CENSUS STATISTICS 556
PART THIRD.
THE PEOPLE AND THE GOVERNMENT.
The government for the people alone—Early distrust of the
masses and its causes—Embodied in the Federal party—Causes of
its fall—Absorption of foreigners—Favorable results—Future of
the people.
CHAPTER I.
SUFFRAGE AND CITIZENSHIP 562
Who are citizens—Advance in extent of suffrage—Who are
voters—Citizens of States and of United States.
CHAPTER II.
CITIZENS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 564
Naturalization—Various steps in naturalization—Digest of laws.
CHAPTER III.
ELECTIONS 567
Who are entitled to vote for State officers—For United States
officers—History of general elections—People obtain direct
control.
CHAPTER IV.
RATIO OF REPRESENTATION 569
Changes with each census—Reason for it—Data—Present ratio and
number of Members of Congress.
CHAPTER V.
OATHS AND BONDS 574
Reasons for them—“Iron-clad oaths”—Who give bonds—Amount of
bonds required.
CHAPTER VI.
GOVERNMENT PRISONS 577
Vigor of the government—Mildness in punishment—Why it owns no
prisons.
CHAPTER VII.
PROCLAMATIONS 578
Who make them—Their significance.
CHAPTER VIII.
COMMISSIONERS 580
Various classes of officers of this name.
CHAPTER IX.
OFFICIAL REGISTER 581
Officers and salaries—When published—Where obtained.
CHAPTER X.
THE UNITED STATES FLAG 582
Significance of the Flag—History of its origin—The
“Star-Spangled Banner” and Ft. McHenry.
CHAPTER XI.
THE GREAT SEAL 585
Uses of Seals—How applied—Who keeps the Great Seal—History of
the Great Seal—Jefferson, Adams, etc.—Failure of committees to
please—Efforts of Secretary of Congress—Adams and the English
Baronet—Description of the Seal.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ORIGIN OF LAW 588
Origin of law in various kinds of government—In the U.S. all
law springs from the People—The fundamental law—Legislative
acts—Laws by Treaty—Universal law.
CHAPTER XIII.
LAW OF NATIONS 591
Its origin—Standard authorities on International Law—How it is
enforced—General features of Law of Nations—United States and
England—A future Supreme Tribunal.
CHAPTER XIV.
RELATION OF U. S. GOVERNMENT TO RELIGION 594
Does not support religion—Shows respect to the sentiments of
all its people—Consequent policy.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPLAINS 596
Why employed—No sect preferred—Salaries—Where employed.
CHAPTER XVI.
COMPROMISES 598
Necessity of them from the commencement—Constitutional
Compromise—Missouri Compromise of 1820—Mason and Dixon’s
Line—Compromises of 1850—Their failure brings on the Civil War.
CHAPTER XVII.
TREASON 602
Defined by the Constitution—The punishment inflicted.
CHAPTER XVIII.
POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE U. S. 603
Sectional divisions—Their disappearance—Circuit
Courts—States—District Courts—Congressional
Districts—Counties—Towns—School Districts.
CHAPTER XIX.
HISTORY OF THE U. S. FROM 1783 TO 1812 606
Prostration of the country after the war—Congress has no
effective control of finances—Negligence of the States—Shay’s
rebellion in Mass.—Vigorous action of Gen. Lincoln—Virginia
urges call of a Constitutional Convention—Meeting and
result of the Convention—Last acts and dissolution of
Continental Congress—Washington’s first Administration—The
rise of parties, Federal and Anti-federal—Washington’s
second Administration—Difficulties with England—With
France—Country prospers—Adams’ Administration—Naval
war with France—Jefferson’s Administrations—Louisiana
purchased—Increasing trouble with England—Madison’s
Administrations—War declared.
CHAPTER XX.
THE WAR OF 1812 620
Causes of the war—Disasters in Canada—Successes on
the sea—Barbarity of British and Indians—Incompetence
of U. S. officers—Second Campaign—Brilliant naval
successes—Mortification of the British—Political opposition
to the war embarrasses the Government and encourages the
enemy—Third Campaign an American success—Gen. Scott in
Canada—Defeat of the British at Plattsburg, on Lake Erie;
before Baltimore, at New Orleans.
CHAPTER XXI.
HISTORY FROM 1815 TO 1846 629
Results of the war highly favorable to the U. S.—Gains respect
abroad—Party bitterness subsides—Compromise of 1820—Great
prosperity—Florida Purchase—Monroe’s two Administrations—J. Q.
Adams’ Administration—Sections divide on the Tariff—Jackson’s
two Administrations—Nullification of South Carolina—Jackson’s
promptness—Seminole war—Van Buren’s Administration—Financial
disasters—Harrison and Tyler—Admission of Texas—Election of
Polk.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MEXICAN WAR—FROM 1848 TO 1860 638
Causes of the war—Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la
Palma—Taking of Monterey—Battle of Buena Vista—Gen. Scott
in Mexico—His long succession of victories—Enters the
City of Mexico—Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo—Increase of
territory—Discovery of gold in California—California applies
for admission as a State—Raises the violent opposition of
Slave States—Compromises of 1850—Taylor and Fillmore—Pierce’s
Administration—Repeal of the Missouri Compromise—Troubles
in Kansas—Buchanan’s Administration—Preparation for
Secession—Growth of the Republican party.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE CIVIL WAR 645
Real causes of the Civil War—The elections of Nov., 1860—Made
the pretext for Secession—South Carolina Secedes—Forts and
property of the government seized in the South—Southern States
successively Secede—Southern Confederacy formed—Want of energy
in the Administration—Inauguration of Lincoln—The Union to be
defended.
CHAPTER XXIV.
FIRST PHASE OF THE WAR 651
Firing on Ft. Sumter—It electrifies the North—Call for
troops—General mustering for war—Capture of Harper’s Ferry and
Gosport Navy Yard, Fighting in the border States—Experience
gained in the general skirmishing—Reluctance to join the great
issue—Battle of Bull Run—Washington saved, if the battle
is lost—Immense preparations by sea and land—Confederate
government in Richmond.
CHAPTER XXV.
SECOND PHASE OF THE WAR 658
The large armies have acquired much discipline and
experience—Movement of McClellan on Richmond—Movement flanking
Confederate positions on the upper Mississippi—Severe
battles near Richmond—McClellan’s failure—Success in the
West—The rising fortunes of Grant at Donnelson, Henry, and
Pittsburg Landing—Advance of Lee—Pope’s failure—Battles in
Maryland—Lee’s retreat—Bragg’s advance and retreat—Battle of
Fredericksburg—General results of the Campaign.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CAMPAIGN OF 1863 664
Emancipation proclamation—The year remarkable for the large
number of engagements and formidable character of the
operations—Battle of Chancellorsville and advance of Lee into
Penn.—His defeat at Gettysburg and return to Va.—Capture of New
Orleans—Taking of Vicksburg—Defeat at Chickamauga retrieved by
Grant—General results of the Campaign.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CAMPAIGN OF 1864 670
Struggle of Grant and Lee in Virginia—Sherman’s “March to the
Sea”—“Beginning of the end.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CONCLUDING CAMPAIGN 675
General discouragement in the South—Capture of Seaboard
cities—Re-inauguration of the President—Fall of Petersburg and
retreat of Lee—Close of the War—Assassination of Lincoln.
CHAPTER XXIX.
HISTORY FROM 1865 TO 1875 680
Opposed reconstruction policy of Congress and President
Johnson—Financial condition—Patrons of Husbandry—Election and
re-election of Gen. Grant.
CHAPTER XXX.
PARLIAMENTARY RULES 698
CHAPTER XXXI.
STATISTICS OF THE WORLD 721
SUPPLEMENT.
LEGAL FORMS—BY JUDGE J. C. POWER, OF THE FIRST DISTRICT OF IOWA 725
Legal form of Will—Statement of Testator—Disposition
of Property—Appointment of Executors—Statement of
Witnesses—Circumstances of Signature—Necessity of
two Witnesses—Articles of Copartnership—Statement of
Agreement—Conditions Mutually agreed to—Signature—Agreement
to continue Copartnership—Agreement to dissolve
Copartnership—Power of Attorney—How signed and
acknowledged—Form of Submission to Arbitration—Form of Award
of Arbitrators—General Form of Agreement—Agreement for sale
of personal property—Agreement for sale of Real Estate—How
executed and acknowledged—Form of Lease—Form of Warranty
Deed—Form of acknowledgement of execution of Deed—Witnesses
to signature—Mortgage Deed—Negotiable Note—Non negotiable
Note—Note transferable by delivery—Due bill—Receipt—What
statements required in Receipt.
THE FOOTPRINTS OF TIME.
PART FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
SECTION I.
THE DAWN OF HISTORY.
1. The early traditions of every nation that has undertaken to relate the
story of its origin, have given us a confused account of supernatural
persons and events which the judgment of more enlightened times has
almost uniformly considered fabulous and impossible. It has always been
an interesting inquiry how much of fact was veiled under this mythical
dress, and a great variety of ingenious and contradictory explanations
have been produced by the learned in all ages. In most cases, as in
Greece, the national religion has been based on these legends which form
its authority and explanation, and they passed with the people of all
early times as facts which it was impious to question. So the wise and
good Socrates was supposed to have denied the existence of the national
gods, and was condemned to death. This sacred guard placed over early
traditions, increased at once the interest and the difficulty involved in
their examination.
2. During the present century the improved methods, larger range and more
exact style of inquiry, and the assistance and hints which one branch
of study has given to others, have produced the most surprising and
satisfactory results. These inquiries are not yet complete; they seem, on
the contrary, to have only commenced, and promise, ultimately, to satisfy
all the useful purposes and legitimate curiosity of mankind; still, their
conclusions, so far as they go, are unimpeachable. They prove themselves.
The study of Ethnology, which gives an account of the races of mankind;
a critical comparison of all languages, ancient and modern; the patient
study and ingenious deciphering of architecture and inscriptions found
in ancient ruins, and various relics of human activity imbedded in the
soil of different countries, have thrown down the barriers which the
glowing imaginations of the poets and the want of authentic documents in
early times had raised, and have given us a clue to many of the secrets
of history, and a safe guide through some of the dark passages of man’s
primitive life.
To show how this is done would require a treatise on Ethnology, another
on Comparative Philology, a third on Antiquarian Research, and a fourth
on the Geological Antiquities of Man. Each of these brings a large and
valuable contribution to early history. We give only a brief summary of
their conclusions.
