Transcriber’s Note: As a result of editorial shortcomings in the original,
some reference letters in the text don’t have matching entries in the
reference-lists, and vice versa.
THE HISTORIANS’ HISTORY OF THE WORLD
[Illustration: RAWLINSON]
THE HISTORIANS’
HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
A comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations
as recorded by over two thousand of the great writers of all ages:
edited, with the assistance of a distinguished board of advisers
and contributors, by
HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, LL.D.
[Illustration]
IN TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME I--PROLEGOMENA; EGYPT, MESOPOTAMIA
The Outlook Company
New York
The History Association
London
1905
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
_All rights reserved._
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
New York, U. S. A.
Contributors, and Editorial Revisers.
Prof. Adolf Erman, University of Berlin.
Prof. Joseph Halévy, College of France.
Prof. Thomas K. Cheyne, Oxford University.
Prof. Andrew C. McLaughlin, University of Michigan.
Prof. David H. Müller, University of Vienna.
Prof. Alfred Rambaud, University of Paris.
Capt. F. Brinkley, Tokio.
Prof. Eduard Meyer, University of Berlin.
Dr. James T. Shotwell, Columbia University.
Prof. Theodor Nöldeke, University of Strasburg.
Prof. Albert B. Hart, Harvard University.
Dr. Paul Brönnle, Royal Asiatic Society.
Dr. James Gairdner, C.B., London.
Prof. Ulrich von Wilamowitz Möllendorff, University of Berlin.
Prof. H. Marczali, University of Budapest.
Dr. G. W. Botsford, Columbia University.
Prof. Julius Wellhausen, University of Göttingen.
Prof. Franz R. von Krones, University of Graz.
Prof. Wilhelm Soltau, Zabern University.
Prof. R. W. Rogers, Drew Theological Seminary.
Prof. A. Vambéry, University of Budapest.
Prof. Otto Hirschfeld, University of Berlin.
Dr. Frederick Robertson Jones, Bryn Mawr College.
Baron Bernardo di San Severino Quaranta, London.
Dr. John P. Peters, New York.
Prof. Adolph Harnack, University of Berlin.
Dr. S. Rappoport, School of Oriental Languages, Paris.
Prof. Hermann Diels, University of Berlin.
Prof. C. W. C. Oman, Oxford University.
Prof. W. L. Fleming, University of West Virginia.
Prof. I. Goldziher, University of Vienna.
Prof. R. Koser, University of Berlin.
KEY TO THE AUTHORITIES.
The Historians’ History of the World is in one sense of the word a
compilation, but it is a compilation of unique character. The main
bulk of the work is made up of direct quotations from authorities,
cited with scrupulous exactness; but so novel is our method of handling
this material that the casual reader might scan chapter after chapter
without suspecting that the whole is not the work of a single writer.
Yet every quotation, whatever its length, is explicitly credited to
its source, and the reader who wishes to know the names of the authors
and works quoted may constantly satisfy his curiosity without the
slightest difficulty. The key to identification of authorities is found
in the unobtrusive reference letters (called by the printer “superior
letters”), such as [b], [c], [d], which are scattered through the text.
These reference letters refer in each case to a “Brief Reference-List”
at the end of the book, where, chapter by chapter, author and work are
named. Should any work be quoted more than once in a chapter, the same
reference letter is used to identify that work in each case.
The reference letters are used in two ways: they are either (1) placed
at the end of a sentence, in which case they designate an actual
quotation, or (2) they are placed against the name of an author, in
which case they designate an authority cited but not necessarily
quoted. Each reference letter at the end of a sentence refers to all
the matter that precedes it back to the last similarly placed reference
letter. The quotation thus designated may be of any length,--a few
sentences or many pages. This quotation may contain reference letters
of the second type just explained, but, if so, these may be altogether
disregarded in determining the limits of the quotation; the context
will make it clear that there is no change of authorship. On the other
hand, however continuous the narrative may seem, a reference letter at
the end of a sentence must always be understood to divide one quotation
from another.
All this may seem a trifle complex as told here, but it will be found
admirably simple and effective in practice. The reader has but to
make the experiment, to find that he can trace the authorship of
every line of the work without the slightest difficulty. It may be
well to add, however, that the reference letter [a] is reserved for
editorial matter, and that, very exceptionally, this letter is used in
combination with another letter, as [ab], [ac], [ad], to give credit
for matter that has been editorially adapted, but not quoted verbatim.
It is perhaps hardly necessary to explain that direct quotations,
such as go to make up the bulk of our work, are often given in an
abbreviated form through the omission of matter that is redundant or,
for any reason, inadmissible. The necessity for such change is obvious,
since otherwise the varied materials could not possibly be made to
harmonise or to meet the needs of our space. But, beyond this, no
liberty whatever is taken with matter presented as a direct quotation.
Where editorial modification is thought necessary, the use of reference
letters makes such modification feasible without introducing the
slightest ambiguity. We repeat that every line of the work is ascribed
to its proper source with the utmost fidelity. Any matter not otherwise
accredited--as, for example, various introductions, chronologies,
bibliographies, and the like--will be understood to be editorial.
Brackets also indicate editorial matter.
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
PART I. PROLEGOMENA
BOOK I. HISTORY, HISTORIANS, AND THE WRITING OF HISTORIES
PAGE
CHAPTER I
SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 1
The oriental period, 2. The classical historians, 3. The
mediæval and modern histories, 4.
CHAPTER II
MATERIALS FOR THE WRITING OF HISTORY 5
CHAPTER III
THE METHODS OF THE HISTORIANS 9
CHAPTER IV
WORLD HISTORIES 13
CHAPTER V
THE PRESENT HISTORY 22
BOOK II. A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY 32
CHAPTER II
COSMOGONY--ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS AS TO THE ORIGIN
OF THE WORLD 33
CHAPTER III
COSMOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY--ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS 38
CHAPTER IV
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE EARTH AND OF MAN 40
CHAPTER V
THE RACES OF MAN AND THE ARYAN QUESTION 43
CHAPTER VI
ON PREHISTORIC CULTURE 45
Language, 44. Clothing and housing of prehistoric man, 46.
The use of fire, 46. Implements of peace and war, 47. The
domestication of animals, 47. Agriculture, 48. Government, 49.
The arts of painting, sculpture, and decorative architecture,
50. The art of writing, 50.
PART II. EGYPT
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE.
By Dr. Adolf Erman 57
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE (4400-332 B.C.) 65
CHAPTER I
THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN 77
The country and its inhabitants, 81. Prehistoric Egypt, 88.
CHAPTER II
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM (_ca._ 4400-2700 B.C.) 90
The first dynasty, 90. The second dynasty, 92. The third
dynasty, 92. The pyramid dynasty, 93. A modern account of the
pyramids, 95. The builders of the pyramids, 98. The beautiful
Nitocris, 104.
CHAPTER III
THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM (_ca._ 2700-1635 B.C.) 106
The eleventh dynasty, 106. The voyage to Punt, 108. The
twelfth dynasty, 110. Monuments of the twelfth dynasty; a
classical view, 113. The ruins of Karnak, 115. The fall of the
Theban kingdom, 117. The foreign rule, 118. The Hyksos rule;
the seventeenth dynasty, 121.
CHAPTER IV
THE RESTORATION (_ca._ 1635-1365 B.C.) 126
Eighteenth dynasty, 126. The Hyksos expulsion: Aahmes and his
successors, 127. Tehutimes II; Queen Hatshepsu, 133. Triumphs
of Tehutimes III; his successors, 136.
CHAPTER V
THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY (_ca._ 1365-1285 B.C.) 141
King Seti, 142. Ramses (II) the Great, 144. The war-poem of
Pentaur, 148. The kingdom of the Kheta and the nineteenth
dynasty, 150. Death of Ramses II, 153.
CHAPTER VI
THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMMIES 155
How came these monarchs here? 157.
CHAPTER VII
THE PERIOD OF DECAY (NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH DYNASTIES:
_ca._ 1285-655 B.C.) 162
Meneptah, 162. From Setnekht to Ramses VIII and Meri-Amen
Meri-Tmu, 166. The sorrows of a soldier, 170. Egypt under the
dominion of mercenaries, 171. The Ethiopian conquest, 174.
Table of contemporaneous dynasties, 179.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CLOSING SCENES (TWENTY-SIXTH TO THIRTY-FIRST DYNASTIES:
655-322 B.C.) 180
Psamthek, 180. The good king Sabach (Shabak) and Psammetichus,
184. The restoration in Egypt, 185. The Persian conquest and
the end of Egyptian autonomy, 188. The atrocities of Cambyses,
191.
CHAPTER IX
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS 196
The position of the king, 198. Weapons of war, 202. Battle
methods, 205. Social customs, 208. The Egyptians as seen by
Herodotus, 212. Homes of the people, 216.
CHAPTER X
THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 219
Religious festivals and offerings, 222. Gifts and riches of
temples, 225. Diodorus on animal worship, 228. A modern account
of the worship of Apis, the sacred bull, 232. The methods of
embalming the dead, 236.
CHAPTER XI
EGYPTIAN CULTURE 240
The hieroglyphics, 249. “By what characters, pictures, and
images the learned Egyptians expressed the mysteries of their
mindes,” 250. The riddle of the sphinx, 251. Literature, 257.
The Castaway: a tale of the twelfth dynasty, 260.
CHAPTER XII
CONCLUDING SUMMARY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 263
APPENDIX A
CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 267
Another ancient account of the Nile, 273. A Greek view of the
origins of Egyptian history, 278.
APPENDIX B
THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 287
Manetho’s table of the Egyptian dynasties, 291.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 293
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 295
PART III. MESOPOTAMIA
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. THE RELATIONS OF BABYLONIA WITH OTHER
SEMITIC COUNTRIES. By Joseph Halévy 309
MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE (6000-538 B.C.) 318
CHAPTER I
LAND AND PEOPLE 337
The land, 338. Original peoples of Babylon: the Sumerians,
342. The Semitic Babylonians, 344. The original home of the
Babylonian Semite, 347.
CHAPTER II
OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY (_ca._ 4500-745 B.C.) 349
The beginnings of history, 351. The rulers of Shirpurla,
351. Kings of Kish and Gishban, 356. The first dynasty of Ur,
359. Kings of Agade, 360. The kings of Ur, 363. Accession of a
south Arabian dynasty, 363. The Kassite dynasty, 364. Assyrian
conquest of Babylon, 364.
CHAPTER III
THE RISE OF ASSYRIA (_ca._ 3000-726 B.C.) 366
Land and people, 369. Assyrian capitals: Asshur and Nineveh,
371. The rise of Assyria, 372. The first great Assyrian
conqueror, 377. The reign and cruelty of Asshurnazirpal, 380.
Shalmaneser II and his successors, 387. Tiglathpileser III,
391. Shalmaneser IV, 395.
CHAPTER IV
FOUR GENERATIONS OF ASSYRIAN GREATNESS (722-626 B.C.) 397
Sennacherib, 403. Esarhaddon and Asshurbanapal, 416.
Esarhaddon’s reign, 419. Asshurbanapal’s early years, 425. The
Brothers’ War, 431. The last wars of Asshurbanapal, 434.
CHAPTER V
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA (626-606 B.C.) 438
Last years and fall of the Assyrian Empire, 440.
CHAPTER VI
RENASCENCE AND FALL OF BABYLON (555-538 B.C.) 446
Contemporary chronology, 448. Nabopolassar and Nebuchadrezzar,
449. The followers of Nebuchadrezzar, 453. The reign of
Nabonidus, 455.
CHAPTER VII
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF BABYLONIA-ASSYRIA 460
War methods, 460. Our sources, 461. Assyrian war costumes and
war methods, 468. The arts of peace in Babylonia-Assyria,
472. Babylon and its customs described by an eye-witness,
473. A later classical account of Babylon, 479. The commerce
of the Babylonians, 484. Ships among the Assyrians, 491.
Laws of the Babylonians and Assyrians, 494. Sale of a slave,
496. Sale of a house, 497. The code of Khammurabi, 498. The
discovery of the code, 498. Miscellaneous regulations, 501.
Regulations concerning slaves, 502. Provisions concerning
robbery, 502. Concerning leases and tillage, 503. Concerning
canals, 504. Commerce, debt, 504. Domestic legislation,
divorce, inheritance, 505. Laws concerning adoption, 509. Laws
of recompense, 509. Regulations concerning physicians and
veterinary surgeons, 510. Illegal branding of slaves, 510.
Regulations concerning builders, 511. Regulations concerning
shipping, 511. Regulations concerning the hiring of animals,
farming, wages, etc., 511. Regulations concerning the buying of
slaves, 513.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS 515
The Assyrian story of the creation, 520. The Babylonian
religion, 521. The epic of Gilgamish, 525. Ishtar’s descent
into Hades, 530.
CHAPTER IX
BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE 534
Literature and science, 536. Epistolary literature, 539. Art,
543. Assyrian art, 552. Assyrian sculpture and the evolution
of art, 558. A classical estimate of Chaldean philosophy and
astrology, 563. The Babylonian year, 565. The Babylonian day
and its division into hours, 566. Assyrian science, 567.
APPENDIX A
CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 571
The Creation and the Flood, described by Polyhistor, 573.
Other classical fragments: of the Chaldean kings, 575. Of the
Chaldean kings and the deluge, 576. Of the tower of Babel, 577.
Of Abraham, 577. Of Nabonassar, 577. Of the destruction of the
Jewish Temple, 577. Of Nebuchadrezzar, 577. Of the Chaldean
kings after Nebuchadrezzar, 578. Of the feast of Sacea, 579.
A fragment of Megasthenes concerning Nebuchadrezzar, 579.
Ninus and Semiramis, 580. Semiramis builds a great city, 584.
Semiramis begins a career of conquest, 588. Semiramis invades
India, 589. Another view of Semiramis, 593. Reign of Ninyas to
Sardanapalus, 594. The destruction of Nineveh, 598.
APPENDIX B
EXCAVATIONS IN MESOPOTAMIA AND THEIR RESULTS 600
The ruins of Nineveh and M. Botta’s first discovery, 600.
Layard’s discoveries at Nineveh, 604. Later discoveries in
Babylonia and Assyria, 610. The results of the excavations,
612. Treasures from Nineveh, 613. The library of a king of
Nineveh, 618. How the Assyrian books were read, 623.
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 627
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIAN HISTORY 629
PART I. PROLEGOMENA
BOOK I. HISTORY, HISTORIANS, AND THE WRITING OF HISTORIES
CHAPTER I
SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Broadly speaking, the historians of all recorded ages seem to have had
the same general aims. They appear always to seek either to glorify
something or somebody, or to entertain and instruct their readers. The
observed variety in historical compositions arises not from difference
in general motive, but from varying interpretations of the relative
status of these objects, and from differing judgments as to the manner
of thing likely to produce these ends, combined, of course, with
varying skill in literary composition, and varying degrees of freedom
of action.
As to freedom of selective judgment, the earliest historians whose
records are known to us exercised practically none at all. Their task
was to glorify the particular monarch who commanded them to write.
The records of a Ramses, a Sennacherib, or a Darius tell only of the
successful campaigns, in which the opponent is so much as mentioned
only in contrast with the prowess of the victor.
With these earliest historians, therefore, the ends of historical
composition were met in the simplest way, by reciting the deeds,
real or alleged, of a king, as Ramses, Sennacherib, or David; or of
the gods, as Osiris, or Ishtar, or Yahveh. As to entertainment and
instruction, the reader was expected to be overawed by the recital of
mighty deeds, and to draw the conclusion that it would be well for him
to do homage to the glorified monarch, human or divine.
A little later, in what may be termed the classical period, the
historians had attained to a somewhat freer position and wider vision,
and they sought to glorify heroes who were neither gods nor kings,
but the representatives of the people in a more popular sense. Thus
the _Iliad_ dwells upon the achievements of Achilles and Ajax and
Hector rather than upon the deeds of Menelaus and Priam, the opposing
kings. Hitherto the deeds of all these heroes would simply have
been transferred to the credit of the king. Now the individual of
lesser rank is to have a hearing. Moreover, the state itself is now
considered apart from its particular ruler. The histories of Herodotus,
of Xenophon, of Thucydides, of Polybius, in effect make for the
glorification, not of individuals, but of peoples.
This shift from the purely egoistic to the altruistic standpoint
marks a long step. The writer now has much more clearly in view the
idea of entertaining, without frightening, his reader; and he thinks
to instruct in matters pertaining to good citizenship and communal
morality rather than in deference to kings and gods. In so doing the
historian marks the progress of civilisation of the Greek and early
Roman periods.
In the mediæval time there is a strong reaction. To frighten becomes
again a method of attacking the consciousness; to glorify the gods and
heroes a chief aim. As was the case in the Egyptian and Persian and
Indian periods of degeneration, the early monotheism has given way to
polytheism. Hagiology largely takes the place of secular history. A
constantly growing company of saints demands attention and veneration.
To glorify these, to show the futility of all human action that does
not make for such glorification, became again an aim of the historian.
But this influence is by no means altogether dominant; and, though
there is no such list of historians worthy to be remembered as existed
in the classical period, yet such names appear as those of Einhard,
the biographer of Charlemagne; De Joinville, the panegyrist of Saint
Louis; Villani, Froissart, and Monstrelet, the chroniclers; and Comines,
Machiavelli, and Guicciardini.
In the modern period the gods have been more or less disbanded, the
heroes modified, even the kings subordinated. We hear much talk of the
“philosophy” of history, even of the “science” of history. Common sense
and the critical spirit are supposed to hold sway everywhere. Yet,
after all, it would be too much to suppose that any historian even of
the most modern school has written entirely without prejudice of race,
of station, or of religion. And in any event the same ideals, generally
stated, are before the historian of to-day that have actuated his
predecessors--to glorify something or somebody, though it be, perhaps,
a principle and not a person; and to entertain and instruct his readers.
_The Oriental Period_
The earliest historians whose writings have come down to us are the
authors of the records on the monuments of Egypt and of Mesopotamia. We
shall see later on that these records, made in languages a knowledge
of which has only been recovered in the past century, are full of
historical interest because of the facts they narrate, and the insight
they give us into the life of their times. For the moment, however,
we are only concerned with the method of their construction. They are
parts of records dating from many centuries before the beginning of the
Christian era. Their authors are utterly unknown by name. The narrative
is, indeed, in some cases, couched in the first person, but it is not
to be supposed from this that the alleged writer--who, of course, is
the king whose deeds are glorified--is the actual composer of the
narrative. The actual scribes, mere adjuncts of the royal _ménage_,
never dreamed of putting their own names on record beside those of
their royal masters. Yet their work has preserved to future generations
the names of kings that otherwise would have been absolutely forgotten.
For example, Tehutimes III of Egypt and Asshurbanapal of Assyria, two
of the most powerful monarchs of antiquity, had ceased to be remembered
even by name several centuries before the dawn of our era, and for two
thousand years no human being knew that such persons had ever existed.
Yet now, thanks to the monuments, their deeds are almost as fully known
to us as the deeds of an Alexander or a Cæsar.
There is, indeed, one regard in which these most ancient historical
records have an advantage over more recent works. They were for the
most part graven in stone or stamped in clay that was burned to
stonelike hardness, and they have come down to us with the assurances
of authenticity which must always be lacking in many compositions of
more recent periods. The Babylonian and Assyrian records lay buried
with the ruins of cities whose very location had been forgotten for
ages. The most recent of these records had been seen by no human eye
for more than two thousand years. Their unnamed authors seem thus to
speak to us directly across the centuries. However these earliest of
historians may have dreamed of immortality for their work, they can
hardly have hoped to speak to eager audiences in regions far beyond the
limits of their world, twenty-five centuries after the very nation to
which they belonged had vanished from the earth, and the language in
which they wrote had ceased to be known to men. Yet that unique glory
was reserved for them.
_The Classical Historians_
It requires but a glance at the historians of the classical period to
see how altered is the point of view from which they write. Here we
have no longer men commanded by a monarch, or impelled by religious
fervour to glorify a single person or epoch or country to the utter
exclusion of everything else. We have bounded from insularity of view
to universality. Even the Homeric legends deal with the events of two
continents and of several countries. Herodotus and Diodorus make the
writing of their histories a life-work. They travel from one country
to another, and familiarise themselves with their subject as much as
possible at first hand. They mingle with the scholars of many lands,
and listen to their recitals of the annals of their respective peoples.
They weigh and consider, though in a quite different mental balance
from that which an historian uses in our day. They spend thirty, forty,
years in composing their books. From them, then, we have, not simple
chronicles of a single event, but universal histories. These are in
many ways different from the universal histories of our own time; but
in their frank, human way of looking out upon the world, they have
a charm that is quite their own. In their interest for the general
reader, they have perhaps never been excelled. And in their citation
of fact and fable they become a storehouse upon which succeeding
generations of historians have drawn to this day.
There are other historians of the period no less remarkable, some of
them even superior, from some points of view, to these masters. The
names of Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius among the Greeks, of Tacitus,
Livy, Cæsar among the Romans, to go no farther, are as familiar to
every cultivated mind of our own day as the names of Gibbon, Macaulay,
or Bancroft. Several of these were men who participated in the events
they described, and, confining themselves to limited periods, treated
these periods in such masterly fashion, with such breadth of view and
discriminating judgment, that their verdicts have weight with all
succeeding generations of historians. Thucydides, writing in the fifth
century B.C., is regarded, even in our critical age, as a matchless
writer of history. An oft-repeated tale relates that Macaulay despaired
of ever equalling him, though feeling that he might hope to duplicate
the work of any other historian. Polybius and Tacitus are mentioned
with respect by the most exacting investigators. Clearly, then, this
was a culminating epoch in the writing of histories.
_The Mediæval and Modern Histories_
We have seen that in the classical period the brief space of half a
dozen generations saw a cluster of great histories written. No such
intellectual activity in this direction marked the mediæval period. Now
for the space of more than a thousand years there was no work produced
that could bear a moment’s comparison with the great productions of
the earlier periods. One theme was now dominant in the Western world,
and the intellects that might have produced histories of broad scope
under other circumstances contented themselves with harping on the one
string. So we have ecclesiastical records in place of histories.
In due time the reaction came, but it was long before the influence
of the dominant spirit was made subordinate to a saner view. Indeed,
scarcely before our own generation, since the classical period, have
historians been able to cast a clear and unbiased glance across the
entire field of history.
Toward the middle of the eighteenth century a school of secular
historians with broad views and high aims again arose. Now once more
men sought to write world histories not dominated by a single idea. The
first great exponents of the movement were Gibbon and Hume in England,
Schlozzer and Müller in Germany. They have had a host of followers, of
whom the greater number have been Germans.
The attitude of these modern writers is philosophical; they are
disposed to recognise in the bald facts of human existence an
importance commensurate solely with the lessons they can teach for
the betterment of humanity. In this modern view, each fact must be
correlated with a multitude of other facts before its true significance
can be perceived. Events are, in this view, meaningless unless we know
something of the human motives that led to their enactment. The task
of the historian is to search for causes, to endeavour to build up
from the lessons of history a true philosophy of living. It is really
no different a task, as already pointed out, from that which such
ancient writers as Polybius had very prominently in view; but there is
an emphasis upon this phase of the subject in our time that it did not
generally receive in the earlier age. In other words, the philosophy
of history of our time is a more conscious philosophy. For a century
past the phrase, “philosophy of history,” has been current, and it has
been the custom for men who were not primarily historians to discourse
on the subject. Latterly, following again the current of the times, we
have come to speak even of the “science” of history; indeed, in Germany
in particular, history to-day claims unchallenged position as a true
science. The word “science” is a very flexible term, yet there are
those who deny that it may be properly applied, as yet at any rate, to
our aggregation of knowledge of historical facts. The question resolves
itself into a matter of definition, the solution of which is not
particularly important.
The essential thing is that the modern historical investigator is
fully actuated by the spirit of scientific accuracy and impartiality.
And since impartiality depends very largely upon breadth of view,
it results rather curiously that the minute investigations of the
specialist make indirectly for the comprehensive view of the World
Historian. Professor Freeman well expressed the idea when he said:
“My position is that in all our studies of history and language--and
the study of language, besides all that it is in other ways, is one
most important branch of the study of history--we must cast away all
distinctions of ‘ancient’ and ‘modern,’ of ‘dead’ and ‘living,’ and
must boldly grapple with the great fact of the unity of history. As
man is the same in all ages, the history of man is one in all ages.
No language, no period of history, can be understood in its fullness;
none can be clothed with its highest interest and its highest profit,
if it be looked at wholly in itself, without reference to its bearing
on those other languages, those other periods of history, which join
with it to make up the great whole of human, or at least of Aryan and
European, being.”
Such a position as this, assumed by one of the most minute searchers
among modern historians, is highly interesting as illustrative of a
reactionary tendency which will probably characterise the historical
work of the near future. Hair-splitting analysis having been carried
to its limits of refinement, there will probably come a reaction in
the direction of a more comprehensive study of historical events
in their wider relations. The work of the specialist, after all,
is really important only when it furnishes material for wider
generalisations. All minute workers in the fields of biology, geology,
and the allied sciences, in the first half of the nineteenth century
were unconsciously gathering material which, interesting in itself,
became of real importance chiefly in so far as it ultimately aided in
elucidating the great generalisation of Darwin. Perhaps the minute
historians of to-day are in similar position.
The special worker, imbued with enthusiasm for his subject, is apt
to forget the real insignificance of his labours. Entire epochs are
dominated by the idea of microscopic research, and the workers even
come to suppose that microscopic analysis is in itself an end; whereas,
rightly considered, it is only the means to an end. We are just passing
through such an epoch as regards historical investigation. But, as just
suggested, it seems probable that we are approaching a new epoch when
the work of the specialist will be subordinated to its true purpose,
while at the same time proving its real value as a means to the proper
end of historical studies--the comprehension of the world-historical
relations of events.
CHAPTER II
MATERIALS FOR THE WRITING OF HISTORY
It is obvious that the materials for the writing of history consist
for the most part of written records. It is true that all manner of
monuments, including the ruins of buried cities, remains of ancient
walls and highways, and all other traces of a former civilisation,
must be allotted their share as records to guide the investigator in
his attempt to reconstruct past conditions. But for anything like a
definite presentation of the events of by-gone days, it is absolutely
essential, as Sir George Cornewall Lewis pointed out in great detail,
to have access to contemporary written records, either at first hand,
or through the medium of copyists, in case the original records
themselves have been destroyed. Lewis reached the conclusion, as the
result of his exhaustive examination of the credibility of early Roman
history, that a tradition of a past event is hardly transmitted orally
from generation to generation with anything like accuracy of detail for
more than a century.
Theoretically, then, no accurate history could ever be constructed of
events covering a longer period than about four generations before
the introduction of writing. In actual practice the scope of the
strictly historic view of man’s progress is confined to very much
narrower limits than this, for the simple reason that the earliest
written records that might otherwise serve to give us glimpses of
remote history have very rarely been preserved. The destruction of
ancient inscriptions with the lapse of centuries has led to a great
deal of difference of opinion as to the time when the art of writing
was introduced among various nations. In reference to the Greeks
in particular, the dispute has been ardently waged, many scholars
contending that the art of writing was little practised in Greece until
the sixth century B.C.
Later discoveries, in particular a knowledge of the inscription on the
statue of Ramses at Abu Simbel, have made it clear that the earlier
estimates were much too conservative, and it now seems probable that
the Greeks had been acquainted with the art of writing for several, or
perhaps many, centuries before the one previously fixed upon. It is
not to be supposed, however, that the practice of the art of writing
was universal in that early day. On the other hand, it was doubtless
very exceptional indeed for the average individual to be able to write,
and such difficulties as the lack of writing material stood in the way
of composition until a relatively late period. But whether the art
of writing was much or little practised in the early days does not
greatly matter so far as the present-day historian is concerned, since
practically all specimens of early writing in Greece disappeared in the
course of succeeding ages. No fragment of any book proper, no scrap of
parchment or papyrus, no single waxen tablet, from the soil of classic
Greece has been preserved to us.
The Greek authors are known to us only through the efforts of
successive generations of copyists; and, with the exception of a
comparatively small number of Egyptian papyri, there is almost nothing
in existence representing the literature of classical Greece that is
older than the middle ages. There are, to be sure, considerable numbers
of monumental inscriptions dating from classical times. These have the
highest interest for the archæologist, but in the aggregate they give
but meagre glimpses into the history of antiquity. If we were dependent
upon these records for all that we know of Greek history, the entire
story of that people might be told, as far as we could ever hope to
learn it, in a few pages.
The case is somewhat different with Egypt and with Mesopotamia,
since the climate of the former and the resistant character of the
writing materials employed by the latter have permitted the modern
world to receive direct messages that, under other circumstances,
must inevitably have been lost. But even here the historical records
are neither so abundant nor so comprehensive in their scope as might
have been hoped. History-writing, in anything like a comprehensive
meaning of the words, is a relatively modern art. The nearest approach
to it among the nations of remote antiquity got no farther than the
recording of the personal deeds of individual kings. Such records,
indeed, are excellent materials for history, but they hardly constitute
history by themselves. The entire lists of Egyptian inscriptions, so
far as known, suffice merely to give glimpses of Egyptian history;
and if the Mesopotamian records are, in this regard, somewhat more
satisfactory, it is only in reference to a comparatively brief
period of later Assyrian history that they can be said to have
anything like comprehensiveness. As to the other nations of Oriental
antiquity,--Indians, Persians, Syrians, the inhabitants of Asia
Minor,--the entire sum of the monumental records that have been
transmitted to us amounts to nothing more than a scattered series of
vague suggestions.
In the classical world Rome is but little better off than Greece in
this regard. As to both these countries, we depend for our knowledge
almost exclusively upon the works of historians of a relatively late
period. Before Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century B.C., there
is almost no consecutive history proper of Greece; and despite all the
efforts of archæologists, records of Roman progress scarcely suffice to
push back the prehistoric veil beyond the time of the banishment of the
kings. Indeed, even for a century or two after this event transpired,
the would-be historian finds himself still on very treacherous ground.
The reason for this is that there were no contemporary historians in
Rome in this early period; and until such contemporary chroniclers
appear, no secure record of history is possible.
Once it became the fashion to write chronicles of events, the custom
rapidly spread and took a fixed hold upon the people. From the day of
Herodotus there was no dearth of Greek historians, and after Polybius
there is an unbroken series of Roman chroniclers.
Had all the writings of these various workers been preserved to us, we
should have abundant material for reconstructing the history of the
entire later classical epoch in much detail; but, unfortunately, the
historian worked with perishable materials. An individual papyrus or
parchment roll could hardly be expected on the average to be preserved
for more than a few generations, and unless copies had been made of it
in the meantime, the record that it contained must inevitably be lost.
Such has been the fate of the great mass of historical writings, no
less than of productions in other fields of literature.
Many of the fragments of ancient writers have come down to us through
rather curious channels. In the later age of Rome it became the
fashion to make anthologies and compilations, and it is through such
collections that the majority of classical authors are known. One of
the most curious of these anthologies is that made by Athenæus about
the beginning of the third century A.D. This author called his work
_Deipnosophistæ_, or the _Feast of the Learned_. He attempted to give
it a somewhat artistic form, making it ostensibly a dialogue in which
the sayings of a company of diners were related to a friend who was not
present at the banquet. The diners were supposed to have introduced
quotations from the classical writers, so that the book is chiefly
made up of such quotations. The work has not come down to us quite in
its entirety, but, even so, no fewer than eight hundred authors and
twenty-five hundred different works are represented in the anthology.
