such gods as these, but they did. Their prayers, however, were not like
ours. Instead of kneeling and closing their eyes as we do, they stood
up and stretched their arms straight out before them. They did not pray
to be forgiven for their sins and to be made better. They prayed for
victory over their enemies or to be protected from harm.
When they prayed they often made the god an offering of animals, fruit,
honey, or wine in order to please him so that he would grant their
prayer. The wine they poured out on the ground, thinking the god would
like to have them do this. The animals they killed and then burned by
building a fire under them on an altar. This was called a sacrifice.
Their idea seemed to be that even though the gods could not eat the
meat of the animals nor drink the wine themselves, they liked to have
something _given up_ for them. And so even to-day we say a person makes
a sacrifice when he _gives up_ something for another.
When the Greeks were sacrificing they usually looked for some sign from
the god to see whether he was pleased or not with the sacrifice and
whether he would answer their prayer and do what they asked him or not.
A flock of birds flying overhead, a flash of lightning, or any unusual
happening they thought was a sign which meant something. Such signs
were called “omens.” Some omens were good and showed that the god would
do what he was asked, and some omens were bad and showed he would not.
Omens were very much like some of the signs that people believe in even
to-day when they say it is a good sign or good luck if you see the new
moon over the right shoulder or a bad sign or bad luck if you spill the
salt.
Not so very far from Athens is a mountain called Mount Parnassus. On
the side of Mount Parnassus was a town called Delphi. In the town of
Delphi there was a crack in the ground, from which gas came forth,
somewhat as it does from cracks in a volcano. This gas was supposed to
be the breath of the god Apollo, and there was a woman priest called a
priestess who sat on a three-legged stool or tripod over the crack so
as to breathe the gas. She would become delirious, as some people do
when they are sick with fever and we say they are “out of their heads,”
and when people asked her questions she would mutter strange things and
a priest would tell what she meant. This place was called the Delphic
Oracle, and people would go long distances to ask the oracle questions,
for they thought Apollo was answering them.
The Greeks went to the oracle whenever they wanted to know what to
do or what was going to happen, and they firmly believed in what the
oracle told them. Usually, however, the answers of the oracle were like
a riddle, so that they could be understood in more than one way. For
instance, a king who was about to go to war with another king asked the
oracle who would win. The oracle replied, “A great kingdom will fall.”
What do you suppose the oracle meant? Such an answer, which you can
understand in two or three ways, is still called “oracular.”
11
A Fairy-Tale War
The history of countries usually begins--and also ends--with war.
The first great happening in the history of Greece was a war. It was
called the Trojan War and was supposed to have taken place about twelve
hundred years before Christ, or not long after the beginning of the
Iron Age. But we are not only not sure of the date; we are not even
sure that there ever was such a war, for a great deal of it, we know,
is simply fairy-tale. This is the way the tale goes.
Once there was a wedding feast of the gods and goddesses on Mount
Olympus, when suddenly a goddess who had not been invited threw a
golden apple on the table. On the apple was written these words:
To the Fairest.
The goddess who had thrown the apple was the goddess of quarreling; and
true to her name she _did_ start a quarrel, for each of the goddesses,
like vain human beings, thought she was the fairest and should have
the apple. At last they called in a shepherd boy named Paris to decide
which was the fairest.
Each goddess offered Paris a present if he would choose her. Juno, the
queen of the gods, offered to make him a king; Minerva, the goddess of
wisdom, offered to make him wise; but Venus, the goddess of beauty,
offered to give him the most beautiful girl in the world for his wife.
Now, Paris was not really a shepherd boy but the son of Priam, the king
of Troy, which was a city on the sea-shore opposite Greece. Paris when
a baby had been left on a mountain to die, but had been found by a
shepherd and brought up by him as his own child.
Paris didn’t care about being wise; he didn’t care about being king;
what he did want was to have the most beautiful girl in the world for
his wife, and so he gave the apple to Venus.
