are not held to be the 
 work of neolithic men. The same modes of burial, 
 with construction improved and chambers elabo- 
 rated, were continued beyond the stone age of 
 culture, after metals had come into use. 
 
 In the Alpine regions of Switzerland, northern 
 Italy, and southern Germany, there are prehis- 
 toric remains of a most interesting class, known
 
 Remains of Early Man in Europe 9 
 
 as lake-dwellings, which represent the whole 
 neolithic period, from its earliest to its latest 
 stage of culture, and which carry the representa- 
 tion farther, even down to historic times. These dwellings 
 habitations were constructed on piles in the shal- 
 low shore-waters of the mountain lakes, which 
 gave them a certain degree of protection from 
 human enemies and wild beasts. In the mud of 
 the lake-bottoms where they stood, all the refuse 
 of the household, and all the many things that fell 
 by accident into the waters, were caught and 
 kept, and furnish now a perfect museum of the 
 equipments of that lacustrine life, from its first 
 century to its last. 
 
 The duration of the neolithic period of human 
 development varied, evidently, in different re- 
 gions, and was less, at the most, than the aeons of 
 time during which men lingered in the so-called 
 paleolithic stage. Nevertheless, long ages must 
 have passed before metals — first copper in its 
 natural state (of little worth for practical purposes 
 to the primitive man), and then copper hardened 
 into bronze by an admixture of tin — were brought _, „ ,. 
 
 rp, ,. , . , , The finding 
 
 into use. I hat this occurred in countries beyond of metals 
 the Mediterranean before any people in Europe 
 found the metals secreted in their ores, appears to 
 be more than probable; and formerly it was as- 
 sumed that the use of copper and bronze, followed 
 later by the use of iron, came to Europe from the 
 east. Now there is a growing opinion that the 
 primitive metallurgy in some parts of Europe was 
 an art independently acquired. It made its way
 
 io Introduction 
 
 from one to another people, as trading between 
 them was developed, and may not have reached 
 the British islands and the northern extremities 
 of the continent very long before the opening to 
 them of the historic era. Iron was unknown in 
 America before the coming of the Europeans; but 
 the more advanced of the native races were 
 acquainted with copper and bronze, tin, lead, 
 silver and gold. 
 
 Divisions of the Human Race 
 
 Ethnologists find reason to believe that the 
 variations in the human species, which produced 
 the different stocks or families of mankind now 
 peopling the earth, had their genesis as far back 
 in geologic time as the paleolithic period, and 
 were evolved before the neolithic stage had been 
 Keane, % reached in any part of the world. Singular differ- 
 
 Ethnology, f . . r i i j • 1 
 
 ch. 8-10 ences ol opinion are round, however, and singular 
 
 changes of view have occurred, as to what is and 
 
 what is not fundamental in the variations of the 
 
 human race. Color was accepted first, without 
 
 question, as the basis of classification, and all 
 
 humanity was divided into five great families, 
 
 Classifica- namely: the white or pale-skinned peoples, called 
 
 bgcolor 6 " Caucasians; the yellow-skinned Asiatics, or 
 
 Mongolians; the blacks of central Africa and of 
 
 some South Sea islands; the red aborigines of 
 
 America, and the brown Malayans of south- 
 
 Ciassifica- eastern Asia and the contiguous seas. Then 
 
 la^Tua'e attention was turned to relationships of language, 
 
 which seemed to have more meaning than f\e
 
 Theories of Racial Difference ii 
 
 differing colors of skin. Philology, for a time, 
 took ethnology in hand, and grouped the peoples 
 of the globe by their speech. It found one great 
 growth of language in Europe and parts of Asia, 
 branching into many variants, but carrying the 
 same structural form into all; and this Aryan Aryan 
 form of speech, as the philologists named it, was anguages 
 taken for a mark of kinship among the many 
 peoples to whose tongues it belonged. Another 
 such development of varied languages having one 
 structural form was found in southwestern Asia, 
 and called Semitic, because supposed to have 
 sprung from the speech of the children of Shem; Semitic 
 while a third, very doubtfully distinguished from lan 8 ua s es 
 it, was traced in the neighboring regions of 
 Africa, and attributed to an origin in the family 
 of Ham. The languages in these three divisions — 
 Aryan, Semitic and Hamitic — are alike in the Hamitk 
 grammatical feature called "inflection," and con- lan s uages 
 trasted thereby with a greater multitude of so- 
 called "agglutinative" languages, which were 
 classed together as Turanian in the older philo- Turanian 
 
 .... languages 
 
 logical schemes. 
 
 Languages of the Aryan group include the 
 Sanscrit and the Zend (with all that came from 
 them in ancient and modern India and Iran,) the 
 noble speech of the Greeks, the Latin of Rome, 
 and the many tongues of all the nations known as 
 Celtic, Teutonic and Slavic in modern times. A 
 generation ago there was almost no questioning of 
 the theory of a common ancestry for the peoples The Aryan 
 — Hindus, Medes, Persians, Greeks, Romans, ypot esis
 
 12 Introduction 
 
 Italians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Germans, Scan- 
 dinavians, Dutchmen, Englishmen, Welshmen, 
 Irishmen, Scots, Russians, Poles, and others, — 
 whose languages grew plainly from the common 
 roots of Aryan speech. They were looked upon 
 as forming one great Indo-European or Indo- 
 Germanic family of mankind, apart from other 
 families, and dominant among them by virtue of 
 some superior quality of race. There was dispu- 
 tation only concerning the primitive Aryan home, 
 where the great race was cradled, and whence it 
 was supposed to have swarmed forth, in succes- 
 sive hosts, at long intervals, to acquire in different 
 lands the different characteristics of the Hindu, 
 pSve the Greek, the Roman, the Celt, the German and 
 Aryan the Slav. For a time there was general agreement 
 with Professor Max Miiller, who thought it pos- 
 sible to trace the Aryas of antiquity to a first 
 dwelling place on the high plains at the north of 
 the Hindu Kush mountains; but other philolo- 
 gists found reasons equally cogent for looking 
 elsewhere, in northern or eastern Europe, especi- 
 ally; and now there appears to be little hope of 
 tracking the Aryan tongues to their primal 
 source. 
 
 Gradually, the whole theory of the undertaking 
 to find relationships of race by relationships of 
 language was shaken by many criticisms. The 
 large and uncertain extent to which languages 
 have been spread in some cases and extinguished 
 in others, by conquest, or by intermixture of 
 peoples, was taken more into account. New
 
 Cranial Form 13 
 
 schools of anthropology and ethnology have been 
 breaking away from the philological influence, 
 and looking to physical features once more for the 
 marks of racial kinship. In some views the color 
 of skin has regained more significance, especially 
 as connected with the color of eyes and the color 
 and texture of hair, in differentiating the pale- 
 skinned peoples into blondes and brunettes. 
 
 But anthropological studies are now attentive 
 mainly to differences of form in the human skull. Cl assifica " 
 The difference most marked and chiefly dealt forms of 
 with by the majority of anthropologists is that sku11 
 which appears in the length of skull compared 
 with its breadth. By adopting a fixed rule of 
 comparative measurement, denoting what is 
 called the "cephalic index," those who pursue 
 these cranial investigations in many countries are 
 accumulating statistical data from which inter- 
 esting conclusions, not always in harmony, are 
 drawn. The "cephalic index" of a head is the 
 percentage of its breadth above the ears to its 
 length from forehead to back. Those heads in 
 which the percentage rises above 80 are termed Long heads 
 br achy cephalic, or broad-heads; those in which it ^" ads r ° 
 falls below 75 are called dolichocephalic, or long- 
 heads; the intermediate measurement is de- 
 scribed as mesocephalic. Almost every popula- 
 tion contains more or less of long-heads and 
 broad-heads in intermixture; but one or the other 
 seems natively predominant, always, and with 
 marked appearances of some meaning in the fact. 
 
 Among the conclusions drawn from the present
 
 H 
 
 Introduction 
 
 The Doli- 
 chocephalic 
 peoples 
 
 The 
 
 Brachio- 
 cephalic 
 peoples 
 
 Black and j 
 white long 
 heads 
 
 European 
 blondes and 
 brunettes 
 
 Coloring 
 causes 
 
 showing of anthropological statistics, the most 
 important, perhaps, are these: — 
 
 That the long form of head prevailed among the 
 primitive inhabitants of Europe; that it prevailed 
 among the Semitic and Hamitic peoples of an- 
 tiquity and among the ancient Greeks and 
 Romans; and that it is prevalent now (among the 
 natives) in Africa, Australia, the Melanesian 
 islands, southern Asia, southern Italy, Spain, 
 northern Germany, Scandinavia and the British 
 islands. 
 
 That the broad or rounded form of head is 
 prevalent in central and eastern Europe and 
 throughout most of Asia, north of the Himalayan 
 and connected mountain ranges. 
 
 That no special association of head-forms with 
 skin colors is discoverable, unless in the fact that 
 broad heads and yellow skins go together in the 
 Asiatic world; but the blackest of Africans and 
 the blondest of Europeans are equally of the long- 
 headed type. 
 
 That blondness and brunetness in Europe 
 (skin, eyes, and hair all considered) are graduated 
 by latitude, — the former most marked in the 
 north, the latter in the south; but the brunette 
 type prevails in central Europe, where the people 
 with broad heads are most numerous. 
 
 That all differences of color, in skin, eyes and 
 hair, had their probable origin in external influ- 
 ences, acting upon numberless generations, 
 through vast periods of time, and that climatic 
 temperature, as affected by latitude, altitude and
 
 Skin-Color 15 
 
 humidity, has been the chiefly potent cause. 
 
 From such data as these, various hypotheses 
 concerning the prehistoric origin or composition 
 of the historic peoples of Europe have been 
 framed. On one hypothesis, the blondes and Blonde and 
 brunettes of the present European population are t he" r e y tte 
 supposed to represent two stocks or two branches 
 of a stock that existed once in entire separation, 
 but which have become greatly commingled, 
 especially in southern Germany, Switzerland, 
 Belgium, and northern and central France. It Huxley, 
 supposes the people of the brunette type to have gfljf 
 been the older inhabitants, and those of the 7:270 
 blonde type to have been later comers — invaders 
 probably from the southeast — who brought a 
 higher culture, and who brought the modes of 
 speech called Aryan by our modern philologists, 
 which became in time the speech of all, both 
 brunettes and blondes, but varied in different 
 regions, reached by different movements of the 
 invading race. In this view the European peoples, 
 within historic times, have been generally the 
 product of a mixture of two older stocks, with a 
 greater present purity of blood on the side of the 
 blonde stock in the north and on that of the bru- 
 nette stock in the south. 
 
 Another hypothesis, based substantially on the 
 "cephalic index," leads to the same belief in an 
 early fusion of two races, but reverses conclusions 
 as to which parts of Europe retained most of the 
 aboriginal stock and which were surrendered most 
 fully to the invasion. It assumes that western
 
 i6 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Long head 
 and broad 
 head 
 theory 
 
 Ripley, 
 Races of 
 Europe 
 p. 467 and 
 others 
 
 Sergi's 
 cranial 
 theory 
 
 Europe was occupied, extensively, if not wholly, 
 in the stone age, by a race of the dolichocephalic 
 or long-headed type, which came into it from 
 Africa; that the existing blonde long-headed 
 Teutonic race of northern Europe represents one 
 variety of that aboriginal stock, and the brunette 
 long-headed peoples on both shores of the Medi- 
 terranean, in Europe and Africa, represent an- 
 other variety; that another race, of the brachy- 
 cephalic or broad-headed type, and Asiatic in its 
 affinities, came later into the western European 
 field, mastered its middle regions, and were in 
 fact the people known as Celts; that others of the 
 same type, remaining in eastern Europe, are rep- 
 resented by the modern Slavs. This theory, 
 which Africanizes the Teutonic peoples and 
 breaks them from all relationship to Asian Slavs 
 and Celts, leaves the relationship of languages 
 unexplained. 
 
 A third hypothesis coincides with this second 
 one in part, but starts from different premises. 
 Its author and main supporter, Professor Sergi, is 
 convinced that cranial forms are infallible marks 
 of race; but the differences to which he looks are 
 not so simple as those between long and broad 
 heads. He has elaborated a classification of 
 forms — ovoid, ellipsoid, pentagonoid, etc. — 
 which are guides, he maintains, to an unquestion- 
 able determination of all affinities of race. The 
 main conclusions to which they guide him are 
 these: That the whole basin of the Mediterranean 
 was occupied in neolithic times, and more or less
 
 Various Hypotheses 17 
 
 in the paleolithic period, by peoples of one stock, 
 which had its origin in Africa, probably in the 
 region of the great African lakes; that the ancient 
 Egyptians and Libyans, of North Africa, and the 
 Iberians, Ligurians, Etruscans, and Pelasgians, of 
 primitive Spain, Italy and Greece, were all from 
 that common stock, and formed, together, a 
 "Mediterranean race;" that central and north- 
 ern Europe was peopled by a branch of the same; 
 that these primitive "Eurafricans," as they are Eurafricans 
 styled, were subjugated, but not supplanted, by 
 invasions of more barbarous peoples from Asia, — 
 from the family of the Aryas — with whom they 
 became mixed in varying proportions, and whose Sergi, The 
 language they adopted with varying modifications nifnTJe 
 and transformations, producing the Greek, Latin, 
 Celtic, Germanic and Slavonic nations and BHnton, 
 
 t . . . . Races and 
 
 tongues OI historic times. Peoples, 
 
 That these questions of race and racial origin lects 4 " 5 
 can ever be taken out of the region of speculation 
 and controversy, and brought to rest on accepted 
 grounds of scientific research and reasoning, 
 appears now to be a matter of grave doubt.
 
 HISTORIC EPOCHS 
 
 THE EPOCH OF EARLIEST CIVILIZA- 
 TIONS AND KNOWN EMPIRES 
 
 (TO THE PERSIAN INVASIONS OF GREECE)
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE FIRST EPOCH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST KNOWN RECORDS TO THE SUP- 
 POSED AGE OF ABRAHAM 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FROM THE SUPPOSED AGE OF ABRAHAM TO THE DEATH 
 
 OF DAVID 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF DAVID TO THE ADVENT OF CYRUS 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FROM THE ADVENT OF CYRUS TO THE 
 AGE OF XERXES
 
 , CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE 
 FIRST EPOCH 
 
 The unique distinction of being the first of all 
 men to be named to us, not by the voice of tradi- 
 tion, but by writing done in his own day, seems to 
 belong either to Mena, the first pharaoh of Menaand 
 Egypt, or to one En-shag-kush-ana, who reigned kush-ana 
 in the lower part of the valley of the Euphrates B - c - * 8o ° 
 and Tigris rivers at an extremely early day, 
 styling himself "Lord of Kengi." Clearer knowl- 
 edge and further discovery of primitive inscrip- 
 tions may take this peculiar distinction from both. 
 
 If recent computations of Egyptian chronology 
 are approximately correct, an interval of about 
 eight centuries lies between Mena and the pha- 
 raoh Khufu (the Cheops of the Greeks), who, by 
 the building of the "great pyramid" of Gizeh, b. C4000 
 may be said to have been the first of men to leave 370O(,) 
 an enduring mark of himself and his work, suf- 
 ficiently notable to give fame to his name. 
 
 In the other valley-field of primitive history, 
 where the Tigris and Euphrates flow together, the 
 first conspicuous figure to be lighted up by con- 
 temporary records is Shargina or Sargon, who 
 appears to have been the pioneer of empire- | ar ^ n 
 making in that part of the world. 38oo(?) 
 
 A character of much more interest than these 
 is brought to our acquaintance next, by the pres- 
 ervation of the oldest known book in the world, — 
 
 21
 
 22 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 
 
 a book of moral precepts, dating from about 3 500 
 Ptah-hetep j$ q j ts au thor, Ptah-hetep, or Ptah-hotep, is 
 35oo(?) identified by his name with a family of high rank, 
 whose tomb, at Saqqareh, is described and illus- 
 trated with elaboration in two volumes of the 
 publications of the Archceological Survey of Egypt. 
 One of the portraits in the tomb, well preserved, 
 is probably that of the moralist, who, so far as we 
 have knowledge at present, is the father of all 
 literature. His "good sayings," as he called 
 them, have been translated into French and into 
 English, and may be found in one of the volumes 
 of the Records of the Past, edited by Professor 
 Lamed: a Sayce. As I have said in another book, they give 
 
 Multitude of . 11 1 r i« r in 
 
 Counsellors, one who reads them the feeling ot being mtro- 
 p3 duced to the primitive archetype of all gentle- 
 
 men." They outline " a standard of right conduct 
 which was set before men some centuries before 
 Abraham, — thousands of years before Homer, — 
 before Athens had risen, — before the foundations 
 of a city were laid on the seven hills of Rome. 
 And the standard set is very high." "It will fit 
 no life that is not lifted to an elevation above 
 petty things, where the mind becomes tolerant, 
 the spirit magnanimous, the temper serene." 
 
 Not long after the time of Ptah-hetep the light 
 
 of history became dimmed, by some cause, in both 
 
 of the remarkable valleys where it was kindled 
 
 first, and no personage of marked eminence is 
 
 Ham- revealed to us for more than a thousand years. 
 
 murabi Then Hammurabi emerges, — founder of the 
 
 22oo(?) greatness of Babylon, — organizer of the civilizing
 
 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 23 
 
 Babylonian influence that irradiated all western 
 Asia thereafter, — legislator of the oldest known 
 code of laws, — first, perhaps, among those that 
 we know, who can with justice be called "epoch- 
 making men." 
 
 That Hammurabi, of Babylon, is identical with 
 the "king of Shinar" called Amraphel in the 
 Bible appears to be a well determined fact. Hence 
 he was contemporary with Abraham, and the 
 time of Abraham is thus ascertained more nearly 
 than it could be before the records of Hammurabi 
 were found. Our knowledge of the latter is his- 
 torical, in the strictest sense, because it comes 
 direct from Hammurabi's own time, in inscrip- Abraham 
 tions found lately in Babylonia and Elam; but B - c - 
 
 . 2200(?) 
 
 what we know of Abraham is at second hand, and 
 remotely so, through Hebrew traditions that 
 were not put into writing till a far later time. 
 There is no reason, however, for doubting the 
 substantial authenticity of the story of Abraham 
 and his migration to Canaan from the Babylonian 
 city of Ur. 
 
 From Hammurabi and Abraham to the next 
 figure of distinct prominence in history there is 
 another long interval, of six centuries or more. 
 Egypt then recovers her historical importance, 
 under a succession of vigorous pharaohs, the most 
 notable of whom, Tahutimes or Thothmes I. and 
 III., were the first to undertake careers of con- Thothmes 
 quest in countries eastward from the Nile. The L and IIL 
 empire won by Thothmes III. stretched far into 15th' 
 
 cen- 
 
 Asia, and was the largest that the Egyptians ever tunes(?)
 
 2i 
 
 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 
 
 Amenhotep 
 IV. B. C. 
 15th cen- , 
 tury (?) 
 
 Ramses II. 
 B. C. 14th- 
 13th centu- 
 ries (?) 
 
 Merenptah 
 
 ruled. Among the many monuments he left were 
 the two famous obelisks now standing in London 
 and New York, which he placed at Heliopolis, 
 originally, and dedicated to the god Turn. 
 
 Interest of another kind attaches to the great- 
 great-grandson of Thothmes III., who came to 
 the throne as Amenhotep IV., but changed his 
 name to Akh-en-Aten, or Khu-n-Aten, in conse- 
 quence of a change in his religious beliefs. Ap- 
 parently he was a reformer, of the most radical 
 and independent type, not only renouncing .the 
 Egyptian gods and devoting his worship to the 
 sun, but striving to bring his subjects to the 
 acceptance of certain moral conceptions, adverse 
 to war, opposed to conventionalities in life and 
 art, favorable to truth and nature, and indicative 
 generally of fine feeling and exalted thought. 
 That he had a troubled reign, and did not succeed 
 in reforming Egypt or ending war, hardly needs 
 to be said. 
 
 In the next Egyptian dynasty we come upon 
 the famous pharaoh who oppressed the Children 
 of Israel, Ramses II. (the Sesostris of the Greeks), 
 all the many monuments and memorials of whose 
 reign give evidence of a vainglorious, ambitious, 
 energetic, and hard-handed monarch, precisely as 
 represented in the Hebrew story. His mummy, 
 in a well-preserved state, was found in 1881. That 
 he was the pharaoh of "the oppression" is hardly 
 doubted; that his son Merenptah was the pha- 
 raoh of "the exodus" of Israel is probable, but 
 less sure.
 
 Ptah-hetep 
 
 From the Tomb at Saqqareh 
 
 Thothmes III 
 
 From the Statue in the Turin Museum 
 
 Amenhotep IV 
 
 From the Statue in the Louvre 
 
 Ramses II 
 
 From the Temple at Heracleopolis
 
 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 25 
 
 And now the stage of ancient history is lighted 
 more distinctly for us by the opening of the He- 
 brew annals, and widens to receive the actors who 
 are made most familiar to us by the best known Moses 
 of all books. Moses comes on the scene, a noble B " ?' I3 ,^* 
 and impressive figure; leader, lawgiver, and ruler, 
 without title or rank; oracle and prophet, with 
 no priestly office; of all legislators and founders of 
 nations the least in pretensions, the greatest in 
 influence on the future of mankind. 
 
 In character and historical importance Moses 
 ranks far above David, who reconstructed the 
 Jewish nation politically, fitting a throne to its 
 theocracy, and fashioning it more into the like- 
 ness of the common despotisms of the ancient 
 east; but the mixture in David of poet, warrior, 
 and adventurer, — of the man of sentiment with 
 the man of action, of the reckless sinner with the 
 remorseful penitent, of the life of romance with b. c. 10th 
 the career of cool ambition, — has been fascinating centur y 
 to the imagination of all ages, and has given him a 
 preeminence among the heroes of Jewish history 
 which sober examination of his conduct and 
 character can hardly concede. 
 
 King Solomon resembled David in nothing but Solomon 
 his practical capacity for government, which sur- B - c I0th 
 
 J 1 r 1 • r 1 ■ • century 
 
 passed that 01 his father in some important 
 respects. He pursued a more statesmanlike 
 policy of economic development and peace. He 
 inherited no excitability of emotion, no warmth of 
 temper, from the poet and man of war. Cool, 
 calculating, meditative, self-indulgent, and so
 
 26 
 
 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 
 
 r 
 
 Isaiah 
 B. C. 8th 
 century 
 
 devoted a lover of sententious literature that 
 most of the proverbs and maxims of the time 
 were attributed to him, he was, no doubt, an 
 eminently wise man, but not the wisest of all 
 times. 
 
 To find in Hebrew history a peer in greatness to 
 Moses, we must pass on, beyond David and 
 Solomon, to the prophet Isaiah, whose office and 
 service we describe much better if we call him the 
 inspired counselor of Judah, — the orator of ora- 
 tors, — the preacher of preachers, — statesman, 
 poet, and apostle in one, — who warned, rebuked, 
 and admonished his nation with an eloquence 
 never heard from another tongue. Modern study 
 of the book which bears Isaiah's name, in the 
 Bible, leads many scholars to the conclusion that 
 most, but not all, of the first thirty-nine chapters 
 are from the great prophet, but that the last 
 twenty-seven, together with some of the earlier 
 ones, were added from another source at a later 
 day. 
 
 At the time of Isaiah, Assyria, the northern off- 
 shoot of Babylonia, had risen to the leading part 
 in oriental history, and the personal records of 
 Assyria give only the words and doings of kings. 
 Royal warriors, who boast of wide conquests 
 which their successors seldom hold, and builders 
 ■ of grand temples and palaces, appear in plenty: 
 Tiglathpilesers I. and III., Assurnatsirpal, Shal- 
 manesers I. and II., Sargon the Later, Sennach- 
 erib, Esarhaddon, and others; but signs of 
 statesmanship among them appear to be few. 
 
 sers, Shal 
 manesers, 
 Sargon, etc. 
 B. C.i 2th- 
 7th centu- 
 ries
 
 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 27 
 
 The first Tiglathpileser shows capacity for more 
 than wanton devastation and slaughter, by a 
 record of systematic measures for improving the 
 products of his kingdom, in domestic animals and 
 plants. Possibly the third Tiglathpileser invented 
 the policy of transplanting communities of sub- 
 jugated peoples from one region to another, which 
 brought about the extinction of the ten tribes of 
 the kingdom of Israel by Sargon, and the exile of 
 "all Jerusalem" by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. 
 But if Assyria produced any greatness of charac- 
 ter in public or private life, or contributed any 
 noble utterance of thought or song to the world, 
 her surviving annals have made no disclosure of 
 the fact. 
 
 Not long after the downfall of Assyria western 
 Asia came under the government of a conqueror £ yrus the 
 who was, perhaps, more eminently a statesman B. c. 558- 
 than any who had preceded him in the sover- 529 
 eignty of that part of the earth. The Greeks, 
 who were critical judges of political capacity, held 
 Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian empire, 
 in profound esteem. "What other man but 
 Cyrus," exclaims Xenophon, who wrote an admir- cTo°w°'" : 
 ing account of him, "after having overturned an bk.8,ch.i-a 
 empire, ever died with the title of Father from the 
 people whom he had brought under his power?" 
 After describing "the economy" of the empire 
 which Cyrus organized, Xenophon remarks: "It 
 is evident, therefore, from all that has been said, 
 that he thought no one had any business with 
 government who was not himself better than
 
 28 
 
 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 
 
 Zarathush- 
 tra or 
 Zoroaster, 
 B. C. 6th 
 century(?) 
 
 Gotama, 
 the 
 
 Buddha, 
 B. C. 6th 
 
 century 
 
 those whom he governed." If this feeling ruled 
 Cyrus consistently he cannot have failed to be one 
 of the ideal sovereigns of history. 
 
 Among the Persians, at this time, if not earlier, 
 an inspiring literature was in process of develop- 
 ment from the spiritual teachings of Zarathush- 
 tra, or Zoroaster, who reformed the primitive 
 religion of the Aryas of Iran. Of the personality 
 of Zarathushtra nothing is known with the least 
 certainty. He may have lived, as some scholars 
 have concluded, in the tenth century before 
 Christ; but, whatever his date, it was in the sixth 
 century — the century of Cyrus — that his spiritual 
 influence became a potent historical force. 
 
 That century was one of extraordinary moral 
 and religious awakenings in the eastern world. 
 It was the century of the appearance of Gotama, 
 the Buddha, and of Confucius and Lao-tsze. 
 Among the spiritual teachers who have given bet- 
 ter beliefs and purer ideals to great masses of 
 mankind, the Buddha is preeminent. Princely 
 by birth, he gave up home, family, wealth, and 
 luxury of living, to seek means of escape from the 
 miseries of the world and to make them known. 
 Not many years ago, in northern India, an in- 
 scribed pillar, erected in the third century before 
 Christ, by the Buddhist emperor, Asoka, was 
 found marking the spot of his birth. By another 
 inscription the place of his burial was denoted, 
 and numerous relics of "the blessed one," found 
 there, in a massive stone coffer, were presented by 
 the British government of India to the king of
 
 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 29 
 
 Siam, with the stipulation that some part of them 
 should be shared with the Buddhists of Burmah 
 and Ceylon. 
 
 The great teachers of the Chinese were less Lao-tsze 
 spiritual than either Zarathushtra or the Buddha. C o nfucius 
 Lao-tsze was a mystic, whose mysticism under- B - c - 6th - 
 
 . /-!<■• 5 th centu- 
 
 went senseless perversions. Confucius was a 
 
 nes 
 
 purely practical moralist, of the utilitarian 
 school, with a stiff practicality and conservatism 
 which he planted ineradicably in the Chinese 
 mind. He lived no sedentary and meditative life, 
 but one of activity, traveling widely, holding vari- 
 ous public offices, and mixing much with people 
 and affairs. He died in 478 B. C. 
 
 Very different in the quality of their distinction 
 are the famous personages who meet us when we 
 turn to the isles and shores of the iEgean, where 
 the light of history is now revealing the Greeks. 
 Neither prophets nor conquerors are on the Greek 
 stage. Poets are the first to appear, led by the 
 blind Homer, whose personality can never be 
 questioned out of existence in our minds by in- 
 genious critics, who surmise that the "Iliad" and 
 the "Odyssey" came from many bards, in poems 
 that were pieced finally together and attached to 
 his single name. Whether as the sole singer of Homer 
 
 B. C. 12th- 
 
 these grandest of hero-songs, or as the chief sthcentu- 
 singer of a wonderful choir, Homer will keep the 
 place that the Greeks assigned to him, as the 
 "Father of Poets," — leader of the procession of 
 the poets of all time. 
 
 Following early in that line is Hesiod, rhymer
 
 3° 
 
 Hesiod 
 B. C. 8th 
 century(?) 
 
 Archilo- 
 chus, 
 Pindar, 
 Sappho, 
 Alcaeus, 
 Anacreon 
 B. C. 7th- 
 6th centu- 
 ries 
 
 Thales, 
 Pythagoras 
 B. C. 7th- 
 6th centu- 
 ries 
 
 Lycurgus 
 B. C. 9th 
 
 century(?) 
 
 Solon 
 B. C. 6th 
 
 century 
 
 Cleisthenes 
 B. C. 6th 
 century 
 
 Pisistratus 
 B. C. 6th 
 century 
 
 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 
 
 of economic maxims and precepts of doubtful 
 morality. Later, by a century and more, come 
 Archilochus, oldest of Greek lyric poets, and 
 apparent inventor of iambic and trochaic meters; 
 Pindar, the greatest of the lyric school; Sappho, 
 whom Plato called "the tenth muse," — first of 
 her sex to make a great name in literature; 
 Alcseus, the poetical aristocrat, and Anacreon, 
 who sang of love and wine. In the seventh and 
 sixth centuries before Christ these singers were 
 giving a purely artistic literature to the Greeks. 
 In another mode of art, ^Esop was inventing 
 fables, or some Greek compiler was collecting 
 fables under ^Esop's name, — if it be the fact, as 
 suspicious criticism conjectures, that the name 
 stands for a myth. In the same remote centuries 
 stand Thales and Pythagoras, with whom science 
 and philosophy may almost be said to begin. 
 
 In the public life of the Greeks the front of 
 history is not taken by red-handed warriors, as 
 the chief characters of their time and country, 
 but by organizers and reformers of government, 
 like Lycurgus, of Sparta, about whom almost 
 nothing but his work is known; like Solon, who 
 framed for the Athenians their first popular con- 
 stitution; like Cleisthenes, who led the revolution 
 at Athens which gave it a completely democratic 
 constitution, after the downfall of the tyranny of 
 Pisistratus and his sons. Even Pisistratus, tech- 
 nically a "tyrant," was so in no oriental sense, 
 but has claims to a place of eminence among the 
 political characters of the age.
 
 Moses 
 
 From the Statue by Michael Angelo 
 
 David 
 
 From Statue by Michael Angelo 
 
 Gotama 
 
 From a photograph of the ancient Statue 
 
 Sappho 
 
 From a Bust in the Villa Albani, Rome
 
 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 31 
 
 The Greeks of this epoch have their military 
 heroes: Miltiades, who commanded them at Mijtiades^ 
 Marathon against the Persian hosts of Darius; century 
 Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans, who Leon ; das 
 died at Thermopylae, in hopeless defense of the B - C. 5th 
 pass, against the greater host of Xerxes; Themis- 
 tocles, who, more than all others, saved Athens 
 from the Persians, and who needed only honesty 
 to make him one of the greatest of the Greeks; 
 Aristides, who, with less political sagacity than 
 Themistocles, opposed him in everything, yet 
 holds a better place in history because of the t ocies,B.C. 
 moral qualities that gave him the surname of sth century 
 "the Just;" but these are all crowned with the 
 laurels of a brave patriotism; they are the heroes, 
 not of conquest, but of national defense. 
 Throughout their history it seems to be the fact 
 that the Greeks were less dazzled by military 
 glory than most peoples, either ancient or 
 modern, and awarded, at least relatively, a much 
 higher distinction to more strictly intellectual 
 achievements, in statesmanship, in philosophy, 
 in literature, and in all the finer arts. If civiliza- 
 tion could be regarded as a product of intellectual 
 culture alone, the Athenians, in their great day, 
 might be called the most highly civilized of all 
 communities in the history of mankind. But 
 something of what, in our day, we call spirituality, 
 — susceptibility, that is, to the warmer emotions 
 of religion and the profounder sense of divine 
 things, seems to have been wanting in them, as a 
 whole; while that which we sometimes describe
 
 32 Chief Characters of the First Epoch 
 
 as the "moral fiber" of a race was not quite the 
 best.
 
 Lycurgus 
 
 From a Bust in the Museum, Naples 
 
 Sofon 
 
 From a Bust in the Museum, Naples 
 
 Miltlades 
 
 From a Bust in the Louvre 
 
 Themistocles 
 
 From a Bust in the Vatican
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST KNOWN RECORDS 
 TO THE SUPPOSED AGE OF ABRAHAM 
 
 (Approximately B. C. 4700 to 2200) 
 On the Nile: How Egypt was made by the river. — How its age is told by 
 the depth of the soil.— Prehistoric discoveries of Professor Petrie. — Begin- 
 ning of alphabets and written language. — First decipherment of the hiero- 
 glyphics. — -The Rosetta Stone. — Manetho's list of the pharaohs. — Its recent 
 verification. — The builders of the pyramids. — The finding of the tombs of 
 the first pharaohs in 1898-9. — Seven thousand years of Egyptian history 
 now disclosed. — Religious ideas of the Egyptians. — High moral precepts of 
 Ptah-hetep. — Invasion and conquest of Egypt by the Hyksos. — Supposed 
 time of the visit of Abraham. On the Euphrates and the Tigris: Deep burial 
 of the old civilization in the Mesopotamian valley. — Dissolution of its clay- 
 built cities. — Wonderful preservation of its written memorials on tablets 
 and cylinders of baked clay, in the heaps of their ruin. — Modern excavation. 
 — The cuneiform writing and its decipherment. — Astonishing discoveries 
 in recent years. — American work at Nippur. — Historical records from B. C. 
 4500. — The Babylonia of Abraham's time. — The Sumerian civilization. — 
 Conjectured connection of early Chinese civilization with the Sumerian. — 
 Rise of Babylon to supremacy. — Hammurabi, founder of the Babylonian 
 Empire. — His identification with the Amraphel of the Bible.- — Discovery of 
 his code of laws. — The Babylonian legend of the deluge. — Time of the migra- 
 tion of Abraham from Babylonia to Canaan. Elsewhere: Glimpses of a 
 rising civilization in and on the JEgesm Sea. — The Aryan peoples of India 
 and Iran. — Earliest Chinese records. / 
 
 According to present knowledge, the first of 
 men to pass out of prehistoric darkness into a 
 dawning light of history, by an invention of the 
 alphabets or signs whidri transform spoken into 
 written language, were dwellers in the lower parts 
 of two remarkable river valleys, — the valley of Two 
 the Euphrates and the Tigris and the valley of 
 the Nile. The parts of those valleys which they valleys 
 occupied lie in nearly the same latitude, separated 
 by the stem, as it may be called, of the Arabian 
 peninsula, and by the northern projections of the 
 Red Sea. In which of them the advance to a 
 literate civilization, capable of leaving some 
 
 33 
 
 remarkable
 
 34 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 record of itself, was accomplished first, and 
 whether it did or did not proceed in both from a 
 common source or cause, are questions not yet 
 solved. Inscriptions found lately on the Nile are 
 believed to antedate the oldest yet found on the 
 Euphrates; but there is no precise certainty in 
 either dating, and earlier inscriptions may yet be 
 brought to light. Meantime, Egypt has preced- 
 ence, as the country in which the oldest of known 
 civilizations grew up. 
 
 Egypt 
 
 From the depth of the soil in the narrow valley 
 of the Nile, deposited, as it has been, by the 
 yearly floods of the river, it is possible to calcu- 
 late, with some probable approach to correctness, 
 Age of tne length of time since the valley became fit for 
 
 fertility in ° \ 
 
 the Nile habitation by people who had risen above the 
 rudest state of life. Professor W. M. Flinders 
 Petrie, who has been for some years past the most 
 extensive and successful explorer of the buried 
 remains of ancient Egypt, reckons that time at 
 not more than eight or nine thousand years. 
 Writing in 1900, he said: "The rate of deposit is 
 well known — very closely one metre in a thousand 
 years — and borings show only eight metres thick 
 of Nile mud in the valley. Before that the 
 country had enough rain to keep up the volume 
 of the river, and it did not drop its mud. It must 
 have run as a rapid stream through a barren land 
 of sand and stones, which could not support any 
 population except paleolithic hunters. With the
 
 In the Valley of the Nile 35 
 
 further drying of the climate, the river lost so 
 
 much velocity that its mud was deposited, and 
 
 the fertile mud flats made cultivation and a Petrie, in 
 
 higher civilization possible. At this point a Science 
 
 people already using copper came into the jjf° r *(*( y ' 
 
 country." 
 
 Discoveries made by Professor Petrie and other 
 recent explorers have now thrown remarkable 
 light on the life and work of these people, back 
 almost to the beginning of the time thus com- 
 puted. At least from about six thousand years 
 before Christ it is believed that the relics found 
 in prehistoric cemeteries and towns, of pottery 
 more especially, can be traced in a continuous 
 sequence, which shows an improving art and im- 
 proving conditions of life. From the beginning 
 of the series this pottery bears marks that are 
 similar to signs found on prehistoric pottery in 
 other parts of northern Africa and in Spain and 
 Crete, and which may have borne meanings out 
 of which the idea of alphabets and written Ian- _, ,. 
 
 r Prehistoric 
 
 guage grew. Moreover, the pottery patterns and Egypt 
 decorations are said to be somewhat in use to this 
 day among the Algerian Kabyles. A reasonable 
 inference is, that when the Nile had first spread 
 a narrow carpet of fertile soil over the rocks and 
 sand of its older margin, the valley was entered 
 by a people who had acquired already, some- 
 where on the western side of the Libyan desert, a 
 degree of culture which raised them even above 
 the neolithic stage. It may be possible hereafter 
 to identify that cradle-land of Egyptian civiliza-
 
 36 
 
 Prehistoric 
 arts 
 
 Invention 
 of writing 
 
 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 tion, and find, perhaps, that it reared and trained 
 the people who carried neolithic arts into Europe, 
 throughout the south and west. 
 
 From abundant remains of the work produced 
 in this prehistoric Egypt, its unnamed inhabitants 
 appear to have built themselves houses of brick, 
 clothed themselves in garments of woven linen, 
 served themselves with vessels of pottery, 
 shaped exquisitely without the potter's wheel, 
 and with vases of stone that were cut to perfect 
 forms, from the hardest rock, without use of the 
 lathe. They worked as skillfully, too, with 
 ivory and copper and flint, and they practiced an 
 art of colored glazing, for which many ornamental 
 uses were found. Commerce with other Mediter- 
 ranean regions is believed to have been active 
 already, since many articles which seem to be 
 foreign in character are found. 
 
 But those who were the seed-planters of civiliz- 
 ation in Egypt do not seem to have been suffered 
 to hold the land for an uninterrupted career. 
 Other migrants came in, some probably from the 
 east, and a great mixture of races was brought 
 about, as is proved by the types of face 
 and figure that appear in paintings on 
 vases and on the walls of tombs, even before 
 the beginning of the known historic period was 
 reached. 
 
 It is not likely that modern prying into the 
 secrets of the old dwellers on the Nile will ever 
 discover the precise time at which they began to 
 put words into a written form; but it is known
 
 The Reading of the Hieroglyphs 57 
 
 now, very nearly with certainty, to antedate 
 4700 B. C. 
 
 Until the second decade of our nineteenth 
 Christian century, not a word of the old Egyptian 
 writing had been read in modern times. The 
 precious human history it held had been for 
 centuries a sealed book. In all its forms, — in an 
 early combination of picture-writing with alpha- 
 betical characters, called hieroglyphic by the 
 Greeks, and in later modifications called hieratic 
 and demotic, — the keys to its decipherment were 
 lost. But in the year 1799 a fragment of inscrip- 
 tion on stone was found at Rosetta, in the delta 
 of Egypt, which repeated part of a document in 
 three texts, hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek, the 
 latter translating the two former, and thus fur- 
 nishing a clue to their decipherment which 
 scholars were eager to seize. Two persevering 
 students, Young and Champollion, followed the 
 clue until, more than twenty years later, the 
 mystery of the ancient Egyptian language and 
 writing was cleared, and their hidden treasures of 
 history were unlocked. Nevertheless it was long _ . , 
 
 ■' ° Decipher- 
 
 before the contents of that wonderful treasury mem of 
 
 began to be much explored. Until the last half >syp 
 of the late century was well advanced, the in- 
 scriptions and other writings deciphered had 
 made no great addition to the knowledge of 
 Egypt gathered from Jewish and Greek sources; 
 but they tested and corrected the existing knowl- 
 edge, with important effects. Within our own 
 generation, the interest in Egyptian archseology
 
 38 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 has grown rapidly, the work of exploration has 
 been extended, its methods reduced to system, its 
 results enriched. The undertakings of a few 
 recent years have accomplished discoveries more 
 important than all that came from what had been 
 done before. 
 
 Among the bits of early Egyptian story that 
 were culled long ago from Greek writers, the most 
 important came from a work composed in the 
 third century before Christ by an Egyptian priest, 
 named Manetho. The country was then ruled by 
 Greek kings (the Ptolemies), and Manetho wrote 
 in Greek. The three books of Egyptian history 
 which he left are supposed to have set forth very 
 fully the annals of the country as preserved in 
 temple archives, with much of priestly and popu- 
 lar tradition besides. Unfortunately, his work 
 perished, but not until some fragments of it had 
 been quoted in later Greek writings which sur- 
 vived. Included in these fragments is a list of the 
 kings or pharaohs who reigned, or were believed 
 to have reigned, in Egypt, from the founding of 
 Manetho's tne pharaonic monarchy, dividing them into 
 list of kings dynasties or royal families, numbering thirty-one 
 in all, down to the conquest of Egypt by Alex- 
 ander the Great, and giving the length of each 
 reign. Since the deciphering of the hieroglyphs, 
 other lists of the same character have been found, 
 agreeing to a great extent with that of Manetho, 
 and there has been a troublesome question among 
 scholars as to how much they represented of 
 actual fact. One by one, as inscriptions and
 
 The Earliest Pharoahs 39 
 
 papyrus manuscripts were discovered and read, 
 the kings named by Manetho were found speak- 
 ing in them, or having their works and deeds 
 declared by contemporary scribes and officials, 
 until faith in the substantial truth of the Mane- 
 thonian record, back to a certain point, had 
 grown to be quite firm. That point appeared in 
 all the lists as the beginning of a Fourth Dynasty, 
 which included three pharaohs who were known pyramid 
 as builders of the great pyramids of Gizeh, builders 
 namely: Khufu (called Cheops by the Greeks), 
 Khafra (or Chefren), and Menkaura, of whose 
 actuality there could not be a doubt. But no 
 evidence whatever of three previous dynasties, 
 reigning for some 800 years before Khufu, as 
 claimed in the lists, came to light during many 
 years of exploration, and the conclusion that they 
 were mythical had become almost fixed. The 
 Fourth Dynasty is reckoned to have had its 
 beginning about 4000 years before Christ, and 
 that has been, until lately, the remotest time to 
 which Egyptian history, recorded on its monu- 
 ments, could be carried back. 
 
 But a great revelation occurred in 1898-9. 
 Tombs opened at Abydos were found to be those Tombs of 
 of kings of the first pharaonic dynasty, founded, Dynasty, 
 according to Manetho, by Mena, or Menes, at a 
 date which recent computations carry back to 
 about 4770 years before Christ. These tombs 
 have furnished inscriptions many centuries older 
 than the oldest found before. More than that: 
 the discoveries at Abydos include tombs and
 
 40 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 inscribed names of kings who are thought to have 
 reigned (probably in lesser kingdoms) before 
 Mena had consolidated the pharaonic monarchy, 
 — kings alluded to by Manetho, but not named 
 in his list. Hence Egyptian history appears now 
 to cover nearly 7000 years, with a prehistoric 
 period well lighted behind that. 
 
 It is conjectured, for several reasons, that the 
 monarchy of the pharaohs was established by an 
 intruding people, who came into the country at 
 Themon- some previous time and gradually mastered the 
 archyofthe several small kingdoms or city-states into which 
 it was then divided, until finally Mena made 
 himself lord of the whole. There are differing 
 opinions as to whence these people came, but 
 most writers on the subject incline to seek their 
 origin somewhere around the southern extremity 
 of the Red Sea, on either the Asian or the African 
 side. That they brought the hieroglyphic system 
 of writing to the Nile, and a culture more ad- 
 vanced on the whole than the prehistoric Egyp- 
 tians had attained, and that they dominated the 
 latter as a ruling "high caste" in subsequent 
 history, are conclusions at which many Egyptolo- 
 gists have arrived. Nevertheless, the absence of 
 any trace, yet found elsewhere, of the peculiar 
 art, the peculiar building-ambition, and the 
 peculiar religious ideas of the early Egyptians, 
 leaves much room for doubting that the civiliza- 
 tion which grew up on the Nile received its stamp 
 of character from any other people or place. The 
 monarchy of the pharaohs was organized and
 
 Attainments of the Early Egyptians 41 
 
 remained for ages in a form which bore some 
 resemblance to the European feudal system of a 
 later time. The king was overlord of numerous Egyptian 
 
 it • 1 1 j • 1 1 feudalism 
 
 hereditary princes, who ruled with a large meas- 
 ure of independence in their several districts or 
 "nomes." 
 
 Mena, whose throne was planted first at This 
 or Thinis, in Upper Egypt, is said to have founded 
 Memphis, in Lower Egypt, and made it the Memphis 
 capital of the monarchy, which it continued to be 
 for centuries, until superseded by Thebes. 
 Between Mena and the Fourth Dynasty — the 
 dynasty of the great pyramid builders — there 
 passed a period of about 800 years, the events of 
 which are little known. It is shown by its re- 
 mains to have been a time of supreme develop- 
 ment in some of the finest qualities of the finer 
 arts, followed by a marked falling away in work- Early art 
 manship and taste. But if Egyptian art lost 
 fineness of spirit in that period, it grew wonder- 
 fully in bold strength; for then, as said before, 
 came the beginning of the stupendous labors that 
 are represented by the pyramids, and by other 
 vast undertakings of temple-building and colossal 
 sculpture, which are the marvel of the world. 
 
 From the next dynasty, the Fifth, which seems 
 to have been of priestly origin and character, a 
 very different memorial, of higher interest and 
 distinction than all the pyramids, has been pre- 
 served for us, in a piece of pure literature that is 
 older by many centuries than any other known to 
 exist in the world. It is a book of precepts,
 
 42 
 
 Precepts of] 
 Ptah-hetep 
 
 Sayce, e d., 
 Records of 
 the Past, 
 New Series, 
 v. 3 
 
 Religious 
 ideas 
 
 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 touching morals and manners, the manuscript of 
 which (called the "Papyrus Prisse") was found 
 at Thebes about fifty years ago. The author 
 describes himself as "the prefect, the feudal lord, 
 Ptah-hotep (or Ptah-hetep), under the majesty of 
 the king of the South and the North, Assa." 
 Assa was the eighth of the nine kings of this Fifth 
 Dynasty, and his reign is now placed at not less 
 than 3500 years before Christ; but there are few 
 of the essential principles of right and wrong 
 behavior between man and man that were not 
 set forth by this old Egyptian moralist, who 
 wrote in that early day. 
 
 There is much to show that those old Egyptian 
 pioneers of the higher human training possessed a 
 capacity for exalted conceptions of things, far 
 beyond the attainment of any other people in 
 much later times. Their religious ideas are a 
 strange mixture of what seems to be puerile 
 fetishism with a spirituality that is sublime. In 
 one view they signify monotheism and a sym- 
 bolized worship; in another they represent poly- 
 theism and idolatry of the grossest kind. The 
 gods worshiped by the pharaonic Egyptians, says 
 Professor Sayce, "were beneficent deities, forms 
 of the sun-god from whom their kings derived 
 their descent. It was a religion which passed 
 easily into a sort of pantheistic monotheism in 
 the more cultivated minds, and it was associated 
 with a morality almost Christian in its character. 
 A belief in a future world and a resurrection of 
 the flesh formed an integral part of it; hence
 
 Early Egyptian Religion 43 
 
 came the practice of embalming the body that it 
 might be preserved to the day of resurrection; 
 hence, too, the doctrine of the dead man's justi- 
 fication, not only through his own good works, 
 but through the intercession of the sun-god 
 Horus as well. . . . Along with this higher 
 and spiritual religion went — at least in historical 
 times — a worship of sacred animals. The anomaly 
 can be only explained by that mixture of races 
 of which archaeology has assured us. Beast wor- 
 ship must have been the religion of the prehistoric s 
 inhabitants of Egypt. . . . The sacred ani- Early Israel 
 mals of the older cult were associated with the surround- 
 deities of the new-comers; in the eyes of the ™& Natlons > 
 upper classes they were but symbols; the lower 
 classes continued to see in them what their 
 fathers had seen, the gods themselves." 
 
 The Sixth Dynasty brought what Egyptolo- 
 gists have called the Old Empire to an end. It 
 had a troubled close, and was followed by some 
 six hundred years of evident distraction and 
 decline. The monuments left are few, the records 
 scanty, but many marks of violence and disorder 
 are found. The aristocracy had grown in power, 
 at the expense of the authority of the kings, and 
 their feuds and rivalries appear to have been like Centuries 
 those of the great English families in the York 
 and Lancastrian wars. Five dynasties ran their 
 course in this troubled time, and foreign intruders 
 from some quarter took part in the strife. Mem- 
 phis ceased to be the capital, and Thebes, after a 
 time, came to be the seat of a prince who restored
 
 44 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 a strong government to the long afflicted land. 
 Order and Under the Twelfth Dynasty, which rose at 
 restored Thebes (about 2778 B. C, according to Petrie), 
 the ancient glory of Egypt among the nations was 
 renewed. Enormous works of building and 
 engineering were accomplished once more. The 
 Petrie marshy district of Fayum was drained, and 
 
 History of storage of the Nile floods in the part of its great 
 iSviii-ix depression called Lake Moeris was regulated by 
 embankments, canals and locks. This revival of 
 order and energy in the country endured for a 
 few centuries, and then, at some uncertain time 
 in the midst of the Thirteenth Dynasty, civil 
 wars broke out afresh, a rival dynasty tore part 
 of the kingdom from that of Thebes, and the 
 weakened nation was overwhelmed by a horde of 
 barbarous invaders from the east. As related by 
 Manetho, in a brief quotation which the Jewish 
 historian, Josephus, has preserved for us, "a 
 people of inglorious origin from the regions of the 
 east suddenly attacked the land, of which they 
 took possession easily, without a struggle. They 
 Sw the overthrew those who ruled in it, burnt down the 
 Hyksos.^ cities and laid waste the sanctuaries of the gods. 
 They ill-treated all the inhabitants, for they put 
 some to the sword, and carried others into cap- 
 tivity with their wives and children. Then they 
 made one of themselves king." Manetho add? 
 that these people bore the name of Hyksos, mean- 
 ing "shepherd kings," and that in his time they 
 were supposed to have been Arabs. Modern 
 scholars in general agree with the opinion of 
 
 Petrie, ch.x
 
 Intrusion of the Shepherd Kings 45 
 
 Manetho, that the Hyksos conquerors of ancient 
 Egypt were probably from Arabia, for the most 
 part, and that they were Semites, without doubt. 
 They dominated Egypt for several centuries, and 
 there is evidence that they became Egyptianized 
 in manners, customs, language, and general 
 culture, but not in religion, for they held to the 
 worship of the Semitic Bel or Baal, in one of his 
 many forms. It was that religious difference 
 which brought about their expulsion at last. 
 