Of these authors about seven hundred are known exclusively through the
excerpts of Athenæus.
Two or three centuries later another Greek named Stobæus compiled a set
of extracts from the Greek writers of all accessible periods prior to
his own. The number of authors quoted in this anthology is more than
five hundred, and here again the major part of them are quite unknown
to us except through this single source. Yet another collection of
excerpts was made in the latter part of the ninth century by Photius,
patriarch of Constantinople, who made excerpts from about 280 authors
with whose works he had familiarised himself through miscellaneous
reading. In addition to these works of individual compilers there
were two or three anthologies compiled in the Byzantine period,
including an important collection of fragments of the Greek poets which
is still extant under the title of _The Greek Anthology_, and the
elaborate set of encyclopædias made under the direction of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus. But for such collections as these, supplemented by
the biographical notices of such workers as Suidas, and by fragments
that have come to us through a few other channels, it would scarcely
have been conceived that so many authors had written in the entire
period of Grecian activity, since only a fraction of this number are
represented by complete works that have come down to us. Such facts as
these give an inkling as to the mental activity of the old-time author,
while pointing a useful lesson as to the perishability of human works.
In this age of easy multiplying of books through printing, one is prone
to forget how precarious must have been the existence of a manuscript
of the elder day. It was a long, laborious task to produce an edition
of a single copy of any extended work, and each successive duplication
was precisely as slow and as difficult as the first. Under these
circumstances no doubt a very considerable proportion of books were
never duplicated at all, and the circulation of a very large additional
number most likely was limited to two or three copies. It was only
works which were early recognised as having an unusual intrinsic
interest or value that stood any reasonable chance of being copied
often enough to insure preservation through many succeeding generations.
As one considers the field of extant manuscripts, one is led naturally
to reflect on the quality of work that was likely thus to insure
perpetuity, and the more we consider the subject, limiting the view
for our present purpose to historical compositions, the more clear
it becomes that the one prime quality that gave a lease of life to
the composition of an author was the quality of human interest. In
other words, such historical compositions as were works of art,
rather than such as depended upon other merits, were the ones which
successive generations of copyists reproduced, and which ultimately
were enabled to pass the final ordeal imposed by the monks of the
middle ages, who made palimpsests of many an author deserving a better
fate. The upshot of this process of the survival of the fittest was
that all Greek would-be historians prior to Herodotus were allowed
to sink into oblivion, causing Herodotus himself to stand out as
apparently the absolute creator of a new art. In point of fact, could
we know the whole truth, it would doubtless appear that there was no
real revolution of method effected by the writings of Herodotus. He
surpassed all of his predecessors in such a measure that the future
copyist saw no necessity for preserving any work but the one, since
this one practically covered the field of all the rest. It is, perhaps,
an ill method of phrasing, to say that these copyists saw no reason
for preserving those earlier manuscripts. There was no thought in
their minds of the preservation of one book and the destruction of
another; they merely copied the work which interested them, or which
they believed would interest the book-buying public. The disappearance
of the works not copied was a mere negative result, about which no one
directly concerned himself.
The proof of the value of the work of Herodotus is found in the fact
that it has come down to us entire in numerous copies, something
that can be said of only three or four other considerable historical
compositions of the entire classical period; two others of this select
company being Thucydides and Xenophon, both of whom were contemporaries
of Herodotus, though considerably younger, and therefore, properly
enough, counted as belonging to the next generation. Of the other Greek
historians, the biographical works of Plutarch, the works of Strabo
and Pausanius, which are geographical rather than strictly historical,
and the _Life of Alexander the Great_ by Arrian, are the sole ones of
the large number undoubtedly written that have come down to us intact.
A survey of the Roman historians furnishes an even more striking
illustration, for here no one of the great historical works has been
preserved in its entirety. Livy’s monumental work is entire as to the
earlier books, which treat of the mythical and half-mythical period of
Roman development; but the parts of it that treated of later Roman
history, concerning which the author could have spoken, and probably
did speak, with first-hand knowledge, are almost entirely lost. In
other words, the copyists of the middle ages preserved the least
valuable portion of Livy, doubtless because they found the hero tales
of mythical Rome more interesting than the matter-of-fact recitals of
the events of the later republic and the early empire. We can hardly
suppose that Livy detailed the events of the later period with less
art than characterised his earlier work, but different conditions were
imposed upon him. He had now to deal with much fuller records than
hitherto, and no doubt he treated many subjects that seemed important
to him, simply because they were near at hand, but which another
generation found tiresome and not worth the trouble of copying. Thus
we see emphasised again the salient point that the interesting story
rather than the important historical narrative proved itself most fit
for preservation in the estimate of posterity.
Of the other great historians of Rome, Tacitus, Dionysius, Dion
Cassius, Polybius, have all fared rather worse than Livy, although
a few briefer masterpieces, like the two histories of Sallust and
the _Gallic Wars_ of Cæsar, and such biographies as the “Lives” of
Suetonius and Cornelius Nepos, were able to fight their way through the
middle ages and gain the safe shelter of the printing-press without
material loss.
But perhaps the most suggestive example of all is furnished by the
brief world history of Justin, which, if not quite entire, has been
preserved as to its main structure in various manuscripts. This work is
an artistic epitome of a large, and in its day authoritative, history
of the world, written by Trogus Pompeius. Justin, when a student in
Rome in the day of the early Cæsars, was led to make an epitome of
this work, seemingly as proof to his friends in the provinces that
he was not wasting his time. He did his task so well that future
generations saw no reason to trouble themselves with the prolixities of
the original work, but were content to copy and re-copy the epitome,
pointing the moral that brevity, next to artistic excellence, is the
surest road to permanent remembrance for the historian,--a lesson which
many modern writers have overlooked to their disadvantage.
CHAPTER III
THE METHODS OF THE HISTORIANS
It is a curious fact, a seeming paradox, that the first two great
histories ever written--the histories, namely, of Herodotus and
Thucydides--should stand out pre-eminently as types of two utterly
different methods of historical writing. Herodotus, “the Father of
History,” wrote with the obvious intention to entertain. There is no
great logicality of sequence in his use of materials; he simply rambles
on from one subject to another with little regard for chronology, but
with the obvious intention everywhere to tell all the good stories
that he has learned in the course of his journeyings. It would be
going much too far to say that there is no method in his collocation
of materials, but what method he has is quite generally overshadowed
and obscured in the course of presentation. Thus, for example, he is
writing the history of the Persian wars, and he has reached that time
in the history of Persia when Cambyses comes to the throne and prepares
to invade Egypt. The mention of Egypt gives him, as it were, the cue
for an utterly new discourse, which he elaborates to the extent of an
entire book, detailing all that he has learned of Egypt itself, its
history, its people, and their manners and customs, without, for the
most part, referring in any way whatever to Cambyses. He returns to the
Persian king ultimately, to be sure, and takes up his story regardless
of the digression, and seemingly quite oblivious of any incongruity
in the fact of having introduced very much more extraneous matter
in reference to Egypt than the entire subject matter proper of the
Persian Empire. The method of Herodotus was justified by the results.
There is every reason to believe that he was enormously popular in his
own time,--as popularity went in those days,--and he has held that
popularity throughout all succeeding generations. But it has been said
of him often enough that this work is hardly a history in the narrower
sense of the word; it is a pleasing collection of tales, in which no
very close attempt is made to discriminate between fact and fiction,
the prime motive being to entertain the reader. As such, the work of
Herodotus stands at the head of a class which has been represented by
here and there a striking example throughout all succeeding times.
Xenophon’s _Anabasis_, detailing the story of Cyrus the Younger and his
ten thousand Greek allies, is essentially a history of the same type.
It differs radically, to be sure, from Herodotus, in that it holds with
the closest consistency to a single narrative, scarcely giving the
barest glimpses into any other field than that directly connected with
the story of the ten thousand. But it is like Herodotus in the prime
essential that its motive is to entertain the reader by the citation of
the incidents of a venturesome enterprise. Xenophon does indeed pause
at the beginning of the second book long enough to pronounce a eulogy
upon the character of Cyrus,--a eulogy that is distinctly the biased
estimate of a friend, rather than the calm judgment of a critical
historian. But this aside, Xenophon, philosopher though he is, concerns
himself not at all with the philosophy of the subject in hand. He quite
ignores the immoral features of the rebellion of Cyrus against his
brother. Indeed, it seems never to occur to him that this fratricidal
enterprise has any reprehensible features, or could be considered in
any light other than that of a commendable proceeding of which a throne
was the legitimate goal. Doubtless the very fact of this banishment
of the philosophical from the work of Xenophon has been one source
of its great popularity, for, as every one knows, Xenophon shares
with Herodotus the credit of being the most widely read of classical
authors. It would be quite aside from the present purpose to emphasise
the opinion that the intrinsic merit of Xenophon’s work does not fully
justify this popularity. It suffices here to note the fact that this
famous work of the successor of Herodotus belongs essentially to the
same class with the work of the master himself.
Of the Roman historians doubtless the one most similar to Herodotus in
general aim was Livy. The author of the most famous history of Rome
does not indeed make any such excursions into the history of outlying
nations, as did Herodotus, but he details the history of his own
people with an eye always to the literary, rather than to the strictly
historical, side; transmitting to us in their best form that series
of beautiful legends with which all succeeding generations have been
obliged to content themselves in lieu of history proper. There is
little of philosophical thought, little of search for motives, in such
history-writing as this. It is essentially the art of the story-teller
applied to the facts and fables of history.
Returning now to Thucydides, we have illustrated, as has been said,
an utterly different plan and motive. Thucydides does indeed tell
the story of the Peloponnesian War; tells it, moreover, with such
wealth of detail as no other historian of antiquity exceeded, and few
approached. But in addition to narrating the plain facts, Thucydides
searches always for the motives. He gives us an insight into the causes
of events as he conceives them. He is obviously thinking more of this
phase of the subject than of the mere recital of the facts themselves.
It is the philosophy of history, rather than the story of history, that
appeals to him, and that he wishes to make patent to the reader.
Only two or three other writers of the entire classical period whose
works have come down to us followed Thucydides with any considerable
measure of success in this attempt to write history philosophically;
the two most prominent exponents of this method being the Greek
Polybius, who told the story of Rome’s rise to world power, and
Tacitus, the famous author of the _Roman Annals_ and of the earliest
history of the German people. These three examples--Thucydides,
Polybius, and Tacitus--stand out at once in refutation of a claim
which might otherwise be made that philosophical, or, if one prefers,
didactic, historical composition is essentially a modern product.
But for these exceptions one might be disposed to make a sweeping
generalisation to the effect that the old-time history was a collection
of tales intended to entertain the reader, and that the strictly modern
historical method aims at instruction rather than at entertainment.
Such generalisations, however, assuming, as they do, that the entire
trend of human thought has fundamentally changed within historical
times, are sure to be faulty. Quite possibly it may be true to say
that the earliest historians tended as a class to write entertaining
narratives rather than philosophical histories; and to say, on the
other hand, that nineteenth century historians as a class have reversed
the order of motives: but it must not be forgotten that our judgment
here is based upon a mere fragment of the entire output of ancient
historians. We have already noticed, in another connection, that
the names of some hundreds of Greek writers have been preserved to
us solely through a single anthological collection or two; and now,
speaking of the historical works, it must be remembered that a vast
number of these have perished altogether. Whole companies of historians
are known to us only by name, and there is every reason to suppose
that considerable other companies that once existed and wrote works
of greater or less importance have not left us even this memento. The
scattered fragments of Greek historical works that have come down to
us, dissociated from any considerable part of their original context,
fill three large volumes of the famous Didot collection of Greek
classics, as edited by K. O. Müller; some hundreds of authors being
represented.
We have noted that all the predecessors of Herodotus were blotted out,
chiefly, perhaps, by the excellence of the work of Herodotus himself.
Similarly the entire histories of Alexander the Great, written by
his associates and contemporaries and his successors of the ensuing
century, have without exception perished utterly.
Doubtless the excellence of the work of Arrian, which summarised and
attempted to harmonise the contents of the more important preceding
histories of Alexander, was responsible for the final elimination of
the latter. One can hardly refer too often to that intellectual gantlet
of the middle ages, which all classical literature was called upon to
pass, and from which only here and there a work emerged. It is almost
pathetic to consider the number of works that made their way heroically
almost through this gantlet, only to succumb just before achieving the
goal. One knows, for example, that there was a work of Theopompus on
later Grecian affairs, in fifty odd books, which was extant in the
ninth century, as proved by the summary of its contents made then by
a monk, but of which no single line is in existence to-day. Even the
works that have come down to us in a less fragmentary condition have
not usually been preserved entire in any single manuscript, but, as
presented to us now, are patched together from various fragments,
preserved often in widely separated collections. The explanation
is that the copying of a manuscript of great length was a somewhat
heroic task, and that hence the copyist would often content himself
with excerpting a single book from a work which he would gladly have
reproduced entire but for the labour involved.
The point of all this in our present connection is that we know the
historians of antiquity very imperfectly, and that hence we are almost
sure to misjudge them as a class when we attempt generalisations
concerning them. In the very nature of the case, the historian who
told a good story in a pleasing style stood a far better chance of
being perpetuated through the efforts of copyists, than did the
philosophical historian, however profound, who put forward his theories
at the expense of the narrative proper. Making all due allowance for
this, however, it can hardly be in doubt that the last century and a
half has seen a remarkable development of the scientific spirit in
its application to the work of the historian, and that the average
historical work of the nineteenth century is philosophically on a far
higher plane than the average historical work of antiquity. If we
were to attempt to characterise the most recent phases of historical
composition, we should, perhaps, not go far afield in saying that in
regard to history-writing, as in regard to many other subjects, this
is pre-eminently the age of specialists. In recent years no historical
work could hope for any large measure of recognition among historians,
unless it were based upon personal investigation of the most remote
sources bearing upon the period that could be made accessible. The
recent period has been pre-eminently a time of the searching out
of obscure or forgotten records; the unburying of old letters and
state papers; the delving into hitherto neglected archives; and the
critical analysis of the conflicting statements of alleged authorities
previously accessible.
The work began prominently--if any intellectual movement may properly
be said to have an explicit beginning--with Gibbon and Niebuhr; it was
continued by Grote and Mommsen and George Cornewall Lewis and Clinton,
and the host of more recent workers, whose specific labours will claim
our attention as we proceed. Naturally enough, since each generation
of specialists builds upon the labours of all preceding generations,
the work has become more and more minute and hair-splitting with each
succeeding decade. Gibbon, specialist though he was, covered a period
of a thousand years of European history, and left scarcely anything
untouched that falls properly within that period. Niebuhr specialised
on the few centuries of early Roman history, but his comprehensive view
reached out also to Greece and to the Orient, and he was accounted
a master over the whole range of ancient history. Mommsen’s efforts
have followed the Roman Republic and Empire throughout the length
and breadth of its wide domains, and over the whole period of its
existence, as well as into all the ramifications of its political,
commercial, and social life.
But there has been a tendency among most recent workers to confine
their attention to a narrower field. Macaulay’s _History of England_
attempts the really detailed history of only about seventeen years.
Carlyle devotes six large volumes to the _History of Frederick the
Great_, and such authorities as Freeman and Stubbs and Gardiner
and Gairdner gave years of patient research to the investigation of
single periods of English history. The obvious result of all this
minute and laborious effort is the piling up of a mass of more or less
incoördinate details as to the crude facts of history, which only
the specialist in each particular field can hope to master, and the
remoter bearings of which in their relations to world history are not
always clearly appreciable. It is rarely given to the same mind to have
a taste or a capacity at once for minute research and for broad and
accurate generalisation. Therefore much of the work of the specialist,
admirable in its kind, must still be regarded rather as crude material
than as a finished product. It is the work of the world historian to
attempt to mass this crude material, to visualise it in its relations
to other similar masses, and to build with it a unified structure of
history, in which each portion shall appear in its proper relations to
all the rest.
Let us turn for a moment to the work of the world historians of the
past, and glance at the results of their various efforts to weld the
individual history of men and of nations into a comprehensive history
of mankind.
CHAPTER IV
WORLD HISTORIES
No historian worthy of the name can narrate the events even of a
limited period without at least an inferential reference to the
world-historic import of these events. Just in proportion as one fails
to take a sweeping general view, the force of his facts is weakened;
any narrow period of history, on which the attention is fixed, assumes,
for the time being, a disproportionate interest, and is necessarily
seen quite out of perspective. It is only when the limited period
is considered in reference to other periods that it can be made to
assume anything like its proper status. Something of this has been
understood by all writers from the earliest times, and accordingly
we find that very few of the ancient authors failed to take at least
a sweeping view of contemporaneous events, even when detailing
specifically the incidents of a restricted period; and often, as in
the case of Herodotus, the space devoted to the history of events
not strictly cognate to the main story is quite out of proportion to
that reserved for the main story itself. Thus in a certain sense the
history of Herodotus is a world history, inasmuch as it deals more or
less comprehensively with practically all nations known to the Greeks
of that time. Thucydides, as we have seen, confines himself much more
closely to a precise text; yet even he devotes an introductory book to
a summary of the past history of the Greeks as a preparation for the
full understanding of the Peloponnesian War.
But, after all, a somewhat sharp distinction should be drawn between
histories such as these, which ostensibly describe the incidents of
a particular period, and more comprehensive treatises, which set the
explicit task of dealing with the history of all nations in all times.
Of the works of this latter class,--World Histories proper,--the oldest
one that has come down to us is at the same time probably the most
comprehensive in scope, and the most extensive in point of matter, of
any that was written in ancient times. This is the so-called Historical
Library of Diodorus the Sicilian. Diodorus was a Greek, a native of
Sicily, who lived during the time of Julius Cæsar and of Augustus. He
set himself the explicit task of writing a comprehensive history of
the world, and he devoted thirty years to the accomplishment of this
task. This history, as originally written, comprised forty books, which
treated of the entire history of mankind from the earliest times to the
age of Augustus. Diodorus recognised the vagueness of early chronology,
and he made no attempt to estimate the exact age of the world, but he
computes the time covered by what he considers the historic period
proper, in the following terms:
“According to Apollodorus, we have accounted fourscore years from
the Trojan War to the return of Heraclides: from thence to the first
olympiad, three hundred and twenty-eight years, computing the times
from the Lacedæmonian kings: from the first olympiad to the beginning
of the Gallic War (where our history ends) are seven hundred and thirty
years: so that our whole work (comprehended in forty books) is an
history which takes in the affairs of eleven hundred and thirty-eight
years, besides those times that preceded the Trojan War.”
In his preface Diodorus further explains the exact scope of his work
and the precise division in the books in the following words:
“Our first six books comprehend the affairs and mythologies of the ages
before the Trojan War, of which the three first contain the barbarian,
and the next following almost all the Grecian antiquities. In the
eleven next after these, we have given an account of what has been
done in every place from the time of the Trojan War till the death of
Alexander. In the three and twenty books following, we have set forth
all other things and affairs, till the beginning of the war the Romans
made upon the Gauls; at which time Julius Cæsar, the emperor (who upon
the account of his great achievements was surnamed Divus), having
subdued the warlike nations of the Gauls, enlarged the Roman Empire, as
far as to the British Isles; whose first acts fall in with the first
year of the hundred and eightieth olympiad, when Herodes was chief
magistrate at Athens. But as to the limitations of times contained
in the work, we have not bound those things that happened before the
Trojan War within any certain limits, because we could not find any
foundation whereon to rely with any certainty.”
Of these forty books only fifteen have come down to us intact, namely,
the first five, which carry down the history only to the Trojan wars,
and books eleven to twenty, which cover the period from the invasion
of Greece by Xerxes to the subjugation of Greece by the Romans. The
remaining books are represented by considerable fragments, which,
however, even in the aggregate, are insignificant in bulk as compared
with the fifteen books that are preserved entire.
Considering the time when it was written, this work of Diodorus was
really an extraordinary production, though there has been a tendency on
the part of the modern critic to dwell rather upon its defects than its
merits. It has indeed become quite the fashion to speak of Diodorus as
a weak-minded, prejudiced person, who gathered together materials for
history from all sources indiscriminately, and gave them to the world,
true and false together, quite unsifted by criticism. Such an estimate,
however, does Diodorus a very great injustice, as the briefest perusal
of his work must suffice to demonstrate. Indeed, it is perhaps not
saying too much to assert that one would be nearer the truth were he to
accept an estimate by Pliny, who affirms that Diodorus was the first
of the Greeks who wrote seriously and avoided trifles. That Diodorus
did write seriously, his work clearly testifies; that he largely
avoided trifles, is shown by the mass of matter which he crowded into
a comparatively small space; and that he was far from using his
materials without exercising selective judgment, should be evident to
any one who scans these materials themselves. It is quite true that he
made many mistakes. He sometimes accepted as fact what was only fable,
his chronologies are not always secure, his narratives of events not
always photographically accurate. But consider the task he had set
himself. He was endeavouring to write a history of the entire world so
far as known in his day and generation, including within the scope of
his narrative all the leading events of all the nations of the globe as
known in that day. No man can perform such a task, even in this day of
multiplied records and edited authorities, without making mistakes.
Whoever attempts to write history philosophically is brought, sooner or
later, face to face with the fact that all historical records are woven
through and through with fiction. To separate the threads of truth
from the threads of fable is the task of critical judgment. It will be
perfectly clear to any one who considers the case, that in making such
selection the historian of any generation must be biased and influenced
by the prejudices and preconceptions of his time. From such prejudices
and preconceptions Diodorus was, of course, not free. He looked out
upon the world with eyes of the first century B.C., not with eyes of
the twentieth century A.D. That century, no less than this,--perhaps
not more than this,--was an age of faith and superstition; but the
faith of that time was not the faith of this time; the superstitions of
the Greek and Roman were not our superstitions. They were a credulous
people; we are a credulous people: but the exact type of their
credulity differed in many ways from the type of our credulity.
In judging Diodorus, then, one must judge him as a Roman of the first
century B.C., not as a European of the twentieth century A.D. And if
we bear this in mind, we shall find, after scanning his pages, that
Diodorus was by no means marked among his fellows by simple credulity
of the unquestioning type which accepts whatever is told it without
subjecting it to criticism. Diodorus, to be sure, tells us fabulous
tales as to the origin of the world and the creation of its various
peoples; but he explicitly forewarns us that he tells these tales, not
as matters of his own belief, but in order to make an historical record
of the opinions current among the different nations themselves as to
their own origin.
These tales seem to us fabulous, grotesque, absurd; but we have no
reason to doubt that many of them seemed equally mythical to Diodorus
himself; and modern criticism should not forget that there is one other
myth tale of the creation of the world and the origin of a particular
race, which, had Diodorus known it, he would doubtless have narrated
with the rest, and viewed with the same scepticism which he shows
towards the others, as being fabulous, grotesque, and absurd, but which
would have been accepted by the critics of all Christendom, in every
age prior to our own, as the authentic historical record of the actual
creation of the earth, and as the true account of its chosen people.
In a word, modern criticism should bear in mind, when reproaching
Diodorus and others like him for their credulity, that the accepted
faith of nineteenth-century Europe would have seemed to Diodorus as
absurd and fabulous and mythical as any tale which he has to tell us
can seem to the twentieth-century critic.
And as to the mistakes of Diodorus in the more strictly historical
portions of his narrative, these also must be viewed with a certain
toleration by every candid critic when he reflects upon the vast
preponderance of those cases in which the records of Diodorus are
worthy of the fullest credence. In considering these matters, it is
very easy, indeed, to generate myths that befog our view of the true
status of an ancient author. Thus, for example, it was once traditional
to regard Thucydides as the most candid, just, and impartial historian
who has ever lived; but it can hardly be in doubt that the real reason
why this estimate has grown up about the name of Thucydides is the fact
that, as Professor Mahaffy points out, Thucydides is the sole authority
for the history of most of the period of which he treats. It has even
been admitted by Müller that in the early portion of the first chapter
of Thucydides, where he treats on Grecian history in general, and up
to the Peloponnesian War, he does not manifest the same impartiality
which distinguishes him in the later portions of his narrative. But
it is precisely in this earlier chapter that Thucydides deals with
events that are recorded by other historians. It is here, and for the
most part here alone, that his story can be checked by data from other
authors. Could we similarly check the story of the Peloponnesian War
in general, it can hardly be in doubt that we should come across at
least some discrepancies which would have tended materially to modify
the almost idolatrous estimate of Thucydides that came to be, and long
continued to be, unquestionably associated with his name.
Making the application of this thought to Diodorus, it is evident at
once that the historian of a limited period of antiquity lays himself
open to no such range of comparison as he who undertakes to write the
history of the entire world. In the very nature of the case, such a
writer pits himself against the whole company of specialists; and,
after all, it is hardly surprising, should it be susceptible of proof,
that in several, or all, fields there are specialists whose accuracy
excels the accuracy of Diodorus in each particular field. Surely the
comprehensiveness of his task must count for something in the estimate,
and, when all this is taken into consideration, it may fairly be
repeated that the general estimate of modern criticism has done but
scant justice to the author of the first attempt ever made to write a
complete and comprehensive history of the world.
Moreover, it must not be forgotten that in his use of authorities
Diodorus sometimes showed a selective judgment that is entitled to the
fullest praise. A notable instance is found in his treatment of that
period of Grecian history following the Peloponnesian War, when the
Spartans and the Thebans were contending for supremacy. It was treated
by Xenophon in his _Hellenica_, and as Xenophon was actual witness of
many of the events which he describes, the presumption would be that
his authority for the period might be considered incontestable. But
in point of fact, Xenophon, philosopher though he was and pupil of
Socrates, was not above the influence of personal prejudice. He was a
friend of Agesilaus, and his admiration for that hero, as well as his
fondness for the Spartans in general, prejudiced his narrative to such
an extent that he did very scant justice to the merits of the great
Epaminondas. Indeed, were we to trust to Xenophon alone, the world
never would have had in later times anything like a just appreciation
of the merits of the great Theban, and since Xenophon’s account of this
period is the only contemporary one that has been preserved, it was a
rare chance, indeed, that preserved to posterity a just appreciation of
the greatest of the Thebans, whom some critics are wont to consider the
greatest of all the Greeks; and it is Diodorus whom we must thank for
doing this historic justice to a great man whose merits might otherwise
have been obscured by the personal prejudice of a contemporary
historian.
Diodorus, in treating this period, chose as his authority, not
Xenophon, but Aphorus. Just how he came to this decision is not known;
it suffices that the decision was a good one. None but a prejudiced
critic can doubt that in many other cases his judgment was equally
perspicuous in selecting among divergent accounts the one of greatest
verisimilitude.
A part of the relative neglect which has fallen to the lot of Diodorus
may be ascribed to the manner of his handling. He threw his work into
the form of annals, in which a chronological idea was predominant.
He gives the history of a nation in a given year, and then turns
aside to other nations, to follow the fortunes of each in turn over
the same period. Necessarily, under such a treatment, the whole plan
lacks continuity. One must break from one subject to another, must
turn from Assyria to Egypt, from Greece to Rome, in order to follow
the story through constantly broken chapters. Naturally, under such
treatment, the reader’s interest flags. From a popular standpoint, such
a treatment is clearly a mistake.
The plan of Herodotus, which took up the story of each nation, and
carried it through a long period uninterruptedly, has many advantages;
is infinitely more artistic. It is chiefly due to this treatment,
rather than the actual phrasing of his story, that Herodotus has gained
so much more universal fame than Diodorus; for in those parts of his
history in which he does attempt a continuous narrative, Diodorus shows
much skill as a story-teller. In the earlier portion of his work, that
portion which, fortunately, has in the main been preserved to us, when
dealing with what he regards as the fabulous history of the nations
prior to the establishment of a fixed chronology, his narrative runs on
continuously, suggesting in many ways that of the Father of History.
It was so with his treatment of early Egypt, and with his even more
interesting history of ancient Assyria. These parts alone of his work
serve to make him one of the most important authors of antiquity whose
writings have been preserved to us, and we shall have occasion to draw
largely upon him for the history of this period.
What has just been said about the attitude of modern critics toward
Diodorus must not be taken to imply that this earliest of great world
historians has, on the whole, failed of an appreciative audience. The
facts of the case amply refute such a supposition as this. An author
writes to be read, and in the last resort the only valid criterion as
to the value of his work is found in the preservation or neglect of
that work by successive generations of readers.
Tested by this standard, very few of the ancient writers have obtained
such a measure of appreciation as has been accorded to Diodorus.
Something like three-fourths of what he wrote has been lost, it is
true; but in fairly estimating the import of this, one must consider
the bulk of what remains. The briefest comparison supplies us with
some very interesting data. It appears that, of the entire series of
the predecessors of Diodorus, no single historian has left us anything
like a comparable bulk of extant matter. Only one predecessor in any
field of literature, namely, Aristotle, greatly exceeds him in this
regard, and a single other writer, Plato, about equals him. Turning to
the contemporaries of Diodorus and to his successors in the use of the
Greek language, a similar result is shown. A single writer exceeds him
in output. This is Plutarch, the biographer and philosopher rather than
historian proper. No other Greek writer in any field equals Diodorus,
though two historians, Dion Cassius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, are
within hailing distance. When one reflects on the actual labour implied
by the preservation of any manuscript throughout the long generations
of the middle ages, these data speak volumes for the aggregate judgment
passed upon the work of Diodorus by posterity. Of the long list of
Greek historians,--a list mounting far into the hundreds, as proved
by fragmentary remains,--only three as ancient as Diodorus have fared
better than he, these three being Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon.
But the entire bulk of the works of these three writers does not so
very greatly exceed the bulk of the extant writings of Diodorus. The
works of Herodotus and Thucydides together do not comprise more matter
than is contained in books eleven to twenty of Diodorus, which are
preserved _en bloc_.
It would, of course, be absurd to imply that the mere bulk of the
manuscripts preserved before the age of printing is a test of the
value of an ancient author’s work; but, on the other hand, bearing in
mind always the labour employed in the production of a single copy
of a large work, it would be equally absurd to deny that the bulk of
manuscripts has a certain bearing upon the value of the matter which
they preserve. No doubt many a scribe would be deterred from starting
out to copy manuscript by the great bulk of the work, and where he
had no great preference, would be influenced by this alone to choose
a smaller book. Again, doubtless many a scribe wearied of his task in
the case of the more ponderous works, and gave it up after copying a
few books. This common-sense explanation no doubt accounts for the
fact that quite generally the earlier books rather than the later ones
of works that have come down to us in a fragmentary condition are
the ones preserved. Had Herodotus and Thucydides written forty books
instead of eight or nine, it is very unlikely that even their genius
would have sufficed to preserve the entire number. The case of Livy,
whose work, despite the beauty of its style, has come down to us so
sadly mutilated, sufficiently sustains this supposition. It is nothing
against the merit of Diodorus, then, to reflect that half his work is
lost; the wonder is rather that so much of it has been preserved.