Now the most beautiful girl in the world was named Helen, and she was
already married to Menelaus, the king of Sparta. But in spite of that
fact Venus told Paris to go to Sparta in Greece, where he would find
Helen, and then run away with her. So Paris went to Sparta to visit
King Menelaus and was royally entertained by him. And then Paris,
although he had been treated so kindly and been trusted, one night
stole Helen away and carried her off across the sea to Troy. Though
this was in the Iron Age, it was the way a Cave Man of the Stone Age
might have acted.
Menelaus and the Greeks were naturally very angry and immediately
prepared for war and sailed off for Troy to get Helen back. Now, in
ancient times all cities had walls built around them to protect them
from the enemy. As there were no cannons nor guns nor deadly weapons
such as are used in war nowadays, it was very hard to get into a walled
city or capture it. Troy was protected in this way with walls; and
though the Greeks tried for ten years to capture it, at the end of the
ten years Troy was still unconquered.
So at last the Greeks decided to try a trick to get into the city.
They built a huge horse of wood, and inside this wooden horse they put
soldiers. They placed the horse in front of the city walls and then
sailed away as if at last they were giving up the war. The Trojans were
told by a spy that the horse was a gift of the gods and that they ought
to take it into the city. A Trojan priest named La-oc-o-on, however,
told his people not to have anything to do with the horse, for he
suspected a trick. But people seldom take advice when told _not_ to do
what they want to do.
Just then some huge snakes came out of the sea and attacked Laocoon
and his two sons and, twining round them, strangled them to death. The
Trojans thought this was a sign from the gods, or an omen as they would
have said, that they should not believe Laocoon; so they determined to
take the horse into the city against his advice. The horse was so big,
however, that it would not go through the gates, and in order to get it
inside of the walls they had to tear down part of the wall itself. When
night fell, the Greek soldiers came out of the horse and opened the
gates of the city. The other Greeks, who had been waiting just out of
sight, returned and entered through the gates and the hole the Trojans
had made in the wall. Troy was easily conquered then, and the city was
burned to the ground, and Helen’s husband carried her back to Greece.
For reason of this horse trick, we still have a saying, “Beware of the
Greeks bearing gifts,” which is as much as to say, “Look out for an
enemy who makes you a present.”
The story of the Trojan War was told in two long poems. Some people
think they are the finest poems that were ever written. One of these
poems is called the “Iliad,” from the name of the city of Troy, which
was also known as Ilium. The “Iliad” describes the Trojan War itself.
The other poem is called the “Odyssey” and describes the adventures
of one of the Greek heroes on his way home after the war was over.
This Greek hero’s name was Odysseus, which gives the name Odyssey to
the book, but he was also called Ulysses. These poems, the “Iliad” and
the “Odyssey,” were composed by a blind Greek poet named Homer, who is
supposed to have lived about two hundred years after the war; that is
about 1000 B.C.
Homer was a bard; that is, a singing poet who went about from place to
place and sang his poems to the people. Usually a bard played on the
lyre as he sang, and the people gave him something to eat or a place to
sleep to pay him for his songs. Nowadays, instead of a Homer singing
the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” we have the organ-grinder and street piano
playing their tunes in front of our houses.
Homer never wrote down his poems, for he was blind; but the people were
very fond of hearing his songs, and they learned them by heart, and
mothers taught them to their children after Homer had died. At last,
many years later, another man wrote the poems down in Greek, and you
may some day read them in Greek, if you study that language, or at
least in an English translation.
Although the Greeks thought so much of Homer, he could hardly make a
living, and he almost had to beg his daily bread. After his death
however, the people of nine different cities each proudly said that
Homer was born in their city. And so some one has made this rime:
Nine cities claimed blind Homer dead,
Through which, alive, he’d begged his bread.
Some people now doubt that there ever was a poet named Homer. Others
think that instead of only one man there must have been several men,
perhaps nine, who composed these poems, and this might explain how he
could be born in nine different cities.
[Illustration]
12
The Kings of the Jews
While the blind beggar Homer was singing his wonderful songs through
the streets of Greece, a great king of the Jews was singing other
wonderful songs in Canaan. This king was named David, and he wasn’t
born a king. He was only a shepherd boy in King Saul’s army. This is
the way he happened to become king.