 It seems to be almost a matter of certainty that 
 the relations with Egypt into which the Children 
 of Israel were brought came about while the 
 Hyksos were ruling the land. At some early part 
 of that period, the visit of Abraham is supposed 
 to have been made, and the story of Joseph's 
 career in Egypt can only be connected with the Abraha m 
 reign of one of the later Hyksos kings. We are 
 thus at a point at which the thread of history 
 from the Nile becomes twisted into another from 
 the Euphrates, and we may properly drop this 
 for a time to trace that. 
 
 Babylonia 
 
 The old civilization which ran its long course in 
 the valley of the Euphrates suffered there a 
 deeper burial than happened to the early civiliza- 
 tion of the Nile. The latter left half of its sepul- 
 chres and monuments above ground, for a sign 
 and a promise to the explorer, and challenged the 
 reading of its records by graving them mostly on 
 the open faces of great rocks. The former sank
 
 4 6 
 
 Clay 
 buildi 
 and books 
 
 lings 
 
 Buried 
 libraries 
 
 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 from sight into deep graves, under shapeless 
 heaps of earth, which hinted nothing of the 
 secrets they held. To the ancients of the Baby- 
 lonian river, Nature had given clay instead of 
 stone for their most enduring uses. Their 
 temples, their palaces, and all their greater struc- 
 tures, were of brick, either sun-dried or baked; 
 and so, likewise, were their documents and their 
 books. They devised an alphabet of strange 
 characters, formed of wedge-shaped lines, easily 
 marked by a simple instrument on soft clay, and 
 their writing in those cuneiform characters was 
 done almost wholly on clay tablets and cylinders, 
 which became well-nigh imperishable when 
 baked. Time dissolved the foundations and the 
 walls of their vast earthen edifices into formless 
 mounds, and countless stores of those precious 
 plates of baked clay, which held literature and 
 history in their keeping, were engulfed and hidden 
 in the sunken mass. No suspicion of their exist- 
 ence was wakened until near the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century, and nothing was read from 
 them until that century was half spent. 
 
 In this case, the mystery of language and 
 writing was harder to master than that of the 
 Egyptian hieroglyphs, since no Greek translation 
 gave a clue. The clue, indeed, was found in 
 certain inscriptions which repeated, like the 
 Rosetta stone, the same text in three languages, 
 but those languages were all equally unknown. 
 
 These 
 
 trilingual 
 
 inscriptions, moreover, were 
 
 found far away from the Euphrates, at Persepolis
 
 In the Valley of the Euphrates 47 
 
 and Behistun, in Persia, and they were studied 
 long before any thought of connecting them with 
 the speech of the Babylonian peoples occurred. 
 The three languages contained were all inscribed 
 in cuneiform characters, and proved in the end to 
 be the language of the ancient Persians (the Dec 'P her - 
 
 00 v ment of the 
 
 Zend), the language of Elam (called the Susian), cuneiform 
 and the language of Babylonia and Assyria, now 
 generally called Assyrian, though it came from 
 the older people of the valley. The common 
 alphabet of the three languages was mastered and 
 the Persian text fully translated, in 1846, by Sir 
 Henry Rawlinson, after long labor, greatly 
 helped by the studies of other scholars, especially 
 of Grotefend, Lassen, and Burnouf. Another 
 quarter century or more was spent upon the 
 Susian and Assyrian tongues, before their gram- 
 mar and vocabulary could be said to be fairly 
 understood. 
 
 Meantime, the work of excavation in the great 
 ruin-heaps of the Mesopotamian valley, first 
 begun effectively by Botta and Layard, in 1842 Work of 
 
 do _ i r excavation 
 
 1845, was harvesting an enormous store or 
 
 inscriptions which waited to be read; and every 
 new reading gave fresh excitement and stimula- 
 tion to the search. Here, it was found, were 
 amazing explanations, confirmations, or correc- 
 tions of Bible history, from older sources, which 
 touched the very springs of Hebrew tradition and 
 reported from the very theaters of event. After 
 Layard, the exploring spade was taken up by 
 Rassam and by George Smith, with English sup-
 
 48 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 port, by De Sarzec, as a consul of France, by 
 German archaeologists, and finally, with greater 
 system and thoroughness, by the expeditions of 
 the University of Pennsylvania, under Dr. 
 Peters, Professor Hilprecht and Mr. Hayne. The 
 resulting gains to historical knowledge are almost 
 beyond belief. 
 
 No longer ago than 1870, in the second edition 
 of his Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World, 
 — which was then the accepted summary of 
 oriental learning in that field, — Professor George 
 Rawlinson, writing of Babylonian history under 
 what is now known to be the erroneous name of 
 "Chaldaean," said: "Chaldaean history may be 
 regarded as opening upon us at a time anterior, 
 at any rate by a century or two, to B. C. 2286. 
 It was then that Nimrod, the son or descendant of 
 Cush, set up a kingdom in Lower Mesopotamia 
 which attracted the attention of the surrounding 
 nations. The people whom he led came probably 
 by sea; at any rate their earliest settlement was 
 on the coast." Thirty-one years later (1901) a 
 learned historian of Babylonia, Professor Rogers, 
 found no reason for any mention of Nimrod as an 
 historical character, but traced a recorded his- 
 b. c. 4500 tory, on the authority of Professor Hilprecht, to 
 a point of time "before 4500 B. C." 
 
 Forty years ago, Professor Rawlinson, writing 
 of Babylon in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, 
 could barely name, as a shadowy first figure in its 
 story, the "Amraphel, king of Shinar," contem- 
 porary of Abraham, who is mentioned in the 14th
 
 Israel, 
 p. xii 
 
 Late Discoveries 49 
 
 chapter of Genesis, and add that "from this point 
 the history of Babylon is almost a blank for 
 above twelve centuries." In 1899, Professor 
 Sayce could write: "The Babylonia of the age of 
 Amraphel, the contemporary of Abraham, has, 
 thanks to the recent finds, become as well known 
 to us as the Athens of Perikles; the daily life of 
 the people can be traced in all its outlines, and we 
 even possess autograph letters written by Am- ga 
 raphel himself. The culture of Babylonia was Eariy_ 
 already immensely old. . . . The age of 
 Amraphel, indeed, is in certain respects an age 
 of decline. The heyday of Babylonian art lay 
 nearly two thousand years before it." Thus 
 marvelously has the horizon of history been 
 widened eastward, and its dark distances search- 
 lighted, within our own generation, — mostly 
 within the last twenty years. 
 
 The undefined lower part of the valley of the 
 Euphrates and the Tigris, which has come to be 
 called Babylonia, appears to have borne, at a 
 very early time, in some portion at least, the 
 name of Kengi, signifying the "land of canals and 
 reeds," and inscriptions lately found name one R ogers> 
 En-shag-kush-ana as "lord of Kengi," at a period By*"? °? 
 
 1 Babylonia 
 
 which is believed to be more than 4500 years and 
 before Christ. This lord of Kengi was likewise ^Sch.i 
 patesi, or chief priest, of the god En-lil, whose 
 temple was at Nippur, where the explorations of 
 the University of Pennsylvania are carried on. 
 His inscriptions prove that the cuneiform system 
 of writing was already in use; the name given to
 
 50 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 the country shows that its low flats and marshes 
 had already been drained by canals; and by 
 many tokens it appears that the people of Kengi 
 had reached a stage of civilization which needs 
 millenniums of advancing ancestral culture be- 
 hind to explain it. But nothing to mark or hint 
 of the preceding stages of that advance has yet 
 come to light. There is no present glimpse of a 
 prehistoric period of life in the land; no relics, as 
 No in Egypt, of a mute culture, which could report 
 
 prehistoric itself to future times by works of art, but not by 
 found" 55 written speech. It would seem, therefore, that 
 the first inhabitants must have come from some 
 other land, already equipped with their alphabet; 
 but where is the country in which marks of the 
 birth of a culture like that of these old Babyloni- 
 ans is likely to be found? 
 
 In the opinion of a majority of the scholars 
 who have studied the subject, the early inhabit- 
 ants who endowed Babylonia with its system of 
 writing, with much of its religion, much of its 
 legends and literature, and much in fact of all 
 that is most characteristic of its civilization, were 
 The early no t the people who dominated the country during 
 later the greater part of its historical life. A difference 
 
 peop es £ i an g Ua g e [ s found, which is thought to indicate 
 a difference of race. But this conclusion is dis- 
 puted by some, who hold that the supposed older 
 language is only a mystifying system of writing, 
 invented by the priests. The language in ques- 
 tion appears to belong to what is known as the 
 agglutinative class, the elements of its words
 
 The Sumerian Civilization 51 
 
 being loosely glued together, instead of being 
 fused, as words in the inflectional languages are; 
 and this leads to the conjecture that it was the 
 language of a people who came from the Mongo- 
 lian stock; whereas the later Babylonians belong 
 with certainty to the Semitic group of the white- 
 skinned race. 
 
 According to the theory which now prevails, 
 the Semites were later comers in the country, who Sumerian _ 
 
 .. ., .. 1 ....j . and Semitic 
 
 subjugated an earlier and more civilized people, Babylonia 
 appropriated their culture, and preserved a 
 knowledge of their language for the sake of the 
 literature it contained. This language is some- 
 times referred to in the old inscriptions as the 
 language of Accad (a name derived from the city 
 of Agade) and sometimes as the language of 
 Sumer (the land of Shinar mentioned in Genesis 
 x, 10); the distinction of name representing a 
 difference of dialect. As the dialect of Sumer is 
 decided to be the older form, both language and 
 people are now called Sumerian. 
 
 Between that most ancient Sumerian civiliza- 
 tion of Babylonia and the oldest remains of 
 primitive culture in China, many striking analo- Sumerian 
 gies have been found, in names, in arts, in * n< ! 
 astronomical and astrological ideas, in chrono- analogies 
 logical systems, and the like. These are marked 
 enough to furnish quite substantial ground for 
 conjecturing that the founders of the Chinese 
 nation were an offshoot of the people who origin- 
 ated the Babylonian civilization, driven out, per- 
 haps, by the Semitic invaders, or otherwise set in
 
 52 
 
 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 Sumerian 
 
 political 
 
 system 
 
 Sargon, 
 B. C. 3800 
 
 Rogers, 
 
 Babylonia 
 and Assyria 
 1:361-5 
 
 motion toward the east. It is difficult, but it is 
 not impossible, to believe in the occurrence of so 
 distant a migration as that from the Euphrates to 
 the Hoang-Ho; for much wide wandering went 
 on in the early world. 
 
 In the political state of the Sumerian people, 
 government seems to have taken form in cities at 
 first, as a growth of authority in the hands of the 
 chief priests. Each city worshiped its own god, 
 for whom it claimed supremacy over the gods of 
 its neighbors, and this religious rivalry was a 
 cause of perpetual strife. Some cities were able 
 to subjugate their neighbors and became the seats 
 of small dominions, between which the same 
 struggle for supremacy went on. En-shag-kush- 
 ana, who called himself "lord of Kengi," appears 
 to have united a considerable part of the southern 
 region in a single kingdom under his rule. For 
 several succeeding centuries there are notices of 
 war, recurring again and again, with varying 
 fortunes, between communities at the south and 
 at the north of the lower valley, and this is held 
 to have been part of the long strife of the Sumeri- 
 ans with the invading Semites, who made their 
 encroachments from the northwest. At length, 
 about 3800 B. C, a Semitic king of Agade, named 
 Shargina, or Sargon, mastered the whole of Baby- 
 lonia, overcame the Elamites, in the mountain 
 country which borders it on the southeast, carried 
 his arms even to Syria and Canaan, and estab- 
 lished for a time the first considerable empire that 
 rose in that region of the world. Numerous in-
 
 The Elamite Conquest 53 
 
 scriptions relating to this early Sargon have been 
 found at Nippur, and he is the first striking figure 
 in the annals of the Asiatic east. 
 
 During about fifteen centuries after Sargon and 
 his son, who maintained his father's empire, the 
 scanty records afford only faint and confused 
 glimpses of rising and falling monarchies, seated 
 in different cities, — at Shirpurla, at Ur, at Isin, at 
 Larsa, and probably at other capitals yet to be 
 named, — each claiming sovereignty of the "king- 
 dom of Sumer and Accad," as the realm was 
 called, by whomsoever held, and sometimes indi- 
 cating a sovereignty that reached again, like that 
 of Sargon, to the Mediterranean Sea. What les- 
 ser states existed in more or less independence is 
 little known. 
 
 About 2200 or 2300 B. C, the country, in its 
 southern part at least, was assailed overwhelm- 
 ingly by its more barbarous neighbors, the 
 Elamites, who evidently struck at the venerable 
 Sumerian civilization with an unsparing hand. 
 The American explorers at Nippur have found Elamite 
 
 r rr conquest, 
 
 grievous marks of the destruction wrought then B - c - 2 3oo 
 on the older works of art. There are reasons for 
 conjecturing that the Chedorlaomer (or Kudur 
 Laghghamer), king of Elam, who is mentioned in 
 Genesis, was the leader in this attack, or that he Genesis £r 
 reigned in Elam shortly after it occurred. 
 
 For some years Sumer and Accad were subject 
 to Elam; and then their deliverance came from 
 the city of Babylon, — the city whose name is now 
 given to the whole region and people, because it
 
 54 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 centered all their subsequent history in itself, and 
 became the most renowned of the capitals of the 
 ancient eastern world. Until the day when it led 
 revolt against Elam it must have been unimport- 
 Riseof ant and obscure, since hardly any previous men- 
 Babylon t ' on Q £ j ts name has been found. Hammurabi, or 
 
 Ammu-rabi, or Khammurabi, who leaps then, 
 iiavnmu- suddenly, to the front of affairs in the valley, is 
 (Amraphei) said to have been the sixth of its city kings. With 
 
 E.C.2200C?) 1J1.1 „.!_ «i ■ r c-l- ?> 
 
 not much doubt, he was the king of bhinar 
 called Amraphei in the chapter of Genesis men- 
 tioned above. It is certain that he was one of the 
 epoch-making men of history. 
 
 Hammurabi drove the Elamites back to their 
 mountains and united the whole land of Sumer 
 and Accad under a firmer and more settled gov- 
 ernment than it had known before. He not only 
 restored peace and prosperity to the country, 
 gave it a written code of laws, extended its limits, 
 improved its canals, established a storage of grain 
 for years of scant harvest, carried on great works 
 of temple-building, and began to impart to Baby- 
 lon the splendor which afterwards outshone that 
 of all other capitals, but he made his city, from 
 that time onward, the seat of learning, the center 
 of culture, the school of civilization, for surround- 
 ing peoples. Astronomy, long studied on the 
 wide plains of Shinar, and literature, long culti- 
 Goodspeed, vated, received new encouragement at his hands. 
 theBclyion- The volume of literature, religious for the most 
 ians and part, is found to have become large, already, and 
 
 Assyrians, . , . -i-n/i-ir " • ' 
 
 107-117 its quality rich. Much from it was passing into
 
 Hammurabi 
 
 From Memoire de la Delegation en Perse, Plate IV
 
 Hammurabi of Babylon 55 
 
 the legends and sacred literature of other peoples, 
 especially those of Semitic speech. The oldest of 
 known epics, the hero-story of Izdubar or Gil- 
 garnish, which contains, among its episodes, the The legend 
 legend of the deluge in a more archaic form than deluge 
 that of Genesis, was composed at this or an earlier 
 time. Of its twelve tablets, containing some 
 three thousand lines, about half have been re- 
 covered and read. 
 
 Hammurabi's code of laws, formulated from 
 past decisions of courts and from accepted notions 
 of right, was inscribed by his command on slabs 
 of stone (stelae) and set up in the principal cities; 
 with a statement that this was done to enable 
 every man to learn his rights. One copy of the 
 code, thus graven on stone, has been found in Hammu- 
 recent years, not in Babylonia, but in the ruins of ra 1S ° e 
 Susa, the old capital of Elam, to which it had 
 been carried, among the spoils of a new Elamite 
 conquest of Babylonia, some three hundred years 
 after Hammurabi passed away. As evidence of 
 the well-ordered ideas and institutions of justice 
 that prevailed in that corner of the world more 
 than four thousand years ago, this is one of the 
 most important monuments of antiquity that has 
 ever come to light. 
 
 Until Hammurabi gave supremacy to Babylon, 
 the god En-lil, whose chief temple was at Nippur, 
 had been ranked first among the deities, the Bel, J^T" 
 or Lord, of all. But the lordship of Babylon car- 
 ried with it the lordship of its patron deity, 
 Marduk, who now became the recognized Bel. 
 
 ., >»iiu """ .-/v^"*"^ y.*i~ *v,v,w .
 
 56 
 
 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 Excepting in such concessions of supremacy to 
 one god among many, there seems to be no trace 
 of a monotheistic idea in the Babylonian religion, 
 and its conceptions are distinctly lower than those 
 which the Egyptians attained. 
 
 Either during the reign of Hammurabi, or 
 Abraham's shortly before he established his rule, the migra- 
 toCftnwn tion of Abram or Abraham, from the Babylonian 
 city called "Ur of the Chaldees" in the Biblical 
 narrative, into the land of Canaan, is supposed to 
 have occurred. Some have conjectured that the 
 name of Abraham, in the Bible story, as narrated 
 from tradition, is a name around which vague 
 memories of a Semitic migration, or a series of 
 migrations, from Babylonia into Canaan, had 
 gathered various legends, and that it represents, 
 not the actual progenitor, but some famous leader 
 in the movements of the race. But the story as it 
 stands is not incredible, and there is no sufficient 
 reason for doubting that Abraham is an historical 
 character and the ancestor of the Children of 
 Israel. 
 
 Though he and his descendants, for a long 
 period, were dwellers in tents, living a nomadic 
 tribal life, like that of their near relatives, the 
 nomadic Arabs, he had come from a country of 
 considerable civilization, where writing and the 
 Babylonian keeping of records were common, and he had not 
 civilization j e f t t ^ t state of civilization behind him. In the 
 
 in Canaan 
 
 opinion of Professor Sayce, "Abraham took with 
 him to the west the traditions and philosophy of 
 Babylonia, and found there a people already well
 
 Canaan in the Time of Abraham 57 
 
 acquainted with the literature, the law and the 
 
 religion of his fatherland;" for "the power and 
 
 influence of Babylonia had been firmly established 
 
 for centuries throughout the length and breadth 
 
 of western Asia." It is not necessary, therefore, 
 
 to assume that the early annals of Israel were ^, ay ^ e ' 
 
 wholly traditional, since more or less of record /.f/w/,39-37 
 
 may easily have been preserved. Abraham's 
 
 visit to Egypt, because of famine in Canaan, was 
 
 an incident natural to the state of things in that 
 
 country under the Hyksos pharaohs, if they were 
 
 Semites, from either Arabia or Mesopotamia, as 
 
 supposed. 
 
 Early Arabia 
 
 If the "Shepherd Kings" and their followers in 
 Egypt came out of Arabia, it must have been 
 from those northern parts of the peninsula which 
 have been almost changeless in their nomadic, 
 semi-barbarous state of life through all historic 
 time. Southwestern Arabia was the seat of an 
 early civilization that rose to a high mark, but its 
 real antiquity and all that concerns its beginnings 
 and its development are unknown. Many things 
 have suggested a close connection of southern 
 Arabia and the opposite African coasts, in some 
 way, with the early culture of both Egypt and 
 Babylonia; but whether as giving or receiving is 
 doubtful, and the whole subject waits for such 
 light as future exploration may yield.
 
 58 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 Early Canaan and the Canaanites 
 
 Canaan, when Abraham came to it, may not 
 have been known by that name, and the Canaan- 
 ites with whom his descendants fought for it may 
 not have arrived in the land. Those called 
 Canaanites in Bible history were Semites, related 
 McCurdy, closely to Abraham and his seed, and, according 
 Prophecy, to their own traditions, supported by other evi- 
 a Monuments dence, they were migrants from the same region 
 bk. i.ch.Hi, on the Persian Gulf, probably near to Babylonia; 
 ch. i ' 3 ' but the time of their migration is uncertain. One 
 part of these people took possession of the valleys 
 and plains; another part settled on the seacoast 
 and became a nation of sailors and traders, — the 
 Sidonians of the Bible, — the Phoenicians of a 
 later age. The Canaanites of the Bible included 
 both. Another people who were probably in 
 Canaan before Abraham's day were the Amorites, 
 who held the mountains of that country and of 
 Syria, and who do not seem to have come from 
 the Semitic stock, but from that of the Libyans, 
 in northern Africa; this, however, is a point in 
 some dispute. Throughout all Syria and Canaan 
 the influence of Babylonia, and sometimes its 
 sovereignty, seems then and long after to have 
 been supreme. That of Egypt, their nearer 
 neighbor, was little shown. 
 
 Mesopotamia and Syria 
 
 The civilizing influence of Babylonia was 
 potent far northward and westward, in the Meso-
 
 In the Lands of the Greeks 59 
 
 potamian valley and on its borders, especially 
 among the Semitic peoples, who seem to have 
 been in possession of most of the region which the 
 two rivers drained. The powerful nation of the 
 Assyrians, who came into history at a later day, 
 were probably settling themselves, by this time, 
 on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and becoming Beginnings 
 trained in local warfare for their future career. ° fAss y na 
 They looked to Babylon for all teaching except in 
 commerce and war, for which pursuits they were 
 better endowed than their kinsmen of the south. 
 The country above Babylonia, between the 
 Tigris and Euphrates (which was the true Meso- 
 potamia of the ancients), and much of the Syrian 
 country west of that, was occupied by Semites of Aramseans 
 the branch called Aramaean, who bore in history 
 very little of an independent part. They were 
 overpowered, repeatedly, by non-Semitic invad- 
 ers from the highlands of Armenia and eastern 
 Asia Minor, at first, and then by the masterful 
 Assyrians, who bent conquerors and conquered 
 under one common yoke. Nothing is known of H ; ttites 
 the home or the state, at this period, of certain 
 non-Semitic peoples, Hittites and Mitannians, Mitanmans 
 who appeared in the great valley a few centuries 
 later, possibly coming from beyond the mountains 
 of the north and northwest, with a quite advanced 
 culture of their own. 
 
 In and on the ^gean 
 
 Some glimpses have been obtained Lately of an 
 early civilization which must, within this period
 
 60 To the Supposed Age of Abraham 
 
 (that is, we will say, prior to the ending of the 
 third millennium before Christ), have been rising 
 in and around the iEgean Sea. The people of that 
 region, in the islands, as well as on the borders of 
 Asia Minor and on the mainland of Greece, 
 appear to have made remarkable progress in 
 artistic development, before signs of any approach 
 to the literate stage of culture are found. Their 
 handiwork, especially in pottery, shows the 
 germinating, even then, of that fineness of taste 
 which gave distinction to the Greek art of later 
 times. Proof almost to certainty of a consider- 
 able exchange of such products with Egypt, even 
 at a date earlier than that suggested above, has 
 been found of late, both in Egypt and Crete. On 
 other parts, too, of the northern coast of the 
 Mediterranean there are relics of an earlier cul- 
 ture and an earlier activity of trade than had 
 been supposed. 
 
 The Table-land of Iran 
 
 Eastward and southeastward from the valley 
 of the Tigris and Euphrates lies the high moun- 
 tain-bounded region that is often described as the 
 "table land of Iran," represented in modern 
 geography by Persia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, 
 and part of Turkish Kurdistan. At some very 
 early time, as we have noted already, this region, 
 and the valley of the Indus that lies beyond it, 
 came into the possession of peoples whose lan- 
 guages belonged to the Aryan group. Whence
 
 In Iran and China 6i 
 
 and when they came to it, if not aboriginal in it, 
 and how they became separated so widely from 
 the groups whose history is the history of Europe, 
 are among the questions that ethnologists hold in 
 debate. Possibly those ancestors of the Persian 
 and the Hindu, whose speech had an origin akin 
 to our own, were dwelling in Iran and on the 
 Indus (which gave its name to India) before 
 Hammurabi raised Babylon to greatness, and 
 before Abraham went into Canaan; but nothing 
 yet discovered offers ground for any reckoning of 
 dates in their prehistoric life, until a far later time. 
 
 China 
 
 On the remoter plains and valleys of China, if 
 we trust the annals recorded in that country at a 
 later day, the national history had its opening at 
 about the Abrahamic age. A Book of History 
 credited to Confucius starts from the reign of a 
 king or emperor Yao, who is dated by some cal- 
 culations as early as 2357 B. C, and by others as 
 late as 2085. Other Chinese writings name 
 sovereigns before Yao, but the marks of myth 
 seem plain on what is told of them; and recent 
 European scholars have found some added rea- 
 sons in those myths for conjecturing that the 
 Chinese nation sprang from an emigrating body 
 of the people who planted the civilization called 
 Sumerian in the lower valley of the Euphrates. 
 If that conjecture is correct, the emigration had 
 occurred, without doubt, at a time within the 
 period of our present survey.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FROM THE SUPPOSED AGE OF ABRA- 
 HAM TO THE DEATH OF DAVID 
 
 (Approximately, B. C. 2200 to 960) 
 
 Egypt: The rule of the Hyksos. — Their expulsion. — Probability of the story 
 of Joseph. — Amenhotep, the sun-worshiper. — Discovery of his foreign cor- 
 respondence at Tel-el-Amarna. — Ramses II., the pharaoh who oppressed the 
 Israelites. Babylonia: Development of schools, libraries, arts, literature, 
 trade. — Rule of the Kassites. — The rise of Assyria. — Canaan and Aramea: 
 The exodus of Israel from Egypt. — Babylonian influence in Mosaic institu- 
 tions. — The Israelite conquest of Canaan. — The period of the Judges. — 
 Wars with the Philistines. — The founding of the Hebrew monarchy. — Saul. 
 — David. — David's conquests. — His decline in character. — Strife for the suc- 
 cession to David's crown. — Triumph of Solomon. The Phoenicians: Former 
 overestimate of the civilizing influence of the Phoenicians.; — They were not 
 the inventors of the alphabet. Cheek Regions: Early civilization in and on 
 the ^Egean. — Knowledge from the work of excavation. — Light on the 
 Homeric poems. — Tyrians and Mycense. — Astonishing discoveries in Crete. — 
 The labyrinth of King Minos. — Cretan writing. — Apparent origin of the 
 Phoenician alphabet. — The Cretan age. — The Mycenaean age. — Divisions of 
 the Hellenic peoples. — Movement of the Dorians. — Ionian preservation of 
 the early culture. Elsewhere: Probable state of other parts of Europe. — 
 The lake-dwellers. — Stonehenge. — Lydia. — Phrygia. — The Trojans. — The 
 Aryas. — The Vedic hymns. — The Avesta. 
 
 Egypt 
 
 Nothing yet found on the monuments or in the 
 tombs and ruins of Egypt throws much light on 
 the period during which the country was subject 
 to the Hyksos. It was a long period, in which 
 three successive conditions prevailed, each for a 
 long time. First, for what seems to have been 
 several generations, the country was harassed and 
 ravaged by the invaders, whose domination it 
 strove to resist. Then, for two or three centuries, 
 Under the it was submissive to Hyksos kings, under whom 
 some shadowy show of vice-royalty was kept up 
 by princes of the old dynastic lines. In this time 
 the civilization of the conquered overcame the 
 
 62 
 
 Hyksos
 
 Egypt Freed From the Hyksos 63 
 
 semi-barbarism of the conquerors, to so great an 
 extent that the relics of the age show no striking 
 marks of change. But the Hyksos pharaohs re- 
 mained faithful to their own gods, of whom they 
 held one Sutekh to be the chief, and this religious 
 difference, no doubt, kept the hostility of the 
 Egyptian people to them and their race from 
 dying out. In time they appear to have lost 
 energy and their power weakened, while the 
 Egyptians recovered courage, or acquired princes 
 who could rouse and lead them with more success. 
 A new outbreak of rebellion, provoked, it was 
 said, by an attempt to force the native court at 
 Thebes to honor Sutekh above its own god 
 Amon, was prolonged obstinately through five 
 generations, until the Hyksos gave way and left 
 the country, to the number (according to Mane- 
 tho, as repeated in the Jewish history of Josephus) 
 of 240,000, retreating through the desert toward 
 Syria. Their expulsion was accomplished, about Expulsion 
 1600 B. C, by a Theban prince, Aahmes, who Hyksos 
 became the founder of a new Egyptian dynasty, B - c - 1600(?) 
 the Eighteenth. 
 
 Both Abraham's visit to Egypt and Joseph's 
 career in that country are supposed to fall within 
 the period of the Hyksos domination. Nothing 
 yet found in Egyptian records relates to Joseph, 
 or distinctly to his people; but all the incidents of 
 the story, taken separately, are true to ascer- T f h Tose°Z 
 tained fact. There were slaves brought into 
 Egypt as Joseph was brought; there were for- 
 eigners who rose to Joseph's height of office under
 
 XXXV11-I 
 
 64 From Abraham to David 
 
 the pharaohs; there were seven-year famines, 
 provided against as Joseph is said to have made 
 provision; there was a district — a "land of 
 Goshen" — on the northeastern frontier of Egypt 
 in which Semitic nomads were sometimes settled 
 (and undoubtedly in the Hyksos period), as the 
 brethren of Joseph and their descendants were 
 said to be; and thus the substance of the narra- 
 Genesis tive in the last fourteen chapters of Genesis is 
 well sustained. 
 
 Under the Eighteenth Dynasty the Egyptian 
 monarchy entered on a new career, in which sur- 
 prising energies were shown. For the first time, 
 the arms of the pharaohs were carried far into 
 Asia, especially by Thothmes or Tahutimes I. 
 and Thothmes III. (16th and 15th centuries 
 B. C), the latter of whom left an empire which 
 extended beyond the Euphrates in the east, to 
 Asia Minor in the north, and to Ethiopia (ancient 
 Abyssinia) in the south. The recovered annals of 
 the reign of this most vigorous king are very full, 
 and its monuments are among the most numer- 
 ous and the most interesting that were left by the 
 ancient rulers of the Nile. By the Asiatic con- 
 quests of the Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt seems 
 to have been influenced profoundly in many ways. 
 The arts and the general culture of Babylonia 
 now reached the Egyptians, through Syria, as 
 they had not done before. Great numbers of 
 Semitic women were brought into the country, as 
 captives or as tribute, to become the wives and 
 concubines of men in the upper class, and to exert
 
 Semitic Influence 65 
 
 a Semitizine influence which seems to have be- Semitizmg 
 
 . influence 
 
 come marked. Professor Petrie observes in the 
 painting and sculpture on the monuments a 
 "striking change in the physiognomy and ideal 
 type of the upper classes in the latter part of the 
 Eighteenth Dynasty" which he attributes to this 
 cause. 
 
 Several peaceful reigns followed that of Thoth- 
 mes III., and grand works of temple-building 
 were carried on, most notably by his great grand- 
 son, Amenhotep III., at Luxor and Elephantine. 
 But, before the ending of the reign of this third 
 Amenhotep, the Asiatic empire of the dynasty 
 was breaking up, and all attempts to maintain it 
 were abandoned by his son, Amenhotep IV., or 
 Akh-en-Aten, — a prince of philosophical mind, 
 who nearly wrecked his authority, even at home, 
 by too radical undertakings of religious and 
 moral reform. He seems to have sought to intro- Amenhotep 
 duce a supreme deification of the sun, not accord- IV -° rAkh - 
 
 r t ' en-Atenr 
 
 ing to the older crude notions of sun-worship, but Petrie, 
 as the radiant source of life-giving and world- ^gypt, 
 sustaining energies, all of which are described in 2:2 °5-233 
 a remarkable hymn, composed during his reign, 
 with a fullness and accuracy that come close to 
 the scientific knowledge of light and heat at the 
 present day. The royal philosopher and re- 
 former was too much in advance of his time. It 
 was inevitable that the conservatism in the 
 Egyptian character should be roused against him 
 by the priesthood of the ancient cult, and prove 
 stronger than he. He was forced to quit Thebes,
 
 66 From Abraham to David 
 
 and he then built a new capital farther north, the 
 ruins of which, known as Tel el-Amarna, yielded, 
 a few years ago, the most remarkable discovery 
 of ancient historical archives yet made on 
 Egyptian soil. 
 
 On quitting Thebes, Akh-en-Aten had taken 
 with him to his new capital, amongst other 
 archives of the government, a mass of the foreign 
 correspondence of his own reign and that of his 
 father, Amenhotep III. In 1887, some peasants 
 who were digging in the Tel el-Amarna ruin for 
 bricks, or for antique objects to sell to tourists, 
 came upon a store of this correspondence, in- 
 scribed in cuneiform characters and in the Baby- 
 lonian manner, on tablets of clay. Unfortunately 
 The Tel el- the store thus brought to light became much 
 
 Amarna i i r • i • 1 
 
 tablets. scattered before its extraordinary value was 
 Winckier, found out; but more than three hundred tablets 
 
 lei el- ' 
 
 Amama have been brought to the knowledge of scholars 
 and most of them have been read. Many of the 
 letters contained are from Egyptian governors 
 and vassal princes in Canaan and Syria, reporting 
 the troubled condition of those countries during 
 the decline and overthrow of the pharaonic rule. 
 Others are from kings of Babylonia, Assyria, 
 Mitanni, and the invading Hittites, the three 
 last named being monarchies of recent appearance 
 in the eastern world. Intimate relations between 
 Egypt and Mitanni had been formed, the Mitan- 
 The _ nian royal family having given princesses in mar- 
 kingdom riage to both Amenhotep III. and his son. 
 Remarkable light on the whole state of things in
 
 Ramses If., the Oppressor of Israel 67 
 
 eastern Asia is supplied by these letters, and 
 especially in their revelation of the activity of 
 correspondence as well as trade, and of the extent 
 to which a knowledge of the Babylonian language 
 and script prevailed in that age. 
 
 Akh-en-Aten left no sons, and three husbands 
 of his daughters reigned after him in succession; 
 the last two of whom renounced his religious 
 ideas, abandoned his new capital, and submitted 
 themselves to the priests. Then the dynasty 
 came to an end, and the throne was taken by the 
 commander of the army, who failed, however, to 
 found a new line of kings. That was done by the 
 next pharaoh, Ramses I., whose reign was short. 
 His son, Seti I., and his grandson, Ramses II. (the Nineteenth 
 Sesostris of Greek legends), reopened wars of con- ynasty 
 quest in Asia, and reestablished, partly, for a 
 time, the empire won and lost by the previous 
 
 Ramses TT. 
 
 dynasty in Canaan and beyond. The second (Sesostris)', 
 Ramses is boastful in his inscriptions of great lith-isth 
 military exploits; but the dominion he regained centunes 
 took in but half of Syria, and fell far short of that Sayce, 
 acquired by Thothmes III. He fought the for- %**/£ 
 midable Hittites with some success, but was glad Hebrews, 
 to come to terms of peace and to make a Hittite 
 princess his queen. His long reign of sixty-seven 
 years is made more notable by the great number 
 of cities he founded, the temples he built or en- 
 larged, and the statues he set up, than by his 
 wars. In these works there is no doubt that he 
 used forced labor tyrannically, and that the 
 Israelites, still dwelling in the "land of Goshen,"
 
 68 From Abraham to David 
 
 were among the subjects thus oppressed. Since 
 the excavation in 1883 of some ruins on the east- 
 ern frontier of Egypt, which proved to be those 
 of a "store city" built by Ramses II. and called 
 Pi- turn (the Pithom of Exodus), there has been 
 The no question that he was the pharaoh of the op- 
 
 pharaoh pre ssion recorded in Jewish history. Whether the 
 
 of the * , . 
 
 oppression exodus of the Israelites from Egypt occurred in 
 
 Exodusfi the reign of his son Merenptah or Meneptah, or 
 at a little later time, when feeble princes held the 
 throne for brief terms and much disorder pre- 
 vailed, remains to be ascertained. In the fifth 
 year of Merenptah, Egypt was assailed by a most 
 formidable confederation of enemies, who 
 swarmed to the attack from all parts of the 
 southern, eastern and northeastern coasts of the 
 Mediterranean. They were heroically beaten 
 off; but the monarchy was sorely weakened; its 
 Asiatic provinces were lost again, never to be 
 recovered; and a majority of recent historians 
 look on this as most probably the time when the 
 
 of Lad U Children of Israel escaped from the yoke of 
 bondage they had worn so long. 
 
 In the last years of the Nineteenth Dynasty, 
 Egypt is shown to have been in an evil state. 
 Then the throne passed to a new family which 
 
 Dynasty claimed descent from Ramses, and both order 
 
 and vigor appear to have been restored briefly by 
 
 its first two kings, Setnekht and Ramses III. 
 
 B C i"oo T ne l atter ' wnose re ig n began about 1200 B. C, 
 
 (?) or not many years before that date, defended his 
 
 kingdom with success against another con-
 
 H 
 
 U 
 
 W 
 
 T3 

 
 Decay of Nation 69 
 
 federated attack like that which imperiled it in 
 Merenptah's time. The invaders, coming mostly 
 from Asia Minor and the Greek islands and 
 coasts, had broken and scattered the Hittites and 
 swept over Syria and Canaan. Ramses III. 
 routed them in a desperate battle, fought on 
 land and by sea, and drove them back into 
 northern Syria, restoring Egyptian authority for 
 a short time up to the line of the empire of Ram- 
 ses II. But he was the last of the pharaohs whose _ 
 
 r m m Decay of 
 
 rule extended beyond Egyptian soil. After him the nation 
 the final decay of the great and venerable nation 
 set in, and not much that is notable appears in its 
 history during the next five hundred years. 
 
 Babylonia 
 
 While Egypt had been going through the ex- 
 periences sketched briefly in this chapter, a great 
 shifting of scenes, as well as a changing of actors, 
 had taken place on the other grand stage of early 
 history, in the Babylonian valley. Babylon was 
 still what Hammurabi had made her, the queen 
 of the world's capitals, in splendor, in culture, in 
 wealth, in the subtle influence of the civilization 
 which she centered in herself; but political move- 
 ments and interests in and around the great 
 valley had been ranging themselves on lines that 
 ran from other seats of power as well as from her 
 own. 
 
 The long and notable reign of Hammurabi was 
 followed apparently by a noble period of prosper- 
 ous peace, lasting through many generations; a
 
 7<d From Abraham to David 
 
 Prosperity period in which arts and letters were cultivated 
 culture carefully, schools flourished, libraries were col- 
 lected, commerce was active, and the dominion of 
 Babylon, established more by intellect and learn- 
 ing than by arms, was exercised tranquilly from 
 the Tigris to the Mediterranean Sea. This 
 general fact seems assured; but of detailed events 
 in the time described almost nothing has been 
 learned. The peaceful period ended at some time 
 in the eighteenth century B. C, when Babylonia 
 was again overcome by a body of invaders from 
 Elam, called Kassites in the inscriptions, and for 
 conquest nearly six centuries its throne was held by a 
 domination dynasty of Kassite kings. But Babylonia sub- 
 B ; c. d ue d its conquerors, as Egypt subdued the 
 
 Hyksos, by its irresistible civilizing force. They 
 fitted themselves to its grooves, imitated its ways 
 and manners, assimilated its culture, and came 
 in time to be Babylonians themselves. 
 
 The great old nation could not fail, however, 
 to lose something in the process of civilizing its 
 conquerors, and it certainly did so in political 
 power and prestige. We have seen how, begin- 
 ning in the sixteenth century B. C, the Egyptian 
 monarchs of the Eighteenth Dynasty pursued 
 careers of conquest in Canaan, Syria, and Meso- 
 potamia, where the lordship of Babylonia had 
 been recognized, either fully or partly, with some 
 interruptions, for more than two thousand years. 
 In older times this, probably, could not have 
 occurred without collision between the empire on 
 the Euphrates and that on the Nile; but the first 
 
 I8th-I2th 
 centuries
 
 Babylonia Under the Kassites 71 
 
 effectual resistance encountered by the Egyptians 
 in their Asiatic campaigns was when Ramses II. 
 reached northern Syria, where a power new in 
 history had obtained its principal seat. It was 
 that of the people called the Kheta by the Egyp- 
 tians, — the Hittites of the Bible, — concerning 
 whom there has been much controversy among Hittites 
 oriental scholars in late years. Monuments 
 judged to be the work of the same people, bearing 
 inscriptions in hieroglyphs not yet deciphered and 
 in a language not yet classed, are traced through 
 Cappadocia and Asia Minor, indicating either an 
 empire that was widespread or the transfer of a 
 quite civilized people from the western and 
 northern to the eastern and southern sides of the 
 Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountain ranges. Some 
 oriental scholars are unconvinced that the similar 
 monuments in Asia Minor and Syria are the work TheHittite 
 of one and the same race. Others who conclude questlon 
 differently are divided in opinion as to whether 
 the Hittites were of Semitic, Aryan or Mongolian 
 stock. Professor Sergi and his followers do not 
 hesitate to recognize them as a branch of the 
 "Mediterranean race" which developed, in their 
 belief, all the early states of organized society and 
 historical progress on the shores of the great mid- 
 land sea. The Hittite question is far from being 
 solved, and nothing has become clear but the fact 
 that the people thus named bore a part of con- 
 siderable importance in events that touch the 
 early history of eastern Mediterranean lands. 
 Their power appears to have been broken last-
 
 72 
 
 (See pages 
 67-69) 
 
 Mitanni 
 
 From Abraham to David 
 
 ingly by the invasive movements from Asia 
 Minor and the Greek lands which swept through 
 Syria and Canaan to Egypt in the reigns of 
 Merenptah and Ramses III. 
 
 At some time within the period we are survey- 
 ing, the small kingdom called Mitanni, of which 
 little is known, but which must have been a seat 
 of considerable culture, had arisen in the north- 
 western part of the Mesopotamian valley, 
 between the Euphrates and the Tigris. The let- 
 ters from its kings, found at Tel el-Amarna, as 
 mentioned already, addressed to the pharaohs of 
 Egypt, Amenhotep III. and IV., who had married 
 Mitannian princesses, are the principal records 
 it has left, so far as known. 
 
 B. C. 17th 
 century(?) 
 
 The Rise of Assyria 
 
 But the most important change in the great 
 valley of the two rivers proceeded from the rise of 
 a new Semitic power, which had its first seat in 
 the city of Asshur and took the name of Assyria 
 therefrom. It is supposed to have grown up from 
 a Babylonian colony, planted at an early time in 
 the north, on the Tigris, and long subject or 
 tributary to the Babylonian kings. Its first 
 rulers were priest-princes, who seem to have 
 assumed the royal title, with probable inde- 
 pendence, at some time in the seventeenth century 
 B. C. This was after the Kassites had mas- 
 tered Babylon, and its ancient power was 
 undoubtedly slipping from their hands. Of the 
 little that is known of succeeding events there is
 
 centuries(?) 
 
 Babylon and Assyria 73 
 
 nothing to note until about at the end of the 
 fifteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century 
 B. C, when the Assyrians invaded and subju- 
 gated Babylonia, placing a grandson of their own Assyrian 
 king on its throne. The relations between the f Baby- 
 two kingdoms for some generations afterwards l ° m £ 
 are obscure. Evidently the supremacy of Assyria isth-nth 
 had not been established fully, for Babylon was 
 captured again in the early years of the thirteenth 
 century B. C, and the Assyrian monarch then 
 took to himself the ancient title of king of Sumer 
 and Accad. His dominion had by this time 
 become much extended, down the eastern borders 
 of the Tigris, and westwardly, between the two 
 rivers, where the Aramaeans were brought into 
 subjection, and the rich trade they carried on, to 
 and from the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, 
 came under Assyrian control. This expansion 
 had been the work of several vigorous kings, the 
 best known of whom is Shalmaneser I., who 
 founded a new capital at Calah, so near to the 
 more ancient city of Nineveh that the latter Nineveh 
 absorbed it as a suburb in later times and took 
 the seat of government to itself. 
 
 Babylon and Assyria 
 
 After Shalmaneser and his son, who proved to 
 be as energetic as himself, there was a period of 
 Assyrian decline. Babylon regained independ- 
 ence, and was again the stronger power, attacking 
 Assyria and recovering more or less of the terri- 
 tory taken by the latter in recent years. But 
 
 Shalman- 
 eser I
 
 74 
 
 Nebuchad- 
 nezzar I. 
 B. C. 12th 
 century 
 
 Tiglathpi- 
 leser I. 
 B. C. 1120- 
 uoo(?) 
 
 From Abraham to David 
 
 these aggressions of the parent nation were 
 checked ere long, by a reawakening of energy in 
 the younger state. Then Babylon, in its turn, 
 received fresh stimulation, from a new line of 
 kings. The Kassite dynasty, feeble and de- 
 throned several times, was extinguished finally 
 in the latter half of the twelfth century B. C, and 
 was succeeded by a Semite dynasty, founded by 
 Nebuchadnezzar I., who led victorious armies in 
 several campaigns, northward, eastward and 
 westward, but gained nothing that he could hold. 
 His successors were overcome in their contention 
 with a warrior greater than any who had ruled in 
 Assyria before. This was Tiglathpileser I., a 
 monarch of undoubted superiority in statesman- 
 ship as well as in war. His numerous and success- 
 ful campaigns extended the bounds of Assyrian 
 empire widely on the north and northwest, be- 
 yond the mountains, into Cappadocia and 
 Armenia, and apparently to some point on the 
 Phoenician coast. He then turned upon Baby- 
 lonia, which challenged him by an attack, and 
 compelled its new family of kings to acknowledge 
 vassalage to the Assyrian throne. After Tiglath- 
 pileser another long period of inaction in the 
 monarchy appears to have ensued, and little is 
 known of its state for nearly two hundred years. 
 
 Aramaean Kingdoms in Syria 
 
 When Tiglathpileser I. invaded Syria and 
 Canaan he found no organized nationality in 
 either that could offer much resistance to his
 
 Damascus 
 
 Aramaeans in Syria 75 
 
 arms; but two centuries later, when his succes- 
 sors were roused again to fresh undertakings of 
 conquest, they were faced by new forces, politi- 
 cally established in both regions of the west. The 
 Aramaeans of Mesopotamia had taken possession 
 of the territory of the fallen Hittite empire, and 
 founded several city kingdoms, — Zobah, Damas- zobah 
 cus, and others, — rivals, at war with each other, 
 but readily leagued against a common foe. The 
 Israelites, after escaping from Egypt, had sub- 
 jugated and occupied most of the lands of Gilead 
 and Canaan (east and west of the Jordan), and a 
 powerful kingdom had been formed among their 
 tribes. Of events connected with the rise of the 
 Aramaean kingdoms, almost nothing is known; 
 but the chronicles which the Hebrews wrote and 
 preserved are more complete than any others that 
 have reached us from equally ancient times, and 
 better known to the world at large. 
 
 The Exodus of Israel 
 
 Probably, as stated before, the Exodus of 
 Israel from Egypt took place in the reign of the 
 pharaoh Merenptah, and its time was most likely 
 within the first half of the thirteenth century 
 B. C. Some reckonings would date it at 1277 B c h 
 B. C. The story as told in the Hebrew Scrip- century 
 tures, of the march of the host led by Moses to 
 Mount Sinai (the locality of which is still in dis- 
 pute); of the giving of laws to the now inde- f^^"' 
 pendent community; of the building of the Numbers, 
 tabernacle and of the prescribing of rites for the 
 
 Exodus, 
 xiii-xxxix. 
 
 l-xiv, xxm
 
 j6 From Abraham to David 
 
 worship of Yahveh (Jehovah) as the acknowl- 
 edged God of Israel; of the removal of the camp 
 from the desert or wilderness of Sinai to that of 
 Paran; of the halt at Kadesh-barnea (which has 
 been identified with the spring now called Ain 
 Qadis, some fifty miles south of Beersheba); of 
 the further Mosaic legislation recorded there; of 
 the first attempt, from Kadesh-barnea, to force 
 an entrance into Canaan, and of its disastrous 
 repulse; of the long nomadic sojourn in the wil- 
 derness thereafter, renewing strength for another 
 attack, — the Biblical tale is familiar to all. But 
 one significant fact to be noted before we pass on, 
 is the fact that almost no influence from Egypt, 
 after centuries of residence in that land, appears 
 in the thought or action of these people, when 
 their religious institutions were constructed. It 
 is the Babylonian mother-land of their race which 
 commands nearly every important idea in their 
 minds. "Babylonian influence," remarks Profes- 
 Babyionian sor Sayce, "is deeply imprinted on the Mosaic 
 origin of i aws . The institution of the Sabbath went back 
 
 Mosaic • if 
 
 institutions to the Sumerian days of Chaldsea ; the name itseli 
 was of Babylonian origin. The great festivals of 
 Israel find their counterparts on the banks of the 
 Euphrates. Even the year of Jubilee was a Baby- 
 lonian institution, and Gudea, the priest-king of 
 Lagas, tells us that when he kept it the slave 
 became 'for seven days the equal of his master.' 
 It was only the form and application of the old 
 institutions that were changed in the Levitical 
 legislation. They were adapted to the needs of
 
 The Exodus of Israel jj 
 
 Israel, and associated with the events of its his- Sayce, 
 
 harly 
 
 tory. But in themselves they were all of Baby- Israel, 269 
 Ionian descent." In another work, the same 
 writer says: "Babylonia also had its arks, its 
 mercy-seats, and its cherubim. . . . The 
 parallelism between the temples and ritual of 
 Israel and of Babylonia is indeed close. The 
 temple itself was of the same square or rectangu- Sayce, 
 lar form. . . . The Israelitish altars found ] L ar l y , 
 
 tit story oj 
 
 their counterpart in Babylonia. So, too, did the theHebrews, 
 table of shewbread, which similarly stood in the I9 7 
 sanctuaries of the Chaldsean deities. The sacri- 
 fices and offerings were also similar." 
 
 So soon as they had passed the western arm of 
 the Red Sea, the Israelites were among people 
 closely kindred to themselves; people who 
 claimed descent from Abraham, but not through 
 Jacob and his sons. The first with whom they 
 came in contact were the Amalekites, a wild tribe Numbers, 
 of Bedouin Arabs, — desert wanderers, never X1V ' 2S ' 4S 
 tamed by civilization, — who attacked them in 
 the first stages of their march and were repulsed. 
 The Amalekites were considered to be a branch 
 of the Edomites, reputed descendants of Esau, 
 Jacob's brother, and bound, therefore, to the 
 Children of Israel by the strongest ties. The ter- 
 ritory of the Edomites was in the mountains of Edomites, 
 Seir, stretching from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of X xxvi. W ' 
 Akaba, and the route of the rich trade between Deuteron - 
 the Red Sea and the north was in their hands. 
 This gave them wealth and made them a people 
 of settled habits of life. During their long so-
 
 7*> 
 
 From Abraham to David 
 
 Numbers, 
 xx, 14-22 
 
 Moabites 
 and Am- 
 monites, 
 Genesis, 
 xix, 30-38. 
 Numbers, 
 xxi, 4; xxiv, 
 
 25. 
 
