Wherever and whenever man appeared, the earliest traces show_The Book of History (Vol. 1 of 18) A History of All Nations from the Earliest Times to the Present

to have been a sociable animal living in communities. The earliest

unmistakable traces of civilisation, order, polity, are found in the

basins of the Nile and the Euphrates, dating probably as far back as

ten thousand years ago. The people who built the Pyramids had already

advanced far in the knowledge which gives man the mastery over Nature;

and the Pyramids were built certainly 3,000, and probably nearer 5,000,

years before the Christian era. And while those pristine civilisations

rose and fell in Egypt, civilisations were rising and passing away in

Mesopotamia also.

In the fourth millennium there appears first a people with new

characteristics--the Semitic race, gradually dominating the

Mesopotamian civilisation, spreading westward in successive waves to

the Mediterranean, surging into Egypt and out again; creating the

Empires of Babylonia and of Assyria, and the Phœnician and Canaanite

nations. And while the Semite Empires rose and fell, and Egypt held

upon her ancient way, still mightier nations were coming to birth.

The great Aryan or Indo-European migrations began, the Celt, the

Latin, and the Hellene rolling westward by the Euxine and the Northern

Mediterranean; while another group passed southward, to the East of

the Semites, spreading the Aryan conquest over the greater part of the

Indian peninsula.

[Sidenote: Conflicts of Ancient Peoples]

Of the doings of the great Semitic Powers in the second millennium B.C.

we have some knowledge from the Hebrew records; and year by year fresh

light is thrown on those records by inscriptions and tablets newly

discovered or newly deciphered, Egyptian, Assyrian, or Hittite. Of the

Hittite or early Syrian dominion we know little enough, except that it

successfully defied the invading armies of Assyrian kings and Egyptian

Pharaohs. Before 1500 the Semite conquerors of Egypt, the Hyksos, were

driven out--an event associated by some authorities with the Hebrew

Exodus. From this time the ebb and flow of Egyptian and Assyrian

dynasties are more definitely recorded. In the closing centuries the

prosperity of Tyre and Sidon reached its height, and the theocratic

Hebrew nationality formed a kingdom. We become aware of Hellenic or

kindred Powers in Asia Minor, at Troy, in Crete, at Mycenæ; of Achæans

and Danaans in Egypt.

[Sidenote: The First Formation of States]

Before another five hundred years had passed, throughout the

coasts and islands of the Ægean Sea, Æolians, Ionians, Dorians

established themselves in cities, and every city rapidly grew into a

highly-organised State. Over the Mediterranean, to Southern Italy, to

Sicily, to Marseilles, the new Greek civilisation carried its commerce

and its culture. In Italy the Latin races were in like manner forming

themselves into city-states, developing conceptions of Government

undreamed of by Oriental minds. Rome was founded, and acquired a

leadership. Throughout the Hellenic and the Latin world the idea of

civic freedom took root; the primitive monarchical systems disappeared,

and, through revolutions and temporary despotisms, sometimes peaceful

and sometimes violent, the States took on for the most part a

Republican form.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

| TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: B.C. 8000 to 500 |

| |

| This Chronology, prepared as a companion to the Summary of the |

| World’s History, sets forth in tabular form for ready reference |

| the events dealt with in the narrative on opposite pages |

+-----+-------------------------------------------------------+------+

|B.C. | Early civilisation of the Nile Basin. Egypt before | B.C. |

|8000 | the Pyramids. | 8000 |

|7000 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 7000 |

| | Asiatic invasion of Egypt | |

| | Pre-Semitic civilisations of the Euphrates Basin. | |

| | Susa founded. | |

|6000 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 6000 |

| | Invasion of Egypt by dynastic race, 5800. Mena rules | |

| | all Egypt. First dynasty, 5500. | |

| | Babylonian kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad. Ea founds | |