We have dwelt thus at length upon the work of Diodorus because it
is a work that may be taken as in many ways representative of world
histories in general. Certainly it was by far the greatest world
history produced in antiquity, of the exact merits of which we have
any present means of judging. Indeed, there is only one other world
history that has come down to us, and this, the work of Justin, is in
itself only an abridgment of the writing of another author, Trogus
Pompeius. Considering when it was written, this work of Trogus, if we
may judge from the abridgment, was an admirable production, and the
abridgment itself is of great value in throwing light on some periods
that otherwise are not well covered by extant documents. As a whole,
however, it is a compendium of history rather than a comprehensive
work like that of Diodorus. Of the works of the other world historians
of antiquity it is impossible to speak with any measure of certainty.
Polybius accredited Aphorus with being the only man who had written
a world history before his day. It is known that Aphorus lived in
the fifth century B.C., and that he was a fellow-pupil of another
historian, Theopompus, in the famous school of Isocrates at Athens;
but his work is only known to us through inadequate fragments and the
indirect quotations of other authors. The same is true of the works of
Theopompus just referred to, and of Timæus, another Greek whose writing
had something of world historic comprehensiveness. But, even had these
works been preserved, it may well be doubted whether any one of them
would compare favourably with the great history of Diodorus, which must
stand out for all time as the greatest illustration of the writing of
world history in antiquity.
Diodorus, as we have seen, brought his work down to the time of the
Gallic wars of Cæsar. There are references in his writing which imply
that he lived well into the time of Augustus. He probably died not long
before the beginning of the Christian era.
No Greek of later time and no Roman of any period produced a work
that supplanted the history of Diodorus, though most of the Byzantine
historians produced chronicles, many of which had more or less aspect
of world history in epitome. Several of these have been preserved, but
no one thinks of comparing them with the work of the older writer. The
chronological work of Eusebius, however, deserves a word of special
mention. It was a mere epitome of world history, but a relatively
comprehensive one, and one which, through the loss of more pretentious
works, has come to be of great value to the modern historian. It was
written originally in Greek, but the most important copy of it that
has come down to us is, curiously enough, an Armenian translation.
It is the Latin translation of this Armenian manuscript that is the
work usually referred to by modern historians in speaking of Eusebius.
The encyclopædia of history compiled for Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
to which reference has already been made, must also be mentioned as
a world history of real importance. It was based almost exclusively
upon Greek authors, who were quoted at length, with such abbreviations
or modifications as were made necessary in adjusting the various
texts to one another. As a means of preserving the work of numerous
important Greek historians this collection had the utmost value, but,
unfortunately, it has come down to us in a much mutilated condition.
During the Byzantine period the minds of would-be historians of the
Western world were so occupied with ecclesiastical quarrels and the
chronicles of local princes, that no one thought of world histories in
the broader sense. We should be thankful that here and there a monk
had interest and energy enough to copy the ancient authors, and thus
in part to preserve them. Considering the intellectual atmosphere of
the time, the wonder is, not that so many of the pagan authors were
lost, but rather that any of them were preserved. Yet there were
occasional gleams of light, even in the so-called dark age. Such a one
of peculiar interest to the English reader is found in the fact that
King Alfred translated into Anglo-Saxon the compendious world history
of Orosius, a work that otherwise would be but little known to fame,
but which, thanks to its brevity of treatment, and to this very unusual
distinction of translation into a “barbaric tongue,” no doubt served
a most excellent purpose in giving to the Anglo-Saxons of the ninth
century a glimpse of the events of ancient times.
The best guide to the historic point of view of the generations that
ushered in what we are accustomed to think of as the modern period
is furnished by the _History of the World_ which Sir Walter Raleigh
wrote toward the close of his life, late in the sixteenth century.
Raleigh was not an historian from choice, but was led to his task as a
diversion during the time of his imprisonment. The work as far as he
completed it is in five books, the titles of which are instructive.
First book, “In treating of the First Ages of the World, from the
Creation to Abraham.” Second book, “Of the Times from the Birth of
Abraham to the Destruction of the Temple of Solomon.” Third book, “From
the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Time of Philip of Macedon.” Fourth
book, “From the Reign of Philip of Macedon to the Establishing of that
Kingdom in the Race of Antigonus.” Fifth book, “From the Settled Rule
of Alexander’s Successors in the East, until the Romans (prevailing
over all) made Conquest of Asia and Macedon.”
It will appear that Raleigh did not carry his history beyond the
early Roman period, yet, even so, it is a very bulky book, comprising
more than eight hundred enormous quarto pages, an actual bulk far
exceeding the extant portions of Diodorus. Raleigh very generally names
his authorities in the margin, but even had he failed to do so, it
would be easy to understand the sources on which he must have drawn.
Obviously he depended largely upon the Bible for the early history of
mankind, and for the rest he had access, no doubt, to the dozen or
so of classical authors whose names we have had occasion to mention
again and again. Naturally enough, the pages of Raleigh seem archaic
to the modern reader, yet passages are not wanting which show the
shrewd practical insight of the courtier and statesman. As a whole, the
work had sufficient interest to be reprinted in 1687, a century after
the author’s death. Indeed, until this time there was practically no
world history in the field in competition with Raleigh’s that had been
written since classical times. It is a curious commentary on the life
of the post-classical times and of the middle ages that between the
work of Diodorus, written just before the beginning of the Christian
era, and the work altogether similar in scope of Sir Walter Raleigh,
written sixteen hundred years later, there was no world history
produced that is strictly comparable to either. Nor did the seventeenth
century produce any marked change in the situation as regards the
literature of world history.
The true renaissance of history writing came with the eighteenth
century. About 1730 an English publisher was led to notice the paucity
of recent literature in this field, and to project a universal history
of the widest scope. Such men as Archibald Bower, John Campbell,
William Guthrie, George Sale, George Psalmanazar, and John Swinton
were associated in the undertaking, and in the course of the following
twenty years a long series of volumes dealing with all phases of
universal history, except, curiously enough, the history of Great
Britain, was brought to a close. A subsequent edition, modified and
improved as regards the earlier volumes, and supplemented with an
account of English history, was published toward the close of the
eighteenth century, the editor being the famous Dr. Tobias Smollett.
This work, the first important history of the world produced in modern
times, excited great interest. It is odd to reflect in the light of
more recent events that the work was translated into various European
languages, including German. The production of this work was a notable
achievement, but the various parts of the work had widely different
degrees of merit. A competent German critic, writing about the middle
of the nineteenth century, conceded that the parts of the universal
history referring to antiquity were fairly well done, but noted that
the treatment of the middle ages was superficial, and the treatment of
modern history even worse.
Inasmuch as the history of antiquity has been very largely
reconstructed within the past fifty years, it will be obvious that the
universal history in question cannot now be regarded with other than an
antiquarian interest. Nevertheless, it contains numberless descriptive
passages, which are as historically accurate and as interesting to-day
as they were when written.
The impulse to historical composition, of which this universal history
is a monumental proof, found expression a little later in the great
histories of Hume and Robertson and Gibbon. Thanks to these writers,
England was easily in advance of all other countries at the close of
the eighteenth century in the matter of historical composition. Indeed,
as to world histories she was first, without a second. Early in the
nineteenth century, however, a great world history was produced in
Germany. This was the work of Schlosser. In its earliest form this
work was completed in 1824; it was a strictly technical production.
But about twenty years later a pupil of Schlosser, under the direction
of the author himself, elaborated a popular edition of the world
history, which soon had an enormous circulation in Germany, and which
in recurring editions still finds a multitude of readers. This work
of Schlosser’s would probably have been translated into English were
it not that the field had been preoccupied by another great universal
history. This was the work which Dr. Lardner edited, and which began
to appear in 1830, about a century after the inauguration of that
first universal history in English to which we have just referred. Dr.
Lardner’s work, like its English predecessor, was produced by a company
of specialists; but it differed from the other in that each volume
or set of volumes dealing with a period or country was written by a
specialist whose authorship was acknowledged on the title-page, whereas
the previous work had been altogether anonymous. In other words, it
was essentially a collection of monographs, each by a more or less
distinguished authority, which, in the aggregate, constituted a history
of the world. The work as a whole comprised a large number of volumes.
Needless to say the component parts were of varying merit; but as a
whole the work was an excellent one, and many of the volumes still have
value, though necessarily much of their contents is antiquated.
The production of the popular edition of Schlosser’s world history
in Germany marked an epoch in this class of literature. Almost
contemporaneously with this production several other world histories
saw the light in Germany, and from that day to this world histories
have come from the German press in unbroken succession. These are
varied in scope, from the marvellously compressed and beautifully
philosophical work of Rottock in four small volumes, published about
1830, to the gigantic Oncken series, which is just completed. In this
list of German world histories the works of Bekker, of Leo, and of
Weiss hold conspicuous places, in addition to those just named. But
perhaps the most notable of all is the world history of Dr. George
Weber. This work of Dr. Weber occupied the author during the best years
of his life. It is in eighteen volumes, and occupied about twenty years
in passing through the press. We shall have occasion to refer more at
length to Dr. Weber’s work in another place, as well as to quote from
it frequently. Suffice it here that Dr. Weber may justly be called the
Diodorus of modern times, his work being certainly the most complete
and comprehensive exposition of world history that has ever issued from
a single pen.
One other world history of German origin must be mentioned as holding
a place beside that of Weber. This is the work of Ranke. It is very
different in plan from Weber’s, in some ways more philosophical, and
often less detailed in its narrative of events. The author, recognised
as almost the greatest of German historians, began the work late in
life, and brought to bear upon it perhaps as full an equipment of
historical knowledge in divers fields as any single man has ever
attained. Unfortunately, he did not live to complete his work, which,
as it stands, comes only to the close of the middle ages, and which,
therefore, cannot be compared in its entirety with the completed work
of Weber.
The most recent of all the great German world histories, the Oncken
series, just referred to, is a work built essentially upon the plan of
Dr. Lardner’s series of the early part of the century. Each volume of
the Oncken series is written virtually as an independent work by an
authority, and there is no close bond between the various component
parts of the structure, though doubtless an attempt was made on the
part of the editor to have the various authors conform somewhat to the
same scheme of treatment. The work comprises about fifty very large
octavo volumes, being therefore the bulkiest, as it is the most recent,
of world histories.
CHAPTER V
THE PRESENT HISTORY
It is a singular fact that since the publication of Dr. Lardner’s
series in the first half of the nineteenth century, no satisfactory
attempt has been made to bring the entire story of the world’s history
to the attention of the English reader in a single work. While the
presses of Germany have sent out their never ending stream of world
histories, the English-speaking world has remained utterly inactive,
so that until now there has been no work in English less than half a
century old that could pretend to compete with any one of the numerous
German productions. Buckle’s work would, to some extent, have supplied
the deficit had he lived to complete it, yet even his effort was aimed
rather at philosophical generalisations regarding human evolution, than
at a narrative of historical events.
If we attempt to explain this paucity of literature in so fascinating
a field as that of world history, the solution is not far to seek:
it is found in the very magnitude of the task. This is the age of
specialists, and just in proportion as one appreciates the full meaning
of special knowledge of any subject in its modern interpretation,
must he feel the hopelessness of attempting to gain more than a
general knowledge in a variety of fields. Yet something approaching
the knowledge of the specialist should be brought to bear upon each
period of history by any one who attempts to write a comprehensive
history of the world. It is an appreciation of this fact that has
led to the production of such a symposium as the Oncken series, just
referred to, and contrariwise, it is the appreciation of the same
fact that has led to the relative neglect of so admirable a work as
that of Weber. The modern critic is disposed to feel that the writing
of a really comprehensive world history in this age is a task beyond
the capacity of any single man. When one considers the vast amount
of research work in hitherto unexplored fields that is being carried
on in every department of history, it becomes patent that no single
mind can hope to cope at first hand with the ever increasing flood
of special literature. In almost every department of history special
bibliographies have been published of late years which are utterly
bewildering, even to the specialist, in the wealth of material which
they reveal.
To cite but a single instance, the bibliography of early English
history, down to about the year 1485, as recently collated by Professor
Gross, comprises a large volume of small type. It would be the work
of a lifetime for any specialist to deal, even in a cursory way, with
each and every one of the works cited in this list; yet this is only
one little corner of the field which the world historian must cover.
Obviously, then, the world historian, if he attempt personally to
construct a narrative of the entire subject, must content himself with
a more or less superficial glance at each field; his reading may indeed
be wide, but it cannot by any possibility be exhaustive. Moreover, in
the nature of the case, he must often read merely to gather material
for the day’s task of writing, and no matter what his memory, he
will inevitably forget the greater part of the multitudinous details
that he has dealt with. In the case of a man of such wide scholarship
and such tenacity of purpose as Dr. Weber, it must be freely admitted
that a view of the entire range of world history may be attained,
which it would be rank injustice to pronounce really superficial.
Yet even such a worker as Weber must have depended very largely upon
second-hand epitomes for his facts. He cannot have read at first hand
more than a fraction of the authors upon whom he is obliged explicitly
or inferentially to pass judgment. In a word, great as is the value
of works of the class of which Weber’s is the finest example, such
works must, in the very nature of the case, be content to be ranked
as more or less successful compilations, lacking the authority which
the modern critic is unwilling to vouchsafe to anything but strictly
original work,--original work, that is, in the sense of work based upon
a first-hand examination of the most remote authorities, the only sense
in which the word “original” can properly be applied to any form of
historical composition.
If we turn from world histories of the one-man type to those produced
by a symposium of specialists, we are met with a quite different, but
none the less insistent, series of inherent defects.
In the first place, the intrinsic defect of the one-man treatment is
not altogether overcome, since specialism has nowadays been carried
to such a stage that few men feel altogether at home outside a
comparatively limited period, even of the history of a single nation.
If, then, one man is asked to write the entire history of, let us say,
the Greeks, he necessarily passes over ground that his special studies
have not covered uniformly, and in certain periods he must feel himself
more or less in the position of the general historian. It would, of
course, be possible to meet this objection by having a sufficient
number of writers, so that each limited period should be covered by a
true specialist; but the great difficulty in such a scheme as this is
the entire lack of harmony of view that must pertain to such a work.
A glance at the Oncken series will convince any one how very difficult
it is to attain even approximately to a true perspective of world
history under the symposial plan. Thus one finds in this series, to
cite but a single illustration of disproportionate treatment, that
various relatively insignificant periods of modern German history are
allowed to fill bulky volumes where a true perspective would have
relegated them to mere chapters. It is only from a very prejudiced
modern standpoint that the history of Frederick II can be thought
worth greater space than the entire history of the Greek world. Where
such inconsistencies are permitted there is a danger that the alleged
world history will become rather the history of a single nation in
its relations to other nations, past and present, than an impartial
presentation of the history of nations as a whole.
In the present work an attempt has been made to avoid the pitfalls
of one-man treatment on the one hand, and of ill-adjusted specialist
treatment on the other. We have made sure of presenting special
knowledge by drawing upon the specialists of every field, and letting
them present their information in their own words; but, at the same
time, we have attempted to avoid the prejudiced view from which the
specialist is least of all men free, by presenting the counter views
of various students wherever there is failure of agreement among those
best competent to judge.
The authorities on whom historial compositions are necessarily based,
and who in other works are merely cited by name, or at most by volume
and page reference, are here quoted in detail in their own words
wherever practicable, always with full credit to the author, and with
exact reference to the work from which the excerpt is taken. Such
authorities are quoted, not merely from histories in English, but from
the entire range of historical writings of all ages. It is hoped that
few important names are overlooked. The aggregate number of different
works thus quoted (not merely cited) will be about one thousand. These
quotations vary in length from illuminative paragraphs to excerpts
of many pages, averaging perhaps about two thousand words each. Some
fifteen hundred of such extensive quotations are made from foreign
languages, and by far the greater number of these have been translated
from the originals expressly for the present work, thus representing
matter never before accessible to the reader of English. The languages
represented in this list of important historical works of foreign
origin include practically all the tongues of civilised nations,
ancient and modern,--Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Arabic, Syriac,
Persian, Chinese, Japanese, and the entire range of European languages
from Greek, Latin, and Russian to Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French,
Dutch, German, and Scandinavian. From all of these the original words
of the various authors have been translated into the most literal
English consistent with our idiom. It is speaking well within bounds to
assert that seldom before has so varied an exposition of cosmopolitan
thought been collected in a single work.
But these excerpts are not given as random references crowded
into footnotes or appendices; they are woven into the text of the
consecutive story of world history so that they themselves constitute
the bulk of that story. Thus the history of Germany is mainly told in
the words of German writers, that of France in the words of French
historians. To avoid the prejudiced national view of history, however,
the story of a nation thus told by the native historian is always
subject to the corrective views of foreigners. Thus we gain both the
sympathetic and the critical points of view. When the authorities are
not agreed as to any important fact of history, or where there are
important differences of opinion in estimating the influence of a great
event or the real status of a famous character, reliance is not placed
upon the estimate of a single historian, but counterviews are quoted,
even though they may be directly contradictory, each, of course, being
ascribed to its proper source.
To give unity to these various views and to weld the entire mass of
matter into a consistent and comprehensive history of the world,
original editorial passages are everywhere freely introduced as a
part of the main narrative, forming indeed the warp of the whole, and
serving to elucidate and harmonise the views of the authorities quoted.
A feature of the original editorial matter is that it comprises, first
and last, critical estimates of the work of important historians
of every age, informing the reader as to the status--even to the
particular prejudice and bias--of the authority he is asked to consult.
Thus the novice is everywhere placed somewhat on a par with the special
student in his estimate of the authorities. Where conflicting views
are quoted of nominally equal authority, the reader is given data on
which to base an intelligent personal opinion as to the probabilities.
Moreover, elaborate additional bibliographies of works that may
advantageously be consulted are everywhere given, and these in the
aggregate constitute such a critical bibliography of the entire range
of historical compositions as cannot fail to interest even the general
reader.
Our method of introducing critical bibliography, and the critical
selection of the excerpts themselves, make it feasible to introduce
quotations, not only from the latest authority in any field, but
also from the great historians of the past. Thus in the case of
ancient history, the classical authorities themselves are drawn upon
wherever available,--Herodotus for the Persian wars, Thucydides for
the Peloponnesian wars, Xenophon for later Greek history, Sallust,
Cæsar, Livy, Dionysius, Dion Cassius, Tacitus, Ammianus, and the
rest for Roman history; and so on indefinitely. Herodotus describes
the battle of Thermopylæ; Arrian tells of the glories of Alexander;
Dionysius relates the story of Virginia; Polybius shows us Hannibal
crossing the Alps; Appian pictures the fall of Carthage; Josephus the
fall of Jerusalem; Zosimus the fall of Palmyra. In this way a mass
of first-hand matter, much of it hitherto absolutely inaccessible to
the reader of English, and much more only to be found in rare and
costly editions, is put within the reach of the least scholarly.
But--what is most essential--such matter as this is not merely given by
itself unsupported. It is supplemented by the verdicts of the latest
investigators in the various fields covered. Thus, to cite but a
single instance, in the history of early Greece, not merely Herodotus,
Thucydides, Diodorus, Pausanias, and other ancient authorities are
quoted, but the long range of modern students as well, from Mitford,
Thirlwall, and Grote to Curtius, Bezold, Busolt, Geddes, Schliemann,
Mahaffy, Bury, and in general the latest investigators in the field of
classical archæology.
Thanks to this system of checking ancient accounts with editorial
criticism and other recent expert evidence, it is even practicable to
avail ourselves sometimes of the writings of men who are not primarily
historians, but who wrote, as so many other great authors have done,
most important incidental essays on historical subjects; thus matter in
the highest degree picturesque and interesting is often presented in
a manner which the technical historian, however great his scientific
authority, is seldom able to imitate.
Another peculiar merit of this system is that it enables us to preserve
specimens of the work of a large coterie of historians, whose influence
was great and whose writings were formerly standard, but whose books,
as a whole, have been superseded by more recent works. Some of the
classical authors are cases in point. A few of these are indeed read
by students in colleges everywhere, but the great bulk of them are as
utterly unknown to the average reader as if they had never existed. Who
reads Pausanias, or Diodorus, or Polybius, or Appian, or Dion Cassius,
or Dionysius, or Ælianus, or Arrian, or Quintus Curtius, or Zosimus?
Yet these men are the only original authorities left us in many fields
of ancient history. Their works are the sources which moderns can do
little more than paraphrase in writing of those times. Surely, then,
it is worth while to go to these authors themselves and hear their
story at first hand, applying to it the corrective judgment of later
criticism, rather than to depend upon the mere paraphrase of some
modern compiler.
Much the same argument applies to parts of the work of once famous
historians of more recent times: such historians as Hume, Mitford,
Thirlwall, and a host of others. Their work, as a whole, can no longer
be commended to the student who is to confine himself to a single
authority, for in many parts their writings have been superseded; yet
there are other parts of their work that are to-day as valuable as when
they were written, and it seems regrettable that a great name should
drop from public recognition merely because the sweep of progress has
dethroned it from supremacy. It is inevitable that the present should
always loom large before mankind, and that egotism should stamp with
peculiar force the importance of the Recent. “Each generation abandons
the ideas of its predecessors like stranded ships,” says Emerson. Yet
it must not be forgotten that posterity often plays strange tricks with
reputations. Herodotus was held up to ridicule some centuries after
his death by a “False Plutarch,” who is only known now because of his
attack upon the master historian, while the work criticised, though for
some generations looked on with suspicion, is as fully appreciated,
after more than two thousand years, as it can have been in the day when
it was written.
Similarly, the judgments of our own age of specialism may be reversed
by posterity; and in any event it would be regrettable if a once
important historical work should be quite forgotten. Yet such a fate
threatens work of every grade. Müller’s collection of the fragments of
Greek historians gives mere bits from the writings of more than five
hundred authors about whom nothing is known--not even the exact age in
which they lived--beyond the fact that they wrote works of which these
fragments are the only mementoes. Could any page of manuscript of any
one of these authors be recovered, it would to-day be considered worth
many times its weight in gold.
Precisely the same process of decay is gradually removing the evidences
of the historical labours of the writers of recent generations even
now. The multiplication of books by the printing-press makes the
process a trifle slower, perhaps; but it is no less sure. A goodly
number of works that were famous half a century ago are now absolutely
inaccessible to the would-be purchaser: the great book markets of
Paris, Berlin, and London cannot secure or supply them. A few copies
of these works are still extant in private collections and public
libraries, but the fate of these is assured. Libraries are constructed
to be burned. Some day a lick of flame will wipe out the last copy
of any work issued only in a single edition, and the author will
become thenceforth merely a name and a memory; or if, perchance, some
latter-day Suidas or Stobæus has quoted a sentence from him, such
sentence will be treasured in catalogues of fragments of eighteenth and
nineteenth century historians. For many such an author, the present
work may perform the function of Suidas or Stobæus, for a long list of
these obsolescent writers will be found represented in our pages,--not
always preserved for their antiquarian interest indeed, but quoted in
regard to events concerning which their authority is still standard,
and because it is believed that, in the cases selected, their treatment
has not been excelled by any more recent performance; sometimes, on
the other hand,--but more rarely,--quoted because of the quaintness of
their diction, because of the archaic cast of thought through which
they reflect the spirit of their times, or because of their sheer
whimsicality.
But while emphasising the catholicity of taste that judges matter on
its own merits, excluding nothing simply because it is old, it must be
emphasised also that in the main such selection leads to the inclusion
of a preponderance of recent matter. Each generation builds upon the
shoulders of the last, and the work, as a whole, is progressive. So we
go not merely to the latest books, but also to the recent numbers of
periodicals, the publications of learned societies and the like. And
to put the cap-sheaf to modernity, the greatest living experts in each
field have contributed original essays and characterisations expounding
the latest developments. These contributions, in which master workers
summarise the results of years of investigation, will be found not the
least valuable part of our work.
Most that has been said thus far has tended to emphasise the variorum
or anthological features of our work. But it must be evident that
there is another and quite different point of view from which our
historical structure may be considered. This point of view regards
our history not as a compilation--an anthology--but as an altogether
new and original work. A moment’s consideration will show how fully
justified we are in referring to this aspect of the subject. For it
is obvious to the least attentive consideration that the intrinsic
materials which make up the story of history might be never so
abundant, never so valuable, without in the least presupposing that
the history composed of them will be an artistic or valuable work; any
more than an abundant supply of bricks, marble, and mortar necessarily
determines the building of a beautiful edifice. The materials are,
indeed, prerequisites; but an intelligent manipulation of the materials
is at least equally essential. There must be an architect to plan the
structure as a whole, and artists and artisans to select and manipulate
the materials in accordance with the plan, or the result will be, not
an edifice, but a brick-heap.
Since, then, we have dwelt at some length upon the fundamental
materials of our historical structure, it is necessary that we should
be equally explicit regarding the shaping of the architectural
design--to hold to our figure--in accordance with which the materials
have been first selected, and secondly amalgamated with other
materials;--each stone not only selected of proper quality and size,
but chiselled and polished to fit its proper niche.
The simile of an architect constructing a building, cheap and trite
as it is, cannot well be dispensed with if we are to give the reader
a vivid picture of our method of construction. It must be understood
that whether our result be good or bad, there is nothing fortuitous,
nothing haphazard about it. We did not start groping blindly for
material, hoping to see an artistic structure form itself out of
chaos. Our entire plan was as fully preconceived as the plan of any
other architect. First, the kind of structure was determined on: in
other words the scope of our subject,--world history; the entire sweep
of important human events from the earliest times to the present
day. Secondly, the approximate size of the projected structure was
determined--its ground surface, its height, its total mass; or,
speaking in the terminology of our specific structure, the number of
volumes, the size of each volume, the total mass or number of pages
involved.
Next the proportions of the structure, the number of floors and of
rooms to each floor; the relative size and dimensions of the various
departments; or, in book terms, the proportionate number of volumes
or pages to be given to each important department of history: so many
volumes to the Old Orient; so many to the Classical World; so many to
the Middle Ages; so many to the important divisions of modern history.
All this, let it be repeated, was accurately predetermined before a
single block of material was explicitly selected for the building.
It does not follow that absolutely no changes have ever been made
in the original plan--no architect perhaps ever made a building of
which this was quite true; but it is true that the original plan was
so carefully thought out, so well considered, that the changes are
utterly insignificant in comparison with the unmodified portions of the
structure. This point should be emphasised and clearly borne in mind,
because upon it depends a large measure of our confidence that we have
produced a structure not without artistic and correct proportions.
It was the predetermination of the proportions, and this alone, that
could control the enthusiasm of unrestrained specialism, and keep to
anything like a true historical perspective. Over and over again it has
been proved that the special worker, when he came to focus upon a given
period, was in the position of a microscopist, viewing his wonderfully
interesting microcosm. All the rest of the world shut out for the
moment, the little circle of the microscopic field, which may be in
reality one hundredth of an inch in diameter, looms before the view at
an angle which literally makes it seem to eclipse the world itself.
And so the historical delver, when he finds himself in the midst
of the literature on any period whatever--be it a mere historical
mole-hill--finds himself surrounded by a heap of literary bricks
which shuts out the very mountain ranges of history from his vision.
At once he demands--feels that he must have--space for his magnified
mole-hill; and it is only the predetermined editorial restrictions that
keep him from filling entire volumes with fascinating stories about
some petty kingdom which, from the world-historical standpoint, is
entitled to pages only. It is a conservative estimate of the facts to
assert that there is no period of our history for which ten times the
amount of material has not been garnered than could possibly be used
in _extenso_. The chart of the architect has lain always open upon the
editorial desk, and rule and compass have been ever ready to restrain
and check the over-enthusiasm of the worker whose zeal would otherwise
lead him to present megaliths where the specification called for, and
the plan permitted, only tiny bricks.
As to whether the plans of the architect were intrinsically good;
whether the specification called for bricks where bricks were logically
needed, and for megaliths in their proper place--these are questions
that will not be entered on here. But a word may be permitted as to
the ruling motives which have dominated the conception, and which, it
is hoped, have never been lost sight of. These ruling motives are two:
first, the hope of attaining a high standard of historical accuracy
in the most critical acceptance of the term; secondly, the desire to
retain as much as possible of human interest in the broadest and best
sense of the words. To attain the first of these ends it is necessary
to be free from prejudice, to have unflagging zeal in collecting
testimony, to have scientific and critical acumen in weighing evidence;
to attain the second end it is essential that kindred faculties
should be applied not to the facts of history but to the literary
presentations of these facts, that the good and true story may not be
spoiled in the telling.
The desire to be free from all prejudice in the judgment of historical
facts is, then, the key-note of all our philosophy of historical
criticism; and the desire to retain interest--human interest--is the
key-note of our philosophy of historical composition.
To attain either end, what perhaps is most required is catholicity of
sympathies. There must be no race prejudice, no national prejudice.
There must be no attempt to blacken or whiten historical characters,
in correspondence with the personal bias. There must be no special
pleading for or against any form of government, any racial propensity,
or any individual deed. In a word, there must be freedom from prejudice
in every field,--except indeed that prejudice in favour of the broad
principles of right, regarding which all civilised nations of every
age have been in virtual agreement. But the deeds, the motives, the
superstitions of all times and of all races must be viewed, so far
as such a thing is possible, through the same clear atmosphere of
impartiality. As between Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Hindoo, Persian,
Mongul--he who would produce a world history of truly catholic scope
should have no inherent prejudice or preconception.
Equally must there be freedom from prejudice regarding various classes
of ideas. “Whatever concerns mankind is of interest to me,” must be the
editorial motto. Some persons are interested only in military events,
in battles, treaties, and the like; others care only for constitutional
and governmental affairs; yet others think most of literature and of
art, or of science. But the editorial spirit of a world history should
show a catholicity of taste that is receptive of each and all of these.
Xerxes at Thermopylæ, and Æschylus writing his tragedy “The Persians”;
Alexander mourning for Hephæstion, and Phidias building the Parthenon;
Augustus Cæsar disputing the mastery of the world with Antony, and
Dionysius telling of the myths of early Rome; Richard of the lion heart
prosecuting a crusade, and Dante vitalising the Italian language; each
and all of these and kindred topics up and down the scroll of history
should equally, each in proportion to its relative influence, excite
the sympathetic attention of the historian. With the same zeal he
should tell of the alleged iniquities of a Messalina or a Catherine
de’ Medici and of the noble self-abnegation of a Cornelia; of the
self-seeking of a Cæsar and of the self-abnegation of a Cincinnatus or
a St. Louis. With sound common-sense for a guide, he should strive to
avoid on the one hand the over-credulity of the untrained mind, and on
the other the dogmatic scepticism that so often perverts the judgment
of the specialist.
But what then, it may be asked, of the moral of our story--of our
drama? Shall we be content to present the bare facts, and leave their
philosophical interpretation to chance? To this it may be replied,
that in the minds of most of us a profound philosophical idea is one
that accords with our own preconception;--other views are superficial,
perverse, or obviously mistaken. Hence a wise interpreter of history
will be extremely chary of putting forward his own more or less
dogmatic interpretations of the events he relates. It does not follow
that no opinion can ever be expressed; indeed, a tacit expression
of opinion is implied in the selection of almost every excerpt. But
witnesses from all sides must be given an impartial hearing in any case
where a clear balance of evidence is not attainable; and where the
evidence is demonstrative it must be presented with all fairness, and
without reservation or innuendo, regardless of its apparent bearing.
Fortunately the study of world history in itself tends to make for
precisely such impartiality. He who has attentively followed the story
of the rise and fall of nations will have learned that human nature is
everywhere at its foundation much the same; that no race, no nation,
no individual even is ideally good or totally bad; that the Past has
always been a Golden Age for the pessimist, the Future always utopian
for the dreamer, and that a broad optimism regarding the Present--a
belief that on the whole the conditions of any given time are about
as good as the character of the time permits--is, perhaps, the safest
philosophy of living.