 Deuteron- 
 omy, ii,8-37 
 
 Gilead 
 
 journ in the desert of Paran, the Israelites were on 
 the borders of Edom, and the kindred people seem 
 to have remained on friendly terms. But when, 
 after years of waiting, Moses consented to a new 
 attempt on the part of his followers to enter the 
 Promised Land, and to do so from the eastern 
 side of the Jordan, the king of Edom refused pas- 
 sage through his dominions to the Israelite host, 
 and compelled it to make a long circuit south- 
 ward to the Gulf. Moving thence northward, 
 along the eastern skirts of Edom, the invaders 
 reached a kingdom founded by another branch of 
 their numerous kindred, on the shores of the Dead 
 Sea. This was the kingdom of the Moabites, 
 whose ancestress, according to the narrative in 
 the book of Genesis, was the elder of the daugh- 
 ters of Abraham's nephew, Lot. Descendants 
 from the younger daughter, according to the 
 same tradition, had formed another nation, the 
 Ammonites, whose kingdom joined that of Moab 
 on the north. Apparently, the Moabites and 
 Ammonites feared their cousins of Israel, and 
 accepted them as allies against the Amorites, 
 who, lately, had dispossessed them of important 
 parts of their lands. The alliance proved over- 
 whelming to the Amorite king Sihon; his king- 
 dom was destroyed, and Israel appropriated the 
 territory he had taken from Moab and Ammon. 
 Further conquests in Gilead gave a home to the 
 invaders for some time, — how long is not told. 
 But this was not the Promised Land, — the 
 coveted Canaan, which stretched before their
 
 Conquest of Canaan 79 
 
 eyes, beyond the Jordan, looking west. Before J r h e m ; sed 
 they crossed the river Moses died, and Joshua Land oi 
 became the leader of the next advance. 
 
 Probably Canaan, at the time of the Israelite 
 invasion, was the seat of a civilization advanced, 
 intellectually and materially, as far as any to be 
 found within the range of the high culture which 
 Babylonia had spread abroad. The soil was 
 highly cultivated, many skilled and refined arts 
 were practiced, and an active trade was carried 
 on. The cities were populous and rich. The 
 country had had time to recover from the de- 
 structive great invasions that overwhelmed it in 
 the preceding century, when assailants from Asia 
 Minor and the islands of Greece reached Egypt, 
 through Syria and Canaan, as related above. As 6^69^' 
 the result of those invasions, it had been set free 
 from Egyptian rule, and the aggressive Hittite 
 power in Syria had been destroyed. A remnant 
 of the northern invaders had secured a footing in 
 five cities on the southern coast of Canaan; but The 
 these Philistines (who caused Canaan to be Philistines 
 known in later times as Palestine) had not yet 
 become formidable intruders. There seems to 
 have been peace and prosperity for more than a 
 generation in the land, with consequent increase 
 of luxury and corrupting ways of life. The people 
 were lacking, like most Semitic races, in political 
 capacity, and no union among them was formed. 
 Each considerable town was the seat of some 
 petty principality, and no centralizing authority 
 existed to organize a common defense. It was
 
 80 From Abraham to David 
 
 this state of things which enabled the Israelites 
 to conquer the land. 
 
 Critically studied, the Old Testament narrative 
 of the conquest of Canaan is not clear, and differ- 
 ent writers have drawn from it very different 
 conclusions as to the sequence of events and the 
 action of different tribes. In a sketch of this 
 nature it is impossible to show the questions in- 
 First stage volved, and all detail must be passed. It can 
 conquest. on ty be said that the war, ruthless and unsparing, 
 Joshua, \ n fa fi rs t stage, under Joshua, appears to have 
 lasted seven years, at the end of which time the 
 conquest of the country was far from complete; 
 but enough mastery of the native population had 
 been gained to give each tribe a footing, and to 
 apportion to each the territory in which it was 
 expected to make its settlement secure. As the 
 
 Judges/1,28 . . . j • t J (( •*. 
 
 situation is stated in Judges, it came to pass, 
 when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaan- 
 ites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them 
 out." Many Biblical students find reason to 
 believe that several of the tribes named as be- 
 longing to Israel in the settlement were composed 
 in whole or part of Canaanites, who had leagued 
 themselves with and been adopted into the 
 Hebrew confederation. 
 
 In the partition of the country, the tribes of 
 
 tioningof Reuben and Gad and half of the tribe of Manas- 
 
 /oXT' se h were gi yen tne territory taken on the eastern 
 
 xiv-xis s ide of the Jordan. On the western side, the tribe 
 
 of Naphtali went farthest northward, on and 
 
 above the shores of Lake Gennesareth. Asher
 
 Settlement of the Tribes 8i 
 
 claimed the neighboring coast of the Mediterra- 
 nean, which the Phoenicians held, and from the 
 important ports of which they could not be dis- 
 lodged. Between the Phoenicians and the Philis- Renan, 
 tines, who possessed valuable seaports at the f£ l p y 1 
 south, there lay a strip of coast without harbors of Israel, 
 which may have been reached by the allotments ■&_& 
 of Zebulon, Issachar, the half tribe of Manasseh, 
 Ephraim and Dan, but which had no commercial 
 worth. The domain of Ephraim and that of 
 Benjamin, immediately south of it (the latter 
 including Jerusalem, not yet taken from the 
 enemy), were central and became the region of 
 most importance in subsequent history. South 
 of the lands of the tribe of Benjamin came the 
 large portion of the tribe of Judah, between the 
 narrow dominion of the Philistines and the Dead 
 Sea. This tribe is represented to have been com- 
 posed, more or less, of adopted families, not 
 Hebraic in blood, which was no doubt the cause 
 of a growing alienation between Judah and the 
 other tribes that constituted Israel. The tribe of 
 Simeon was given lands in the extreme southwest, 
 but appears to have been so diminished in the 
 wars that the remnant united with Judah and 
 was absorbed. The tribe of Dan, failing to make 
 head against its Philistine neighbors, was ab- 
 sorbed likewise by the stronger Judah, excepting 
 a band which migrated northward and surprised 
 a Phoenician town. The Levites lost their tribal 
 existence entirely and were destined to become a 
 priestly caste.
 
 82 From Abraham to David 
 
 Israel under the Judges 
 
 After Joshua, for a long period, the Israelites 
 had no general leader, nor does there seem to have 
 been any regular and established authority in the 
 several tribes; but tribal chieftains were raised 
 up from time to time, who were accepted as both 
 war-captains and rulers, and who received a title 
 equivalent to that of Judge. In this period, of 
 long but uncertain duration, different sections of 
 the tribes were engaged in repeated wars of 
 defense, with one enemy after another, often 
 JudgesMii defeated and temporarily mastered, but rarely 
 receiving any general support. The northern 
 tribes were subjugated for some years by one of 
 the Aramaean kings. The southern tribes were 
 harassed by the Moabites on one side and by the 
 Philistines on the other. Then the Canaanites of 
 the midland and the north rose against their 
 Deborah, Hebrew neighbors, and the latter, after long 
 Gideon, humiliation and suffering, were rallied by the 
 Judges* prophetess Deborah, "the Jeanne d'Arc of 
 Israel," and delivered by the leadership of Barak. 
 To beat off an attack from the Midianites and 
 Amalekites of the Arabian desert, the northern 
 tribes found a capable captain in Gideon, of 
 Manasseh. An invasion of the Ammonites, 
 repelled by the skill and valor of Jephthah, of 
 Gilead, led to a bloody quarrel between his fol- 
 lowers and the Ephraimites, and almost to the 
 destruction of the latter tribe. 
 
 But most serious of all the conflicts of the 
 
 iv-zn
 
 The Founding of the Hebrew Monarchy 83 
 
 Hebrew people was that with the Philistines, in 
 the southwest. After those adventurous rivals of 
 Israel in the contest for Canaan had driven the Samson. 
 tribe of Dan from their borders, and after Sam- J- g "- 
 son, the herculean champion of the Danites, had j Samuel, 
 
 iv-vi 
 
 fallen into their hands and had come to his tragic 
 death, they became bolder in their aggressions, 
 and attacked the central tribe of Ephraim with 
 appalling success. The Israelites were defeated 
 and fearfully slaughtered in a desperate battle; Ph{i; st ;ne 
 the ark of the covenant was captured and taken domination 
 away to the Philistine temple of Dagon; and 
 Israel, throughout most of the territory west of 
 Jordan, became subject to the Philistines for a 
 number of years. 
 
 The Hebrew Monarchy 
 
 This experience proved final and effective in its 
 teaching of the need of a national union of the 
 tribes under one governing head. They were now 
 drawn together, not only by their common hu- 
 miliation, but by the great personal influence of 
 the prophet Samuel, who won authority over 
 them as both priest and judge. When Samuel 
 grew old they demanded that he should choose 
 for them a king, and he yielded unwillingly to a ^ ud ". 
 their wish. Thus the Hebrew monarchy was i-Hi.viii-xv 
 founded, by the anointing of Saul. The rising 
 against the Philistine garrisons which followed, 
 under Saul's leadership, but most inspired by the Saul 
 valor of the king's heroic and noble son Jonathan, 
 had considerable success; but a state of national
 
 8 4 
 
 David 
 
 / Samuel, 
 xvi-xxx 
 
 From Abraham to David 
 
 freedom was not attained. The attainment was 
 made impossible, indeed, by a breach that soon 
 occurred between Saul and Samuel, the blame for 
 which seems chargeable more to the prophet than 
 to the king. 
 
 And now the most famous figure in Hebrew 
 legend and history, after that of Moses, comes 
 into the tale: the shepherd lad, David, poet and 
 singer, brilliant, beautiful and brave, — fitted in 
 all ways to charm, to win and to lead. Secretly 
 anointed by the masterful prophet-priest; set 
 upon a path of hidden rivalry with the uncon- 
 scious king; introduced to the royal household as 
 one who may cheer the moody monarch with his 
 harp and song; captivating the heart of the king, 
 and of Jonathan, the knightly prince, and of 
 Michal, the king's daughter, whom he weds; — it 
 is so that the beginning of his career is told. 
 Then jealousy is kindled in Saul's heart, by the 
 fame and popularity of this too fascinating mem- 
 ber of his house. Suspicion follows jealousy, and 
 wrath because of the faithfulness of Jonathan, 
 who cleaves to his friend. David, fleeing from 
 the king's attempts to slay him, becomes the 
 chief of a band of outlaws, free lances, who finally 
 enter the service of a Philistine prince, of Gath; 
 and this while Philistines and Israelites are still 
 at war. Though David is not shown to have 
 fought his own countrymen, in the ranks of their 
 enemies, the biography thus far is not ennobling 
 to his fame. 
 
 Saul's death by his own hand, after a disastrous
 
 King David 85 
 
 battle with the Philistines, in which three of his 
 sons, including Jonathan, were slain, opened 
 David's path to the throne; but only his own David, 
 tribe of Judah acknowledged his kingship at first. j u 'Jf h ° 
 Saul's surviving son, Ishbosheth, was proclaimed J Samuel, 
 king and supported by the remaining tribes, and 2 Samuel, 
 "there was long war," says the chronicle in 2 I_v 
 Samuel, "between the house of Saul and the 
 house of David." After seven years and six 
 months of this civil war, Ishbosheth was mur- David, 
 dered by captains of his own bands, and David auistaei. 
 was anointed king of all Israel. His accession is Jooo_ 960(?) 
 dated by some reckonings a little before and by 
 some a little after 1000 B. C. He is stated to have 
 been thirty years old when his reign over Judah 
 began, and he reigned in all forty years. 
 
 David's first action as the national sovereign 
 was the important capture from the Amorite 
 Jebusites of their fortress on Mount Zion, which 
 he made his seat of government and called "the 
 city of David," but which has borne the name of 
 Jerusalem to this day. The united nation re- 
 sumed war with the Philistines, and its armies, 5°jerusa- 
 led by Joab, the able general of King David, went lem 
 from victory to victory, until those old enemies 
 were driven back to their original foothold on the 
 southwestern coast, beyond which they passed 
 no more. Then the lust of conquest was aroused, 2 SamuU 
 
 L t V-Vlll 
 
 and all the neighbors of Israel were assailed in 
 turn. First the Moabites were smitten and two 
 thirds of them were put to death. Next, the 
 kings of Damascus and Zobah, and other Ara-
 
 86 
 
 From Abraham to David 
 
 2 Samuel, 
 x-xii 
 
 2 Samuel, 
 xii, 3i 
 
 msean princes of Syria, even to the Euphrates, 
 were overcome and "became David's servants 
 and brought gifts." This gave him one of the 
 greatest of the prizes of ancient warfare in the 
 east, by making him master of the principal cara- 
 van routes of western Asiatic trade. By extend- 
 ing his power to Damascus, where they centered, 
 he not only laid his hand on a source of vast 
 wealth, but he raised himself to a high rank of 
 importance among his neighbors of Egypt, Phoe- 
 nicia, Assyria and Babylonia, and his fame went, 
 doubtless, much farther abroad. 
 
 The subjugation of the Syrian cities was fol- 
 lowed by a more complete conquest of Edom, 
 which was annexed to David's kingdom, after 
 Joab is said to have "cut off every male." This 
 added still more to the Israelite monarch's com- 
 mand of the means of wealth, and to the impor- 
 tance of his relations with the great merchant 
 race of Phoenicia, by giving him possession of the 
 ports on the Gulf of Akaba, at the head of the 
 Red Sea. Finally the Ammonites, who foolishly 
 provoked his anger, felt the weight of his merci- 
 less arm. Help came to them from Syria, but 
 could not save them from a crushing defeat, and 
 when their royal city was taken, by King David 
 in person, "he brought forth the people that were 
 therein, and put them under saws, and under 
 harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made 
 them pass through the brick-kiln; and thus did 
 he unto all the cities of the children of Amnion." 
 Among the conquerors of antiquity there seem to
 
 David's Conquests 87 
 
 have been few whose temper in war was more 
 cruel than that of David, "the sweet singer of 
 Israel." 
 
 He had now become a great king, rich and 
 powerful, admired and feared; ruling a con- 
 siderable empire; courted by neighboring sover- 
 eigns; surrounded with magnificent state. He 
 declined in character as his fortunes rose, sinking 
 into the voluptuous life of the harem, which has 
 been fatal to most princes of the east. His people 
 were displeased with the change in both the 
 monarchy and the king, and their loyalty cooled. 
 Intrigues, beginning in the corrupted royal Absalom 
 household, spread disaffection abroad, and set on 
 foot a rebellion, led by Absalom, the king's 
 favorite son. It made such headway at first that 
 David fled from his capital and took refuge on the Samuei 
 eastern side of the Jordan; but the veterans of xin-xviii 
 his soldiery and his faithful general, Joab, stood 
 by him, and the undisciplined forces of Absalom 
 were beaten in a desperate fight. Absalom, in 
 flight from the battlefield, was slain by the stern 
 Joab, to the great sorrow of the king. This 
 crushed the revolt; and when it was followed by 
 an outbreak of jealous animosity towards "the 
 men of Judah" in the other tribes, which con- 
 sidered themselves to be distinctively "the men 
 of Israel," that, too, was checked by Joab's 
 strong hand. The remainder of the reign was 
 undisturbed outwardly; but, as David grew old 
 and feeble, the question of succession to the 
 throne gave rise to factions in the harem and the
 
 88 From Abraham to David 
 
 army which troubled his peace and boded ill for 
 the kingdom after his death. It was a question 
 not settled by custom or law. The claims of the 
 king's elder son, Adonijah, would seem to have 
 been better founded than any other, and they 
 were supported by Joab, by one of the two high 
 
 Solomon priests, and by all excepting one of the other sons 
 of the king. The single exception was Solomon, 
 the youngest, whose mother, Bathsheba, in- 
 trigued with success to place him on the throne. 
 David was persuaded to pronounce in Solomon's 
 favor and to cause him to be anointed, solemnly 
 
 / Kings, i,ii an ^ publicly, by one of the high priests. Nathan, 
 the prophet, headed a party in his support, and 
 the strongest men of Joab's command were won 
 away from the latter to Solomon's side. There- 
 fore, when David died (about 960 B. C), his 
 eldest son, Adonijah, and his lifelong champion, 
 Joab, perished in a conflict which gave the 
 crown of Israel to his youngest son. 
 
 The Phoenicians 
 
 Of the Canaanites who possessed the "prom- 
 ised land" of Israel when Joshua led the tribes to 
 its conquest, one part, as said before, was settled 
 in several cities on its northern coast, and became 
 famous in later history as the Phoenicians, who 
 outdid all other people of their time in bold 
 navigation and trade on the Mediterranean Sea. 
 It is certain that they had been well established 
 
 Sidon and o*j i nn i 1 i i 
 
 Ty re at bidon and lyre, and probably in one or two 
 
 others of their seaport towns, some centuries
 
 The Phoenicians and Their Trade 89 
 
 before the Hebrew host invaded the land. The 
 latter appear to have respected their strength, 
 and the Phoenicians, on their side, took no part in 
 the defense of their inland brethren, so long as 
 their own fringe of territory on the seashore was 
 undisturbed. They cared, seemingly, for nothing 
 but commercial opportunities, and showed no 
 kind of political ambition throughout their career. 
 They were subject to Egypt while the Asiatic 
 dominion of the pharaohs endured, and they were 
 easily subjected to other aggressive powers in 
 after days; but in the time when the Israelites 
 were planting themselves in Canaan, and the 
 monarchy of David was rising, the Phoenicians 
 were enjoying an independent political life. Their 
 cities were in no union, however, but each had 
 its own suffetes (judges) or its own king. King- 
 ship arose in Tyre, it is believed, about the time 
 that Israel acquired a king. 
 
 At least as early as the fourteenth or fifteenth 
 century B. C, and probably earlier, the Phceni- B.C. 
 cians were active in a sea-carrying trade. They centurfes 
 exchanged commodities with the Aramaean and 
 Arabian land-carriers, who handled the products 
 of Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and the farther east, 
 together with imports by the Persian Gulf and the 
 Red Sea, which came even from India and the 
 east African coast at a very remote time. The 
 traffic of the Phoenician merchants of Sidon, Phreni . dan 
 Tyre, Aradus, and their neighbors, was principal- 
 ly, no doubt, in its early stages, with Egypt, with 
 the island of Cyprus, and with the Libyan peoples 
 
 commerce
 
 90 From Abraham to David 
 
 on the north African coast, which they skirted 
 closely in their voyages, not venturing much into 
 the open sea. According to Greek and Roman 
 writers, they planted colonies or trading settle- 
 ments at Hippo and Ityke (Utica), opposite to the 
 island of Sicily, in the twelfth century B. C. 
 Phoenician Their greater colony in that region, at Carthage, 
 colonies was not f ounc l ec l until the ninth century B. C, 
 
 and not much later, if at all, they had ports and 
 settlements of their own in Sicily and Sardinia; 
 they had even passed the straits of Gibraltar into 
 the Atlantic ocean and founded Gades (modern 
 Cadiz) on the southwestern coast of Spain. 
 
 Reasons have been found for believing that the 
 early traffic of the Phoenicians with the Greek 
 lands, in and around the ^Egean, was through 
 their meeting with Cretan and other traders from 
 that region in Cyprus, where interchanges were 
 made. Former beliefs as to Phoenician influence 
 on Greek culture in its infancy, and, generally, as 
 to the importance of the part played by the 
 Phoenicians in the development of civilization 
 throughout the Mediterranean world, have been 
 modified by the archaeological discoveries of late 
 years. More independence than historians had 
 „, . . suspected heretofore, in the rise of different com- 
 
 rhcenicians r # ' 
 
 not invent- munities on the great inland sea from barbaric 
 alphabet states of life, is shown by increasing proofs. It is 
 now doubted, and more than doubted, that the 
 Phoenicians were the inventors, as long supposed, 
 of the alphabetical system from which the alpha- 
 bets of so many ancient and modern languages
 
 The Greeks 91 
 
 were derived. As active agents of communica- 
 tion between different peoples of advancing cul- 
 ture on the Mediterranean they contributed 
 greatly, no doubt, to the progress of civilization 
 during some centuries of time; but they are 
 believed now to have originated less, and to have 
 been teachers of less, than historians had credited 
 to their account. 
 
 The Greek Lands 
 
 As the Phoenicians lose rank among the builders 
 of the civilization of the ancient Mediterranean 
 world, the early inhabitants of the shores and 
 islands of the yEgean Sea, whether Pelasgians or 
 Hellenes, are gaining. Until the excavations of Schiie- 
 Dr. Schliemann on the site of ancient Troy, in 
 1873, and at Mycenae, in 1876, began to disclose 
 remains of the Greek world, as it was in the age to 
 which the Homeric poems relate, those poems had 
 seemed to be a doubtful source of nearly all the 
 knowledge that could be gleaned of life in Hellas 
 at an earlier stage of culture than Herodotus and 
 Thucydides depict. 
 
 The epic of the siege of Troy was composed at 
 some uncertain time in the ninth, tenth or 
 eleventh century before Christ. Its subject is an 
 episode supposed to have been taken by the poet 
 or poets from the traditions of a time long pre- 
 ceding their own. That the actors and the 
 actions in it were really historical, and that its 
 wonderful pictures of life were not paintings from 
 the poet's own day, with high colorings of im- 
 
 mann s ex- 
 cavations
 
 9 2 
 
 Homer and 
 the Iliad 
 
 Memorials 
 of the 
 Homeric 
 heroes 
 
 From Abraham to David 
 
 agination, seemed reasonably open to great 
 doubt. But the spade-work of archaeology, car- 
 ried on busily in Hellenic lands since Schliemann's 
 discoveries were made, has given surprising veri- 
 fications of Homer, and thrown undreamed-of 
 light on periods far behind the Homeric age. The 
 personal reality of Agamemnon still depends on 
 Homer's word; but we know now that his king- 
 dom of Mycenae belongs to history; that it was a 
 power in its day and in its region of the world; 
 that it represents a great influence in the early 
 civilization of mankind; and it helps to explain to 
 us the marvelous equipment of culture with 
 which the Greeks seemed to leap into history, as 
 their story was told heretofore. 
 
 We are still without records or messages from 
 the Homeric heroes; but, as Dr. Tsountas, one of 
 the successors in Dr. Schliemann's work, has 
 written: "We have before our eyes the impreg- 
 nable strongholds which sheltered these ancient 
 people, as at Tiryns and Mycenae, or which long 
 withstood their siege, as at Troy. We have the 
 palaces of their kings, in ruins, to be sure, but 
 still with their foundations as well as their hearths 
 and altars intact, and enough of their decorations 
 to enable us to build them up again and adorn 
 them anew. . . . We have recovered their 
 actual swords and scepters; the bracelets they 
 wore and the signets they used; the goblets and 
 tankards that went round the festal company as 
 they quaffed the honey-hearted wine or made 
 libation to their gods. And, where the actual
 
 Homer 
 
 From the painting by Francois Pascal Gerard (1770-1837)
 
 New Discoveries in Greek History 93 
 
 objects fail, their artists come in to fill the gap: 
 before our eyes they bring the princes in their 
 chariots chasing the deer or proceeding to war; 
 lion and bull hunts; scenes of siege and battle, of 
 worship and sacrifice, of so many moments of 
 their existence, indeed, that an orderly series of Ts o untas 
 
 * and 
 
 them would go far to make a compendious Manatt, 
 chronicle of the time. Thus we follow the „L M „ y " 
 Mycenaean through life, nor at death does the 4w 347 
 light go out. . . . Kindly earth has sheltered 
 the dwellings of the dead." 
 
 As the result of all that has come to light, 
 through scholarly labors of excavation at many 
 points, throughout Greece and on the islands and 
 eastern coasts of the ^Egean, the rise of Greek art 
 and of Greek culture in general can now be traced 
 with increasing certainty and clearness from a 
 time long anterior to the age of the Mycenaean 
 kings, and probably more than 2000 years before 
 Christ. Late discoveries show that what a recent 
 writer on the subject has described as "the evolu- 
 tion from the more primitive to the fully devel- 
 oped form of prehistoric Greek culture" was 
 centralized earliest in the island of Crete. Greek 
 legend and tradition were full of intimations of Crete 
 the fact; but historians could find nothing 
 tangible in what seemed to be a medley of incom- 
 prehensible myths. That Minos, the powerful 
 Cretan king, extorted a yearly tribute of Athenian 
 youths and maidens, to be devoured by a strange 
 monster called the Minotaur, whom he confined 
 in a wonderful labyrinth; that Theseus, the hero,
 
 94 
 
 From Abraham to David 
 
 M 
 
 slew the Minotaur and escaped from the labyrinth 
 
 by help of the clue of Ariadne, — what an empty 
 
 fable it all seemed to be! But the ruins of a great 
 
 Finding the palace at Knossos, in Crete, having an elaborate 
 
 labyrinth r , • , i j 
 
 of King underground maze, which answers to the de- 
 scription of the labyrinth of King Minos, has 
 now been explored. Its remains prove reality, at 
 least, in the existence of a power which terrorized 
 early Greece, and whose princes were able to 
 execute works so remarkable in their day as to 
 give rise to fabulous stories in neighboring lands. 
 The findings in Knossos, and elsewhere in 
 Crete, show a state of civilization earlier than 
 that which centered at Mycenae, but very vigor- 
 ous and already well advanced. It was the 
 civilization of a race of sea-kings — a thalas- 
 socracy, so called, — and there seems to be little 
 doubt that it arose among a people who were not 
 of the Hellenic or Greek stock. They were active, 
 no doubt, in both piracy and trade. Their inter- 
 change of products with Egypt is especially 
 evident, and Egyptian influence appears in their 
 arts, but not to the suppression of an independent 
 and original character in all that they did. 
 
 The most surprising and important discovery 
 made at Knossos is the fact that these early 
 Cretans were in possession of the art of writing, 
 and practiced it in two systems, described as fol- 
 lows by Sir Arthur J. Evans, the director of the 
 explorations: "I came upon a series of deposits 
 of clay tablets, representing the royal archives, 
 the inscriptions on which belong to two distinct 
 
 Cretan 
 
 sea-kings
 
 Wonderful Findings in Crete 95 
 
 systems of writing — one hieroglyphic and quasi- 
 pictorial; the other for the most part linear and 
 much more highly developed. Of these the 
 hieroglyphic class especially presents a series of 
 forms answering to what, according to the names 
 of the Phoenician letters, we must suppose to 
 have been the original pictorial designs from 
 which those, too, were derived." "The great 
 bulk of the tablets belonged to the linear class, . 
 
 1 . Apparent 
 
 exhibiting an elegant and much more highly originals of 
 developed form of script, with letters of an up- ^p^be'i-" 1 
 right and singularly European aspect. The 
 inscriptions, over 1000 of which were collected, 
 were originally contained in coffers of clay, wood f™£ 8 ' m 
 and gypsum, which had been in turn secured by Times, 
 clay seals, impressed with finely engraved signets 3^0-01.31, 
 and counter-marked and countersigned by con- I 9°° 
 trolling officials in the same script, while the clay 
 was still wet. . . . The problems attaching 
 to the decipherment of these clay records are of 
 enthralling interest, and we have here locked up 
 for us materials which may some day enlarge the 
 bounds of history." 
 
 Of the general significance of the archaeological 
 discoveries made so recently in Crete, Mr. D. G. 
 Hogarth, the Director of the British School at 
 Athens, has written: "Far into the third mil- 
 lennium B. C, at the very least, and more prob- 
 ably much earlier still, there was a civilization in Hogarth, 
 the JEgean and on the Greek mainland which, a „"jX;L- 
 while it contracted many debts to the east and to ol °sy^ p*- 
 
 . 2 : 238 
 
 Egypt, was able to assimilate all that it borrowed,
 
 96 From Abraham to David 
 
 and to reissue it in an individual form, expressed 
 in products which are not of the same character 
 with those of any eastern civilization that we 
 know." 
 
 Cretan ascendancy in the ^Egean gave way to 
 that of the Mycenaean kings, probably at some 
 date near the middle of the second millennium 
 B. C. The flourishing period of what is being 
 called "the Mycenaean Age" of culture is believed 
 on good evidence to have extended from about 
 TheMyce- ^e sixteenth century B. C. to about the twelfth. 
 naeanAge. 1 Egypt supplies this evidence in two modes, 
 "nhife^c?) resu l tm g firstly from the fact that the dating of 
 its dynasties is approximately fixed, and secondly 
 from the further fact that certain characteristic 
 features of Egyptian art, especially in the forms 
 and decoration of pottery, are identified with 
 particular periods of time. Specimens of Egyp- 
 tian pottery and other articles of the known 
 workmanship of that country, found in My- 
 cenaean ruins and tombs, and corresponding 
 specimens of Mycenaean art found in Egyptian 
 tombs of a known period, all point to the Eight- 
 Egypt and eenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties of the 
 Greece pharaohs as being contemporary with the flour- 
 ishing period of the Mycenaean realm; and this 
 gives to the latter about the range of time stated 
 above. 
 
 Within this "Mycenaean Age" the develop- 
 ment of Greek culture on its artistic side went 
 even beyond that of Egypt or Babylonia, not in 
 technical skill, but in freedom of spirit and in fine
 
 The Mycenaean Age 97 
 
 apprehension of the beauty of the natural world. 
 Otherwise it does not seem to have made an 
 equal advance. Its cyclopean architecture was 
 ruder than that of Egypt; much fewer refine- £ar] 
 ments of life appear; and, strangely, there are no Greek Art 
 inscriptions found, — no tokens, in fact, of any 
 knowledge or use of writing in any form, except a 
 few signs or characters on vessels of pottery, 
 resembling pottery-marks which Mr. Petrie 
 found in prehistoric Egyptian relics of a far more 
 ancient time. In view of the many inscribed 
 tablets found in Crete this can hardly be ex- 
 plained. 
 
 In their traditions of "golden Mycenae" the 
 Greeks of a later time recognized its princes and 
 dominant people as being of their own Hellenic 
 stock, belonging to what they knew as the 
 Achaean branch. From two sons and two grand- 
 sons of Hellen, the reputed father of their race, 
 they derived four tribal divisions, ^Eolian, Dori- ., . 
 an, Ionian and Achaean, of which the last two, the 
 acknowledging descent from the same scion of the e enes 
 house of Hellen, but not bearing his name, were 
 held to be most nearly akin. By relationship of 
 language the Hellenes are identified with the 
 great Aryan family, and their entrance into the 
 Greek peninsula occurred in some connection 
 with the mysterious dispersive movement of those 
 masterful people who imposed their speech on so 
 many populations in Europe and Asia. The four 
 Hellenic divisions seem to have dwelt together at 
 first in Thessaly, whence parts of the yEolian,
 
 9 8 
 
 The 
 Pelasgians 
 
 -rfEolians, 
 Ionians, 
 Achsans 
 
 The Dorian 
 migration. 
 B. C. 12th 
 
 century (?) 
 
 From Abraham to David 
 
 Ionian and Achaean tribes made the earliest 
 advance southwards, subduing the older inhabit- 
 ants (the Pelasgians, of disputed race and origin, 
 for the most part), and settling themselves in dif- 
 ferent sections of the country known finally as 
 Greece. The iEolians were much scattered in the 
 states they founded; the Ionians occupied 
 Attica and parts of the Peloponnesus; the 
 Achaeans, too, passed into the Peloponnesus, and 
 established their domination in the district of 
 Argos, founding the kingdom and attaining the 
 civilization to which Mycenae has given its name. 
 The Achaean throne at Mycenae and the state of 
 culture in Greece which it illustrated are supposed 
 to have been overwhelmed, at some time near the 
 end of the twelfth century B. C. or early in the 
 eleventh, very much as the Roman empire, in 
 later times, was buried under an avalanche of 
 barbarism from the north. The barbaric in- 
 vaders in this case were the Dorian tribes which 
 had stayed in Thessaly when their brethren 
 moved south, and which had not advanced in 
 culture as the latter had done. About the thir- 
 teenth and twelfth centuries B. C. there seems 
 to have been a long period of widespread and 
 great disturbance among the peoples between the 
 Mediterranean and the Euxine or Black Sea, 
 probably produced by some eruption from the 
 farther north. The invasions of Syria, Canaan, 
 and Egypt, from the ^Egean lands and elsewhere, 
 were probably one of its results; the migration of 
 the Dorians into the Peloponnesus was another.
 
 The Hellenic Tribes 
 
 99 
 
 The latter, driven from Thessaly by people who 
 then gave their name to that district, moved 6S-69) 
 southward and occupied most of the region below 
 the isthmus, founding several Dorian states, of 
 which Sparta, or Lacedaemon, Argos, and Corinth, s arta 
 were the chief. According to Greek tradition, Argos, 
 Attica became overcrowded by Ionian refugees Attica 
 from this Dorian invasion, and the result was an 
 emigration thence to neighboring islands and to 
 the opposite Asiatic coast, which subsequently 
 gave the latter its Ionian name. 
 
 The Dorians, at the time of their destructive 
 march through Greece and conquest of the 
 Peloponnesus, appear to have been so rude in 
 culture, and so slow in receiving and assimilating 
 what they found in their new homes, that they 
 brought upon the country a period of decadence age » i n 
 in civilization, somewhat like that of the dark Greece 
 ages which followed the fall of Rome, but neither 
 so serious nor so long. That Athens and Attica, 
 and the coast and island colonies peopled there- 
 from, were saved from the barbarizing invasion, 
 seems to be one important reason why the new — 
 the classic — civilization, which rose in Greece 
 some four centuries later, found its leadership and 
 its chief seats in the Ionian states. But there 
 must have been something of intellectual superi- 
 ority, moreover, in the Ionian stock. 
 
 Elsewhere in Europe 
 
 Of the inhabitants of other parts of Europe, — ■ 
 of their circumstances and condition, — of the
 
 peninsula 
 
 ioo From Abraham to David 
 
 movements, conquests and displacements of each 
 other that went on among them, within the period 
 now under review, — there is no knowledge yet 
 obtained that can possibly be defined in time or 
 event. It is probable that the Italian peninsula 
 was occupied by peoples akin to those called 
 Pelasgians in Greece, and probable that they had 
 made a considerable advance in arts and modes 
 of life, before the beginning of the last millennium 
 The Italian B. C. It is probable that the Aryan migrations, 
 whatever their starting point, their course and 
 their effect on older populations may have been, 
 had already brought into Italy the invaders who 
 imposed the Latin and cognate languages on the 
 land. It is probable that other branches of the 
 same movement had reached those parts of 
 Europe on which the stamp of the languages 
 called Celtic and Germanic was left; but whether 
 the prior population was extinguished, or dis- 
 placed, or merely subjugated and absorbed by the 
 movement, it is impossible to know. It is prob- 
 able that the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and 
 northern Italy had begun the building of their 
 villages on piles, in the shallower waters of the 
 lakes, far back in this early period, and that 
 before the period ended their first stone imple- 
 ments and weapons were beginning to be dis- 
 placed by those of copper, or, possibly, of copper 
 hardened into bronze. It is probable, too, that 
 Stonehenge, and other rude stone structures of 
 like kind, in Britain, France and elsewhere, had 
 already been built, by people in the later stage of 
 
 The lake 
 dwellers
 
 Stonehenge 
 
 Western Europe in This Period ioi 
 
 neolithic culture, who used no metals, and yet 
 were able to quarry, transport and handle huge 
 masses of rock. Excavations at Stonehenge in 
 September, 1901, made in preparation for work 
 to prevent further falling of the upright mono- 
 liths, unearthed a great number of stone tools, 
 which must have been the implements of the 
 original builders; but of metal there was no sign. 
 These are reasonable conjectures as to happen- 
 ings in Europe prior to a thousand years before 
 Christ, but they are no more. 
 
 In Asia Minor 
 
 Obscurely known as yet, there were several 
 nations in Asia Minor which had importance in 
 these early times, and concerning which there is 
 undoubtedly much for archaeologists to learn by 
 the inquisitive spade, in coming years. The 
 Lydians, whom some would connect with the L y dians 
 Semites of Mesopotamia, and others with the 
 mysterious Hittites, had founded a monarchy 
 which ran a long career, and which rose in the end 
 to quite formidable power. The Phrygians were Phrygians 
 of Aryan speech, and have been looked upon as a 
 link between the ancient Persians and the Greeks. 
 The Trojans belonged to the Phrygian race, and . 
 their civilization in the eleventh or twelfth cen- 
 tury B. C. is illustrated by the remains which Dr. 
 Dorpfield has uncovered on the site of ancient 
 Troy. If the Phrygians may be judged from the 
 opinion of the Greeks, they were a sensuous and 
 effeminate race, having few manly traits; and
 
 102 From Abraham to David 
 
 yet they do not show badly in Homer's tale of 
 Troy. 
 Armenia Armenia, moreover, was inhabited by people 
 
 who had the same Aryan relationship of speech; 
 but their early history connects itself mostly with 
 that of the Semites of the great valley which 
 slopes southward from their hills. 
 
 The Asiatic Aryans 
 
 Between the borders of Armenia and Babylonia 
 on one side and the frontiers of ancient China on 
 the other, the Asiatic world is wrapt in deep dark- 
 ness through all this long period. Something 
 may be inferred as to probable conditions from 
 what appeared later; but really nothing is known. 
 There can be hardly a doubt that the people who 
 planted Aryan roots of speech on the table-land 
 of Iran and in the valley of the Indus, were 
 already in those habitats when Tiglathpileser 
 invaded Armenia, or when David mounted the 
 Judean throne, and that Medes and Persians 
 were growing slowly to the strength which by and 
 by would break the old Semitic powers; but on 
 no such points can there be any certainty of time. 
 Some conjectures have put the arrival of the 
 Aryas in the "land of five rivers" (the Punjab) at 
 India about 2000 B. C, others at 1500 B. C; the room 
 
 for difference of opinion is very wide. Down to a 
 time much later than the latest of these dates, 
 neither the Aryas of Iran nor those of India 
 recorded anything that has been preserved, in any 
 form of writing, so far as yet known; but some 
 
 Medes and 
 Persians
 
 The Aryas of Iran and India 103 
 
 glimpses of their early life and some reasonable 
 guesses at their story are drawn from language- 
 marks, traditions and myths, found embedded in 
 a rich literature, which seems to have been pre- 
 served for many centuries by oral transmission 
 before the art of writing was attained. 
 
 There are two distinct bodies of that literature, 
 derived from the Asiatic Aryans of antiquity, one 
 coming from the dwellers in Iran, the other from 
 the branch which crossed the mountains into the 
 valley of the Indus and spread thence over most 
 of the northern part of the peninsula called India 
 or Hindustan. In its surviving state, the 
 antiquity of the oldest Hindu literature is greater 
 than that of Iran. It exists, in an early form of 
 the Sanscrit language, as a collection (the Rig- TheVedic 
 veda, or Hymn-veda) of hymns and prayers to 
 the gods, "veda" signifying knowledge, especially 
 the knowledge of things divine. Compared with 
 the religion (Brahmanism) that grew from it at a 
 later day, it represents a primitive stage in the 
 development of religious ideas. The gods 
 addressed in the Vedic hymns stand simply for 
 the forces and phenomena of the natural world. 
 In all, their divinities — devas, meaning literally 
 "the shining ones," — numbered about thirty- 
 three; but Indra, who represented in their 
 thoughts the periodical rains, or the giver of those Monicr- 
 rains, on which, as an agricultural people, they Williams 
 
 ' ° «ii 1 Hinduism* 
 
 were dependent, came to be praised and venerated ch. ii 
 the most. 
 
 The ancient Iranian sacred literature, pre-
 
 The Avesta 
 
 104 From Abraham to David 
 
 served in books that bear the name of the Avesta, 
 or Zendavesta (that is, the Avesta, or sacred text, 
 and its zend, or interpretation, in a more modern 
 tongue), is avowedly the product of a reform of 
 the primitive religion of the Aryas, brought about 
 by a great teacher, Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, 
 who is believed to have lived not earlier than the 
 seventh or sixth century before Christ. No 
 doubt much of the poetry and teaching of an 
 older time is incorporated with the Zoroastrian 
 hymns, liturgies and laws; but they seem to cast 
 no such light on former ages as the Rig-veda has 
 thrown. 
 
 China 
 
 In the opinion of Professor Robert K. Douglas, 
 the purely fabulous chapters of Chinese history 
 come to a close with the advent to power of the 
 Emperor Yao, with whose reign Confucius began 
 the Book of History ascribed to him. This prob- 
 ably represents the more conservative Chinese 
 belief. Yao was succeeded by a sovereign named 
 Shun, and the latter by the "Great Yu," who was 
 raised to the throne because of the remarkable 
 ability and energy he had shown in dealing with a 
 terrific flood. These three emperors are the 
 models of princely virtue in Chinese esteem. Yu 
 founded the Hsia Dynasty which occupied the 
 throne for nearly three hundred years. It was 
 succeeded by the Shang or Yin Dynasty, and 
 that, in turn, after some six centuries, by the
 
 Early Chinese Dynasties 105 
 
 Dynasty of Chow, whose founder, Woo Wang, 
 left a memory which is reverenced like that of 
 Yao, Shun and Yu.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF DAVID TO THE 
 ADVENT OF CYRUS 
 
 (Approximately, B. C. 960 to 558) 
 The Period: Transfer of leadership in civilization to Aryan racea. The 
 Hebrew Kingdoms, and Assyria and Babylonia: Character and reign of 
 Solomon. — Division of the monarchy. — The kingdoms of Israel and Judah. — 
 Introduction of idolatry. — The prophets Elijah and Elisha. — Assyrian con- 
 quests. — Transplantation of conquered peoples. — Overthrow of the kingdom 
 of Israel. — No mystery concerning the "lost ten tribes."- — Resistance of 
 Jerusalem to Sennacherib. — The prophet Isaiah. — Destruction of Babylon. 
 Egypt: The Assyrian conquest. — Independence recovered. — Exploring 
 expedition round Africa. — The first Suez canal. Assyria, Media, Chaldean, 
 Babylonia and the Kingdom of Judah: Assur-bani-pal (Sardanapalus). — His 
 great library at Nineveh. — Last years of the Assyrian empire. — Destruction 
 of Nineveh. — Secrets of history preserved in its ruins. — Nebuchadnezzar. — 
 His destruction of Jerusalem. — Babylonian exile of the Jewish people. — End 
 of the kingdom of David. — Magnificence of the new Babylon. In the Lands 
 of the Greeks: A new era of culture opened by the Greeks. — Evolution of the 
 first democracies. — The Ionian genius. — The Homeric epics. — The two great 
 literatures of antiquity, Hebrew and Greek. — Political development of 
 Athens. The Latin Region: Beginnings of Rome. — The unions that gave 
 birth to it. — Origin of patricians and plebeians. Phoenicians and Car- 
 thaginians: The founding of Carthage. — Settlements in Spain. — Phoenician 
 manufactures. India: Development of Brahmanism. — Creation of caste. 
 China: General disorder. 
 
 One of the greatest of the revolutions in human 
 history — perhaps the greatest of all in deep im- 
 centuriesof port — was accomplished in the period that will 
 cendancy 8 " ^ e surveyed in this chapter. It was now that the 
 Semitic and Hamitic races lost their leadership in 
 civilization and empire, and the peoples of Aryan 
 speech began to assume the historical preemin- 
 ence that they have held to the present day. 
 
 The Hebrew Kingdoms 
 
 In the character of King Solomon, there was 
 nothing of the military energy of David, his 
 father. He relaxed it so entirely that a large part 
 
 106 
 
 The last
 
 Separation of the Hebrew Kingdoms 107 
 
 of David's conquests was lost. Damascus re- 
 gained independence and became a troublesome 
 hostile state. Much of Edom, too, was torn from 
 Solomon's kingdom; but he kept control of access 
 to the Red Sea. He was careful, indeed, to pro- 
 tect and foster the commerce of the country to the 
 utmost of his power, as a source of wealth. To 
 that end he cultivated friendly relations and close 
 alliance with the Phoenicians of Tyre and with f Solomon 
 Egypt, receiving from the latter a princess to \^ gSy 
 become one of his numerous wives. His policy 
 was one of peace, and it might have given happi- 
 ness to his people if his boundless extravagance 
 had not consumed its fruits. His expenditure on 
 the great temple at Jerusalem, which constituted 
 his chief monument, must have been inconsidera- 
 ble compared with the cost of his harem and 
 court, the luxury and magnificence of which were 
 the wonder of the neighboring world. In style 
 and display he seems to have been the "grand 
 monarch" of his day, and his little realm suffered 
 heavy oppressions to feed the selfish vanity of its 
 king. 
 
 At Solomon's death an explosion of rebellion 
 reopened the old cleft between the tribes of Judah 
 and Benjamin, on one side, and the remaining ten 
 tribes on the other. It was never closed again. 
 Henceforth there were two Hebrew kingdoms, National 
 
 ° disruption 
 
 that of Israel and that of Judah, Benjamin being b.c.926(?) 
 joined with Judah in forming the latter, which 
 kept Jerusalem for its capital and adhered to 
 David's royal house. Solomon's son, Rehoboam,
 
 io8 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 j Kings, 
 xi, 26-40, 
 xii, I-20 
 
 The king- 
 doms of 
 Judah and 
 Israel 
 
 W.R.Smith 
 Prophets of 
 Israel, 
 lect. S 
 
 / Kings, 
 xiv, 25-28 
 
 was the first of its kings, while Israel crowned 
 Jeroboam, a soldier who had fled to Egypt after 
 plotting revolution in the late reign. The south- 
 ern kingdom was small and weak, and, although 
 it had David's capital, Solomon's temple, and the 
 remembered splendor of the late reigns, to give it 
 prestige, it suffered most in the conflicts between 
 the two, and dropped to a lower historical rank. 
 Judah, as Professor Robertson Smith remarks, 
 "was not only inferior in political power, but in 
 the share it took in the active movements of 
 national life and thought. ... It was the 
 northern nation that had the task of upholding 
 the standard of Israel; its whole history presents 
 greater interest and more heroic elements; its 
 struggles, its calamities, and its glories were cast 
 in a larger mould." 
 
 The Judean kingdom sustained a great disaster 
 in the fifth year of Rehoboam's reign, when 
 Egypt, after long torpidity, became suddenly 
 aggressive again, and Palestine was invaded and 
 ravaged by Shishak, or Sheshonk, the last of the 
 pharaohs who displayed any vigor in arms. Even 
 Jerusalem was taken by Shishak and much of 
 Solomon's treasure carried away; but no per- 
 manent subjugation of the kingdom occurred. 
 Rehoboam retained the throne, and his descend- 
 ants, in long succession, afterwards; which 
 stability of government was a blessing not shared 
 by the rival kingdom in the north. There, three 
 revolutionary changes of dynasty occurred within 
 forty years. The last of these gave Israel a strong
 
 The Kingdom of Israel 109 
 
 ruler in Omri, the general of its army, who seems Revoiu- 
 to have established a firmer basis of government, ^ 10ns i in 
 
 Israel. 
 
 and who founded the city of Samaria to be its / Kings, 
 permanent capital. But even Omri could not ™j ^s 4 ' 
 make head against the rising Aramaean power 
 now centered at Damascus, which encroached 
 more and more on the territory of Israel east of 
 the Jordan, taking advantage of the Hebrew 
 divisions, and sometimes going into alliance with 
 one against the other in their fratricidal wars. 
 
 Omri's son Ahab had the wisdom to make 
 peace with Judah and to establish close relations 
 of friendship with Tyre; but his marriage to 
 Jezebel, the Tyrian king's daughter, had unfor- 
 tunate results. Under Jezebel's influence he 
 introduced the worship of the Tyrian Baal, 
 building a temple in Samaria and admitting to 
 the country a great number of the priests of the 
 idolatrous cult. This unfaithfulness to Jehovah 
 and encouragement to idolatry was nothing new. 
 Of Solomon we are told that "his wives turned 
 away his heart to other gods," and that he built both king- 
 "an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of f 3 ^ s 
 Moab," and "for Moloch, the abomination of the xi ' ^ *»> 
 children of Ammon," and "likewise did he for all 22-24! xvi, 
 his strange wives," of whom he had seven hun- 29 " 33 
 dred. Moreover, when the kingdom of Israel was 
 set up against that of Judah, its first king, Jero- 
 boam, "made two calves of gold," and said to the 
 people, "behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought 
 thee up out of the land of Egypt; and he set the 
 one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan;" and
 
 no 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 The 
 
 prophets, 
 Elijah and 
 Elisha. 
 / Kings, 
 xvii-xxi 
 
 2 Kings, 
 i-xi 
 
 this idolatry was maintained under all the suc- 
 ceeding kings. In Judah, too, they "built them 
 high places, and images, and groves," and "they 
 did according to all the abominations of the 
 nations." But now there broke forth in Israel a 
 fearless voice in denunciation of the worship of 
 Baal. It was that of the prophet Elijah, who 
 seems to have stood nearly alone at the beginning 
 in defiant opposition to king and queen. Little as 
 the sentiment of the nation supported them, Elijah 
 and Elisha, his disciple, were triumphant in the 
 end; the priests of Baal were slain and the 
 idolatrous worship suppressed. This triumph 
 was not attained, however, until after Ahab's 
 death. 
 
 Ahab perished in a battle with the king of 
 Damascus, against whom he now had the help of 
 Judah, but without avail, even though Damascus 
 and all the Syrian states were beginning to be 
 shaken by Assyrian attacks. Two sons of Ahab 
 reigned after him, in Israel, their mother Jezebel 
 still living and exercising an influence that was 
 evil in many ways. Then a bloody revolution, 
 said to have been instigated by Elisha, extermin- 
 ated the family of Ahab and raised Jehu, the 
 commander of the troops, to the throne. It was 
 now that Baal was overthrown and Israel re- 
 turned to the worship of Jehovah, or Yahveh, the 
 one God. At nearly the same time, in Jerusalem, 
 where a daughter of Jezebel, reigning as a dowager 
 queen, had attempted to extinguish the royal 
 family of the house of David, a similar revolution
 
 Assyrian Conquests hi 
 
 restored the worsh'p of Jehovah and slew the 
 priests of the false gods. 
 
 Through Jehu's reign and that of his son the 
 long and losing struggle of Israel with Damascus 
 went on. Jehu had the weakness to appeal for 
 help to the king of Assyria, sending gifts that 
 were taken as tribute rendered by a vassal prince. 
 Not many years afterwards the vassalage became 
 a fact. 
 
 Assyria 
 
 After Tiglathpileser L, for two centuries (as 
 stated before), no important wars of conquest 
 appear to have been waged by the Assyrian kings. 
 The first of his successors to emulate his ambition 
 was Assur-natsir-pal, who mounted the throne in 
 883 B. C. This monarch, who made war with 
 hideous ferocity, heaping up pyramids of the 
 heads of the slain, extended his ravages far into 
 Armenia and through northern Syria, to the conquests, 
 alarm of the Phoenicians, who sent him tribute 
 from Sidon and Tyre. His son, Shalmaneser II., 
 repeated the campaigns of plunder and destruc- 
 tion in Armenia, penetrated southeastern Asia 
 Minor, and began the attacks in southern Syria 
 which finally shattered the kingdoms of Hamath 
 and Damascus and brought the Assyrian armies 
 to the borders of the Palestine states. It was to 
 this king that Jehu's gifts were sent. In other 
 campaigns Shalmaneser invaded the country of Encounter 
 the Medes (northwestern Persia in modern *j*Jj the 
 geography), bringing that people into the Assy- 
 
 b. c. 
 
 883-781
 
 112 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 Conquest 
 of 
 
 Damascus. 
 B.C.797(?) 
 
 rian inscriptions for the first time, so far as 
 known, and he reduced Babylonia to vassalage 
 once more. His son had to do battle again with 
 the Babylonians, and to fight again with the 
 Medes, as well as with their neighbors, the Kurds. 
 His grandson, Rimmon-nirari, still continued war 
 with Medes and Kurds, and claimed to have sub- 
 dued the whole region to the Caspian Sea. But 
 the great exploit of this last named monarch was 
 the conquest of Damascus, which fell after long 
 and brave resistance, and never recovered from 
 the blow. It is possible, but not certain, that the 
 king of Israel became tributary to Assyria at the 
 same time. The death of Rimmon-nirari in 781 
 B. C. was followed by another period of stagna- 
 tion in the Assyrian monarchy, which lasted until 
 746, when the old dynasty was overthrown by a 
 widespread revolt, and a new era in Assyrian 
 history was opened by a king of unknown origin, 
 who took the name of Tiglathpileser III. 
 