3. The human race appears to have had its birth on the high table lands
of central Asia, south and east of the Caspian Sea. The structure and
growth of language, and the remains of early art, indicate an extremely
infantile mental condition and successive emigrations from the primitive
home of the race. Families and tribes which had remained together long
enough to build up a common language and strong general features of
character and habit, at length separated and formed a number of families
of allied races.
4. The first emigrations were made by the Turanian nations, which
scattered very widely. Turanian means “outside,” or “barbarian,” and was
given by the later and better known races who found them, commonly in
a very wild, undeveloped state, wherever they themselves wandered in
after times. There are reasons for believing that the first Turanian
migration was to _China_; that they were never afterward much interfered
with, and that they early reached a high stage of civilization. It has
certainly many very crude and primitive features. Having worked out all
the progressive impulses dwelling in the primitive stock of their family
almost before other races were heard of, and being undisturbed, their
institutions stiffened and crystalized and made few improvements for
thousands of years. Chinese history presents a curious problem not yet
fully investigated.
Another stream of Turanian emigration is believed to have settled the
more north-easterly portions of Asia. Some time after the tide set down
through Farther India, and to the islands of Malaysia. In still later
periods Hindoostan was peopled by Turanian races; the ancestors of the
Mongols and Turks were spread over the vast plains of northern and
central Asia; and somewhat later still an irruption into Europe furnished
its primeval people. The Finns and Lapps in the north, and the Basques
of Spain, are the living representatives of the ancient Turanian stock,
while the Magyars, or Hungarians, are a modern branch of the same race,
which made an irruption into Europe from Asia in the ninth century of the
Christian era. The first appearance of this race in written history was
in the establishment of a powerful empire at Babylon, which must have
been cotemporary with the earliest Egyptian monarchy, and seems, from the
inscriptions on the most ancient ruins, to have been conquered by, and
mingled with, an Egyptian or Hamite family. It came to an end before the
Assyrian Empire appeared, but seems to have reached a very considerable
degree of development.
5. The other two great families of related languages, and therefore of
common stock or race, are the Semitic and the Aryan. But previous to
the appearance of either of these on this buried stage of history is a
family, apparently related, distantly, to the Semites, but who might have
separated from the common stock of both before them, called Hamites, who
founded the very ancient and mysterious Egyptian monarchy. A section of
this race conquered the Turanians of Babylon, and established the largest
dominion then known to men. The Chedor-Laomer of Abraham’s day was one
of its mightiest sovereigns, and ruled over a thickly-settled region a
thousand miles in length by five hundred in breadth. Faint traces of
it are found in profane history, and the Bible narrative is sustained
and largely amplified by inscriptions on ancient ruins. A second Hamite
empire in Babylon is believed to have followed this, continuing four
hundred years, carrying agriculture and the peaceful arts to a high state
of development.
6. Egypt was peopled by the Hamitic race, who founded two kingdoms,
afterwards united. Here, social, political, and industrial institutions
developed very early in great strength. Their language, the pictorial
representation of their social, political, and religious affairs, and
the grand and gloomy majesty of their works of art, imply a long period
of growth before they reached the maturity in which we find them when
written history commences. Their institutions, even in the earliest
historic times, showed signs of the decrepitude and decay of age. The
vastness and the grim maturity of their monuments and language seem to
lend much support to their claim of an immense antiquity. The future
study of their remains of art and literature will settle some important
problems in the chronology of the human race. The children of Ham were
clearly the first to lead off in the march of civilization.
The Semitic family, deriving its name from Shem, or Sem, the eldest son
of Noah, is not as large nor as widely spread as the Turanian and Aryan,
but has exerted an even greater influence on human destiny. It never
strayed much from Asia, except to people small portions of Africa. They
early appear in Western Asia as the successors of the second Hamitic
empire in Babylon and Assyria. Settled in Phenicia, on the eastern shore
of the Mediterranean sea, they became the first maritime and commercial
people, and, with their colony established in Carthage, in the north
of Africa, exerted a powerful influence in promoting the civilization
of the ancient world. The Semites early peopled the Arabian peninsula,
and established a state in Ethiopia, as some believe, before Egypt had
attained its full development. The Ethiopians established a flourishing
commerce on the Red Sea, with the eastern coasts of Africa, and with
India, and contributed greatly to the resources of ancient Egypt.
They have always been a religious race, and gave the three great
religions, Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, to the world, as
well as some of the most debasing superstitions and forms of idolatry
ever known. The larger part of the population of Asia is still Turanian,
and the Semites now occupy about the same area as in prehistoric times;
but the Hamites have been overpowered and have lost their clearly
distinctive character as a family, unless represented by the negro tribes.
7. The third great family, the Aryan, called also the Japhetic, from
Japhet, the third son of Noah, and from the regions they peopled and made
illustrious by their genius and activity, the Indo-European, was the last
to leave the birthplace of mankind. The other races were incapable of
carrying the fortunes of humanity beyond a certain point, of themselves
alone, as the history of Turanian China, Hamitic Egypt and the Semitic
Mohammedans and Jews clearly proves. The history of the Aryans shows
them to possess inexhaustible mental power and physical stamina, with a
vigorous ambition, always dissatisfied with the present, and constantly
seeking something better in the future and the distant, that have
produced the happiest effect on the destinies of the human race.
8. It would seem that while the Turanians, Hamites, and Semites were
taking the lead of the world and building up the empires of prehistoric
times, whose mighty ruins have been the wonder of later ages, the Aryans
were all united in following peaceful pursuits, which the common features
of their languages indicate were chiefly the care of flocks and herds.
They were much farther removed from barbarism than any of the other races
when they began their wanderings. Warlike, agricultural and nautical
terms, and the names of wild animals are not often found in the common
vocabulary; while family relations, domestic animals and their uses, the
heavenly bodies in connection with worship and the priestly relation of
the father of the family, and terms indicating a considerable cultivation
of sensibility and thoughtfulness, imply a purer social and religious
condition, and more elevated mental traits, than in the primitive
forefathers of the other families. Their language was highly picturesque,
and its peculiar terms for natural phenomena are believed by some to have
originated the mythological histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans
and Teutonic nations. The ancient language used epithets and names,
so glowing with personality, that the imaginative descendants of the
primitive stock, when their early history was forgotten, believed them
to contain an account of the origin of things, and the early deeds of
gods and heroes; and the genius of the poets clothed the supposed marvels
in the immortal dress of fiction which we find in Homer and Hesiod, in
Virgil, the Indian Vedas, and the Sagas and Scalds of northern Europe.
This, at least, is the conclusion reached by some of the most eminent
scholars and philologists, whose study of the formation and growth of
languages has thrown so much light on the ante-historical periods. These
myths, the germs of which were embodied in their language, embellished
by the supposed inspired genius of the poets, formed the literature and
theology of the early historic nations, and were received as undisputed
truth.
9. The first migration of the Aryan family appears to have occurred
through the passes of the Caucasus, northwest to the northern part of
Asia Minor and Southern Europe. The Turanian nations, or “barbarians,”
were everywhere found in advance of them, in a very degraded condition,
and the native spirit and ambition of the Aryan people rendered them
the uniform conquerors. Afterward, another migration southward peopled
India, and, in the earliest historic times, the part of the family still
remaining in the ancient home of the race established the brilliant
empire of the Medes and Persians, who extended their sway over all the
central and western parts of Asia, broke down the ancient monarchy of
Egypt, and, in the height of their power and glory, swept like a tempest
into Europe with the purpose of subjugating a few self-governing tribes
of their own race dwelling on the shores and among the mountains of
the small peninsula of Greece. The failure of the mighty empire in
this effort, through the indomitable resolution of a handful of hardy
republicans, forms one of the most glorious pages of history. It was a
grand era in the development of civilization, and Grecian culture became
the inheritance of the world.
SECTION II.
THE DIRECTION OF PRE-HISTORIC GROWTH.
1. The three classes of indications on which we rely for a knowledge of
the advance of mankind previous to the period when authentic history
comes to our aid—the researches of geologists among the accidental traces
of man’s early activities, the ruins of ancient cities, and the study of
the growth of language—unite in testifying to an extremely rude, feeble
and childish condition of the earliest representatives of the race,
and to a progressive improvement in knowledge and capacity, precisely
like what occurs in the case of every individual of our kind. A fourth
more general observation also confirms this view. This is the obscurity
that covers the early ages. Aside from the Bible narrative, a cloud
rests on the early history of every people. A long period passes before
they begin to reflect, to look around and back toward their origin,
and still another of groping thought and study before they are led to
record their reflections and experiences. The necessities and habit of
social intercourse give rise to language and gradually mature it; a long
period would necessarily pass before the natural aversion to other than
desultory labor, the increase of population and the habit of obedience to
an authority requiring continued painful toil, would render the massive
monuments of some of the earlier peoples possible, and before their
attempts at architecture could mature and originate the elaborate ruins
which time has not been able to destroy during so many centuries.
2. One of the most striking traits of pre-historic times is the
simplicity and awkwardness that characterize childhood. The Chinese
language has been remarked upon as showing the extremely infantile cast
of mind among the people who formed and retained it to our times. Each
word is a sentence, standing by itself originally; the tone and gesture
give it much of its signification. It would seem as if its authors had
never grown to the idea of an elaborated sentence. There is an average of
eight words, spelled and pronounced exactly alike, for every sound used.
There are, it is said, 212 characters pronounced _che_; 138 pronounced
_foo_; and 1165 which all read _e_, and each letter is a word, a phrase
and a sentence, and may be an adjective, a noun, or a verb, or all three
together. The difficulty of expressing shades of meaning, or all that
may be in the thought, where so much must be acquired before expression
is possible, has kept the Chinese mind, in many respects, in a state
of childhood, though they have preserved a stability of character and
institutions nowhere else observed. The primitive mind and habits are
maintained as if crystalized. The principle of decay, so universal
elsewhere, would seem, by some singular process, banished from a vast
nation, as it is in the human body in Egyptian mummies. The same feature
is observable in a smaller degree among the Hindoos, and seems to have
characterized the ancient Egyptians.
3. Such a habit of fixity among the early races, whose position secured
them from disturbance by the more restless tribes, was favorable to the
construction of the stupendous monuments which have been the wonder of
after ages. All those races have been remarkably exclusive. It was not
until nearly four hundred years after the era of authentic history that
Egypt was freely open to all the Greeks. These observations apply only
to those portions of the human family which were stranded in some quiet
nook outside of the current of movement that carried along the most of
mankind. Change of place, intercourse, conflict and conquest were the
chief early educators. The isolated nations, after exhausting the power
of their first impulses, ceased to improve. Their minds, institutions and
habits stiffened and petrified. Nor did the families that wandered far
from the general centre of movement usually acquire any high degree of
development. They were characterized by unsettled habits; not favorable
to highly organized institutions.