In the main, then, we may rest content with the conviction that,
however unobtrusive our philosophy, the great lessons of history
will not fail to make themselves felt by any attentive reader of
these pages. We greatly mistake the purport of the story if it does
not on the whole make for broader views, for truer humanitarianism,
for higher morals, personal and communal;--in a word, for better
citizenship in the fullest and broadest meaning of the term. Indeed,
to attain the plane of the best citizenship, historical studies are
absolutely essential. No one can have a competent judgment regarding
the affairs of his own country without such studies; no one is a fair
judge of the political principles of the party he supports or of the
one that he opposes, who has not prepared himself by a study of the
political systems of the past. “Had I begun earlier and spent thirty
years in reading history,” said Schiller, “I should be far different
and a far better man than I am.” Echoing these words, we may say that
the outlook for every constitutional government would be brighter if
every youth and every man who exercises or is about to exercise the
responsibilities of a voter, and every woman whose advice aids or
stimulates a father, brother, husband, or son towards the performance
of his civic duties, could spend not thirty years, let us say, but
as many weeks in studying the history of nations. Little fear that
the student who has got such a start as this would willingly stop
there. He would have gained enough of insight to be keenly interested,
and it would require no urging to send him on; for the panorama of
history, once we gain a little insight into it as it unfolds before
us its never ending variety of scenes, can hardly be viewed otherwise
than with unflagging interest; unless indeed the view is befogged
by the atmosphere through which it is presented. To prevent such
befogging,--to present the story through a clear medium,--requires only
that the narrative shall be true to the facts in its presentation of
topics of real importance. This is what we had in mind when we said
that interest--human interest--is the key-note of our philosophy of
historical composition. It is the editorial conviction that attention,
based upon interest, is the foundation of mental development. A
literary work that lacks interest, might, indeed, subserve a useful
purpose, but the scope of its influence is curtailed from the outset
if the reader must go to it as a task and not as to a recreation.
Interest breaks down the barriers between work and play. Interest fixes
attention, and fixed attention is the basis of memorising.
Let it freely be asserted, then, that in the selection of material
for our work the principle acted on has been that, other things being
equal, the best account of any historical event is the most picturesque
and entertaining account,--for what, after all, does picturesqueness
imply, except an approach to the vivid reproduction of the actualities?
Written words are intended to be read, and any writer who, like
Polybius, despises the literary graces must expect to be despised in
turn, or, at least, neglected. Properly presented, the narrative of
history should have all the breathless interest of a novel,--for what
is so fascinating as a true story from human life? In the present work
an attempt is made to raise history towards the level of fiction in
point of interest, without sacrificing anything of scientific accuracy.
No account is given here merely because it is picturesque, to the
exclusion of a truer narrative; but the preference is always given
to the graphic story as against the dull, where the two have equal
authority as to matters of fact. Further to enhance the vividness of
presentation, pictures are everywhere introduced. There are thousands
of these pictures in the aggregate, drawn from the most varied sources,
and constituting, it is believed, one of the most remarkable series of
historical illustrations ever collected.
All in all, then, one might describe our intention as the desire to
dramatise the story of history,--for, again, what is dramatisation but
the mimicry of life? Our various books and sections are the settings
for the acts and scenes of the play, and it is hoped that, with the
aid of the introductions by way of proem, and the pictures to aid the
eye, the characters are made to move across the stage before the reader
with something like the vividness of living actors. One cannot quite
dare promise that there shall be no dull scenes, but it is hoped that,
in the main, the play will be found to move lightly on, as with words
spoken “trippingly upon the tongue.”
In particular, it is hoped that our dramatisation of history will
present the events of the long play in something like a true
perspective, the large events looming large in our story, the lesser
ones forced into the background. As an aid to this treatment, tables of
chronology are everywhere introduced before the curtain rises, if it
be permissible to hold to our metaphor. These are virtually the lists
of dramatis personæ. Even the minor characters will be named here,
though they act only as chorus, or prate a few lines in the play where
the chief personages will dominate the situation as they dominated
it in real life, and as they dominate it in the memory of posterity.
Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon--such figures will loom large
in our drama of history; yet it will never be forgotten that the play
is not a monologue. The minor actors will be given a fair hearing from
first to last.
It follows from this that the main story of our history has to do with
the deeds of men of action. But here at the very outset an important
question may be raised: do the deeds of men of action then, after all,
constitute the great events of history? An affirmative answer may be
given with much confidence. Great men of action carve out the contour
of history. High culture can only rise from soil fertilised by material
prosperity. The swords of Leonidas, Themistocles, and Pausanias must
prune the tree of civilisation before the flower of Periclesian culture
can bloom at Athens. There are no names like Livy, Horace, Ovid, and
Virgil in the annals of Rome before the conquests and the carnage of
Marius, Sulla, and Cæsar. But let us hasten to add that the deeds
of men of action can never be rightly understood unless they are
considered in relation to the intellectual and social surroundings in
which these men of action moved. In other words, the civilisation and
culture of each succeeding period cannot be ignored. It will be found
to be as fully treated here in all its phases as the limitations of
space permit. It furnishes the atmosphere everywhere for our picture,
or, if you prefer, the setting for our stage.
In a word, then, our work becomes, if its intent has been realised in
actuality, a Comprehensive History of Human Progress in all departments
of action and of thought, told dramatically and picturesquely, yet
authoritatively, in the words of the great historical writers of every
age. Recurring to our metaphor, it is the book of a veritable Drama of
History; our unity of action being Historic Truth; our unity of time,
the Age of Man; our stage, the World.
BOOK II. A GLIMPSE INTO THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
A complete world history should, properly speaking, begin with the
creation of the world as man’s habitat, and should trace every step
of human progress from the time when man first appeared on the globe.
Unfortunately, the knowledge of to-day does not permit us to follow
this theoretical obligation. We now know that the gaps in the history
of human evolution as accessible to us to-day, vastly exceed the
recorded chapters; that, in short, the period with which history proper
has, at present, to content itself, is a mere moment in comparison
with the vast reaches of time which, in recognition of our ignorance,
we term “prehistoric.” But this recognition of limitations of our
knowledge is a quite recent growth--no older, indeed, than a half
century. Prior to 1859 the people of Christendom rested secure in the
supposition that the chronology of man’s history was fully known,
from the very year of his creation. One has but to turn to the first
chapter of Genesis to find in the margin the date 4004 B.C., recorded
with all confidence as the year of man’s first appearance on the globe.
One finds there, too, a brief but comprehensive account of the manner
of his appearance, as well as of the creation of the earth itself,
his abiding-place. Until about half a century ago, as has just been
said, the peoples of our portion of the globe rested secure in the
supposition that this record and this date were a part of our definite
knowledge of man’s history. Therefore, one finds the writers of general
histories of the earlier days of the nineteenth century beginning their
accounts with the creation of man, B.C. 4004, and coming on down to
date with a full and seemingly secure chronology.
Our knowledge of the world and of man’s history has come on by leaps
and bounds since then, with the curious result that to-day no one
thinks of making any reference to the exact date of the beginnings
of human history,--unless, indeed, it be to remark that it probably
reaches back some hundreds of thousands of years. The historian can
speak of dates anterior to 4004 B.C., to be sure. The Egyptologist is
disposed to date the building of the Pyramids a full thousand years
earlier than that. And the Assyriologist is learning to speak of the
state of civilisation in Chaldea some 6000 or 7000 years B.C. with a
certain measure of confidence. But he no longer thinks of these dates
as standing anywhere near the beginning of history. He knows that man
in that age, in the centres of progress, had attained a high stage
of civilisation, and he feels sure that there were some thousands of
centuries of earlier time, during which man was slowly climbing through
savagery and barbarism, of which we have only the most fragmentary
record. He does not pretend to know anything, except by inference,
of the “dawnings of civilisation.” Whichever way he turns in the
centres of progress, such as China, Egypt, Chaldea, India, he finds the
earliest accessible records, covering at best a period of only eight
or ten thousand years, giving evidence of a civilisation already far
advanced. Of the exact origin of any one of the civilisations with
which he deals he knows absolutely nothing. “The Creation of Man,” with
its fixed chronology, is a chapter that has vanished from our modern
histories.
Nevertheless, it is important to a correct understanding of the
development of human thought, as well as of personal interest, to bear
in mind the attitude of our predecessors in the field of historical
writing, regarding this ever interesting problem of cosmogony. It was
not alone the ancient Hebrews who thought that they had solved the
problem. Indeed, as we shall see, the Hebrews were rather the purveyors
than the originators of the story of cosmogony which they made current;
and every other nation, when it had reached a certain stage of mental
evolution, appears to have originated or borrowed a set of chronicles
which, as adapted to the use of each nation, explained the creation of
the earth and its human inhabitants in a way very flattering to the
self-love of the nation giving the recital. No one to-day takes any
of these recitals seriously, as a matter of course; but, on the other
hand, they possess an abiding interest as historical documents. If for
nothing else, they have interest as illustrating the advance of human
knowledge during the comparatively brief period since these strange
recitals found currency.
CHAPTER II
COSMOGONY--ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS AS TO THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD
No thinking man in any age can have failed to wonder about the origin
of the world. The answers that the ancients gave to this ever present
question were various, but they all had one quality in common, namely,
extreme vagueness. Even after men had attained a relatively high stage
of civilisation, their ideas of the natural phenomena about them were
so endued with superstition, and so hedged about with ignorance as to
the real causes, that their explanations of cause and effect in the
natural world belong to the domain of poetry rather than to that of
science. If this applies to such phenomena as wind and clouds and rain
and lightning, the manifestations of which are constantly observed,
it naturally applies with ten-fold force to the great mystery of the
origin of things. Yet the human mind, childlike in the simplicity of
its questionings, demands always an answer, and accepts the answer, if
pronounced with a certain authority, in a spirit of childlike faith.
The great poets and prophets of every nation of antiquity had supplied,
each in his kind, the answers to the riddle of cosmogony, and many of
these alleged solutions have come down to us to give us an insight into
the mentality of their time. It is worth while to quote two or three
of these in brief epitome, if for nothing else, to show their similar
trend, and to emphasise their universal trait of vagueness.
Here is the cosmogonic scheme of the Phoenicians as transmitted to us
by Sanchoniathon:
“At the beginning of all things was a dark and windy air, or a breeze
of thick air and a turbid Chaos resembling Erebus; and that these were
unbounded, and for a long series of ages had no limit. But when this
wind became enamoured of its own first principles (the Chaos), and an
intimate union took place, that connection was called Pothos; and this
was the beginning of the creation of all things. But it (the Chaos)
knew not its own production; and from its embrace with the wind was
generated Mot; which some call mud, but others the putrefaction of a
watery mixture. And from this sprung all the seed of the creation, and
the generation of the universe.
“And there were certain animals without sensation, from which
intelligent animals were produced, and these were called Zophasemin,
that is, beholders of the heavens; and they were formed in the shape
of an egg: and from Mot shone forth the sun, and the moon, and the
less and the greater stars. And when the air began to send forth life,
by its fiery influence on the sea and earth, winds were produced and
clouds, and very great defluxions and torrents of the heavenly waters.
And when they were thus separated, and carried out of their proper
places by the heat of the sun, and all met again in the air, and were
dashed against each other, thunder and lightnings were the result: and
at the sound of the thunder, the before-mentioned intelligent animals
were aroused, and startled by the noise, and moved upon the earth and
in the sea, male and female.”
This creation scheme of the Phœnicians has a peculiar interest for the
Western world, because of the intimate relations that existed between
the Phœnicians and the Jews. For a similar reason the ideas of the
Babylonians and the Assyrians, as recorded on the so-called creation
tablets exhumed at Nineveh, have fascinated the Bible scholars.
Trending still further to the East, one finds with the Hindus a
slightly different cast of thought couched in a no less poetic diction.
Thus in one of the sacred books, Brahma, the Eternal Worker, is
represented as creating the earth while seeing his own reflection in
the ocean of sweat that had fallen from his brow (Réclus).
The Chinese scheme of cosmogony is presented in the form of alleged
answers to questions, by Confucius. Here is a characteristic excerpt as
translated by M’Clatchie:
“At the beginning of Heaven and Earth, before chaos was divided, I
think there were only two things, Fire and Water; and the sediment of
the water formed the Earth. When we ascend a height and look down, the
host of hills resemble the waves of the sea in appearance; the Water
just flowed like this: I know not at what period it coagulated. At
first it was very soft, but afterward it coagulated and became hard.
One asked whether it resembled sand thrown up by the tide? He replied,
Just so: the coarsest sediment of the Water became the Earth, and the
most pure portion of the Fire became Wind, Thunder, Lightning, Sun, and
Stars.
“Being asked: From the commencement of Heaven and Earth to the present
time is not 10,000 years; I know not how it was before that time? He
replied, Before that there was another clear opening (_i.e._ another
Heaven and Earth) like the present one. Being further asked whether
Heaven and Earth can perish altogether, he replied, They cannot: but,
when mankind totally degenerate, then the whole shall return to Chaos,
and Men and things shall all cease to exist; and then the World shall
begin again. Some one asked how the first Man was generated; and he
replied by the transmutation of the Air; the subtle portions of the
Light and Darkness and the Five Elements united and produced his form.
The Buddhists call this transmuting and generating. At present things
are transmuted and generated in abundance like lice.
“Before Chaos was divided the Light-Dark Air was mixed up and dark,
and when it divided, the centre formed an enormous and most brilliant
opening, and the two E were established. Shaou Kang-tsee considers
129,600 years to be a Yuen (Kalpa); then, before this period of 129,600
years there was another opening and spreading out of the World; and
before that again, there was another like the present; so that, Motion
and Rest, Light and Darkness, have no beginning. As little things
shadow forth great things, this may be illustrated by the revolutions
of Day and Night. What Woo-Fung says about the Great Cessation of
the entire Air, the vast and boundless agitation of all things, the
whole expanse of waters changing position, the mountains bursting
asunder, the channels being obliterated, Men and things all coming to
an end, and the ancient vestiges all destroyed--all this refers to the
utter destruction of the world by Deluge. We frequently see, on lofty
mountains, the shells of the sea-snail and pearl-oyster, as it were
generated in the middle of stones; these stones were (part of) the
soil of the former world. The sea-snail and pearl-oyster belong to the
water; so that that which was below changed and became high; that which
was soft changed and became hard. This is a deep subject, and should be
investigated.
“Being asked whether the multitude of things existed before Heaven and
Earth divided, he replied: There was merely the idea of each thing.
Heaven and Earth generate all things, and throughout all time, ancient
and modern, cannot be separated from all things.”
It should be remarked as illustrating the difficulties of translating
the thought of one language into the words of another, that Mr. F. H.
Balfour questions certain of Canon M’Clatchie’s renderings. Thus a
sentence which M’Clatchie interprets, “In the entire universe where
there is no fate there is no air, and where there is no air there is no
fate,” Mr. Balfour would read instead of “fate” “mind,” and instead of
“air” “matter,” the sentence becoming, “In the entire universe where
there is no mind there is no matter, and where there is no matter there
is no mind.” Such divergent renderings as this are to be expected in
the case of any Oriental language. It will not be forgotten how George
Smith, one of the first great interpreters of the Assyrian tablets,
read the Hebrew story of the Garden of Eden in the vague phrasing of
the cuneiform document, where, as Menant quickly demonstrated, the
writer of the document had composed a quite different story. This
“reading into Homer that which Homer never knew” is much too familiar a
subject to require further elucidation; but it is peculiarly desirable
to bear it in mind in dealing with the philosophical and religious
notions of any alien people.
Turning from the Orient, it is of interest to interrogate the Greek
writers as to the creation schemes that were current in classical
times. In the histories of Greece and Rome, we shall have occasion
to examine these somewhat more in detail. For the present purpose,
perhaps, an excerpt from Diodorus, who wrote with a full knowledge both
of Greek and Roman ideas at about the beginning of our era, will be
sufficiently illuminative.
Diodorus begins his history of the World with a brief account of the
current notions as to the creation. He says: “Of the origin, therefore,
of men there are two opinions amongst the most famous and authentic
naturalists and historians. Some of these are of opinion that the
world had neither beginning nor ever shall have end, and likewise say
that mankind was from eternity and there never was a time when he
first began to be. Others, on the contrary, conceive both the world
to be made, and to be corruptible, and that there was a certain time
when men had first a being; for, whereas all things at the first were
jumbled together, heaven and earth were in one mass and had one and
the same form. But afterward they say when corporeal beings appeared
one after another, the world at length presented itself in the order
we now see, and that the air was in continual agitation, whose fiery
parts ascended together to the highest place, its nature ‘by reason of
its levity’ trending always upward, for which reason both the sun and
that vast number of stars are contained within that orb; that the gross
and earthy matter clotted together by moisture, by reason of its weight
sunk down below into which place by continually whirling about. The sea
was made of the humid, and the muddy earth of the more solid, as yet
very soft, which by degrees at first was made crusty by the heat of
the sun, and then, after the face of the earth was parched, and, as it
were, fermented, the moisture afterward in many places bubbled up, as
may be seen in standing ponds and marshy places, when, after the earth
has been pierced with cold, the air grows hot on a sudden without a
gradual alteration, and whereas moisture generates creatures from heat,
things so generated by being enrapt in the dewy mists of the night grew
and increased, and in the day solidified and were made hard by the heat
of the sun, and thus the forms of all sorts of living creatures were
brought forth into the light, and those that had most heat mounted
aloft, and were fowls and birds of the air, but those that had more of
earth were numbered in the order of creeping things and other creatures
altogether suited to the earth. Then those beasts that were naturally
watery and moist, called fishes, presently hastened to the place
natural to them; and when the earth afterward became more dry and solid
by the heat of the sun and the drying winds, it had not power at length
to produce any more of the greater living creatures. And Euripides, the
pupil of Anaxagoras, seems to be of the same opinion concerning the
first generation of all things, for in his _Menilippe_ he has these
verses:
“‘A mass confused
Heaven and Earth once were
Of one form; but after separation
Then men, trees, beasts of the earth with fowls of the air
First sprang up in a generation.’
“But if this power of the earth to produce living creatures at the
first origin of all things seem incredible to any, the Egyptians
bring testimonies of this energy of the earth by the same things done
there at this day; for they say that about Thebes in Egypt, after the
overflowing of the river Nile, the earth thereby being covered by mud
and slime, many places putrefy by the heat of the sun, and thence are
bred multitudes of mice. It is certain, therefore, that out of the
earth when it is hardened, and the air changed from its dew and natural
temperament, animals are generated, by which means it came to pass that
in the first beginning of all things various living creatures proceeded
from the earth. And these are the opinions touching the original of all
things.”
It would be difficult to say to what extent this Greek conception of
creation had its origin in, or was influenced by, Oriental conception.
Certainly the resemblance between this description and the Mosaic
accounts, as contained in the first two chapters of Genesis, is
noteworthy. Quite probably the ideas of both Hebrews and Greeks had
been moulded to some extent in the pattern of Egyptian thought. Be
that as it may, it was the scheme of cosmogony expressed in the Hebrew
legends that was to become dominant in post-classical times, and to
rule unchallenged in the Western world for more than a thousand years.
Indeed, this estimate of the time of real supremacy of the Hebrew
thought is much too low; for that thought, though challenged as to
some of its features by the science of the Renaissance which ushered
in the period of modern history, was none the less to retain its hold
upon the thoughts of men, but little abated in force, for another half
millennium.
Not till well toward the close of the eighteenth century was an attempt
made to substitute a scientific guess at the riddle of creation for
the old poetic ones, and yet another century elapsed before the new
explanations availed fully to supplant the old ones. It was Laplace,
the great French mathematician, who elaborated toward the close of the
eighteenth century a so-called nebular hypothesis, which may fairly
be considered the first measurably scientific attempt ever made to
explain the origin of the world. The hypothesis conceives that, at
a time indefinitely remote, the entire solar system and space far
beyond it was filled with a “fire mist,” consisting of the material
in a gaseous state which now forms the sun and planets. This gaseous
body, contracting through loss of heat, and rotating on its axis, left
behind from time to time, successive rings of its own substance, that,
consolidating, became the planets; the remaining core of substance
contracting finally to constitute the body that we call the sun.
Nineteenth century science elaborated, without essentially modifying,
this nebular hypothesis. Elaborate attempts have been made by Dr. Croll
and by Sir Norman Lockyer to explain the origin of the “fire mist”
itself, from which per hypothesis our solar system and an infinity of
like stellar systems were formed. The meteoritic hypothesis of Lockyer
supposes that the primeval fire mist was due to the collision of swarms
of meteors; Croll’s theory postulates the smashing together of dark
stars: but the two theories are essentially identical in their main
thought, which is, that previously solidified bodies of the universe
are made gaseous through mutual impact, thus affording material for
the operation of those changes outlined in the nebular hypothesis of
Laplace. True or false, this hypothesis stands to-day as the expression
of the profoundest cosmogonic scientific guess that modern thought has
been able to substitute for the poetic guesses of antiquity.
As to the creation of the living things on the globe, including man,
the Oriental idea, which amounted to no explanation at all, but was
rather the hiding of utter ignorance behind a screen of positive
assertion, has been supplanted in the latter part of the nineteenth
century by the scientific explanations of the evolutionists. The theory
of evolution, as first formulated in anything like scientific terms,
about the close of the eighteenth century, by the elder Darwin, the
poet Goethe, and the French philosophical zoölogist Lamarck, and as
given such amazing fertility by Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection
in 1859, has taken full possession of the field as an explanation of
the development of man through a series of lower organisms. But it
must not be forgotten that this theory, with all of its revolutionary
implications, does not as yet explain in clear scientific terms the
origin of that lowliest organism which is the first in its series
of living beings. It is for the science of the future to take this
remaining step. Meantime, the developmental theory of to-day suffices
to substitute in precise terms a scientific explanation of the origin
of man for the vagaries of the old-time dreamers; and the more daring
thinkers feel that the gap between the inorganic world and the lowest
of man’s ancestors is not an impassable barrier to the application of a
theory of universal evolution.
CHAPTER III
COSMOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY--ANCIENT AND MODERN IDEAS
The vague notions of the ancients as to the origin of the world were
inseparably linked with their restricted notions as to the present
status of the world itself.
It is curious to reflect how small a portion of the habitable globe
was the theatre of all those human activities, the record of which
constitutes ancient history. Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, Greece, and
Italy taken as a whole constitute but a small patch of territory
encircling the Mediterranean Sea. Persia and India, stretching away
to the East, lay vaguely at the confines of the world as conceived
even in relatively late classical times. From a very early day,
doubtless, there had been intercommunication between India and the
West. Nevertheless, the conquest of Alexander was regarded as extending
into regions hitherto utterly unknown, and as opening up a new world
to Greek thought. Similarly two centuries later, Cæsar’s invasion of
Britain brought regions to the attention of the geographer concerning
which only the vaguest notions had been current.
Spain had long been known through the explorations and commercial
enterprises of the Phœnicians and Greeks, and when it became a part
of Roman territory, it was as familiarly known as Gaul or Britain.
But these bounds, India on the east, Britain at the north, Spain in
the west, and Upper Egypt toward the equator were the limits of the
known world as understood by the classical mind. The vague traditions
probably based on fact, as recorded by Herodotus, that a company of
Phœnicians had sailed out of the Red Sea and gone by water about all
the southern continent, to reappear from the west by way of the pillars
of Hercules--or present Gibraltar,--served to give support to the
theory that all the continental mass was encompassed in a universal
sea, rather than to extend geographical knowledge in any precise sense.
Considering, then, the limitations of ancient geographical knowledge,
it is wonderful how clear, precise, and correct an idea as to the
shape, and even in a general way, as to the size, of the earth were
attained by the classical geographers. To be sure, the Oriental
thinkers applied the same poetical conceptions to cosmology that
dominated them in other fields. The Hindu conceived the world as
resting on the back of a mammoth elephant, which stood in turn on the
back of a tortoise, and was transported thus across a boundless sea
of milk. Greek mythology gives us the familiar picture of a human
giant, Atlas, supporting the world. But such poetic conceptions as
these, whatever their force may once have been with the Greeks, had
been supplanted before the close of the classical epoch by ideas of a
strictly scientific nature.
Not long after the beginning of the Christian era there lived a
Greek named Strabo, whose status as a truly scientific geographer is
gladly acknowledged to-day. Strabo’s remarks on cosmology may well be
quoted here as showing the heights to which the science of geography
had attained among the Greeks. Making due allowance for the changed
phraseology of another age, these are such things as might be said by a
geographer of to-day, yet they were written over two thousand years ago:
“We have treated these subjects at length in the first Book of the
Geography. At present we shall make a few remarks on the operations
of nature and of Providence conjointly. On the operations of nature,
that all things converge to a point, namely, the centre of the whole,
and assume a spherical shape around it. The earth is the densest body
and nearer the centre than all others: the less dense and next to it
is water: but both land and water are spheres, the first solid, the
second hollow, containing this earth within it. On the operations of
Providence, that it has exercised a will, is disposed to variety, and
is the artificer of innumerable works. In the first rank, as greatly
surpassing all the rest is the generation of animals, of which the most
excellent are gods and man, for whose sake the rest were formed. To
the gods Providence assigned heaven; and the earth to men: the extreme
parts of the world; for the extreme parts of the sphere are the centre
and the circumference. But since water encompasses the earth, and man
is not an aquatic, but a land animal, living in the air, and requiring
much light, Providence formed many eminences and cavities in the earth,
so that these cavities should receive the whole or a great part of
the water which covers the land beneath it; and that the eminences
should rise and conceal the water beneath them, except as much as was
necessary for the use of the human race and the animals and plants
about it.
“But as all things are in constant motion, and undergo great changes
(for it is not possible that such things of such a nature, so numerous
and vast, could be otherwise regulated in the world), we must not
suppose the earth or the water always to continue in this state, so as
to retain perpetually the same bulk, without increase or diminution,
or that each preserves the same fixed place, particularly as the
reciprocal change of one into the other is most consonant to nature
from their proximity; but that much of the land is changed into water,
and a great portion of water becomes land, just as we observe great
differences in the earth itself. For one kind of earth crumbles easily,
another is solid and rocky, and contains iron; and so of others. There
is also a variety in the quality of water; for some waters are saline,
others sweet and potable, others medicinal, and either salutary or
noxious; others cold or hot. Is it therefore surprising that some parts
of the earth which are now inhabited should formerly have been occupied
by sea, and that what are now seas should formerly have been inhabited
land? So also fountains once existing have failed and others have burst
forth; and similarly in the case of rivers and lakes; again, mountains
and plains have been converted reciprocally one into the other. On this
subject I have spoken before at length, and now let this be said:
“Geometry and astronomy, as we before remarked, seem absolutely
indispensable in this science. This in fact is evident, that without
some such assistance, it would be impossible to be accurately
acquainted with the configuration of the earth; its climate,
dimensions, and the like information.
“As the size of the earth has been demonstrated by other writers,
we shall here take for granted and receive as accurate what they
have advanced. We shall also assume that the earth is spheroidal,
that its surface is likewise spheroidal, and above all, that bodies
have a tendency toward its centre, which later point is clear to the
perception of the most average understanding. However, we may show
summarily that the earth is spheroidal, from the consideration that
all things however distant tend to its centre, and that everybody is
attracted toward its centre of gravity; this is more distinctly proved
from observations of the sea and sky, for here the evidence of the
senses, and common observation is alone requisite. The convexity of
the sea is a further proof of this to those who have sailed; for they
cannot perceive lights at a distance when placed at the same level as
their eyes, but if raised on high, they at once become perceptible to
vision, though at the same time farther removed. So, when the eye is
raised, it sees what before was utterly imperceptible. Homer speaks of
this when he says:
“‘Lifted up on the vast wave he quickly beheld afar.’ Sailors, as
they approach their destination, behold the shore continually raising
itself to their view; and objects which had at first seemed low, begin
to elevate themselves. Our gnomons, also, are, among other things,
evidence of the revolution of the heavenly bodies; and common sense at
once shows us, that if the depth of the earth were infinite, such a
revolution could not take place.”
It is astounding in the light of present-day knowledge to reflect
that such correct and scientific views as to the form of the earth
were subordinated, and, at last, almost entirely supplanted, by the
curiously faulty conceptions of the Oriental dreamers. A chance phrase
of the Hebrew writings refers to the corners of the earth, and this
sufficed to promulgate a false conception of cosmology, which dominated
the world for a millennium. The old Greek conception never quite died
out, as the faith of Columbus showed, but it was so crushed beneath
the weight of ecclesiastical authority, that it maintained existence
only with here and there a nonconformist to the ideas of his time; and
when Columbus and Magellan had demonstrated the falsity of the Oriental
conception, and Copernicus and Galileo had further revolutionised the
Hebrew conception, the advocates of the false view fought tooth and
nail for a conception which had come to be intimately associated with
those religious tenets which, to them, were more sacred than life
itself.
Truth prevailed in the end, of course; but it was not till well into
the nineteenth century that the chief supporters of the old Hebrew
cosmology officially abandoned their position, and admitted that the
world is round, and is not the centre of the universe.
CHAPTER IV
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE EARTH AND OF MAN
Generally speaking, the old-time nations rejoiced in their alleged
antiquity. Notions as to exact chronology for long periods of time
were practically non-existent. A full sense of the value of chronology
as the foundation stone of history was only acquired in relatively
modern times. The figures that the ancients used in referring to their
national existence were very sweeping, and suffered from the same
defects of vagueness that characterise their other thoughts.
Herodotus, basing his belief on what he learned in Egypt, ascribed to
the Egyptians a national existence of thirteen thousand years. Diodorus
extends this period to twenty-three thousand, and some other reports
current in classical times increase the figures by yet another ten
thousand. Even this is a meagre period compared with the claims made by
the Babylonians, who number the years of their own nation in hundreds
of thousands; and it is said that the Chinese, in computing their own
history, do not stop short of millions of years.
The Babylonians were the astronomers of antiquity, and doubtless
the less scientific Greeks regarded their knowledge of the stars
as something quite occult, and were ready to believe almost any
chronological statement that the Babylonians put forward. The Romans,
indeed, practical people that they always were in the day of their
prime, were disposed to look with more of scepticism upon such
claims. Cicero announces himself as distinctly sceptical regarding
the allegation that the Babylonian records extend over a period of
two hundred and seventy thousand years. His scepticism, however, was
probably based rather upon a shrewd common-sense estimate of human
affairs than upon any preconception as to the antiquity of man. In a
word, the ancients as a class had no fear of time, and most of them
had no religious or other preconception that limited their estimate
as to the age of a nation or the exact age of the world itself. The
latter-day Hebrew was an exception to this rule. He came at last to
look upon the vague historical records of his people as sacred books,
inspired in their every word, and detailing among other things the
exact genealogy of the leaders of his race from the creation to his
own time. It is not, indeed, probable that the ancient Hebrew made
any great point of the exact period of time compassed by his records,
since, as has been said, questions of exact chronology entered but
little into the thoughts of man in that day; but in a more recent time
students of Hebrew records have attempted to ascertain the exact age
of the earth and the exact period of human existence by aggregating
the various disconnected records of the Hebrew scriptures, long after
the modern historical method had been applied acutely to all other
accessible writings of antiquity.