 Israel and Judah 
 
 The Assyrian conquest of Damascus, breaking 
 the aggressive power of that wealthy Aramaean 
 kingdom, afforded great relief to both Israel and 
 Judah, and was followed by some years in which 
 they recovered a considerable part of the territory 
 they had lost. The northern kingdom grew in 
 strength to such a degree that Jeroboam II., the 
 fourth prince of the dynasty of Jehu, appears to 
 have been the most powerful of all the Samarian 
 kings. But Jeroboam's son was slain by an
 
 Israel, Judah and Assyria 113 
 
 usurper, and a state of civil strife ensued, the con- 
 sequence of which is thus told tersely in the 
 second book of Kings: "And Pul [Tiglathpileser] 
 the king of Assyria came against the land: and 
 Menahem [a second usurper who had slain Shal- 
 lum, the first one] gave Pul a thousand talents of Va ssaiage 
 
 . . °* Israel. 
 
 silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm 2 Kings, 
 the kingdom in his hand. And Menahem exacted xv ' I9 " 2 ° 
 the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of 
 wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give 
 to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria 
 turned back, and stayed not there in the land." 
 
 Meantime, the kingdom of Judah had been 
 rising to more importance and exhibiting more 
 strength than at any former time in its history. 
 It had made gains from the Philistines and the 
 Ammonites, and under Uzziah acquired for a 2 Chronicles 
 time the leading place among the Semitic states xrvi 
 in the west. It is thought to have taken part in a 
 vain attempt to resist Tiglathpileser in his Syrian 
 campaign, though what seems to be an Assyrian 
 record to that effect is open to some dispute. 
 
 The Second Assyrian Empire 
 
 The campaigns and conquests of Tiglathpileser 
 III. assumed a character very different from those 
 of his predecessors who had gained fame in war. Tigiathpi- 
 It did not satisfy him to overrun neighboring ^q 
 countries with an army which plundered and 746-727 
 destroyed, exacting tribute and submission which 
 another army would need to exact again, and 
 boasting of subjugations which the next king
 
 n 4 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 McCurdy, 
 
 History, 
 
 Prophecy 
 
 and the 
 
 Monu~ 
 
 merits, 
 
 I 1323-381 
 
 Transplan- 
 tation of 
 conquered 
 peoples 
 
 Campaigns 
 of Tiglath- 
 pileser III. 
 
 Revolt of 
 Israel and 
 Damascus. 
 2 Kings, 
 xvi 
 
 would have to repeat. He made conquest a 
 reality, and organized empire to endure for a 
 little time, at least. He seems to have been the 
 first of conquerors to devise measures by which 
 such durability of subjugation could be secured. 
 One most important method he employed was 
 that of transplanting great masses of conquered 
 people to a new settlement, remote from their 
 native home, and then colonizing the vacated 
 country with Assyrian subjects whose allegiance 
 to Assur might be trusted to hold fast. He 
 established a dominion so distinct from that 
 existing before that what is termed the Second 
 Assyrian Empire has been dated by historians 
 from his reign. 
 
 The first campaign of this able sovereign was 
 against a number of more or less nomadic tribes, 
 in the southern part of the great valley, which the 
 government at Babylon had lost power to control. 
 His next was against the Medes; his third was 
 that which reached the land of Israel and took 
 ransom and tribute from Samaria. In this latter, 
 the whole of northern and middle Syria, with 
 Cilicia and Cappadocia, was added to his empire, 
 and many thousands of the population transferred 
 from one region to another. By his next under- 
 taking he broke the power of a rising kingdom on 
 Lake Van, in Armenia, known as Ararat, which 
 had grown defiantly strong in recent years. Then 
 he was summoned into Syria and Palestine again. 
 The kings of Damascus and Israel (Rezon and 
 Pekah) had dreams of breaking the Assyrian yoke
 
 Overthrow of the Kingdom of Israel 115 
 
 of vassalage, and when Ahaz of Judah (grandson 
 of Uzziah) would not join their confederacy for 
 that attempt they threatened him with attack. 
 Ahaz appealed to Tiglathpileser for help, though 
 solemnly warned by the prophet Isaiah that ruin 
 to the kingdom would come from his dependence Isaiah 
 on that dangerous power. The Assyrian king 
 answered the appeal, and Damascus and Samaria 
 suffered heavily at his hands. Both Rezon and 
 Pekah were slain, and their crowns went to new 
 kings, as Tiglathpileser's gift. 
 
 A final campaign in Babylonia was directed 
 mostly against the Kaldi, — the Kasdim of the 
 Old Testament, — from whose name that of 
 Chaldea was given ultimately to Babylonia at J r h cj^j! di ' 
 large. These people are now believed to have deans 
 been comparatively late-coming nomads from the 
 Arabian desert, who had settled on the lower 
 Tigris and Euphrates, near the Gulf, gradually 
 increasing and growing to a strength beyond the 
 control of the weakened government at Babylon. 
 Tiglathpileser had begun his reign by chastising 
 them; he ended its activities in like manner. In 
 727 B. C. he died, and was succeeded by Shal- 
 maneser IV., who reigned but five years. 
 
 The death of Tiglathpileser was the signal for 
 revolts, the most important of which, historically, Des truction 
 was that of Hosea, the vassal-king of Israel. ° fthekin g- 
 
 7 ° dom of 
 
 Shalmaneser proceeded to crush the offender, and Israel - 
 was laying siege to Samaria when he died. His 
 successor, Sargon the Later, founder of the last 
 and greatest Assyrian dynasty, completed the
 
 n6 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 2 "Kings, 
 xvii, and 
 xviii, 9-12 
 
 The 
 
 imaginary 
 "lost ten 
 tribes" 
 
 Sargon the 
 
 Later. 
 
 B.C. 
 
 722-705 
 
 reduction of the city, and accomplished the doom 
 which now fell upon the kingdom of the ten 
 tribes. As stated in the Hebrew Scriptures, he 
 "carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed 
 them in Halah and in Habor by the river of 
 Gozan, and in the city of the Medes." As stated 
 in the recovered records of Sargon, he took 27,280 
 of the leading people, their families and followers, 
 and deported them to regions not named. This, 
 it will be seen, was very far from being a trans- 
 plantation of the nation, and, consequently, there 
 never were any mysteriously "lost tribes of 
 Israel" to be sought for in distant parts of the 
 world. The greater part of the people were left in 
 northern Palestine, where they simply lost their 
 tribal and national identity. The few thousands 
 removed to Media and to the banks of the Gozan, 
 in Mesopotamia, were absorbed, without doubt. 
 The ten tribes and the kingdom of Israel ceased as 
 such to exist, but the tribes were "lost" in no 
 unexplained sense. 
 
 Sargon dealt in like manner with revolts in 
 Syria and other parts of his wide dominion, 
 vigorously maintaining the empire which Tiglath- 
 pileser had left and carrying out the policy which 
 that able monarch had planned. He crushed the 
 stubborn resistance in Armenia and Media to 
 Assyrian rule. He attacked the Philistines, 
 capturing Gaza and Ashdod, and transporting 
 9,000 inhabitants from the former to other parts 
 of his realm. His most serious conflict was with 
 the indomitable Chaldeans of southern Baby-
 
 The Siege of Jerusalem 117 
 
 Ionia, one of whose chieftains, in alliance with the 
 Elamites, had seized Babylon itself and made 
 himself king in that ancient seat of Semitic power. 
 For twelve years this Chaldean intruder, Mero- 
 dach-baladan, held the Babylonian throne; but 
 in 709 B. C. he was expelled. Four years later 
 Sargon was murdered by a soldier, and his son, erib b. c. 
 Sennacherib, reigned in his place. 7 ° s l 
 
 The first task of Sennacherib was to repeat the 
 expulsion of Merodach-baladan from Babylon, 
 where the latter had been reinstated on Sargon's 
 death. Soon afterward the new king was called 
 to the west by a great confederate rebellion, McCurdy, 
 which Merodach-baladan had done much to Prophecy, 
 instigate, and which was weakened seriously by a ^f ^_ 
 his fall. Another instigation had come from menu, 
 Egypt, which now ventured to move in resistance 
 to the Assyrian kings, whose conquests had been 
 pushed to its very gates. With promises of help 
 from Egypt, the Phoenician and Philistine cities 
 defied their Assyrian master, and Hezekiah, king 
 of Judah, joined their league, against the earnest 
 counsel and warning of Isaiah, greatest of the wa r n ings of 
 Hebrew prophets, who saw the hopelessness of the i saiah 
 revolt and held it to be contrary to the purposes of 
 the Lord. At the same time, when the wrathful 
 Assyrian appeared in Palestine with a great army, 
 to chastise his rebellious vassals, and when he 
 blockaded Jerusalem, it was Isaiah who inspired 
 the weak-hearted king and people to hold the city 
 against him. The wisdom of the prophet was jemsalem. 
 proved by the result. All resistance to Senna- 
 
 B. C. 701
 
 Ii8 
 
 2 Kings, 
 
 sviii-xix. 
 
 Isaiah, 
 
 xxxvi- 
 
 xxxvii 
 
 Deporta- 
 tion of 
 Jewish 
 people 
 
 The 
 
 Assyrians 
 stricken. 
 2 Kings, 
 xh., 35 , 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 cherib except the resistance of Jerusalem was 
 vain. The forces sent from Egypt to the help of 
 the confederates were beaten; the Phoenician 
 cities were humbled; those of Philistia were 
 punished severely; the country and the lesser 
 towns of Judah were plundered and devastated, 
 and a vast multitude of their inhabitants was 
 carried into captivity. Sennacherib, in an in- 
 scription, tells the tale of his deeds within the 
 kingdom of Hezekiah. He says: "I took 200,150 
 people, small and great, male and female, horses, 
 mules, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep without 
 number, from the midst of them I brought out, 
 and I counted them as spoil. Himself [Hezekiah], 
 as a bird in a cage, in the midst of Jerusalem, his 
 royal city, I shut up." Inasmuch as the Jewish 
 narratives of this occurrence say nothing of any 
 deportation of inhabitants from Judah, some 
 have argued that the Assyrian inscription means 
 only that they were compelled to give allegiance 
 to Sennacherib; but such a construction of the 
 language seems forced. The 200,150 people, as 
 well as the animals taken, were clearly counted as 
 "spoil" and carried away. A heavy fine was also 
 levied, which Hezekiah stripped gold from the 
 temple to pay. But Jerusalem was not entered; 
 nor did Sennacherib advance into Egypt, as he 
 had intended to do. His army was stricken by 
 some pestilence, so sorely that he "departed, and 
 went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh." 
 
 During much of the remainder of his reign, 
 Sennacherib was engaged in struggles with the
 
 Sennacherib's Empire 119 
 
 Chaldeans and the Elamites for the mastery of 
 Babylon. At length, in 689 B. C, he captured 
 the venerable and famous great capital and 
 destroyed it, leaving a heap of ruin, on which his 
 son and successor, Esar-haddon, built a new ~ , , 
 
 7 7 m Babylon 
 
 Babylon some years after. Esar-haddon gained destroyed 
 the throne in 681 B. C, after a war of four months 
 with two of his brothers, who had murdered their Pjj 
 
 ' haddon. 
 
 father, Sennacherib. At some undefined time in b. c. 
 his reign he drove back from his borders a terrify- 
 ing horde of nomadic people from the northern 
 shores of the Black Sea. These invaders, whom 
 the Greeks called Cimmerians, may have been a 
 division of that migratory procession of Aryan- 
 tongued tribes which the Hindus, the Medes and merians 
 the Persians are supposed to have led into 
 southern Asia from somewhere in the north. 
 Apparently the repulse from Assyria drove the 
 Cimmerians westward into Asia Minor and east- 
 ward towards the Caspian, to join the Medes. 
 Esar-haddon conducted, also, an energetic cam- 
 paign in the Arabian deserts, against its wild 
 tribes. His grand achievement, however, was the Assyrian 
 conquest of Egypt, to which he applied himself in Egypt" 1 ° 
 a series of campaigns, extending from 673 to 668 B - c - 6 73- 
 
 B C, when he died. 
 
 Egypt 
 
 From the reign of Ramses III., when our thread 
 of Egyptian history was dropped, until this 
 Assyrian conquest, little is known of Egyptian 
 history that needs to be told. The successors of (Seepage 
 the third Ramses in the Twentieth Dynasty lost 69)
 
 120 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 Twenty- 
 
 first- 
 
 Twenty- 
 
 fifth 
 
 dynasties 
 
 Expulsion 
 of the 
 Ethiopian 
 pharaoh 
 
 or wasted the imperial authority that he had 
 recovered, and allowed their prerogatives to be 
 taken from them gradually by the high priests of 
 Ammon, at Thebes, until the latter supplanted 
 them in title as well as in fact. A dynasty of 
 priestly pharaohs (the Twenty-first) occupied the 
 throne for a century or more, and was followed by 
 one which the army, composed mostly of Libyan 
 mercenaries, appears to have set up. One vigor- 
 ous king in this Twenty-second Dynasty was 
 Shishak, who invaded Palestine and plundered 
 Jerusalem in the reign of Rehoboam; but the 
 monarchy soon fell again into a feeble and broken 
 state. The nominal sovereignty of the pharaohs 
 at Thebes was scorned and defied by a score of 
 princes who reigned independently in different 
 parts of the land. From the strongest of these 
 came a family, in the Nubian province, which 
 assumed royal rank, as kings of Ethiopia, and 
 which finally dominated all the lesser princes in 
 the whole valley of the Nile. In 728 B. C, the 
 then reigning king of Ethiopia, Shabakah, de- 
 posed the last pharaoh of two nominal dynasties 
 (Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth) which had 
 retained meantime a petty realm in the Delta, 
 and took the title to himself, founding an Ethio- 
 pian dynasty, known as the Twenty-fifth. It 
 was this dynasty that Esar-haddon, the Assyrian, 
 overthrew, driving the third and last pharaoh of 
 its line, Tirhakah, back to Ethiopia, and organiz- 
 ing a government of vassal princes in Egypt, with 
 one Necho, of Sais, for their chief.
 
 Arch of Temple of Ramses IV 
 
 From a French photograph of the "Porte Triomphe" of the Temple of Ramses IV at 
 
 Karnak, Thebes
 
 Decline and Fall of the Pharaohs 121 
 
 The Assyrian conquest, however, was never 
 made secure. Esar-haddon and his son, Assur- 
 bani-pal, who succeeded him in 668, strove 
 against revolts and Ethiopian attacks, which indeed- 
 Tirhakah led again and again, until 660 B. C, !" ceb y . 
 
 ' Psammeti- 
 
 when Psammetichus, son of Necho, whom the chus 
 Assyrian kings had made their viceregent, B - C66 °- 
 declared the independence of his sovereignty, 
 restored order and authority, and established a 
 native dynasty which ruled Egypt for ninety 
 years. Psammetichus and his successors culti- 
 vated relations with the Greeks, with great Greeks in 
 advantage to themselves. The Greeks were then ^ gy ? t- 
 
 ° 8 Gardner, 
 
 pushing themselves with surpassing energy into New chap- 
 every field they could reach, as navigators and ^IsLyT 
 merchants in one capacity, and as mercenary ch -7 
 soldiers and adventurers in another. Egypt now 
 employed them in both. They were permitted to 
 establish themselves in a colony at Naucratis, 
 near the Canobic branch of the Nile, and that 
 became an important seat of their trade. They 
 built a fleet of ships for Necho II., the son of 
 Psammetichus, who interested himself in naviga- 
 tion as no Egyptian had done before. He is v °y a 8 e 
 
 oy r m , , round 
 
 reputed to have sent out an exploring expedition Africa 
 which sailed round the continent of Africa, more 
 than two thousand years before Vasco da Gama's The 
 
 TT i r 1 1 attempted 
 
 voyage. He attempted, furthermore, the con- Suez canal 
 struction of a Suez canal, from the Mediterranean 
 to the Red Sea, but failed after wasting an im- 
 mense number of lives in the work.
 
 122 From David to Cyrus 
 
 Decline and Fall of Assyria 
 
 When Psammetichus, in Egypt, declared his 
 independence of Assyria, that power had entered 
 the early stages of a rapid decline. Its long bar- 
 baric career of destructive war and rapine was 
 drawing towards the end. Its kings had carved 
 with their cruel swords a wider empire than they 
 had strength to hold, against the deathless hatred 
 which burned always through all its length and 
 breadth. Assur-bani-pal (the Sardanapalus of 
 the Greeks) was as fierce and merciless as any in 
 their lists, and apparently as energetic and able 
 Assur-bani- - n w b ut k e j^ c \ v {\[ ze d tastes, withal, and it 
 
 paHoardan- ' ' ' 
 
 apaius). may be that they seduced him at length into 
 668-626 negligence of the sword, which Assyria must keep 
 busy or die. In every direction he had to deal 
 Eulorytf w * tn revolt, fostered treacherously by his brother, 
 Babylonia w h Q had been given the Babylonian throne. 
 2:246-295 Everywhere but in Egypt he crushed it with an 
 unsparing hand; he drove his brother to self- 
 destruction; he devastated Elam; and yet all the 
 power he wielded seems to have been crumbling 
 in his hands when he died. But in his later years 
 he did that which yielded the one gift of value 
 from Assyria to the world. He collected in his 
 palace at Nineveh an immense library of clay 
 tablets, for which he searched the ancient libra- 
 The library ries of Babylonia for poems, legends, records of 
 bani-pal" history, religious writings, rituals and formulas of 
 magic, grammars, dictionaries, syllabaries, etc., 
 representing the literature, the knowledge, and 
 the superstition of Sumer, Accad and later Baby-
 
 The Great Library of Assur-bani-pal 123 
 
 Ionia, as well as of Assyria, and caused copies to 
 be made. By this collection he preserved a price- 
 less store of information concerning the early 
 culture of mankind; for the most precious treas- 
 ure found buried in the ruins of Nineveh is that 
 furnished by the remains of the library of Assur- 
 bani-pal. 
 
 Assur-bani-pal died in 626 B. C, and the 
 Assyrian empire survived him not more than Last years 
 twenty years. Of the course of events in those of A . ssynan 
 
 J * t empire 
 
 few last years very little has been learned. No 
 inscriptions yet found tell the story of the empire 
 to its end, and traditions repeated by Herodotus 
 and other Greek writers of after times do not 
 agree. The main facts which seem probable are 
 these: Either before or soon after the death of 
 Assur-bani-pal, the Chaldeans regained control of 
 Babylon and made one Nabopolassar king. This 
 had its natural connection with a general break- 
 ing up of the Assyrian dominion, which Assur- 
 bani-pal saw beginning and which proceeded 
 rapidly in[the following reigns. Barely the names 
 of two kings in that brief final period have been 
 learned. The last of them, Sin-shar-ishkun, 
 seems to have had strength and courage to invade 
 the northern provinces of Babylonia, and while so 
 engaged was attacked by the Medes. The latter 
 had old scores of invasion, conquest and oppres- 
 sion to settle with Assyria, which they might have 
 cleared sooner if they had not been struggling 
 with a fresh swarm of migrant nomads from the 
 north. These, the Scythians, whose desolating
 
 124 From David to Cyrus 
 
 invasion of Asia reached to even the borders of 
 Egypt, had just been repelled by the Medes, and 
 that warlike people was now free to strike venge- 
 fully at the sinking Assyrian power. According 
 to some accounts the Medes and the Babylonians 
 were allies in the attack; but Herodotus ascribes 
 Medes and ^ Q fatal blow to the former alone. Of that death- 
 Babyioni- blow, which suddenly and utterly ended Assyrian 
 Assyria history, we have fables and guesses to help us 
 imagine the awful scene, and we are not likely to 
 have more. The last Assyrian army that ever 
 fought was driven back within the walls of 
 Nineveh, and there, at the end of some hopeless 
 defense, the army, the city, the king and the 
 people were blotted forever from the records of 
 the world. 
 
 The unrecorded and mysterious catastrophe 
 (which occurred probably in 606 B. C.) seems 
 The end of a PP a ^ m o '■> but was it not, after all, the just end of 
 a barbaric a brutally barbaric career? It is difficult to see 
 that the Assyrians had ever earned a tear from 
 mankind for their tragical fate. They gave really 
 nothing to the world, save, unwittingly, the use 
 of their clay heaps of ruin for the burial and keep- 
 ing of precious records and writings from the older 
 nation of the south. What they represented in 
 civilization was a varnish from Babylon, which 
 coated a fierce savagery that it could not hide. 
 Their chief work in the six centuries of their power 
 was to slay, pillage and destroy. They ravaged 
 western Asia from Arabia to Asia Minor and from 
 Elam to the Caspian Sea. They destroyed 
 
 :areer
 
 The Destroyers of Assyria 125 
 
 Damascus and Samaria and Memphis in Egypt 
 and Babylon. Who can imagine what venerable 
 literatures and arts and growths of ancient cul- 
 ture may have perished at their barbarous hands! 
 It was fit that Nineveh should be cast down with _ 
 
 Destruction 
 
 violence bv another barbaric race, and that it °* Nineveh. 
 
 J . . B.C. 606 (?) 
 
 should be left in sudden emptiness and desolation, 
 while rains and floods spread the slime of broken 
 clay walls over all the vast heap of its ruin, and 
 hid what it held, keeping the precious secret for 
 disclosure to a future generation, — the sole 
 bequest it had to make. 
 
 The Short-lived Median Empire 
 
 For half a century after the fall of Nineveh, the 
 late Assyrian empire was divided mostly between 
 Babylon and Media; both of which were then 
 engulfed in the conquests of Cyrus the Great. 
 The annals of Media in this interval are little 
 known; but a mass of fiction relating to the two 
 kings of the period, Cyaxares and Astyages, was 
 gathered by the Greeks. Cyaxares, after the 
 destruction of Assyria, appears to have subju- 
 gated the greater part if not the whole of Iran, and 
 established relations of friendship with Lydia and 
 Babylon. He made his capital, Ecbatana, one of 
 the splendid cities of the east. He died in 593, 
 and his son, Astyages, reigned until the monarchy 
 
 fell. 
 
 Chaldean Babylonia 
 
 The Chaldean empire of Babylonia, which rose 
 on the ruins of Assyria, was less the work of its
 
 126 ' From David to Cyrus 
 
 first king, Nabopolassar, than of Nebuchadnez- 
 zar, or Nebuchadrezzar, his son. Even in the 
 Nebuchad- xif etiirrL^ of his father, Nebuchadnezzar appears to 
 
 nezzar. ' r r 
 
 B.C. 604- have been charged, to a great extent, with the 
 operations of war. His first serious encounter 
 Rogers, was with Necho II., of Egypt, the son of Psam- 
 and Assyria nietichus, who attempted to seize a share of the 
 2:316-353 Assyrian domain. Necho had overrun Palestine 
 and Syria, in the year before Nineveh fell; but 
 when he attempted, in a second campaign, to lay 
 hands on the northern part of Mesopotamia, he 
 was met by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, on 
 the Euphrates, and defeated so crushingly that 
 he fled back to Egypt, making no other stand. 
 Nebuchadnezzar followed, accepting the submis- 
 sion of the princes who had lately bowed to 
 Necho, and was about to pursue the latter into 
 Egypt when news reached him of his father's 
 death. He hastened back to Babylon to secure 
 his crown, and Egypt, for the moment, was 
 spared. 
 
 The long reign of Nebuchadnezzar, from 604 
 Public until 562 B. C, was filled much more with 
 works of activities of building, to make Babylon the 
 
 Nebuchad- . . °' r • • j 
 
 nezzar mightiest and most magnificent 01 cities and to 
 improve the Babylonian system of canals, than 
 with enterprises of war. There is little boasting 
 of battle in his inscriptions, and nearly all that is 
 known of his military exploits has come from 
 foreign sources, chiefly from the Hebrew writings, 
 in which he is represented to us from a hostile 
 point of view. Apparently no other people suf-
 
 The Jews Taken into Captivity 127 
 
 fered so much at his hands as the Jews. Jehoia- 
 kim, king of Judah, had submitted to Nebuchad- 
 nezzar when Necho's suzerainty was overthrown, 
 and paid tribute for three years. Then he was 
 persuaded by a reckless party in his kingdom to 
 refuse the tribute, which was a declaration of T . , 
 
 7 Jewish 
 
 revolt. This rash defiance was opposed by the refusal of 
 
 it -i • 1 j • 1 -tribute 
 
 prophet Jeremiah, as vigorously and vainly as 
 Isaiah had opposed the similar folly of Hezekiah, Warnings 
 
 1 Jjir ai • 1 of Jeremiah 
 
 a hundred years belore. A heavier penalty was 
 now to be paid; but Jehoiakim escaped it by a 
 timely death, just before the arrival of a Baby- 
 lonian army before Jerusalem, in 597 B. C. His 
 young son, Jeconiah, or Jehoiachin, surrendered 
 
 the city with no attempt to resist. Then Nebu- 
 la J ■ J • • • .The 
 
 cnadnezzar carried away into captivity not only Babylonian 
 the king and his family, but "all Jerusalem, and b. c. 597 
 all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, 
 even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen 
 and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort 
 of the people of the land;" and the temple and 
 the city were stripped of all the treasures that 
 could be found. The captives were taken to 
 Babylonia and established in a settlement by 2 Kings, 
 "the river Chebar," which recent explorations at XX1V_XIV 
 Nippur have shown to have been the name of a 
 canal near that city. 
 
 But this was not the end. Weakened though 
 the nation was by the exiling of its strongest 
 citizens, it was soon carried into rebellion again. 
 Nebuchadnezzar had appointed a young king, 
 Zedekiah, to rule over it in his name, and the ill-
 
 128 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 Jewish 
 
 rebellion 
 
 renewed 
 
 Destruction 
 of Jerusa- 
 lem. 
 B. C. 686 
 
 End of the 
 kingdom 
 of David 
 
 Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's 
 siege of 
 Tyre 
 
 iated youth was beguiled by the then king of 
 Egypt, Hophra (Necho's successor), into a league 
 with Tyre, Sidon, Ammon, Moab, and Edom, for 
 revolt. Again Jeremiah remonstrated and warned 
 with no effect, except to cause his own imprison- 
 ment as a suspected traitor and spy. Once more 
 Jerusalem was beleaguered by a Babylonian 
 army, and the Egyptians who came to its relief 
 were driven back. This time the city was 
 defended desperately for no less than a year and a 
 half. When taken, at last, in the month of July, 
 586 B. C, it was pillaged and burned and the 
 walls thrown down; Zedekiah was blinded, after 
 seeing his sons slain before his eyes; another 
 great multitude of the inhabitants — how many is 
 not stated — was carried away to exile in Baby- 
 lonia, and, again, the poorest and weakest were 
 left behind. But this sad remnant of Judah 
 found itself unprotected from lawless attacks, and 
 sought refuge in Egypt; so that no vestige of the 
 kingdom of David existed any more. 
 
 From the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar went to Tyre, and began a siege of that 
 sea-girt city which is said to have lasted thirteen 
 years. In the end he had success only far enough 
 to bring the Tyrians to a capitulation on favor- 
 able terms. At some time during the progress of 
 the siege, about 567 B. C, he drew away part of 
 his army and led it into Egypt, for the punish- 
 ment of King Hophra's malicious intrigues. 
 Apparently his campaign was no more than a 
 raid, in which he satisfied his wrath, by pillage
 
 Destruction of Jerusalem 129 
 
 and destruction, but made no attempt to estab- 
 lish authority in the land. It is not known that 
 he was engaged in any further undertakings of 
 war. His later years were devoted probably to 
 the stupendous works by which he made Babylon, Later 
 more than ever it had been before, the wonder of Babylon* 50 
 the ancient world, for the enormous circuit of its Goods eed 
 three impregnable walls; for the perfection of its History of 
 canals, bridges and streets; for the magnificence i on ians and 
 of its temples and palaces: for the beauty of its As wians, 
 
 r , * 7 . J sects. 283, 
 
 gardens and public grounds. His Babylon and 299-304. 
 Babylonia were those which later writers de- (Seepages 
 scribed, and, knowing them only as they existed n 5- I2 --3 
 then, under the Chaldean regime, they gave the 
 Chaldean name to all their long history, which is 
 now known to have been contrary to fact. The 
 Kaldi or Chaldeans, as we have seen, came into 
 Babylonian history at a period comparatively 
 late. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded at his death 
 (562 B. C.) by his son, Amil-Marduk, called Evil- 
 merodach in the Bible, who reigned but two 
 years and was then assassinated, to make room 
 for an usurper of the throne. The usurper and 
 his son reigned briefly, until 556 B. C, when the 
 latter fell a victim to conspiracy and murder, and Last years 
 Nabonidus, a man of excellent qualities, but ° f Baby ~ 
 unfkted for government, was chosen to be king, empire 
 Nabonidus was a pious temple-builder and an 
 ardent archaeologist, so deeply interested in find- 
 ing the names and dates of early kings, who had 
 been founders of the ancient temples which he
 
 130 From David to Cyrus 
 
 labored to restore, that he neglected his failing 
 empire and its affairs. But the records of archaeo- 
 logical discovery which he left behind him have 
 been of inestimable helpfulness to the scholars of 
 our day, who patiently piece together the re- 
 covered fragments of the oldest annals of man- 
 kind. 
 
 While Nabonidus was busying himself with 
 architecture and archaeology, the most remarka- 
 ble of ancient conquerors, known as Cyrus the 
 Great, had arisen in Elam, and was destined to 
 be the master of Babylon before many years 
 passed. 
 
 In the Lands of the Greeks 
 
 While the Assyrians were pursuing their vio- 
 lent career to its violent end, and the Medes and 
 Persians, on the table-land of Iran, were growing 
 in strength, the inhabitants of what came to be 
 Greek lands, in and around the y£gean, were 
 recovering from what seems to have been the 
 (Seepages check to their progress in civilization, produced 
 99-100) ky t k e southward movement of the Dorian tribes, 
 Semitic and and were preparing to open an extraordinary 
 Hamitic new era f culture in the history of mankind. 
 
 civihza- 
 
 tions giving They were about to be the first of the slow, the 
 Aryan* the ^ on S silent, but the powerful races of Europe, to 
 step out of prehistoric obscurity into the day- 
 lighted arenas of recorded history, and to guide 
 them on new lines of advance. The precocious 
 leadership of Semitic and Hamitic peoples in the 
 civilization of the world was coming to its close.
 
 Dawn of a New Era of Culture 131 
 
 Simultaneously in Asia and Europe, the tribes of 
 Aryan speech, — Mede and Persian in the one 
 continent and Greek in the other — were grasping 
 the lordship of the age; not as allies, but as rivals, 
 between whom a life-and-death conflict was 
 waiting in the future to be fought out. But the 
 Persian and the Mede entered history as the heirs 
 of Assyria and the pupils of Babylon, to pursue in 
 the main the old worn ways, in the old worn 
 grooves of eastern action and thought; while the 
 Greek brought into the world a wholly fresh intel- 
 lectual force, aimed towards wholly different ends. 
 A very new leaf in human history, written upon in Birth of a 
 this Hellenic corner of Europe, was preparing to j^ua" e 
 be turned. force 
 
 The peninsula which the Greeks or Hellenes 
 then controlled is peculiarly formed. It is crossed 
 in different directions by mountain ranges, which 
 divide the land into parts naturally separated 
 from one another, and which form barriers easily 
 defended against invading foes. Between the 
 mountains lie numerous fertile valleys; while the 
 coast is ragged with gulfs and bays, which notch py*"* 1 
 it deeply on all sides, making the whole main the Greek 
 peninsula a cluster of minor peninsulas, and penmsua 
 supplying the people with harbors which invite 
 them to a life of seafaring and trade. It is sur- 
 rounded, moreover, with islands, which repeat 
 the invitation. 
 
 Almost necessarily, in a country marked with D eve i op . 
 such features so strongly, the Greeks became mentof 
 divided politically into small independent states
 
 132 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 Early king- 
 ship 
 
 Kings 
 displaced 
 by oligar- 
 chies, and 
 those by 
 tyrannies. 
 Thirlwall, 
 History of 
 Greece, 
 I : 394-409 
 
 — city-states they have been named — and those 
 on the seacoast became engaged very early in 
 trade with other countries of the Mediterranean 
 Sea. Every city of importance in Greece was 
 entirely sovereign in the government of itself and 
 of the surrounding territory which formed its 
 domain. The stronger among them extended 
 their dominion over some of the weaker or less 
 valiant ones; but even then independence of the 
 subj ect cities was not entirely taken away. There 
 was no organization of national government to 
 embrace the whole, nor any large part, of Greece. 
 Certain among the states were sometimes united 
 in temporary leagues, or confederacies, for com- 
 mon action in war; but these were unstable 
 alliances, rather than political unions. 
 
 In their earliest form, the Greek city-states 
 were governed by kings, about whose power there 
 is much dispute. But kingship had disappeared 
 from most of the states in Greece proper before 
 they reached the period of distinct and accepted 
 history. The kings were displaced first by aristoc- 
 racies — ruling families, which took all political 
 rights and privileges to themselves, and allowed 
 their fellows (whom they usually oppressed) no 
 part or voice in public afFairs. In most instances 
 these aristocracies, or oligarchies, were over- 
 thrown, after a time, by bold agitators who stirred 
 up a revolution, and then contrived, while confu- 
 sion prevailed, to gather power into their own 
 hands. Almost every Greek city had its time of 
 being ruled by one or more of these tyrants, as
 
 The City-States of the Greeks 133 
 
 they were called. Some of them, like Pisistratus 
 of Athens, ruled wisely and justly for the most 
 part, and were not "tyrants" in the modern sense 
 of the term; but all who gained and held a prince- 
 ly power unlawfully were so named by the Greeks. 
 
 The reign of the tyrants was generally brief. 
 They were driven out of one city after another, Fallofthe 
 until they disappeared. Then the old aristocra- tyrants 
 cies came uppermost again in some cities, and 
 ruled as before. But some, like Athens, had 
 trained the whole body of their citizens to such 
 intelligence and spirit that neither kingship nor 
 oligarchy would be endured any longer, and the 
 people undertook to govern themselves. These 
 were the first democracies — the first experiments The first 
 in popular government — that history gives any democratic 
 account of. "The little commonwealths of ^eTithTin 
 Greece," says a great historian, "were the first the world 
 states at once free and civilized which the world 
 ever saw. They were the first states which gave 
 birth to great statesmen, orators, and generals 
 who did great deeds, and to great historians who Freeman, 
 set down those great deeds in writing. It was in G s e h ^ l , 
 the Greek commonwealths, in short, that the European. 
 political and intellectual life of the world began." 
 But an exception to this democratic tendency 
 appeared in the leading Dorian states. 
 
 The principal states founded or possessed and Sparta and 
 controlled by the Dorians in Peloponnesus, after Spartans 
 their conquest, were Sparta, or Lacedcemon, 
 Argos, and Corinth. The Spartans were the most 
 warlike of the Greeks, — the most resolute and
 
 134 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 Lycurgus 
 
 The 
 
 Spartan 
 constitu- 
 tion 
 
 Argos 
 
 energetic, — and their leadership was accepted 
 generally in practical affairs common to the 
 whole. At the same time they had little of the 
 intellectual superiority which distinguished some 
 of their Hellenic kindred in so remarkable a 
 degree. Their state was organized on military 
 principles; its constitution (the body of famous 
 ordinances ascribed to Lycurgus) was a code of 
 rigid discipline, which dealt with the citizen as a 
 soldier always under training for war, and 
 demanded from him the utmost simplicity of life. 
 Their form of government combined a peculiar 
 monarchy (having two royal families and two 
 kings) with an aristocratic senate (the gerousia), 
 and a democratic assembly (which voted on 
 matters only as submitted to it by the senate), 
 with an irresponsible executive over the whole, 
 consisting of five men called the Ephors. This 
 singular government, essentially aristocratic or 
 oligarchical, was maintained, with little disturb- 
 ance or change, through the whole independent 
 history of Sparta. In all respects, the Spartans 
 were the most conservative and the least progres- 
 sive among the politically important Greeks. 
 
 At the beginning of the domination of the 
 Dorians in Peloponnesus, their city of Argos took 
 the lead, and was the head of a league which 
 included Corinth and other city-states. But 
 Sparta soon rose to rivalry with Argos; then 
 reduced it to a secondary place, and subjugated it 
 completely in the end. 
 
 The extensive shifting of population which had
 
 The Spartans and Their Constitution 135 
 
 produced its most important result in the inva- 
 sion of Peloponnesus by the Dorians, must have 
 caused great commotions and changes throughout 
 the whole Greek peninsula; and quite as much 
 north of the Corinthian isthmus as in the south. 
 But in the part which lies nearest to the isthmus 
 — the branch peninsula of Attica — the old inhab- 
 itants appear to have held their ground, repelling 
 invaders, and their country was affected only by 
 an influx of fugitives, flying from the conquered 
 Peloponnesus. The Attic people were more 
 nearly akin to the expelled Achaians and Ionians 
 than to the conquering Dorians, although a com- Fusion of 
 mon brotherhood in the Hellenic race was recog- Achaians 
 
 , . 11 ttti t • i and Ionians 
 
 nized by all. Whatever distinction there may 
 have been before between Achaians and Ionians 
 now practically disappeared, and the Ionic name 
 became common to the whole branch of the ^he 
 Greek people which derived itself from them. 
 The important division of the race through all its 
 subsequent history was between Dorians and 
 Ionians. The iEolians constituted a third less 
 important division. 
 
 The distinction between Ionians and Dorians 
 seems to have been very real, in character no less 
 than in traditions and name. The Ionians were 
 the superior Greeks on the intellectual side. It 
 was among them that the wonderful genius 
 resided which produced the greater marvels of 
 Greek literature, philosophy and art. It was 
 among them, too, that the institutions of political 
 freedom were carried to their highest attainment.
 
 136 From David to Cyrus 
 
 ioniansand Their chief city was Athens, and the splendor of 
 Dorians its history bears testimony to their unexampled 
 genius. On the other hand, the Dorians were less 
 thoughtful, it appears, less imaginative, less 
 broad in judgment or feeling — less susceptible, it 
 would seem, of a high refinement of culture; but 
 no less capable in practical pursuits, no less vigor- 
 ous in effective action, and much sounder in their 
 moral constitution. Sparta, which stood at the 
 head of the Doric states, contributed almost 
 nothing to Greek literature, Greek thought, 
 Greek art, or Greek commerce, but exercised a 
 great influence on Greek political history. Other 
 Corinth Doric states, especially Corinth, were foremost in 
 commercial and colonizing enterprise, and at- 
 tained some brilliancy of artistic civilization, but 
 not much originality appears in what they did. 
 
 As stated heretofore, the Greeks were once sup- 
 posed to have received far more teaching from the 
 Greeks and Phoenicians, in navigation and in commercial 
 Phoenicians enterprise especially, than now seems to be the 
 fact. Without doubt there was a time, after the 
 fall of the Cretan sea-power and of the Mycenaean 
 domination, during which the Phoenicians were 
 active in Greek waters and influenced the new 
 development of Greek life in some degree. But 
 that period cannot have been long, and it seems to 
 have had no great effect. The Greeks were soon 
 rivaling the Phoenicians in trading and colonizing 
 energy, not only within their own sea but far 
 beyond. They occupied the coast of Asia Minor 
 and the islands on both their own coasts. The
 
 XXII- 
 
 xxm 
 
 Greek Colonies 137 
 
 Ionian Greeks were the principal colonizers of the Greek 
 Asiatic shore and of the Cyclades. On the former colonies, 
 and near it they founded twelve towns of note, Grote> 
 including Samos, Miletus, Ephesus, Chios, and History of 
 PhocEea, which are among the more famous cities 3 :ch ' 
 of ancient times. Their important island settle 
 ments in the Cyclades were Naxos, Delos, Melos, 
 and Paros. They possessed, likewise, the great 
 island of Eubcea, with its two wealthy cities of 
 Chalcis and Eretria. These, with Attica, consti- 
 tuted, in the main, the Ionic portion of Hellas. 
 
 The Dorians occupied the islands of Rhodes 
 and Cos, and founded on the coast of Asia Minor 
 the cities of Halicarnassus and Cnidus. 
 
 The important iEolian colonies in Asia were 
 Smyrna (acquired later by the lonians), Temnos, 
 Larissa, and Cyme. Of the islands they occupied 
 Lesbos and Tenedos. 
 
 From these settlements on neighboring coasts 
 and islands the vigorous Greeks pushed on to 
 more distant fields. It is probable that their 
 colonies were in Cyprus and Crete before the 
 eighth century, B. C. In the seventh century 
 B. C, during the time of confusion and weakness 
 in Egypt which attended and followed the 
 Assyrian conquest by Esar-haddon they had 
 entered that country as allies or as mercenaries of (See page 
 Necho and Psammetichus, and had founded, I2l) 
 about 660 B. C, on the Canobic branch of the Greeks in 
 Nile, a city, Naucratis, which became an import- £ g ^ pt - , 
 
 • 1 1 r , • 1 BC 7 th 
 
 ant agent in the exchange of arts and ideas, as century 
 well as of merchandise, between the Nile and the
 
 138 From David to Cyrus 
 
 iEgean. Within a few years past the site of 
 Naucratis has been uncovered by explorers, and 
 much has been brought to light that was obscure 
 in Greek and Egyptian history before. 
 
 Within the same seventh century, Cyrene and 
 Barca had been built on the African coast, farther 
 west. Even a century before that time, the 
 Corinthians had taken possession of Corcyra 
 (modern Corfu), and they, with the men of 
 Chalcis and Megara, had been actively founding 
 cities that grew great and rich, in Sicily and in 
 southern Italy, which latter acquired the name of 
 Magna "Magna Grsecia" (Great Greece). At a not 
 Graeda much later time they had pressed northwards to 
 the Euxine or Black Sea, and had scattered settle- 
 ments along the Thracian and Macedonian coast, 
 Byzantium including one (Byzantium) on the Bosphorus, 
 which became, after a thousand years had passed, 
 the imperial city of Constantinople. About 597 
 B. C, the Phocseans had planted a colony at Mas- 
 silia, in southern Gaul, from which sprang the 
 great city known in modern times as Marseilles. 
 And much of all this had been done, by Ionians 
 Massilia an <3 Dorians together, before Athens (in which 
 (Marseilles) Attica now centered itself, and which loomed 
 finally greater in glory than the whole Hellenic 
 world besides) had made a known mark in history. 
 Moreover, in this time, before Athens had im- 
 portance in history, the rare literary genius of the 
 Early Greeks had borne already the fruits of its first rich 
 
 uterature season, not only in the great Homeric epics, but in 
 lyric poetry that has never been surpassed.
 
 Greek Literature 139 
 
 Archilochus, Alcseus, Sappho, Anacreon, Pindar, 
 
 are among the singers of the seventh and sixth 
 
 centuries before Christ, whose songs are known to 
 
 the modern world by just enough to show how 
 
 strong in passion, how fine in imagination and 
 
 thought and how perfect in art they were. The Homeric 
 
 Homeric poems were yet earlier in time, — how poems 
 
 much earlier is a question still under debate. The Gardner, 
 
 x m m New chap- 
 
 greater weight of present day opinion seems to be ters in 
 
 against the belief that the Iliad and the Odyssey history, 
 were composed by one poet at one time. If they ch - v - 
 were formed out of various poems, collected 
 finally and unified by epic-makers of a later day, 
 then parts may be as ancient as the twelfth cen- 
 tury, to which some critics would assign the whole 
 work, and parts may be as recent as the eighth 
 century, to which others would bring it down. 
 Between those centuries the songs of the Hebrew 
 psalmists were heard in Israel and Judah; while 
 the solemn chants of the prophets were near in The two 
 time to the light strains of the lyric poets of s reat 
 
 r> 01 i- r • literatures 
 
 Lrreece. bo the two great literatures 01 antiquity ofantiquity 
 sprang from generations that were not far apart. 
 At first there had been kings in Athens, and 
 legends had gathered about their names which 
 give modern historians a groundwork for critical 
 guessing, and scarcely more. Then the king dis- 
 appeared and a magistrate called archon took his 
 place, who held office for only ten years. The 
 archons are believed to have been chosen first ofAthenian 
 from the old royal family alone; but after a time hlstor y 
 the office was thrown open to all noble families.
 
 140 From David to Cyrus 
 
 This was the aristocratic stage of political evolu- 
 tion in the city-state. The next step was taken in 
 683 B. C. (which is said to be the beginning of 
 
 B.C. 683 authentic Athenian chronology) when nine 
 archons were created, in place of the one, and 
 their term of office was reduced to a single year. 
 
 Sixty years later, about 621 B. C, the people of 
 Athens obtained their first code of written law, 
 ascribed to one Draco, and described as a code of 
 
 The Draco- much severity. But it gave certainty to law, for 
 
 " ia " c ° de - the first time, and it was the first great protective 
 measure secured by the people. In 612 B. C. a 
 noble named Kylon attempted to overthrow the 
 aristocratic government and establish a tyranny 
 under himself, but he failed. 
 
 Then there came forward in public life another 
 noble, who was one of the wisest men and purest 
 patriots of any country or age, and who made an 
 
 Solon attempt of quite another kind. This was Solon, 
 
 the famous lawgiver, who became archon in 594 
 B. C. The political state of Athens at that time 
 has been described for us in an ancient Greek 
 treatise lately discovered, and which is believed to 
 be one of the hitherto lost writings of Aristotle. 
 "Not only," says the author of this treatise, "was 
 the constitution at this time oligarchical in every 
 respect, but the poorer classes, men, women, and 
 children, were in absolute slavery to the rich. 
 . . . The whole country was in the hands of a 
 few persons, and if the tenants failed to pay their 
 rent, they were liable to be haled into slavery, and 
 their children with them. Their persons were
 
 Early Athens and the Athenians 141 
 
 mortgaged to their creditors." Solon saw that 
 this was a state of things not to be endured by 
 such a people as the Athenians, and he exerted 
 himself to change it. He obtained authority to 
 frame a constitution and a new code of laws for 
 
 The 
 
 the state. In the latter he provided measures for constitution 
 relieving the oppressed class of debtors. In the 
 former, he did not create a democratic govern- 
 ment, but he greatly increased the political 
 powers of the people. He classified them accord- 
 ing to their wealth, defining four classes, the 
 citizens in each of which had certain political 
 duties and privileges measured to them by the 
 extent of their income and estate. But the whole 
 body of citizens, in their general assembly (the ™^ 
 ecclesia), were given the important right of choos- 
 ing the annual archons, whom they must select, 
 however, from the ranks of the wealthiest class. 
 At the same time, Solon enlarged the powers of 
 the old aristocratic senate — the areopagus — giv- 
 ing it a supervision of the execution of the laws 
 and a censorship of the morals of the people. 
 
 "These changes did not constitute democracy, The 
 — a form of government then unknown, and for areopagus 
 which there was as yet no word in the Greek lan- 
 guage. But they initiated the democratic spirit. 
 . . . Athens, thus fairly started on her way, — 
 emancipated from the discipline of aristocratic 
 school-masters, and growing into an age of manly 
 liberty and self-restraint, — came eventually Fowler, 
 nearer to the ideal of 'the good life' [Aristotle's ^^ 
 phrase] than any other state in Hellas."
 
 142 
 
 From David to Cyrus 
 
 Union of 
 Latins and 
 Sabines in 
 founding 
 Rome 
 
 In the Italian Peninsula 
 
 While the Greeks in this period were entering 
 the open field of recorded history, their kinsmen 
 in the next western peninsula, the Romans, were 
 only, as yet, passing through the preparatory 
 stage. They, too, were members of the great 
 family which drew language from the Aryan 
 source. The same movement, it is supposed, in 
 the successive outswarmings of that family, 
 deposited in one peninsula the Italian tribes, and 
 in the next peninsula, eastward, the tribes of the 
 Hellenes. Among the Italian tribes were Latins, 
 Umbrians, Sabines, Samnites, etc., occupying the 
 middle and much of the southern parts of the 
 peninsula, while a mysterious alien people, the 
 Etruscans, possessed the country north of them, 
 between the Arno and the Tiber. In the extreme 
 south were remnants of a primitive race, identical, 
 perhaps, with the Pelasgians of Greece, and Greek 
 colonies were scattered there, around the coasts. 
 
 From the Latins sprang the Romans, at the 
 beginning of their separate existence; but there 
 seems to have been a very early union of these 
 Romans of the primitive tradition with a Sabine 
 community, whereby was formed the Roman 
 city-state of historical times. That union came 
 about through the settlement of the two com- 
 munities, Latin and Sabine, on two neighboring 
 hills, near the mouth of the river Tiber, on its 
 southern bank. In the view of some historians, it 
 is the geographical position of those hills, hardly 
 less than the masterful temper and capacity of the
 
 The Founding of Rome 143 
 
 race seated on them, which determined the mar- 
 velous career of the city founded on that site. 
 Says Professor Freeman: "The whole history of 
 the world has been determined by the geological 
 fact that, at a point a little below the junction of 
 the Tiber and the Anio, the isolated hills stand _, . 
 
 ' The site 
 
 nearer to one another than most of the other hills of Rome 
 of Latium. On a site marked out above all other 
 sites for dominion, the center of Italy, the center 
 of Europe, as Europe then was, a site at the junc- 
 tion of three of the great nations of Italy, and 
 which had the great river as its highway to lands 
 beyond the bounds of Italy, stood two low hills, 
 the hill which bore the name of Latin Saturn, and 
 the hill at the meaning of whose name of Palatine 
 scholars will perhaps guess forever. These two 
 hills, occupied by men of two of the nations of 
 Italy, stood so near to one another that a strait 
 choice indeed was laid on those who dwelled on 
 them. They must either join together on terms 
 closer than those which commonly united Italian 
 leagues, or they must live a life of border warfare 
 more ceaseless, more bitter, than the ordinary 
 warfare of Italian enemies. Legend, with all like- 
 lihood, tells us that warfare was tried; history, Freeman, 
 with all certainty, tells us that the final choice *£%££* 
 
 was union. The two hills were fenced with a Audiences, 
 
 278 
 single wall; the men who dwelled on them 
 
 changed from wholly separate communities into 
 
 tribes of a single city." 
 
 The followers of Romulus occupied the Palatine 
 
 Mount, and the Sabines were settled on the
 
 144 From David to Cyrus 
 
 Quirinal. At subsequent times, the Ccelian, the 
 
 Capitoline, the Aventine, the Esquiline and the 
 
 The seven Viminal hills were embraced in the circumvalla- 
 
 tiii« tion, and the city on the seven hills thus acquired 
 
 that name. 
 
 If modern students and thinkers, throwing 
 light on the puzzling legends and traditions of 
 early Rome from many sources, in language and 
 archaeology, have construed their meaning rightly, 
 then great importance attaches to those first 
 unions or incorporations of distinct settlements in 
 the forming of the original city-state. For it was 
 the beginning of a process which went on until the 
 whole of Latium, and then the whole of Italy, and, 
 finally, the whole Mediterranean world, were 
 TheRoman joined to the seven hills of Rome. "The whole 
 process of history of Rome is a history of incorporation;" 
 
 wcorpora- ... . . 
 
 tion and it is reasonable to believe that the primal 
 
 spring of Roman greatness is found in that early 
 adoption and persistent practice of the policy of 
 political absorption, which gave conquest a 
 character it had never borne before. 
 