4. It was around, and westward of, the common centre of the race that a
course of steady improvement went on. Here the laws of inheritance and
suggestion, the stimulus of constant friction, and the infusion of newer
and more enterprising blood worked the freest and developed the elements
of a true civilization the soonest. If the legendary history of Greece is
not to be trusted in its details, it at least establishes the certainty
of active movement and incessant conflict out of which was, at length,
evolved a noble, if incomplete, civilization. The Greeks were near enough
to the scene of stirring action in Western Asia to be benefited by its
influence without having their institutions frequently disturbed and
broken up before they had reached any degree of maturity, as was the
case with the Assyrians, Persians and Phenicians. They reaped the fruit,
without sharing the disasters, of the great surgings back and forward
which we find to have been the condition of the Asiatic peoples at the
time reliable history begins to observe them. It appears to have been the
same in that region (Western Asia) as far back as monument, legend, or
science can trace. The fruit of this shock of races and mental activity
matured on the spot the greatest and best religious systems the world
has ever known, the three greatest of which have survived to our own
day, viz.: the Judaic, the Christian and the Mohammedan. The germs of the
other two were contained in the system of Abraham and Moses. Thus the
three most important influences needed for the progress of civilization
in the true direction were supplied in pre-historic times—the seething
and surging of the nations in the West of Asia, a high religious ideal,
and the primary discipline of the Greeks.
5. The lantern of science has guided us on the Track of Time by his
advancing Footprints down to the period when the grand luminary, Written
History, begins to shine from the hills of Greece. Looking over what was
then known of Asia we find it a vast battlefield, on the western border
of which were the Jews, receiving lessons of instruction or chastisement
from the surrounding nations, and slowly evolving the Master Religion of
the world, the massive grandeur of Egypt is dimly visible in the south,
and on the eastern horizon rise the immense walls and towers of the huge
cities of Nineveh and Babylon. On the north and west all is darkness,
though we subsequently learn that the elements of a high culture among
the Etrurians of Italy were waiting their destruction at the hands of
valiant Rome, yet to be. The Phenicians were beginning to scour the sea
and to build up a flourishing commerce, and the cities of Greece had
already learned, from the tyranny of their petty kings, the advantages of
free government.
The period of authentic history is held to have commenced seven hundred
and seventy-six years before the Christian era. In that year the Greeks
began to record the name of the conqueror in the Olympian games—a
national and religious festival, which had been commenced long before—and
it was called the First Olympiad. It formed the first definite starting
point of the true and fairly reliable historians who, some four hundred
years later, began to write a carefully-studied account of what was
known of their own and of other countries. It was the time when dates of
passing events first began to be stated in the records of the cities and
kingdoms of Greece, and marks the beginning of a real civilization and
culture, and the course of events began to be rescued from the magnifying
and marvel-loving imaginations of the people.
6. The seven hundred and fifty years that follow are in the highest
degree interesting and important; for they record the achievements of
the early manhood of humanity, as represented by the nations that were
most advanced in civilization, or contributed to the general progress of
the world. Men developed their inherent capacities far more during that
period than in all the previous centuries, however numerous they may have
been. It was followed by about five hundred years of gradual decline, and
that by a thousand years of confusion caused by the corruption of the old
society and the imperfection of its elements, together with the irruption
of vast hordes of barbarians, who brought in fresh and vigorous, but
untamed blood, with rude and fierce manners. They were gradually tamed
by fusion with the cultured races, and out of this union arose a
civilization broader and more just, toward the perfection of which we
ourselves are now rapidly advancing, and which, by its multiform vigor
and unlimited resources, seems above the reach of decay. Its power of
infusing new life into worn-out peoples and renewing the youth of nations
as well as of civilizing barbarians appears irresistible.
From this outlook we return to consider the steps by which Time has led
us to such a desirable eminence.
SECTION III.
THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF INSTITUTIONS.
1. Man, at first, had no institutions. He existed in the simplest and
most spontaneous way, finding shelter in caves and clefts of the rocks
and beneath the primeval forests, groping his way by strong instincts
which soon began to dawn into intelligence of the lowest and most
material kind. How long he led a purely _animal_ life we have no means
of knowing; but we may suppose that the necessities of self-preservation
and his powerful social instincts very soon developed the germs of the
family and of language.
Childhood is comparatively long, and many generations must have passed
before language could have acquired the distinctness and fixity that
permitted it to come down through so long a period, and by so many
different channels, to us. Yet there is plain evidence of an Eastern
origin of all the various families of the race, and of a considerable
mental development previous to the wanderings that peopled the East,
the West, and the South. It has been remarked by Geologists that the
introduction of any class of animal life was never made by its very
_lowest_ orders, but usually by a class intermediate in organization
between the highest and the lowest; some of the very lowest orders being
represented in our own time.
2. A tolerably hardy race, which could endure the exposures and overcome
the difficulties that must be greater for the first few generations than
ever afterward, as we have every reason to believe, was first introduced.
It has been common to suppose that man must have been supplied with a
fund of knowledge, and a basis of language, to have successfully met the
difficulties of his condition; but the uniform law that the _faculties_,
the _innate capabilities_ of his race, are conferred on him, and that he
works them out by a process of development is observable in his entire
history, so far as we can trace it. All needful capacities being lodged
in him, with strong appetites and instincts to impel him to the objects
most vitally necessary to his own preservation and the continuance of his
species, and the material from which to work out his predestined ends
being placed within his reach, it is made his indispensable duty and his
glory to realize those ends, soon or late, by his own endeavors. The
evidences of his early activity, unearthed here and there by geologists,
show him to have advanced by degrees from the lowest points, and such
corroborative proof as the earliest forms of language afford are
decidedly in the same direction.
3. Many of the terms employed for the first and most familiar objects
with which the necessities of life brought him in contact, show the very
imperfect extent of his early knowledge and resources, and they gradually
change in a way to indicate, most significantly, a slow and laborious,
but constant enlargement of ideas by experience. He advanced then,
as now, by degrees. The races latest in development, as well as most
vigorous and intelligent, were the Aryan, or Indo-European. They have
left the most definite traces of their early condition and advancement
in the common elements of their various languages, which show very
clearly how much time and toil were required to work out the features of
their first Institution—The Family. The proper family type established
relations of protection and dependence, of care and trust, of purity
and tenderness, of provident foresight, and the shelter and comforts of
Home. Apparently it was many centuries after the other races had begun to
migrate that this last and most valuable stock commenced to be “fruitful
and multiply,” to tame animals for their use, to enclose and render their
habitations comfortable, and to organize and designate their family
relations down to son-in-law and daughter-in-law, as well as to name the
most common domestic animals and occupations.
4. The fact doubtless existed long before common experience and common
consent had settled on the terms that have remained the same in the
language of the Hindoos, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Germanic
families; but by many certain signs we know that it was only gradually
that the tenderness and beauty and usefulness of this institution had
laid the sure foundation of a future vigorous and virtuous civilization.
This race devoted themselves mainly to the care of flocks and herds,
though we find among them the knowledge of wheat and some other grains;
they had very little experience of war until they separated and began
their wanderings, as we infer from the fact that their common terms are
nearly all peaceful—those designating a warlike habit differing in all
the various branches of the stock.
The Family, with them, was usually founded on marriage—the union of one
man and one woman—which laid great restraints on vice and preserved the
growing society from manifold evils. The other races—Turanian, Hamitic
and Semitic—appear to have been much more careless in this respect, and
admitted a vicious element into the base of society, which loosened the
bonds of relationship and discipline. They practiced polygamy, which
magnified the position of the father, while it deprived him of the closer
and more intimate relations to his household on which refinement depends,
and degraded the mother who became the simple minister of pleasure to,
and the means of increasing the influence of, the Patriarchal head. This
point is very vividly shown in the earlier history of the Israelites
where the unhappy effects of polygamy are distinctly portrayed. From the
same source we see how the first institution among men gradually grew
into the Tribe, and the foundations of Organized Government were laid.
5. Population rapidly increased, the original progenitor, or the
oldest of his male descendants, became the fountain of authority and
influence, and was, in many cases, the chief or king, exercising an
undefined control, sometimes absolute and despotic, and again that of a
merely nominal head, the variations taking every shade between the two.
Occasionally, special gifts, as energy, foresight and skill, favored by
circumstances, raised one in the tribe to eminence, and he became the
acknowledged ruler to the exclusion of the patriarch, or hereditary heir
of the patriarchal office, as in the case of Joseph in Egypt, and, in
later times, Moses, Joshua and the Judges.
6. Again, a pastoral life being abandoned, the people gathered for
various reasons in towns, and cities were built up, where the original
style of government became impossible, from the mixed character of
the population; the oldest, or family government, being founded on
relationship and traditional respect. The need of leadership and the
service rendered by some member of the community founded a despotic
authority. In many cases a city was founded by an adventurer who had
gathered supporters around him by some special ability, or by some
accidental pre-eminence, as we see in Nimrod and Romulus; or, as often
occurred, the head of a family or tribe which forsook the pastoral life
and founded a city, from a patriarch or chieftain became a king.
Government, in early times, was very imperfectly organized. It gradually
advanced with some people to a high point; while with others it continued
in a very undeveloped state for long periods—some races never having
reached any high stage at all, or only temporarily under some talented
individual.
The first settled governments are found in fertile river valleys where
the cultivation of the soil arrested roving and desultory habits, and
often formed the nucleus of an empire. There is reason to believe that
the first emigration from the early home of the race was toward the east,
that a state was soon formed in China which became considerably civilized
and fairly well organized the earliest of all. Their national traditions
and some of their recorded dates claim a vast antiquity. It is not yet
determined by scholars how much credit is to be allowed to these claims.
7. As it appears at present, two other governments were organized at
nearly the same time, one in the lower valley of the Euphrates and the
other on the Nile. It is also possible that a fourth was built up in
India nearly cotemporary with these. Certain similarities between the
ancient ruins of Egypt and India, and the traditions in the latter
country have given rise to the suspicion; but no certainty has yet been
reached. Several systems of chronology, independent of each other,
are found in Egypt, all agreeing as to its enormous antiquity, but
disagreeing in some important points, and satisfactory tests have not
yet been met with, so that the early days of Egypt are very obscure.
The evidences of a clearly defined progress are presented in its
monuments, but the earliest bear so strong a resemblance to the later
that there is some reason for supposing that the first inhabitants had
reached a considerable degree of maturity before settling there. As yet,
however, that point is only an inference—the most probable escape from a
difficulty. The empires established on the Euphrates, and north of that
on the Tigris, mark the steps of progress very distinctly, and furnish
fairly satisfactory means of computing their general chronology.