| | Eridu and civilises Babylonia. | |

|5000 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 5000 |

| | Egypt. The Pyramid builders. Great Pyramid built by | |

| | Khufu (Cheops), 4700. | |

| | Earliest monuments to kings in Babylonia, 4700. | |

|4000 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 4000 |

| | Egypt invaded from the north. First, or Babylonian, | |

| | Semitic wave in the Euphrates Valley. Rise of | |

| | Babylonian kingdoms. Sargon and Naram-Sin, Semitic | |

| | rulers of Akkad. Middle kingdom of Egypt. Revival | |

| | of art. Twelfth dynasty (3400). | |

| | Gudea’s rule in Babylon. Development of commerce, | |

| | 3300. | |

|3000 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 3000 |

| | Egypt invaded by the Hyksos, nomadic Semitic | |

| | conquerors, the “Shepherd Kings.” Fifteenth Dynasty | |

| | (2500). Second Hyksos movement (2250). | |

| | Conquest of Babylon by Elamites. Rule of Hammurabi | |

| | (Amraphel of Gen. xiv.), 2129. | |

| | Second, or Canaanite, Semitic wave, extending to the | |

| | Mediterranean. | |

| | First Aryan migration westward over Europe, and | |

| | southward; conquest of Hindostan. | |

|2000 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 2000 |

| | The Hyksos dominate Egypt. New kingdom. Eighteenth | |

| | dynasty, 1580. | |

| | Expulsion of the Hyksos, about 1560. | |

| | Rise of Assyria. | |

| | The Kassite dynasty in Babylon, about 1750-1130. | |

| | Hittite Empire in Syria. | |

| | Latin and Hellenic entry into Europe and Asia Minor. | |

| | Third (Aramæan) Semitic wave, dominating W. Asia, but | |

| | absorbed in existing states. | |

|1500 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 1500 |

| | FAR EAST: Beginning of definite Chinese history, with | |

| | the Chau dynasty. | |

| | EGYPT: Nineteenth dynasty, Sethos and the Ramesides; | |

| | struggle with Hittite Empire. | |

| | WESTERN ASIA: Burnaburiash, 1380. Pashe dynasty in | |

| | Babylon, 1130-1000. | |

| | Period of Phœnician prosperity. | |

| | Rise of the United Kingdom of the Hebrews. | |

| | Crete, Troy, and Mycenæ. The Ionic and Doric | |

| | migrations. | |

|1000 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 1000 |

| | WESTERN ASIA: The Hebrew kingdom divided into Judah | |

| | and Israel or Samaria. | |

| | Rise of Aramæan kingdom of Syria. Chaldean | |

| | domination in Babylon. | |

| | Assyrian Middle Empire. | |

| | EGYPT: Twenty-second dynasty (“Shishak” king of | |

| | Egypt). | |

| 900 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 900 |

| | EUROPE: Early monarchical governments replaced | |

| | usually by aristocracies. | |

| | Probable period of the Homeric poems. | |

| | WESTERN ASIA: Successful resistance of Syria to | |

| | Assyria. | |

| | Appearance of the (Aryan) Medes in the East. | |

| | AFRICA: Founding of Carthage. | |

| 800 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 800 |

| | EGYPT: Domination of Ethiopians or Cushites. | |

| | WESTERN ASIA: Assyrian New Empire; conquest of Syria, | |

| | Samaria, and Babylon. | |

| | Lydian and Phrygian kingdoms in Asia Minor. | |

| | EUROPE: Development of city states in Greece and | |

| | Italy. Lycurgan legislation of Sparta, about 800. | |

| | Rome founded as a monarchy, 753. | |

| | Spread of Greek colonies along Mediterranean | |

| | coasts and islands. | |

| 700 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 700 |

| | WESTERN ASIA: Extension of Lydian kingdom in Asia | |

| | Minor 687-546. | |

| | Irruption of Cimmerians from the North. | |

| | Repulse of Sennacherib before Jerusalem. Decline of | |

| | Assyria. | |

| | EGYPT: Invasion by Esarhaddon. Expulsion of Cushites. | |

| | The Saitic dynasty. | |

| | EUROPE: Between 700 and 500, sporadic displacement of | |

| | aristocracies by “tyrannies,” followed either by an | |

| | oligarchical restoration or by democracies. | |

| | Rome becomes head of the League of Latin cities. | |

| | FAR EAST: Japanese history begins. | |

| 600 +-------------------------------------------------------+ 600 |

| | WESTERN ASIA: Narbonaid, King of Babylon (556-538). | |

| | Overthrow of Assyrian by New Babylonian Empire; the | |

| | Babylonish captivity. | |

| | Rise of Media, of which Cyrus, the Persian, makes | |

| | himself master. | |

| | Persian Empire: Overthrow of Lydia, New Babylonia, | |

| | and Egypt. Aahmes (Amasis), 570-526. | |

| | FAR EAST: Confucius and Lao-Tse in China, and Buddha | |

| | in India. | |

| | EUROPE: Greek states consolidated. Athens: Solon 594. | |

| | Pisistratidæ expelled, 510. | |

| | ROME: Expulsion of the kings, about 510. The | |

| | Commonwealth. Administration aristocratic: Army and | |

| 500 | legislative assembly on basis of land-ownership. | 500 |

| B.C.| Etruscan--pre-Latin--domination in Italy. | B.C.|

+-------------------------------------------------------------+------+

In the East an Aryan Power overthrew the last of the

Assyrian-Babylonian dynasties; but these Persian conquerors became

assimilated to the conquered nations. Fundamentally their empire was of

the same type as its predecessors. The Persian sway, however, extended

not only into Egypt but over the partly Hellenised Asia Minor; and the

Ionic revolt, in the first year of the fifth century B.C. brought the

spirit of the East and the spirit of the West into fierce collision.