These writings of the Hebrews were held to constitute a class apart,
and were looked to as having an authenticity not to be claimed by any
other ancient documents; and while no two scholars of authority, making
independent computations, were ever able to agree as to the exact facts
connoted by the Hebrew chronology, yet none the less, each prominent
investigator clung with full faith to his own estimate, and several of
them found schools of followers who battled as eagerly as the masters
themselves for the exact dates they believed to be represented by the
vague Hebrew estimates. Generally speaking, these estimates ascribe the
creation of the world and of man to a period about four thousand years
before the Christian era; the year of the Deluge, which was supposed to
have engulfed all the inhabitants of the earth except a single family,
being variously estimated between the years 3200 and 2300 B.C. That
some such figures as these represented the truth regarding a period
of man’s residence here on the earth came to be accepted throughout
Christendom as an article of faith, to question which was a rank heresy.
The larger figures which the Greeks, Egyptians, Mesopotamians and other
nations had employed came to be regarded as absurd guesses, which it
were a sacrilege to countenance now that the truth was known; and yet,
as every one nowadays knows, these larger figures, vague guesses though
they were, approach much nearer to the actual truth than the restricted
numbers that supplanted them.
The changed point of view with which the modern historian regards the
ancient chronology has been attained through a process of scientific
development extending over about a century. A truer knowledge of the
cosmic scheme did not bring with it as a necessary counterpart the
correct conception as to the length of time that this scheme had been
in operation.
Laplace, in formulating his nebular hypothesis, had nothing definite to
say as to the length of time required for its development, and there
was nothing in his computation to throw any light whatever upon the
antiquity of the earth as a habitable sphere.
Cuvier, the great contemporary of Laplace, no doubt accepted the
nebular hypothesis as a valid explanation of the origin of the world,
but he held to the conception of about six thousand years for the
age of man as rigidly as did any Middle Age monk. Cuvier was the
first to demonstrate that certain fossil skeletons belonged to no
existing species of animal. In other words, he believed that races of
great beasts had once inhabited the earth, but no longer have living
representatives. This, however, did not suggest to him that the earth
had long been peopled, but only went to show, as he believed, that
a great catastrophe, as the universal flood was supposed to have
been, had actually taken place. It remained for Charles Lyell, the
famous English geologist, working along the lines first suggested by
another great Englishman, James Hutton, to prove that the successive
populations of the earth, whose remains are found in fossil beds, had
lived for enormous periods of time, and had supplanted one another on
the earth, not through any sudden catastrophe, but by slow processes of
the natural development and decay of different kinds of beings.
Following the demonstrations of Lyell there came about a sudden change
of belief among geologists as to the age of the earth, until, in our
day, the period during which the earth has been inhabited by one kind
of creature and another is computed, not by specific thousands, but by
vague hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.
The last refuge for champions of the old chronology was found in the
claim that man himself had been but about six thousand years upon the
earth, whatever might be true of his non-human forerunners. But even
this claim had presently to be abandoned when the researches of the
palæontologists had been directed to the subject of fossil man.
The researches of Schmerling, of Boucher de Perth, of Lyell himself,
and of a host of later workers demonstrated that fossil remains of man
were found commingled in embedded strata and in cave bottoms under
conditions that demonstrated their extreme antiquity; and in the course
of the quarter century after 1865, in which year Lyell had published
his epoch-marking work on the antiquity of man, the new idea had made
a complete conquest, until now no one any more thinks of disputing
the extreme antiquity of man than he thinks of questioning the great
age of the earth itself. To be sure, no one pretends any longer to
put a precise date upon man’s first appearance. The new figures take
on something of the vagueness that characterise the estimates of the
Babylonians; but it is accepted as clearly proven that the racial
age of man is at least to be numbered in tens of thousands of years.
The only clues at present accessible that tend to give anything like
definiteness to the computations are the researches of Egyptologists
and Assyriologists.
In Egypt remains are found, as we shall see, which carry the history
of civilisation back to something like 5000 B.C., and in Mesopotamia
the latest finds are believed to extend the record by yet another two
thousand years. Man then existed in a state of high civilisation at a
period antedating the Christian era by about twice the length of time
formerly admitted for the age of earth itself.
How much more ancient the remains of barbaric man, as preserved in
the oldest caves, may be, it would be but vague guess work and serve
no useful purpose, to attempt to estimate. History proper, as usually
conceived, is concerned only with the doings of civilised man; and,
indeed, in one sense, such a restricted view is absolutely forced
upon the historian, for it is only civilised man who is able to
produce records that are preserved through the ages in such manner as
to tell a connected story to after generations. The arrow-heads and
charred sticks of the stone age of man are indeed proofs that this
man existed, and that he led his certain manner of life, some clear
intimations as to which are given by these mementoes; but they point
to no path by which we may hope to follow the precise history of those
succeeding generations by which the man of the stone age was connected
with, for example, the builder of the Egyptian Pyramids. We can,
indeed, trace in general terms the course of human progress. We know
that from using rough stone implements chipped into shape, man came
finally to acquire the art of polishing stones by friction, thus making
more finished implements. We know that later on he learned to smelt
metals, marvellous achievement that it was; and when this had been
accomplished, we may suppose that he pretty rapidly developed cognate
arts that led to higher civilisation.
Reasoning from this knowledge, we speak of the palæolithic or rough
stone age, of the neolithic or polished stone age, of the age of
bronze, and finally of the age of iron, as representing great epochs
in human progress. But it is only in the vaguest terms that we can
connect one of these ages with another, and any attempt at a definite
chronology in relation to them utterly fails us. This would not so
much matter if we were sure in any given case that we were tracing the
history of the same individual race through the successive periods;
but, in point of fact, no such unity of race can be predicated. There
is every reason to believe that each and every race that ever attained
to higher civilisation passed through these various stages, but the
familiar examples of the American Indians, who were in the rough
stone age when their continent was discovered by Columbus, and of the
African and Australian races, who, even now, have advanced no farther,
illustrate the fact that different races have passed through these
various stages of development in widely separated periods of time, and
take away all certainty from any attempts to compute exact chronologies.
CHAPTER V
THE RACES OF MAN AND THE ARYAN QUESTION
The question of races of mankind is one that has given rise to great
diversity of opinion among scientists and students of ethnology, and it
may as well be admitted at the outset that no very definite conclusions
have as yet been arrived at. One set of ethnologists have been disposed
to look to physical characters as the basis of a classification; others
have been guided more by language. In the earlier stages of the inquiry
the Biblical traditions have entered into the case with prejudicial
effect, and with the advances of science this subject as a whole has
seemed to grow more confused rather than clearer. For a time there
was a certain unanimity in regarding the Egyptians and their allies
as Hamites, the Babylonians, Hebrews, Phœnicians, and their allies as
Semites, and in bringing all other non-Aryan races into a conglomerate
class under the title of Turanians. Latterly, however, the artificial
character of such a classification as this has been more and more
apparent, and a growing belief tends to consider all the peoples
grouped about the Mediterranean as forming a single race, including
within that race, as is apparent, members of the old races of Hamites,
Semites, and Aryans. Yet another classification would group the peoples
of the earth according to their several stages of civilisation. But,
without attempting a complete enumeration of all the various systems
that have been suggested, one may summarise them all by repeating that
there is no complete uniformity of classification accepted by all
authoritative students of the subject.
Here as elsewhere, however, there is a tendency for old systems and old
names to maintain their hold, and notwithstanding the disavowals of
the most recent schools of ethnology, the classification into Hamites,
Semites, Aryans, and Turanians is doubtless the one that has still
the widest vogue. In particular the Aryan race, to which all modern
European races belong, has seemed more and more to make good its claims
to recognition. Thanks to the relatively new science of comparative
philology, it has been shown, and has now come to be familiarly
understood, that the languages of the Hindu and the Persian in the
far East are based upon the same principles of phonation as the Greek
and Latin and their daughter languages, and the language of the great
Teutonic race.
It is this affinity of languages that is the one defining feature of
the Aryan race. Since historical studies have made it more and more
plain that a nation in its wanderings, whether as a conquering or a
conquered people, may adopt the language of another nation, it has
become clear that a classification of mankind based on ethnic features
would have no necessary correspondence with a classification based upon
language. The philologists, therefore, who cling to the word “Aryan,”
or to the idea which it connotes, have latterly been disposed to urge,
as for example Professor Max Müller does in the most strenuous terms,
that in contending for an Aryan race they refer solely to a set of
people speaking the Aryan language, quite regardless of the physical
affinities of these people. And it is in this sense of the word, and
this alone, that the dark-skinned race of India is to be considered
brother to the fair-skinned Scandinavian; that, in short, all the
nations of modern Europe and the classical nations of antiquity are to
be jumbled together in an arbitrary union with the people of far-off
Persia and India.
While this classification establishing an Aryan race on the basis
of language has the support of all philologists, and, indeed, is
susceptible of the readiest verification, there is a growing tendency
to frown upon the use of the word “Aryan” itself. The word came into
vogue at a time when it was supposed on all hands that the original
home of the people to whom it was applied was Central Asia; that this
was the cradle of the Aryan race was long accepted quite as a matter of
course--hence the general acceptance of the name. But, in the course of
the last century, the supposed fact of the Asiatic origin of the Aryans
has been placed in dispute, and there is a seemingly growing school of
students, who, basing their claims on the evidence of philology, are
disposed to believe that the cradle of this race--if race it be--was
not Central Asia, but perhaps Western or Northwestern Europe. We must
not pause to discuss the evidence for this new view here; suffice it
that the evidence seems highly suggestive, if not conclusive.
To many philologists, including some who still hold that the
probabilities favour an Asiatic origin of the race, it now seems
advisable to adopt a name of less doubtful import, and of late it has
become quite usual to substitute for the word “Aryan” the compound
word “Indo-European,” or, what is perhaps better, “Indo-Germanic.”
Such a word, it is clear, summarises the fact that the Indians in the
far East and the Germanic race in the far West have a language that
is fundamentally the same, without connoting any theory whatever as
to the origin or other relations of these widely scattered peoples.
The name thus has an undoubted scientific status that makes it
attractive, but nevertheless it is too cumbersome to be accepted at
once as a substitute for the word “Aryan” in ordinary usage. Nor,
indeed does there seem to be any good reason why such substitution
should be made. Words very generally come in the course of time to
have an application which their original derivation would not at all
justify, and there is no more reason for ruling out the word “Aryan,”
even should it be proven absolutely that Asia was not the original
cradle of the Indo-Germanic race, than there would be for discarding
a very large number of words of Greek and Latin derivation that are
familiarly employed in the various modern European languages. Indeed,
it may be taken for granted that the generality of people to whom the
word “Aryan” is familiar have no such preconception aroused in their
minds by the word as it conveys to the mind of special scholars, and
in any event where a distinct disavowal is made of any ethnological
preconceptions in connection with the word, one is surely justified for
convenience sake in continuing to use the word “Aryan” as a synonym for
the more complicated term “Indo-Germanic.”
CHAPTER VI
ON PREHISTORIC CULTURE
It has been said that history proper is usually regarded as having
to do solely with the deeds of civilised man, but in point of fact
the scope of history as written at the present day necessarily falls
far short of comprehending the entire history of civilisation. Before
the dawn of recorded history man had evolved to a stage in which
the greater number of the greatest arts had been attained. That is
to say, he was possessed of articulate language. He had learned
to clothe and to house himself. He knew the use of fire. He could
manufacture implements of war and of peace. He had surrounded himself
with domesticated animals. He added to his food supply by practising
agriculture. He had established systems of government. He knew how
to embellish his surroundings by the practice of painting and of
decorative architecture, and last, and perhaps greatest, he had
invented the art of writing, and carried it far toward perfection.
With the development of these arts history proper is not concerned, but
this is not because the development of these arts would not constitute
true history if its course were known, but simply because of our entire
ignorance of all details of the subject.
In order to gain a clearer idea, however, of the status of human
culture at the dawn of history proper, it may be worth while to
glance in the most cursory way at each of the great inventions and
developments upon which the entire structure of civilisation depends.
_First. Language._
Perhaps the greatest single step ever made in the history of man’s
upward progress was taken when the practice of articulate speech
began. It would be contrary to all that we know of human evolution to
suppose that this development was a sudden one, or that it transformed
a non-human into a human species at a sudden vault. It is well known
that many of the lower animals are able to communicate with one another
in a way that implies at least a vague form of speech, and it has
been questioned whether the higher species of apes do not actually
articulate in a way strictly comparable to the vocalisation of man. Be
that as it may, the clear fact remains that one species of animal did
at a very remote time in the past develop the power of vocalisation in
the direction of articulate speech to a degree that in course of time
broadened the gap between that species and all others, till it became
an impassable chasm.
Without language of an explicit kind not even the rudiments of
civilisation would be possible. No one perhaps ever epitomised the
value of articulate speech in a single phrase more tellingly than
does Herder when he says: “The lyre of Amphion has not built cities.
No magic wand has transformed deserts into gardens. Language has done
it,--that great source of sociality.”
Obviously, then, could we know the history of the evolution of
articulate speech it would be one of the very greatest chapters in
all human records; but it is equally obvious that we can never hope
to know that history except inferentially. When the dawn of history
proper came, man had so long practised speaking that he had developed
countless languages so widely divergent from one another that they are
easily classified into several great types. From the study of these
languages the philologist draws more or less valid inferences as to
the later stages of linguistic growth and development. But he gains
no inklings whatever as to any of those earlier developments which
constituted the origin or the creation of language.
_Second. Clothing and Housing of Prehistoric Man._
Nothing is more surprising to the student of antiquity than to find
at what seems the very beginning of civilisation such monuments as
the Pyramids and the great sculptures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. But a
moment’s reflection makes it clear that man must have learned to house
himself, as well as to clothe himself, before he can have started on
that tour of conquest of the world which was so far advanced before
the dawn of history. Doubtless the original home of man must have been
in a tropical or subtropical climate, and he cannot well have left
these pampering regions until he had made a considerable development,
almost the first step of which required that he should gain the means
of protecting himself from the cold. The idea of such protection once
acquired, its elaboration was but a question of time. It is amazing
to observe how closely, both as regards attire and building, man had
approximated to the modern standards at the time when he first produced
monumental or other records that have come down to us.
_Third. The Use of Fire._
Quite as fundamental as the matter of housing and clothing, and even
more marvellous, considered as an invention, was the recognition of
the uses of fire, and the development of the methods of producing fire
at will. It is conceivable that some individual man at a relatively
early stage of human progress developed and elaborated this idea,
becoming the actual inventor of fire as applied to human uses. If such
was really the case, no greater inventor ever lived. But the wildest
flight of speculative imagination does not suffice to suggest where or
when this man may have lived. It cannot well be doubted, however, that
the use of fire must have been well known to the earliest generations
of men that attempted to wander far from the tropics. Clothed, housed,
and provided with fire, man was able to undertake the conquest of all
regions, but without fire he dare not have braved the winters even of
the middle latitudes, to say nothing of Arctic regions.
No doubt the earliest method of producing fire practically employed was
by friction of dry sticks, much after the manner still in use among
certain savage tribes. Obviously the flint and steel, which for so many
thousands of years was to be the sole practical means of producing fire
among the civilised races, could not have come into vogue until the
age of iron. The lucifer match, which was finally to banish flint and
steel, was an invention of the nineteenth century.
_Fourth. Implements of Peace and War._
A gigantic bound was made when man first learned to use a club
habitually, and doubtless the transition from a club to a mechanically
pointed spear constituted a journey as long and as hard as the
evolution from the spear to the modern repeating rifle. But before the
dawn of history there had been evolved from the club the battle-axe of
metal, and from the crude spear the metal-pointed javelin, the arrow,
the sword, and the dagger; the bow, too, of which the arrow was the
complement, had long been perfected, and from it had evolved various
other implements of warfare, culminating in the gigantic battering-ram.
Of implements of a more pacific character, boats of various types
furnished means of transportation on the water, and wagons with wheel
and axle, acting on precisely the same principle which is still
employed, had been perfected, both of these being used in certain
of their types for purposes of war as well as in the arts of peace.
Manufacture included necessarily the making of materials for clothing
from an early stage, and this had advanced from the crude art of
dressing skins to the weaving of woollen fabrics and fine linens that
would bear comparison with the products of the modern loom. Stones
were shaped and bricks made as materials for building. The principle
of the pulley was well understood as an aid to human strength; and the
potter’s wheel, with which various household utensils were shaped,
was absurdly like the ones that are still used for a like purpose. In
all of these arts of manufacture, indeed, a degree of perfection had
been attained upon which there was to be singularly little advance for
some thousands of years. It was not until well toward the close of the
eighteenth century that the series of great mechanical advances began
with the application of steam to the propulsion of machinery, which has
revolutionised manufacture and for the first time made a radical change
from the systems of transportation that were in vogue before the dawn
of history; and it was only a few centuries earlier that the invention
of gunpowder metamorphosed the methods of warfare that had been in
vogue for a like period.
_Fifth. The Domestication of Animals._
It is not difficult, if one considers the matter attentively,
to imagine how revolutionary must have been the effect of the
domestication of animals. Primitive man can at first have had no idea
of the possible utility of the animals about him, except as objects of
pursuit; but doubtless at a very early stage it became customary for
children to tame, or attempt to tame, such animals as wolves, foxes,
and cats of various tribes when taken young, much as children of
to-day enjoy doing the same thing. This more readily led to the early
domestication or half-domestication of such animals as that species of
wolf from which the various races of dogs sprang. It is held that the
dog was the first animal to become truly domesticated. Obviously this
animal could be of advantage to man in the chase, even in very early
stages of human evolution; and it is quite possible that a long series
of generations may have elapsed before any animal was added to the list
of man’s companions. But the great step was taken when herbivorous
animals, useful not for the chase, but as supplying milk and flesh for
food, were made tributary to the use of man. From that day man was
no longer a mere hunter and fisher; he became a herdsman, and in the
fact of entering upon a pastoral life, he had placed his foot firmly
on the first rung of the ladder of civilisation. An obvious change
became necessary in the life of pastoral people. They could still
remain nomads, to be sure, but their wanderings were restricted by a
new factor. They must go where food could be found for their herds.
Moreover, economic features of vast importance were introduced in the
fact that the herds of a people became a natural prey of less civilised
peoples of the same region. It became necessary, therefore, to make
provision for the protection of the herds, and in so doing an increased
feeling of communal unity was necessarily engendered. Hitherto we may
suppose that a single family might live by itself without greatly
encountering interference from other families. So long as game was
abundant, and equally open to the pursuit of all, there would seem
to be no reason why one family should systematically interfere with
another, except in individual instances where quarrels of a strictly
personal nature had arisen. But the pastoral life introduced an
element of contention that must necessarily have led to the perpetual
danger of warfare, and concomitantly to the growing necessity for such
aggregate action on the part of numerous families as constituted the
essentials of a primitive government. It is curious to reflect on these
two opposite results that must have grown almost directly from the
introduction of the custom of domesticating food animals. On the one
hand, the growth of the spirit of war between tribes; on the other, the
development of the spirit of tribal unity, the germs of nationality.
Much thought has been given by naturalists to the exact origin of the
various races of domesticated animals. Speaking in general terms,
it may be said that Asia is the great original home of domesticated
animals as a class. Possibly the dog may be the descendant of some
European wolf, and he had perhaps become the companion of man before
that great hypothetical eastward migration of the Aryans took place,
which the modern ethnologist believes to have preceded the Asiatic
settlement of that race. The cat also may not unlikely be a descendant
of the European wild cat, but the sheep, the cow, the donkey, and
the horse, as well as the barnyard fowl, are almost unquestionably
of Asiatic origin. Of these the horse was probably the last to be
domesticated, since we find that the Egyptians did not employ this
animal until a relatively late stage of the historic period, namely,
about the twentieth century B.C. This does not mean that the horse was
unknown to the Asiatic nations until so late a period, but it suggests
a relatively recent use of this animal as compared, for example, with
the use of cattle, which had been introduced into Egypt before the
beginning of the historic period. No animal of importance and only one
bird--the turkey--has been added to the list of domesticated creatures
since the dawn of history.
_Sixth. Agriculture._
The studies of the philologists make it certain that long periods
of time elapsed after man had entered on a pastoral life before he
became an agriculturist. The proof of this is found, for example, in
the fact that the Greeks and Romans use words obviously of the same
derivation for the names of various domesticated animals, while a
similar uniformity does not pertain to their names for cultivated
cereals or for implements of agriculture. Theoretical considerations of
the probable state of pastoral man would lead to the same conclusion,
for the gap between the wandering habits of the owners of flocks, whose
chief care was to find pasture, and the fixed abode of an agricultural
people, is indeed a wide one. To be sure, the earliest agriculturist
may not have been a strictly permanent resident of any particular
district; he might migrate like the bird with the seasons, and change
the region of his abode utterly from year to year, but he must in
the nature of the case have remained in one place for several months
together, that is to say, from sowing to harvest time; and to people
of nomadic instincts this interference with their desires might be
extremely irksome, to say nothing of the work involved in cultivating
the soil. But once the advantages of producing a vegetable food supply,
according to a preconceived plan, instead of depending upon the
precarious supply of nature, were fully understood and appreciated,
another great forward movement had been made in the direction of
ultimate civilisation. Incidentally it may be added that another
incentive had been given one tribe to prey upon another, and conversely
another motive for strengthening the bonds of tribal unity.
Agricultural plants, like domesticated animals, are practically all of
Asiatic origin. There are, however, three important exceptions, namely,
maize among cereals and the two varieties of potato, all of which
are indigenous to the Western hemisphere, and hence were necessarily
unknown to the civilised nations of antiquity. With these exceptions
all the important agricultural plants had been known and cultivated for
numberless generations before the opening of the historic period.
_Seventh. Government._
We have just seen how the introduction of domesticated animals
and agricultural plants must have influenced the communal habits
of primitive man in the direction of the establishment of local
government. There are reasons to believe that, prior to taking these
steps, the most advanced form of human settlement was the tribe or
clan consisting of the members of a single family. The unit of this
settlement was the single family itself with a man at its head, who
was at once provider, protector, and master. As the various members of
a family held together in obedience to the gregarious instinct, which
man shares with the greater number of animals, it was natural that some
one member of the clan should be looked to as the leader of the whole.
In the ordinary course of events, such leader would be the oldest
man, the founder of the original family; but there must have been a
constant tendency for younger men of pronounced ability to aspire to
the leadership, and to wrest from the patriarch his right of mastery.
Such mastery, however, whether held by right of age, or of superior
capacity, must have been in the early day very restricted in scope,
for of necessity primitive man depended largely on his own individual
efforts both for securing food, and for protection of himself and his
immediate family against enemies, and under such circumstances an
independence of character must have been developed that implies an
unwillingness to submit to the autocratic authority of another. Only
when the pastoral and agricultural phases of civilisation had become
fully established, would communities assume such numerical proportions
as to bring the question of leadership of the clan into perpetual
prominence; and no doubt a very long series of internal strifes and
revolutionary dissensions must have preceded the final recognition of
the fact that no large community of people can aspire to anything like
integrity without the clear recognition of some centralised authority.
Under the conditions incident to the early stages of civilisation,
where man was subject to the marauding raids of enemies, it was but
natural that this centralised authority should be conceded to some
man whose recognised prowess in warfare had aroused the respect
and admiration of his fellows. Thus arose the system of monarchial
government, which we find fully established everywhere among the
nations of antiquity when they first emerge out of the obscuration
of the prehistoric period. The slow steps of progress by which the
rights of the individual came to strike an evener balance, as against
the all-absorbing usurpations of the monarch and a small coterie of
his adherents, constitute one of the chief elements of the story of
history that is to be unfolded in our pages. But when the story opens,
there is no intimation of this reaction. The monarch is all dominant;
his individual subjects seem the mere puppets of his will.
_Eighth. The Arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Architecture._
The graven fragments of ivory and of reindeer horn, found in the cave
deposits of the stone age, give ample proof that man early developed
the desire and the capacity for drawing. Doubtless there was a more
or less steady advance upon this art of the cave-dweller throughout
succeeding generations, though the records of such progress are for the
most part lost. The monuments of Egypt and of Mesopotamia, however,
have been preserved to us in sufficient completeness to prove that the
graphic arts had reached a really high stage of development before the
close of the prehistoric period. It is but fair to add, however, that
in this direction the changes of the earlier centuries of the historic
period were far greater than were the changes in the practical arts.
As early as the ninth century B.C. the Assyrians had developed the
art of sculpture in bas-relief in a way that constituted a marvellous
advance upon anything that may reasonably be believed to have been
performed by prehistoric man, and only three centuries later came the
culminating period of Greek art, which marked the stage of almost
revolutionary progress.
_Ninth. The Art of Writing._
One other art remains to be mentioned even in the most cursory survey.
This is the latest, and in some respects the greatest of them all--the
art of writing. In one sense this art is only a development of the
art of drawing, but it is a development that has such momentous
consequences that it may well be considered as distinct. Moreover, it
led to results so important for the historian, and so directly in line
of all our future studies, that we shall do well to examine it somewhat
more in detail.
All the various phases of prehistoric culture at which we have just
glanced have left reminiscences, more or less vague in character,
for the guidance of students of later ages; but the materials for
history proper only began to be accumulated after man had learned to
give tangible expression to his thoughts in written words. No doubt
the first steps toward this accomplishment were taken at a very early
day. We have seen that the cave-dweller even made graphic though
crude pictures, including hunting scenes, that are in effect the same
in intent, and up to a certain point the same in result, as if the
features of the event were described in words. Doubtless there was no
generation after the stone age in which men did not resort, more or
less, to the graphic delineation of ideas.
The familiar story that Herodotus tells of the message sent by the
Scythians to Darius is significant. It will be recalled that the
Scythian messenger brought the body of a bird, a mouse, and a frog,
together with a bundle of five arrows. Interrogated as to the meaning
of this strange gift, the messenger replied that his instructions
were to present the objects and retire. Darius and his officers were
much puzzled to interpret the message, Darius himself being disposed
to regard it as an admission on the part of the Scythians that they
conceded him lord of their territory, the land, water, and air; but
one of the officers of the great king gave a different interpretation,
which was presently accepted as the correct one. As he read the message
it implied that unless the Persians could learn to fly through the air
like birds, or to burrow through the earth like a mouse, or to dive
through the water like a frog, they should not be able to escape the
arrows of the Scythians. Miss Amelia B. Edwards, in her delightful
book on Egypt, has hazarded some conjectures as to the exact way in
which the bird and mouse and frog and arrows were presented to Darius.
She believes that they were fastened to a piece of bark, or perhaps to
a fragment of hide, in fixed position, so that they became virtually
hieroglyphics. The question is interesting, but of no vital importance,
since the exact manner of presentation would not in any way alter the
intent, but would only bear upon the readiness of its interpretation.
The real point of interest lies in the fact of this transmission of
ideas by symbols, which constitutes the essence of the art of writing.
It may be presumed that crude methods of sending messages, not unlike
this of the Scythians, were practised more or less independently,
and with greater or less degrees of elaboration, by barbaric and
half-civilised tribes everywhere. The familiar case of the American
Indians, who were wont to send a belt of wampum and an arrow as a
declaration of war, is an illustration in point. The gap between such
a presentation of tangible objects and the use of crude pictures
to replace the objects themselves would not seem, from a civilised
standpoint, to be a very wide one. Yet no doubt it was an enormously
difficult gap to cross. Granted the idea, any one could string together
the frog, the bird, the mouse, and the arrows, but only here and
there a man would possess the artistic skill requisite to make fairly
recognisable pictures of these objects. It is true that the cave man of
a vastly earlier period had developed a capacity to draw the outlines
of such animals as the reindeer and the mammoth with astonishing
verisimilitude. Professor Sayce has drawn the conclusion from this
that the average man dwelling in the caves of France at that remote
epoch could draw as well as the average Frenchman of to-day; but a
moment’s consideration will make it clear that the facts in hand by
no means warrant so sweeping a conclusion. There is nothing to show,
nor is there any reason to believe, that the cave-dweller pictures
that have come down to us are the work of average men of that period.
On the contrary, it is much more likely that they were the work, not
of average men, but of the artistic geniuses of their day,--of the
Michelangelos, Raphaels, or if you prefer, the Landseers, the Bonheurs,
and Corots of their time.
There is no more reason to suppose that the average cave dweller could
have drawn the reindeer hunting scene or the famous picture of the
mammoth, than that the average Frenchman of to-day could have painted
the _Horse Fair_. There is no reason then to suppose that the average
Scythian could have made himself equally intelligible to Darius by
drawing pictures instead of sending actual objects, though quite
possibly there were some men among the Scythian hordes who could have
done so. The idea of such pictorial ideographs had seemingly not yet
come to the Scythians, but that idea had been attained many centuries
before by other people of a higher plane of civilisation. At least four
thousand years before the age of Darius, the Babylonians, over whose
descendants the Persian king was to rule, had invented or developed
a picture-writing and elaborated it until it was able to convey,
not merely vague generalities, but exquisite shades of meaning. The
Egyptians, too, at a period probably at least as remote, had developed
what seems an independent system of picture-writing, and brought it to
an astonishing degree of perfection.
At least three other systems of picture-writing in elaborated forms are
recognised, namely, that used by the Hittites in Western Asia, that of
the Chinese, and that of the Mexican Indians in America. No dates can
be fixed as to when these were introduced, neither is it possible to
demonstrate the entire independence of the various systems; but all
of them were developed in prehistoric periods. There seems no reason
to doubt that in each case the picture-writing consisted originally
of the mere graphic presentation of an object as representing an idea
connected with that object itself, precisely as if the Scythians
had drawn pictures of the mouse, the bird, the frog, and the arrows
in order to convey the message to Darius. Doubtless periods of
incalculable length elapsed after the use of such ideograms as this had
come into vogue before the next great step was taken, which consisted
in using a picture, not merely to represent some idea associated with
the object depicted, but to represent a sound. Probably the first steps
of this development came about through the attempt to depict the names
of men. Since the name of a man is often a combination of syllables,
having no independent significance, it was obviously difficult to
represent that name in a picture record, and yet, in the nature of the
case, the name of the man might often constitute the most important
part of the record. Sooner or later the difficulty was met, as the
Egyptian hieroglyphics prove to us, by adopting a system of phonetics,
in which a certain picture stands for the sound of each syllable of the
name. The pictures selected for such syllabic use were usually chosen
because the name of the object presented by the picture began with the
sound in question. Such a syllabary having been introduced, its obvious
utility led presently to its application, not merely to the spelling of
proper names, but to general purposes of writing.
One other step remained, namely, to make that final analysis of
sounds which reduces the multitude of syllables to about twenty-five
elementary sounds, and to recognise that, by supplying a symbol for
each one of these sounds, the entire cumbersome structure of ideographs
and syllables might be dispensed with. The Egyptians made this analysis
before the dawn of history, and had provided themselves with an
alphabet; but strangely enough they had not given up, nor did they ever
relinquish in subsequent times, the system of ideographs and syllabics
that mark the stages of evolution of the alphabet. The Babylonians at
the beginning of their historic period had developed a most elaborate
system of syllables, but their writing had not reached the alphabet
stage.
The introduction of the alphabet to the exclusion of the cruder methods
was a feat accomplished within the historic period by the Phœnicians,
some details of which we shall have occasion to examine later on. This
feat is justly regarded as one of the greatest accomplishments of the
entire historic period. But that estimate must not blind us to the fact
that the Egyptians and Babylonians, and probably also the Chinese, were
in possession of their fully elaborated systems of writing long before
the very beginnings of that historic period of which we are all along
speaking. Indeed, as has been said, true history could not begin until
individual human deeds began to be recorded in written words.