At first, as you remember, the Jews had no kings; but they had asked
for kings, and at last they were given one by the name of Saul.
David had killed the giant Goliath. We all love this Bible story
because we are always glad when the skilful little chap beats the
great, big, bragging bully.
Well, King Saul had a daughter, and she fell in love with this brave
and athletic young David the Giant-Killer, and at last they were
married.
So after Saul died David became king, and he was the greatest king the
Jews ever had. Although Saul had been king he had lived in a tent, not
in a palace, and he didn’t even have a capital city.
So David conquered a city in Canaan called Jerusalem and made this city
the capital of the Jews.
But David was not only a brave warrior and a great king; he wrote
beautiful songs as well.
The blind beggar Homer sang of his fairy-tale gods. The great King
David sang of his one God.
These songs are the Psalms, which you hear read and sung in church.
Nowadays even a popular song is popular for only a few months, but
the songs which David wrote almost three thousand years ago are still
popular to-day! The Twenty-third Psalm, which starts, “The Lord is my
shepherd,” is one of the most beautiful and a good one to learn by
heart. David likens himself to a sheep and his Lord to a good shepherd
who tenderly looks out for the comfort and safety of his sheep.
David’s son was named Solomon, and when David died Solomon became king.
If a good fairy had asked you what you would rather have than anything
in the world, I wonder what you would have chosen. When Solomon became
king, God is said to have appeared to him in a dream and asked him what
he would rather have than anything else in the world. Instead of saying
he wanted to be made rich or powerful, Solomon asked to be made wise,
and God said He would make him the wisest man that ever lived. Here is
a story that shows how wise he was.
Once upon a time two women came to Solomon with a baby, and each woman
said the baby was her own child. Solomon called for a sword and said,
“Cut the baby in two, and give each a half.” One of the women cried out
to give the baby to the other rather than do this, and Solomon then
knew who was the real mother and ordered the baby to be given to her.
Solomon built a magnificent temple made of cedar-wood from the famous
forest of Lebanon, and of marble and gold and studded with jewels. Then
he built himself a wonderful palace, which was so gorgeous and splendid
that people came from all over the world to see it. The Bible tells us
just how large this temple and palace were, not in feet but in cubits.
A cubit was the distance from a man’s elbow to the end of his middle
finger, which is about one foot and a half.
The queen of Sheba, among others, came a long distance across Arabia to
hear the wise sayings of Solomon and see his palace and the temple he
had built.
Although the palace and temple were considered extraordinarily
magnificent at that time, you must remember that this was a thousand
years before Christ.
Solomon’s temple and palace have disappeared long since, and there
is left of them neither stick nor stone. But his wise sayings are
preserved in every language and read by every people in every part of
the world. There are thousands of buildings now in the world that would
make his palace, if still standing, look like a child’s toy-house. But
no one has ever been able to say any better the things he said. Do
you think you could? Suppose you try. Here are some of them. They are
called proverbs.
A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.
What’s that mean?
A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches and loving favor
rather than silver and gold.
What’s that mean?
Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth.
What’s that mean?
Solomon was the last great king the Jews ever had. After he died the
Jewish nation gradually broke up and went to pieces, and the great
Jewish people are to-day without a king, without a capital, and without
a country of their own, but are found in every other country of the
world.
13
The People Who Made Our A B C’s
Long before people knew how to write, there lived a carpenter named
Cadmus. One day he was at work on a house when he wanted a tool that
he had left at home. Picking up a chip of wood, he wrote something on
it and, handing it to his slave, told him to go to his home and give
the chip to his wife, saying that it would tell her what he wanted. The
slave, wondering, did as he was told. Cadmus’s wife looked at the chip,
and without a word handed the tool to the amazed slave, who thought the
chip in some mysterious way had spoken the message. When he returned to
Cadmus with the tool, he begged for the remarkable chip, and when it
was given him, hung it around his neck for a charm.