8. In all these cases it appears from monuments, traditions, and from
whatever information the records of the Bible and other histories give
us, that when men began to gather in communities, cultivate the ground
and build cities, their governments were controlled by kings. Despotic
sovereignty was the natural and necessary instrument of government.
The vigorous will of an admired chief concentrated the energies of the
community, and a state was formed. The beginnings were very rude and
improvement was slow, never reaching beyond the simple application of
force as to the structure and modes of government. But another element,
founded on the religious nature of mankind, which also had entered as
an important influence into family government from the earliest times,
became organized in the early days of monarchy, viz.:
THE INSTITUTION OF A PRIESTHOOD.
9. It would appear, from such traces of a religious tendency as are found
in the primary languages, that the religious instinct was awakened by an
observation of the forces of nature, which struck the mind with wonder,
admiration, or terror. The mysteries of growth, the power of winds and
storms and waters, the calm beauty, beneficence and brilliance of the
sun, moon and stars riding undisturbed in the heavens, impressed man with
a sense of something superior to himself. The moods of nature suggested
some unknown being with a varying disposition like his own. His wants,
his hopes and fears, and his sense of helplessness soon led him to seek
to propitiate these unknown powers. The first religion, among all the
primitive nations, seems to have been a worship of the powers of nature.
The head of the family was naturally the first priest of the family. This
office increased the respect in which he was held by his multiplying
descendants, and contributed to strengthen his authority.
10. But when, in the organization of cities and states, patriarchal
influence decayed, and was replaced by the authority of the chieftain or
the king, a class of men was set apart to fill the office of religious
instructors, to discover the art and conduct the acts of general worship.
The great mystery and uncertainty surrounding the objects of worship,
required exclusive study and a supposed purity and elevation of mind
impossible to others which soon raised the priesthood into an institution
much revered. It acquired great influence, and afforded an opening to
ambition only inferior to that of the chief or king. The two commonly
united for mutual support, and thus mankind gained two institutions
destined to be of incalculable value, as well as of almost boundless
injury. In the earlier ages they must have been an almost unmixed
good. They disciplined, the one the labors, the other the minds, of
communities. They were the two most powerful instruments for initiating
progress. They moulded the mass, gave it form, and directed its energies.
To a certain degree they each formed a check on the excessive tendencies
of the other. But, the power of each fairly established, they often
united to set very hurtful limits to spontaneous action. The king used
his power to the common injury, and the priests their knowledge to the
common debasement. The first exhausted the sources of prosperity and
growth among his people to gratify his caprices and pleasures, and the
priesthood promoted degrading superstitions and a gross idolatry to
strengthen their influence. It was for the interest of both to keep the
people in pupilage, and check all tendencies to independent action or
thought. Had it been possible for them to be wise and high-minded, the
race would have been saved many centuries of debasement and misery.
11. These evils were, in some degree, checked by influences which have
ever since been the mainspring of progress—_War_ and _Commerce_. In early
times, relationships of blood or of immediate interest were the chief
bonds among men. All outside the family, tribe, or nation were usually
held as enemies; and passion, interest, or ambition in the ruler led to
constant conflict. But the shock of peoples awakened their minds, made
them acquainted with each other, made their inventions and arts in some
degree common property, and mingled the thought and blood of different
races; and this greatly enlarged the ideas and capacities of both
conquerors and conquered. The acquaintance made in this way, with men and
countries, led to an interchange of products, during quiet times, and
trade and commerce soon sprung up. This, appealing to the best interests
and instincts of the most enterprising among the people, has always
been a powerful instrument of advancement. It led to distant voyages
and travels, to observation and intercourse, with a view to pecuniary
advantage, to inventions and improvements in industry and art, that kept
the peoples so related in a state of constant progress.
12. A growing population required increasing attention to agriculture and
the mechanic arts, and increasing wealth led to architectural display
and the increase of instruments of luxury, the production of which
disciplined the skill of the artisan and contributed to the general
growth. All these were the elements and foundation of civilization. An
organization commenced, and a state founded, the king soon found leisure
to look about and envy the wealth and territories of his neighbor. He
made war and commenced a career of conquest, or fell, under defeat,
into his neighbor’s hand, when time took a step forward, and a new
consolidation, wider and higher than the former, was laid on a broader
base. Slowly but surely an advance was made.
13. We are now to observe this gradual development in the successive
history of five monarchies in Asia and the kingdom of Egypt, down to the
time when they all fell before the conquering power of Greece, under
Alexander the Great, which introduces new and far higher elements of
progress among the civilized races, and forms the full opening of a new
Era.
SECTION IV.
ANCIENT MONARCHIES.
1. The Chaldean Monarchy was the first in order of time. It seems very
likely that the first settlement which, in the slow development of the
earliest races, finally produced an organized kingdom on the lower part
of the Euphrates, was made somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 years
before the Christian Era. It is, however, a matter of dispute between
the best authorities whether it can be placed so far back. The monuments
of that age are difficult to decipher, but it seems pretty certain that
a Scythian or Turanian government preceded that which the traditions of
ancient history, the statements of the Bible, and the indications of
the ruins unite in placing at 2234 B. C. The founder appears as Nimrod,
or Bilu-Nipur. Many indications render it fairly certain that the early
formative stages of a kingdom had already passed, and that Nimrod merely
changed the capital. The first people had learned to subdue their soil,
had begun to build and to bring language and art to some degree of order,
when it appears that a Hamitic race, more advanced than they, and showing
strong likeness to the early Egyptians, mingled with them. In the first
inscriptions the language is Turanian, but the character Hamitic, or
Egyptian. So far as can be judged, the displacement was peaceful and
gradual. About the time above named, a man of great genius, Nimrod, a
Hamite, or Cushite, as he is termed in the Mosaic record, a “mighty
hunter,” as his name implies, founded a kingdom farther up the Euphrates,
and on the plain which lay between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris.
2. The existence of the first empire is dimly made out, and that is
all. Nimrod had clearly a foundation to build on, and he made a great
impression on his own times. After his death he was deified under the
name of Bel, and became the favorite among the fifteen or sixteen
principal deities of the early Chaldeans. These gods and goddesses seem
to represent the heavenly bodies; while the earlier Turanian worship
was a veneration of the powers of nature. Nimrod’s dynasty appears to
have covered a period of about two hundred and fifty years, including
the reigns of eleven kings. They made great advancement in draining the
marshy valley and regulating the supply of moisture to the growing crops.
They became expert in the manufacture of cloths and in building with
bricks which are covered with inscriptions. The priesthood acquired a
strong development at this time, as appears in the ruins and inscriptions
of their temples. The kings do not appear to have been very warlike, or
to have extended their dominion far.
3. A second Chaldean kingdom was founded about 1976 B. C. It is called
Elam in the Bible, and furnishes the first known example of what was
afterward so often seen in that region—an extensive kingdom formed by
a series of rapid conquests, that fell to pieces again as soon as a
vigorous hand failed to uphold it. The kingdom continued till about B. C.
1500. Kudur-Lagamer, the Chedor-Laomer of the Mosaic account, overran a
territory one thousand miles in length by five hundred in width. In one
of his incursions into Palestine his forces were defeated by Abraham,
which ended a control over that region lasting twelve years. There is no
indication that the following sovereigns exerted authority beyond Chaldea
and Babylonia.
There, however, they grew rich and civilized, extending their commerce
to India and Egypt, becoming famous and envied for their splendor and
luxury. A single small dwelling house of that period has been preserved
in the ruins of Chedor-Laomer’s capital “Ur of the Chaldees,” south of
Babylon. It was built on a platform of dried bricks, the walls of great
thickness, with two arched doors, and, apparently, lighted from the
roof. The rooms were long and narrow. Iron was at that time unknown. All
implements were of stone or bronze. Religion seemed to increase in its
grossness, apparently under the policy of the priesthood, who laid the
foundation of astronomical science and began to acquire the reputation
for hidden knowledge for which they became famous in after centuries.
Nothing of any importance is related of the kings of this monarchy except
the one conqueror. Despotism and priestly craft kept most of the feeble
tendencies to political improvement curbed—waiting for better times. That
arrived with the advent of the _Assyrian Empire_, about B. C. 1500.
4. It appears that for a long time before, a family, or tribe,
of Shemites had been settled in Chaldea, where they acquired its
civilization and arts, and some time about B. C. 1600 emigrated north,
settling on the river Tigris. They were a strong race, physically and
mentally, quite too fierce and resolute to be held in leading-strings by
the Chaldean priesthood. The country they occupied was higher and more
varied, abundantly supplied with stone, which was wanting in Babylonia
and Chaldea.
Here, in process of time, the most vigorous and progressive race that
had yet been seen among the families of man, built up a succession of
cities within a small circuit, each of which was, at different times, the
capital, and which were all finally united and made the famous Nineveh
of the Greek historians, and the immense “city of three days’ journey,”
visited by the Jewish prophet, Jonah. Within a few years these ruins have
been examined by competent men of science with great care, and have been
found to confirm the Bible narrative, in all essential points, and most
of the glowing descriptions of profane historians; while their higher
style of art and greater vigor and pride of achievement led them to build
monuments and engrave records that promise to make us very intimately
acquainted with their social, political and moral life.
5. They seem to have acquired the habit in Chaldea of raising a vast
elevated mound for their more important buildings. The largest mound is
found to be nearly one hundred feet high, and to cover an area of one
hundred acres, and on the summit of this were placed their temples and
the palaces of their kings. This immense foundation, it is said, would
require the labor of twenty thousand men for six years. After this were
to be constructed their vast buildings, covered with sculptures and
adorned with statues. Another mound, higher but embracing a smaller
area—about forty acres—served the same purpose.
They were extremely religious in their way, but the vigor of the kings
appears to have overshadowed the priesthood much more than in Chaldea. It
seems to have been about three hundred years after the establishment of
this enterprising stock in Assyria that they became famous for foreign
conquest. Babylon had been gradually rising in importance, often in
subjection, more or less nominal, to the growing northern power, but
retaining its own kings and habits.