 At the same time, this view of the creation of 
 the Roman state contributes to an understanding 
 of its early constitutional history. It supposes 
 that the union of the first three tribes which 
 coalesced — those of the Palatine, the Quirinal and 
 Capitoline (both occupied by the Sabines) and the 
 Ccelian hills — ended the process of incorporation 
 tkeRoman on e qual terms. These formed the original 
 patricians Roman people — the "fathers," the "patres," 
 whose descendants appear in later times as a dis-
 
 Roman Patricians and Plebs 145 
 
 tinct class or order, the "patricians" — holding 
 and struggling to maintain exclusive political 
 rights, and exclusive ownership of the public 
 domain, the "ager publicus," which became a 
 subject of bitter contention for four centuries. 
 Around these heirs of the "fathers" of Rome 
 arose another class of Romans, brought into the 
 community by later incorporations, and not on 
 equal terms. If the first class were "fathers," 
 these were children, in a political sense, adopted 
 into the Roman family, but without a voice in 
 general affairs, or a share in the public lands, or 
 eligibility to the higher offices of the state. These 
 were the plebs (plebeians) of Rome, whose long ? rig! ?? f 
 struggle with the patricians for political and 
 agrarian rights is the more interesting side of 
 Roman history, throughout nearly the whole of 
 the prosperous age of the republic. 
 
 The Phoenicians 
 
 The interval of independence which the cities of 
 Phoenicia had enjoyed for a few hundred years, 
 after the crumbling, in the eleventh century B.C., 
 of the power of Egypt, was ended, as we have 
 seen, by the Assyrian conquests of the eighth 
 century, and they were never again politically 
 free. But their commerce was unfettered, and, n"th^6th 
 apparently, they cared little for any freedom 
 beyond that. For a time in this period the trade 
 of the Mediterranean appears to have been 
 wholly in their hands. This was while the Greeks 
 were inactive, even in their own seas, and before 
 
 centuries
 
 146 From David to Cyrus 
 
 Carthage, founded in the ninth century B. C. by 
 exiles from Tyre, had attained much power. Of 
 the career of the Carthaginians prior to the fifth 
 century nothing really is known; nor is there any 
 knowledge in detail of the lines and methods of 
 Phoenician trade. It is only clear, as a general 
 fact, that they handled a wide exchange of com- 
 Phcemcian mo dities between the three continents that touch 
 
 commerce 
 
 the Mediterranean Sea. That their ships, or 
 those of the Carthaginians, made voyages to 
 Britain, and brought thence the tin of Cornwall, 
 or sailed beyond Britain to the Baltic for amber, 
 is no longer much believed. Undoubtedly the 
 Phoenicians and the Carthaginians conducted an 
 important trade in British tin, but it reached 
 them, more probably, by overland routes, through 
 Gaul (modern France), which were opened by 
 native traders of that country at a very early day. 
 Similarly the amber of the Baltic was brought to 
 the Adriatic and the Mediterranean by merchants 
 who traversed the rivers and roadways of the 
 land, not the paths of the sea. 
 
 The bold Phoenicians and Carthaginians did, 
 
 however, sail their ships out of the Mediterranean 
 
 into the Atlantic, and they founded settlements 
 
 on the ocean coasts, both in Africa and Spain. 
 
 . . The modern city of Cadiz can trace its parentage 
 
 Antiquity . m J . f 
 
 of Cadiz to a Phoenician or Carthaginian colony of such 
 antiquity that (says Mr. Freeman, the historian) 
 it "has kept its name and its unbroken position as 
 a great city from an earlier time than any other 
 city in Europe." Southern Spain was covered
 
 Phoenicians and Carthaginians 147 
 
 with Phoenician and Carthaginian settlements, and 
 they monopolized its mines, which were a great 
 source of wealth. The dominion of Carthage in 
 north Africa was extended, at some quite early 
 day, from what is now named the Gulf of Sidra 
 (the Great Syrtis of the ancients) to the ocean on Cartha _ 
 the west. In that Libyan territory it claimed ginian 
 ultimately three hundred tributary cities, some of 
 which, such as Utica, its close neighbor, were 
 Phoenician settlements older than itself. 
 
 The Phoenicians were extensive manufacturers, 
 as well as merchants and carriers, and much of 
 what they bartered with other peoples was the Phoenician 
 product of their own arts. They were reputed to manufac- 
 be the discoverers of glass-making; their bronze 
 and copper work was famous; they had no rivals Rawiinson, 
 in the use of dyes, especially Tyrian purple, which ch . I0 
 a shell-fish supplied. For a long period they 
 monopolized the copper of Cyprus — the metal 
 which gave that island its name. But the busi- 
 ness which the Phoenicians pursued with most 
 activity and profit, if Greek writers are believed, 
 was the buying, capturing, stealing and selling of 
 slaves. Wherever men, women and children 
 could be bought or caught, the Phoenicians are 
 represented to have been alert for the oppor- 
 tunity; and markets for the human commodity 
 were always to be found. 
 
 India 
 
 Our narrative has not yet reached a time from 
 which any definite record of any people (except
 
 mamsm 
 
 148 From David to Cyrus 
 
 the Chinese) dwelling outside of the range of the 
 records of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Judea, or 
 Greece, has come to light. 
 
 India still tells nothing of her past, except by 
 inference from a sacred literature that was put 
 into writing at a later time; but some inferences 
 are drawn from that source which have almost the 
 substance of fact. One such reveals a great 
 change from the religious ideas and from the social 
 organization represented in the Rig-veda, and 
 shows it to have become complete within the 
 period of our present survey. This change had 
 Evolution produced from the early simpler Vedic worship an 
 of Brah- elaborated religion known as Brahmanism, and 
 produced, at the same time, the paralyzing social 
 institution of caste. The religious system of 
 Brahmanism was polytheistic, but it introduced 
 the trinitarian conception of one supreme deity 
 existing in three persons, or manifestations, 
 Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, — the first creative in 
 his functions, the second protective or preserva- 
 tive, the third destructive and reproductive. An 
 elaboration of priestly service in the Brahmanic 
 worship led to claims of superiority in the priest- 
 hood, going beyond any found elsewhere in the 
 world. The priests, called "brahmans" (which is 
 said to have signified originally no more than 
 "singers of sacred songs"), came to be regarded 
 not only as a class apart, but as men of a different 
 mould from their fellows — a caste. Caste has 
 been defined as "rank with impassable bounda- 
 ries, admitting no one not born within them." 
 
 Origin of 
 caste
 
 castes 
 
 India and China 149 
 
 It exists rigidly in India alone, and it was created 
 there undoubtedly by the Brahmanic priests. To 
 establish the distinction of caste for themselves 
 they must have given religious encouragement to 
 the caste-idea of rank, which divided Indian 
 society at last into what seem to be regarded as 
 four species of human beings, namely: (1) Brah- 
 mans, or the learned; (2) Kshattryas, or princes 
 and warriors; (3) Vaisyas, or the common people The four 
 of the ruling race; (4) Sudras, or the subjugated 
 aboriginals of the country, practically enslaved. 
 The caste-organization of society and life in 
 India goes back to a very early day, and probably 
 it was formed, or taking form, along with the 
 Brahmanic religion, in the period now under sur- 
 vey. Inferentially from the sacred books of the 
 Hindus, some glimpses of the process of these 
 social and religious developments are obtained; 
 otherwise Indian history preceding the sixth 
 century before Christ, when Buddhism arose, is 
 almost a blank. 
 
 China 
 
 The native historians of China represent its 
 condition in this period to have been one of great 
 general disorder in every part of the land. The 
 authority exercised by the early sovereigns of the 
 Chow dynasty had been lost; the people were 
 oppressed by their princes of all ranks; fraud, 
 violence and licentiousness were increasing every- 
 where, and society was vitiated throughout.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FROM THE ADVENT OF CYRUS 
 THE AGE OF XERXES 
 
 TO 
 
 Notable 
 marks on 
 the period 
 
 (B. C. 558 to 480) 
 The Period: Its two notable marks. — Trial of racial strength and character 
 between Asiatic and European branches of the Aryan-tongued peoples. — 
 Religious movements in the Asiatic world. Ancient Persia: The nationality 
 of Cyrus the Great, a problem. — Primitive Persia and the Persians. — 
 Xenophon's account of Persian education of the young. — The Avesta. — 
 Zoroaster. Early Religious Reformations in the East: Zoroaster's reform of 
 the primitive religion of the Aryas.-^-Gotama, tile Buddha, and Buddhism. 
 — Teachings of Lao-tsze and Confucius. The Persian Empire: Overthrow of 
 the Median empire by Cyrus. — His conquest of Lydia. — Crcesus, his wealth 
 and his downfall. — Subjugation of Asia Minor. — Submission of Babylon. — 
 Restoration of captive Jews to Jerusalem by Cyrus. — The empire left by 
 Cyrus. — Conquest of Egypt by Cambyses. — Reorganization of the empire by 
 Darius. — His invasion of Europe. — His pursuit of the Scythians beyond the 
 Danube. — Submission of Thrace and Macedonia to the Persian. — Peril of the 
 Greek states. The Greeks: Brief experience of tyranny at Athens. — Pisis- 
 tratus and his sons. — The democratic constitution of Cleisthenes. Persian 
 Invasions of Greece: Athens sends help against Persia to Ionian cities in Asia 
 Minor. — Wrath of King Darius. — His great expedition sent into Greece. — 
 Its defeat at Marathon. — Second Persian invasion by Xerxes. — Leonidas and 
 his Spartans at Thermopylae. — Athens in ruins. — Destruction of the Persian 
 fleet at Salamis. — Disastrous end of the Persian invasion. The Romans: 
 The Romans under their kings. — Aristocratic constitution of the early 
 Roman Republic. — Formation of the democratic commonwealth. 
 
 The period now approached bears two notable 
 marks, each of which may have more significance 
 than we have knowledge to understand. One is 
 made by the decisive trial of racial strength and 
 character, between Asiatic and European 
 branches of the Aryan-tongued peoples, which 
 took place in the wars of the Persians with the 
 Greeks, and which closed, practically, the brief 
 career of the former as a dominating and civiliz- 
 ing power. The other mark on the period is from 
 three wonderful movements of religious reform 
 that occurred in the Asiatic world at nearly the 
 same time, and the effects of which are experi- 
 
 150
 
 Cyrus and the Persian People 151 
 
 enced profoundly by a vast majority of the human 
 race to this day. 
 
 The Ancient Persians and their country 
 
 In the early years of the career of Cyrus the 
 Great he styled himself and his ancestors kings of 
 Anzan, or Anshan, which is found to have been 
 the native name of Elam: later he assumed the Cyrus the 
 title of king of Persia. These are facts brought to 
 light by the discovery of his own inscriptions, in 
 Babylonia, a few years ago, and they require 
 many notions of Cyrus, received from Greek 
 writers of Persian history, to be revised. Was he 
 or was he not of Persian birth or blood, as had 
 seemed formerly to be a matter of course ? If not, Persian/ 
 why did he so identify himself with that small 
 nation, among the many of greater power and 
 importance that came under his rule? Why and 
 how did Persia become the very center and seat of 
 the great sovereignty he created? These are 
 problems that remain for the archaeologists of the 
 future to solve. 
 
 The country of the ancient Persians, on the 
 gulf which bears their name, embracing what is 
 now the province of Farsistan, lay close to Elam, 
 southeastwardly, beyond the mountains of the 
 Zagros range. Its tribes are supposed to have 
 become united in a national monarchy not much p r ; m ;ti ve 
 before the time of the Median overthrow of Pcrsia 
 Assyria, in which they probably took part, along 
 with other Iranian kinspeople of the Medes. 
 Their original territory was not large and their
 
 152 
 
 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 Primitive 
 
 Persian 
 
 character 
 
 Persian 
 education 
 of the 
 young 
 
 Xenophon, 
 The Cyro- 
 pa'dia. 
 bk. I, ch. ii 
 
 number not great; but they were evidently a 
 strong race, in mind and body, — well-trained in 
 both. The Greeks believed them to have been, 
 before power and wealth corrupted them, a 
 nation resembling their own Spartans, in integrity 
 of character and simplicity and discipline of life. 
 Xenophon, who was in their country for a long 
 time, in the age of their national decay, and who 
 was well acquainted with their own beliefs con- 
 cerning that primitive time, gives a fascinating 
 account of their system of education for the 
 young. It may never have been realized, but it 
 indicates high qualities, even as an ideal, if no 
 more. Of the Persian public schools, which he 
 describes, Xenophon says: "The boys attending 
 the public schools pass their time in learning 
 justice; and say that they go for this purpose, as 
 those with us say who go to learn to read." 
 "They also," adds Xenophon, "teach the boys 
 self-control; and it contributes much towards 
 their learning to control themselves, that they 
 see every day their elders behaving themselves 
 with discretion. They teach them also to obey 
 their officers; and it contributes much to this 
 end, that they see their elders constantly obedient 
 to their officers. They teach them temperance 
 with respect to eating and drinking; and it con- 
 tributes much to this end, that they see that their 
 elders do not quit their stations to satisfy their 
 appetites until their officers dismiss them." But 
 all this was of the past; a sad degeneration was 
 found by Xenophon in his own day.
 
 Zoroaster 153 
 
 Until now, Medes and Persians, dwellers in 
 Iran, speaking languages of the Aryan structure, 
 had been touched by the light of history only 
 because they came sometimes within the range of 
 the records of Assyria and Babylonia. Behind 
 and beyond those, their past has not yet been 
 found open to the least exploration, otherwise 
 than by guess and inference from their sacred 
 writings, which come to us from a later day. The 
 writings in question, gathered in the books of the 
 Avesta, or Zendavesta, have been mentioned as TheAvesta 
 the product of a reform of the primitive religion 
 of the Aryas, brought about by Zarathushtra 
 (called Zoroaster), probably in the sixth century 
 before Christ. Among the Parsis of India the 
 Zoroastrian religion, sometimes named Maz- 
 deism, survives to the present time. 
 
 Religious reformations of the Sixth Century before Christ 
 
 As reformed by Zoroaster, the religion of the 
 Iranians became, in a certain sense, a monothe- 
 istic religion, since it placed one supreme Lord, 
 Ahura-mazda, creator of man and giver of all 
 good to him, above other beings whom it recog- ™ e ionof 
 nized as divine. It retained in association with Zoroaster 
 Ahura-mazda six other immortal spirits; but 
 they were his ministers, he was their Lord. Its 
 conception of all these divinities was as spiritual 
 as the Hebrew conception of Jehovah; it repre- 
 sented them in no idolatrous form. But omnipo- 
 tence was not included among the attributes of
 
 154 
 
 Jackson, 
 Zoroaster 
 
 Nearly- 
 contempo- 
 rary 
 teachers 
 
 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 the Zoroastrian Lord. He was only the Great 
 Spirit of Good in the universe, contending with 
 and struggling against an almost or quite equal 
 Spirit of Evil, Anro-mainyus, who strove unceas- 
 ingly to thwart his benevolent designs for man- 
 kind. The likeness of Anro-mainyus to the 
 Satan or Devil of Christian theology is too obvi- 
 ous to escape remark, and the fact that Anro- 
 mainyus was supposed to be served and assisted 
 in his warfare with Ahura-mazda by malignant 
 under-spirits called "dsevas" is suggestive of 
 further thought. 
 
 The religious reformation wrought in the 
 Iranian region by Zoroaster appears to have been 
 nearly simultaneous with two other more remark- 
 able introductions of new religious feeling and 
 new thought in the Asiatic world. It is a striking 
 fact, and one suggestive of more meaning than 
 we have knowledge to give to it, that Gotama the 
 Buddha, Confucius and Lao-tsze arose within the 
 same century, if the conclusions of the best 
 scholarship of the present day are correct. That 
 Iran, India, and China, were all, in that same 
 sixth century before Christ, prepared for the 
 acceptance of the moral and spiritual revelations 
 which these great teachers brought to them, 
 seems to signify something in the general circum- 
 stances and conditions of that age in the orient 
 which we do not know. 
 
 Gotama, called the Buddha, meaning "the 
 enlightened," was probably born at some time in 
 the first half of the sixth century before Christ.
 
 GOTAMA THE BuDDHA 1 55 
 
 His birthplace was near the city of Kapila-vastu, 
 the ruins of which, in Nepal Terai, bordering on 
 the modern province of Oudh, in India, were dis- 
 covered a few years ago, and identified by an 
 inscribed pillar, erected by a reverent emperor, 
 Asoka, in the third century B. C. The father of 
 Gotama was the rajah of a small state, and the Gotama 
 future founder of the new religion lived the life of theBuddha 
 a prince until his thirtieth year. Then, though 
 married, and the father of an infant son, he left 
 his home, to become, says Professor Rhys Davids, 
 "a homeless wanderer, and to spend his life, first His life 
 in thinking out for himself the deepest problems 
 of experience, and then in spreading abroad to 
 others the good tidings of the salvation which he 
 deemed himself to have discovered." He was 
 oppressed with a sense of the miseries and suffer- 
 ings that seemed to be inherent in human life; a 
 sense made more oppressive by the Brahmanic 
 belief in successive re-births after death, continu- 
 ing the same life in new states. The salvation he 
 sought and believed that he found was escape H ; ssearch 
 from that revolving "wheel of life." His revela- for salva- 
 tion was the discovery, as he taught, that right- 
 eousness in life, — "right views," "right aspira- 
 tions," "right speech," "right conduct," "right 
 livelihood," "right effort," "right mindfulness," His 
 and "right meditation" ("the noble eightfold and reveia- 
 path"), — was the means of that escape; that the tlon 
 escape was its reward. "The good Buddhist," j* hjr ? 
 says Professor Rhys Davids, "cannot seek for any Buddhism, 
 salvation which he is himself to enjoy in any 97 ' I3
 
 1 5 6 
 
 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 Nirvana 
 
 and 
 
 Arahatship 
 
 Rhys 
 Davids, 
 Buddhism, 
 131- 
 
 Oldenburg, 
 
 Ancient 
 
 India 
 
 future world. The result of his good actions, the 
 fruit of his Karma, as the Buddhists would call it, 
 will survive when he is dead, and advance the 
 happiness of some other beings, who will have no 
 conscious identity with himself. But, so far as he 
 can reach salvation, he must enjoy it in this 
 present life. The Buddhist books are constantly 
 insisting upon the foolishness of wasting time 
 (when there is so much to do, both for one's self 
 and for others) in any hankering after a supposed 
 happiness of heaven. And salvation here is pre- 
 cisely the being delivered from delusions with 
 regard to individuality, in which the ordinary 
 unconverted man is still entangled. When the 
 mind has become clear from these delusions, a 
 new and wider, brighter world reveals itself to 
 him who has 'entered upon the Path.' And the 
 Buddhist books are full of descriptions of the 
 means which must be adopted, first to get rid of 
 the delusions, and secondly to gain the full 
 heights of the peaceful city of Nirvana, in which 
 he who is free from these delusions lives and 
 moves and has his being." The state so attained 
 is "Arahatship," the Buddhist ideal of life. 
 
 The Buddha sent forth his disciples to preach 
 his message of salvation to all mankind, and dur- 
 ing the next few centuries Buddhism was spread, 
 not only through India and Ceylon, but so widely 
 in eastern Asia that it became, as it is to-day, the 
 religion of more than half of all the people in the 
 world. It was spread, too, by persuasion entirely, 
 never by the sword, and no instance of the perse-
 
 Lao-tsze 
 
 Lao-tsze and Confucius 157 
 
 cution of another faith is laid to its charge. It did 
 not drive Brahmanism out of India, but the two 
 religions existed together for more than a thou- 
 sand years. 
 
 In China, as in Iran and India, the matters of 
 chief importance that appear in what is known of 
 this period are in the religious and moral sphere. 
 Two contemporary teachers, Lao-tsze and Con- 
 fucius (or K'ung-foo-tsze, meaning the master 
 K'ung), who arose in the sixth century B. C, 
 impressed an influence on the Chinese mind 
 which has strangely affected the whole national 
 character and life. In the case of Lao-tsze, who 
 was the elder of the two by half a century, the 
 influence issued long after his death in an extraor- 
 dinary perversion, it is said, of what he taught. 
 He was a mystical philosopher and moralist, 
 whose writings, so far as western students of the 
 present day are able to understand them, appear 
 to have contained some very good thoughts, 
 obscurely expressed. But in later times they 
 were so construed as to become the basis of 
 authority for a most repulsive system of religious 
 belief, known as Taoism, in which demons, malig- 
 nant spirits and purgatorial tortures for the dead 
 afford abundant occupation for Taoist priests or 
 monks, who supply charms and perform magical 
 and propitiatory rites. 
 
 In the early religious faith of the Chinese there 
 is no appearance of a priesthood, and the only 
 public worship was in official ceremonies per- 
 formed at certain seasons by the emperor, as the 
 
 Taoism
 
 158 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 head of the state. Apparently the primitive 
 belief was strictly monotheistic; but there grew 
 up in it a recognition of celestial and terrestrial 
 spirits, which made way for the corruption of 
 Taoism to creep in. In addition to this there was 
 developed, out of the sentiment of filial piety, a 
 system of ancestor-worship, which has prevailed 
 from very ancient times. 
 
 Prayers and offerings to ancestral spirits were 
 tolerated, at least, by Confucius, whose whole 
 religious attitude was one of tolerance, attempt- 
 ing no doctrinal or ceremonial reforms. His mis- 
 Confucius s i on was [ n t i ie mora l domain, having reference 
 
 a mora ' 1-1 i-i 
 
 teacher to prudent and right conduct in the present life. 
 
 Of all the teachers who have greatly influenced 
 mankind he was the most conservative, and no 
 other has ever stamped his own personal traits on 
 a race as Confucius stamped his conservatism on 
 the character of the Chinese. Professor Douglas 
 calls the doctrines of Confucius atheistic, saying: 
 "He never in any way denied the existence of 
 Shang-te [the principal deity of the early Chinese], 
 but he ignored him. His concern was with man as 
 a member of society, and the object of his teach- 
 ing was to lead him into those paths of rectitude 
 Douglas, which might best contribute to his own happiness, 
 China, 306 anc i t ] ie W ell-being of that community of which he 
 formed a part. Man, he held, was born good, and 
 was endowed with qualities which, when culti- 
 vated and improved by watchfulness and self- 
 restraint, might enable him to acquire godlike 
 wisdom and become 'the equal of heaven.' "
 
 Cyrus and Crcesus 159 
 
 Conquests of Cyrus 
 
 Cyrus the Great began his career of conquest 
 by overthrowing the Median empire, about 558 
 B. C. Some ten or eleven years then appear to 
 have passed, during which he was busy, no doubt, 
 in the consolidating of his power in Iran, before Maspero, 
 his further conquests were begun. According to of e t}ie as 
 Greek accounts, he was started on that course of Empires, 
 
 ch. vi 
 
 wide conquest by a rash attack, made by Crcesus, 
 an ambitious Lydian king. 
 
 The kingdom of Lydia (called Mseonia in the 
 Homeric poems), in western Asia Minor, though 
 one of the early centers of a rising civilization in 
 that part of the world, had attained no great 
 importance until the seventh century B. C. 
 According to its traditions, two long-lasting 
 dynasties of kings had reigned previously to that 
 time, one known to the Greeks as the Attyadse, kingdom of 
 the other as the Heracleidae, both claiming Lydia 
 descent from the gods. But the power of the 
 monarchy had been too slight to prevent Greek 
 colonists from taking possession of its whole 
 coast, cutting it off from the sea and controlling 
 the mouth of the river Hermus, on which Sardis, 
 its capital, was built. About 689 B. C, however, 
 the Lydian throne was acquired by a third family, 
 the Mermnadse, which raised it within the follow- 
 ing century to great power. Of the manner in 
 which Gyges, the founder of this dynasty, 
 secured the throne, varying romantic legends G 
 were handed down, showing only that a palace b.c.68q(?) 
 revolution of some nature delivered the reins of
 
 i6o 
 
 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 (See page 
 119) 
 
 Croesus, 
 B. C. 563- 
 
 549 (?) 
 
 His wealth 
 
 and 
 
 prosperity 
 
 government to a strong man. Though Gyges had 
 to contend with the devastating invasion of the 
 Cimmerians, who overran Phrygia, he began 
 undertakings of conquest, especially against the 
 cities of the intruding Greeks on the Lydian 
 coast. His ambitious projects were pursued by 
 his successors, until Croesus, the last of the line, 
 became master of the whole of Asia Minor, to the 
 Halys, — the Kizil Armak of the modern map. 
 That stream was the boundary between Lydian 
 and Median dominions, determined by treaty in 
 610, after a hard fought war which checked the 
 westward advance of the Medes. A friendly 
 alliance between the two monarchies was the 
 outcome of this war. 
 
 Croesus, who came to the Lydian throne in 563 
 B. C, was reputed among the Greeks to be the 
 richest prince of his day, — so much so that they 
 made his name a synonym of wealth, and its use 
 in that sense has been passed on to the present 
 day. Croesus completed the subjugation of the 
 Greek cities on the coast, partly by force of arms, 
 partly by flattering or corrupting gifts. He culti- 
 vated the favor of the oracles in Greece, and won 
 the admiration of the Greek people by many 
 tactful arts. His reign was one of remarkable 
 prosperity and good fortune until he rashly 
 challenged Cyrus, the new master of the domin- 
 ion of the Medes, to a trial of war. His downfall, 
 which ensued, gave so striking an illustration of 
 the uncertainties of fortune that it has pointed 
 the moral for all times since.
 
 Cyrus and the Exiled Jews 161 
 
 Croesus and his kingdom went down before the 
 onset of Cyrus in 549 or 547 B. C. The whole of Conquest 
 Asia Minor, including the Greek cities on the ofLydia.ai! 
 
 7 ° t Asia Minor 
 
 coast, and the islands of Chios and Lesbos, were and Baby- 
 soon afterward made submissive to the same new Cyrus/ 
 lord. It was ten years later that Babylonia, the B. c. 
 
 1 r 1 1 A • S49(?)-S33 
 
 last of the three greater powers in western Asia, 
 was overcome, after how much of struggle is not 
 clear. Such resistance as Cyrus encountered in 
 Babylonia was led, not by Nabonidus, but by 
 Belshazzar, his son. The conqueror entered 
 Babylon in 538 B. C. 
 
 The Jewish Restoration by Cyrus 
 
 The act which gave Cyrus his widest ultimate 
 fame was the liberation of the captive Jews in 
 Babylonia, permitting them to return to Jerusa- 
 lem, to rebuild their temple, and to resume their 
 national life. This he did in the year of his entry 
 into Babylon, B. C. 538. So long as the new 
 master of Babylon was supposed to be a strict Renan, 
 Zoroastrian in his religious belief, he was thought ih l st pf pl 
 to have been prompted to this act of grace by of Israel, 
 sympathy with the Hebrews in their monotheistic x ;;i 
 faith. But Cyrus is now known, from his own 
 inscriptions, to have been as reverent towards the 
 Bel-Marduk of Babylon as towards the Jehovah 
 of Jerusalem, and he was doubtless a willing 
 worshiper of all the many gods whom his various 
 subjects revered. It is more than probable that The motive 
 the motive of his liberation of the Jewish exiles °f Cyrus 
 was purely one of statesmanship, and that he
 
 1 62 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 dealt with other exiled peoples in the same way. 
 Every community thus restored would see its 
 own greatest interest in fidelity to the liberating 
 king. That Cyrus was a statesman as well as a 
 conquering warrior is shown by the substantiality 
 of the great empire that he gathered under his 
 „. strong hand. He must have dealt wisely with the 
 
 His states- ° ... 
 
 manship many diverse peoples that he ruled; for he seems 
 to have been less troubled with revolt than previ- 
 ous makers of empire had been. The memory 
 that he left behind him among his subjects, if 
 
 (See page Xenophon speaks truly of it, can leave no doubt 
 on this point. 
 
 Not all the Jewish exiles in Babylon accepted 
 the freedom given them by Cyrus to return to 
 their own land. Many who were prosperous in 
 their alien home preferred to remain, founding a 
 
 The community of "Babylonian Jews" which became 
 
 Babyioman j ar g e an £ } m p 0rtant j n a f ter times. Of those who 
 
 returned to Jerusalem and Judah, "the whole 
 congregation together was forty and two thou- 
 sand three hundred and threescore, besides their 
 servants and maids, of whom there were seven 
 thousand three hundred thirty and seven." They 
 were given the gold and silver vessels of the 
 temple, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away 
 Ezra, n, 64- and put into the house of his own gods; and "all 
 65, and i, 6. ^^y t h at were a bout them strengthened their 
 
 hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with 
 goods, and with beasts, and with precious things." 
 And so, after forty-nine years of captivity, they 
 came back to Jerusalem, under the lead of Zerub-
 
 Emnity Between Jews 163 
 
 babel, a scion of their royal house, and of Jeshua, 
 their high priest, and began the rebuilding of the 
 temple and of homes for themselves. 
 
 The returned exiles found themselves sur* 
 rounded by a population which they hated and 
 scorned. Jews who had not shared the exile, and 
 strange intruders from surrounding countries, 
 with whom these Jews had mixed and married, 
 were equally obnoxious to the faithful ones, who 
 believed that the rebuilding of their nation was 
 committed to them alone. They held themselves Jerusalem 
 sternly aloof from their neighbors; would have Samaria 
 no friendship with Samaria; rejected offers of 
 union and help in the restoration of the temple, Ezra > w > 
 saying to them who came with such overtures: 
 "Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house 
 unto our God." Enmity between them and all 
 their neighbors was the natural consequence. The 
 latter "troubled them in building," with such 
 effect that the work on the temple was not 
 finished until twenty-two years had gone by. 
 
 For almost a century the results of the restora- 
 tion which Cyrus had permitted were hanging in 
 great doubt. The small colony at Jerusalem 
 suffered much, gained little prosperity, was losing 
 hope, and religious infidelities were creeping in. 
 Then, in 458 B. C, an important reinforcement to 
 it came from the stronger Jewish community at 
 Babvlon. A second movement of return was The second 
 
 . movement 
 
 brought about by " Ezra the priest, the scribe of of return 
 the law," who led it, and who brought with him a ' ' 45 ' 
 decree from Artaxerxes, the king, giving him
 
 164 Froai Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 authority to "set magistrates and judges" and to 
 
 Ezra, vii. enforce, said the decree, "the law of thy God, and 
 
 nT and h ^ e ^ aw °^ t ^ ie king-" Thirteen years later, 
 
 Nehemiah, who had been the cupbearer and a 
 
 favorite of Artaxerxes, was sent as Persian 
 
 governor to Judea, and joined Ezra in measures 
 
 which revived the religious spirit of the com- 
 
 Weiihausen munity, improved its circumstances and invigor- 
 
 sketck of atec j j ts |jr e> Judaism, as a racial religious Organ- 
 za History J ' . 
 
 of Israel ization, with the center of its hierarchy at 
 X x " a ' Jerusalem, was now rising into the place of the 
 Jewish nation. 
 
 The Persian Empire 
 
 The empire left by Cyrus to his son Cambyses, 
 in 529 B. C, when he died, extended from the 
 JEgean and the Mediterranean to the Indus, and 
 from the Persian Gulf and the borders of Egypt 
 to the river Jaxartes and the Caspian and Black 
 seas. The conquest of Egypt had been included 
 in his plans, but was not accomplished when he 
 died. Cambyses, after dealing with some out- 
 breaks of revolt that occurred on his accession, 
 made extensive preparations for an invasion of 
 the land of the Nile. They were not concluded 
 until the fifth year of his reign, when the move- 
 ment began. For cooperation with his army he 
 was supplied with a formidable fleet by the 
 Phoenicians, by the Greek cities of his father's 
 conquest in Asia Minor and the JEgean, and by 
 the Cyprians, whose allegiance to the new lords of 
 the east was now volunteered. The attack was
 
 Egypt Subjugated 165 
 
 irresistible, and Egypt succumbed. The native Con uest 
 king, Amasis (an usurper, who had taken the of Egypt. 
 crown from Hophra in 570 B. C), was dethroned, 
 and the oldest monarchy on the earth was ruled 
 again by kings and courts of foreign race. An 
 attempt by Cambyses to subjugate the Ethio- 
 pians in the south is said by Herodotus to have 
 failed; but the statement is considered open to 
 doubt. So, too, is a Greek story of the loss of 
 50,000 of his army in a reckless expedition to the 
 oasis of Ammon, in the Libyan desert. 
 
 Much of what later Greek writers have told of 
 mad and wicked conduct on the part of Cambyses Cambyses 
 in Egypt is discredited by the historical criticism 
 of modern times. It can hardly be doubted, 
 however, that he was a youth of ungovernable 
 passion, of little wisdom and no moral restraint. 
 Suspicious of his brother Bardes or Bardya 
 (called Smerdes by the Greeks), he caused him to 
 be murdered secretly, and the secrecy of the 
 crime was fatal to himself. For the murdered 
 Bardes was personated successfully by one 
 Gaumata, who resembled him closely, and a 
 rebellion, started and led as though by him, in 
 Persia and Media, had instant success. Camby- 
 ses, still lingering in Egypt, set out in great haste 
 to confront the impostor, but received some 
 accidental hurt on the way, which caused his Animpos- 
 death. The false Bardes was crowned at Pasar- ^Z^ 
 gadae, the ancient Persian capital, in the summer throne . 
 of 522 B. C, and reigned seven months, exercis- ' 5 
 ing, apparently, full sway. Then he was surprised
 
 1 66 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 in his Median citadel by a small band of Persian 
 
 Darius nobles, who had detected his imposture, and was 
 
 chosen king s } am# Darius, son of Hystaspes, the satrap of 
 
 Persia, and a prince of the royal house, who had 
 
 led the attack, was chosen to be king. 
 
 Naturally, under the circumstances of the 
 
 accession of Darius to the throne, there were 
 
 rebellions in many parts of the wide empire, 
 
 which occupied him continuously for four years, 
 
 and were not ended even then. Darius, in fact, 
 
 was called upon almost to repeat the conquests of 
 
 Cyrus, and to organize the Persian empire anew. 
 
 He performed the task with hardly less than the 
 
 energy and ability that Cyrus had shown, and, 
 
 when the dominions of his predecessor had been 
 
 reduced to submission, he began to extend them 
 
 The by new conquests, in every inviting direction, 
 
 reorganized towards the east, the west and the north. His 
 
 expanded armies passed beyond the Indus, and a Persian 
 
 empire of satrapy was formed on both banks of that stream. 
 
 Darius r J 
 
 They pushed the bounds of his authority to the 
 Caucasus, between the Caspian and Black seas, 
 and beyond Egypt, in north Africa, over Cyrene 
 and Barca, the Greek colonies, and over the 
 Libyans, half way to the Carthaginian domain. 
 
 But these were mere extensions of conquest on 
 old lines. In another direction, beyond the Bos- 
 porus, lay a field which was new to the arms of the 
 east. No pharaoh of Egypt, nor any king of 
 His larger Babylon, or Nineveh, or Ecbatana, had driven 
 plans his chariots of war on European soil, and Darius 
 
 now burned with an ambition to subjugate that
 
 The Persian Empire of Darius 167 
 
 land. Two, especially, of its people had provoked 
 his desire to check the freedom they enjoyed. The 
 Scythians, of the wilds at the north of the Black 
 Sea, had left a sore memory of their invading 
 hordes in the Asiatic mind; while the Greeks, of 
 the Hellenic peninsula, who pushed themselves 124) 
 everywhere, in every sort of enterprise and 
 adventure, spreading all sorts of disturbing ideas 
 abroad, were a perpetual challenge to one who 
 wished to be master of the whole world within 
 his ken. Darius formed plans that were aimed at 
 the subjection of both. 
 
 The Greeks and Persians had had some vague 
 knowledge of the people called Scythians for more 
 than a century. They applied the name to 
 barbarous nomads of a wide range, in eastern 
 Europe and central Asia, who may or may not 
 have been kindred in race. Probably the Scythic The 
 nomads are represented by some of the tribes Scythians 
 called Turkoman and Tatar in modern times. 
 Homer knew nothing of them by name, but they 
 are mentioned by Hesiod. Western Asia, in late 
 years of the seventh century before Christ, had 
 the awful experience of an invasion by their 
 hordes, who desolated Media, Armenia, and 
 Assyria, and swept even to Syria and Palestine. 
 The expedition of Darius was to avenge that 
 attack. Half a century later, Herodotus wrote #-™?° tus ' 
 an account of the Scythians, which defined their (trans, by 
 
 ... 1 tn 1 J 1 Rawlinson) 
 
 country as lying between the Danube and the 3: bk.4 
 Don. Subsequently, the Scythian name was 
 applied by ancient writers only to the central
 
 168 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 Asian nomads, while those of eastern Europe 
 were called Sarmatians; and there seems to be 
 no means of explaining the change of name. Nor 
 is it known whether the people we now call Slavic, 
 Sarmatians or Slavonic, — Russians, Poles, Servians, and 
 others, — who occupy nearly the whole of eastern 
 Europe, and who speak languages that form one 
 division of the Aryan family of speech, are 
 descended from any part of the people whom the 
 ancients called Sarmatians, or are later comers in 
 the land. 
 
 Being already in control of the Asiatic shores of 
 the Hellespont, the Propontis and the Bosporus, 
 the first measure of Darius was to win footings on 
 the European side, which he did at Byzantium 
 (the Constantinople of later times), and, also, by 
 conquest of the Thracian Chersonesus, — the 
 peninsula which borders the Hellespont on the 
 west. Then with an army said (with probable 
 invasion of exaggeration) to number 600,000 men, and a fleet 
 Europe by of 6oo vessels from the Greek cities of Asia and 
 b. c. 513 the islands that were subject to his command, he 
 crossed to Byzantium, in 513 B. C, over a floating 
 bridge built for him by a Greek engineer. Seeking 
 the Scythians first, he marched northward, send- 
 ing his fleet to enter the Danube and meet the 
 army there. The Thracians, through whose 
 country he passed, submitted as he advanced; 
 His unsuc- the Danube, when he reached it, was bridged by 
 essfui n j s ODe cH en t; Greek engineers, and Darius moved 
 
 pursuit of ° ' 
 
 the on, pursuing the Scythians, who retreated before 
 
 his great host. How far into their country he
 
 Persian Invasion of Europe 169 
 
 ventured cannot be learned from the Greek 
 accounts, which are manifestly incorrect. It is 
 enough to know that the expedition failed. The 
 Scythians avoided battle, and there was little in 
 their country to waste and destroy. The long 
 march of the Persians was bootless, and Darius 
 retreated with difficulty to the Danube, losing Retreat 
 
 1 -i r 1 • • • 1 v j j j j- of Darius 
 
 heavily 01 his army, it is believed, and dreading 
 that his bridge might be destroyed by the Greeks 
 whom he had left for its guard. 
 
 The guard had been more faithful than 
 patriotic, and the Danube bridge was safe; but 
 that on the Bosporus had been destroyed by 
 revolting Greeks, and Darius marched with haste 
 to the Hellespont, securing the lower strait. With 
 part of his army he then recrossed to Asia, and, 
 personally, he had no more to do with European 
 campaigns. To the administrative organization 
 of his empire, which he revised with much ability, 
 the construction of excellent highways through- 
 out its length and breadth, and the adornment of 
 a new capital at Susa, in Elam, and a new royal 
 seat at Persepolis, he gave most of his own care, 
 while others conducted his wars. Two of his 
 generals had been left in Thrace, to make a com- Persian 
 plete conquest of that country, preparatory to j^ s e m 
 further proceedings in due time. 
 
 The Defense of Greece Against the Persians 
 
 When all the Thracian tribes had been reduced 
 to submission, and when Byzantium and other 
 revolting cities on the coast had been recovered
 
 I JO 
 
 Herodotus, 
 History 
 (trans, by ' 
 Rawlinson) 
 3-4- 
 
 Cox, The 
 Greeks and 
 the Persians 
 
 Conflict 
 between 
 Sparta and 
 Athens 
 
 Tyranny 
 of the 
 Pisistra- 
 tidae at 
 Athens. 
 B. C. 560- 
 5io 
 
 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 by the Persian commanders, one of the latter, 
 Megabyzus by name, passed from Thrace into 
 Macedonia (of which country previous to that 
 time little is known), and compelled its sovereign 
 to acknowledge the supremacy of the Persian 
 king. The dominions of Darius were pushed thus 
 to the very borders of the Greek states, on Euro- 
 pean ground, as well as in and on the ^Egean' Sea. 
 The menace of the approach of the all-powerful 
 Persian would seem to have been grave enough to 
 end every jealous quarrel among the Greek com- 
 munities, and unite them in common measures of 
 defense against the common foe. Instead of that 
 being the case, the two principal states, Sparta 
 and Athens, were so bitterly in conflict with each 
 other at this time that the latter appealed for help 
 to the Persian satrap of Lydia. Happily the 
 appeal was answered by a demand that the 
 Athenians should bow their necks to the Persian 
 yoke, by ignominious gifts of earth and water — 
 the symbols of subjugation. This roused the 
 truer spirit of Athens, and its issue with Sparta 
 was fought out in a manful way. 
 
 At this time, the Athenians had made their 
 government completely democratic, after passing 
 through an experience of tyranny, which did not 
 endure long. The constitution of Solon had not 
 worked with success, and, in 560 B. C, a bold 
 citizen, Pisistratus, who won the favor of the 
 poorer people by demagogic arts, was able to 
 establish himself in the Acropolis, with a foreign 
 guard to uphold his power. Twice driven out, he
 
 The Persian Menace to Greece 171 
 
 was twice restored, and reigned quite justly and 
 prudently,on the whole,until his death in 527B. C. 
 He was succeeded by his two sons, Hippias and 
 Hipparchus; but the latter was killed in 514, and 
 Hippias was expelled by the Spartans in 5 10 B. C; 
 after which there was no tyranny in Athens. 
 
 In the forming of a new government to take the 
 place of the overthrown tyranny, a majority of 
 the noble or privileged class at Athens had 
 struggled hard to regain their old ascendancy; 
 but one of their number, Cleisthenes, took the The 
 side of the people and helped them to establish a democratic 
 
 j • .. TT , . . republic 
 
 democratic constitution. He caused the ancient established. 
 tribal division of the citizens to be abolished, and 509-507 
 substituted a division which mixed the members 
 of clans and broke up or weakened the clannish Greenidge, 
 influence in politics. He enlarged Solon's senate „/^^ k 
 or council and divided it into committees, and he Constitu- 
 brought the "ecclesia," or popular assembly, into History, 
 a more active exercise of its powers. He also ch - vl > sect -3 
 introduced the custom of ostracism, which per- 
 mitted the citizens of Athens to banish by their 
 vote any man whom they thought dangerous to 
 the state. The constitution of Cleisthenes was 
 the final foundation of the Athenian democratic 
 republic. But monarchical and aristocratic 
 Sparta resented the popular change, and under- 
 took to restore the oligarchy by force of arms. 
 The Athenians, not yet schooled to self-confidence 
 as a democracy, showed a moment of weakness, 
 when they sought Persian help; but it passed 
 quickly, and the newly won liberties of the peo-
 
 172 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 pie were defended with vigor and success. 
 The defensive strength of the Athenian democ- 
 racy was to be proved by a far more dreadful 
 test; a test, not for Athens alone, but for the 
 Greek people at large, showing to the world their 
 remarkable qualities, and forming the beginning 
 of their great career. Athens gave a daring 
 provocation to the monarch of Persia in 501 B.C., 
 when she sent ships and men to the support of a 
 Athens great revolt of the Greek cities in Asia Minor, and 
 provokes t j ie provocation was carried beyond forgiveness 
 
 thewrathof ... . 
 
 King when Sardis, his Lydian capital, was captured and 
 
 B. a c 501 burned by Athenian troops. When the news of 
 this reached him he is said to have shot an arrow 
 to the sky, with a prayer for vengeance, and com- 
 manded a servant to repeat to him thrice daily 
 the admonition: "Master, remember the Atheni- 
 ans." The thought of vengeance was kept in his 
 mind for nearly seven years, until the Ionian 
 revolt had been suppressed and all his prepara- 
 tions were carefully made. Then, in 493 B. C, he 
 launched an expedition against Athens, and 
 against Eretria, another Greek state which had 
 aided the Ionian insurgents; but most of the fleet 
 that bore it was destroyed by a storm. Three 
 Beginning y ears later, in 490 B. C, he sent a second power- 
 of the wars f u l army and fleet, which took Eretria and razed 
 
 of Greeks . 
 
 and Per- it to the ground. I he great Persian army then 
 marched upon Athens, and was met at Marathon 
 by a small Athenian force of 9,000 men. The 
 little city of Platsea sent 1,000 more to stand with 
 them in the desperate encounter. They had no 
 
 sians
 
 Persian Defeat at Marathon 173 
 
 other aid in the fight, and the Persians were a 
 great, unnumbered host. But Miltiades, the 
 Greek general that day, planned his battle-charge 
 so well that he routed the Asiatic host and lost b.c^o ' 
 but 192 men. 
 
 The Persians abandoned their attempt and 
 returned to their wrathful king. One citizen of 
 Athens, Themistocles, had sagacity enough to Themis- 
 foresee that the "Great King," as he was known, tocles 
 would not rest submissive under his defeat; and 
 with difficulty he persuaded his fellow citizens to 
 prepare themselves for future conflicts by build- 
 ing a fleet and by fortifying their harbors, thus 
 making themselves powerful at sea. Ten years 
 later the wisdom of his counsels was proved. 
 Darius had lived but four years after the Persian Darius sue 
 defeat at Marathon, and lost energy, perhaps, in " eded b y 
 his closing years. His son, Xerxes, who succeeded B. c. 486 
 him in 486 B. C, had to deal with revolts in 
 Egypt and Babylonia, and it was not until 480 
 B. C. that he found himself prepared to invade 
 Greece and assail Athens again. Xerxes took the 
 field in person and led an army of prodigious size, second 
 crossing the Hellespont by a bridge of boats, attack, 
 This time, Sparta, Corinth, and several of the BC - 480 
 lesser states, rallied with Athens to the defense of 
 the common country; but Thebes and Argos 
 showed friendship to the Persians, and none of the 
 important island-colonies contributed any help. 
 Athens was the brain and right arm of the war, 
 notwithstanding the accustomed leadership of 
 Sparta in military affairs.
 
 174 
 
 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 Leonidas 
 at Ther- 
 mopylae 
 
 Artemisi- 
 um 
 
 Battle of 
 Salamis 
 
 Plataea and 
 Mycale 
 
 Early 
 kingship 
 
 The first encounter was at Thermopylae, where 
 Leonidas and his 300 Spartans defended the nar- 
 row pass, and died in their place when the Per- 
 sians found a way across the mountain to sur- 
 round them. But on that same day the Persian 
 fleet was beaten at Artemisium. Xerxes marched 
 on Athens, however, found the city deserted, and 
 destroyed it. His fleet had followed him, and was 
 still stronger than the naval force of the Greeks. 
 Themistocles forced a battle, against the will of 
 the Peloponnesian captains, and practically 
 destroyed the Persian fleet. This most memora- 
 ble battle of Salamis was decisive of the war, and 
 decisive of the independence of Greece. Xerxes, 
 in a panic, hastened back into Asia, leaving one 
 of his generals, Mardonius, with 300,000 men, to 
 pursue the war. But Mardonius was routed and 
 his host annihilated, at Platsea, the next year, 
 while the Persian fleet was again defeated on the 
 same day at Mycale. 
 
 Rome and the Romans 
 
 The Greeks had reached the beginning of their 
 age of glory — their Golden Age — while the 
 Romans were but coming to the threshold of their 
 career. At Rome, as at Athens, there was a period 
 of early kingship, the legends of which are as 
 familiar to us all as the stories of the Bible, but 
 the real facts of which are almost totally un- 
 known. It is surmised that the later kings — the 
 well known Tarquins of the classical tale — were 
 Etruscan princes (it is certain that they were
 
 Kingship and Aristocracy at Rome 175 
 
 Etruscans), who had broken for a time the inde- 
 pendence of the Romans and extended their 
 sovereignty over them. It is suspected, too, that 
 this period of Etruscan domination was one in 
 which Roman civilization made a great advance, 
 under the tuition of a more cultivated people. 
 But if Rome in its infancy did know a time of 
 subjugation, the endurance was not long. It 
 ended, according to Roman chronology, in the o^ 51011 
 245th year of the city, or 509 B. C, by the expul- Tarquins, 
 sion of Tarquin the Proud, the last of the kings. 
 
 That the Romans of this early period were not 
 the mere warriors — the mere "wolves of Italy" 
 that most historians have depicted — has been 
 argued by Professor Goldwin Smith with great 
 force. "It is evident," he writes, "that in the 
 period designated as that of the kings, when Rome 
 commenced her career of conquest, she was, for 
 that time and country, a great and wealthy city. 
 This is proved by the works of the kings, the Earf y 
 Capitoline Temple, the excavation for the Circus culture 
 Maximus, the Servian Wall, and, above all the 
 Cloaca Maxima [the great sewer] .... The 
 Cloaca Maxima is in itself conclusive evidence of 
 a large population, of wealth, and of a not incon- 
 siderable degree of civilization. . . . Noth- 
 ing surely can be more grotesque than the idea of 
 a set of wolves, like the Norse pirates before their 
 conversion to Christianity, constructing in their Smithin 
 den the Cloaca Maxima. That Rome was com- com- 
 paratively great and wealthy is certain. We can Review, 
 hardly doubt that she was a seat of industry and May ' l878
 
 176 
 
 From Cyrus to Xerxes 
 
 An 
 
 aristocratic 
 republic 
 
 Pirst 
 
 "secession 
 of the 
 plebs;" 
 first demo- 
 cratic gain. 
 B. C. 494 
 
 commerce, and that the theory which represents 
 her industry and commerce as having been 
 developed subsequently to her conquests is the 
 reverse of the fact. Whence, but from industry 
 and commerce, could the population and the 
 wealth have come? Peasant farmers do not live 
 in cities, and plunderers do not accumulate." 
 
 The republic founded in Rome after the expul- 
 sion of the last of the kings was not democratic, 
 like that of Athens, but the aristocratic republic 
 of a ruling class. The consuls, who replaced the 
 kings, were required to be patricians, and they 
 were chosen by the landholders of the state. The 
 senate was patrician; all the important powers of 
 government were in patrician hands, and the 
 plebs were grievously oppressed. They were not 
 of a tamely submissive race. They demanded 
 powers for their own protection, and by slow 
 degrees they won them — strong as the patricians 
 were in their wealth and their trained political 
 skill. 
 
 Precisely as in Athens, the first great effort 
 among the common people was to obtain relief 
 from crushing burdens of debt, which had been 
 laid upon them in precisely the same way — by loss 
 of harvests while in military service, and by the 
 hardness of the laws which creditors alone had 
 framed. An army of plebs, just home from war, 
 marched out of the city and refused to return 
 until magistrates of their own choosing had been 
 conceded. The patricians could not afford to lose 
 the bone and sinew of their state, and they yielded
 
 Tribunes of the Plebs 177 
 
 the point in demand. This first "secession of the 
 plebs" brought about the first great democratic 
 change in the Roman constitution, by calling into 
 existence a powerful magistracy, — the Tribunes 
 of the Plebs, — who stood henceforth between the Tribunes 
 consuls and the common people, for the protec- plebs 
 tion of the latter.
 