PART II
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES
H. C. BRUGSCH, E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, C. K. J. BUNSEN, J. F. CHABAS,
ADOLF ERMAN, K. R. LEPSIUS, A. E. MARIETTE, G. C. C. MASPERO,
EDUARD MEYER, W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, J. GARDNER WILKINSON
TOGETHER WITH A CHARACTERISATION OF
EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE
BY
ADOLF ERMAN
WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM
CLAUDIUS ÆLIANUS, WM. BELOE, THE HOLY BIBLE, J. B. BIOT, SAMUEL
BIRCH, J. F. CHAMPOLLION, DIODORUS SICULUS, GEORG EBERS, AMELIA
B. EDWARDS, ROBERT HARTMANN, A. H. L. HEEREN, HERODOTUS, FLAVIUS
JOSEPHUS, H. LARCHER, J. P. MAHAFFY, MANETHO, AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS,
JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, MELA POMPONIUS, L. MÉNARD, PAUSANIAS, PETRONIUS,
PLINY, PLUTARCH, R. POCOCKE, PETER LE PAGE RENOUF, I. ROSELLINI, E.
DE ROUGÉ, C. SAVARY, F. VON SCHLEGEL, G. SERGI, SOLINUS, STRABO,
ISAAC TAYLOR, THE TURIN PAPYRUS AND THE DYNASTIC LISTS OF KARNAK,
ABYDOS, AND SAQQARAH, A. WIEDEMANN, HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, AND
THOMAS YOUNG
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
_All rights reserved._
EGYPT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE.
BY DR. ADOLF ERMAN 57
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE 65
CHAPTER I. THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN 77
CHAPTER II. THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM 90
CHAPTER III. THE OLD THEBAN KINGDOM 106
CHAPTER IV. THE RESTORATION 126
CHAPTER V. THE XIXTH DYNASTY 141
CHAPTER VI. THE FINDING OF THE ROYAL MUMMIES 155
CHAPTER VII. THE PERIOD OF DECAY 162
CHAPTER VIII. THE CLOSING SCENES 180
CHAPTER IX. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS 196
CHAPTER X. THE EGYPTIAN RELIGION 219
CHAPTER XI. EGYPTIAN CULTURE 240
CHAPTER XII. CONCLUDING SUMMARY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 263
APPENDIX A. CLASSICAL TRADITIONS 267
APPENDIX B. THE PROBLEM OF EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 287
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 293
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY 295
[Illustration: ANCIENT AND MODERN EGYPT]
EGYPT AS A WORLD INFLUENCE
A CHARACTERISATION OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY
WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK
BY DR. ADOLF ERMAN
Professor of Egyptology in the University of Berlin; Director of
the Berlin Egyptian Museum; Member of the Royal Prussian Academy of
Sciences, Berlin, etc.
The countries that laid the foundation of our civilisation are not
of those through which traffic passes on its way from land to land.
Neither Babylon nor Egypt lies on one of the natural highways of the
world; they lie hidden, encircled by mountains or deserts, and the seas
that wash their shores are such as the ordinary seafarer avoids rather
than frequents.
But this very seclusion, which to us, with our modern ideas, seems
a thing prejudicial to culture, did its part toward furthering the
development of mankind in these ancient lands; it assured to their
inhabitants a less troublous life than otherwise falls to the lot of
nations under primitive conditions. Egypt, more particularly, had no
determined adversary, nor any that could meet her on equal terms close
at hand. To west of her stretched a desert, leading by interminable
wanderings to sparsely populated lands. On the east the desert was less
wide indeed, but beyond it lay the Red Sea, and he who crossed it did
but reach another desert, the Arabian waste. Southward for hundreds of
miles stretched the barren land of Nubia, where even the waterway of
the Nile withholds its wonted service, so that the races of the Sudan
are likewise shut off from Egypt. And even the route from Palestine to
the Nile, which we are apt to think of as so short and easy, involved a
march of several days through waterless desert and marshy ground. These
neighbour countries, barren as they are, were certainly inhabited, but
the dwellers there were poor nomads; they might conquer Egypt now and
again, but they could not permanently injure her civilisation.
Thus the people which dwelt in Egypt could enjoy undisturbed all the
good things their country had to bestow. For in this singular river
valley it was easier for men to live and thrive than in most other
countries of the world. Not that the life was such as is led in those
tropic lands where the fruits of earth simply drop into the mouth, and
the human race grows enervated in a pleasant indolence; the dweller
in Egypt had to cultivate his fields, to tend his cattle, but if he
did so he was bounteously repaid for his labour. Every year the river
fertilised his fields that they might bring forth barley and spelt
and fodder for his oxen. He became a settled husbandman, a grave
and diligent man, who was spared the disquiet and hardships endured
by the nomadic tribes. Hence in this place there early developed a
civilisation which far surpassed that of other nations, and with
which only that of far-off Babylonia, where somewhat similar local
conditions obtained, could in any degree vie. And this civilisation,
and the national characteristics of the Egyptian nation which went
hand in hand with it, were so strong that they could weather even a
grievous storm. For long ago, in the remote antiquity which lies far
beyond all tradition, Egypt was once overtaken by the same calamity
which was destined to befall her twice within historic times--she was
conquered by Arab Bedouins, who lorded it over the country so long
that the Egyptians adopted their language, though they altered and
adapted it curiously in the process. This transplantation of an Asiatic
language to African soil is the lasting, but likewise the only, trace
left by this primeval invasion; in all other respects the conquerors
were merged into the Egyptian people, to whom they, as barbarians, had
nothing to offer. There is nothing in the ideas and reminiscences of
later Egyptians to indicate that a Bedouin element had been absorbed
into the race; in spite of their language the aspect they present
to us is that of the true children of their singular country, a
people to whom the desert and its inhabitants are something alien and
incomprehensible. It is the same scene, _mutatis mutandis_, that was
enacted in the full light of history at the rise of Islam; then, too,
the unwarlike land was subdued by the swift onset of the Bedouins, who
also imposed their language on it in the days of their rule; and yet
the Egyptian people remains ever the same, and the people who speak
Arabic to-day in the valley of the Nile have little in common with the
Arabs of the desert.
Long before the period at which our historical knowledge begins, these
Egyptian husbandmen had laid the foundations of their civilisation.
They still went unclad and delighted to paint their bodies with green
pigment; their ruler still wore a lion’s tail at his girdle and a
strange savage-looking top-knot on his head; his sceptre was still
a staff such as may be cut from the tree; but these staves already
ruled a wide domain full of townships large and small. And in each
of these there were already nobles, responsible to the king for the
government thereof, looking with reverence toward his “great house,”
and paying him tribute of their corn and cattle. And in the midst of
the clay huts in every place stood a large hut, with wattled walls,
the entrance adorned with poles; no other than the sanctuary of their
god. Already they carved his image in wood and carried it round the
town at festivals. Manifold are the accomplishments which the Egyptians
have acquired by this time. They fashion the flint of the desert into
knives and weapons of the utmost perfection of workmanship, they make
cords, mats, and skiffs out of the rushes from the marsh-land, they
are acquainted with the art of manufacturing tiles and earthen vessels
from the clay of the soil. They carve in wood and ivory, and their
carvings have already a peculiar character wholly their own. Moreover,
they have prepared the way for the greatest of their achievements and
have learned to record their ideas by drawing small pictures; the
character is still for the most part pictographic, but even now certain
particular pictures are used to denote sounds.
On this primitive period of the Egyptian nation we can only gaze
from afar; we do not meet it face to face until the time when the
two kingdoms, into which the country had hitherto been divided, were
united for the first time by King Menes; this may have taken place
after the middle of the fourth millennium. The union must have given
a strong impulse to the life of the nation, and but a few generations
after the days of King Menes the monuments that have come down to us
exhibit most of the features characteristic of Egyptian civilisation in
the later centuries. The might of Egypt waxes apace; a few centuries
more--at the period we are in the habit of speaking of as the Old
Kingdom--and its development has progressed so far that nothing now
seems beyond its strength. The gigantic buildings of the IVth Dynasty,
whose great pyramids defy the tooth of time, bear witness to this. How
proudly self-conscious must the race have been which strove thus to
set up for itself a perpetual memorial! And if this passion for the
huge is relinquished in succeeding centuries, it is merely a token of
the further development of the nation; it has wearied of the colossal
scale, and turns its attention to a greater refinement of life, the
grace of which still looks forth upon us from the monuments of the Vth
Dynasty.
Thus, even under the Old Kingdom, Egypt is a country in a high state
of civilisation; a centralised government, a high level of technical
skill, a religion in exuberant development, an art that has reached
its zenith, a literature that strives upward to its culminating
point,--this it is that we see displayed in its monuments. It is an
early blossom, put forth by the human race at a time when other nations
were yet wrapped in their winter sleep. In ancient Babylonia alone,
where conditions equally favourable prevailed, the nation of the
Sumerians reached a similar height. Any one who will compare these two
ancient civilisations of Babylonia and Egypt cannot fail to see that
they present many similarities of custom; thus in both the seal is
rolled upon the clay, and both date their years according to certain
events. The idea that some connection subsisted between them, and that
then, as in later times, the products of both countries were dispersed
by commerce through the world about them, is one that suggests itself
spontaneously. But substantial evidence in support of this conjecture
is still lacking and will probably ever remain so.
The great age of the Old Kingdom ends in a collapse, the body politic
breaks up into its component parts, and the level of civilisation in
the provinces sinks rapidly. But it rises again no less rapidly, when,
at the close of the third millennium B.C., Egypt is once more united
under a single sovereign.
The Middle Kingdom, as we customarily call this epoch, is a second
season of efflorescence; indeed, it is the time upon which the
Egyptians of succeeding generations looked back as the classic period
of their literature; and many centuries later, boys at school were
still patiently copying out the wise lessons which the first king of
the period imparted to his son, or the adventures of his contemporary,
Sinuhe, and thereby learning the elegance of style in which the
Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom were such adepts. This, moreover, is
the epoch in which, so far as we know, the Egyptian arms were first
carried to remoter lands; at this time Nubia became an Egyptian
province, and the gold of its desert thenceforth belonged to the
Pharaohs. The memory of this extension of the sway of Egypt survived
among the Egyptians of later days, embodied in the semi-mythical figure
of the great King Sesostris. When legend reports that this monarch
likewise subjugated distant lands to the north, we have now no means
of judging how much truth there may be in the tale. But this we can
see, that at that time Egypt maintained commercial relations with the
countries of the Mediterranean; for their dainty vases are found in
Egyptian rubbish heaps of the period, and may have been imported into
the Nile valley then, as later, as vessels for containing delicate
foreign oils.
These palmy days of the second period of Egyptian history lasted for
barely two hundred years, and then a time of political decadence
again set in, and Egypt for some centuries passes almost out of
sight. One thing only do we know of its fortunes during this interval,
namely, that it once more fell a prey to barbarian conquerors. The
Hyksos--presumably a Bedouin tribe from the Syrio-Arabian desert--long
reigned in Egypt as its lords. But the sway of these barbarians was
naturally lax, and while the foreign great king abode in his camp on
the Delta, Egyptian princes ruled as his vassals in the great cities of
Egypt. And when, as was inevitable, the might of the barbarians waned,
the might of these dynasts increased, till one of them, who ruled in
the little city of Thebes in distant Upper Egypt, rose to such a height
of power as to gain the mastery, not only over the other princes, but
ultimately over the Hyksos themselves. About the year 1600 B.C. we find
Egypt free once more, and under the sceptre of this same upper Egyptian
line which has rendered the names of Thebes, its city, and Amen, its
god, forever famous. The New Kingdom, the greatest age that the Nile
Valley ever saw, has dawned.
The power of the kingdom waxed apace beyond its borders. Tehutimes I
and his son, the indefatigable warrior, Tehutimes III, subdued a region
that extended northward to northern Syria and southward to the Sudan;
Egypt became the neighbour of the kingdom of Mitani [or Mitanni] on
the Euphrates, of the rising power of Assyria, of ancient Babylonia.
The two ancient civilisations which had been developing for thousands
of years in Mesopotamia and the valley of the Nile were thus brought
into direct contact, and we shall hardly be wrong in saying that during
these centuries a great part of the civilised world whose heirs we are,
met together in a common life. A brisk trade must have developed as a
result of this new relation of country to country. The countries of
the Mediterranean, where the so-called Mycenæan civilisation was then
in its prime, had their part in it, as is proved by the discovery of
numerous Mycenæan vessels in the tombs and ruins of the New Kingdom,
and no less by the productions of Egyptian technical art which have
been brought to light from the seats of Mycenæan civilisation.
The effect of these altered relations upon Egypt is easy to see. Vast
wealth pours into the country and enables the Pharaohs to erect the
gigantic fabric of the Theban temples. But at the very time when the
spirit of ancient Egypt finds its most splendid transfiguration in
these buildings, it begins to suffer loss and change. The old simple
garb no longer beseems the lords of so great an empire; it must give
place to a costlier. The antiquated literary language handed down
from days of old is gradually superseded by the vulgar tongue. And if
the Egyptians had up to this time looked proudly down upon all other
nations as wretched barbarians, they must have found this narrow-minded
view untenable when once they had met face to face the equally ancient
civilisation of Babylonia and the vigorous growth of Syrian and
Mediterranean cultures. The sons of Egypt’s Asiatic vassals attend her
king, their daughters sit in his harem; Syrian mercenaries form one
regiment of his bodyguard, foreign captives work on the edifices he
builds. His officers, military and civil, have all made some stay on
Asiatic soil, and his “letter-scribe” can read and write the cuneiform
characters of Babylonia. The commerce which led foreign merchants to
Egypt must have acted no less powerfully; they brought in silverware,
wood of various kinds, horses and oxen, wine, beer, oil, and unguents,
and carried away in return the manifold products of Egyptian industry
and Egyptian crafts. In the long result not only does their traditional
fear of foreigners pass away, but Asiatic fashions actually come into
vogue among cultured Egyptians. They coquet with foreign Canaanitish
phrases, and think it permissible to offer up prayer to Baal [Bel]
Astarte, and other gods of alien peoples. Asiatic singing-girls set
the lyre of their native land in place of the old Egyptian harp, and
many an intellectual possession may have migrated into Egypt with their
songs.
It is far harder to gauge in detail the effect of Egyptian supremacy
on Asia and Europe. We can see from the discoveries made in these
countries what a quantity of small Egyptian wares in glass and
faience, silver and bronze, was exported during this period, and we
may further conclude that this was the time when the industrial art
of Syrio-Phœnicia acquired its Egyptianised style. Similarly we may
conjecture that it was then that our civilisation adopted all those
things which were undoubtedly invented or perfected on Egyptian soil,
and which we meet with even in the very oldest Greek and Etruscan
times--the forms of household furniture, of columns, statues, weapons,
seals, and many other things which still play their part in our daily
life, though we are all unconscious of their Egyptian origin. At that
period, when Egypt held the first place in Asia and Europe, a stream of
Egyptian influence must have flowed out upon the whole world--a stream
of which we still can guess the force only from these traces it has
left.
As for the most precious lore that other nations might have learned
from the Egyptians, we have no information concerning it whatever;
though it is certain that their intellectual riches, their religion
and poetry, their medical and arithmetical skill, can have been no
less widely spread abroad than these productions of their technical
dexterity. If, for example, our religion tells us of an immortality of
the soul more excellent than the melancholy existence of the shades,
the conception is one first met with in ancient Egypt; and Egyptian,
likewise, is the idea that the fate of the dead is determined by
the life led upon earth. These conceptions come to us by way of the
Jewish religion. But may not the Jews have obtained them from Egypt,
the land that bore its dead so heedfully in mind? The silent paths
by which such thoughts pass from nation to nation are, it is true,
beyond all showing. Or, if much in the gnomic poetry of the Hebrews
reminds us strikingly of the abundant proverbial literature of Egypt,
the idea of seeking its origin in the Nile Valley is one that occurs
almost spontaneously. Here, too, of course, we have no proof to offer;
connections of the kind can be no more than guessed at.
Thus the first part of the New Kingdom, or what we are in the habit
of calling the XVIIIth Dynasty, is one of those periods which are
pre-eminent as having advanced the progress of the world. To Egypt
herself this co-operation with other nations might have brought a new
and loftier development, had she been able really to assimilate the
influx of new ideas. But of this the old nation was no longer capable;
it had not vigour enough to shake off the ballast wherewith its
thousands of years of existence had laden it.
About 1400 B.C. one of the Pharaohs--it was Amenhotep IV--did indeed
make a serious attempt to break with custom and tradition and adapt
the faith and thought of his people to the new conditions. He tried to
create a new religion, in which only one god should be worshipped--the
Sun, a divinity which could be equally adored by all peoples within his
kingdom. And it sounds strangely un-Egyptian when the hymns to this new
god insist that all men, Syrians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, are alike
dear to him; he has made them to differ in colour and speech, and has
placed them in different lands, but he takes thought for all alike.
But this attempt of the fourth Amenhotep came to naught, and the spirit
of ancient Egypt triumphed over the abominable heretic. And with this
triumph the fate of Egypt was sealed. True, in the next century, under
the Sethos and the Ramses she enjoyed a period of external splendour,
to which the great temples of Karnak, Luxor, and Medinet Habu still
testify. But it was an illusory glory. Egypt was outworn and exhausted;
she could no longer maintain her political ascendency, her might falls
to pitiable ruin while younger and more vigorous nations in anterior
Asia take the place that once was hers. And therewith begins the long
and mournful death struggle of the Egyptian nation. The chief authority
passes from the hands of the kings to those of the priests, from them
to the commanders of the Syrian mercenaries; and then Egypt falls a
prey to the Ethiopian barbarians, with whom the Assyrians next dispute
it. For five long centuries the wretched nation is whelmed beneath
these miseries, and yet, so far as we can see, they work no change in
it; it is, in truth, exhausted utterly.
Once more, after the fall of the Assyrian empire, the political
situation changes in Egypt’s favour, and Psamthek I and his successors
won back wealth and power for her. But the aged nation had no longer
the skill to take wise advantage of propitious fortune; it had no
thoughts of its own, nor could it find fitting form for its new
splendour. The Egyptians rested content with imitating in whimsical
fashion, in all things, the Old Kingdom, the earliest period of their
national glory, and the contemporaries of Neku and Apries [Uah-ab-Ra]
took pleasure in feigning themselves the subjects of Cheops, in bearing
the titles of his court, and writing in a language and orthography
which had been in use two thousand years before. Learned antiquarianism
is the distinguishing feature of this latest Egyptian development.
The end of the sixth century brought fresh calamities upon the land.
Cambyses conquered it, and it became a Persian province. And although,
after many a vain attempt at revolt, it shook off the foreign yoke for
awhile, about 400 B.C., yet in a few decades it again fell into the
hands of the Persians. Since those days Egypt has never had a ruler of
her own blood; she has been the hapless spoil of any who chose to take
her.
Alexander the Great was the first to whom the country fell, and at his
death it became the heritage of his general, Ptolemy. In his family it
was handed down, to become at length a province of the Roman Empire
in the year 30 B.C. Throughout its length and breadth there is but
one spot that thrives during this period, the new port of Alexandria,
founded by the great king in the barren west of the Delta; this becomes
a metropolis of the Greek world, and its merchants and manufacturers
extend their trade by land and sea to every quarter. But this same
Alexandria was ever something of an alien in Egypt, and the rest of
the country took no part in the busy life that ran its round there;
it grew corn and flax and wine and supplied them to the Roman world,
it throve, but less for its own profit than that of the empire. Greek
culture made its way but slowly there, and even in the great cities
of the interior the Greek language and the Greek religion were never
strong enough to displace the native idiom and the old faith. They
influenced it by degrees, much as the European culture of to-day
influences the ancient civilisation of the far East, but even as the
Chinese remain Chinese in spite of railroads and the telegraph, so the
Egyptians of the Græco-Roman period clung tenaciously to their own
ways. They held fast all points of the national customs they only half
understood; above all, they held to their ancient faith. And yet by
that time the religion of Egypt was as degenerate and debased as it
could possibly be. As is apt to be the case with antiquated beliefs,
its mere singularities had flourished at the expense of its wholesome
side; cats, snakes, and crocodiles had now become the most sacred
of beings in the eyes of the vulgar, and every kind of superstition
was rampant. The depositaries of this religion were the members of a
stereotyped hierarchy that had long lost touch with the outer world;
they worshipped their gods according to the old tradition, used the
ample wealth of the temples to build them new shrines in the old style,
and enjoyed their fat benefices under the benevolent protection of the
foreign government.
Thus the Egypt of this later day had long been empty of all vital
force; it continued to exist, but only because the aged nation had lost
the power of adapting itself to the new world. And yet this decrepit
Egyptian character, with its dead religion, cast a singular spell over
the sated spirit of the Roman world. The worship of Isis and Serapis
spread far and wide; everywhere Egyptian sorcerers found a willing
public for their superstitions. Roman tourists visited the ancient
land, gazed in amazement at its wonders, while at home the nobles built
themselves villas in the Egyptian style and adorned them with statues
from Memphis. Even the most highly educated looked upon Egypt as a holy
land, where everything was full of mystery and marvel, and piety and
the true worship of the gods had their dwelling place from of old. And
even after the fashionable predilection for things Egyptian had passed
away, this notion of the mysterious and sacred land of Egypt remained
fixed in men’s minds, and was handed on from generation to generation.
Whenever ancient Egypt is mentioned in later days it suggests ideas
of mystery, symbolism, and esoteric wisdom. And so anything to which
it is desired to lend an air of mystery claims derivation preferably
from Egypt, the secret lodges of the eighteenth century no less
than the spiritualists and quacks of our own day. Ancient Egypt has
acquired this reputation, and though, now that we know it better, we
perceive that it is but little in accordance with her true character,
all our researches will not be able to dispel the illusion of two
thousand years. In the future, as in the past, the feeling with which
the multitude regards the remains of Egyptian antiquity will be one
of awestruck reverence. Nevertheless, another feeling would be more
appropriate, a feeling of grateful acknowledgment and veneration,
such as one of a later generation might feel for the ancestor who had
founded his family and endowed it with a large part of its wealth. For
though we are seldom able to say with certainty of any one thing in our
possession that it is a legacy we have inherited from the Egyptians,
yet no one who seriously turns his attention to such subjects can now
doubt that a great part of our heritage comes from them. In all the
implements which are about us nowadays, in every art and craft which we
practise now, a large and important element has descended to us from
the Egyptians. And it is no less certain that we owe to them many ideas
and opinions of which we can no longer trace the origin, and which have
long come to seem to us the natural property of our own minds.
This legacy of ideas, no less than of technical dexterity and artistic
form, which the Egyptians have bequeathed to us, constitutes the
service they have done to the human race. They cannot vie with the
Greeks in intellectual gifts, and they never possessed the force that
determines the course of history; but they were able to develop their
capabilities earlier than other nations, and thus secured for the world
the substantial groundwork of civilisation.
Thirty centuries have passed since ancient Egypt accomplished this, her
real mission for the world; since then she has hardly done more than
till her soil in its service. Silently her existence has flowed on,
and all the catastrophes which have befallen her since Roman times have
not been able to stir her to fresh vigour. Christianity spread in Egypt
early, but the philosophic labours accomplished there in connection
with it are the work of the educated Hellenistic classes, not of the
Egyptians proper. What these last added to Christianity, the anchoretic
and monastic life, cannot be counted among its advantages. And when, in
the fifth century, the Egyptians broke away from the Catholic Church,
the barbarian element to which the nation succumbed thenceforward
finally triumphed. The tie that had bound the Egyptians to European
civilisation was severed, and the Arab conquest had only to set the
seal to this divorce.
This same Arab conquest, which, in the course of centuries, went so
far as to rob the ancient nation of its ancient language, and imposed
a new faith upon the great majority of its inhabitants, was powerless
to inspire it with new life. Outwardly Egypt has become Arab, but the
Egyptians had but a very small share in the intellectual life of the
Arab Middle Ages, a share probably not much larger than that which they
had taken in Alexandrian culture.
Once again, in our own days, the opportunity of rousing itself afresh
is offered to the Egyptian nation. It is once more linked with Europe,
and its prosperity has advanced with astounding rapidity. From all
sides new influences stream in upon the ancient people, and we would
fain indulge in the hope that now at length it might awake to new
life. But, unhappily, this hope has but little prospect of fulfilment,
and all things will but run again the course they ran long ago in
Græco-Roman days. The foreigner will prosper in Egypt and invest it
with a tinge of his own civilisation, the work of European civilisation
will inspire an Egyptian here and there with a profound sympathy. But
the nation itself will remain untouched, it will rise up no more, it
has lived itself out and its intellectual capabilities are exhausted.
In time to come, the Egyptian nation will probably do no more for the
human race than diligently provide it with cotton and onions, as it
does to-day.
EGYPTIAN HISTORY IN OUTLINE
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY COMPRISING A CURSORY VIEW OF THE SOURCES OF
EGYPTIAN HISTORY, THE SWEEP OF EVENTS, AND A TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY
Until somewhat recently it has been customary to think of Egyptian
history as constituting a single uniform period. Before our generation
it was quite impossible for any one to realise the extreme length of
time which this history involves; or if a certain few did realise it,
a consensus of opinion among the many forbade the acceptance of their
estimate. Now, however, limitations of time are no longer a bugbear to
the historian, and we are coming to realise the full import of the fact
that when one speaks of historic Egypt he is referring to an epoch at
least four thousand years in extent. Prior to the nineteenth century
discoveries, the historian had only the most meagre supply of material
dealing with any epoch prior to that age of the Trojan War which
marked the extreme limits of the historic view in Greece; but now we
understand that the men who built the Pyramids in Egypt were at least
as far removed from Homer as Homer is removed from us: and it is but
the expression of an historical platitude to say that a vast stretch of
Egyptian history must lie back of the Pyramids; for no one any longer
supposes that a people recently emerged from barbarism could have
created such structures.
Throughout classical times very little was known of the history of
Egypt, except what was contained in the fragmentary remains of Manetho
and the more lengthy descriptions of Herodotus and Diodorus. There were
other references, of course, but for anything like a comprehensive
knowledge of the history of the country it would have been necessary to
understand the Egyptian language and decipher the hieroglyphics; and no
person throughout classical times had such understanding.
There were practically no additions to the world’s knowledge of ancient
Egyptian history from classical times till about the beginning of
the nineteenth century. The stimulus to the new knowledge that was
then acquired came about chiefly through the Egyptian expedition of
Napoleon. The French expedition included various scientists who made a
concerted effort to study the antiquities, and to transport as many of
them as might be to Paris. In the latter regard the expedition failed,
as in some more important particulars, through the interference of the
British, with the result that some of the most important antiquities,
including the since famous Rosetta stone, found their way to the
British Museum. A large amount of material, however, was transported
to Paris, and gave occupation to the savants of France for about a
generation before the final publication of results in a monumental work.
But before this publication, thanks to the efforts of Thomas Young
in England, and Champollion in France, the hieroglyphics had been
deciphered, and at last the almost inexhaustible word treasures of
Egypt were made available as witnesses for history. Very naturally, a
large number of explorers entered the field, and from that day till
this there has been no dearth of Egyptologists either in the field of
exploration or of interpretation. Prominent among these in the first
half of the century were the pupils of Champollion, the Italians,
Rossellini and Salvolini. But the most important work, perhaps, was
done by the German, Lepsius, who came to be recognised as the foremost
Egyptologist of his time, and whose _Denkmäler aus Aegypten und
Aethiopien_ is still one of the most monumental works on the subject.
In England, Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson took up the study of Egyptian life
in particular, and deduced from the inscriptions of the monuments and
from the pictures a comprehensive understanding of Egyptian manners
and customs. The various workers at the British Museum, beginning
with Birch and continuing with Renouf and with E. A. Wallis Budge,
have added an ever increasing complement to our knowledge of Egyptian
archæology.
The country of Champollion has been ably represented in more recent
time by Mariette and Maspero; while in Germany, Dümichen, Meyer, and
Wiedemann have worked and written exhaustively, the former with special
reference to archæology, the two latter with reference to history. But
no one else perhaps has given quite such attention to the language of
old Egypt as Professor Adolf Erman. The field that Wilkinson occupied
earlier in the century has also been entered by Professor Erman,
and the most recent and authoritative studies of Egyptian manners
and customs are those that he has deduced from the papyri and the
monumental inscriptions. Wilkinson depended largely upon pictorial
representations for his information, but Erman has been able to go
beyond these to the subtler and sometimes more illuminative written
records.
As to the early history of Egypt, no one else has made such exhaustive
studies as Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie, whose publications cover
a wide range, from the most technical to the relatively popular. For
a strictly popular presentation of the subject, however, the works
of George Ebers, of Baron Bunsen, and of Amelia B. Edwards should be
consulted, together with the books of Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson and the
works of Professor Adolf Erman.
A more comprehensive account of these writers and their labours,
together with reasonably complete bibliographies of the entire subject,
will be found at the close of the history of Egypt. The character of
the materials with which the Egyptologists have worked in creating a
new history of one of the oldest civilisations, will be revealed as we
proceed.
The Egyptians of history are probably a fusion of an indigenous
white race of northeastern Africa and an intruding people of Asiatic
origin. In the Archaic period independent kings ruled in the Delta
region (Kings of the Red Crown) and in Upper Egypt (Kings of the White
Crown). Under King Menes the two crowns were probably first united,
and the Dynastic period begins. According to Egyptian traditions the
pre-dynastic ages were filled with dynasties of gods and demigods,
who were perhaps primeval chiefs or tribal leaders. Monuments of the
pre-dynastic period are earthenware vases, jars, sculptured ivory
objects, and flint implements.
The dynasties which formed the foundation of all classifications of
Egyptian history are based upon the lists of the Egyptian priest
Manetho, who wrote a history of Egypt in the time of the Ptolemies.
The original work of Manetho has not come down to us, and it is quite
impossible to restore it _in extenso_ from the fragmentary excerpts
that are preserved. The writings of Josephus and of Eusebius are our
chief sources for Manetho’s lists, but Josephus copied the lists only
in part, and Eusebius seemingly knew them only at second or third
hand, when, it is suspected, they had been somewhat perverted in the
interests of Hebrew chronology. Nevertheless, the dynasties of Manetho
as we now know them probably do not very radically differ from the
original lists. Beyond question these are based upon authentic Egyptian
documents, but there is a good deal of confusion and much difference
of opinion among Egyptologists, as to whether some of the dynasties
were not contemporaneous; and for many periods the lists are only
provisional.