6. The reign of Shalmaneser I., about 1290 B. C., was distinguished by
his building a new city and improving his kingdom; and his successor,
in 1270, signalized his reign by establishing, for a time, a complete
sovereignty over Babylon, and the historical Assyrian empire is commonly
dated from that event. For a century and a half there are few important
records. Tiglath-Pileser I., in B. C. 1130, commenced a series of
efforts to extend his dominions by conquest, which his success led
him to describe with unusual detail. It embraces five campaigns and a
description of the conquest of all the neighboring people. He established
a compact and powerful empire, which was surrounded by wild tribes whose
conquest was of little honor or value, and whom it was difficult to
hold long in subjection. In a return from a campaign against Babylon,
which he had conquered, he suffered a great reverse, losing the images
of his gods which he kept in his camp for protection and assistance in
his enterprises; and they were carried to Babylon, remaining there, it
is said, 400 years. A long period of apparent quiet was followed, after
more than two hundred years, by another warlike king who pushed his
conquests to the Mediterranean sea. His public works were larger and more
magnificent than those of any of his predecessors. He has recorded ten
successful campaigns.
7. His son, Shalmaneser II., increased the number, extent and
thoroughness of the conquests of his father. Still, most of the countries
conquered retained their laws and government, simply paying an annual
tribute, and the conquest set lightly on them. Babylon seems to have
retained comparative independence. In the following reign, Babylon was
captured and remained some time tributary to Assyria and the Ninus, or
Iva-lush IV., whose wife was the celebrated Semiramis, still further
extended Assyrian power. The wonderful tales related by Grecian
historians of Semiramis are not confirmed by the monuments. She appears
to have been an energetic Babylonian princess, the principal queen of
Ninus, who ruled conjointly with him. The novelty of a female ruler in
that rude age, and the splendor of the empire at the time, seem to have
originated the fabulous tales related of her.
8. At this time the development of the people of all the western parts
of Asia was so great, and the wars as well as peaceful intercourse of
different nations had so stimulated them all, that improvement kept a
tolerably even step. Multitudes of populous cities and kingdoms existed
in all directions. The magnificence of Solomon belongs to this period,
the Jewish monarchy having reached the height of its glory and power,
too high to be long endured by the proud and enterprising Assyrians.
Commerce filled the east with activity and manufactures flourished, in
some directions reaching a high degree of excellence. A true progress
marked the general course of human effort. The psalms of David show to
what a lofty point the religious ideas of that age were capable of being
carried. Industrial pursuits and agriculture reached, in the next hundred
and fifty years, the highest development they ever attained in some
regions.
9. In the midst of this busy industry Nineveh rose, peerless in grandeur,
enriching herself with the tribute and spoils of all countries,
beautified by the master race, which was wise enough not to dry up the
sources of their prosperity by the destruction of cities and kingdoms.
The common policy, up to nearly the close of her splendid career, was
to leave the real resources of all conquered nations untouched. After
defeating her opposer in a battle, she received the submission of the
king, imposed a heavy tax, or forced contribution, and an engagement to
pay a definite annual tribute, and went on her way to subdue another
nation to a like formal control. With misfortune, or a change of rulers
in the dominant kingdom, the subject-kings would withhold tribute, raise
an army, and the whole work of conquest had to be repeated.
Thus the empire consisted of a stable nucleus, Assyria, and a vast
floating mass of half independent kingdoms, states and cities which
were now submissive and now in revolt. We may easily conceive how this
comparatively mild mode of warfare would contribute to the general
advance of the whole population. This mingling and clash of armies,
surging to and fro of vast bodies of men, and the knowledge and culture
received from the great and wealthy capital made the school of that
period for the education of humanity.
10. The Assyrian annals show a continued growth in splendor and power and
extent of dominion until the very eve of its fall. In the course of that
time Egypt was invaded and partially subdued for the first time; and, in
the impatience of frequent revolt, the practice commenced of removing
whole nations from their original homes, supplying their place by others.
Thus the Ten Tribes were transported from their homes in Samaria, and
other nations brought to occupy their places.
The last king of Assyria inherited an authority that extended farther
and over larger numbers than had ever before been known. The vigorous
governing race were perhaps corrupted and weakened by a thousand years
of power and success; but various extraordinary circumstances united to
bring on a sudden catastrophe. A considerable part of the central kingdom
was devastated by an irresistible host of Scythians, immediately after
which the Medians, who were as fierce and warlike as the Assyrians in
their best days, attacked Assyria. A large army, sent by the king to meet
the invaders, went over to the enemy by the treachery of its general,
Nabopolassar, and the combined armies laid siege to Nineveh, which
fell, the king burning himself and his family in his palace. Nineveh
was destroyed, and Nabopolassar received as his reward the kingdom of
Babylonia, and the Assyrian conquests in the south and west. He founded
the
11. Babylonian Empire, which has made a greater impression on posterity
than Nineveh. He was a man of great energy and resources. The treasures
and captives of that mighty city, that fell to his share, were employed
in rebuilding and improving Babylon. During his reign of twenty-one
years, and the forty-three years of his still more illustrious son and
successor, Nebuchadnezzar, that city was made the wonder of the world.
Each side of it was fifteen miles in length, the river Euphrates passing
through its center. They repaired the wall, which was eighty-seven feet
thick and more than three hundred feet high. This wall was so immense
as to contain more than twice the cubic contents of the great wall of
China, which is 1,400 miles in length, and the vast enclosed space was
filled with palaces, temples, hanging gardens, and all the impressive
evidences of boundless power and resources in which the gross ambition
of that period delighted. A second wall was built within the first, the
river was, for a time, turned out of its bed and its bottom and sides
paved with masonry, and huge walls erected on either bank; canals and
aqueducts, for agricultural purposes, of the most stupendous character,
were constructed all over the broad valley. The wealth and energies of
the richest and most populous part of Asia, as then known, were employed
to build up the great capital and improve the central province.
12. The Jews were kept there, as captives, for seventy years, all the
treasures of their city and temple, and the accumulated wealth of their
nation, were poured into the Babylonian treasury, and their people
employed, with other countless multitudes, in the construction of its
walls and buildings, and the cultivation of its fields. Tyre, the most
renowned commercial city of ancient times, was taken, after a siege of
thirteen years, and much of Egypt was reduced.
It was the culmination of the centralizing system of the Assyrians and
Chaldeans which had lasted for two thousand years.
13. A dominion so resting on physical force, and gorged with booty
wrested from others, with no moral power or national spirit underlying
it, could not last long. A more vigorous and warlike power rose by the
union of the Persians and Medes under the Persian warrior, Cyrus, who,
after a series of conquests farther north and west, in Asia Minor, turned
his arms against Babylon. The walls were impregnable, but the river
proved a source of weakness. It had been once diverted from its course
to pave its bed within the city; the hint was accepted, and, on a night
of feasting and carelessness, it was again turned aside to give free
entrance to the besiegers, and the Babylonian Empire fell in the very
height of its pomp and glory. We find a regular progress in organization,
in most institutions, from the first Chaldean to the last Babylonian
Empire. In popular religion alone was there an increasing grossness,
which reached its limit about this time by the fall of the Chaldean
priesthood, purer practices and ideas were circulated by the Jews in
their captivity, and the Magian religion was reformed by Zoroaster.
14. The Medo-Persian Empire lasted for 200 years. Those nationalities
were both of the Aryan or Indo-European race. They had long been
maturing on the highlands bordering the north and east of Chaldea and
Assyria, with which their connection was close enough to communicate the
general value of the growing organization, but too slight to drag them
down to its level. They brought now, to the common stock of progress,
the freshness of youth and the healthy habits and pure blood of the
mountaineer. They had a higher capacity for organization, by which the
experience and progress of the older nations, for more than two thousand
years, was prepared to profit. They had already subdued Asia Minor
and their vast Empire soon extended from India to the sea that washed
the shores of Greece. A complicated civil and military organization
consolidated this extensive region more perfectly than before by armies
and governors located in each nation and principal city; a system of easy
communication was introduced; and the preparation for the higher Greek
models of thought, and the severe regularity of Roman institutions went
on apace.
15. Babylon fell gradually into decay, being only occasionally the
capital of the Persian Empire; the love of the sovereigns of that race
for their native highlands leading them to build splendid capitals in the
borders of their own country. A reform of great significance occurred
about this time in the Persian national religion, which gradually
displaced the debasing superstitions and gross idolatry of all the
nations of the Empire.
The government was still despotic, somewhat relieved by the more humane
and independent habits and traditions of a hardier race. A number of
changes of dynasty by violence occurred, but they were merely revolutions
of the palace. The vast wealth and power inherited from the subject
empires gradually corrupted the conquerors. Their armies became vast
crowds of comparatively undisciplined troops, who were accustomed to bear
everything before them by their irresistible weight. Their conquests on
the northern and eastern coasts of Asia Minor brought them in conflict
with the Greeks, who had many colonies long settled in that region, and
the Persians soon undertook to subdue that intelligent and independent
people. Their signal failure had the effect to greatly stimulate the
development of the Greek national spirit, and to awaken its intellectual
enthusiasm, and the mighty armies of the Persians were destined to be
annihilated by the small but resolute forces of the little republics.
16. Thirteen sovereigns ruled during the continuance of the Persian
empire. Except the conquest of Egypt, they did not very greatly extend
the boundaries formed by Cyrus; but the national features of the subject
peoples were gradually effaced, and the whole brought to the common level
of civilization. When Alexander, the great Grecian soldier, appeared
with his army of 35,000 men he scattered the hosts of the Persian king,
Darius, as the wind drives the leaves of the forest; and the vast empire,
so long accustomed to bow to the fate of battles, became the unresisting
heritage of the conquerer.
These five great monarchies were continuous—in part on the same soil—the
centre having always been the fertile valleys of the Euphrates and the
Tigris; the successor stepping into the place and carrying out the
general plans of his immediate predecessor, but on a broader scale and
in an increasingly enlightened manner. Through all these long centuries
a mysterious, and, apparently, still more ancient race had occupied
Egypt, only occasionally interfering with, or being disturbed by, the
surging sea of strife that raged and foamed so near them, which at length
forced them from their seclusion and bore them on in the general tide of
improvement.
17. The Egyptian monarchy presents many very curious and difficult
problems. Possessing the most perfect organization in the earliest times
of which we have any knowledge, the traces of its beginnings quite fail
us, although, more than any other nation, it loved to build great and
impressive monuments and record on them, in the most minute manner, the
singular habits and monotonous daily life of its people. The first of
those monuments, which, by many signs, must date very nearly as far back
in the remote past as the earliest dawn of organization among any other
people of whom we can gather any certain traces, indicate a long settled
state, a high degree of organization, considerable culture and great
resources.