The great king hurled his hosts against defiant Hellas; at Marathon and

at Salamis, Athens shattered his army and his fleets. Thenceforth, for

a thousand years, the West was the aggressor.

[Sidenote: Athens and the Greek Immortals]

But the rolling back of the “barbarian” tide was not the only glory

that fell to Athens; in that same century the little state bore sons

whose names stand in the front rank of the immortals for all time:

Æschylus and Sophocles, Phidias, Pericles, Socrates, and Plato; in the

next half century, Demosthenes; with others almost if not quite, on the

same plane. The character of Athens, idealised, no doubt, is epitomised

by Thucydides in the speech of Pericles. She was the sum of all that

was best and noblest in Hellenism--its love of freedom, of beauty, of

energy, of harmony, and its public spirit. Politically, the story of

the period which followed Salamis is mainly one of the rivalry between

Athens and Sparta; until the rise of Macedon, when King Philip made

himself master of all Hellas.

[Sidenote: The Coming-up of Alexander]

Then, with the beginning of the last quarter of the fourth century,

Alexander the Great blazed upon the world, toppled the empires of

Western Asia before him, conquered Egypt, and swept over the great

mountain-barriers into India, where Buddhism had already begun to

displace the ancient Brahmanism of the first Aryans. The Greek

influences did not long linger in the far East after the great

conqueror’s death. His empire broke up. Asia west of the Euphrates

remained, indeed, under the dominion mainly of one Grecian dynasty, the

Seleucidæ; Egypt under that of another, the Ptolemies. Yet Alexander’s

attempts to blend East and West failed. Orientalism abode, unconquered,

ineradicable; Hellenism prevailed almost after the fashion of British

domination in India to-day, in the land, but not of it.

Meanwhile, the struggle between Aryans and non-Aryans had been running

a partly separate course in the West. The Phœnicians of Carthage and

the pre-Aryan Etruscans, the dominant power in Italy, made a joint

assault on the Greeks of Sicily and the Latins of the mainland at

the beginning of the fifth century. They were beaten back, but for a

century the struggle continued between Rome and Veii. The great Celtic

incursion of the Gauls threatened destruction to Rome, but completed

the destruction of Etruria. In the fourth century and the first half

of the third century B.C. Rome was chiefly engaged in the double task

of achieving supremacy, passing into actual dominion among the Latin

states, and of establishing the great Senatorial oligarchy, against

whose stubborn resolution the Epirote Pyrrhus hurled himself in vain.

Just sixty years after Alexander’s death began the sixty years’

struggle between Rome and Carthage, in the latter years of which the

genius of Hannibal was pitted against the grim persistence of the Roman

oligarchy. Carthage fell; Rome triumphed, and with her triumph entered

on her career of extended conquest.

[Sidenote: The Triumph of Rome]

The organisation which had ruled the city-state itself not ill, and

raised it to an immense pre-eminence, sufficed also to maintain its

powers of conquest, but not its political virtue. Rome’s armies subdued

the divided and disorganised realms which more or less recognised the

over-lordship of Macedon; they made the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ

acknowledge their supremacy; they shattered the new barbarian hordes,

which began to pour across the Alpine passes, and the African tribes of

Numidia. But the lofty public spirit was gone which had made Rome so

great when she was battling for life. Reformers arose, only to prove

that there was no power in the constitution strong enough to enforce

reform. Victorious generals with their legions behind them began to

dictate legislation; Marius and Sulla, democrats or reactionaries,

signalised their political successes by slaughtering hecatombs of their

opponents.

At last, statesmanship and generalship found their supreme incarnation

in one person, Julius Cæsar. For many years one of the two foremost

men in the Republic, he finally crushed his rival Pompeius and

became acknowledged head of the state. Before he could complete the

work of reconstruction, Cæsar fell beneath the daggers of Republican

enthusiasts; but ere many years had passed his adopted son Octavian

triumphed over all rivals, and established the Principate or Empire,

the absolute dominion of one ruler over the whole Roman world--although

that dominion was still maintained under the Republican forms.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

| TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: B.C. 500 to 1 |

| |

| Collision of East and West. The Glory of Greece. Alexander and |

His Conquests. The Rise of Rome. Overthrow of Carthage and the |

| Establishment of the Roman Empire |

+-----+--------------------------+-----------------------------+-----+

| B.C.| The East and Africa | Europe | B.C.|

| 500 | GREECE: Revolt of Ionian | GREECE: Repulse of Persia | 500 |

| | 499. | Salamis (480) and Plataea | |

| 450 +--------------------------+-----------------------------+ 450 |

| 400 +--------------------------+-----------------------------+ 400 |

| 350 +--------------------------+-----------------------------+ 350 |

| 300 +--------------------------+-----------------------------+ 300 |

| | | (264-241). | |

| 250 +--------------------------+-----------------------------+ 250 |

| 200 +--------------------------+-----------------------------+ 200 |

| 150 +--------------------------+-----------------------------+ 150 |

| | | 146. | |

| 100 +--------------------------+-----------------------------+ 100 |

| 50 +--------------------------+-----------------------------+ 50 |

Octavian, 43-30. | |

| 1 | | organised. | 1 |

| B.C.| | Cicero, Virgil Livy, Horace.| B.C.|

+-----+--------------------------+-----------------------------+-----+

[Sidenote: The Birth of Christ]