 HISTORIC EPOCHS 
 
 ii 
 
 epoch of the greeks and 
 
 ROMANS 
 
 (FROM THE PERSIAN INVASION OF GREECE 
 TO THE GOTHIC CAPTURE OF ROME)
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE SECOND EPOCH 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FROM THE AGE OF XERXES TO THE AGE OF HANNIBAL 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FROM THE AGE OF HANNIBAL TO THE DEATH OF CiESAR 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FROM THE DEATH OF CiESAR TO THE DEATH OF ALARIC
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS OF THE 
 SECOND EPOCH 
 
 The intelligence of the Greeks and their demo- 
 cratic training to self-reliance made them (in the 
 age of their glory) the best soldiers of the time, 
 and they were in great demand for mercenary 
 service among their neighbors, besides being 
 engaged ceaselessly in wars of their own. Fighting 
 came to be a trade and generalship a profession 
 for many, Athenians as well as others, and this, in 
 Greek opinion, may have helped to dim the luster 
 of purely military exploits. At all events, it 
 seems certain that the measure of fame awarded 
 in ancient Greece to mere successes in war was 
 less than to notable achievements in many other 
 fields. The eminent soldier had to be something 
 more, — an historian, like Xenophon, or a political 
 leader, like Cimon, the son of Miltiades, or a 
 noble character, like Epaminondas, or a man of 
 universal brilliancy, like Alcibiades, — if his name 
 was to stand very high on the Greek scroll of 
 fame. 
 
 Even the case of the Macedonian-Greek Alex- 
 ander, called "the Great," is not such an excep- the Great! 
 tion to this statement as it may seem to be; for Bc - ss*- 
 the extraordinary fame of Alexander rests, main- 
 ly, on the measureless consequences, unforeseen 
 and unintended by him, that came from his easy- 
 overthrow of the Persian power. He won not a 
 
 181
 
 182 
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 Philip of 
 Macedon. 
 B. C. 382- 
 336 
 
 Pericles. 
 B. C. 495- 
 429 
 
 little of it, moreover, by a single constructive act, 
 in which he is credited with a political sagacity 
 that belongs more probably to other minds. 
 When he founded the famous city that bears his 
 name in the Nile delta, on the strip of land 
 between Lake Mareotis and, the Mediterranean, 
 it is not in the least degree likely that he did so 
 from his own original perception of the com- 
 mercial advantages of the site. The wide-awake 
 Greek traders had been striving too long after 
 footholds in Egypt for that discovery to be left to 
 Alexander. City-planting was a royal pastime in 
 those days, and Alexander indulged himself in it 
 wherever he went. Of the many he founded, one, 
 only, grew to grandeur and wealth. 
 
 Alexander has received more than his due of 
 fame; Philip, his father, has received less. It is 
 not easy to dispute the judgment of Niebuhr and 
 other historians, both ancient and modern, who 
 rate the abilities and rank the achievements of the 
 father, in their actual quality, above those of the 
 son. Alexander harvested the fruit of Philip's 
 work, and the harvest bore with it a surpassing 
 fame. 
 
 Statesmanship, — wisdom and skill in political 
 affairs, — was prized highly by the Greeks; but 
 something else, even there, seemed needed for the 
 gilding of a very lustrous name. It was the 
 statesman like Pericles, who could decorate his 
 policy, so to speak, with the graces of eloquence, 
 of well-displayed taste, and of a well-applied 
 patronage of literature and art, who won the most
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 183 
 
 renown. The policy of Pericles was condemned 
 by events. On the domestic side it corrupted the 
 Athenian democracy, by pampering indulgences; 
 on the foreign side it led Athens into the ruinous 
 Peloponnesian War; but it had an artistic side 
 which captivated his countrymen and which has 
 been lasting in charm. He gave splendor and 
 beauty to Athens, not scrupling to use moneys of 
 the allied cities, — trust funds in the treasury of 
 the Delian confederacy, — for his lavish archi- 
 tectural expenditure. Moreover, fortune gave 
 him his ascendancy in one of the rare seasons of 
 fruitful genius, so that his name, like those of 
 Augustus at Rome and Louis XIV. of France, 
 received luster from an abnormal brilliancy in the 
 age. 
 
 Morally, the culture of the Greeks shows noth- 
 ing of the distinction that belongs to it on the 
 intellectual side. Certain instincts of rectitude 
 and honor that were conspicuous in much of 
 Roman character appear to have been weak 
 (speaking generally) in their minds. Artistically 
 and intellectually, however, they appreciated all 
 virtues, and valued them in their public men. 
 They did justice to the moral superiority of the 
 great Theban, Epaminondas, who shines among E pam ; 
 
 nnon- 
 
 the soldier-statesmen of Greek history by the das - B - ( - 
 
 r ,. . . , , . i-i 4i8(?)-36a 
 
 purity 01 his patriotism and his general upright- 
 ness, as well as by the large and generous spirit 
 that seemed to animate him in all that he did. 
 
 On the other hand, want of principle, — a moral 
 lightness of character, — ruined the career of
 
 184 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 Aidbiades Alcibiades, a man of such genius that, in the 
 
 b.c.4So(. ? ) opinion of Thucydides, he might have changed 
 
 the result of the Peloponnesian War. Niebuhr 
 
 finds no one in ancient history, save Caesar, to 
 
 compare with him in powers; and yet, beloved 
 
 disciple and friend of Socrates as he was in his 
 
 youth, the life of Alcibiades was a failure, because 
 
 he had nothing in his moral nature that could 
 
 guide him in a straight course. 
 
 Although we have to say of the Greeks, as a 
 
 race, that they were not eminent in moral culture, 
 
 they were the first of all peoples, nevertheless, to 
 
 make conduct a subject of study, in the endeavor 
 
 to arrive at fixed principles of right and wrong; 
 
 and the noblest names furnished to the roll of the 
 
 Greek immortals are from the founders of that 
 
 Socrates. philosophical study. In the ages before Christ 
 
 B.c.47o(?) there j s no other character known to us that is 
 -399 
 
 morally so great as that of Socrates, the typical 
 
 seeker after truth, — sincerest of great thinkers, 
 most self-regardless of great teachers, serenest of 
 great souls. There was no dogmatism in his 
 teaching; "his mission was to cure men's minds 
 of half-thinking, — to drive them to the end of a 
 thought, — force them to rummage the contents of 
 an idea and find all that belongs to it." 
 
 Socrates left nothing in writing; most of what 
 
 we know of him is from the representation of his 
 
 Plato. B.C. shrewd questioning and wise discourse in the 
 
 429(0-347 wonc i er f u i Dialogues of his great disciple, Plato, 
 
 and from the Memorabilia that Xenophon wrote 
 
 as a tribute of reverence and love. If Plato had
 
 Alexander the Great 
 
 Head of the Statue of Alexander 
 the Great, Munich, Glyptothek 
 
 Pericles 
 
 From Bust in British Museum 
 
 Tp?„„r7r"""'-~~r' "- 7 "~ "" 
 
 ... •■■■ •— 
 
 I 
 
 Socrates 
 
 From Bust in the Capitol, Rome 
 
 Plato 
 
 From Bust in Uffizi Gallery
 
 Chief Characters of the Slcond Epoch 185 
 
 not been nearly his master's equal in intellect and 
 spirit he could never have delineated the grand 
 character of the homely sculptor as he did. In 
 his own right he holds a place among the loftiest 
 thinkers of all times; but assuredly it is higher 
 because he talked with Socrates than it would 
 otherwise have been. 
 
 From the same truth-seeking school came 
 Aristotle, who led the search into added fields and Aristotle, 
 made it more scientific and exact. Philosophy in 322 
 his hands was enlarged, to embrace natural sci- 
 ence, as well as morals and metaphysics. Natural 
 science, indeed, may be said to have originated 
 with Aristotle, if we define it with strictness, as 
 knowledge pursued and acquired by systematic 
 observation, classification, and comparison of the 
 phenomena of the natural world. No other 
 teacher of antiquity projected so much of his 
 teaching across the chasm of the Dark Ages, to 
 the mediaeval and modern mind; no other teacher 
 of any period was ever, for so long a time and for 
 so large a part of mankind, the oracle of knowl- 
 edge and the guide of thought. Macedonian by 
 birth, Athenian by culture, pupil of Plato, tutor 
 of Alexander the Great, founder of an independ- 
 ent school of philosophy at Athens after Plato's 
 death, sometimes called "the Stagirite," from 
 Stagira, the place of his nativity, sometimes 
 called "the peripatetic philosopher," from his 
 habit of walking as he lectured, in his school of 
 the Lyceum, — these are the principal dry facts of 
 his life.
 
 1 86 
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 Zeno, died 
 B. C. 264, 
 
 and the 
 Stoics 
 
 Epicurus. 
 B. C. 342- 
 270 
 
 iEschylus. 
 B. C. 525- 
 456 
 
 Since Aristotle, who was the first to attempt a 
 logical science of the principles of human conduct, 
 many systems of ethical theory have been worked 
 out; but they are all divided by one main con- 
 tention, following one or the other of two lines of 
 theory, — the stoical, so called from the school of 
 Zeno, who taught it at Athens, and the epicurean, 
 named from its first promulgator, Epicurus. In 
 the stoic view, right and wrong are absolute facts, 
 belonging to the nature of things; in the epicu- 
 rean, they are mere backward reflections from the 
 consequences of conduct, and our recognition of 
 them is derived from our observation of what 
 does and what does not conduce to happiness. 
 The stoic welcomes happiness as the high reward 
 of virtue; the epicurean values virtue as a means 
 to happiness; what one slights as a mere incident, 
 the other cherishes as the end of all seeking. In 
 its essence, the nobler stoic view is found in the 
 teachings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; but 
 Zeno made it the basis of an ethical scheme of 
 life. His School of the Stoics received its name 
 from the porch of the Agora, where his discourses 
 were given. The opposing school of Epicurus 
 was founded at nearly the same time. 
 
 It is idle to ask whether the Greek genius shone 
 most in pure thought or in art. Philosophers, 
 dramatists, orators, historians, sculptors, archi- 
 tects, painters, in the same matchless age, found 
 different expressions for the marvelous powers of 
 their race. Perhaps the dramatic expression was 
 the more original one, since the Greek drama was
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 187 
 
 an absolute creation, springing as a distinctly 
 artistic form of literature from the conceptions of | '^ onds 
 ^Eschylus, whom John Addington Symonds TJ" Greek 
 
 X lit.) j Xy 
 
 characterizes as "the demiurge of ancient art." 376,377 
 "Tragedy," says Mr. Symonds, "had scarcely 
 passed beyond the dithyrambic stage when he 
 received it from the hands of Phrynicus. yEschy- 
 lus gave it the form which, with comparatively 
 unimportant alterations, it maintained through- 
 out the brilliant period of Attic culture." He 
 developed dialogue and devised stage machinery 
 and scenes; while "the purely creative faculty 
 has never been exhibited upon a greater scale, or 
 applied to material more utterly beyond the 
 range of the feebler poets," than in the conception 
 and composition of the great tragedies that he 
 gave to his reconstructed stage. Sophocles, his Sophocles, 
 next successor, whom Professor Jebb regards as 4o6 ' 
 "the purest type of the Greek intellect," refined 
 the art which ^Eschylus had modeled with a b u C48c> 
 powerful but rude touch, and Euripides gave it a 4o6 
 warmth of emotion that was new, or humanized 
 it, as some critics prefer to say. 
 
 Meantime, Herodotus and Thucydides were Herodotus, 
 not only discovering another subject of art, but - 42 4(1) 4 " 
 perfecting another form of it, in the composition 
 of history, evoking a noble literature from what 
 had been hitherto a bare chronicling of events. 
 Herodotus, "the Father of History," as he was 
 named with justice, worked in the larger field, 
 traveling widely in Asia and Egypt, as well as in 
 Greece, to gather materials for a history of the
 
 1 88 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 wars of the Greeks with the Persians, which is, in 
 reality, an account of all that he could learn of the 
 annals and the life of the ancient nations of the 
 east before and during his day. Until the buried 
 records of Egypt and western Asia began to be 
 found and deciphered in recent years, his work 
 was the great treasure-store of ancient history, 
 but regarded with much unmerited distrust. The 
 late discoveries tend to prove that Herodotus was 
 as careful an investigator of facts as one could 
 well be in an age when fables were rife. Thucy- 
 Thucydides dides stayed on surer ground. He was the his- 
 
 B.C. 4 7i(?) . • r , - + - .1 r i • 
 
 -401 (?) tonan or his own time, partly or his own experi- 
 ences, as an actor in the Peloponnesian War, and 
 he produced the one model of historical composi- 
 tion that is so accepted, by common consent, to 
 this day. 
 
 Two centuries after Thucydides, when the 
 Romans had vanquished Greece, they carried as 
 a prisoner to Rome, among the chief men of the 
 Achaean League, one, Polybius, an Arcadian 
 Greek, "who first," says Mommsen, "or rather 
 alone, brought literary appreciation and descrip- 
 tion to bear on Rome's place in the world, and to 
 whom subsequent generations, and we, too, owe 
 the best part of our knowledge of the Roman 
 development." The Histories of Polybius, begin- 
 b. c. 204- n i n g with the Hannibalic War and ending 
 125 (?) abruptly in the midst of the events of the year 
 152 B. C, are of inestimable value for the period, 
 though imperfectly preserved. 
 
 Still later, by nearly two centuries, appeared
 
 Aristotle 
 
 From Antique Bust 
 
 Aeschylus 
 
 From Bust in Capitol, Rome 
 
 Thucydides 
 
 From Bust in Museum, Naples 
 
 Ptolemy Soter 
 
 From a Coin
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 189 
 
 Plutarch, whose charming parallel biographies of ^eT^' (?) 
 Greek and Roman public men are the best known -120(f) 
 of all Greek historical writings to modern general 
 readers. Plutarch "is a moralist rather than a 
 historian. His interest is less for politics and the 
 changes of empires, and much more for personal 
 character and individual actions and motives to 
 action." 
 
 Greek oratory can hardly be called an original Greek 
 creation, since public speech must be almost as 
 old as human society; but nothing in any other 
 equally ancient literature resembles the formal 
 art of the orations of Pericles, Antiphon, Andoci- 
 des, Lysias, Isocrates, Isseus, Demosthenes, 
 yEschines, and others of a famous group. 
 
 In arts addressed to the eye the Greeks of 
 antiquity have been the teachers of all the world ar r t ^ ts 
 since. The edifices of Ictinus and Mnesicles are 
 in ruins; the finest and most famed sculpture of 
 Polycletus, Phidias, Praxiteles, Scopas, and 
 Lysippus have perished; but enough has escaped 
 the destroying hand of Time to furnish types of 
 perfection that are as changeless as truth. Of 
 Greek painting, on the contrary, the modern 
 world knows really nothing beyond the names of 
 Polygnotus, Apollodorus, Zeuxis, Apelles, and 
 other painters who were famous in their day. 
 
 After the conquests of Alexander had drawn 
 the Greeks into Asia and Africa, the Hellenic 
 genius made its most brilliant displays in those g^ m d ^ ed 
 outer fields. Ptolemy Soter and his son Ptolemy B. c. 283 
 Philadelphus, the first and second of the Mace-
 
 190 
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 Ptolemy 
 Phila- 
 delphia. 
 B. C. 309- 
 247 
 
 The 
 Seleucidae 
 
 Judas 
 
 Maccabasus 
 died B. C. 
 160 
 
 Roman 
 
 chief 
 
 characters 
 
 donian kings of Egypt, are distinctly the most 
 notable actors of their time in public affairs. 
 Their reorganization of the venerable realm of the 
 Pharaohs; their splendid creation of the city of 
 Alexandria; the success of their fine ambition to 
 make it the center of learning, — the seat of the 
 greatest libraries and schools, — were achieve- 
 ments of statesmanship hardly equaled in the 
 ancient world. 
 
 Nothing to compare with it was done by the 
 Seleucid kings, in their Syrian dominion; though 
 magnificent cities, like Antioch, sprang up at their 
 command. Among those who became subjects of 
 the Syrian monarchy were a people whose capa- 
 bility was equaled only by that of the Romans 
 and the Greeks. These, the Jews, were invited 
 and made use of by the Ptolemies, but oppressed 
 by their later sovereigns, the Seleucids, who drove 
 them to revolt, and thus called into history the 
 one character of striking interest in the annals of 
 the Syrian kingdom. Judas, called Maccabseus, 
 who became the leader of the rising, was so much 
 its master-spirit that the patriotic motive in it 
 died with him when he fell in battle. Through 
 factious struggles that came afterward, his family 
 was raised, by the prestige he had given it, to a 
 re-erected Jewish throne. 
 
 When we turn from the Greeks to the Romans, 
 seeking distinguished company, we find the 
 character of the larger circles of high society 
 much changed. The Latin race spends its powers 
 more in action than in thought. It borrows its
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 191 
 
 philosophy from the Greeks; the science it studies 
 is law; its literature is a late production, for it is 
 slow in learning skill with the pen; the arts it 
 cultivates most assiduously are those of the 
 sword. Hence the Roman trump of fame sounds 
 most frequently a martial note; the majority of 
 illustrious names in the annals of the republic and 
 the empire are those of soldiers and men conspicu- 
 ous in public affairs. 
 
 Passing the half-mythical war-chiefs and 
 patriots of early legend, such as Lucius Junius 
 Brutus, Coriolanus, Cincinnatus, Camillus, it is Legendary 
 not till we come to the Punic wars that the great 
 personages of substantial eminence in Roman 
 history begin to be met. Then, in succession, we Meteilus, 
 come upon Meteilus, who defeated the Cartha- died B - c - 
 
 *■ 221 
 
 ginians at Panormus; Flaminius, tribune and 
 
 consul, builder of the Flaminian Way, first dis- ^. Ia ? 1 l ni " s ' 
 
 tributer of public lands among the veterans of the 217 
 wars, who suffered defeat and death in battle with 
 
 Hannibal at Lake Trasimene; Fabius, "the ^'g'c 
 
 cunctator" (lingerer), who wearied and wore out 203 
 
 the army of the invincible Carthaginian, by _ „, ,. 
 
 J > . C. Claudius 
 
 ceaseless harassment, evading battle; Caius Nero, con- 
 Claudius Nero, who defeated Hasdrubal; Publius 
 Cornelius Scipio, called Africanus, who subdued 
 Carthaginian Spain, carried the war to the gates canus. B.C. 
 of Carthage itself, overthrew Hannibal at Zama, \l*(j) 
 ended the second Punic War, and became a per- 
 sonal power in the republic too great to be amen- 
 able to law. 
 
 But the grand figure in these wars is Hannibal, 
 
 sul, b. c 
 207 
 
 Scipio Afri-
 
 192 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 Hannibal. a mightier warrior than Rome ever produced, 
 183 save Caesar only; beside whom the commanders 
 
 who opposed him were mere prentices, taking 
 lessons in war from their own discomfitures and 
 defeats. The Romans were but rude fighters till 
 he taught them strategic art, which they were 
 quick to learn, and learned thoroughly well. In 
 character, too, Hannibal appears to represent one 
 of the highest of military types. Seen only in 
 portraiture by his enemies, with features of 
 barbarity that are most likely exaggerated, he 
 shows nothing mean, nothing that is not massive 
 and strong. 
 
 The heroes of the next Roman campaigns of 
 
 importance, which extinguished the Macedonian 
 
 Fiarnimnus kingdom and subjugated Greece, were Flamini- 
 
 -174(f) nus, who defeated the third Philip of Macedon, at 
 
 Cynoscephalse, and Lucius ^Emilius Paulus, who 
 
 overthrew Perseus, son of Philip, at Pydna, and 
 
 Paulus, took him captive to Rome. A little later, the son 
 
 B 2 C- of yEmilius Paulus, adopted by the great Scipio 
 
 and known as Scipio vEmilianus, or Scipio Afri- 
 
 Sipio AfH- C anus Minor, gave final satisfaction to the Roman 
 
 Minor. hatred and dread of Carthage, by capturing and 
 
 destroying the city, after its despairing people had 
 
 been driven to resist the oppressive and insulting 
 
 mandates of Rome. 
 
 The Roman most responsible for this act of 
 Cato, the savage policy was the stern censor, Cato, who 
 
 CensorB.c. typified the unlovely hardness of temper which 
 234-149 \ i J . 
 
 virtue had a tendency to acquire in that strenu- 
 ous race. Hard, narrow, and niggardly, he was 
 
 b. c 
 
 I8s(?)-I29
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 193 
 
 no harsher to others than to himself. He was 
 bitter in hostility to the Greek culture which 
 invaded Rome, because he hated the suppleness 
 of the Greek character; yet, in mind, he was 
 probably the most cultivated Roman of his day. 
 As an orator and writer he is credited with the 
 first moulding of classic Latin prose. He had the 
 distinction of honesty and simplicity of life, in an 
 age when both had become rare. 
 
 For we have arrived at the evil days of the 
 republic, when the poison of its long, intoxicating 
 draughts of spoil and tribute from conquered 
 nations had corrupted its blood; when the blight 
 of overspreading slavery had stricken its social 
 system; when its common people had become 
 pauperized and degraded, and its dominating 
 patricians kept their power and their possessions 
 by feeding, diverting and bribing an always 
 dangerous mob. Throughout the last century of 
 the republic the prominent figures in its history 
 are patriotic reformers, who strove vainly against 
 the maladies that were destroying the state, and 
 chiefs of faction who hastened the destruction by 
 internecine wars. The two brothers, Tiberius and J lberl , us 
 
 m (jraccnus, 
 
 Caius Gracchus, who took upon themselves, in slain b. c. 
 turn, the perilous duty of leading attacks on the I33 
 grasping senate and its insolent party, — monopo- 
 lists of the soil of Italy and plunderers of Roman 
 provinces, — were nobly blind to the debasement Caius Grac 
 of the people whom they tried to serve. The only Rc'iaiT 
 sign of hope for Rome when it looked on at the 
 bold murdering of one and then the other, doing
 
 Marius. 
 B.C. 
 
 194 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 nothing to defend or avenge them, was in the fact 
 that it could, even yet, breed two patriots of the 
 ancient mould. 
 
 The distinguished products of the next genera- 
 tion were the terrible soldiers, Marius and Sulla, 
 
 i55(- ? )-s6 w ho drew the factions of the time into military 
 camps. Marius, low-born, rude, barbarous, a 
 strong soldier and naught else, became the idol of 
 the Roman populace by reason of his successes in 
 the Jugurthine War and against the invading 
 Cimbri and Teutones, and might have centered 
 the whole government in himself if he had known 
 how; but he had no capacity for the political posi- 
 
 Suia B.C. i[ on ' m w hich he was placed. Sulla, coming from 
 
 i38(?)-78 . ' ° 
 
 the so-called "Social War" with the Italians as a 
 commander of devoted legions that would follow 
 him against Rome itself, is no soldier of the 
 Marius type, but one of the enigmatic characters 
 of history, impossible to understand. Seen in the 
 successive acts of his dramatic career, — leaving 
 his enemies to establish themselves in power and 
 to massacre his friends, while he goes with cool 
 indifference to undertake and finish the Mithri- 
 datic war in Greece; returning with equally cool 
 self-confidence to make himself master and 
 dictator at Rome; destroying his enemies with 
 passionless brutality, by proscriptions that mark 
 them for any assassin who will hunt them down; 
 framing a new constitution for Rome in which he 
 plans nothing for himself; laying down the power 
 that is absolute in his hands, and withdrawing to 
 private life, like a philosopher, and like one who
 
 Demosthenes 
 
 Statue in the Vatican 
 
 Hannibal 
 
 From Bust in Museum, Naples 
 
 Cicero 
 
 From Bust in Uffizi Gallery
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 195 
 
 has nothing to fear, — his whole course is unique, 
 his character to be compared with no other. 
 
 When Sulla left the stage there were four men 
 conspicuously aspiring to control the future des- 
 tinies of Rome. They were Pompey (Pompeius), 
 Crassus, Cicero, and Caesar. Pompey was already bxTJoo-w 
 very near to a height of military fame, power, and 
 popularity from which he could have dominated 
 the situation, as Sulla did, if a really scrupulous 
 respect for the republic and its constitution had 
 not held him back. Of the four men named, he 
 and Cicero were undoubtedly the least self-seek- *! ™ p j£ 
 ing in their ambition, though it cannot be said of 
 either that his patriotism was unalloyed. There 
 were two-sided motives, public and personal, in 
 both cases, strong enough on each side to cause 
 hesitations that were fatal to success. Pompey, 
 moreover, seemed weakened by a lack of any clear 
 political ideas for the guiding of his course; and 
 so he drifted till he fell into Caesar's wake. Cicero 
 had no such lack. The impossible aim of main- glc.T06-.13 
 taining senatorial ascendancy in the government, 
 under the forms of the republican constitution, 
 was very definite and confirmed in his mind. But 
 Cicero, the great orator, the finely thoughtful 
 essayist, the meditative moralist, the cultured 
 Roman gentleman, was not at his best in politics, 
 and no match for one, at least, of those with 
 whom he contended. 
 
 The ambition of Crassus was founded on little 
 more than the potency of his wealth, and it 
 became helpful to Caesar, rather than to himself.
 
 196 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 That youngest of the four competitors for power, 
 Julius Caesar, least in prominence at the begin- 
 ning of the race, won the lordship of the Roman 
 world because he never mistook the straight way 
 to that goal; never hesitated; never doubted that 
 by reaching it he would do the best that was pos- 
 sible for Rome, as well as for himself; never 
 scrupled to use means needful to his ends; never 
 was carried by vengeance or vanity or any un- 
 ruled passion beyond the needful means; exer- 
 cised, in fact, the powers of an intellect and a will 
 that seem to have been the most absolutely 
 unerring ever given to a man for great practical 
 achievements in the larger affairs of the world. 
 He was of too large a nature to do evil things 
 unnecessarily, and so he shines even morally in 
 comparison with many of his kind; but he had no 
 scruples. If we look at his intellectual qualities 
 alone, and compare him only with other states- 
 men and soldiers, he does certainly overtop them 
 all. 
 
 So, too, in the case of Caesar's heir, Octavius, 
 called Augustus, who consummated Caesar's 
 work, and who, by his organizing genius, became 
 the true founder of the Roman empire, on ground 
 which Caesar had cleared and prepared for it, — 
 we leave moral considerations out of the account 
 if we find attributes of greatness in him. His 
 historical position is exceptional in grandeur, and 
 bT^v' y et hi stor y has dealt contemptuously with his 
 A. D. 14 name. De Quincey calls his character repulsive. 
 Gibbon wrote of him: "A cool head, an unfeeling
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 197 
 
 heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him, 
 at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of 
 hypocrisy, which he never afterward laid aside. 
 . . . His virtues and even his vices were 
 artificial; and, according to the various dictates 
 of his interest, he was at first the enemy, and at 
 last the father, of the Roman world." Yet, how 
 can we deny surpassing high qualities of some 
 description to a man who set the shattered Roman 
 republic, with all its democratic bases broken up, 
 on a new — an imperial — foundation, so gently 
 that it suffered no further shock, and so solidly 
 that it endured, in whole or in part, for a millen- 
 nium and a half? 
 
 We can feel well assured that no such structure 
 would have come from the hands of the genial, 
 eloquent, warm-blooded and voluptuous Mark Antony. 
 Antony, who had seemed for a time to be the man B - c - 8 ^ a 
 destined to take Caesar's place. 
 
 Until the last generation that lived under the 
 republic, the Romans produced no literature that 
 can claim the classic rank. The first masterpieces 
 of their language are found in the prose of Cicero 
 and Caesar, in the lyrics of Catullus, and in the 
 philosophical poem of Lucretius, On the Nature of 
 Things. In this last named, the most remarkable 
 of didactic poems, written to interpret nature and 
 life by the Epicurean philosophy, "we are brought Lucretius. 
 face to face," says a recent writer, "not only with 9S ' 9 
 an extraordinary literary achievement, but with 
 a mind whose profound and brilliant genius has 
 only of late years, and with the modern advance
 
 198 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 ¥afni\ °^ Physical and historical science, been adequately 
 erature, pp. recognized. ... In his theory of light Lu- 
 cretius was in advance of Newton. In his theory 
 of chemical affinities (for he describes the thing 
 though the nomenclature was unknown to him) 
 he was in advance of Lavoisier. In his theory of 
 the ultimate constitution of the atom he is in 
 striking agreement with the views of the ablest 
 living physicists." And the poem is not only 
 astonishing in its scientific ideas, but is "a model 
 of the purest Latin idiom in the precise age of its 
 perfection." 
 Catalius. The lyrics of Catullus are admired by many 
 
 b. c. 87(?)- cr itics quite equally with those of Pindar and 
 Sappho; some rank him above all other Romen 
 poets, and few question his standing among the 
 first. 
 
 The period of the perfection of Latin prose, 
 commonly called the Ciceronian age, was fol- 
 lowed closely by one, the Augustan, during which 
 poetry took the lead in cultivation and gave a 
 higher literary distinction to the time. Its 
 
 Virgil. greatest name is that of Virgil, "the Roman 
 B. C. 70-19 ° % ... 
 
 Homer," writer of the one heroic epic that is ever 
 
 coupled with the Iliad in the categories of narra- 
 tive verse. Of the right of Virgil to a place in the 
 small list of the supreme poets of the world there 
 B.°G6s-8 ls seldom any dispute. "It is to Virgil and Horace 
 that the Augustan era owes its rank among the 
 great eras of poetry. Virgil is the exponent of its 
 highest hopes and ideas. In the spheres of gov- 
 ernment, of national and religious feeling, of all
 
 Julius Caesar 
 
 From Bust in Museum, Naples 
 
 Mark Antony 
 
 From Bust in the Louvre 
 
 Augustus 
 
 Bust in Vatican 
 
 Virgil 
 
 Bust in the Capitol, Rome
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 199 
 
 the finer influences of nature and human relation- W.Y.Sdiar 
 ship, it was through him that the most searching, p l oe ts of\Z 
 the most idealizing, and the most enduring revela- Au ^ ustan 
 tion was made. It was in him, too, that the 
 national literature, after a century and a half of 
 effort, attained its final perfection. But, for our 
 knowledge of the actual life of the time, of its 
 manners and humors, of its gayety on the surface 
 and of some of its deeper currents of serious feel- 
 ing, we must go to another representative of the 
 age. . . . He [Horace] is at once the lyrical 
 poet, with heart and imagination responsive to 
 the deeper meaning and lighter amusements of 
 life, and the satirist, the moralist, and the literary 
 critic of the age." 
 
 In the prose literature of the Augustan age 
 Livy's elaborate history of Rome, from the Uvy v c 
 founding of the city till his own day, was the one S9-A. ft. 17 
 greatly important work. It was divided into an 
 hundred and forty-two books, of which thirty-five 
 only, or a fourth of the whole, have been pre- 
 served. The books saved, which repeat the leg- 
 ends of an early time, are probably the least 
 valuable parts of the work; but Livy, it is 
 evident, was not critical of the sources from 
 which he drew, for any period, caring more for the 
 literary quality of his narrative, and its lively 
 effect, than for accuracy in the statements he 
 made. 
 
 More valuable than the surviving portions of 
 Livy's history are the fragments that have come 
 down from the one other classic Roman historian,
 
 200 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 Tacitus. Tacitus, who came later by a hundred years, and 
 who wrote the history of the first century of the 
 empire, down to the reign of Domitian; "an 
 immortal work," says Gibbon, "every sentence of 
 which is pregnant with the deepest observations 
 and the most lively images." 
 
 In the interval between Livy and Tacitus, the 
 literary names of most eminence are those of 
 Seneca, the courtier-philosopher, the millionaire 
 stoic moralist, tutor of Nero as a boy, his minister 
 when the boy became emperor, his victim when 
 boundless power had maddened the grown man; 
 B e c. C 4(?)- an d Pliny the Elder, whose encyclopaedic com- 
 A. D. 6s pilation of the scientific knowledge of his age, in 
 thirty-seven books of Natural History, throws the 
 EidTr.AD. best possible light on the learning of those days. 
 23-79 Seneca took his own life at Nero's command; 
 
 Pliny fell a victim to his scientific zeal, which 
 drew him into the fiery circle of volcanic dis- 
 charges from Mount Vesuvius, where he watched 
 the overwhelming of Pompeii and Herculaneum 
 until he shared their fate. 
 
 By this time the gospel of Christianity had been 
 carried into the heart of the Roman world, and 
 the name that is above all other names in history 
 is waiting to be taken into our list. Whether as a 
 human character or one more than human, Jesus, 
 the Christ, is supreme in his perfections and 
 Jesus, the supreme in the historical importance of his few 
 ???a n C " y ears °f teaching in Judea. His birth was in the 
 3o(?) ' reign of Augustus, the first of the Roman em- 
 perors; his crucifixion in that of the second
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 201 
 
 emperor, Tiberius. Peter, the chief of hlo twelve 
 immediate disciples and first apostles, is believed 
 to have been the founder of the Christian church 
 at Rome, which grew to so much influence in the 
 reign of Nero that the mad despot attempted to 
 strike it down. According to the traditions of the t- eter 
 church, Peter perished in Nero's persecution, and 
 with him Paul, "the apostle to the Gentiles," 
 greatest of Christian missionaries, who led in 
 labors which, already, had planted the Christian St. Paul 
 church widely throughout Asia Minor and Greece. 
 But the impression that Christianity had made 
 on the Roman people was very slight as yet. 
 Speaking generally, they had no religious belief. 
 They had lost that of the old mythology and 
 accepted nothing in its place. Spiritual-minded, 
 thoughtful men found a substitute for religion in 
 the stoic philosophy, which spiritualizes morality ~&°™ an 
 to the last degree. As a doctrine of life, stoicism 
 is "the acted consciousness of an eternal superi- 
 ority in the soul of man to all the conditions of its 
 existence in a body of clay." "Sovereignty of ^ a i \"^'- 
 spirit over flesh, of reason over passion, is the tudeof 
 surpassing attainment through moral discipline, pp I3 . I5 ' 
 in the stoic view." This spiritualized, almost 
 religious morality had been taught in Rome by 
 many of the Greek disciples of Zeno for nearly 
 three centuries, and had been winning the better 
 minds of late years very fast. Seneca gave it a 
 strong impulse, no doubt, by his excellent dis- Epictetus . 
 courses, and Epictetus, the Phrygian freedman, Ist centu y 
 or freed slave, must have given it more. It bore afterChnst
 
 202 
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 Marcus 
 Aurelius 
 Antoninus. 
 A. D. 121- 
 1S0 
 
 Larned, 
 A Multi- 
 tude of 
 Counsellors 
 
 Vespasian. 
 A. D. 9-79 
 
 Titus. A.D. 
 4 o(?)-8i 
 
 its noblest fruit in the next century, when it gave 
 Rome an emperor whose peer in nobility of 
 character and elevation of mind is hardly to be 
 found among the occupants of thrones. Marcus 
 Aurelius, the emperor, — absolute master of the 
 Roman world, — and Epictetus, the liberated 
 slave, are the two perfect exponents of stoicism, 
 illustrating, in the extremest opposition of cir- 
 cumstances, the wisdom it could impart, the 
 spirit it could cultivate, the life it could direct. 
 "The stoic creed has influenced morals a thousand 
 times more through the pregnant injunctions and 
 examples of these two men, the slave and the 
 emperor, than through the logic of all its philoso- 
 phers." 
 
 Marcus Aurelius was the last in a series of good 
 rulers who gave happiness to the empire for a 
 century, with but one interruption, when the 
 hateful Domitian held the throne. The series 
 began with Vespasian, whose soldierly virtues 
 were crude but genuine, the growth of a nature 
 as simple as it was strong. By its simplicity as 
 well as by its strength it saved him from the 
 intoxications of imperial power. His son Titus 
 reigned too briefly to show fully why it was that 
 he was called "the delight of mankind;" but long 
 enough to give evidence of exalted motives in the 
 exercise of his great sovereignty, and a sincere 
 desire to make it serviceable to the public weal. 
 That Domitian was the brother of Titus and the 
 son of Vespasian is a fact hard to understand. 
 
 After the bloody interval which Domitian
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 203 
 
 introduced, and the short reign of the aged Nerva, 
 came Trajan, bringing again the firm hand of a Trajan. 
 strong soldier to the helm of the half-wrecked 
 state. He had been deliberately chosen for suc- 
 cession to the throne, from among the military 
 commanders of the day, and no mistake was 
 made in the choice. He erred in resuming wars of 
 conquest, extending the bounds of an empire 
 already too large; but he restored the weakened 
 authority of government, and set a manly and 
 wholesome example of character and life. He 
 was devoid of jealousy and malice, straightfor- 
 ward and open in his dealings with men. 
 
 His successor, Hadrian, made so by his choice Hadrian. 
 and adoption, was not his equal in virile qualities, A - D -76-i38 
 but a sagacious and accomplished sovereign, — 
 wise enough to relinquish the useless conquests of 
 Trajan, and more careful to acquaint himself with 
 every part of his dominion than any other em- 
 peror had been. If he showed degeneration in 
 his later years, it seems to have been the conse- 
 quence of a tormenting disease. 
 
 Again by adoption, the scepter was given, after 
 Hadrian, to a singularly good man, Antoninus Antoninus 
 Pius, whose long reign is "one of those happy gg US 6 A " D " 
 periods that have no history. An almost un- 
 broken peace reigned at home and abroad. 
 Taxes were lightened, calamities relieved, infor- ra ' r> seekers 
 mers discouraged; confiscations were rare, plots AjterGod 
 and executions were almost unknown. Through- 
 out the whole extent of his vast domain the 
 people loved and valued their emperor, and the
 
 204 
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 Diocletian. 
 A. D. 24s- 
 313 
 
 Constan- 
 tine. A.D. 
 272-337 
 
 emperor's one aim was to further the happiness of 
 his people." As the son by adoption and the 
 chosen successor of this excellent sovereign, 
 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was reared in virtue, 
 and all his fine aptitudes were cultivated, by 
 example and by teaching, to make him "the 
 noblest Roman of them all." 
 
 After Marcus Aurelius, there are few emperors 
 of marked ability or character, and none of 
 notable distinction, till we pass a full century and 
 come to Diocletian, the reorganizer of the empire, 
 by a new constitution, which cannot be said to 
 have checked its decline, but which, by dividing 
 and re-dividing the sovereignty, augmented dis- 
 orders and hastened the inevitable dissolution. 
 As long as Diocletian kept his colleagues in sub- 
 ordination by his dominating personality the new 
 system worked well; but when he wearied of 
 greatness and power, and withdrew to private 
 life, an explosion of jealous rivalries was not long 
 delayed. 
 
 Years of civil war fused the empire into unity 
 again, for a time, with Constantine, the craftiest 
 and most determined of the contestants, in sole 
 possession of the throne. Because this successful 
 adventurer was shrewd enough to see how power- 
 ful a party the Christians had become, and 
 secured their support by a nominal "conversion" 
 to the Christian faith, giving it thereby a new 
 footing in the Roman world, he is frequently mis- 
 named "the Great." In a certain manner he was 
 able, but he was neither great nor good. How is
 
 Tacitus 
 
 From an Antique Bust 
 
 Marcus Aurelius 
 
 Bust in Capitol, Rome 
 
 Trajan 
 
 Bust in the Vatican 
 
 Antoninus Pius 
 
 Bust in British Museum
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 205 
 
 it possible to believe in the sincerity of his profes- 
 sion of the religion of Christ, when his after life 
 was full of such hideous crimes of suspicious 
 jealousy as the execution of a son, a sister, a wife, 
 a nephew, and others of his own kin? His favor 
 was simply corrupting to the Christian church. 
 Every account of his reign discloses the rankness 
 of hypocrisy that was bred among the priests and 
 professed Christians of the imperial court. To 
 quote Neander, "even Eusebius, the panegyrist 
 of Constantine, blinded as he was by the splendor G , e ,*" J r ' 
 which the latter had cast over the outward H . ist %y°f 
 
 11111 1 • 1 * e Chris- 
 
 church, although he would gladly say nothing but tian Reii- 
 good of his hero, yet even he is obliged to reckon G j™.^ 
 among the grievous evils of this period, of which (Bohn)3:39 
 he was an eye-witness, the indescribable hypoc- 
 risy of those who gave themselves out as Chris- 
 tians merely for temporary advantage." 
 
 That Julian, Constantine's nephew, turned 
 with disgust from the kind of Christianity that he 
 saw at the court in which he was reared, can be aId^i- 
 no matter of wonder, for he was a man of sincerity 363 
 and serious mind. It seems probable that the 
 teachings of Jesus would have been acceptable to 
 Julian if they had reached him in their purity and 
 truth. In preferring the philosophic paganism 
 that held its ground still in the Greek schools, and 
 in endeavoring, when he came to the throne, to 
 employ it as a means of moral purification and 
 elevation, he was less an "apostate," — less 
 deserving of the stigma of that appellation, — than 
 Constantine and the sons of Constantine, who
 
 206 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 
 
 debased the Christian church and dishonored the 
 Christian name. 
 
 To say that the church was debased by the cor- 
 ruptions and hypocrisies that surrounded the 
 imperial court is not to say that it was depraved 
 throughout. An abundance of its true spirit was 
 kept in life yet, and some of the greatest minds 
 ever dedicated to its service were employed upon 
 a.d.296(?) the problems of Christian belief and Christian 
 373 conduct in these very times. If dogmas were 
 
 more considered than principles by "the Fathers" 
 of the fourth century, nevertheless the aim of 
 Christ-likeness in life was an evident inspiration 
 of most that they thought and wrote. Even 
 329-379 Athanasius, the theological warrior of the church, 
 implacable enemy of Arianism, "father of ortho- 
 tom yS A.D. doxy," who fought unitarianism out and trini- 
 347W-407 tarianism into the prevailing creed, and kept it 
 there, was more than the partisan of a dogma in 
 | e p me o(?) what he did. So, too, were Basil, called "the 
 420 Great," Chrysostom, "the golden-mouthed," 
 
 Jerome, who gave the Vulgate translation of the 
 Augustine. g^ to t j ie L at i n world, and Augustine, who 
 
 430 stands first among "the Fathers" in modern 
 
 esteem. So, too, was Ulfilas, the Arian mission- 
 ary, who carried that condemned doctrine of 
 Christianity to the Goths, and gave them the 
 Bible in their own language, some extant frag- 
 
 umias. ments of which afford all that is known of the 
 
 38l ' 3 "~ ancient Gothic speech. 
 
 Of public personages in the later years of the 
 decaying empire there are not more than three
 
 Chief Characters of the Second Epoch 207 
 
 who seem to merit a place in this selected gallery ^ . 
 
 • /-1 1 i -r> 1 Theodosius 
 
 of chief characters in the Greek and Roman epoch A.D.346C?) 
 
 of history. They are Theodosius, the last sover- " 39S 
 
 eign who ruled the whole empire of Rome; 
 
 Stilicho, the able statesman and valiant soldier, 
 
 of Vandal birth, who fought Alaric the Visigoth, Stilicho. 
 
 resisting the doom of the worthless imperial gov- _ 408 ' 3 ' 
 
 ernmeht in the west till it put him to death; and 
 
 Alaric himself, the first of all the enemies of Rome, 
 
 since the Gauls, to break her gates, to enter her 37 6(?)".. 4 i * 
 
 streets as a victor, and despoil her with barbaric 
 
 greed.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FROM THE AGE OF XERXES TO THE 
 AGE OF HANNIBAL 
 
 (B. C. 480 to 200) 
 
 The Greeks: The rebuilding of Athens. — The Confederacy of Delos. — 
 Despotic use of Athenian power. — The Age of Pericles. — The Peloponnesian 
 war. — Triumph of the enemies of Athens. — Decay of the Persian empire. — ■ 
 Retreat of the Ten Thousand. — Breaking of the Spartan yoke by Thebes. — 
 Subjugation of Greece by Philip of Macedon. The Macedonian Empire: 
 Overthrow of the Persian empire by Alexander. — Great results from his con- 
 quests. — Division of his dominions after his death. — The Syrian monarchy 
 of Seleucus. — The new Egyptian kingdom of the Ptolemies. — Degeneracy of 
 the Greeks at home. — Their activity and influence in the field of the Mace- 
 donian conquests. — Alexandria. — The Jews of the "diaspora." India: The 
 kingdom of Magadha. — Asoka. — Establishment of Buddhism. — Evolution 
 of Hinduism. The Roman Republic: Roman subjugation of all Italy. — War 
 with Pyrrhus. — The Punic wars. — Hannibal in Italy. — Fall of Carthage. 
 
 In this period, the predominance in history of 
 the races of Europe over the races of Asia and 
 Africa, — of the peoples of Aryan speech over the 
 peoples of Semitic speech, — foreshadowed in the 
 ^eginnmg f a i[ ure Q f ^ e p ers i an invasions of Greece, was 
 European made complete and final by the Macedonian over- 
 throw of the Persian empire and by the Roman 
 destruction of Carthage. It is the period of the 
 first profoundly revolutionary change that history 
 discloses to us, in the processes and the product 
 of the civilization of mankind. 
 
 Greece 
 
 The war of the Greeks with the Persians had 
 been glorious for the Athenians, and all could see 
 that Greece had been saved by their spirit and 
 their intelligence much more than by the valor of 
 
 208
 
 Athens and the Delian League 209 
 
 Sparta and other states. But they were in a woe- 
 ful condition, with their city destroyed and their 
 families without homes. Wasting no time in 
 lamentations, they rebuilt the town, stretched its 
 walls to a wider circuit, and fortified it more 
 strongly than before, under the lead of the saga- 
 cious Themistocles. Their neighbors were meanly 
 jealous, and Sparta made attempts to interfere 
 with the building of the walls; but Themistocles f^rThe 
 baffled them cunningly, and the new Athens rose Persian 
 proudly out of the ashes of the old. 
 
 The Ionian islands and towns of Asia Minor 
 (which had broken the Persian yoke) now recog- 
 nized the superiority of Athens, and a league was 
 formed among them, which held the meetings of 
 its deputies and kept its treasury in the temple of 
 Apollo on the sacred island of Delos; for which 
 reason it was called the Confederacy of Delos, or 
 the Delian League. The Peloponnesian states J^ ° ehan 
 formed a looser rival league under the headship of 
 Sparta. The Confederacy of Delos was in sym- 
 pathy with popular governments and popular 
 parties everywhere, while the Spartans and their 
 following favored oligarchies and aristocratic 
 parties. There were many occasions for hostility 
 between the two. 
 
 The Athenians, at the head of their confed- 
 eracy, were strong, until they impaired their 
 power by using it in tyrannical ways. Many 
 lesser states in the league were unwise enough to 
 commute, in money payments, the contribution 
 of ships and men which they had pledged them-
 
 210 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 selves to make to the common naval force. This 
 gave Athens the power to use that force despot- 
 ically, as her own, and she did not scruple to 
 exercise the power. The confederacy was soon a 
 
 Despotical 
 
 ascendancy name; the states torming it were no longer allies 
 of Athens Q f Athens, but her subjects ; she ruled them as the 
 sovereign of an empire, and her rule was neither 
 generous nor just. Thereby the double tie of 
 kinship and of interest which might have bound 
 the whole circle of Ionian states to her fortunes 
 and herself was destroyed by her own acts. Pro- 
 voking the hatred of her allies and challenging the 
 jealous fear of her rivals, Athens had many foes. 
 At the same time a dangerous change in the 
 character of her democratic institutions was 
 begun, produced especially by the institution of 
 popular jury-courts, before which prosecutions of 
 every kind were tried, the citizens who consti- 
 tuted the courts acting as jury and judge at once. 
 This gave them a valuable training, without 
 doubt, and helped to raise the common standard 
 Growth of of intelligence among the Athenians so high; but 
 demagog- it did unquestionably tend also to demoralizations 
 uery that were ruinous in the end. The jury service, 
 
 slightly paid, fell more and more to an unworthy 
 class, made up of idlers or intriguers. Party feel- 
 ing and popular passions gained an increasing 
 influence over the juries, and demagogues 
 acquired anincreasing skill in making use of them. 
 But these evils were scarcely more than in their 
 seed during the great period of "Athenian 
 Empire," as it is sometimes called, and every-
 
 The Golden Age of Athens 211 
 
 thine within its bounds was suffused with the Brillianc y 
 
 of the 
 
 shining splendor of that matchless half-century of period 
 time. The genius of this little Ionic state was 
 stimulated to amazing achievements in every 
 intellectual field. .'Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripi- Dramatists 
 des, Aristophanes, within a single generation, 
 crowded Athenian literature with the master- 
 pieces of classic drama. Pheidias and his com- 
 panions crowned the Acropolis and filled the city Artists 
 with works that have been the models in art for 
 all ages since. Socrates began the quizzing which 
 turned philosophy into honest truth-seeking ^ 
 paths, and Plato listened to him and was in- 
 structed for his mission. Thucydides watched 
 
 «i • j ^j Historians 
 
 events with sagacious young eyes, and prepared 
 his pen for the chronicling of them; while Herodo- 
 tus, pausing at Athens from his wide travels, 
 matured the knowledge he had gathered up and 
 perfected it for his final work. Over all of them Pericles 
 came Pericles to preside and rule, not as a master, Plutarch 
 or "tyrant," but as leader, guide, patron, princely Pericles 
 republican, — statesman and politician in one. Evelyn 
 The period of the ascendancy of Pericles was PeT °i e l 
 the "golden age" of Athenian prosperity and 
 power, both material and intellectual. The 
 beginning of the end of it was reached a little 
 before he died, when the long-threatened war The 
 between Athens and the Peloponnesian league, nesianwar. 
 led by Sparta, broke out. If Athens had then 431-404 
 possessed the good will of the cities of her own 
 league, and if her citizens had retained their old 
 sobriety and intelligence, she might have tri-
 
 B. C. 429 
 
 212 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 umphed in the war; for she was all powerful at 
 sea and fortified almost invincibly against attacks 
 by land. But the subject states, called allies, 
 were hostile, for the most part, and helped the 
 enemy by their revolts, while the death of Pericles 
 let loose on the people a swarm of demagogues 
 who flattered and deluded them, and baffled the 
 wiser and more honest, whose counsels and 
 leadership might have given them success. 
 
 The fatal folly of the long war was an expedi- 
 tion against the distant city of Syracuse (founded 
 in Sicily, in the eighth century B. C, by Greek 
 expedition colonists from Corinth), into which the Athenians 
 s^cuse were ent ^ cec ^ by the restless and unscrupulous 
 b. c. ambition of Alcibiades. The entire force sent to 
 
 Sicily perished there, and the strength and spirit 
 of Athens were sapped by the fearful calamity. 
 She maintained the war, however, until 404 B.C., 
 when, having lost her fleet in the decisive battle of 
 ./Egospotami, and being blockaded by sea and 
 land, the city was surrendered to the Spartan 
 general Lysander. Her walls and fortifications 
 Athens. were then destroyed and her democratic govern- 
 B. c. 404 ment was overthrown, giving place to an oli- 
 garchy known as the "thirty tyrants." The 
 thirty tyrants were soon suppressed, and Athens, 
 in time, rose somewhat from her deep humilia- 
 tion, but never again to much political power in 
 Greece. In intellect and cultivation, however, 
 the superiority of the Attic state was maintained, 
 and its greatest productions in philosophy and 
 eloquence were yet to be given to the world. 
 
 Fatal
 
 Decline of the Persian Empire 213 
 
 The Persian Empire 
 
 Meantime, the Persian empire had been under- 
 going a rapid process of disorganization and 
 decline. There was no strength of spirit in 
 Xerxes to overcome the disastrous effect, on his 
 subjects and on himself, of the shameful failure 
 he had made in Greece. He sank into the char- 
 acter of the typical despot of the east, licentious, D ; sor s ani2 - 
 
 . . J l r ' ' ation and 
 
 suspicious, murderous, malevolent, feared and decline 
 hated in an equal degree. He was assassinated in 
 465 B. C. by the captain of his guard, who placed 
 his youngest son, Artaxerxes I., on the throne. 
 This prince, who had the weakness without the 
 wickedness of his father, reigned forty years, dur- 
 ing which the force of authority in government 
 was lost. Others committed violences and crimes, 
 if he did not, and the conditions of disorder and 
 laxity increased. In the midst of his reign an- 
 other collision with the Athenians was brought ^^th 
 about by the latter, who gave help to an insurrec- % th A ns - 
 tion in Egypt, and who suffered there a serious 449 
 defeat. But in the end the Persians were beaten 
 so badly, in a great sea fight, off the Cyprian 
 coast, that they accepted an inglorious peace, 
 celebrated in the history of Athens as "the Peace 
 of Cimon" or "the Peace of Callias," being some- 
 times named from Callias, the negotiator, and 
 sometimes from Cimon, who commanded in the 
 war. 
 