18. The first king, who is called Menes by several independent and very
ancient authorities, made his reign memorable by a system of vast and
useful public works. It is conjectured that the previous rulers were the
sacerdotal class and that, up to that time, they had no kings. The habits
of the people were quiet and peaceful, and they seem to have been first
gathered around temples. In all stages of their history, down to the time
when foreign intrusion by force disorganized their peculiar institutions,
the priesthood was the most influential element in their constitution,
and their sway seems to have been, in some respects, singularly mild and
beneficent. Except for the extreme inflexibility and minuteness of their
regulations, which repressed all spontaneous growth, and the gross and
absurd worship of animals which they introduced, they might be considered
an unmixed blessing to those early times. It is certain that they were
successful in controlling men and moulding them to their own views
without producing discontent or revolt.
19. Everything in Egypt was remarkable—its river, its country, and the
institutions and habits of its people. The Egyptians dwelt in the valley
of the Nile for a space of 500 miles above its mouth; but this valley was
so narrow that the habitable part of it contained only about 6,000 square
miles in all. It was shut in by the Red sea on the east and by trackless
deserts on the west, and a fall of rain was so rare as to be considered
a prodigy. In June each year their mysterious river, whose sources are
yet almost unknown, began to rise till it covered the whole valley like
a vast sea. The rise and fall occupied the summer months and to the
middle of October. The waters left a rich coating of mud and slime,
which rendered the valley fertile beyond measure. The productive season
occupied the remainder of the year, and their agricultural resources were
only limited by their skill in spreading and husbanding the fertilizing
waters. Vast canals and reservoirs covered the whole valley. Lake Moeris,
a reservoir partly natural and partly artificial, was said by the first
Greek historian, Herodotus, to have been 400 miles in circuit. When the
waters had reached their highest point, the cisterns, canals and lakes
were filled and the waters kept in reserve for late periods of the year,
and a succession of crops.
20. The mysterious character of the river seems to have deeply impressed
the nation with awe and reverence for unseen powers, and contributed to
the influence of the priestly caste. Their peculiar source of wealth
and the amount of leisure periodically afforded, perhaps led to the
construction of the temples and palaces, whose gloomy strength is as
mysterious as their river, or the origin of the people. Far back in the
twilight of time, Thebes, the “city of a hundred gates,” was a colossal
capital. Its vast temples and palaces were built on a scale of grandeur
that seems almost superhuman; yet, before history begins its narrative in
Greece, Thebes had had its youth, its long period of splendor and glory,
its hoary age, and was already a thing of the past, and nearly in ruins;
not by violence or conquest, but by the natural transfer of the center of
activities to another region. Considering the small extent of Egypt, its
always overflowing population, and the tenacious habits of the Egyptians,
nothing could more impressively show its great age.
21. Egyptian sculpture was descriptive of religious ceremonies on the
temples, and on the palaces of domestic life and general habits, and
furnishes us with details of the whole social structure and all their
industrial pursuits, as well as the events in the campaigns of their few
warlike monarchs. Add to these the minute delineation of their temple
service and religious teachings, and its ruins describe the entire round
of its ancient life.
The people were divided into classes, or castes, the son being obliged
to follow the occupation of the father; and all branches of business
and industry, public and private, were arranged in the most methodical
manner. The priest, the soldier, the husbandman, the artisan of whatever
branch, was so because his ancestors had been such for numberless
generations. A king could be selected either from the priestly or the
soldier caste; but he must previously have been initiated into all the
mysteries of the priesthood, and therefore Moses, the acknowledged
heir of the throne, “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.”
Otherwise, not belonging to the priestly caste, he must have remained
in ignorance. With this exception, the priest alone had the key of
knowledge, and all the employments requiring intellectual studies,
or scientific culture, as we should now say, were filled from that
class. They kept all records, measurements, and apportionments of land;
prescribed the times, seasons, and conduct of all public transactions;
were the constitutional advisers of the king; they were physicians,
astronomers, philosophers, and guides of the people in every respect.
They alone did the thinking, and they guarded their prerogative with the
most jealous care.
22. A people are debased and gross in proportion to their ignorance,
and the ignorant masses of Egypt were amused with the greatest possible
multiplication of gods, and their leisure and simple minds fully occupied
in religious ceremonies and absurd fictions. But the priests were as wise
and moderate as they were crafty and persistent. Their discipline was
extremely judicious and well administered, and was laid on the king as
well and sternly, as to his general life, as on the lowest peasant. The
priesthood were as absolute, as impartial, and as unvarying from age to
age as it is possible to conceive. Their services to humanity were very
great. They laid the foundation among men, of unvarying law, of diligence
in the employment of time, of exactness in the division of labor, and
inculcated, in an effective way, the idea of divine justice and of
immortality.
23. Their “wisdom” was the highest and the most fruitful that was,
perhaps, possible in their times; their fame was wide-spread, and their
influence on the legislation of other lands has laid all ages under
great obligations. The political economy of the Jews was the product of
one of their most intelligent disciples, and the fact that he was so
probably added greatly to his influence and success with his own people;
and all the great legislators, philosophers, and historians of Greece
went to them to complete their education. In after times, when the nation
lost its liberty and became the province of a distant kingdom, they sunk
the priest in the scholar, and Egypt had the largest libraries and the
most eminent philosophers in the world. After Greece was carried, as it
were, bodily, to Rome, far down into the Christian Era, Alexandria was
the university of the world.
The history of Egypt is thus entirely peculiar, being mainly that of its
own influential class. They impressed a peaceful, generally virtuous,
laborious, as well as monotonous character on its history, and, besides
the vast monuments which the patient industry they inspired reared up,
and the names of their interminable list of kings, there was, perhaps,
little to record.
24. The entire number of their dynasties of kings, as they have handed
them down to us, is thirty-two, the last being the Ptolemies, founded by
a Greek general of that name, after the death of Alexander the Great,
which lasted more than three hundred years, closing B. C. 44. The first
twelve dynasties are called the Old Empire, whose period it is impossible
to determine accurately. The five following dynasties are ascribed to the
reign of foreigners, called “shepherd kings,” who are supposed to have
established their authority between the times of Joseph and Moses, and
are called the Middle Empire; while thirteen dynasties, including the
royal families that reigned down to the time of the conquest of Egypt by
the Persians, comprise the New Empire. They were generally exclusive,
shut up within themselves, too much absorbed in exact observance of
the endless routine prescribed by their priests to be inclined to the
ambition of foreign conquest; but several of their kings gathered large
armies and invaded Palestine and Syria, or made a trial of strength with
the Assyrians or Babylonians. They never made permanent conquests in that
direction. Some of the later kings became friendly to the Greeks, and
employed them in their armies, to the great disgust of their subjects,
the soldier caste retiring, almost in a body, to Ethiopia, and refusing
to return. The kingdom soon after fell into the hands of foreigners, and
the accumulated discipline, knowledge and wealth of that wise people
became the inheritance of humanity.
Nebuchadnezzar was the first who made a conquest of Egypt, but the
country soon regained its independence. It was not till after the death
of Cyrus, and when the details of the new Medo-Persian kingdom had been
settled, that Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, subdued the whole of Egypt, and
made it a Persian province, in which condition it remained most of the
time to the Grecian invasion.
25. About twenty-five hundred years before the time of Alexander the
Great, the cities of Sidon and Tyre were founded, in Phenicia, on the
eastern shore of the Mediterranean sea. Their territory extended only
twenty miles back, from the sea. They were of the Semite race, and their
enterprising spirit led them to build ships and become at first pirates
and then merchants. They were thrifty and grew rich, improved their
vessels and became famous for their commerce. They at length planted
colonies for trading purposes on the northern coasts of Africa, in Sicily
and in Spain.
One of those colonies, Carthage, became more wealthy and powerful than
the parent state. The merchandise they gathered from distant countries
they distributed through Asia by a land trade, and their caravans reached
Nineveh, Babylon and Persia, and, for long periods, were almost the
only link that joined Egypt to the rest of the busy and growing world.
They learned many useful things among the Egyptians, among others the
invention of letters, or at least hints on which they improved. Many
flourishing cities were built up by this internal commerce in places
surrounded by desert regions, as Baalbek and Palmyra in Syria, and
Petra in Arabia, a city excavated in the rocks, which, lying between
Syria and Phenicia in the north and the rich districts of Arabia in the
south, and between Babylon and Persia on the east and Egypt on the west,
became a great mercantile depot. The Phenicians were the busiest and most
enterprising people of ancient times. Their vessels reached the shores
of England, where they had valuable mines of tin, as of silver in Spain;
they visited the northwest coasts of Africa and the Madeira islands, and
brought the rich products of India and gold from eastern Africa to the
markets of the world. The amount of their contributions to civilization
and progress by making known the discoveries and arts of distant nations
to each other, by causing roads and inns to be built, and facilitating
communication, was immense; as well as by awakening the love of gain
and turning the activities of a part of mankind from warlike to more
peaceful and useful pursuits. The arts and inventions that have done the
most, in the long run, for the improvement of men, as shipbuilding and
writing, were communicated from one nation to another. Their commercial
routes were the highways over which the intelligent and inquiring Greeks
traveled in search of the knowledge which they used for the education of
their people. Tyre was destroyed by Alexander B. C. 332; but he replaced
it the same year by building Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile.
26. We have thus seen nations and institutions gradually unfolding,
passing through a period of youth, of vigorous organic action, and
finally decaying, to give place to another of higher order which
inherited all its general gain and proceeded to carry still further the
banner of civilization. As this process continues the field widens, and
with the increasing number and variety of the elements engaged in acting
upon one another, the product becomes more valuable, the organization
more complete and the institutions more useful.
The institutions purely political, however, the modes of government and
the style of administering them, are imperfect, at best. They are too
arbitrary, too restrictive; the masses are too large and too closely
crowded to permit free play to the component parts. The mingling of the
whole was, at first, evidently necessary to prevent the crystalizing of
the separate nationalities and the arrest of progress; but when that
process was stopped and a plastic condition and progressive tendency
assured, the absolute despotism of the king and the priest stood in the
way of advance. They had educated society and developed its resources
until a power of vast combination had been gained; then a change must
be introduced, or the entire resources of the civilized world would be
employed to repress its further advancement, the fountains of wealth
would be exhausted and the springs of activity dried up. This barrier
against a destructive centralization had long been preparing among the
Grecian states.
SECTION V.
THE GRECIAN STATES.