This is the story the Greeks told of the man they say invented the
alphabet. We believe, however, that Cadmus was a mythical person, for
the Greeks liked to make up such stories, and we think no _one_ man
made the alphabet. But Cadmus was a Phenician and we do know that the
Phenician people invented the alphabet. You probably call it your A B
C’s, but the Greeks had much harder names for the letters. They called
_A_ “alpha,” _B_ “beta,” and so on. So the Greek boy spoke of learning
his “alpha beta,” and that is why we call it the “alphabet.”
[Illustration: Cadmus’ slave and the chip.]
You may never have heard of Phenicia or the Phenician people. Yet, if
there had been no such country as Phenicia, you might now be learning
at school to read and write in hieroglyphics or in cuneiform.
Up to this time, you know, people had very clumsy ways of writing.
The Egyptians had to draw pictures, and the Babylonians made writing
like chicken-tracks. The alphabet that the Phenicians invented had
twenty-two letters, and from it we get the alphabet we use to-day.
Of course, we do not use just the same alphabet now that the Phenicians
did, but some of the letters are almost, if not quite, like those we
now have after three thousand years. For instance the
Phenician A was written on its side--(sideways A)
E “ “ backward--Ǝ
Z “ “ just the same--Z
O “ “ “ “ “ --O
The Phenicians lived next door to the Jews; in fact they belonged to
the same family--the Semites. Their country was just north of the
kingdom of the Jews; that is, above it on the map and lying along the
shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
The Phenicians had a great king named Hiram who lived at the same time
as Solomon. In fact, Hiram was a friend of Solomon and sent him some
of his best workmen to help build a temple at Jerusalem. And yet Hiram
himself and the Phenicians did not believe in the Jewish God.
The Phenicians worshiped idols, terrible monsters named Baal and
Moloch, which they called gods of the sun. They also believed in a
goddess of the moon named Astarte and made sacrifices of live children
to her idol, Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum; this is a real story and not a fairy-tale.
Just suppose you had been a child then!
The Jews, as we have learned, were very religious, but their neighbors,
the Phenicians, though Semites and therefore relatives, were business
people and thought of nothing but money, money, money--all the time.
And they were not particular how they earned it, whether honestly or
not. Nowadays, dealers know that they must be honest if they are to
be very successful, but the Phenicians were usually tricky in their
trading with people. They always drove a good bargain and sometimes
even cheated when they had a chance.
The Phenicians made many things to sell, and then they went far and
near to sell them.
They knew how to make beautiful cloth and glassware and objects in gold
and silver and ivory.
They knew the secret of making a wonderful purple dye from the body of
a little shell-fish that lived in the water near the city of Tyre. This
dye was known as Tyrian purple from the name of that city, and it was
so beautiful that kings’ robes were colored with it.
Tyre and Sidon were the two chief cities of Phenicia, and once upon a
time they were two of the busiest cities in the world.
In order to find people to sell to, the Phenicians traveled in boats
all over the Mediterranean Sea and even went outside this sea into the
Great Ocean. This opening is now called the Strait of Gibraltar but
was then known as the Pillars of Hercules. They went as far as the
British Isles. Other people in those days had not dared to go so far
in boats; they thought they would come to the edge of the ocean and
tumble off. But the Phenicians had no such fear, and so they were the
greatest sailors as well as the greatest traders of their times. Their
ships were built from the cedar-trees that grew on the slopes of their
hills, which were called Lebanon.
Wherever the Phenicians found good harbors for their boats, they
started little towns where they traded with the natives, who at that
time were almost savage. With ignorant savages they found they could
drive a good bargain. For a few glass beads or a piece of purple dyed
cloth worth very little they could get in return gold and silver and
other things worth a great deal. On the African coast, one of these
towns they started was called Carthage. Of Carthage we shall hear more
by and by, for it grew to be so wealthy and important that--but wait
until I come to that story.
[Illustration]
14
Hard as Nails
Our story goes back again to Greece, the land of Homer and the
fairy-tale gods and to Sparta, where Helen once lived.
About nine hundred years before Christ was born, there lived in Sparta
a man named Lycurgus. That is a hard name, and when you hear about this
man you may think he was hard, too. Lycurgus wanted his city to be the
greatest in the world.