It is notable, however, that the somewhat recent discoveries of
original Egyptian lists, such as the so-called Turin Papyrus and the
dynastic lists of Karnak and Abydos, tend to corroborate the lists of
Manetho, and show that he was an historian of very great merit. It is
convenient also to regard the grand divisions of Egyptian history noted
by Manetho, namely, the Old Memphis Kingdom, comprising the first ten
dynasties; the Middle Kingdom or Old Theban Kingdom, comprising the
XIth to the XVIIth Dynasties; and the New Theban Kingdom, comprising
the remaining dynasties.[1]
As to the dates employed in the following chronology, a word of
explanation is necessary. Neither Manetho’s lists nor any other
available sources enable us at present to supply exact dates for the
earlier periods of Egyptian history with any precision. Authorities
differ as to the early period to the extent of more than three thousand
years. Thus Champollion gives the date 5867 B.C. for the beginning of
the Ist Dynasty, while Wilkinson supplies for the same event the date
2320 B.C. Later authorities are pretty fully agreed that such a date
as that of Wilkinson is much too recent. Meyer fixes upon 3180 B.C. as
the minimum date, and no doubt he would very willingly admit that the
probable date is much more remote. For our present purpose it has been
thought well to adopt an intermediate date, as in some sense striking
an average among divergent opinions. The dates of Brugsch, which agree
rather closely with those of Mariette and Petrie, have in the main been
followed here, with certain modifications made necessary by recent
discoveries, chiefly with reference to synchronism with known dates
of the Assyrian empire and other countries. It will be understood,
therefore, that all the earlier dates of this chronology are accepted
as merely approximative, the approximation becoming closer and closer
as we come down the centuries. At the middle of the XVIIIth Dynasty
the dates cannot be more than twenty years out of the way, while from
the XXIInd onward the probable error is very small indeed, vanishing
entirely with the accession of Psamthek I of the XXVIth Dynasty.
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK]
For present purposes it is undesirable to give a complete list of the
names of Egyptian kings. Fuller details as to monarchs and events will
be given elsewhere in our text. But the purposes of our preliminary
view are better subserved by confining attention to the more important
Pharaohs, and to the principal events that give picturesqueness and
interest to Egyptian history.
We take up now the synoptical view of the successive dynasties. Such
a survey will, it is believed, furnish the reader with the best
possible preparation for the full comprehension of the more detailed
presentation that is to follow.
THE OLD MEMPHIS KINGDOM
IST DYNASTY, 4400-4133 B.C.
4400 B.C. Accession of =Menes=. Ist Dynasty founded. Tradition ascribes
to him the foundation of Memphis, the capital of the Old Memphite
Kingdom, whither it was moved from This or Thinis; and states that
he was killed by a hippopotamus in a campaign against the Libyans.
_Monument._--A tomb discovered by De Morgan (1897) is believed to
be that of King Menes, or of his wife Nit-hotep.
4366 =Teta.=--Second king, said to have written a work on anatomy.
_Monument._--A papyrus bought in Thebes by Ebers refers to a
pomatum made for Teta’s mother, Shesh.
4266 =Hesepti= (=Semti=).--Fifth king. Several passages in the Book
of the Dead refer to him. King Senta of the IInd Dynasty owned a
medical work which once belonged to Semti.
_Monument._--His tomb has been discovered by Amélineau at Abydos.
It contained among other things an ebony tablet representing the
king dancing before Osiris. (Now in the British Museum.)
4233 =Merbapen.=--Sixth king.
_Monument._--Tomb at Abydos, discovered by Amélineau.
4200 =Semen-Ptah= (=Semsu=).--Seventh king. Manetho says: “In his
reign a terrible pestilence afflicted Egypt.”
IIND DYNASTY, 4133-3900 B.C.
4133 =Neter-b’au.=--First king. Manetho says: “During his reign a
chasm opened near Bubastis and many persons perished.”
_Monument._--Tomb discovered by Amélineau in 1897 at Abydos.
4100 =Ka-ka-u.=--Second (?) king; establishes or expands the
worship of Apis; also of Mnevis and the Mendesian goat.
4066 =Ba-en-neter.=--Third (?) king; establishes the right of
female succession.
IIIRD DYNASTY, 3900-3766 B.C.
3900 =Neb-ka.=--First or third king. According to Manetho a revolt
of the Libyans in which they submitted “on account of an unexpected
increase in the moon,” took place in this reign.
3866 =Zeser= (=T´er-sa=).--Second or fourth king. Builder of the
Step Pyramid of Saqqarah. Dr. Budge says of this: “It is certainly
the oldest of all the large buildings which have successfully
resisted the action of wind and weather, and destruction by the
hand of man.”
_Monuments._--The Step Pyramid; the Great Sphinx of Gizeh.
Rapid development of civilisation during the first three dynasties.
IVTH DYNASTY, 3766-3566 B.C.
3766 =Sneferu.=--First king. He wars against the robber-like tribes
of the desert. He is said, on a monument of the XIIth Dynasty, to
have founded Egyptian dominion in the peninsula of Sinai, which
he conquered for its mineral wealth.
_Monuments._--A number of carved stones, a bas-relief at Wady
Magharah showing him smiting an enemy.
3733 =Khufu= or =Cheops=.--Builder of the Great Pyramid, Khut--“The
Horizon.”
3666 =Khaf-Ra.=--Builder of the pyramid Ur,--“The Great.”
3633 =Men-kau-Ra.=--Builder of the pyramid Her,--“The Supreme.” He
enlarges it after it is built. He afterward builds another pyramid
at Abu Roash, and was probably buried there.
A peaceful dynasty. Brilliant age of art and literature.
VTH DYNASTY, 3566-3300 B.C.
3566 A new house from Elephantine “of priestly character” founded
by =Us-kaf=.
3533 =Sahu-Ra.=--One of the most renowned rulers of the Old Memphis
Kingdom. Wars in Sinai.
_Monument._--Pyramid Khaba, at Abusir.
3433 =Usen-en-Ra.=--First Pharaoh to adopt a second cartouche with
his private name, An. He holds the rule over the peninsula of Sinai.
_Monuments._--The pyramid Menasu; a victory tablet at Wady
Magharah; two statues, etc.
3366 =Tat-ka-Ra= (=Assa=).--He continues to wage war with even
greater activity in the peninsula of Sinai.
_Monuments._--The oldest papyri of authentic date belong to this
reign. They are: “The Papyrus of Accounts” found at Saqqarah and
the “Proverbs of Ptah-hotep.”
Ptah-hotep was probably the uncle and tutor of the king, under
whose patronage the work was given to the world.
3333 Close of dynasty and first period of Egyptian history with
King =Unas=.
_Monument._--Pyramid Nefer-asu, at Saqqarah.
No great monuments in this dynasty. An age of decline. The art of
building shows a great falling off from that of the IVth Dynasty.
Methods are careless; decoration becomes formal, coarse, and flat.
_Monument of Vth Dynasty._--The Palermo stele, containing, among
others, names of some of the pre-dynastic kings of Lower Egypt.
VITH DYNASTY, 3300-3000 B.C.
3300 A new line of vigorous Memphite kings founded by =Teta=.
_Monument._--Pyramid Tat-asu at Saqqarah, one of the first and
worst despoiled by plunderers.
3233 =Pepi Ist.=--Most important ruler of this dynasty. He has
left more monuments than any other ruler before the XIIth
Dynasty. Great and successful wars against the Aamu and Herusha,
inhabiting the desert east of the Delta. War against the people
of Terebah, a country of doubtful location, probably in western
Asia.
_Monuments._--The long inscription on the tomb of Una, Pepi’s
general, is our source of the history of this reign. Pyramid
Men-nefer, at Saqqarah; the red granite sphinx of Tanis;
statuettes, etc.
3066 Queen =Men-ka-Ra=.--The Nitocris of Herodotus. The early
part of this dynasty is characterised by foreign conquest and
exploration, but toward the end internal troubles have brought
the kingdom to a state of disorganisation. Architecture rapidly
declines.
VIITH, VIIITH, IXTH, AND XTH DYNASTIES, 3000-2700 B.C.
3000-2700 A long era of confusion. Rapid decay of the Memphite
power in the VIIth and VIIIth Dynasties, while that of Thebes
is rising. The Delta invaded and occupied by Syrian tribes,
which drive the capital from Memphis south to Heracleopolis.
A great wall is built across the Isthmus of Suez to keep the
invaders out. Dynasties IX and X at Heracleopolis in constant
conflict with the Theban princes, in which the latter gradually
attain their independence and establish the XIth (First Theban)
Dynasty. For about a century the Xth and XIth Dynasties probably
reign contemporaneously.
_Monuments._--Mainly scarabs.
THE OLD THEBAN (MIDDLE) KINGDOM
XITH DYNASTY, 2700-2466 B.C.
2700 Beginning of the Old Theban (Middle) Kingdom. =Antef I= (?),
first of nine (?) kings. They are all buried at the foot of the
Western Mountain of the Theban Necropolis.
_Monument._--The coarsely carved coffin of Antef I, rudely
painted in red, blue, and yellow. (Now in the Louvre.)
2600 =Mentuhotep II= (=Neb-taui-Ra=).
_Monuments._--A tablet at Konosso relating his conquest of
thirteen tribes; inscriptions in the quarries of Hammamat.
2550 =Metuhotep III.=--The greatest king of the dynasty, judging
from the number of his monuments. A patron of art. His worship
continues till a late day.
_Monuments._--Pyramid Khut-asu, at Thebes; sandstone tablet at
Silsilis; tablets at Assuan; a temple at Thebes.
2500 =Sankh-ka-Ra.=--Last king of dynasty. The first voyage to Punt
and Ophir under the leadership of Hannu takes place in his reign.
_Monuments._--Inscriptions at Hammamat recording the voyage to
Punt; a statue found at Saqqarah.
XIITH DYNASTY, 2466-2250 B.C.
2466 The power of Thebes is now firmly established, and the country
enters upon a period of greatness with =Amenemhat I=, the first
king, who shows remarkable vigour. Expedition against the
Libyans, Herusha, Mazau, and Sati (Asiatics).
_Monuments._--The great temple of Amen at Thebes; statues;
inscriptions; the papyrus containing the famous “Instructions to
his Son”; and the memoirs of Sineh (Sinehat or Sinhue).
2446 =Usertsen I.=--Took charge of foreign campaigns in his
father’s reign. Asserts his power in the Sinaitic peninsula.
Warlike expedition to Nubia as related on the Tomb of Ameni.
Enlarges temple at Karnak. Order re-established in the land.
_Monuments._--Obelisk of Heliopolis; a portrait bust and
statues; the tomb of Ameni.
2400 =Amenemhat II.=--Works the mines of Sarbut-el-Khadem. Manetho
says he was slain by his chamberlains.
2370 =Usertsen II.=
_Monuments._--A curious and unusual temple at Illahun; a bust of
Queen Nefert; the tomb of Khnum-hotep with historical records.
2340 =Usertsen III.=--A famous name. The conqueror of Ethiopia
after many campaigns. He makes the conquest secure by fixing
the frontier of Egypt above the Second Cataract and building
the fortresses of Semneh and Kummeh. Afterward revered as the
founder of Ethiopia.
_Monuments._--A papyrus containing a long hymn to the king;
statues; pyramid at Dahshur; tomb of Princess Set-hathor, which
contained some remarkable jewellery.
2305 =Amenemhat III.=--Constructs Lake Mœris as a storage reservoir
for the Nile overflow. Also the Labyrinth palace. These are his
_monuments_.
2265 =Amenemhat IV.=--The dynasty begins to decline.
2255 Queen =Sebek-neferu-Ra=, sister of Amenemhat IV.
The XIIth Dynasty a great age for art and literature. Immense
activity in building. The literary style is the model for future
ages. Valuable historic records on the tombs.
THE XIIITH, XIVTH, XVTH, XVITH, AND XVIITH DYNASTIES, 2250-1635 B.C.
2250-1635 A period the length of which is unknown, and which has
been variously estimated at from four hundred to nearly a
thousand years. (See Chapter III, pages 120, 121.) The XIIIth
Dynasty reigns at Thebes, and =Sebekhotep I= is its first king.
Before its close the Hyksos invaders have gained rapidly in
power, and the new dynasty (XIVth) is driven to Xoïs in the
western Delta. The Hyksos establish their rule, and the later
kings of the XIVth are probably provincial governors with a
short tenure of office, retained by the Hyksos for purposes
of internal government. The XVth Dynasty is that of the great
Hyksos kings, =Salatis=, =Bnon=, =Apachnan=, =Aphobis=, =Annas=,
=Asseth=, and marks the climax of their power. Their principal
towns are Ha-Uar (Avaris), Pelusium, and Tanis. They adopt the
customs, language, and writings of the Egyptians. Their chief
god is Sutekh, “the Great Set,” to whom they build a great
temple at Tanis. The XVth Dynasty is in part contemporaneous
with the XIVth and XVIth Egyptian; in the latter the provincial
governors gradually have their tenure of power lengthened. The
XVIIth is of both Hyksos and Egyptians, in which the former
begin to lose their power.
_Monuments._--Many statues, inscriptions, implements of war, etc.
1800 A new house from the south gradually regains Egypt from the
Hyksos. Its principal kings are named =Seqenen Ra=. =Seqenen Ra
III= marries Aah-hotep, a princess of pure Egyptian blood. By
the time her son by a former marriage, Aahmes I, comes to the
throne, the Hyksos have been driven and confined to the district
around Avaris, where they prepare to make a final stand.
1730 Descent of the Hebrews into Egypt.
THE NEW THEBAN KINGDOM
XVIIITH DYNASTY, 1635-1365 B.C.
1635 =Aahmes I.=--Founds the New Theban Kingdom. Defeats and drives
the Hyksos from Avaris; pursues them into Asia. Campaign
against Nubia, whose people again need repelling. Rebuilds
temples in the principal cities. Thebes embellished. Marries
Nefert-ari.
_Monuments._--Coffins and mummies of the king and queen;
statues; jewellery from coffin of Aah-hotep.
1610 =Amenhotep I.=--Campaign against Cush and Libya. Historical
records on the tomb of Admiral Aahmes.
_Monuments._--His coffin and mummy; temple at Thebes; statues.
1590 =Tehutimes I.=--Penetrates into Asia as far as the Euphrates.
Campaign in Libya.
_Monuments._--Coffin and mummy; obelisks, pylons, and pillars at
Karnak; many statues, etc.; tomb of Admiral Aahmes.
1565 =Tehutimes II.=
_Monuments._--Coffin and mummy; part of temples of
Deir-el-Bahari and Medinet Habu; statues.
1552 Queen =Hatshepsu=, a reign of peaceful enterprise. Mining
industries developed, also potteries and glass works. Sends
expedition of discovery to Punt.
_Monuments._--The Great Temple of Deir-el-Bahari; statues;
a sculptured account of the voyage to Punt; furniture; a
draughtboard and draughtmen, etc.
1530 =Tehutimes III.=--Begins his independent reign. The Great
Conqueror of Egyptian history. Southern Syria had rebelled some
time before and, 1529, he begins operations at Zaru. Second year
of independent reign, battle of Megiddo in campaign against the
Ruthennu. In the following years campaigns in Syria, fifteen in
all; cities reduced and the Kharu, Zahi, Ruthennu, Kheta and
Naharaina made tributary. Great activity in temple building.
The influence of Syrian culture now begins to be felt in Egypt.
Art and manners lose their distinctive characteristics, and a
decline sets in.
_Monuments._--Coffin and mummy; obelisks; part of temple at
Karnak, etc.; numerous statues and relics of all kinds, and very
full annals.
1500 =Amenhotep II.=--Campaign in Asia to check revolt among his
vassals.
_Monuments._--Portrait statues; obelisks and columns at Karnak.
1470 =Tehutimes IV.=--Continues work of keeping together the empire
of Tehutimes III. Marries a Mitannian princess.
_Monuments._--Statues, scarabs, fine private tombs.
1455 =Amenhotep III.=--With the exception of one campaign in
fifth year in Egypt, rests secure in his supremacy abroad.
Trade and art are developed at home. Close relations between
Egypt and Syria. Marries Thi, perhaps of Syrian origin (mother
of Amenhotep IV), also Gilukhipa (or Kirgipa), daughter of the
king of Mitanni (Naharain). He becomes the ally of the king of
Mitanni. He also seems to have married a daughter of the king of
Kardunyash (Babylon).
_Monuments._--Very numerous. The Avenue of Sphinxes between
Karnak and Luxor; temple of Mentu at Karnak; great temple of
Luxor; the famous colossi of the Nile; tomb of Amenhotep the
architect and administrator, etc.
1420 =Amenhotep IV= (=Khun-aten=).--Early in this reign the king
and court renounce the national religion, and substitute a
strictly monotheistic worship of Aten, the sun’s disk,--a
conception that tallies marvellously with modern knowledge of
the sun as a source of power and energy. The whole movement
shows an intellectual stride of tremendous proportions. In the
hymns of the new sun-god we seem to have the first trace of
the idea of the brotherhood of man. War is no longer glorified.
The king changes his name to Khun-aten (“Splendour of the Sun’s
disk”), and builds a new capital.
_Monuments._--Palace and tomb at Tel-el-Amarna; temple of Aten;
statues, including one perfect statuette now in the Louvre; the
great hymn to Aten. To this and the former reign belongs the
correspondence in the Babylonian language and the cuneiform
character. These tablets were discovered at Tel-el-Amarna,
whither Amenhotep IV carried them from Thebes. They deal
principally with the relations of the kings of Egypt with
those of Babylonia and Assyria, concerning the marriages of
Mesopotamian princesses, etc.; troubles and loss of power in
northern Syria and Palestine.
1400 =Saa-nekht.=
1390 =Tut-ankh-Amen.=
1380 =Ai.=
1368 =Hor-em-heb.=--Suppresses the solar religion; reconquers
Ethiopia.
_Monuments._--His private tomb; numerous steles, etc.
The XVIIIth Dynasty is a period in which the progress of the
world pre-eminently advanced.
XIXTH DYNASTY, 1365-1235 B.C.
1365 =Ramses I.=--The power of the Kheta begins to make itself felt.
1355 =Seti I.=--Wars with the Shasu, Kharu, and Kheta. Capture of
Kadesh and defeat of the Kheta. Wars with the Libyans. Patron of
art.
_Monuments._--Hall of Columns at Karnak; temple of Osiris at
Abydos; the Memnonum at Gurnah; the Tablet of Abydos.
1345 =Ramses II=, the Great.--The Pharaoh of the Oppression. A
noted builder. Fierce war with the Kheta and their allies
breaks out (year V). Battle of Kadesh. Continual warfare and
victories in the land of Canaan. Treaty of peace with the Kheta.
Subjugates small tribes of Ethiopia and Libya. Semitic influence
is felt in the customs and language.
_Monuments._--Northern court of temple of Ptah at Memphis.
New temples at Abydos and Memphis. Temples and statues at
Abu Simbel--on the knee of one of the statues, some Greek
mercenaries of Psamthek I cut an inscription in archaic Greek.
It is the most ancient piece of non-Semitic alphabetical writing
extant. The Ramesseum; the poem of Pentaur; treaty with the
Kheta, etc.; the Tablet of Saqqarah.
1285 =Meneptah.=--The Libyans and their allies invade Egypt and are
repulsed. Battle of Proposis (year V). The Pharaoh of the Exodus
(_circa_ 1270). To this king belonged the papyrus containing the
“Tale of the Two Brothers.”
1250 =Seti II.=--A troubled reign at Pa-Ramessu, worried by a
claimant to the throne, =Amenmes=, who reigned as rival king,
probably at Thebes.
_Monuments._--Fine sepulchre and a small temple.
XXTH DYNASTY, 1235-1075 B.C.
1235 =Set-nekht.=--Succeeds his father Seti II. Siptah-Meneptah
succeeds his father Amenmes, as rival king. The kingdom is now
practically in a state of anarchy. The power rests chiefly with
the nomarchs, and one of them, Arisu, a Phœnician, becomes
their leader and seizes the throne. Set-nekht drives him out and
restores the monarchy.
1225 =Ramses III= (sometimes reckoned as the founder of the XXth
Dynasty).--Succeeds to a united Egypt but a disorganised empire.
The provinces have ceased to pay tribute. The king begins a
reconquest of foreign territory. Defeats Libyans in the west
(year V) and the great confederation of tribes in the east (year
VIII). A land and sea war. Great naval battle near Pelusium.
Second campaign against Libyans (year XI). Eastern provinces and
tributary states recovered. The harem conspiracy. Later years
peaceful. Mining and trade encouraged. The last of the great
kings of Egypt.
_Monuments._--The Turin and Harris papyri; effigies of conquered
kings; temples, etc.; the account of the harem conspiracy.
1195-1075 The successors of Ramses III have short reigns. There
were some military expeditions but no great wars. The kingdom
is maintained, but the power of the high priests comes more
and more into prominence, until in the reign of =Ramses IX= it
begins to exceed that of the Pharaohs. The structure of the
kingdom begins rapidly to decay. =Ramses XIII=, last king of
dynasty.
XXIST DYNASTY, 1075-945 B.C.
1075 =Her-Hor.=--High priest of Amen of Thebes, attains to royal
power. The Ramessides are banished.
A new house arises at Tanis. Its chief, Se-Amen, soon overthrows
the dominion of the high priests, and Her-Hor’s son (=Piankhi=)
and grandson (=Painet´em I=) have uncontrolled power as high
priests only in the neighbourhood of Thebes. The land is
governed simultaneously by the Tanites and the high priests.
The Ramessides attempt to regain the throne in the Thebaid.
The Tanites crush this rebellion, and Men-kheper-Ra, one of
the family, is made high priest at Thebes. Solomon marries the
daughter of the Tanite king, probably =Pasebkhanu II=. The
army has since the time of Seti I been composed chiefly of
Libyan mercenaries, out of which a separate class has now been
developed. The chief authority gradually passes from the Tanites
and high priests to the commanders of these mercenaries, and one
of them, Shashanq of Bubastis, by some means gains the crown of
Egypt. The high priests and their adherents retire to Ethiopia
and found a new kingdom whose capital is at Napata.
XXIIND DYNASTY, 945-750 B.C.
945 =Shashanq I.=--Rules at Bubastis. The high-priesthood of Amen
is given to princes of the reigning family.
_Monuments._--The hall of the Bubastites at Karnak; inscriptions,
etc.
925 Shashanq invades Judah, captures and sacks Jerusalem.
920-750 Under Shashanq’s successors, the high places in the
government and army are filled with members of the royal family,
who found princedoms for themselves, and the Pharaoh becomes
a nominal ruler. Egypt is a land of petty kings, into which
condition of affairs the kings of Ethiopia (Napata) now intrude.
XXIIIRD AND XXIVTH DYNASTIES, 750-728 B.C.
800 In the reign of =Shashanq III=, Thebes falls into the hands
of the Ethiopians. Their conquests gradually extend to Hermopolis
under their king, =Piankhi=. At the same time Tefnekht, Prince
of Saïs, subjects the western Delta and Memphis, comes in contact
with Piankhi, but ends by giving the Ethiopian his allegiance.
Piankhi’s power over Egypt not complete, for the XXIIIrd Dynasty
of three kings (=Uasarken III= among them) seems to have ruled
in the Delta, probably at Bubastis, and is succeeded by the
XXIVth Dynasty, composed of Tefnekht’s son, =Bakenranf=, who is
conquered by Piankhi’s grandson, Shabak.
_Monuments._--The memorial stele of Piankhi, with account of his
reign.
XXVTH DYNASTY, 728-655 B.C.
728 =Shabak.=--Ethiopian rule over Egypt complete. He puts his
sister Ameniritis and her husband to rule over Egypt. A uniform
and strict dominion is not practised; the local princes still
retain their power. Shabak advises Hoshea of Israel to withhold
tribute from Shalmaneser IV. First connection of Egypt with the
Sargonides.
717 =Shabatak.=
704 =Tirhaqa.=--Joins Syrian coalition against the Assyrians.
701 The Assyrian king, Sennacherib, invades Palestine. Tirhaqa
hastens to Hezekiah’s assistance. Sennacherib compelled by
pestilence to retire. 673, The Assyrian monarch, Esarhaddon,
marches as far as the Egyptian frontier, but withdraws. 670,
Esarhaddon appears again, and captures and destroys Memphis.
Tirhaqa flees to Nubia. The whole country surrenders to
Esarhaddon, who reorganises the government with a native prince
over each nome. Neku of Saïs is the chief one. 668, Esarhaddon
abdicates. Tirhaqa attempts to win back the country; retakes
Memphis. 667, Asshurbanapal sends an army and defeats Egyptians.
Conspiracy of several Egyptian princes to restore Tirhaqa. They
are taken and punished. 664, Tirhaqa dies; =Tanut-Amen=, his
stepson (son of Shabak), succeeds. Is beaten by Assyrians at
Kipkip. Thebes is sacked. End of Ethiopian rule.
664-655 The country is ruled by petty princes. In the Delta there
are twelve of these who form the Dodecarchy. Psamthek of Saïs
becomes the leader. He throws off the Assyrian yoke with the help
of Carian and Ionian mercenaries, and declares himself Pharaoh.
XXVITH DYNASTY, 655-527 B.C.
655 (Sometimes dated from 666-4)--=Psamthek I= makes his rule
legitimate by marrying an Ethiopian princess, Shepenapet.
Invasion of Syria. Capture of Ashdod after a long siege.
Commercial treaties with the Greeks. Two hundred thousand of his
Egyptian and Libyan soldiers desert to Ethiopia through jealousy
of the mercenaries. He restores Thebes.
610 =Neku II.=--Endeavours to reconstruct the canal between Nile
and Red Sea, attempted by Seti I. and Ramses II. By his orders
Phœnician navigators circumnavigate Africa. Attempts to recover
Egypt’s rule in the east, and marches into Syria. 608, Encounters
Josiah at Megiddo. The king of Israel is slain in the battle.
Neku marches toward the Euphrates. 605, Defeat of Neku by
Nebuchadrezzar at Carchemish. End of Egyptian rule in Egypt.
594 =Psamthek II.=--Makes an expedition against the king of
Ethiopia.
589 =Uah-ab-Ra.=--Allies himself with Zedekiah and king of Phœnicia
against Nebuchadrezzar, who afterward invades Egypt. The
coalition is unsuccessful, but his fleet helps Tyre to hold out
for thirteen years. Goes to war with the Greeks of Cyrene, and
is defeated. His troops fear he will destroy and replace them by
mercenaries; they revolt and choose Aahmes, an officer, to be
king.
570 =Aahmes II.=--Defeats Uah-ab-Ra and strangles him; marries
the daughter of Psamthek II, to legitimise his pretensions. He
encourages commercial relations with Greeks. Allies himself with
Crœsus against Cyrus of Persia. Cambyses attacks Egypt on death
of Cyrus.
526 =Psamthek III.=--In his second year he was defeated by Cambyses
at Pelusium and Memphis. Egypt a Persian province, 525-405 B.C.
XXVIITH DYNASTY, 525-405 B.C.
525 The Persian Cambyses tolerates the religion, maintains temples,
and does all he can to conciliate the people. Leaves Egypt in
charge of the first satrap Aryandes. Cambyses, in his rage, after
an unsuccessful expedition against Napata, orders destruction of
temples, etc.
521 Darius I.--Works hard to conciliate the people.
488 Egyptians revolt and expel Persians. Set up a native ruler,
=Khabbosh=, who holds out for three years.
485 The Persian Xerxes I.--Reconquers Egypt and appoints Achæmenes,
his brother, governor.
464 Artaxerxes I.
460 Inarus, King of Libya, aids Egyptians to rise against Persia.
Battle of Papramis. Memphis captured, but Persians regain
supremacy.
424 Xerxes II. Darius II. Continued endeavours of Egyptians to
throw off Persian yoke.
XXVIIITH DYNASTY, 405-399 B.C.
405 =Amen-Rut.=--A native prince in revolt against Persia, on death
of Darius II becomes practically independent. At his death the
government passes to the prince of Mendes.
XXIXTH DYNASTY, 399-378 B.C.
399 =Nia-faa-urut I.= 393 =Haker.= 380 =Psa-mut.=--Ally themselves
with enemies of Persia.
379 =Nia-faa-urut II.=
XXXTH DYNASTY, 378-340 B.C.
378 =Nectanebo I.=--Defeats Persians and Greeks at Mendes. This
victory secures peace for some years. Revival of art.
364 =Tachus.=--Wars with Persia.
361 =Nectanebo II.=--The Persians again invade Egypt, at first
unsuccessfully.
XXXIST DYNASTY, 340-332 B.C.
340 Ochus (Artaxerxes III).--Defeats Nectanebo at Pelusium.
Nectanebo flees to Napata. Ochus proves a cruel governor.
332 Alexander the Great appears at Pelusium. The Persians surrender
without a struggle. Beginning of Greek dominion.
FOOTNOTES
[1] [For a full discussion of Egyptian chronology, see Appendix B.]
CHAPTER I. THE EGYPTIAN RACE AND ITS ORIGIN
Egypt is a long Contree; but it is streyt, that is to seye narrow;
for thei may not enlargen it toward the Desert, for defaute of
Watre. And the Contree is sett along upon the Ryvere of Nyle; be
als much as that Ryvere may serve be Flodes or otherwise that
whanne it flowethe it may spreden abrood thorghe the Contree; so is
the Contree large of Lengthe. For there it reyneth not but litylle
in the Contree; and for that Cause, they have no Watre, but zif
it be of that Flood of that Ryvere. And for als moche as it ne
reyeneth not in that Contree, but the Eyr is alwey pure and clear,
therefor in that Contree ben the gode Astronomyeres; for thei fynde
there no Cloudes to letten hem.--_The voyage and travile of Sir
John Maundeville, Kt._
Two theories as to the origin of the Egyptians have been prominent,
the one supposing that they came originally from Asia, the other that
their racial cradle lay in the upper regions of the Nile, particularly
in Ethiopia. Even to-day there is no agreement among Egyptologists as
to which of these theories is correct. Among the earlier students of
the subject, Heeren was prominent in pointing out an alleged analogy
between the form of skull of the Egyptian and that of the Indian races.
He believed in the Indian origin of the Egyptians.
One of the most recent authorities, Professor Flinders Petrie, inclines
to the opinion that the Egyptians were of common origin with the
Phœnicians, and that they came into the Nile region from the land
of Punt, across the Red Sea. Professor Maspero, on the other hand,
inclines to the belief in the African origin of the race; and the
latest important anthropological theory, as propounded by Professor
Sergi, contends for the Ethiopic origin of the entire Mediterranean
race, of which the Egyptians are a part. According to this theory, a
race whose primitive seat of residence was in the upper regions of the
Nile spread gradually to the north, finally invading Asia by way of
the Isthmus of Suez, and crossing to the peninsulas of southern Europe
by way of Crete and Cyprus and Sicily, and perhaps also, after a long
journey to the west along the Mediterranean coast of Africa, by way of
the Straits of Gibraltar.
The true scientific status of the matter amounts merely to a confession
of almost entire ignorance. The theory of Sergi, just referred to,
finds a certain support in the data of cranial measurements, but it
would be going much beyond warrantable conclusions to affirm anything
like certainty for the inferences drawn from all the observations
as yet available. The historian is obliged, therefore, to fall back
upon the simple fact that for a good many thousands of years before
the Christian era, a race of people of unknown origin inhabited the
Nile Valley, and had attained a very high state of civilisation.
Whatever the origin of this people, and however diversified the racial
elements of which it was composed, the climatic conditions of Egypt
had long since imposed upon the entire population an influence that
welded all the diverse elements into a single racial mould, so that,
as Professor Maspero points out, at the very dawn of Egyptian history
the inhabitants of the entire land of Egypt constituted a single race,
speaking one language and showing very little diversity of culture.