1. They were of the Aryan race, and showed a high capacity to receive
the lessons taught by the experience and genius of all the past,
and make them the stepping-stone to a higher civilization and freer
institutions. They were preceded in the occupation of Greece by the
Pelasgi, of the same stock, but too rude and uncultured to leave many
traces of their presence except the ruins of immense cyclopean buildings,
without inscriptions, indicating only a dawning culture, but a vigorous
combination of physical force. The mythic history of Greece is in part a
veiled and distorted account of the struggles of Hellens, or true Greeks,
against those uncouth aborigines; the actual facts being mingled by
the lively creative fancy of their poets with the religious traditions
brought from their original home. The highly picturesque language of
the primitive Aryan people accorded with the imaginative and observant
character of that family, and its inclination to extemporize some
plausible explanation of the natural phenomena which awakened their
attention, and, apparently, suggested the general course of invention
and embellishment adopted by the poets, who were the historians, the
theologians, and the only literary class of their period. Thus the early
speculations and crude religious ideas assumed, in poetic hands, an
exceedingly fanciful and marvelous garb; and their heroes, who succeeded
in overcoming the difficulties of a new settlement, and in laying the
foundation of their communities in a rude country filled with men and
beasts almost equally wild and savage, were endowed by their grateful and
admiring descendants with superhuman qualities, and wonder and reverence
ascribed to them a descent from the gods.
2. A characteristic feature of Grecian heroic mythology is the number
and mutual contests of these mythical heroes which indicate a leading
characteristic of the nation—a disposition toward independence and
decentralization. Every small community had its divine hero, and insisted
on maintaining its government in its own hands. In the early times the
immediate descendants of these local benefactors commonly obtained the
sovereignty, more or less qualified, over their city and community.
They all greatly respected the tie that bound them together in kinship
as one race; but they never would permit it to deprive them of local
independence. If they had a king he should be of their own tribe and
choice; if they were ruled with harshness it should be only because
they chose to submit to their own tyrant. They seldom permitted another
community to manage their internal affairs. Various leagues were early
formed among contiguous cities or states closely related by origin; but
they dealt only in matters of common interest, and if one city or king
was acknowledged as the head, it was only in a general sense for the sake
of realizing some general plan.
3. This instinctive and resolute refusal to accept a centralized
government was a new and important feature in the history of men in a
civilized, or highly organized state. It was the direct opposite of that
which characterized Asiatic and African civilization, and held the Greek
race open to a spontaneous growth and a mental development which made
them the benefactors of the human family. With less individuality and
mental force, or a less favorable time and situation, it would have kept
them forever barbarous; but time had matured them and the nations about
them, and their restless spirit of inquiry and constant movement among
themselves stood in the place of the foreign action and shock of races
that proved so beneficial and necessary to the Asiatics. The Egyptian,
Chinese and Hindoo peoples reached a certain point of well regulated
order, apparently by an original impulse, and stopped; the Chaldean,
Assyrian and Persian races kept in the stream of progress by a sort of
mechanical or forcible stir and intermingling of races and civilizations;
and the principle accomplished, in each case, all it was capable of. Time
and progress then transferred the care of the best interests of mankind
to _intelligence_ as embodied in the Greek race. Without being conscious
of such a high destiny, they fulfilled it with fidelity, and remained
true to themselves and faithful to the impulses of their own minds
until humanity required training of a different kind, and another race,
receiving their mental culture, added to it administrative ability and
carried the old world as high as it could possibly go on its ancient base.
4. It seems probable that about B. C. 2000, or in the time of Abraham,
the progenitors of the Greeks reached that country from the highlands
east of the Caspian Sea. Greece extends about 220 miles from north to
south, and 160 from east to west, with a very irregular outline, and
contains about 34,000 square miles, much of this being mountainous and
barren. The separation of the different states by these mountain ranges
much favored the disposition of the people to local independence, and
formed a bold and hardy race. Access from three sides to the sea led to
commerce and colonization, while it brought them into frequent contact
with the most civilized people of the east without endangering their
independence, and the lofty mountains on the north were an effectual
barrier to the irruption of the wild and wandering tribes of northern
Asia and Europe. Early in the history of the Greeks colonies came from
Egypt and Phenicia and introduced the arts of those countries, then the
most civilized in the world. This was about the time that the Jewish
nation was founded by Moses, and we can easily understand that the native
intelligence of the Greeks and their teachable spirit, led them to profit
greatly by this early light.
5. The most celebrated traditions of this people relate to an expedition
by the collective young chivalry of Greece, called the “Argonautic,”
which indicates their enterprising spirit and early acquaintance with the
sea, and also seems to have introduced the habit of planting colonies.
Two wars against Thebes, in the central part of Greece, induced by the
ambition and combinations of the kings of the various States, seem to
have made much impression on the whole nation, while a combination of
nearly all of its petty sovereigns, gathering an immense army, stated
at 100,000 men, to punish an injury done to one of their number by the
King of Troy, on the opposite coast of Asia, occupied ten years, and
filled the whole country with confusion. This was soon followed by an
event called the Return of the Heracleidæ, or descendants of Hercules—a
mythic hero of great celebrity—to their ancient dominion in the southern
peninsula, called the Pelopenesus. It appears to have been attended
by the migration of one tribe into the domains of another, which they
forcibly dispossessed and produced the emigration of the conquered
people into Asia, where they formed extensive colonies—independent—but
preserving a love for their race, and forming an important element in
Greek progress.
6. The commotions and miseries of this period and of subsequent times,
which had their rise mainly in this, most of which were due to the
restless ambition and personal quarrels of their kings, came at
length to disgust the spirited and progressive people with that form
of government, and before the time that authentic history begins they
had very generally set aside the kings and established a democracy; and
where this was not the case, as in Sparta, the power of the kings became
so limited that they were little more than leading magistrates in their
respective cities. This was not often done by violent revolution, but
generally in a quiet way, showing the steady and intelligent resolution
of the people.
This rare nation knew how to adapt its governments to its needs. Not
that everything went on without struggle or difficulty, nor that they
did not share in the rude and sanguinary passions of their times. Their
governments were often unsettled; there were frequent conflicts among
aspirants for place and power in the state; they had a balance of power
among the leading states to maintain; and the want of a strong central
authority led to innumerable collisions and sometimes to desolating wars.
But amidst all the confusion and imperfection of an early civilization
they still maintained such an independence of any superior in each state
that they could settle their internal affairs to suit themselves. They
were yet uneducated men, in the enthusiastic young manhood of the world,
but with spirit enough to be free.
7. That freedom had many defects. The true character of freedom was
imperfectly apprehended in that age of the world. It was often violent;
and much Grecian blood was shed by Greeks. It was frequently turbulent;
and sometimes the strife of parties and factions did great injury to
the welfare of the state. It was usually a restricted liberty in which
all the inhabitants did not share, for the slave, the freedman, and the
foreigner were admitted to no influence in the government, or in framing
the laws; and there was always much oppression and injustice somewhere.
It was not a well understood and well balanced liberty, as we comprehend
it, but it left room for a large amount of free and spontaneous action.
It made little account of the _individual_; that point was to be learned
and made duly prominent after the lapse of more than two thousand years.
The Greek identified himself with his state. He would not have it large
in order that each free citizen might have a personal influence in it.
His public life was an education to him; and the very defects of his
institutions fitted them more perfectly to meet the wants of that age
than anything more complete could have done.
8. They developed rapidly under a system so free from restraint, coupled
with a nature so ardent, and a thirst for knowledge so absorbing. Still
it was at least two hundred years after they had re-arranged their
primitive modes of government before they reached a degree of order
and system that influenced them to record events as they passed, and
observe the world outside of their state, and even then their most
learned men wrote little. Men were absorbed in their private matters,
or in the affairs of the state. They thought little of the future; they
were devoting themselves diligently to the only means of education that
existed in those days, intercourse and action. Their priesthood was
quite different from what we found it in Chaldea and Egypt. They did not
form a class, nor attempt to exercise an influence on government. They
were appointed from the body of the citizens to offer sacrifices and
conduct religious ceremonies. The high spirited and active minded Greeks
were not fit subjects for the dominion of a priestly caste. Although
Cecrops, an Egyptian, settled and civilized Athens, and introduced
some of the social arrangements of his country, he did not plant the
all-controlling priesthood. The Athenians, of all other Greeks, were the
thoughtful, progressive intelligence of the nation. The poets compiled
the geneaologies and histories of the gods, the heroes, and the past
records of the people. There was no other literature, there were no other
sources of information but those from which the poets drew—tradition and
inherited customs. Of these the poets explained the origin and reason,
and no one thought of questioning their tales. They were supposed to be
inspired; and their marvelous legends rested, to a certain extent, on
monuments, habits, and oral tradition. Their lively narratives charmed
and satisfied the public mind and gratified their pride. It was only in
later years that the philosophers explained them away.
In the early days they had no standard by which to criticise them. All
they required was that they should offer a pleasing explanation. The
wisest of the Greeks came, ultimately, to believe in one God who ruled
with wisdom and justice, and they laid the foundation of all useful
knowledge by teaching men to think and reason; but true science was not
possible in their age of the world. They, however, prepared the way for
it.
9. Their religion was cheerful and bright, they had altars and temples in
great numbers, and countless ceremonies in honor of particular deities.
One class of these was festivals, or games, established, according to
tradition, by their divine heroes. The Olympian Games were the most
celebrated, and took place every fiftieth month at Olympia. In the year
776 B. C. they began to record the name of the victor in these games,
and as that was done ever afterward, this became a fixed date and the
interval between each was called an Olympiad. It was the beginning of
reliable history, although it was one hundred and fifty years later that
men of real wisdom, extensive observation and careful study began to
flourish. But the eagerness with which the people sought information, and
the honor in which they held men of thought and wisdom, encouraged study,
reflection and travel for the sake of knowledge, so that this class, in
time, became extremely numerous.
Their researches, and systems of what they held to be truth, were often
imperfect, and, in many parts, false; but they were upright and earnest
in the studies that were then possible, and did as much good, one might
say, by their failures as by their successes. Inquirers, in after times,
noted _where_ and _how_ they failed; so that all their pioneer work was
useful—their mistakes for a warning, their success for instruction.
10. The course of Grecian development took two contrary directions, under
the two leading states, Sparta and Athens. The last represents the
generally received idea of Greece—as a land where the people were lively
and beautiful, intelligent and richly endowed with _taste_ in the arts,
or an exquisitely quick and thorough _judgment_ of _fitness_, developed
to the very highest point. Sparta, on the other hand, through its whole
career, was a military state. Somewhere about one hundred years before
the first Olympiad (B. C. 776), a lawgiver, named Lycurgus, had reformed
the institutions of the Spartan state with the avowed and only object
to render it capable of producing the most vigorous and hardy warriors.
He made an equal distribution of lands, which were cultivated by the
ancient inhabitants, reduced to slavery. They were called Helots, and
were treated with great cruelty. Lycurgus abolished every species of
luxury, subjected the young, both boys and girls, to the most rigorous
training, and discouraged all the amenities of family and social life
that he supposed might interfere with the rude hardiness of the soldier.