But first he had to find out what it was that made a city and a people
great.
So he started off and traveled for years and years visiting all the
chief countries of the world to see if he could learn what it was that
made them great. And this is what he learned.
Wherever the people thought chiefly of fun and pleasure, of amusing
themselves and having a good time--he found they were not much good,
not much account--_not_ great.
Wherever the people thought chiefly of hard work and did what they
ought, whether it was pleasant or not, he found they were usually good
for something--some account--great.
So Lycurgus came back to his home Sparta and set to work to make a
set of rules which he thought would make his people greater than all
other people in the world. These rules were called a Code of Laws, and
I think you’ll agree they were very hard, and they made the Spartans
hard, too--as “hard as nails.” We shall see whether they made the
Spartans really great, also.
To begin with, babies, as soon as they were born, were examined to see
that they were strong and perfect. Whenever one was found that did not
seem to be so, he was put out on the mountain-side and left to die.
Lycurgus wanted no weaklings in Sparta.
When boys were seven years old, they were taken from their mothers and
put in a school, which was more like a soldiers’ camp than a school,
and they never lived anywhere else until they were sixty years old.
In this school they were not taught the things you are, but only the
things that trained them to be good soldiers.
There were no such things as school-books then.
There were no spelling-books.
There were no arithmetics.
There were no geographies. No one knew enough about the world to write
a geography.
There were no histories. No one knew much about things that had
happened in the world before that time, and of course none of the
history since then that you now study had taken place.
At certain times, the Spartan boy was whipped, not because he had
done anything wrong, but just to teach him to suffer pain without
whimpering. He would have been disgraced forever if he had cried, no
matter how badly he was hurt.
He was exercised and drilled and worked until he was ready to drop.
But still he was obliged to keep on, no matter how tired or hungry or
sleepy or aching he might be, and he must never show by any sign how he
felt.
He was made to eat the worst kind of food, to go hungry and thirsty
for long periods of time, to go out in the bitter cold with little or
no clothing, just to get used to such hardships and able to bear all
sorts of discomforts. This kind of training, this kind of hardening, is
therefore called “Spartan discipline.” How do you think you would have
liked it?
The Spartans’ food, clothing, and lodging were all furnished them,
though it was very poor food and poor clothing and poor lodging. They
were not allowed good things to eat, soft beds to lie on, or fine
clothing to wear. Such things were called luxuries, and luxuries,
Lycurgus thought, would make people soft and weak, and he wanted his
people hard and strong.
The Spartans were even taught to speak in a short and blunt manner;
they were taught not to waste words; they must say what they had to say
in as few words as possible. This manner of speaking we call “Laconic”
from the name Laconia, the state in which Sparta was located.
Once a king wrote to the Spartans a threatening letter, saying that
they had better do what he told them to, for _if_ he came and took
their country, he would destroy their city and make them slaves.
The Spartans sent a messenger back with their answer, and when the
letter was opened, it contained only one word:
“_IF!_”
Even to-day, we call such an answer, short but to the point, a Laconic
answer.
Did all this hard training and hard work make the Spartans the greatest
people in the world?
Lycurgus did make the Spartans the strongest and best fighters in the
world--but--
The Spartans conquered all the peoples around about them, though there
were ten times as many--but--
They made these people their slaves, who did all their farming and
other work--but--
We shall see later whether Lycurgus’s idea was right.
North of Sparta was another great city of Greece called Athens. There
were, of course, many other towns in Greece, but Sparta and Athens
were the most important. In Athens the people lived and thought quite
differently from those in Sparta.
The Athenians were just as fond of everything beautiful as the Spartans
were of discipline and of everything military.
The Athenians loved athletic games of all sorts just as the Spartans
did, but they also loved music and poetry and beautiful statues,
paintings, vases, buildings, and such things that are known as the
“arts.”
The Athenians believed in training the mind _as well_ as the body. The
Spartans believed the training of the body was the all-important thing.
Which do you like better, the Athenians’ idea or the Spartans’ idea?