[Illustration: MUMMY OF THE PRE-DYNASTIC PERIOD DISCOVERED RECENTLY IN
EGYPT
(Now in the British Museum)]
It is one of the standing surprises for the student of antiquity that
the most massive structures ever built by man should be found in Egypt,
dating from a period so remote as to be almost prehistoric. One finds
it hard to avoid the feeling that there was a race sprung suddenly to a
very high plane of civilisation, as if by a sheer leap from barbarism;
but, of course, no modern student of the subject considers the matter
in this light. It is uniformly accepted that a vast period of time lies
back of the Pyramids, in which the Egyptians were slowly working their
way upward. Professor Maspero estimates that for at least eight or ten
thousand years the people had inhabited this land, all along developing
their peculiar civilisation. Of course such an estimate makes no claim
to historical accuracy; it is only a general conclusion based upon what
seems a reasonable rate of progress.
The recent explorations in Egypt have endeavoured to penetrate the
mysteries of what has hitherto been the prehistoric period, and these
efforts have met with a certain measure of success. In the Fayum,
Professor Petrie has made excavations that revealed the remains of
a much earlier period than that of the first dynasties hitherto
recognised. Among other interesting relics, sarcophagi were found
containing mummified bodies in a marvellous state of preservation. One
of these now exhibited at the British Museum in London shows the body
of a man of full proportions lying on his side with knees folded up
against his body. Unlike the mummies of the later Egyptian period, this
ancient effigy has no wrappings of any kind, but so remarkable are the
results of the processes of embalming to which it has been subjected,
that the form of the various members, and the features even, have been
preserved with marvellously little shrinkage or distortion. The skin is
indeed dry and dark, yet its resemblance to the skin of a living person
of a dark-hued race is so striking that one can hardly realise, in
looking at it, that the corpse before him is the body of a person who
lived perhaps eight or ten thousand years ago.
As to other remains found by the later explorations, among the most
interesting and suggestive are flint implements chipped in the manner
characteristic of the Palæolithic or rough stone age. We are guarded,
however, against drawing too sweeping inferences from these antiquities
by Professor Petrie’s assurance that the Egyptians continued to use
such chipped flint implements throughout the period from the IVth
to the Xth Dynasty. It has been doubted whether any of these stone
implements can be regarded as of strictly prehistoric origin, or
whether, indeed, any of the antiquities discovered in Egypt evidence an
uncivilised stage of racial history. The latest opinion, however, is
that the makers of the pottery and flint implements were the aborigines
of the country, who were displaced by the invasion of the Egyptians of
history.
The most important excavations of the last eight or ten years, carried
on by Amélineau, Petrie, and De Morgan have had for their object the
collection of remains of this pre-dynastic era.
We are not likely to hear more of the contention that the archaic
objects found at Naqada and other places were the work of a “New Race”
of invaders that had intruded somewhere in those dark ages between the
VIth and XIth Dynasties, for this long and bitter controversy is now
replaced by a state of complete agreement among the authorities that
the people who could lay claim to the pottery and flint objects were
the aborigines, living in Egypt when the Egyptians of history invaded
the country.
In their possession of the country these aborigines were ousted by the
race which gradually loomed upon the historic horizon and to whom it
has long been the custom to assign Menes as the first king, treating
the preceding periods as the time of the gods and demigods, to whose
rule tradition assigns an epoch which varies from 1000 to nearly 40,000
years. But the indications are that within a few years there will be
much light thrown on the period preceding King Menes. Just why this
king should have been placed at the head of the Ist Dynasty now seems
quite clear. He was the first “Lord of the Two Lands”--the united Upper
and Lower Egypt.
It must be recognised by any one who would gain a clear idea of
national existence, that the character of a race is enormously
influenced by the physical and climatic features of its environment.
There have been differences of opinion among students of the subject as
to the amount of change that may be effected by altered surroundings.
But whoever considers the matter in the light of modern ideas, can
hardly be much in doubt as to the answer to any question thus raised.
If it be admitted that all the races of mankind sprang originally
from a single source,--an hypothesis upon which students of the most
diverse habits of thought are agreed,--then in the last analysis it
would appear that we must look to such environing conditions as soil
and climate for the causes of all the differences that are observed
among the different races of the earth to-day. The man inhabiting
equatorial regions has a dark skin and certain well-marked traits of
character, simply because his ancestors for almost endless generations
have been subjected to the influences of a tropical climate; and the
light-skinned inhabitant of northern Europe owes his antagonistic
characteristics to the widely different climatic conditions of high
latitudes. And what is true of these extreme instances, is no less true
of all intermediate races.
In a word, then, the Egyptian would not have been the individual that
we know, had he not lived in the valley of the Nile. The Mesopotamian
required the environment of the Tigris and Euphrates to develop his
typical characteristics, and similarly with the Greek and Roman, and
with the members of every other race.
But, in accepting this view, one must not be blinded to the fact
that the changes wrought by environment in the character of a race,
are of necessity extremely slow. The peculiar traits that give
racial distinction to any company of people have not been attained
except through many generations of slow alteration; and such is the
conservative power of heredity that the characteristics thus slowly
stamped upon a race are well-nigh indelible. How pertinacious is their
hold is best illustrated in the case of the modern Jews, who retain
their racial identity though scattered in all regions of the globe.
With this illustration in mind, it cannot be matter for surprise that
any race that remains in the same environment, and as a rule does
not mingle with other races, shall have retained the same essential
characteristics throughout the historic period. That such is really the
historic fact regarding any particular race of antiquity, might not at
first sight be obvious. It might seem, for example, that the modern
Egyptian, who plays so insignificant a part in the world-history of
the nineteenth century, must be a very different person indeed from
his ancient progenitor, who maintained for many centuries the dominant
civilisation of the world.
But it must not be forgotten that national standards are relative; in
other words, that the status of a people depends, not alone upon the
plane of civilisation of that people itself, but quite as much upon the
relative plane of civilisation of its neighbours. When the Egyptians
sank from power, it was not so much that they lost their inherent
capacity for progress, as that other nations outstripped them in the
race, and came presently to dominate and subjugate them, and thus to
stamp out their ambition. In support of this view, note the fact that
the Egyptians again and again, at intervals of many centuries, were
able to rouse themselves from a lethargy imposed by their conquerors,
and to regain for a time their old position of supremacy. But the
best tangible illustration of the fixity of the character of a race
is furnished by the modern historians, who have at the same time most
profoundly studied the ancient conditions as recorded on the monuments,
and, while doing so, have been brought in contact with the present
inhabitants of the Nile Valley.
No other scholars of the present generation have made more profound
investigations than Professor Petrie and Professor Erman, both of whom
have been led to comment on the extraordinary similarity of manner and
custom and inherent characteristics between the ancient and the modern
Egyptians. Here is Professor Erman’s[g] verdict:
“The people who inhabited ancient Egypt still survive in their
descendants, the modern Egyptians. The vicissitudes of history have
changed both language and religion, but invasions and conquests have
not been able to alter the features of this ancient people. The
hundreds and thousands of Greeks and Arabs who have settled in the
country seem to have been absorbed into it; they have modified the
race in the great towns, where their numbers were considerable, but in
the open country they scarcely produced any effect. The modern fellah
resembles his forefather of four thousand years ago, except that
he speaks Arabic, and has become a Mohammedan. In a modern Egyptian
village, figures meet one that might have walked out of the pictures
in an ancient Egyptian tomb. We must not deny that this resemblance is
partly due to another reason besides the continuance of the old race.
Each country and condition of life stamps the inhabitants with certain
characteristics. The nomad of the desert has the same features, whether
he wanders through the Sahara or the interior of Arabia; and the Copt,
who has maintained his religion through centuries of oppression,
might be mistaken at first sight for a Polish Jew, who has suffered
in the same way. The Egyptian soil, therefore, with its ever constant
conditions of life, has always stamped the population of the Nile
Valley with the same seal.
“As a nation the Egyptians appear to have been intelligent, practical,
and very energetic, but lacking poetical imagination; this is exactly
what we should expect from peasants living in this country of toilsome
agriculture. ‘In his youth the Egyptian peasant is wonderfully docile,
sensible, and active; in his riper years, owing to want and care, and
the continual work of drawing water, he loses the cheerfulness and
elasticity of mind which made him appear so amiable and promising.’
This picture of a race, cheerful by nature, but losing the happy
temperament and becoming selfish and hardened, represents also the
ancient people.”
But, however freely it may be admitted that soil and climate put their
seal upon a race, opinions will always differ as to just how the racial
characteristics are to be interpreted. In the case of all Oriental
nations the European mind has found such interpretation peculiarly
difficult. The Egyptians are no exception to this rule, as we shall
see.[a]
THE COUNTRY AND ITS INHABITANTS
The whole of North Africa is covered by a great desert, bordered only
on the northwest by a considerable arable district, which at present
forms the states of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. Except for this, if
we set aside a single strip of coast land in the country between the
two Syrtes (Tripolis, Leptis) and in Cyrenaica (Bengari), this whole
territory is totally destitute of all higher civilisation. It forms
the natural frontier of the Mediterranean world, beyond which not
even ancient civilisation ever penetrated. The interior of Africa was
practically unknown to the Greek and Roman world.
The formidable desert land, embracing more than three million square
miles, contains a series of depressed levels in which springs are
harboured, and vegetation, especially the date-palm, thrives. These
are the oases. Here, and here only, are permanent human settlements
possible. At the same time the oases form stations in the wearisome
and difficult way through the desert, where the trader who wants to
acquire goods in the countries on the other side is exposed not only
to the dangers that threaten him from want of water, loss of his way,
and sand-storms, but also to the attacks of vagrant robber hordes that
traverse the desert in nomadic confusion.
East of the great desert, at a distance of a few days’ journey from the
Arabian Gulf, lies a straggling fruitful valley, which in some sense
may be regarded as an oasis of colossal dimensions. This is Egypt, the
valley of the Lower Nile. On both sides it is bounded by desert land.
On the west rises the plateau of the Libyan Desert, flat, absolutely
barren, covered with impenetrable sand-banks. On the east a rocky
highland of solid quartz and chalk rises in a gradual slope, at the
back of which the crystalline masses of the so-called Arabian Mountains
ascend to a height of about six thousand feet. In geological structure
the two territorial districts are entirely different, but, although
it is true that nomadic hordes can, at a pinch, keep body and soul
together in the eastern desert, and that they are not entirely cut off
from vegetation, from springs and cisterns in which the rainwater is
gathered up from storm and tempest, civilisation is as much sealed to
them as it is to the Libyan waste, through which it is impossible to
penetrate, and which is habitable only in the oases.
Between the two deserts, occupying a breadth of from fifteen to
thirty-three miles, lies the depression forming the valley of Egypt.
It forms the bed which the river has dug for itself in the soft
chalky soil with untiring activity. Formerly, thousands of years
ago,--thousands indeterminate,--it poured through the country in
riotous cascades, the traces of which are still clearly recognisable
in many spots. Gradually the river cleaned out the whole bed and
established a regular surface level. When the historical period begins,
the creative career of the river has already long been completed;
from this time forward, the Nile flows in manifold curves and with
numerous tributaries through the wrinkled valley, which it floods
to a considerable degree only in midsummer, when the Ethiopian snow
melts and seeks an outlet. The fertile land extends precisely as far
as the waters of the Nile penetrate, or are guided by the hand of man
in the flood season; a sharp line of demarcation separates the black
fertile land formed of the muddy deposit left by the river, from
the gray-yellow of the bordering desert. The breadth of the fertile
territory is variable; on an average it covers eight, rarely more than
ten, miles. Only at the mouth of the Nile it expands to the wide marsh
lands of the Delta, intersected by numerous swamps and lakes.
[Illustration: STATUE OF THE GODDESS SEKHET
(Now in the British Museum)]
Also on the south the border-land of Egypt has a sharp natural line
of demarcation. A little above the 24th degree of latitude, at Gebel
Silsilis, the sandstone plateau joins right on the river, higher up
covering the whole of Nubia. The narrow neck of river at Gebel Silsilis
is the southern boundary of fertile Egypt. A significant saga rising
from the Arabian name of the mountain range (Silsilis means “the
chain”) tells how once upon a time the stream was cut off by a chain
that connected the opposite mountains. About eight miles higher up,
at Assuan (Syene) a mountain range of granite and syenite opposes the
course of the river like a cross-rail. True, the river has broken
through the hard stone, but it has not had the power to rub it away,
as it has done with the chalk-stone of Egypt; in numerous rapids it
forces a passage between neighbouring rocks and innumerable islands
raised from its bed. Without doubt, however, the torrent has continued
to make its bed deeper here also. We know from old Egyptian accounts of
the Nile levels that about four thousand years ago, at the time of the
XIIth Dynasty, the Nile at the fortresses of Semneh and Kumneh, above
the second cataract, must have been at least eight metres higher than
it is at the present day. This can be explained only by supposing that,
since then, the river must have burrowed an equivalent depth in the
rocks of the cataract district.
This “First Cataract,” which makes real navigation very nearly an
impossibility,--a vessel can be steered through the rapids only with
considerable difficulty and danger,--has always formed the southern
boundary of Egypt. Above it, the Nile flows in a great curve through
the Nubian sandstone plateau. At numerous places its way is blocked
by hard stone material, through which it digs a bed in cataracts. The
river valley has throughout no more than a breadth of from five to nine
miles. The fertile land, which at the time of the old empire was pretty
thickly wooded, confines itself, where it does not cease altogether,
to a narrow seam on the banks, so that the inhabitants, in order to
leave as little as possible of it unutilised, formed their villages
on the barren, unfruitful heights above it. The whole stretch of 1000
miles from Khartum to the first cataract contains at the present day
only 1125 square miles of laid-out land. South of the Tropic only, the
country on the Red Sea is gradually becoming capable of fertilisation;
for the most part, here it bears the character of the Steppes. Also
in the Nile, therefore, Egypt is almost totally shut off from Africa.
The campaign of the English against the Mahdi has again given us a
vigorous picture of how wearisome and difficult is the connection here;
of the dangers that a tropical sun, a deficiency of habitations, and
the difficulties of communication offer to a small army that tries to
advance here.
[Illustration: STATUE OF MENEPTAH II, XIXTH DYNASTY
(Now in the British Museum)]
Egypt is the narrowest country in the world; embracing an expanse of
570 miles in length, it does not contain more than 12,000 square miles
of fertile land, that is to say, it is not larger than the kingdom of
Belgium. It is necessary to keep this fact clearly in view, especially
as the maps accessible may only too easily convey quite a false
impression, because they include the desert land within the boundary
line of Egypt, and as a rule do not distinguish it by any sign from
the fertile land. The ancient indigenous conception is in complete
accordance with the geographical character of the land. Egypt, or
Kamit, as the country is termed in the indigenous language (the name
certainly signifies “the dark country”), is only the fertile valley of
the Nile. Here only do the Egyptians dwell. The oases in the west and
the “red country” (Tasherit) in the east, _i.e._ the naked, reddish,
glimmering plateaus of the Arabian Desert, are reckoned as foreign
with consistent regularity, and they are not inhabited by Egyptians.
The true state of affairs is quite accurately portrayed in the oracle
which decreed, “Egypt is all the country watered by the Nile, and
Egyptians are all those who dwell below the town Elephantine and drink
Nile water.”
Herodotus defines Egypt accurately as a “bequest of the river”; to
the river alone it owes its fertility and its well-being. But for the
flowing river, the sand of the Libyan Desert would cover that whole
wrinkled valley, which, with the aid of the river, has become one of
the most fertile and most thickly populated countries on the earth.
At the time in which our historical information begins, we find the
Lower Nile Valley inhabited by a race which, after the precedent of the
Greeks, we call Egyptians. Whence the word comes, we know not; we can
only say that Aigyptos in the first instance denotes the river--almost
without exception in the _Odyssey_ it is thus. The word was then
transferred to the country and its inhabitants, and the river received
the name of Neilos (Nile), the origin of which is equally obscure. An
indigenous name of the population did not exist; the Egyptians denoted
themselves, in distinction from foreigners, simply as “men” (rometu).
Their country, as we have already mentioned, they called Kamit, “Black
Country”; the river was named Ha-pi. Semitic people called Egypt, we
know not why, Mior or Musr (Hebrew Mizraim, the termination being a
very common one with the names of localities). In its Arabian form,
Masr, this word, at the present day, has become the indigenous name
of the country and of its capital, which we call Cairo. From the name
Egyptians, on the contrary, was developed the modern denotation of the
Christian successors of the old indigenous population, the Copts.
Controversy has been abundant and vigorous with regard to the
ethnographical place of the Egyptians. While philologists and
historians assume a relation with the neighbouring Asiatic races,
separating the Egyptians by a sharp line of distinction from the negro
race, ethnologists and biologists, Robert Hartmann pre-eminent amongst
them, have defined them as genuine children of Africa who stood in
indisputable physical relation with the races of the interior of the
continent. And certainly in the type of the modern Egyptian there are
points of contact with the typical negro, and we shall not here dispute
the validity of the possible contention that a gradual transition from
the Egyptians to the negroes of the Sudan can be demonstrated, and that
in the Nile Valley we never are confronted with an acute ethnological
contrast.
We should note, however, that an acute contradiction in races is
nowhere on earth perceptible. Everywhere may be found members to bridge
over the gap, and the classification which we so much need does not
ever start with the intermediate stages, but with the extremes in which
the racial type finds its purest illustration.
Moreover, the type of the modern Egyptian cannot straightway determine
the question as to the origin of the ancient Egyptian population,
even if we do not take into account the difficult problem of how far
climate and soil exercise a moderating influence upon a race. The
inhabitants of the Lower Nile Valley at the time of the New Kingdom,
and from that time forward in the whole course of history, have mingled
so extensively with pure African blood, that it would have been a
miracle if no assimilation had taken place. It is an undoubted fact
that the Turks belong to the peoples resembling the Mongolians; but
who will put the modern Osman in the same line with the Chinaman, or
fail to recognise the assimilation to the Armenian, Persian, Semitic,
Greek type? The same is true, for example, of the Magyars. A strictly
analogous state of things is found in Egypt. It has been proved that,
in the skull-formation of the modern Egyptian, the influence of the
African element is more clearly discernible than in the days of the
ancients. Moreover, a careful comparison leads to the conclusion that
in ancient, as in modern Egypt, there are two coexistent types: one
resembling the Nubian more closely, who is naturally more strongly
represented in Upper Egypt than in Memphis and Cairo; and one sharply
distinguished from him whom we may define as the pure Egyptian. Midway
between these two stands a hybrid form, represented in numerous
examples and sufficiently accounted for by the intermixture of the two
races.
While the Nubian type is closer akin to the pure negro type and is
indigenous in Africa, we must regard the purely Egyptian type as
foreign to this continent; this directs us toward the assumption that
the most ancient home of the Egyptian is to be sought in Asia. The
Egyptians have depicted themselves, times out of number, on monuments,
and enable us clearly enough to recognise their type.
For the most part, they are powerful, close-knit figures, frequently
with vigorous features. Not infrequently, as Erman has sagaciously
suggested, the heads have a “clever, witty expression just like what
we are accustomed to meet with in cunning old peasants.” We have a
recurrence of the same trait in several early Roman portraits. Side
by side with this we have finely cut features: for instance, we are
reminded of the almost effeminate expression in the head of Ramses II.
The Egyptian type is altogether different from the negro type; the
structure of the nose, for instance, is delicate for the most part, and
there is no trace of prognathismus, or the protrusion of the lower part
of the face.
On the monuments the colour of the skin in male Egyptians, who in
ancient days went totally naked but for a loin cloth, is a red-brown.
On the other hand, the women, who were clad in a long robe and were not
equally exposed to the effects of air and sun, are painted in a lighter
brown or yellow. In quite similar fashion the Greeks of old represented
men on their vases as red and women as white. We should not forget that
the art of depicting the finer shades of colours in paint had not yet
been learnt.
Just as the Egyptians are distinguished from the population of
the interior of Africa, so they have their nearest kinsmen in the
inhabitants of the northern zone of the continent. West of them, on
the coast lands on the Mediterranean as well as in the oases of the
desert, dwell races which are comprehended by Egyptians under the term
Thuhen. Following the precedent of the Greeks, we have transferred to
all of them the name of the Libyans, that race which was settled in the
territory of Cyrene, where the Greeks first learned of their existence.
In Egyptian memorials we find them again under the name of Rebu (we
should observe here, once for all, that neither Egyptian speech nor
Egyptian writing has an L, and so in foreign words every R may be
read as an L). The name Rebu, as the Greek form of the name tells us,
was pronounced Lebu [Libu]. To the east of these Libyans proper, in
the desert plateau of the country of Marmarica, dwell the Tuhennu,
who spread as far as the borders of Egypt, and even also settled in
the western portion of the Delta. Further westward, presumably in
the neighbourhood of the Syrtes, we find the Mashauasha. The Greeks,
especially Herodotus, have preserved for us a great number of other
names. All these tribes, to which the dwellers in the oases also
belong, are most closely related to one another, and form, together
with the inhabitants of western North Africa, the Numidians and the
Moors, a great group of nations, which we denote by the term Libyan
or Moorish, or in modern terminology the group of Berber nations.
The Libyans are light in colour; on the Egyptian monuments they are
represented by a white-gray skin tint.
In the Moors the old type is to some extent still preserved. They
are warlike, brave tribes, not without talent. But none of them,
it is true, developed a high civilisation, although they adopted
certain elements of civilisation from the Egyptians, and later on, in
Mauretania, from the Carthaginians. According to the representations
on the monuments, the custom of tattooing their arms and legs ruled
amongst them; among the engraved signs we also meet with the symbol of
Nit, the patron goddess of Saïs, whose population would appear to have
consisted chiefly of Libyans.
As in the west, Libyans and Moors, to judge from their language, are
connected with the Egyptians, so this is true in the south of a great
number of tribes east of the Nile Valley. These are the ancestors
of the modern Bedia tribes (_i.e._ of the Ababde, the Bischarin,
and others, dwelling in the deserts and steppes east of the Upper
Nile Valley), and of their relations the Falaschas, the Gallas, the
Somali. Among them the country and people of Cush attained particular
pre-eminence in antiquity; they were the southeastern neighbours of the
Egyptians, who had their original settlements in the wastes and steppes
of the mountain country east of the Nile. In the course of history they
press forward against the negroes of the Nile Valley, the ancestors of
the modern Nubians, and finally establish here a powerful empire.
The Hebrews and the Assyrians are accustomed to call this country Cush,
and we too are in the habit of using this name Cushite instead of
Egyptian. The Greeks call them Ethiopians. In the Christian era this
name was adopted by a people living much farther south, the Semitic
inhabitants of the great highlands of Habesh (Abyssinia), and this
people and its language (Ge-ez) are therefore to-day called Ethiopian.
But care must be taken not to transfer this term of modern usage in its
modern significance to the circumstances of antiquity. The Ethiopia of
antiquity is geographically about coterminous with modern Nubia.
A still more bewildering confusion has been engendered by the term
Cushites. In the Old Testament, in the review of the races taking
their departure from Noah, the name Cush has been transferred to
Babylonia (Gen. x. 8; possibly also in the story of the Fall, ii. 13).
This is to be explained by the fact that the robber mountain horde of
the Kossæans, or, as they called themselves, the Kasshu, maintained
supremacy for centuries in Babylonia; this name was identified by the
Hebrew narrator with that denoting the African tribe. Recent experts
have derived the most illusory consequences from this misunderstanding.
In consequence of it the Cushites have become for them an
Asiatic-African aboriginal people of wide extent, appearing everywhere
and never at home; and wherever we encounter riddles in the matter
handed down to us, or a bold combination has to be made possible, these
Cushites are trotted out, only to sink again into nothingness as soon
as they have done their work. Conceptions of this character have found
their way into ethnographical, philological, and historical works of
high merit.
From the abortion that has grown out of the amalgamation of the
Babylonian robber and warrior hordes with an African tribe, originally
of quite a low grade of cultivation and the scantiest mental
endowment, has been manufactured a people to whom the beginning of
all civilisation has been referred, to whose inspiration the great
monuments of Egypt, as of Babylonia, are supposed to owe their origin,
but whose personality ceases to be tangible anywhere from the moment
that positive historical evidence begins.
In the face of this we must again dwell on the fact that the Kossæans
and the Cushites have not the slenderest historical connection with
each other. The latter is a very real people that gradually absorbed a
certain degree of external civilisation from the Egyptians.
With these East African nationalities on the one side, and the Libyans
and Moors on the other, the Egyptians form a great group of nations
whose languages are closely related to one another, and whom one may
designate as North Africans. The North African languages again, in
their grammatical structure as well as in their vocabulary, reveal a
kindred spirit, however distant, with that in the language of their
eastern Asiatic neighbours, the Semites, _i.e._ the inhabitants of
Arabia, Syria, Assyria, and Babylonia. Especially in the most ancient
form of Egyptian handed down to us, in the language of the time of
the Pyramids, are we everywhere confronted with this kindred spirit.
It is impossible to resist the conclusion that there was a time when
the forefathers of the Egyptians and of the rest of the North Africans
enjoyed a community of speech with the Semites.
Such being the case, we are inclined to conclude that the North
Africans belong to the so-called Caucasian race of men, and that
they reached their later domicile in prehistoric times, after their
detachment from the Semites.
If this assumption can claim for itself a high degree of probability,
we have not advanced a very great deal toward the understanding of the
historical development of Egypt. For these wanderings and migrations
belong in any case to times remote--ay, very remote--from all
historical evidence, and they provide us with no new disclosures from
any direction as to the character and the development of the Egyptians.
A further inference has been expressed that the immigrants into Egypt
found it occupied by an indigenous population, which they subdued, and
that from this population came the bondmen whom we find in ancient
Egypt, while the immigrants went to make the lords and the aristocracy.
Possibly this assumption is just; in support of it we may cite the
agreement subsisting between the nature of the Egyptian animal worship
and the religious conceptions of several of the African peoples. But we
must never lose sight of the fact that the Egyptians themselves have no
knowledge of any such theory.
If an immigration and an amalgamation of peoples took place, at the
time of the Pyramids it had already long been buried in oblivion; the
Egyptians regard themselves as autocthonous, and--with the exception
of a part of the population in the lower lands of Nubia, Libya, and
Asia--as a single nation, within which there can be no question of a
clash of mental conceptions, and within which the proud and the humble,
the lord and the bondman, have nothing to distinguish them externally.
Historical presentation demands that we should treat the Egyptians
throughout as one people, whatever may be the number of different
tribes that settled in the Nile Valley in prehistoric time.[b]
The earliest stage of man that is known in Egypt is the Palæolithic;
this was contemporary with a rainy climate, which enabled at least
some vegetation to grow on the high desert, for the great bulk of the
worked flints are found five to fifteen hundred feet above the Nile, on
a tableland which is now entirely barren desert. Water-worn palæoliths
are found in the beds of the stream courses, now entirely dried up, and
flaked flints of a rather later style occur in the deep beds of Nile
gravels, which are twenty or thirty feet above the highest level of the
present river. This type of work, however, lasted on to the age of the
existing conditions, for perfectly sharp and fresh palæoliths are found
on the desert as low down as the present high Nile.
PREHISTORIC EGYPT
The date of the change of climate is roughly shown by the depth of
the Nile deposits. It is well known by a scale extending over about
three thousand years, that in different parts of Egypt the rise of
the Nile bed has been on an average about four inches per century,
owing to the annual deposits of mud during the inundation. And in
various borings that have been made, the depth of the Nile mud is only
about twenty-five or thirty feet. Hence an age of about eight or nine
thousand years for the cultivable land may be taken as a minimum,
probably to be somewhat extended by slighter deposit in the earlier
time.
The continuous history extends to about 5000 B.C., and the prehistoric
age of continuous culture known to us covers probably two thousand
years more; hence our continuous knowledge probably extends back to
about 7000 B.C., or to about the time when the change of climate
took place. At that time we find a race of European type starting
on a continuous career, but with remains of a steatopygous race, of
“Bushman” (Koranna) type known and represented in modelled figures. We
can hardly avoid the conclusion that this steatopygous race was that
of Palæolithic man in Egypt, especially as that equivalence is also
known in the French cave remains. It is noticeable that all the figures
known of this race--in France, Malta, and Egypt--are women, suggesting
that the men were exterminated by the newer people, but the women were
kept as slaves, and hence were familiar to the pioneers of the European
race. These Palæolithic women were broadly built, with deep lumbar
curve, great masses of fat on the hips and thighs, with hair along the
lower jaw and over most of the body.
The fresh race which entered Egypt was of European type--slender,
fair-skinned, with long, wavy brown hair. The skull was closely like
that of the ancient and modern Algerians of the interior; and as one
of the earliest classes of their pottery is similar in material and
decoration to the present Kabyle pottery, we may consider them a branch
of Algerians. They seem to have entered the country as soon as the Nile
deposits rendered it habitable by an agricultural people. They already
made well-formed pottery by hand, knew copper as a rarity, and were
clad in goatskins. Entering a fertile country, and mixing probably
with the earlier race, they made rapid advance in all their products,
and in a few generations they had an able civilisation. Their work in
flint was fine and bold, with more delicate handiwork than that of any
other people except their descendants; their stone vases were cut in
the hardest materials with exquisite regularity; their carving of ivory
and slate was better than anything which followed for over a thousand
years; and they had a large number of signs in use, which were probably
the first stages of our alphabet.
After some centuries of this culture a change appears, at the same
point of time in every kind of work. A difference of people seems
probable, but no great change of race, as the type is unaltered. The
later people show some Eastern affinities; and it seems as if a part
of the earlier Libyan people had entered Syria or North Arabia and had
afterward flowed back through Egypt, modified by their Semitic contact.
It is perhaps to this influx that the Semitic element in the Egyptian
language is due.
This later prehistoric people brought in new kinds of pottery and more
commerce, which provided gold, silver, and various foreign stones;
they also elaborated the art of flint-working to its highest pitch of
regularity and beauty, and they generally extended the use of copper,
and developed the principal tools to full size. But they show even
less artistic feeling than the earlier branch, for all figure-carving
quickly decayed, both in ivory and in stone. The use of amulets was
brought in, and also forehead pendants of shell. And the signs which
were already in use almost entirely disappeared.
This prehistoric civilisation was much decayed when it was overcome
by a new influx of people, who founded the dynastic rule. These came
apparently from the Red Sea, as they entered Egypt in the reign of
Coptos, and not either from the north or from the Upper Nile. They
were a highly artistic people, as the earliest works attributable to
them--the Min sculptures at Coptos--show better drawing than any work
by the older inhabitants; and they rapidly advanced in art to the
noble works of the Ist Dynasty. They also brought in the hieroglyphic
system, which was developed along with their art. It seems probable
that they came up from the Land of Punt, at the south of the Red Sea,
and they may have been a branch of the Punic race in its migration
from the Persian Gulf round by sea to the Mediterranean. They rapidly
subdued the various tribes which were in Egypt, and at least five
different types of man are shown on the monuments of their earliest
kings.[d] Of these there were two distinct lines, the kings of Upper
and the kings of Lower Egypt. The Palermo stone gives us the names of
seven independent kings of Lower Egypt who ruled before the time of
Menes--Seker, Tesau, Tau, Thesh, Neheb, Uat´-nar, and Mekha, while
within the past few years the names of three pre-dynastic kings of
Upper Egypt have been revealed--Te, Re, and Ka. To discover when and
where these early monarchs reigned is probably the most interesting and
important problem engaging the Egyptologist to-day.[a]