 The death of Artaxerxes I. in 425 B. C. was fol- 
 lowed within a year by two changes on the throne 
 produced by murder. Ochus, an illegitimate son
 
 214 
 
 Egypt 
 regains in- 
 dependence 
 B. C. 405 
 
 Greek mer- 
 cenaries in 
 Persia. 
 B. C. 401 
 
 Retreat of 
 the Ten 
 
 Thousand 
 
 Xenophon, 
 Anabasis 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 of Artaxerxes, who then secured it, taking the 
 name of Darius Nothus, reigned twenty years. 
 They were years of incessant disturbance in all 
 parts of the weakened realm. Egypt regained its 
 independence, and was ruled for half a century 
 by a series of native kings. On the other hand, 
 the fatal Peloponnesian war in Greece gave the 
 Persian satraps in Asia Minor an opportunity to 
 resubjugate the Greek cities of the Ionian coast. 
 Darius Nothus died in 405 B. C, and was suc- 
 ceeded by his eldest son, Artaxerxes II. A 
 younger son, Cyrus, who was satrap of Lydia, had 
 expected to receive the crown, and determined to 
 take it by force. He enlisted an army of Greek 
 mercenaries, with which, in the spring of 401 
 B. C, he set forth from Sardis to march to Susa, 
 his brother's capital. At Cunaxa, in Babylonia, 
 he was surprised, defeated and slain. The Greeks 
 lost their commander in the fight, and found 
 themselves placed dangerously, in a hostile, 
 strange country, with no leader and no object to 
 pursue. With the Greek capacity for self-govern- 
 ment, they chose a general from their ranks, the 
 Athenian, Xenophon (who wrote several import- 
 ant books in after life), and under his leadership 
 they made the long retreat — the famous "Retreat 
 of the Ten Thousand " — from the lower Euphra- 
 tes to the Euxine, thence to the Bosporus and to 
 Greece, having found that the Persian empire 
 was already a shell. In Greece, however, this 
 discovery of Persian decay was not realized at 
 once, and Sparta, then supreme, shut her gates
 
 Spartan Domination 215 
 
 against the returning adventurers, through fear of 
 offending the "Great King." They were driven 
 to enter the service of a Thracian prince. 
 
 Such fears soon gave way, when the shrewd 
 Greeks estimated the full significance of what 
 Xenophon and his men had brought to light, and 
 saw the hollowness of the fancied Persian power. 
 Sparta became ashamed of having abandoned the R eve j at ; on 
 Greek cities of Asia Minor to their old oppressors, of Pef sian 
 
 decay 
 
 as she did after breaking the strength of their 
 protector, Athens, in the Peloponnesian war. 
 When, therefore, the Persians began to lay siege 
 to the coast cities which resisted them, Sparta 
 interfered, with spirit enough to bring about a 
 truce. This action provoked Artaxerxes, the 
 Persian king, to assist a fugitive Athenian gen- 
 eral, Conon, in preparing an armament against 
 Sparta; whereupon the Spartans, led by one of s artan 
 their kings, Agesilaus, took the field in Ionia with campaign 
 a strong army and carried on two brilliant cam- AsiaMinor. 
 paigns. For a time, Agesilaus of Sparta seemed B - c 39<5 ~ 
 likely to anticipate the overthrow of the Persian 
 empire, which Alexander of Macedonia accom- 
 plished a little later; but, in the midst of his 
 victories, he was called home to face a league 
 which Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Argos, and some 
 minor states had formed, to resist Spartan oppres- 
 sions in Greece. For eight years then there was a 
 renewal of war among the Greek states, Conon 
 and his Persian allies assisting the league. The G JT k . 
 
 o o states at 
 
 war was ended in 3 87 B. C, on terms substan- war again, 
 tially dictated by an edict of the Persian king. 3 s 7 ' 39S "
 
 2l6 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 Deliver- 
 ance of 
 Thebes. 
 B. C. 379 
 
 B. C. 371 
 
 Epaminon- 
 das 
 
 Rise of 
 Macedonia 
 
 B.C. 338 
 
 King Philip 
 and 
 
 Demos- 
 thenes 
 
 Plutarch, 
 Demos- 
 thenes 
 
 Athens had her walls rebuilt and her independ- 
 ence restored; but the Ionian Greeks were given 
 up to Persia once more, and the Greek states of 
 the peninsula (except Athens) submitted again to 
 the Spartan yoke. 
 
 But the Spartan domination was not far from 
 its end. Thebes, set free by a daring stroke and 
 led by a great statesman and soldier, Epaminon- 
 das, one of the purest and noblest patriots named 
 in history, fought Sparta for eight years, until, in 
 a momentous battle at Leuctra, the Lacedaemo- 
 nian despotism was ended forever. An ascen- 
 dancy in Greek affairs then passed to Thebes; 
 but it lasted only till the death of Epaminondas. 
 
 Meantime, while the city-states of Hellas 
 proper had been wounding and weakening one 
 another by their jealousies and wars, the semi- 
 Greek kingdom of Macedonia, to the north of 
 them, in their own peninsula, had been acquiring 
 their civilization and growing strong. And now 
 there appeared upon its throne a very able king, 
 Philip, who took advantage of their divisions, 
 interfered in their affairs, and finally made a 
 practical conquest of the whole peninsula, by his 
 victory at the battle of Chaeronea. At Athens, 
 the great orator Demosthenes had exerted him- 
 self for years to rouse resistance to Philip. His 
 eloquence failed then, but it has served the world 
 immortally since, by delighting and instructing 
 mankind. 
 
 King Philip of Macedonia was an extraordinary 
 man, superior in capacity and strength of char-
 
 Philip of Macedon 217 
 
 acter to Alexander, 1 ^ his more famous son. The 
 political adroitness with which he mastered the 
 turbulent Greek states, and established Mace- 
 donia in a leadership which gave it much of the 
 strength and prestige of Greece, has never been _ .,. 
 
 • iri-11 Philip and 
 
 surpassed. His son received from him that legacy his son 
 of power, for use in conquests beyond Greece; Alexander 
 received from him, moreover, the remarkable 
 generals he had picked and trained, the army he 
 had organized, the invincible "phalanx" he had 
 invented, and received them all prepared with TT 
 
 ' . r Hogarth, 
 
 direct reference to the very project of eastern Philip and 
 conquest which he carried out. For Philip was $J^£„ 
 making ready to invade the Persian empire when 
 he was struck down by an assassin in his forty- 
 seventh year. 
 
 Conquests and Empire of Alexander 
 
 Alexander, mounting the throne of Macedonia 
 on the death of his father, Philip, found barbarian 
 neighbors on his northern frontier to chastise, and 
 revolts in Greece to overcome, before he could 
 take up his father's designs against the crumbling 
 great empire in the east. Nearly two years were 
 employed in crushing the enemies near at hand, Destruc . 
 which he did with ruthless energy, destroying tion of 
 Thebes completely and selling its inhabitants as 
 slaves. Then, in the early spring of 334 B. C, 
 leading an army of -30,000 foot soldiers and £ 000 invasion of 
 
 11 1 1 tt 11 / 1. t\ Persian 
 
 cavalry, he crossed the .Hellespont (the JJar- empire. 
 
 B C 334 
 
 danelles of modern geography), and entered the 
 dominions of the Persian king. In his first en- 
 counter with Persian forces, at the small river
 
 218 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 Grote, 
 History of 
 Greece, II- 
 I2:ch. xcii- 
 xciv 
 
 Granicus, they arrayed their troops badly; he 
 confused them by clever tactics, and the result 
 to them was a disastrous rout. After this victory, 
 Alexander received the submission of most of the 
 leading cities of Asia Minor, but met resistance 
 at Miletus and Halicarnassus, the latter of which 
 he razed to the ground. A Persian fleet, under a 
 Greek commander, Memnon, gave him trouble, 
 however, in the ^Egean, threatening to cut him off 
 from Europe and to encourage revolt in Greece. 
 It was not until Memnon's death, in the spring of 
 333 B. C, that he felt safe in undertaking a fur- 
 ther advance. 
 
 News reached him in the summer of that year 
 that the Persian monarch, Darius Codomannus, 
 or Darius III., had taken the field against him in 
 person, and was moving from Babylon into Syria 
 with an army of 400,000 men. Thereupon Alex- 
 ander pushed forward through the passes of the 
 Taurus range of mountains into Cilicia, and 
 awaited the approach of Darius. The two armies 
 issus. b. c. came together in November, on the plain of Issus, 
 near the head of the gulf of that name — the 
 modern Gulf of Iskanderun. According to Greek 
 writers there were more than half a million in the 
 Persian host, and thirty thousand in the little 
 army of the Greeks. Whatever the true count 
 may have been, it is certain that the disparity in 
 numbers was very great. But the mere Persian 
 mass, badly generaled, counted for nothing 
 against Greek discipline and valor, handled with 
 the fine military judgment of Alexander. Crash- 
 
 Battle of
 
 Conquests of Alexander 219 
 
 ing through one wing, he disordered the whole, 
 and the Persians trampled each other to death in 
 the frenzy of their flight. Darius escaped, but his 
 mother, wife, daughters and a young son were ^family 
 left in the hands of the victor, who treated them of Darius 
 with a generosity that was astonishing to all who 
 described it in that age of merciless war. 
 
 Alexander assumed at once the title of King of 
 Persia and Lord of Asia; but, before pursuing 
 Darius into the heart of the vast empire he 
 claimed, he spent a year in securing the remainder 
 of its Mediterranean coast. Possession of the 
 maritime cities of Phoenicia was an absolute 
 necessity; for their navy had been his most 
 dangerous enemy from the first. Unless he 
 became its master he could not hold what he had 
 won, or maintain his authority in Greece. Byblus 
 and Sidon submitted to him, but Tyre would not, 
 on the terms he proposed, and the obstinate city capture of 
 held out against his siege for seven months. J s y 2 re ' B ' C 
 When taken at last by storm, 30,000 of its people 
 were sold into slavery, and a new population was 
 brought into the town. Gaza, the Philistine city, 
 was equally obstinate, and suffered a like fate, 
 after a siege of two months. Jerusalem and all 
 Palestine accepted the change of sovereign and 
 suffered no harm. Egypt, into which he ad- 
 vanced, did the same. 
 
 While in Egypt, Alexander designed and 
 founded, at the mouth of the westernmost branch Alexander 
 of the Nile, the notable city which bears his name in Egypt 
 to this day. From that task he marched west- 33I
 
 220 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 ward, along the north African coast, into Cyre- 
 naica (modern Barca), a state dominated by the 
 flourishing city of Cyrene, which Greek colonists 
 had founded about three hundred years before. 
 Cyrene sent an embassy to meet him, with gifts 
 and offers that were satisfactory, and his march 
 was stopped. The western limit of his conquests 
 had been reached. Before turning back to the 
 Nile, he went two hundred miles into the desert, 
 to visit a famous sanctuary and oracle of Jupiter 
 Ammon, and received there the flattering assur- 
 
 apotheosis ance that he was a son of the god. From this time 
 there seems to have been a growing desire in him 
 for the honors of a demigod, which showed itself 
 first in mere signs of expectation, and finally in 
 positive claims. 
 
 Early in the spring of 331 B. C, Alexander left 
 Egypt and returned with his army to Tyre, 
 whence, a few months later, he started eastward, 
 through Syria and Mesopotamia, to find Darius 
 and finish the fight for empire with that hapless 
 king. Darius met him near the village of Gauga- 
 mela, not far from the ruins of Nineveh, and 
 
 Battle of there, on the 1st of October, the final battle was 
 
 Gaugamela ' ' 
 
 (Arbeia). fought, in a manner and with results that differed 
 little from those displayed at Issus, two years 
 before. The Persian host was even greater than 
 at Issus, the panic-rout more frantic, the destruc- 
 tion more appalling. Darius escaped again and 
 took refuge at Ecbatana, the Median capital, 
 where he remained undisturbed until the follow- 
 ing spring. 
 
 B.C. 331
 
 Fall of Persian Empire of Darius 221 
 
 Meanwhile Alexander was gathering the more 
 important fruits of his victory and making them 
 secure. The battle of Gaugamela (mistakenly- 
 named in old traditions from Arbela, which lay 
 fifty miles distant from the battle ground) was 
 one of the most decisive ever fought. It ended the ,, , , , 
 Persian empire, and left little more for Alexander Persian 
 to do than to go over the ground it had occupied empire 
 and lay his hand upon its parts. This, practically, 
 was the work of the next four years. First he took 
 possession of the great capital cities of the empire 
 — Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, and Pasargada?, 
 finding enormous treasures in each and enriching 
 his whole army with the spoils. Then he pursued 
 Darius, who fled from Ecbatana, and who, when 
 the flight became hopeless, was murdered by his Darius. 
 own guards. This was in the summer of 330. B - c - 330 
 The next three years were spent by Alexander in 
 the provinces of Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria, Bactria, 
 Sogdiana, and Drangiana (northeastern Persia, 
 Russian Turkestan and Afghanistan in the geog- 
 raphy of the present day), settling new govern- 
 ments, overcoming some resistance, — serious no- 
 where but in Sogdiana (Bokhara), — and founding Macedoni- 
 a number of colonies and cities, some of which, colonies 
 like that represented by modern Merv, have 
 played important parts in history since. 
 
 In reality, the Macedonian had now subjugated 
 the Persian empire throughout its full extent; but 
 the claims of the Persian kings included a nominal 
 lordship over one district in the valley of the 
 Indus, and Alexander assumed the whole claim.
 
 222 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 Alexander 
 in India. 
 B. C. 327- 
 325 
 
 Death of 
 Alexander 
 at Babylon 
 B. C. 323 
 
 To enforce it, he fought his way through the 
 tribes in the mountains east of Afghanistan. He 
 found three kingdoms in the Punjab, but met 
 resistance in only one, whose king, a noble prince 
 named Porus, he defeated in one of the hardest 
 fought battles of his whole career. From the 
 Punjab he was eager to push on into remoter 
 Indian regions, of which he heard tempting 
 accounts; but his men held him back. They had 
 won for him even more than the Persian empire, 
 and he was compelled to be content. 
 
 Before quitting the Indus, Alexander passed 
 down to its mouth, and sent a fleet from there to 
 explore the way by sea to the Persian Gulf, — a 
 trade route which does not seem to have been 
 previously in use. Then he turned his march 
 toward Susa, which he reached in the spring of 
 324 B. C. through such hardships of the march 
 that half or more of his army perished on the way. 
 A year later he proceeded to Babylon, and was 
 reported to be engaged in preparations for the 
 conquest of Arabia, but was stricken with a fever 
 in the midst of them and died, after a brief illness, 
 on the 13th of June, 323 B. C. 
 
 What Alexander would have made of the vast 
 empire he had torn from the Persian kings, had 
 he lived, cannot be surmised. He had done al- 
 most nothing constructively in it when he died. 
 He had done almost nothing to show that he had 
 the ability of statesmanship, for moulding it into 
 some unity that would last. Thus far he had been 
 simply a conqueror, and, while his achievement in
 
 P3 
 
 X a
 
 Alexander's Death 223 
 
 that character was impressive in its huge propor- Estimate of 
 
 tions, the resistance he had encountered had been 
 
 too weak for any test of surpassing powers. He 
 
 had torn from the Persians an empire which went 
 
 to pieces when he died. That seems to be all that 
 
 we can reasonably credit to him in what he did. Qmse- 
 
 The greatness of the consequences that came from ^ utnc ^ 
 
 ° *■ _ from his 
 
 his overturning of western Asia, and flooding it conquests 
 with after-influences from Greece, furnishes no 
 proper measure of his personal greatness as an 
 actor in the production of the cause. There are 
 many shining figures in history who are glorified 
 by light reflected back from ultimate effects of 
 their work, more than by any real splendor in the 
 quality of the work itself. To some extent, at 
 least, Alexander, called "the Great," is one of 
 those. 
 
 As to the magnitude of the results that flowed 
 from the Greek overthrow of Persian power, 
 affecting the whole future history of the world, 
 there is no possible dispute. It ended the First the second 
 Era of Civilization and opened the Second. How EraofCivi- 
 
 1 hzation 
 
 it did so will appear in our story as we go on. 
 
 The Successors of Alexander 
 
 In the circumstances of the empire of Alexan- 
 der, its breaking was inevitable when he died. He ^^J^' 
 left an infant son who was illegitimate; he had an Alexander's 
 illegitimate half-brother; and one of his two c h.v.-vh. 
 wives — an oriental princess — bore another son 
 three months after his death. These were the 
 possible male heirs to his throne. None of them
 
 224 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 Dividing 
 the empire 
 
 commanded the allegiance of the Macedonian 
 army, which was the repository of his purely 
 military power, and none of the generals of the 
 army was strong enough in kingly qualities to 
 make himself its supreme chief. For a time there 
 was a nominal regency agreed upon among the 
 generals, but their rival ambitions and mutual 
 jealousies broke it down, and the division of the 
 empire between them was begun, with each one 
 intriguing and fighting to enlarge his share. Most 
 of the contestants and all of the kindred of Alex- 
 ander perished in these struggles, which went on 
 through forty years. The final outcome of the 
 contest was (i) the establishment of one import- 
 ant kingdom or empire in Asia, by Seleucus 
 Nicator, who had not been distinguished among 
 the officers of Alexander, but who grasped the 
 larger part of what Alexander left; (2) a new 
 kingdom of Egypt, founded by one of the ablest 
 of the Alexandrian commanders, Ptolemy Soter; 
 (3) the settling of a new dynasty on the throne of 
 the original Macedonian kingdom, in northern 
 Greece; and (4) the outcropping of a number of 
 lesser kingdoms in Asia Minor and beyond it, 
 some of which grew to a transient importance in 
 later times. 
 
 Until about the middle of the long contest, the 
 prospects of Seleucus seemed small compared 
 with those of another among the Macedonian 
 Antigonus generals, Antigonus by name, who overtopped all 
 his competitors in power. In the first partitioning 
 of the broken empire, Antigonus had received 
 
 The final 
 outcome
 
 The Successors of Alexander 225 
 
 only a few provinces in Asia Minor; but he 
 extended his authority, in the course of twenty 
 years, until he aspired to the supreme sovereignty 
 which Alexander had possessed. He was the first 
 of the contestants (whom the Greeks called the 
 "Diadochi" or "Successors" of Alexander) who ^p.^ 
 assumed the title of king. Another who figured dochi 
 conspicuously for years in the struggle was L sim _ 
 Lysimachus, whose original portion of the spoils achus 
 of empire was Thrace, embracing the region 
 between Macedonia, the Danube and the Black 
 Sea. He, too, widened his dominions, until all 
 the rich states in the west of Asia Minor came 
 under his rule. Lysimachus and Seleucus (then 
 established in a somewhat uncertain kingship at 
 Babylon) united their forces against Antigonus 
 and defeated and slew him in a great battle fought 
 at Ipsus, in Phrygia, 301 B. C. They then divided ^ attle of 
 the dominions of Antigonus between themselves, b. c. 301 
 Lysimachus taking most of Asia Minor and 
 Seleucus all the provinces of the east. This 
 division was maintained for a score of years, 
 until Lysimachus provoked an attack from his 
 old ally, Seleucus, and, in his turn, suffered over- 
 throw and death. 
 
 Seleucus was now the sole great monarch in 
 western Asia. Nominally he had recovered the archyof 
 Asiatic sovereignty of Alexander, from the Hel- Seleucas 
 lespont to the Indus; but the region of real 
 strength in his government seems to have em- 
 braced Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, parts of 
 Persia and parts of Asia Minor. All along the
 
 226 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 Minor 
 principali- 
 ties and 
 kingdoms 
 
 northern border of Alexander's conquest there 
 had been principalities established, some by 
 Gre~k adventurers and some by Persian grandees, 
 which acknowledged very little subjection to 
 Seleucus or his successor, and were soon petty 
 kingdoms, pursuing independent careers. Such 
 were Bithynia, Pergamum, Pontus, Armenia, 
 Media Atropatene, Parthia (which corresponded 
 very nearly to the modern Persian province of 
 Khorasan), and Bactria. Nevertheless the Seleu- 
 cid empire — sometimes called the Syrian mon- 
 archy — was a substantial and great power in the 
 eastern world, of immense historical influence, 
 throughout the third century before Christ. Its 
 founder, Seleucus Nicator, resigned the throne to 
 his son, Antiochus, soon after he had overthrown 
 Lysimachus, and went into Macedonia, to end his 
 days in his native land. He was murdered there 
 in the following year. 
 
 The Macedonian or Greek kingdom in Egypt 
 was founded more quietly and more securely by 
 Ptolemy Soter, a singularly prudent as well as an 
 able prince. Ptolemy was not carried away by 
 the lust of dominion which ruined most of his 
 domofthe r ivals. Egypt contented him, and he added to 
 
 Ptolemies 
 
 the ancient kingdom only Cyrenaica, at the west, 
 and Palestine, at the east. In the strifes that 
 raged around him, among the Diadochi, he took 
 little more part than was necessary for his own 
 defense. As a consequence, he transmitted to his 
 son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, a very solidly 
 constructed kingdom, which that monarch 
 
 The Egyp- 
 tian king-
 
 Greece Under the Macedonians 227 
 
 raised to preeminence in splendor and wealth. 
 
 Greece suffered sorely in the conflicts of the 
 Diadochi, who strove to keep each other from 
 controlling the Macedonian sovereignty in its 
 original seat. That sovereignty was won finally 
 by a grandson of Antigonus, whose descendants, 
 known as Antigonid kings, held the throne of 
 Macedonia till the Romans swept their kingdom ™ a £ r do t ^ 
 away. Before the founder of the dynasty had Antigonid 
 established himself securely, the old kingdom of ^f^s 
 Philip and Alexander came near to being engulfed 
 in the conquests of a nearer neighbor than Rome, 
 In the country called Epirus, lying west of Mace- 
 donia, on the border of the Ionian Sea, a new 
 monarchy had been rising, which produced at 
 this time a very ambitious but erratic king, named 
 Pyrrhus, who proved to be one of the ablest ^J 1 ^ 3 ' 
 soldiers of his age. Pyrrhus won possession of the Epirus. 
 Macedonian crown in 274 B. C., and held it for 2?2 ' 31 
 two years, at the end of which time he was killed 
 while invading the Peloponnesian states. The 
 Antigonid authority was then restored in Mace- 
 donia and generally over Greece. 
 
 Throughout the long period of struggle Athens 
 suffered most. As soon as Alexander's death was ^^ s the 
 known, she formed a league of Greek states and Mace- 
 made a vain effort to break the Macedonian yoke. y °^ n 
 The Athenian free spirit may be said to have 
 expired in that effort. Its last great witness and 
 interpreter, Demosthenes, who had never ceased Demos- 
 to inspire resistance to the Macedonians, died by g he " es- 
 his own hand to escape an ignominious execution.
 
 228 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 End of 
 Greek 
 greatness 
 in Greece 
 
 TheHelien- 
 izing of 
 western 
 Asia and 
 Egypt 
 
 Greek cities 
 in the orien- 
 tal world 
 
 Servility to one master after another became the 
 habit of Athens and the general habit of Greece. 
 Greek society everywhere was corrupted by the 
 enormous spoils of Asiatic conquest that flowed 
 into the land. The age of Greek greatness in 
 Greece proper had come to its end. Henceforth 
 the radiant genius of the Hellenic race was to 
 brighten and enlighten the world from Asiatic and 
 Egyptian cities, more than from Attic hills. 
 
 Much as the Athenian, the Corinthian, the 
 Spartan, and the Theban might scorn and hate 
 the masterful Macedonian, whose kinship to 
 themselves they would hardly acknowledge, they 
 were quick enough to follow him into the wide 
 new fields of opportunity that his arms had 
 opened up. All the centers of active life in Egypt 
 and most parts of western Asia were Hellenized in 
 the century that followed the death of Alexander. 
 In the history of the ancient world there was 
 never another such time of new city creation as 
 then. Alexander had begun it, planting colonies 
 and the germs of cities, in the old Greek fashion, 
 wherever he went. Seleucus, his final chief suc- 
 cessor in Asia, and Antiochus, the son of Seleucus, 
 did even more. The new cities were all Greek 
 cities, essentially, in character, culture, and 
 spirit, propagating influences which their older 
 neighbors, even in the close communion of the 
 Jews, could not resist. Preeminent among them 
 were Antioch in Syria and Alexandria in Egypt, 
 the latter especially becoming the central seat of 
 Greek influence, acting upon and moulding the
 
 The Spreading of Greek Influences 229 
 
 results of a great revolution and reorganization oi: 
 conditions in the Mediterranean world. 
 
 For the first time in the long history of Egypt, 
 the commercial opportunities of that country 
 were developed by the shrewd Ptolemy Soter and 
 his son. They opened a canal, which one of the Empire of 
 pharaohs had attempted to build, from the Red f^ 1 ' 
 Sea to the Mediterranean (ancient precursor of ch.ii-v. 
 the modern Suez Canal) ; cleared the Red Sea of 
 pirates; sent trading fleets to Arabia, Ethiopia, 
 and India, and set in motion streams of commerce 
 which flowed through their new city of Alexandria 
 and poured unexampled wealth into its lap. 
 Then, with rare enlightenment of mind, they 
 
 ' ° . ' J Alexandria, 
 
 converted that wealth into a source 01 culture, the seat of 
 civilization, refinement of life. By founding the culture 
 great Alexandrian university, with its splendid 
 museum and unequaled library, they drew the 
 pick of the scholarship and talent of the age to 
 their city, and made it the successor to Athens as 
 a seat of science, literature and art. 
 
 In this new development, on an expanded field, 
 of the unique powers and qualities of the Greek 
 mind, it took on a new character and produced 
 fruits of a new kind. In letters, arts and philoso- 
 phy, it bore no fruits like those of the past, but it 
 yielded something that was especially needed in 
 the world at that time. It gave, in the wide circle 
 of its influence, a freer, fuller, more rationalized 
 tendency and tone to all feeling and thought. It , 
 diffused, so to speak, a rationalized atmosphere of intellectual 
 mind, in which the mankind of that rim of su- influence
 
 230 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 perior civilization that surrounded the eastern 
 Mediterranean began to see all things in a larger 
 and more distinct way. In doing so it prepared 
 conditions for, first the Romanizing, and then the 
 Christianizing, of the Mediterranean world. It is 
 difficult to believe that the potent forces in Greek 
 culture would have reached, through the Romans, 
 into the modern life of Europe as they did, if they 
 had not wrought their first effects in the domin- 
 ions of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. It is still 
 harder to see how Christianity could have had its 
 planting, without the preparation which Greek 
 
 Prepara- thought had made for it, even in Jewish minds, 
 
 Christiani- like that of St. Paul. 
 
 ty At the same time, the religious conceptions of 
 
 the Greeks were affected by their intimate asso- 
 ciation with the Jews. For it was now, as a con- 
 sequence of the changed conditions in the Levant, 
 that the Jewish dispersion — the "diaspora" — 
 
 ~, , . , became a movement of wide range. Inviting 
 
 The Jewish ° ° 
 
 diaspora opportunities in other lands than Judea or Baby- 
 lonia were opened to the Jews for the first time. 
 The Ptolemies, whose rule over Palestine was one 
 of the happy periods in Jewish history, encour- 
 aged them to settle in Egypt and Cyrenaica, 
 especially at Alexandria, into which rising city 
 they gathered in numbers that were reckoned 
 finally at two-fifths of its whole population. 
 Seleucus and Antiochus gave them almost equal 
 welcome in Syria and Asia Minor. Then, as in 
 modern times, they showed a rare ability to make 
 the most of their opportunities, especially in
 
 The Jewish Dispersion 231 
 
 trade, and they soon became an important ele- 
 ment in the Hellenic world. Naturally, their 
 noble literature and their monotheistic religious 
 ideas drew the attention of thoughtful Greeks, 
 and a Greek version of their Scriptures — the ver- 
 
 . i o • 1 Hellenic 
 
 sion known as the beptuagmt — was begun at and 
 Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, ^ ebraic 
 by order of that king. Thus, by the same opera- brought 
 tion of events, the two influences, Hellenic and toge er 
 Hebraic, were brought into action together and 
 subtly mixed, in that wonderful nursery of 
 civilization, the border lands of the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea. 
 
 Considered from all sides, there are few events 
 in history that show consequences so momentous 
 as those which came from the overthrow of the 
 Persian empire, and from the circumstances that 
 
 followed it in that part of the world. 
 
 India 
 
 Those consequences did not extend to the 
 "Farther East" of that day. In India, the con- 
 quests of Alexander were held by none of his 
 generals, though Seleucus Nicator included them 
 in his claims. While Seleucus was struggling with 
 his rivals in the west, an Indian adventurer, 
 Chandra Gupta (called Sandrokottos by the 
 Greeks), rose to power in the basin of the Ganges, ctpta'? 
 founding the kingdom of Magadha, with its kingdom of 
 capital at Pataliputra, the Patna of the present aga 
 day. Seleucus and Chandra Gupta came to 
 terms, and the claims of the former in the region 
 of the Indus were given up. Relations between
 
 232 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 them were so friendly that the Syrian monarch 
 bestowed his daughter on the Indian king, and 
 kept an ambassador in residence at Pataliputra 
 from about 306 until 298 B. C. Subsequently 
 this ambassador wrote a work on India, which 
 has been lost; but the substance of some parts of 
 it, found in other Greek writings, furnish the only 
 direct and authentic account of that interesting 
 country and people that we have from so early a 
 day. 
 KingAsoka Asoka, grandson of Chandra Gupta, who 
 226°' 263 " reigned over Magadha from 263 till 226 B. C, 
 and who gave a wider extent to its bounds, 
 became a convert to Buddhism, and established 
 it as the religion of the state. "The Buddhism of 
 southern Asia," says Sir William Wilson Hunter, 
 "practically dates from Asoka's Council [which 
 he caused to be held in 244 B. C, for the purpose 
 of determining the true doctrines of the Buddha]. 
 In a number of edicts, both before and after that 
 Council, he published throughout his empire the 
 grand principles of the faith. Forty of these royal 
 sermons are still found graven upon pillars, caves 
 and rocks throughout India. Asoka also founded 
 a state department, with a minister of justice and 
 religion at its head, to watch over the purity and 
 iuddhisl to direct the spread of the faith. . . . Asoka 
 thought it his duty to convert all mankind to 
 Buddhism. His rock inscriptions record how he 
 sent forth missionaries 'to the utmost limits of the 
 barbarian countries.' . . . He collected the 
 Buddhist sacred books into an authoritative ver-
 
 Buddhism and Hinduism 233 
 
 sion, In the Magadhi language of his central king- ^ un ^ r ;. 
 
 . , • ■ 1 • i 1 Brief His- 
 
 dom in Behar, — a version which for two thou- tory of the 
 sand years has formed the southern canon of the P n fj p a £ St 
 Buddhist Scriptures." p- 79 
 
 But, while Asoka gave Buddhism an ascend- 
 ancy in India, which it maintained in parts of the 
 country for a long period, Brahmanism was never 
 crushed. The two religions existed side by side 
 for centuries, until modern Hinduism was evolved _ . . 
 
 7 t Evolution 
 
 out of both, though more from the old religion of modem 
 than the new. The Brahmans annexed the 
 Buddha, we may say, to their own polytheism, by 
 adopting him as an incarnation of Vishnu, their 
 most popular god. Partly by such means of slow 
 absorption, and partly by some final persecutions, 
 Buddhism was extinguished in its native country, 
 at last, as a distinct creed. But the seed planted 
 by its missionaries in every other part of eastern 
 Asia, from Ceylon to Manchuria, had taken such 
 root that no less than forty per cent, of the 
 inhabitants of the world are disciples of the 
 Buddha to-day. 
 
 Throughout the period of Chandra Gupta and 
 Asoka, the Greeks had considerable intercourse 
 with India; but after that time it declined, and 
 the Greek influences that were beginning to act 
 on the country faded out. The Greek kings of 
 Bactria attempted conquests in the Punjab, 
 which had no permanent result. Then the Bac- 
 trian kingdom was overthrown by invading obscure 
 hordes of the people whom the Greeks called period of 
 Scythians (probably the Huns or Mongols of later history
 
 234 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 history), from Central Asia, and the same invad- 
 ers pressed on into the Punjab, founding exten- 
 sive kingdoms in northern India, embracing 
 Buddhism, giving a change to its character, and 
 producing an important racial mixture in the 
 population of Hindustan. In this time and after 
 it, for several centuries, the history of India is 
 obscure. 
 
 China 
 
 It was in this period that the great wall of 
 China was built, on the northeastern frontier of 
 the empire, as a means of defense against those 
 wild nomads who emerged so often from the 
 Mongolian desert and its borders, and who appear 
 in history under differing names, as Huns, Mon- 
 gols, Tatars or Tartars, and Turks. The tribes 
 which troubled the Chinese in the third century 
 B. C. were known to them as the Hiongnou, and 
 Huns are SU pposed to have been identical with the 
 
 Huns who terrified Europe at a much later time. 
 The wall, which proved to be an ineffective 
 defense, was built by the emperor Chi Hwangti of 
 the Tsin dynasty, who reigned from about B. C. 
 Hwangti, 2 4-6 till 209. It is evident that Chi Hwangti was a 
 b. c. 246- ruler of great energy and ability, who did China a 
 good service in breaking down a feudalistic sys- 
 tem of provincial government that was growing 
 up; but the tyranny of his methods gave him an 
 evil name in the annals of the Chinese. Encoun- 
 tering opposition to his measures from the 
 literati, or learned class, who venerated the past, 
 
 Struggling 
 with the 
 
 209
 
 Evolution of the Roman Republic 235 
 
 clung to precedent and ancient prescription, and 
 
 t , • 1 , , . . Attempted 
 
 wanted nothing changed, he was provoked, at destruction 
 last, to attempt a destruction of all records of the of T f?° Td t s 
 
 7 x and books 
 
 past and all books, except those containing 
 practical knowledge, of medicine, agriculture, and 
 the like. According to his enemies, he hoped by 
 this barbarous destruction to make himself 
 appear in the future as the founder and first 
 sovereign of the empire. Fortunately he was not 
 able to extinguish the ancient literature of his 
 country, but it seems to have suffered a very 
 serious mutilation at his hands. 
 
 The Roman Republic 
 
 When Alexander led the Greeks into Asia, and 
 began the conquests which gave them a dominat- 
 ing influence in the civilized world, the Romans 
 had just mastered their nearest neighbors in 
 central Italy, and made themselves ready for 
 action on a larger field. 
 
 At this time the finally complete democratic 
 constitution of the Roman republic had nearly 
 been attained. From their success in B. C. 4Q4, , c 
 
 T7T) (See page 
 
 when the powerful magistracy of the Tribunes of 176-177) 
 the Plebs was secured by their first "secession," 
 the people of the plebeian order went forward, Ta , or 
 step by step, to the attainment of equal political Connitu- 
 rights in the commonwealth, and equal participa- poiukai 
 tion in the lands which Roman conquest was History °f 
 adding continually to the public domain. In 450 ch.iii-v. 
 B. C, after ten years of struggle, they secured the 
 appointment of a commission which framed the
 
 236 
 
 The Twelve 
 Tables of 
 the Law. 
 B. C. 450 
 
 Licinian 
 Laws. 
 B. C. 367 
 
 Lex 
 
 Hortensia. 
 B. C. 287 
 
 Cincinna- 
 tus 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 famous Twelve Tables of Law, and so established 
 a written and certain code. Five years later, the 
 caste exclusiveness of the patricians was broken 
 down by a law which permitted marriages be- 
 tween the orders. In 367 B. C. the patrician 
 monoply of the consular office was extinguished, 
 by the notable Licinian Laws, which also limited 
 the extent of land that any citizen might occupy, 
 and forbade the exclusive employment of slave 
 labor on any estate. One by one, after that, 
 other magistracies were opened to the plebs; and 
 in 287 B. C. by the Lex Hortensia, the plebeian 
 concilium, or assembly, was made independent of 
 the senate and its acts declared to be valid and 
 binding. The democratic commonwealth was 
 now complete. 
 
 While these changes in the constitution of their 
 republic were in progress, the Romans had been 
 making great advances toward supremacy in the 
 peninsula. First they had been in league with 
 their Latin neighbors, for war with the ^Equians, 
 the Volscians, and the Etruscans. The Volscian 
 war extended over forty years, and ended about 
 450 B. C. in the practical disappearance of the 
 Volscians from history. Of war with the JEqui- 
 ans, nothing is heard after 458 B. C, when, as the 
 tale is told, Cincinnatus left his plow to lead the 
 Romans against them. The war with the Etrus- 
 cans of the near city of Veii had been more stub- 
 born. Suspended by a truce between 474 and 
 438 B. C.j it was then renewed, and ended in 396 
 B. C, when the Etruscan city was taken and
 
 The Gauls in Rome 237 
 
 destroyed. At the same time the power of the War with 
 
 1 /-> Etruscans 
 
 Etruscans was shattered at sea by the Greeks of 
 Tarentum and Syracuse, while at home they were 
 attacked from the north by the barbarous Gauls 
 or Celts. 
 
 These last named people, having crossed the 
 Alps from Gaul and Switzerland and occupied 
 
 1 t 1 • 1 Appear- 
 
 northern Italy, were now pressing upon the more anceofthe 
 civilized nations to the south of the Po. The GauIs 
 Etruscans were first to suffer, and their despair 
 became so great that they appealed to Rome for 
 help. The Romans gave little aid to them in their 
 extremity; but enough to provoke the wrath of 
 Brennus, the savage leader of the Gauls. He 
 quitted Etruria and marched to Rome, defeating 
 an army which opposed him on the Allia, pillaging i n Rome, 
 and burning the city and slaying the senators, 
 who had refused to take refuge, with other in- 
 habitants, in the capitol. The defenders of the 
 capitol held it for seven months, until the Gauls 
 withdrew. 
 
 We are now beginning, it will be seen, to obtain, 
 from Greek and Roman annals, some historic 
 glimpses of other European peoples, dwelling in 
 the northward regions of the continent, outside of 
 the limits of the small Mediterranean peninsulas. 
 Those known as Gauls have their place in the 
 division called Celtic of peoples classified by Gauls-Celts 
 Aryan relationships of speech. They and their 
 Celtic kindred — kindred in language if not other- 
 wise — had probably been in possession of the 
 larger part of southwestern Europe — south and
 
 2 3 8 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 Cisalpine 
 and Trans- 
 alpine Gaul 
 
 The Gauls 
 in Greece. 
 B. C. 280- 
 279 
 
 Roman 
 subjuga- 
 tion of 
 Latin allies 
 B. C. 339- 
 333 
 
 west of the Rhine and north and west of the Alps 
 ■ — for a long period before they crossed the moun- 
 tains into Italy and came into collision with the 
 Romans; but that is prehistoric surmise. Their 
 history dates from their contact with the record- 
 writing Romans and Greeks. After crossing the 
 Alps they remained in northern Italy, to which 
 the Romans, in consequence, gave the name of 
 Cisalpine Gaul, — that is, Gaul on the hither side 
 of the Alps, — while the France and Belgium of our 
 modern geography were called Transalpine Gaul, 
 meaning Gaul on the further side of the Alps. In 
 the century after their entrance into Italy they 
 invaded Macedonia and northern Greece, where 
 they committed dreadful ravages in two succes- 
 sive years, penetrating to Delphi, but meeting 
 there with a destructive repulse. One body of the 
 invading host passed into Asia Minor and became 
 settled in a Phrygian district to which they gave 
 the name Galatia. 
 
 Rome was rebuilt when the Gauls withdrew, 
 and soon took up her war again with the Etruscan 
 cities. By the middle of the same century she 
 was mistress of southern Etruria, though her ter- 
 ritories had been ravaged twice again by renewed 
 incursions of the Gauls. In a few years more, 
 when her allies of Latium complained of their 
 meager share of the fruits of these common wars, 
 and demanded Roman citizenship and equal 
 rights, she fought them fiercely and humbled 
 them to submissiveness, reducing their cities to 
 the status of provincial towns.
 
 Roman Subjugation of Italy 239 
 
 And now, having awed or subdued her rivals, 
 her friends and her enemies, near at hand, the 
 young republic swung into the career of rapid 
 conquest which subdued to her will, within three 
 fourths of a century, the whole of Italy below the 
 mouth of the river Arno. 
 
 In 14.1 B. C. the Roman arms had been turned 
 
 . 1 n 1 1 j 1 u J Wars with 
 
 against the Sammtes at the south, and they had the Sam- 
 been driven from the Campania. In 327 B. C. nItes - B - c - 
 the same dangerous rivals were again assailed, 
 with less impunity. At the Caudine Forks, the 
 Samnites inflicted both disaster and shame upon 
 their indomitable foes; but the end of the war 
 found Rome advanced and Samnium fallen back. 
 A third contest ended the question of supremacy; 
 but the Samnites submitted to become allies and 
 not subjects of the Roman state. 
 
 In this last struggle the Samnites had sum- 
 moned Gauls and Etruscans to join them against 
 the common enemy, and Rome had overcome 
 their united forces in a great fight at Sentinum. 
 Ten years later she annihilated the Senonian Senonian 
 Gauls, annexed their territory, and planted a Gauls. '' 
 colony at Sena on the coast. In two years more b^c. 29s- 
 she had paralyzed the Boian Gauls by a terrible 
 chastisement, and had nothing more to fear from 
 the northward side of her realm. Then she 
 turned back to finish her work in the south. 
 
 The Greek cities of the southern coast were 
 harassed by various marauding neighbors, and 
 most of them solicited the protection of Rome, 
 which involved, of course, some surrender of their
 
 240 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 independence. But one great city, Tarentum, the 
 most powerful of their number, refused these 
 terms, and hazarded a war with the terrible 
 republic, expecting support from the ambitious 
 Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, on the Greek coast 
 227) opposite their own. Pyrrhus came readily at 
 
 their call, with dreams of an Italian kingdom 
 
 Roman war 111 1 « \ • j • 1 
 
 withPyr- more agreeable than his own. Assisted in the 
 rhus. B.C. undertaking from Macedonia and Syria, he 
 brought an army of 25,000 men, with twenty 
 elephants — which Roman eyes had never seen 
 before. In two bloody fights Pyrrhus was vic- 
 torious; but the cost of victory was so great that 
 he dared not follow it up. He went over to Sicily, 
 instead, and waged war for three years with the 
 Carthaginians, who had subjugated most of the 
 Pyrrhus in i s l an d- The Epirot king brought timely aid to 
 Siaiy. B.C. the Sicilian Greeks, and drove their Punic 
 enemies into the western border of the island; but 
 he claimed sovereignty over all that his arms 
 delivered, and was not successful in enforcing the 
 claim. He returned to Italy and found the 
 Romans better prepared than before to face his 
 phalanx and his elephants. They routed him at 
 Beneventum, and he went back to Epirus, with 
 subjuga- his dreams dispelled. Tarentum fell, and 
 tionof southern Italy was added to the dominion of 
 
 southern * 
 
 Italy Rome. 
 
 During her war with Pyrrhus, the republic had 
 formed an alliance with Carthage, the powerful 
 maritime Phoenician city on the African coast. 
 But friendship between these two cities was im-
 
 Rome at War with Pyrrhus 241 
 
 possible. The ambition of both was too bound- Rome and 
 
 f . r Carthage. 
 
 less and too tierce. 
 
 tt «i 1 t» 1 • 1 j Pol y bius » 
 
 Until the Romans, in their conquests, reached Histories, 
 
 the southern extremity of Italy, they had no " l ' 
 
 quarrel with Carthage, for they had undertaken 
 
 nothing beyond the shore of the sea. Down to 
 
 that time the contests of the Carthaginians were 
 
 with the Greeks, who had lodged themselves ^ , 
 
 _ m ° Greeks and 
 
 strongly in the island of Sicily and on the coast Cartha- 
 of southern Italy, and were the only competitors sici?y S 
 in western maritime trade that Carthage had to 
 fear. Had the Sicilian Greeks been united, they 
 might have offered a front which no enemy could 
 attack with impunity; for several of their cities 
 had grown to great wealth and power. Syracuse, 
 at the head of them, was hardly outranked by 
 another Hellenic city of the age. But the several 
 bands of colonists from different states in Greece 
 who founded these cities carried with them and 
 perpetuated in Sicily the jealousies and feuds of 
 the mother land. They not only fought, city 
 with city, but recklessly called in outside enemies 
 to help them pull each other down. It was a call 
 of that kind which drew the Athenians into their 
 fatal expedition against Syracuse during the Pelo- ^ pagp " 
 ponnesian war. With greater madness, Sicilian 
 Greeks enlisted the Carthaginians repeatedly in 
 their domestic wars. This alone kept a footing 
 for the latter in Sicily, and probably prevented 
 the rising in that island and in southern Italy of a 
 Greek power that might have dominated the 
 western Mediterranean and its shores. As it was,
 
 242 
 
 The First 
 Punic war. 
 B. C. 
 264-240 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 when the Romans had carried their victorious 
 arms to the narrow strait which parts Sicily from 
 Italy, there could be but one question concerning 
 the destiny of the island, and that was whether 
 its masters should be at Carthage or at Rome. 
 
 Rome threw down the challenge to her rival in 
 264 B. C, when she sent help to the Mamertines, 
 a band of brigands who had seized the Sicilian 
 city of Messina, and who were attacked by both 
 Carthaginians and Syracusan Greeks. The first 
 Punic war, then begun, lasted twenty-four years, 
 and resulted in the withdrawal of the Cartha- 
 ginians from Sicily, and in their payment of an 
 enormous war indemnity to Rome. The latter 
 assumed a protectorate over the island, and the 
 Mommsen, kingdom of Hiero of Syracuse preserved its 
 
 History of . ... 
 
 Rome,bk.3, nominal independence for the time; but Sicily, as 
 a matter of fact, might already be looked upon as 
 the first of those provinces, beyond Italy, which 
 Rome bound to herself, one by one, until she had 
 compassed the Mediterranean with her dominion 
 and gathered to it all the islands of that sea. 
 
 The second Punic war, called sometimes the 
 Hannibalic war, was fought with a great Cartha- 
 ginian, rather than with Carthage herself. 
 Hamilcar Barca had been the last and ablest of 
 the Punic generals in the contest for Sicily. 
 Afterward he undertook the conquest of Spain, 
 where his arms had such success that he estab- 
 lished a very considerable power, more than half 
 independent of the parent state. He nursed an 
 unquenchable hatred of Rome, and transmitted 
 
 The Second 
 Punic war. 
 B. C. 
 218-202
 
 The Punic Wars 243 
 
 it to his son Hannibal, who solemnly dedicated Hannibal 
 his life to warfare with the Latin city. 
 
 Hamilcar died, and in due time Hannibal found 
 himself prepared to make good his oath. He pro- 
 voked a declaration of war by attacking Sagun- 
 turn, on the eastern Spanish coast — a town which 
 the Romans "protected." The latter expected to 
 encounter him in Spain; but before the fleet 
 bearing their legions to that country had reached 
 Massilia, he had passed the Pyrenees and the 
 Rhone, with nearly 100,000 men, and was cross- 
 ing the Alps, to assail his astounded foes on their ; n i ta i y 
 own soil. The terrific barrier was surmounted p i y bius, 
 with such suffering and loss that only 20,000 foot Bwtones, 
 and 6,000 horse, of the great army which left 
 Spain, could be mustered for the clearing of the 
 last Alpine pass. With this small following, by 
 sheer energy, rapidity and precision of movement 
 — by force, in other words, of a military genius 
 hardly surpassed in the world — he defeated the 
 armies of Rome again and again, and so crush- 
 ingly in the awful battle of Cannae that the proud canns. 
 republic was staggered, but never despaired. B - c - 2l6 
 
 For fifteen years the great Carthaginian held 
 his ground in southern Italy; but his expectation 
 of being joined by discontented subjects of Rome 
 in the peninsula was realized but slightly, and his 
 own country gave him little encouragement or BattIeof 
 help. His brother Hasdrubal, marching to his the 
 relief, was defeated on the river Metaurus and b^c.^' 
 slain. The arms of Rome had prospered mean- 
 time in Sicily and in Spain, even while beaten at
 
 244 
 
 Scipio 
 Africanus 
 
 Battle of 
 Zama. 
 B. C. 202 
 
 Destruc- 
 tion of 
 Carthage. 
 B. C. 146 
 
 From Xerxes to Hannibal 
 
 home, and her Punic rival had been driven irom 
 both. In 204 B. C. the final field of battle was 
 shifted to Carthaginian territory by Scipio, of 
 famous memory, thereafter styled Africanus, 
 because he "carried the war into Africa." Han- 
 nibal abandoned Italy to confront him; at Zama 
 the long contention ended, and the career of 
 Carthage as a power in the ancient world was 
 closed forever. Existing by Roman sufferance 
 for another half century, she then gave her 
 implacable conquerors another pretext for war, 
 and they ruthlessly destroyed her.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FROM THE AGE OF HANNIBAL TO THE 
 DEATH OF CESAR 
 
 (B. C. 200 to 44) 
 
 Eastward conquests of Rome: Roman subjugation of Greece. — Defeat of 
 the Syrian king Antiochus. The Syrian monarchy and the Jews: Oppression 
 of the Jews. — Revolt of the Maccabees. — Rise of the Asmonean monarchy. 
 The Zenith and the Decline of the Roman Republic: Evil effects of the Roman 
 conquests on the character of the Republic. — Rise of a new aristocracy. — 
 Mischievous features of the democratic system. — Increasing use of slave 
 labor. — Aristocratic monopoly of public lands. — Agrarian agitations. — Fate 
 of the Gracchi. — The Jugurthine War. — Destruction of Carthage. — Popu- 
 larity and power of Marius, the successful soldier. — Optimates and populares. 
 — The Social War. — Rivalry of Marius and Sulla. — Civil War. — Triumph of 
 Sulla. — His dictatorship and retirement. — Intrigues and struggles in the next 
 generation. — The great game played by Pompey, Crassus, and Csesar. — 
 Pompey in the East.— His suppression of the Syrian and Asmonean monarch- 
 ies. — -CiBsar's conquest of Gaul. — Civil war between partisans of Ccesar and 
 Pompey. —Triumph of Csesar. — His supremacy. — His assassination. — His 
 great place in history. China: The Han dynasty. 
 
 The expansion of the dominion of Rome till it 
 circumscribed the Mediterranean and stretched 
 in Europe to contact with the lands of the Teu- 
 tonic peoples; the decay and fall of its republican 
 institutions of government; the founding of its 
 imperial system; the preparation, in fact, of the The period 
 field and the conditions of Roman influence on all 
 future history, — this is the sum of chief events in 
 the period to which the present chapter relates. 
 