A tremendous event in itself, the reign of Augustus also witnessed

one which has had a great influence on the history of the world--the

birth of Christ. His ministry, to which perhaps the term event should

be applied, was during the reign of the second Emperor, Tiberius. The

new faith born on the soil of Judæa was to modify profoundly all the

ideals, social and political as well as theological and personal, of

the entire Western world; but for many years its adherents remained

nothing more than a persecuted yet steadily growing sect; suspected and

hated as anarchists rather than as misbelievers, in a world where the

rankest and wildest superstitions lived side by side with a general

intellectual scepticism.

For four centuries the Imperial city ruled over nearly the whole known

world. Beyond the Euphrates on the east, beyond the Rhine and the

Danube, she could maintain no permanent footing; within her own borders

it seemed as though her sway became a part of the natural order--so

much so that when her power had passed away her very conquerors did her

homage and took upon themselves titles as her officers.

[Sidenote: Rome in her Decline]

But the overthrow was yet a long way off. The reconstruction organised

by Augustus and his Ministers was developed by able rulers--Tiberius,

Trajan, Hadrian, the Antonines--during some two hundred years, in spite

of intervals when a murderous tyranny or a feeble incompetence occupied

the throne of the Cæsars. From the Pillars of Hercules to the river

of Mesopotamia, northward as far as Britain, southward to the deserts

of Africa, Roman civilisation, Roman law and justice, Roman military

discipline, and Roman roads maintained the Roman peace.

[Sidenote: Fall of Rome and Rise of Goths]

Then came an era when the Imperial purple became the prize of

successful generals acclaimed by their legions; and the frontier

armies, themselves largely formed out of Teutonic or other

semi-“barbarian” tribes, found themselves face to face with new

barbarian hordes which for another century and a half they held in

check. But the tremendous external pressure on frontiers so vast made

it imperative that the Government should be somewhat decentralised. At

the end of the third century Diocletian parted the empire into four

great divisions. The new system could not endure; Constantine the

Great again became sole emperor. Under him Christianity was at length

adopted as the state religion; the Church herself became a fundamental

factor in the political system; and the political centre of gravity was

transferred from Rome to Byzantium.

[Sidenote: Beginning of Byzantium]

Again the empire was partitioned, and then, for a brief while before

the end of the fourth century, united again under Theodosius. But the

end was at hand. For a few years the great general Stilicho held the

Teutonic Goths at bay in Italy, while Vandals and Sueves poured through

Gaul into Spain. Then, early in the fifth century, Stilicho died.

Alaric led his conquering hordes to the gates of Rome, and sacked the

Eternal City. His successor, Ataulf, took his Goths away, to drive the

Vandals out of Spain into Africa, and set up a great western kingdom

on their own account. But after the Goths, fresh barbarians swarmed

in--Tartar Huns under Attila, who wrought huge devastation and then

vanished for ever; then fresh Teutonic armies, which took possession

of Italy, though in the East the Empire still held its own. And in

Gaul the (German) Franks under their king, Clovis (Chlodwig, Ludwig),

established the dominion which was to give its name to France when

the Frankish element had almost passed out of the country. Far-away

Britain had already been abandoned, and was falling a prey to the

Saxons and the Angles, the “English” who were driving the earlier

Celtic inhabitants before them into the mountain fastnesses of the

west and north. Again, in the East, in the sixth century, the empire

centred at Byzantium asserted its power. Justinian is memorable for

that great codification of Roman Law on which the legal systems of

half the jurists in Europe have been based. His reign is famous also

for the exploits of his brilliant general, Belisarius, who destroyed

the Vandal kingdom in Africa, restored the Imperial rule in Italy, and

recovered provinces in Asia which had been in danger of falling into

the grip of the now aggressive rulers of Persia. But in the West, the

success was only temporary. Under pressure of Tartar or Slavonic hosts

from the East, a fresh Teutonic swarm, the Lombards, entered Italy and

mastered the North. The significance of Rome now lay in the supremacy

of her pontificate, unacknowledged in the East.

The Book of History (Vol. 1 of 18) A History of All Nations from the Earliest Times to the Present · 第 8 / 58 段

Wherever and whenever man appeared, the earliest traces show him