 Eastward Progress of Roman Conquest 
 
 After the overthrow of Hannibal, the next 
 achievement of the Romans was the subjugation 
 of Greece. For a time, in the preceding century, 
 the better Greeks had hopes of deliverance from 
 
 245
 
 246 
 
 The 
 Achaian 
 League in 
 Greece 
 
 Plutarch, 
 Aratos 
 
 Thirlwall, 
 History of 
 Greece, 
 ch. lxi-lxii 
 
 Battle of 
 Seilasia. 
 B. C. 221 
 
 Mace- 
 donian 
 wars of 
 Rome. B.C. 
 214-197 
 
 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 the servile and oppressed condition into which 
 their unhappy country had sunk. Such hopes 
 were raised by the confederating of several of the 
 Peloponnesian states in what took the name of 
 the Achaian League. Sparta, alone, in Pelopon- 
 nesus, always jealous and selfish, became hostile 
 to the league, as the latter grew strong enough to 
 expel Macedonian garrisons from city after city, 
 — even from Athens, which became an ally, but 
 not a member, of the league. Unfortunately 
 Sparta had a king, Cleomenes, who was an able 
 soldier, while the patriot and statesman, Aratos, 
 who was the founder and soul of the Achaian 
 League, was wanting in capacity for war. When, 
 at last, Sparta attacked the league, the latter 
 suffered such defeats that its leaders were driven 
 to despair. In their extremity they abandoned 
 the whole object of their confederation by solicit- 
 ing help from the Macedonian king. With that 
 help they overthrew Cleomenes in battle at 
 Seilasia, crushing Sparta, but bowing all Greece 
 again under the Macedonian yoke. It was soon 
 after this event that the Romans appeared. 
 
 The first war of the Romans on the Greek side 
 of the Ionian Sea took place during the second 
 Punic war, caused by an alliance formed between 
 Hannibal and King Philip of Macedonia. They 
 pursued it then no further than to frustrate 
 Philip's designs against themselves; but they 
 formed alliances with the Greek states oppressed 
 or menaced by the Macedonian, and these drew 
 them into a second war, which they entered pro-
 
 Progress of Roman Conquest 247 
 
 fessedly as the liberators of Greece, just as the 
 
 century closed. On Cynoscephalse, Philip was 
 
 overthrown, his kingdom reduced to vassalage, 
 
 and the freedom of all Greece was proclaimed 
 
 solemnly by the Roman consul Flamininus. 
 
 And now, for the first time, Rome came into 
 
 conflict with an Asiatic power. Before describing 
 
 the conflict it will be necessary to narrate a little 
 
 of what happened in western Asia and Egypt, 
 
 while the Romans were engaged in their Punic 
 
 wars. 
 
 Syria, Egypt, and Palestine 
 
 The Seleucid or Syrian monarchy reached the 
 end of its prosperity when Antiochus Soter, its The 
 second king, died in 2^2 B. C. His successors, SeIeucid 
 
 °* J 7 monarchy 
 
 during a period of about twenty-eight years, were 
 debauched and degenerate despots, who lost most 
 of their inherited dominions in war with Egypt, or 
 in consequence of family wars. Ptolemy Euer- 
 getes, the third of the Greek-Egyptian kings, 
 became master at one time of nearly their whole 
 realm; but the Egyptian monarchy, like that of 
 Syria, was a decaying one, and the conquests of 
 Euergetes were not held. In 224 B. C. another 
 Antiochus came to the Syrian throne, who turned 
 the tide of fortune, and recovered, temporarily, 
 a considerable part of what his father and his 
 uncle had lost. He was a prince of some capacity, 
 but more ambition and pretension, and the 
 sounding title of Antiochus the Great, which £" ti ° chus ., 
 
 n . thedreat 
 
 flattery gave him, was hardly warranted by his B.C. 224- 
 deeds. He failed in a prolonged effort to drive the ' 7
 
 248 
 
 Palestine 
 under the 
 Seleucidse. 
 B. C. 201 
 
 Antiochus 
 and the 
 Romano 
 
 Battle of 
 Magnesia. 
 B. C. 191 
 
 Antiochus 
 Epiphanes 
 
 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 rising Parthian nation from territory it had seized 
 in northern Persia; hut parts of Asia Minor that 
 had slipped from his kingdom were brought back. 
 In one war with Egypt he experienced defeat; 
 but he was the victor in a second one, and took 
 Palestine as a long coveted prize. This transfer 
 of their country from the Ptolemies to the 
 Seleucidae was a heavy calamity to the Jews. 
 
 Flushed with his triumph over the Egyptians, 
 and by some new successes in Asia Minor, the 
 vainglorious Antiochus the Great became am- 
 bitious at length to expel the Romans from 
 Greece. Encouraged in that ambition by some of 
 the Greeks, and having Hannibal, then a fugitive 
 at his court, to give him counsel, which he lacked 
 the intelligence to use, Antiochus crossed the 
 Hellespont and took possession of the famous pass 
 of Thermopylae. The Romans attacked him 
 there, drove him back to the shores from which 
 he came, pursued him thither, crushed him 
 utterly in a great battle on the field of Magnesia, 
 and then took the kingdoms and cities of Asia 
 Minor under their protection, as allies (soon to be 
 subjects) of Rome. Four years later Antiochus 
 ended his career. His diminished kingdom was 
 ruled for twelve years by an elder son, and then 
 passed to a younger one, Antiochus IV., called 
 Epiphanes, who bears in Jewish history the most 
 hated of names. He was a vigorous prince, who 
 reenlarged the Syrian monarchy, and who was 
 only prevented by Roman intervention from 
 adding Egypt to it; but his energies were despotic
 
 The Syrian Monarchy 249 
 
 and malignant, and none suffered from them so 
 much as the Jews. 
 
 It can hardly be said that the Jewish suffering 
 was undeserved, for the Judean community had 
 fallen into a deeply corrupted state. The high 
 priests of its temple had become secular princes, 
 given up to political ambitions, immersed in 
 unscrupulous intrigues, stained with crimes, State of the 
 showing no signs of a religious spirit or purpose 
 in what they did. The people, as a whole, were 
 scarcely more faithful to their religion, beyond its 
 forms, than the ruling priests. But they cher- 
 ished the temple and were jealous guardians of 
 the rich treasures it held. When, therefore, a seri) e 
 claimant of the high priesthood, who had bought s , ket ^[ °f 
 
 ° r ' ° the History 
 
 the sacred office from Antiochus IV., robbed the 0/ Israel 
 temple to make his payment for it, they rose in a ™ ^" xi * '* 
 furious insurrection, which provoked the wrath 
 of the king. Jerusalem then suffered a terrible 
 chastisement, but not sufficient to satisfy the 
 implacable despot who held its fate in his hands. 
 He resolved to extinguish the Hebraic religion, 
 and so destroy the bond which made one people of 
 the Jews, wherever they dwelt. In carrying out 
 that project, Jerusalem, in 168 B. C, was sacked 
 and partly burned, a vast number of its inhabit- 
 ants were slain, 10,000 of them were sold into ment 
 slavery, the temple was plundered and polluted 
 by the introduction of pagan rites, and the Jews, 
 there and in all the king's dominions, were re- 
 quired, on pain of death, to adore publicly the 
 false gods. 
 
 Revolt and 
 chastise-
 
 250 
 
 Revolt of 
 the Mac- 
 cabees. 
 B.C. 
 166-161 
 
 Josephus, 
 Antiquities 
 of the Jews, 
 bk. 12 
 
 From Hannibal to Ctesar 
 
 For two years there was either submission to 
 the oppressive edict, or suffering of persecution, or 
 else escape from it into Egypt and into the neigh- 
 boring deserts and hills. Then an outbreak of 
 revolt was begun, in the smallest possible way, by 
 a priest named Mattathias, and his five sons. 
 Joined by others, these became the chiefs of a 
 band which went through the country destroying 
 the pagan altars and rousing the people to defend 
 their faith. Mattathias soon died, and his leader- 
 ship passed to one of his sons, Judas, who acquired 
 the surname of Makkabi, or Maccabaeus, by 
 which he is known. Under Judas Maccabaeus the 
 revolt became formidable, and extorted a treaty 
 which restored religious freedom to the Jews; 
 but the Syrians appointed a high priest who was 
 obnoxious to Judas and his party, and the revolt 
 was renewed. Judas fell in battle the next year 
 and his party was broken up; but Jonathan, his 
 brother, revived it later and made it useful to 
 himself. 
 
 There were two claimants of the Syrian crown, 
 and Jonathan sold his support to one of them, 
 who became the winner, and who made him high 
 priest and governor of Judea. The same double 
 dignity was attained some years afterward by 
 Simon, another of the brothers, who received it 
 from an assembly of the people; for the Syrian 
 authority had then waned to such a degree that 
 Judea was almost an independent state. From 
 that time the princely high priesthood was heredi- 
 tary in the possession of the Asmoneans, or Has-
 
 Roman Conquest of Greece 251 
 
 moneans, as the family was named, and- Simon's The Has - 
 
 grandson assumed the crown and title of king, 
 
 calling himself Aristobulus, instead of Judas, B - C. 105 
 
 which was his Jewish name. 
 
 Affairs at Rome 
 
 Before these things came about, the subjection 
 of Greece to Rome had been made complete. For 
 twenty years after the overthrow of Antiochus 
 III. at Magnesia, there was little change in the 
 outward situation of affairs among the Greeks. 
 But discontent with the harshness and haughti- subjugation 
 
 . of Greece. 
 
 ness of Roman ' protection" changed from sul- b. c. 
 lenness to heat, and Perseus, son of Philip of 
 Macedonia, fanned it steadily, with the hope of 
 bringing it to a flame. Rome watched him with 
 keen vigilance, and before his plans were ripe her 
 legions were upon him. He battled with them 
 obstinately for three years, but his fate was sealed 
 at Pydna. He went as a prisoner to Rome; his 
 kingdom was broken into four small republics; 
 the Achaian League was stricken by the captivity 
 of a thousand of its chief men; the whole of 
 Greece was humbled to submissiveness, though 
 not yet formally reduced to the state of a Roman 
 province. That followed a few years later, when u $ ' 
 risings in Macedonia and Achaia were punished 
 by the extinction of the last semblance of political 
 independence in both. 
 
 Rome now gripped the Mediterranean (the 
 ocean of the then civilized world) as with five 
 fingers of a powerful hand: one laid on Italy and 
 all its islands, one on Macedonia and Greece, one
 
 252 
 
 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 The zenith 
 of the 
 Roman 
 republic 
 
 Beginning 
 of its 
 decline 
 
 (See page 
 236) 
 
 The new 
 aristocracy 
 
 Supremacy 
 of the 
 senate 
 
 on Carthage, one on Spain, and the little finger of 
 her "protection" reaching over to the Lesser 
 Asia. Little more than half a century, since the 
 day that Hannibal threatened her own city gates, 
 had sufficed to win this vast dominion. But the 
 losses of the republic had been greater, after all, 
 than the gains; for the best energies of its political 
 constitution had been expended in the acquisi- 
 tion, and the nobler qualities in its character had 
 been touched with the incurable taints of a 
 licentious prosperity. 
 
 In theory and in form, the Roman constitution 
 remained as democratic as it was made by the 
 Licinian Laws, and by the finishing touch of the 
 Hortensian Law. But in practical working it had 
 reverted to the aristocratic mode. A new aristoc- 
 racy had risen out of the plebeian ranks to rein- 
 force the old patrician order. It was composed of 
 the families of men who had been raised to dis- 
 tinction and ennobled by the holding of eminent 
 offices, and its spirit was no less jealous and 
 exclusive than that of the older high caste. 
 
 Thus strengthened, the aristocracy had re- 
 covered its ascendancy in Rome, and the senate, 
 which it controlled, had become the supreme 
 power in government. The amazing success of 
 the republic during the last century just reviewed 
 — its successes in war, in diplomacy, and in all the 
 sagacious measures of policy by which its great 
 dominion had been won — are reasonably ascribed 
 to this fact. For the senate had wielded the 
 power of the state, in most emergencies, with pas-
 
 Decline of the Roman Republic 253 
 
 sionless deliberation and with unity and fixity of 
 aim. *l 
 
 But it maintained its ascendancy by an increas- 
 ing employment of means which debased and 
 corrupted all orders alike. The people held 
 powers which might paralyze the senate at any 
 moment, if they chose to exercise them, through Corruption 
 their assemblies and their tribunes. They had ofthe 
 seldom brought those powers into play thus far, 
 to interfere with the senatorial government of the 
 republic, simply because they had been bribed to 
 abstain. The art of the politician in Rome, as c° nstitu " 
 distinguished from the statesman, had already Roman 
 become a demagogic art. This could not well cmzenshl P 
 have been otherwise under the peculiar constitu- 
 tion of the Roman citizenship. Of the thirty-five 
 tribes who made up the Roman people, legally 
 qualified to vote, only four were within the city. 
 The remaining thirty-one were tribus rusticae. 
 There was no delegated representation of this 
 country populace — citizens beyond the walls. 
 To exercise their right of suffrage they must be 
 present in person at the meetings of the comitia ,, 
 tributa — the tribal assemblies ; and those of any History of 
 tribe who chanced to be in attendance at such a 4.358-369 
 meeting might give a vote which carried with it 
 the weight of their whole tribe. For questions 
 were decided by the majority of tribal, not indi- 
 vidual, votes; and a very few members of a tribe 
 might act for and be the tribe, for all purposes of 
 voting, on occasions of the greatest possible 
 importance.
 
 254 From Hannibal to Cesar 
 
 It is quite evident that a democratic system of 
 this nature gave wide opportunity for corrupt 
 "politics." There must have been, always, an 
 
 Corrupt » . . 
 
 politics attraction for the baser sort among the rural 
 plebs, drawing them into the city, to enjoy the 
 excitement of political contests, and to partake 
 of the flatteries and largesses which began early 
 to go with those. And circumstances had tended 
 to increase this sinister sifting into Rome of the 
 most vagrant and least responsible of her citizens, 
 to make them practically the deputies and 
 representatives of that mighty sovereign which 
 had risen in the world — the "Populus Ro- 
 
 manus." 
 
 For there was no longer thrift or dignity pos- 
 sible in the pursuits of husbandry. The long 
 Hannibalic war had ruined the farming class in 
 Ruin of the Italy by its ravages; but the extensive conquests 
 class that followed it had been still more ruinous to 
 
 that class, by several effects combined. Corn 
 supplies from the conquered provinces were 
 poured into Rome at cheapened prices; enormous 
 
 Mommsen, f i i • i • 
 
 History of fortunes, gathered in the same provinces by 
 
 Rome, officials, by farmers of taxes, by money-lenders, 
 
 and by traders, were invested in great estates, 
 
 absorbing the small farms of olden time; and, 
 
 finally, free-labor in agriculture was supplanted, 
 
 degraded r more an d m ore, by the labor of slaves, which war 
 
 by slavery and increasing wealth combined to multiply in 
 
 numbers. Thus the rural plebs were a depressed 
 
 and, therefore, a degenerating class, and the same 
 
 circumstances that made them so impelled them
 
 Causes of Decline 255 
 
 towards the city, to swell the mob which held its 
 mighty sovereignty in their hands. mTnTfor 
 
 So far, a lavish amusement of this mob with the Roman 
 free games, and liberal bribes, had kept it gen- 
 erally submissive to the senatorial government. 
 But the more it was debased by such methods, 
 and its vagrancy encouraged, the more extrava- 
 gant gratuities of like kind it claimed. Hence a 
 time could never be far away when the aristocracy 
 and the senate would lose their control of the 
 popular vote on which they had built their 
 governing power. 
 
 But they invited the quicker coming of that 
 time by their own greediness in the employment 
 of their power for selfish and dishonest ends. 
 Practically they had recovered their monopoly of Aristo- 
 the use of the public lands. The Licinian law, cratlc 
 
 r monopoly 
 
 which forbade any one person to occupy more of public 
 than five hundred jugera (about three hundred 
 acres) of the public lands, had been made a dead 
 letter. The great tracts acquired in the Samnite 
 wars, and since, had remained undistributed, 
 while the use and profit of them were enjoyed, 
 under one form of authority or another, by rich 
 capitalists and powerful nobles. 
 
 This evil, among many that waxed greater each 
 year, caused the deepest discontent, and pro- 
 voked movements of reform which passed by 
 rapid stages into a revolution, and ended in the 
 fall of the republic. The leader of the movement Agrarian 
 at its beginning was Tiberius Gracchus, grandson agitations 
 of Scipio Africanus on the side of his mother, Cor-
 
 256 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 nelia. Elected tribune in 133 B. C, he set him- 
 self to the dangerous task of rousing the people 
 against senatorial usurpations, especially in the 
 matter of the public domain. He only drew upon 
 chi! B.C. himself the hatred of the senate and its selfish 
 133-121 supporters; he failed to rally a popular party that 
 was strong enough for his protection, and his 
 enemies slew him in the very midst of a meeting 
 TtbTriS' °f the tribes. His brother Caius took up the 
 Gracchus, perilous cause and won the office of tribune in 
 Gracchus avowed hostility to the senatorial government. 
 He was driven to bid high for popular help, even 
 rnnwyTf when the measures which he strove to carry were 
 Rome,bk.4- most plainly for the welfare of the common 
 people, and he may seem to modern eyes to have 
 played the demagogue with some extravagance. 
 But statesmanship and patriotism without dema- 
 goguery for their instrument or their weapon 
 were hardly practicable, perhaps, in the Rome of 
 those days, and it is not easy to find them clean- 
 handed in any political leader of the last century 
 of the republic. 
 
 The fall of Caius Gracchus was hastened by his 
 attempt to extend the Roman franchise to all the 
 freemen of Italy. The mob in Rome was not 
 pleased with such political generosity, and cooled 
 in its admiration for the large-minded tribune. 
 He lost his office and the personal protection it 
 B. C. 121 threw over him, and then he, like his brother, was 
 slain in a melee. 
 
 For ten years the senate, the nobility, and the 
 capitalists (now beginning to take the name of the
 
 The Gracchi 257 
 
 equestrian order), had mostly their own way 
 again, and effaced the work of the Gracchi as 
 completely as they could. Then came disgraceful 
 troubles in Numidia which enraged the people 
 and moved them to a new assertion of themselves. 
 The troubles in Numidia were a sequel to the 
 awful tragedy of the destruction of Carthage, 
 some thirty years before. The Numidians, who 
 were the aboriginal neighbors of the Carthagini- 
 ans, in north Africa, had been their allies in the 
 second Punic war, and suffered with them on 
 their defeat. The Numidian king was expelled Cartha 
 from his throne and the kingdom given by the and Mas- 
 Romans to an outlawed prince, Massinissa, who 
 became their tool, used for the perpetual harass- 
 ing of Carthage, to prevent any possible revival 
 of prosperity in that ruined state. Again and 
 again the helpless Carthaginians appealed to 
 Rome to protect them from his depredations, and 
 finally they ventured to attempt the protection of 
 themselves. Then the patient perfidy of Roman 
 
 statecraft grasped its reward. It had waited 
 
 £ 1 ■ xtv/t • • The goad- 
 
 many years tor the provocations or Massinissa to ing of the 
 
 work their effect; the maddened Carthaginians 
 had broken, at last, the hard letter of the treaty of 
 201 by assailing the friend and ally of Rome. The 
 pretext sufficed for a new declaration of war, with 
 the fixed purpose of pressing it to the last ex- 
 treme. Old Cato, who had been crying in the 
 ears of the senate, " Carthago delenda est" should 
 have his will. 
 
 The doomed Carthaginians were kept in ignor- 
 
 ians
 
 258 
 
 Destruc- 
 tion of 
 Carthage, 
 B. C. 146 
 
 Jugurtha 
 
 Marius 
 
 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 ance of the fate decreed, until they had been 
 tricked into the surrender of their arms and the 
 whole armament of their city. But when they 
 knew the dreadful truth, they threw off all 
 cowardice and rose to such a majesty of spirit as 
 had never been exhibited in their history before. 
 Without weapons, or engines, or ships, until they 
 made them anew, they shut their gates and kept 
 the Roman armies out for more than two years. 
 It was another Scipio, adopted grandson and 
 namesake of the conqueror of Hannibal, who 
 finally entered Carthage, fought his way to its 
 citadel, street by street, and, against his own 
 wish, by command of the implacable senate at 
 Rome, leveled its last building to the earth, after 
 sending the inhabitants who survived to be sold 
 as slaves. 
 
 When Massinissa died, he left his kingdom to 
 be governed jointly by two young sons and an 
 older nephew. The latter, Jugurtha, put his 
 cousins out of the way, took the kingdom to him- 
 self, and baffled attempts at Rome to call him to 
 account, by heavy bribes. The corruption in the 
 case became so flagrant that even the corrupted 
 Roman populace revolted against it, and took the 
 Numidian business into its own hands. War 
 was declared against Jugurtha by popular vote, 
 and, despite opposing action in the senate, one 
 Marius, an experienced soldier of humble birth, 
 was elected consul and sent out to take command. 
 Marius distinguished himself less than one of his 
 officers, Cornelius Sulla; but he bore the lion's
 
 First Historic Appearances of Teutons 259 
 
 share of glory when Jugurtha was taken captive B - c - IO + 
 and conveyed to Rome. Marius was now the 
 great hero of the hour, and events were preparing 
 to lift him to the giddiest heights of popularity. 
 
 Hitherto, the barbarians of wild Europe whom 
 the Romans had met were either Celts, or non- 
 Aryan tribes in northern Italy, Spain and Gaul. 
 Now, for the first time, the armies of Rome were 
 challenged by tribes of another grand division of f*f c thls " 
 the group of peoples called Aryan, coming out of l^™*™* 
 the farther north. These were the Cimbri and peoples. 
 
 B. C. 
 
 the Teutones, wandering hordes of the great 113-102 
 Teutonic or Germanic race which has occupied 
 western Europe north of the Rhine since the 
 beginning of historic time. So far as we can 
 know, these two were the first of the Germanic 
 nations to migrate to the south. 
 
 They came into collision with Rome in 113 
 B. C., when they were in Noricum, threatening 
 the frontiers of her Italian dominion. Four years 
 later they were in southern Gaul, where the 
 Romans were now settling colonies and subduing Cimbn and 
 
 ° leutones 
 
 the native Celts. Twice they had beaten the 
 armies opposed to them; two years later they 
 added a third to their victories; and in 105 B. C. 
 they threw Rome into consternation by destroy- 
 ing two great armies on the Rhone. Italy seemed 
 helpless against the invasion for which these 
 terrible barbarians were now preparing, when 
 Marius went against them. In the summer of victories of 
 102 B. C. he annihilated the Teutones, near Aquae Marius. 
 Sextise (modern Aix), and in the following year 101
 
 260 
 
 From Hannibal to Cesar 
 
 His popu- 
 larity and 
 power 
 
 Optimates 
 and popu- 
 lares 
 
 Beesly, 
 The Grac- 
 chi, Marius 
 and Sulla, 
 p. 14 
 
 he destroyed the invading Cimbri, on a bloody 
 field in northern Italy, near modern Vercellse. 
 
 From these great victories, Marius went back 
 to Rome, doubly and terribly clothed with power, 
 by the devotion of a reckless army and the hero- 
 worship of an unthinking mob. The state was at 
 his mercy. A strong man in his place might have 
 crushed the class-factions and accomplished the 
 settlement which Caesar made after half a century 
 more of turbulence and shame. But Marius was 
 ignorant, he was weak, and he became a mere 
 blood-stained figure in the ruinous anarchy of his 
 time. 
 
 The social and political state of the capital had 
 grown worse. A middle-class in Roman society 
 had practically disappeared. The two contending 
 parties or factions, which had taken new names — 
 "optimates" and "populares" — were now divided 
 almost solely by the line which separates rich 
 from poor. "If we said that 'optimates' signi- 
 fied the men who bribed and abused office under 
 the banner of the senate and its connections, and 
 that 'populares' meant men who bribed and 
 abused office with the interests of the people out- 
 side the senatorial pale upon their lips, we might 
 do injustice to many good men on both sides, but 
 should hardly be slandering the parties." There 
 was a desperate conflict between the two in the 
 year 100 B. C. and the senate once more recovered 
 its power for a brief term of years. 
 
 The enfranchisement of the so-called "allies" 
 — the Latin and other subjects of Rome who
 
 90-88 
 
 Optimates and Populares 261 
 
 were not citizens — was the burning question of 
 the time. The attempt of Gaius Gracchus to 
 extend fights of citizenship to them had been 
 renewed again and again, without success, and 
 each failure had increased the bitter discontent of _, _ 
 
 I he Social 
 
 the Italian people. In 90 B. C. they drew to- War. B.C. 
 gether in a formidable confederation and rose in 
 revolt. In the face of this great danger Rome 
 sobered herself to action with old time wisdom 
 and vigor. She yielded her full citizenship to all 
 Italian freemen who had not taken arms, and then 
 offered it to those who would lay their arms down. 
 At the same time she fought the insurrection with 
 every army she could put into the field, and in 
 two years it was at an end. Marius and his old 
 lieutenant, Sulla, had been the principal com- Suii 
 manders in this "Social War," as it was named, Lon „ 
 and Sulla had distinguished himself most. The Decline of 
 
 the Roman 
 
 latter had now an army at his back and was a Republic, 
 power in the state, and between the two military ch - xv ~ xxv 
 champions there arose a rivalry which produced 
 the first of the Roman civil wars. 
 
 Simultaneously with the revolt in Italy, a dan- 
 gerous new enemy was threatening Rome in the 
 east. What had been the little kingdom of 
 Pontus, part of ancient Cappadocia, on the 
 southern shore of the Pontus Euxine, had grown 
 suddenly, or within a score of years, to a power 
 which dared rivalry with the mistress of the 
 Mediterranean world. Along with several other 
 principalities in Asia Minor, it rose from among 
 the fragments of the brief empire of Alexander to 
 
 Marius and 
 a
 
 262 
 
 From Hannibal to Cesar 
 
 Mithrida- 
 tes, king of 
 Pontus. 
 B.C. 
 i32(?)-63 
 
 His hos- 
 tility to 
 Rome 
 
 Greek 
 revolt 
 
 Rivalry of 
 Marius and 
 Sulla 
 
 an independence which it maintained against his 
 struggling successors, and a Persian line of princes 
 held its throne. Most of them bore the name of 
 Mithridates; but the name had little distinction 
 until the sixth Mithridates came on the scene. 
 At about 1 12 B. C, when he had reached the age 
 of twenty, this king of Pontus began a career of 
 conquest which extended his dominions around 
 nearly the whole circuit of the Euxine, before the 
 century closed. As his power increased, so did 
 his hostility to Rome, and he became the ally and 
 supporter of all her foes. He had intrigued with 
 the rebels in Italy; his finger had been in the 
 Jugurthine war; he had worked on anti-Roman 
 passions in Egypt and Syria; and now he insti- 
 gated a desperate Greek rising against the 
 Romans, beginning with a horrible massacre of 
 Roman residents in Asia Minor and spreading to 
 Greece. Rome had not faced a situation so dan- 
 gerous since Hannibal was crushed. 
 
 Both Marius and Sulla aspired to the command 
 in Greece. Sulla obtained election to the consul- 
 ship in 88 B. C. and was named for the coveted 
 place, but Marius succeeded in having the 
 appointment annulled by a popular assembly and 
 himself chosen instead for the eastern command. 
 Sulla, personally imperiled by popular tumults, 
 fled to his legions, put himself at their head, and 
 marched back to Rome — the first among her 
 generals to turn her arms against hers-elf. There 
 was no effective resistance; Marius fled; both 
 senate and people were submissive to the dictates
 
 Marius and Sulla 263 
 
 of the consul who had become master of the city. 
 He "made the tribes decree their own political 
 extinction, resuscitating the comitia centuriata; 
 he reorganized the senate by adding three hun- 
 dred to its members and vindicating the right to 
 sanction legislation; conducted the consular 
 elections, exacting from L. Cornelius Cinna, the 
 newly elected consul, a solemn oath that he 
 would observe the new regulations, and securing 
 the election of Cn. Octavius in his own interest, Hhto^'of 
 and then, like 'a countryman who had just shaken the Romans, 
 the lice off his coat,' to use his own figure, he 
 turned to do his great work in the east." 
 
 Sulla went to Greece, which was in revolt and 
 in alliance with Mithridates, and conducted there 
 a brilliant, ruthless campaign for three years, in 
 the course of which Athens, taken by storm after 
 a long siege, was more than half destroyed, and 
 
 Q IT * 
 
 most of its inhabitants were slain. Roman Greece. 
 authority was restored in the peninsula, and the B - c - 8 7-U 
 king of Pontus was compelled to surrender all his 
 conquests in Asia Minor. Until this task was 
 finished, Sulla gave no heed to what his enemies 
 did at Rome; though the struggle there between 
 "Sullans" and "Marians" had gone fiercely and 
 bloodily on, and his own partisans had been 
 beaten in the fight. The consul Octavius, who 
 was in Sulla's interest, had first driven the consul 
 Cinna out of the city, after slaying 10,000 of his g^ e ° f and 
 faction. Cinna's cause was taken up by the new Marians at 
 Italian citizens; he was joined by the exiled ome 
 Marius, and these two returned together, with an
 
 264 
 
 Death of 
 Marius. 
 B. C. 86 
 
 Sulla's 
 victorious 
 return. 
 B. C. 83-82 
 
 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 army which the senate and the party of Sulla 
 were unable to resist. Marius came back with a 
 burning heart and with savage intentions of 
 revenge. A horrible massacre of his opponents 
 ensued, which went on unchecked for five days, 
 and was continued more deliberately for several 
 months, until Marius died. Then Cinna ruled 
 absolutely at Rome for three years, supported in 
 the main by the newly-made citizens; while the 
 provinces in general remained under the control 
 of the party of the optimates. 
 
 In 83 B. C. Sulla, having finished with careful- 
 ness his work in the east, came back into Italy, 
 with 40,000 veterans to attend his steps. He had 
 been outlawed and deprived of his command, by 
 the faction governing at the capital; but its 
 decrees had no effect and troubled him little. 
 Cinna had been killed by his own troops, even 
 before Sulla's landing at Brundisium. Several 
 important leaders and soldiers on the Marian 
 side, such as Pompeius (commonly called Pom- 
 pey), then a young general, and Crassus, the 
 millionaire, went over to Sulla's camp. One of 
 the consuls of the year saw his troops follow their 
 example, in a body; the other consul was beaten 
 and driven into Capua. Sulla wintered in Cam- 
 pania, and the next spring he pressed forward to 
 Rome, fighting a decisive battle with Marius the 
 younger on the way, and took possession of the 
 city; but not in time to prevent a massacre of 
 senators by the resentful mob. 
 
 Before that year closed, the whole of Italy had
 
 Sulla's Dictatorship 265 
 
 been subdued, the final battle being fought with 
 the Marians and Italians at the Colline Gate, and 
 Sulla again possessed power supreme. He placed 
 it beyond dispute by a deliberate extermination 
 of his opponents, more merciless than the Marian 
 massacre had been. They were proscribed by scription of 
 name, in placarded lists, and rewards paid to hls enemies 
 those who killed them; while their property was 
 confiscated, and became the source of vast for- 
 tunes to Sulla's supporters, and of lands for 
 distribution to his veterans. 
 
 When this terror had paralyzed all resistance to 
 his rule, the Dictator (for he had taken that title) 
 undertook a complete reconstruction of the con- 
 stitution, aiming at a permanent restoration of 
 senatorial ascendancy and a curbing of the powers 
 which the people, in their assemblies, and the 
 magistrates who especially represented them, had 
 
 gained during the preceding century. He re- 
 
 j 1 1 * . t • , 1 Sulla's die- 
 
 modeled, moreover, the judicial system, and tatorship. 
 
 some of his reforms were undoubtedly good, B - c - 82 " 8 ° 
 though they did not endure. When he had 
 fashioned the state to his liking, this extraor- 
 dinary usurper abdicated his dictatorial office 
 and retired to private life, undisturbed until his B is c dea 8 th * 
 death. 
 
 The system he had established did not save 
 Rome from renewed distractions and disorder 
 after Sulla died. There was no longer a practical 
 question between senate and people — between 
 
 1 r j 1 • m. After Sulla 
 
 the tew and the many in government. The ques- 
 tion now, since the legionaries held their swords
 
 266 
 
 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 The game 
 for empire, 
 and the 
 players 
 
 Pompey 
 
 Crassus 
 
 Caesar 
 
 Cicero 
 
 Cato the 
 younger 
 
 prepared to be flung into the scale, was what one 
 should again gather the powers of government 
 into his hands, as Sulla had done. 
 
 The history of the next thirty years — the last 
 generation of republican Rome — is a sad and 
 sinister but thrilling chronicle of the strifes and 
 intrigues, the machinations and corruptions, of a 
 stupendous and wicked game in politics that was 
 played, against one another and against the 
 republic, by a few daring, ambitious players, with 
 the empire of the civilized world for the stake 
 between them. There were more than a few 
 who aspired; there were only three players who 
 entered really as principals into the game. These 
 were Pompey, or Pompeius, called "the Great," 
 since he extinguished the Marian faction in 
 Sicily and in Spain; Crassus, whose wealth gave 
 him power, and who acquired some military pre- 
 tensions besides, by taking the field against a 
 formidable insurrection of slaves; and Julius 
 Csesar, a young patrician, but nephew of Marius 
 by marriage, who assiduously strengthened that 
 connection with the party of the people, and who 
 began, very soon after Sulla's death, to draw 
 attention to himself as a rising power in the 
 politics of the day. There were two other men, 
 Cicero and the younger Cato, who bore a nobler 
 and greater because less selfish part in the contest 
 of that fateful time. Both were blind to the 
 impossibility of restoring the old order of things, 
 with a dominant senate, a free but well guided 
 populace, and a simply ordered social state; but
 
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 The Great Game for Empire 267 
 
 their blindness was heroic and high-souled. 
 Of the three strong rivals for the vacant dic- 
 tatorial chair which waited to be filled, Pompey 
 held by far the greater advantages. His fame as 
 a soldier was already won; he had been a favorite 
 of fortune from the beginning of his career; every- 
 thing had succeeded with him; everything was 
 expected for him and expected from him. Even 
 while the issues of the great struggle were pend- 
 ing, a wonderful opportunity for increasing his 
 renown was opened to him. The disorders of the _ 
 
 . . rompey in 
 
 civil war had licensed a swarm of pirates, who the east. 
 fairly possessed the eastern Mediterranean and 7 
 
 had nearly extirpated the maritime trade. 
 Pompey was sent against them, with a commis- 
 sion that gave him almost unlimited powers, and 
 within ninety days he had driven them from the 
 sea. Then, before he had returned from this 
 exploit, he was invested with supreme command 
 in the entire east, where another troublesome 
 war with Mithridates was going on. He har- 
 vested there all the laurels which belonged by 
 better right to his predecessor, Lucullus, who had 
 broken the power of Mithridates. 
 
 Affairs in western Asia 
 
 The fallen Mithridates was driven from his old 
 dominions into the Crimean kingdom of Bos- 
 porus, where, two years later, he ended his life in 
 despair. From Pontus, Pompey passed into 
 Armenia, receiving the submission of its king, and 
 then to Syria, where he extinguished the Seleucid
 
 268 
 
 From Hannibal to Caesar 
 
 End of the 
 Seleucid 
 monarchy. 
 B. C. 64 
 
 Roman 
 dominion 
 in the east 
 
 Pompey in 
 Judea 
 
 monarchy, removing the last of its kings from his 
 throne. He had received from the Roman senate 
 and people, under an enactment called the 
 Manilian Law, an extraordinary commission, 
 investing him with supreme power in Asia, and by 
 virtue of that authority he assumed to dispose of 
 eastern kingdoms at will. Pontus, Syria, and a 
 large part of Armenia, were added to the domin- 
 ion of Rome, which now took in very nearly the 
 whole of Asia Minor and reached the Euphrates, 
 where it came into contact with a powerful 
 empire, stretching from the Euphrates to the 
 Indus, which the kings of Parthia had built up. 
 
 In the Jewish kingdom, at this time, two 
 brothers, of the Hasmonean family, were contest- 
 ing the crown, one of them assisted by the king of 
 the Nabatseans, — a neighboring people, in the 
 Sinaitic peninsula, who, in some unknown way, 
 had come into possession of the region held by the 
 Edomites in earlier times. Pompey sent one of 
 his generals into Judea to interpose in the strife. 
 Both contestants attempted to buy his favor; he 
 gave it to the one opposed by the Nabataeans, and 
 ordered the latter to depart. Some months later, 
 Pompey appeared in person, and gave a hearing 
 to all parties concerned, including an embassy 
 that spoke for the people at large. The latter 
 asked for the abolition of the monarchy and the 
 restoration of the old constitution of government, 
 under the high priests. Pompey reserved his 
 decision, and required all parties to be at peace 
 until he gave it; but some movements occurred
 
 Pompey in Jerusalem 269 
 
 in the period of waiting which gave him reasons R° man . 
 
 . - . . legions in 
 
 for advancing to Jerusalem and demanding Jerusalem, 
 admission to the city. It was surrendered, and 
 his legions entered the gates, but found a strong 
 war-party fortified on the temple mount, prepared 
 to fight there to the death. These defenders of 
 the temple were overcome after a siege of three 
 months, and 12,000 are said to have been 
 slaughtered when the hour of victory came to the 
 merciless soldiers of Rome. 
 
 Pompey forced his way into the most holy place 
 of the temple, which none but the high priest had 
 ever entered before; but otherwise he left the 
 Jewish sanctuary and its services undisturbed. 
 The Hasmonean monarchy was extinguished. 
 Hyrcanus, one of the brothers whose rivalry had f X tn eHa" 
 brought it to an end, was appointed high priest monea n 
 
 . . monarchy. 
 
 and placed in nominal authority, as a tributary b. c. 63 
 vassal of Rome. At the same time, important 
 parts of the Jewish territory were taken from his 
 jurisdiction and added to the Roman province of 
 Syria, lately formed. Hyrcanus proved soon to 
 be a mere puppet in the hands of an able minister, ^ntipat 
 Antipater, called the Idumean, who took the 
 reins of government into his own hands. 
 
 Egypt was now the only Mediterranean state 
 left outside of the all-absorbing dominion of 
 Rome; and the monarchy of the Ptolemies 
 existed only because Roman policy, for some Egypt 
 reason, postponed its fate. It had no independ- 
 ence in any matter on which Rome chose to issue 
 a command. For a century past, its history had 
 
 er
 
 270 
 
 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 Pompey's 
 position 
 
 been little more than a chronicle of the foul vices 
 and crimes of its royal family and their corrupted 
 court. One of the recent kings — there is uncer- 
 tainty which one of two or three — was alleged to 
 have bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman 
 republic, which might at any time give orders for 
 taking possession of the bequest. 
 
 Last Years of the Roman Republic 
 
 Pompey came back to Rome in the spring of 61 
 B. C. so glorified by his successes that he might 
 have seemed to be irresistible, whatever he should 
 undertake. But either an honest patriotism or an 
 overweening confidence had led him to disband 
 his army when he reached Italy, and he had com- 
 mitted himself to no party. He stood alone and 
 aloof, with a great prestige, great ambitions, and 
 no ability to use the one or realize the other. 
 Before another year passed, he was glad to accept 
 offers of a helping hand in politics from Caesar, 
 who had climbed the ladder of office rapidly 
 within four or five years, spending vast sums of 
 borrowed money to amuse the people with games, 
 and distinguishing himself as a democratic cham- 
 pion. Caesar, the far seeing calculator, discerned 
 the enormous advantages that he might gain for 
 himself by massing together the prestige of Pom- 
 B. c. 60-53 pey, the wealth of Crassus, and his own invincible 
 genius, which was sure to be the master element in 
 theleague. Hebrought thecoalitionabout through 
 a bargain which created what is known in history 
 as the First Triumvirate, or supremacy of three. 
 
 The First 
 Trium- 
 virate. 
 
 Fowler, 
 Julius 
 Cczsar, ch 
 vi-vii
 
 Oesar's Conquest of Gaul 271 
 
 Under the terms of the bargain, Caesar was 
 chosen consul for 59 B. C, and at the end of his 
 term was given the governorship of Cisalpine and 
 Transalpine Gaul, with command of three legions g^ui* 1 " 1 
 there, for five years. His grand aim was a mili- B - c - 53 - 50 
 tary command — the leadership of an army — the 
 prestige of a successful soldier. No sooner had he 
 secured the command than fortune gave him 
 opportunities for its use in a striking way and 
 with impressive results. 
 
 Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) had been sub- 
 jugated and was tranquil; Transalpine Gaul 
 (Gaul west and north of the Alps, or modern 
 France, Switzerland, and Belgium) was troubled 
 and threatening. In Transalpine Gaul the 
 Romans had made no conquests beyond the 
 Rhone, as yet, except along the coast at the 
 south. The country between the Alps and the 
 Rhone, excepting certain territories of Massilia 1 i rans " , 
 
 ' . . . alpine Gaul 
 
 (Marseilles) which still continued to be a free 
 city, in alliance with Rome, had been appro- 
 priated and organized as a province — the Pro- 
 vence of later times. The territory between the 
 Rhone and the Cevennes mountains was not so 
 fully occupied and controlled. 
 
 Caesar's first proceeding as proconsul in Gaul 
 was to arrest the migration of a tribe called the 
 Helvetii, who had determined to abandon their 
 Swiss valleys and to seize some new territory in 
 Gaul. He blocked their passage through Roman 
 Gaul, then followed them in their movement 
 eastward of the Rhone, attacked and defeated
 
 272 
 
 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 Caesar's 
 
 subjuga- 
 tion of the 
 Gallic 
 tribes 
 
 B. C. 58 
 
 B. C. 57 
 
 B. C. 56 
 
 Caesar, 
 The Gallic 
 War 
 
 Caesar's 
 invasions of 
 Britain. 
 B. C. SS-S4 
 
 Gallic 
 
 revolts 
 
 them with great slaughter, and forced the small 
 remnant to return to their deserted mountain 
 homes. The same year he drove out of Gaul a 
 formidable body of Suevic Germans who had 
 crossed the Rhine some years before, under 
 Ariovistus, their king. The next year he reduced 
 to submission the powerful tribes of the Belgian 
 region, who had provoked attack by leaguing 
 themselves against the Roman intrusion in Gaul. 
 The most obstinate of those tribes — the Nervii — 
 were destroyed. In the following year Caesar 
 attacked and nearly exterminated the Veneti, a 
 remarkable maritime people, who occupied part 
 of Armorica (modern Brittany) ; he also reduced 
 the coast tribes northwards to submission, while 
 one of his lieutenants made a conquest of Aqui- 
 tania. 
 
 The conquest of Gaul was now apparently 
 complete, and next year, after routing and cutting 
 to pieces another horde of Germanic invaders 
 who had ventured across the lower Rhine, Caesar 
 traversed the channel and invaded Britain. This 
 first invasion, which had been little more than a 
 reconnoissance, was repeated the year following 
 with a larger force. It was an expedition having 
 small results, and Caesar returned from it in the 
 early autumn, to find his power in Gaul under- 
 mined everywhere by rebellious plots. For 
 nearly three years he was occupied in crushing 
 the revolts, which he did with an energy, a daring, 
 a celerity of movement, an unerring aim in every 
 stroke, that have rarely been equaled in the whole
 
 Politics at Rome 273 
 
 history of war. All soldiers have admired the 
 Gallic campaigns of Caesar; all humane persons 
 have shuddered at the ruthlessness with which he 
 accomplished his purpose, of breaking the inde- 
 pendent spirit of a noble race. He had finished „ , 
 
 ■ -r»/^TTii Results of 
 
 his work in the year 51 B. C. He had pushed the Caesar's 
 frontiers of the dominion of Rome to the ocean cam P ai s ns 
 and the Rhine, and had threatened the nations of 
 Germany on the northern banks of that stream. 
 "The conquest of Gaul by Caesar," says Mr. 
 Freeman, "is one of the most important events in 
 the history of the world. It is in some sort the 
 beginning of modern history, as it brought the old 
 world of southern Europe, of which Rome was the 
 head, into contact with the lands and nations 
 which were to play the greatest part in later 
 times — with Gaul, Germany, and Britain." 
 
 Meantime, while pursuing a career of conquest 
 which excited the Roman world, Caesar never lost 
 touch with the capital and its seething politics. 
 Each winter he repaired to Lucca, the point in his 
 province that was nearest to Rome, and conferred politics at 
 there with his friends, who flocked to the ren- Rome 
 dezvous. He secured an extension of his term, to 
 enable him to complete his plans, and year by 
 year he grew more independent of the support of 
 his colleagues in the triumvirate, while they 
 weakened one another by their jealousies, and the 
 Roman state was more hopelessly distracted by 
 factious strife. _, , , 
 
 Death of 
 
 The year after Caesar's second invasion of Crassus. 
 Britain, Crassus, who had obtained the govern-
 
 274 
 
 From Hannibal to Cjesar 
 
 Pompey 
 with the 
 Optimates 
 
 Civil war. 
 B. C. so 
 
 \Iommsen, 
 History of 
 Rome, bk. 5 
 
 Crossing 
 
 the 
 
 Rubicon 
 
 ment of Syria, perished in a disastrous war with 
 the Parthians, who now possessed nearly the 
 whole territory of the old Persian empire, except- 
 ing in Asia Minor and Syria. The triumvirate 
 was at an end. Disorder in Rome increased and 
 Pompey lacked energy or boldness to deal with it, 
 though he seemed to be the one man present who 
 might do so. He was made sole consul in 52 
 B. C; he might have seized the dicta torship ? 
 with approval of many, but he waited for it to be 
 offered to him, and the offer never came. He 
 drew at last into close alliance with the party of 
 the Optimates, and left the Populares to be won 
 entirely to Caesar's side. 
 
 Ma cters came to a crisis in 50 B. C, when the 
 senate passed an order removing Caesar from his 
 command and discharging his soldiers who had 
 served their term. He came to Ravenna with a 
 single legion and concerted measures with his 
 friends. The issue involved is supposed to have 
 been one of life or death to him, as well as of 
 triumph or failure in his ambitions; for his 
 enemies were malignant. His friends demanded 
 that he be made consul, for his protection, before 
 laying down his arms. The senate answered by 
 proclaiming him a public enemy if he failed to 
 disband his troops with no delay. It was a 
 declaration of war, and Caesar accepted it. He 
 marched his single legion across the Rubicon, 
 which was the boundary of his province, and 
 advanced towards Rome. 
 
 Pompey, with the forces he had gathered,
 
 Oesar's Triumph 275 
 
 ^treated southward, and consuls, senators and 
 nobles generally streamed after him. Caesar fol- 
 lowed them — turning aside from the city — and 
 his force gathered numbers as he advanced. The 
 Pompeians continued their flight and abandoned 
 Italy, withdrawing to Epirus, planning to gather 
 there the forces of the east and return. Caesar Flights of 
 
 the 
 
 now took possession of Rome and secured the p m P eians 
 islands of Sicily and Sardinia, from which it drew 
 its supply of food. This done, he proceeded 
 without delay to Spain, where seven legions 
 devoted to Pompey were stationed. He over- 
 came them in a single campaign, enlisted most of 
 the veterans in his own service, and acquired a 
 store of treasure. 
 
 Before the year ended, Caesar was again in 
 Rome, where the citizens had proclaimed him 
 dictator. He held the dictatorship for eleven 
 days, only, to legalize an election which made J^and 
 him consul, with a pliant associate. He reor- consul 
 ganized the government, complete in all its 
 branches, including a senate, composed partly of 
 former members of the body who had remained or 
 returned. Then he took up the pursuit of Pom- 
 pey and the Optimates. Crossing to Epirus, after Pharsaiia. 
 some months of changeful fortune, he fought and 
 won the decisive battle of Pharsaiia. Pompey, 
 flying to Egypt, was murdered there. Caesar, p ompe y 
 following, with a small force, was placed in great 
 peril by a rising at Alexandria, but held his 
 ground till assistance came. He then garrisoned 
 Egypt with Roman troops and made the princess
 
 276 From Hannibal to Cjesar 
 
 Cleopatra, who had captivated him by her 
 charms, joint occupant of the throne with her 
 younger brother. 
 
 During his absence, affairs at Rome were again 
 disturbed, and when he returned he was reap- 
 pointed dictator, as well as tribune for life. His 
 presence restored order at once, and he was soon 
 Battle of - n readiness to attack a party of his enemies who 
 B. c S 46 had taken refuge in Africa. The battle of Thap- 
 sus, followed by the suicide of Cato and the sur- 
 render of Utica, practically finished the contest, 
 though one more campaign was fought in Spain 
 the following year. 
 
 Qesar was now master of the dominions of 
 
 Rome, and as entirely a monarch as any one of 
 
 his imperial successors, who took his name, with 
 
 the power which he caused it to symbolize, and 
 
 called themselves "csesars," and "imperators," as 
 
 fmperator though the two titles were equivalent. "Impera- 
 
 tor" was the title under which he chose to exer- 
 
 Merivak, c ; se n j s sovereignty. Other Roman generals had 
 
 theRovmns been imperators before, but he was the first to be 
 
 itpirT named imperator for life, and the word (changed 
 
 ch.xk-x'xi in our tongue to emperor) took a meaning from 
 
 that day more regal than Rex or King. That 
 
 Cesar, the imperator, first of all emperors, ever 
 
 coveted the crown and title of an older-fashioned 
 
 royalty, is not an easy thing to believe. 
 
 Having settled his authority firmly, he gave 
 Reorganiz- ^ attention to the organization of the empire 
 
 ation ot \ 1 1 r • r 
 
 Roman (still republic in name) and to the reforming ot 
 LTr" the evils which afflicted it. That he did this work
 
 Assassination of Oesar 277 
 
 with consummate judgment and success is the 
 opinion of all who study his time. He gratified 
 no resentments, executed no revenges, proscribed 
 no enemies. All who submitted to his rule were 
 safe; and it seems to be clear that the people in 
 general were glad to be rescued by his rule from 
 the old oligarchical and anarchical state. But 
 some of Caesar's own partisans were dissatisfied 
 with the autocracy which they helped to create, or 
 with the slenderness of their own parts in it. They 
 
 . . 1 r 1 r\ • Assassina- 
 
 conspired with surviving leaders of the Optimates, tion of 
 and Caesar was assassinated by them, in the b. c. 44 
 senate chamber, on the 15th of March, B. C. 44. 
 
 China 
 
 The opening of the period surveyed in this 
 chapter coincides with the founding of one of the 
 most important of the Chinese dynasties, namely 
 that called the Han, which acquired the imperial 
 throne in 202 B. C, and occupied it for more than dy ^ as ^ 
 four hundred years. The founder of the dynasty B. c. 202- 
 
 A. D. 220 
 
 is credited with the institution of the system of 
 competitive examinations for public office, which 
 has prevailed through twenty centuries, and 
 which seems to have acted upon society and 
 government with a peculiarly moulding force. Com P et >- 
 
 o r j o tIve exam- 
 
 It is due to that system, without doubt, that no ination 
 
 hereditary nobility has arisen among the Chinese; syb 
 
 that literature and learning, of a kind, have been 
 
 honored among them as among no other peoples; 
 
 and that the kind of learning and literature so 
 
 valued and respected has become convention-
 
 278 From Hannibal to Oesar 
 
 alized and valueless to an unexampled degree. 
 The despotism established by Hwangti was 
 relaxed by the Han emperors without weakening 
 their authority. Freedom to criticise the govern- 
 ment, which Hwangti had suppressed, was 
 restored by a wiser sovereign, who said that he 
 needed it to give him information of the true 
 mind of his people. Under Vouti, the ablest and 
 strongest of the Han dynasty, the never ceasing 
 warfare of the Chinese with their Mongolian 
 neighbors was waged with unusual success. 
 Vouti is recognized as having established and 
 consolidated the Han dynasty, and given it such 
 Bouiger, an importance in the history of the empire that 
 
 History 0/ * 1111 -11 1 
 
 China, 1:88 the Chinese are now, and probably will always 
 be, proud to style themselves 'the sons of Han.'" 
 
 Vouti
 
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