The whole intelligence, activity and vigor of the Greek mind was, in
this state, confined to military life. These institutions continued to
exist in Sparta for more than five hundred years. Among any other race
they would have secured to them the supreme dominion of the nation; but
among this liberty loving people they merely sufficed to render them
the general leaders in war, and _one_, only, among the most powerful
and respectable Greek states. Besides, this experiment shows that there
is little real advantage in systematically trampling down the native
instincts of humanity in order to promote superiority in a particular
direction.
11. The entirely spontaneous character of the Athenians made them, in
general, the equal of the Spartans in military fame, and gloriously
eminent in many other directions. But the various members of the Greek
nation seem to have been made, by their intelligence and the earnestness,
the completeness, of all their lines of development, the pioneers of
humanity in their experiments. They exhausted all the capacities of a
complete military education in an entire state, and presented the most
perfect achievements of a genius that had no models to commence on, in
poetry, in painting, in sculpture, in philosophy and in such elements of
science as were possible to humanity in their day.
It is worthy of remark that most of the Greek colonies, the Phenicians
and their colonies, and a great part of the numerous nations in Italy
became republican about the same time—as did the Romans later—and that
those states which preserved hereditary monarchy, or tyrants—as those
kings were called who were elected by the populace—had counterbalanced
the individual despotism of the kingly office by various institutions
that controlled and limited it.
12. At the period when history began to be carefully written and dates
accurately given, civilization was under full career and rapidly moving
westward. The Greeks had been struggling with the difficulties of
the early times for more than a thousand years and had already begun
to mature the institutions and to show the traits of character that
afterwards made them so eminent and so useful in advancing the progress
of mankind. The Tyrians, or commercial people of Phenicia, had formed
the net-work of communication with all the parts of the earth then
sufficiently civilized to produce anything which could be useful to
the rest of the world, and Italy was alive with the energies of the
primitive races, mainly Aryan—some of them transplanted from the East,
and possessing many of the highest elements of the ancient culture—who
fought the Romans with a vigor and persistence that contributed much to
the discipline and strong development of that remarkable people, to whose
instruction the Greek colonies in eastern Italy added not a little.
From this point the advance of the center of development toward the
western continent, and of mental preparation for more perfect ideals of
government was continuous. A more complete view of this progress will be
gained by considering the general events of each century apart, or in
chronological order.
13. B. C. 776. This is the first definite and positive date in reliable
history and commences the First Olympiad. The Olympic religious and
national festival was celebrated by foot and chariot races, boxing,
wrestling, etc., and was commenced by religious sacrifices and
ceremonies, mainly in honor of the god Apollo. This peaceable assembly
of all the representatives of the Grecian race was one of the chief
means of maintaining the national union, and greatly promoted the
maintenance and importance of a kind of national congress, called the
Amphictyonic League. The first object of this League was the protection
of their common worship; but it came to have, afterward, considerable
importance as a political body; its decrees having the character and
force of the Laws of Nations in modern times. It was composed of two
delegates from each of the twelve leading states of Greece, and held two
meetings yearly; one at Delphi, where was a celebrated temple and oracle
of Apollo, and one at Thermopylæ. The twelve chief cities of the Æolian
colonies of Greece in Asia Minor, and also the same number of Ionian
colonies on the same coast more to the south, had each Amphictyonic,
or International Leagues; but the Greeks from all the various regions
they settled, as well as from the mother country, took a pride in
participating in the Olympic games.
14. B. C. 753. This is one of the most important dates in the history
of mankind. In this year, Rome, “The Eternal City,” was founded by a
band of adventurers and outlaws, under the lead of the twin brothers,
Romulus and Remus. A spirit of adventure was the most characteristic
feature of that era, in Greece and about the Mediterranean sea, together
with a passion for colonizing, or founding new states. Education, or
growth, seems to pursue parallel lines in the same era, so that the same
general tendencies move the masses of widely separated nations. Greece
began, at this period, to send out a large number of colonists, in rapid
succession, to Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean. The tendency
had commenced more than three centuries before, but the colonies had
not gone far from the native state, and only one had been established in
Italy, at Cumæ. Carthage, a commercial colony of the Tyrians, had been
founded 127 years before, and was now beginning to rival the parent city.
Rome gathered its population from all the neighboring states. The
mingling of races has always been favorable to the progress of mankind.
A single race, isolating itself and receiving no new blood or impulses
from without becomes stationary and fixed in all its habits and
advancement ceases beyond a certain point. The men who founded Rome were,
apparently, a crowd of adventurers who had resolved to found a state.
After building the walls of their city and providing themselves with
habitations, they were destitute of wives—a serious want which would soon
leave their new city without inhabitants. They remedied it in true Roman
style—by violence. They made a festival without the walls to celebrate
the founding of their state, and invited their nearest neighbors, the
Sabines, to take part in it. The Sabines came with their wives and
daughters. At a concerted moment the young Romans each seized a young
Sabine woman, and carried her off into the city; the gates were closed
and each proceeded to make his captive his wife.
The Sabines were powerless to prevent the deed, but they soon made war on
their violent sons-in-law, and the young city would have been destroyed
but for the interference of the stolen women who had become satisfied
with the bold deed which gave them valiant husbands. The Sabines were
induced to unite with the young state so far as to build a new city
adjoining and take part in its rising fortunes. Romulus was elected king
by his followers, but popular institutions were established to limit his
power, under the strong instinct of vigorous organization that, from the
first, characterized the new nation. The people maintained their right to
make laws in conjunction with the king, and preserved a limited monarchy
for 250 years. At this time the prophet Isaiah flourished in Judea, and
the kingdom of Samaria was approaching extinction.
15. B. C. 747. The Chaldeans established, or revived, their dominion
in Babylon, under their king, Nabonassur, and seem to have been
independent of Assyria for a time, but afterward to have been brought
into a qualified subjection to that enterprising monarchy. It commences
authentic history in the East, so far as well ascertained dates are
concerned. In that year the Chaldean astronomers or priests, first
introduced the Egyptian solar year, which furnished an accurate mode of
measuring time. This was about the commencement of the Sixth Olympiad.
Egypt was approaching its most perfect condition under its ancient system.
B. C. 743. Messenian war of 23 years—Sparta conquers Messene.
16. B. C. 735. A colony from Corinth founded the celebrated city of
Syracuse in Sicily, and a fashion of colonizing seems to have obtained in
Greece, which continued for a hundred years. The native enterprise of the
Greeks, the great increase of inhabitants in their small territory, and
the commotions and contests of parties in their states, which preceded
the establishment of more complete popular governments, were probably the
ruling causes of these foreign emigrations, and all contributed to the
increase of knowledge, improvement in navigation, and the prevalence of
a commercial spirit. Miletus, the leading Greek city of Ionia, in Asia
Minor, became almost as powerful and prosperous by her commerce as Tyre
in her best days. There were Grecian colonies on the coast of Africa
west of Egypt, on the eastern coast of Italy, several in Sicily, one
in France. They were, generally, very enterprising and prosperous, and
diffused Greek intelligence and culture over a large part of the world
as known at that time. They usually established a republican government.
Syracuse remained republican for 251 years.
17. B. C. 728. The Assyrian Empire was now having its palmiest days, and
spreading its dominion over all the central parts of western Asia, from
the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. At this time Shalman-assur, or
Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, led away the Ten Tribes of Israel into
a hopeless captivity, and planted a different race in Samaria. Soon after
this time the Ethiopians from the upper Nile established their dominion
in Egypt, without apparently changing the general condition of things
there. Three Ethiopian kings successively reigned in Egypt, and made
conquests in Asia to some extent.
18. B. C. 600. About the beginning of this century the foundation of
Greek philosophy was laid by Thales of Miletus, a Greek city in Asia. He
represents the growth and acuteness of the Greek mind and the approach
of its period of greatest activity. He travelled into Egypt in search
of wisdom, and was the most able astronomer of his times. He calculated
an eclipse of the sun, which, coming on just when two armies, the
Median and Lydian, were about to engage in battle, so terrified them
that they immediately separated and made peace. He was celebrated as a
mathematician, and taught many truths concerning the existence of God
which were far in advance of his time, and undertook to account for the
origin of all things in a very bold and independent manner. He was one
of the famous “Seven Wise Men” of Greece. Solon was held to be the first
among the seven. He was an Athenian law-giver and writer, and established
a very wise and enlightened system of government in Athens. He was a
pure-hearted and clear-sighted man, enjoying the universal respect of
the Greeks. Chilo, another of the seven, was a Spartan magistrate,
held in the highest esteem for his wisdom. Pittacus of Mitylene, was
a law-giver, held in high honor. Bias of Priene, in Ionia, was a very
noble-hearted and public-spirited citizen, of universal reputation for
wisdom. Cleobulus, of the island of Rhodes, was remarkable for his skill
in answering difficult questions, and Periander of Corinth, the ruler, or
tyrant, of that place, was the last of the seven. They were all living
at the same time. They were only the most eminent among a people who
could fully appreciate mental ability. The spirit of inquiry continued
to spread rapidly for two hundred years, when the greatest masters, who
immortalized themselves and their race by their genius, appeared.
19. In the early part of this century the kingdom of Lydia, in the
central part of Asia Minor, rose to great wealth and power. The Lydian
kingdom was ancient—many of its customs being similar to those of the
Egyptians—and the Etrurians of Italy, a much more polished and cultivated
people than the Romans who conquered them, are thought, by some eminent
historians, to have been a Lydian colony planted in Italy in unknown
times. The Lydian kings made war on the Asiatic Greek colonies and
reduced many of them to subjection. Crœsus, the last king of Lydia, was
proverbial for his vast wealth. He was conquered by Cyrus, the Persian,
in the middle of the next century.
679 B. C. Numa, the second king of Rome, is said to have died. The Romans
abstained from war during nearly the whole of his reign, which was
occupied in settling the internal affairs of the new state, especially
those relating to religion. He was followed by Tullus Hostilius, a very
warlike prince, who did much to extend the Roman state.
20. About 650 B. C. a great change was introduced into Egypt, by
Psammeticus, its king, who, having several rival claimants to the throne,
employed the services of Greek soldiers to overcome them. For the first
time the country was freely opened to foreigners, and the power of the
priesthood broken. Thus the Greeks were instrumental in changing the
current of Egyptian history.
The Median Kings began to make head in the east, and ventured—after
various successful efforts to extend their dominion in other
directions—to make direct war on Nineveh. At the close of the century,
by the aid of the rebellious Nabopolassar, they succeeded in taking and
destroying that city, and the whole of that immense empire was divided
between Media and Nabopolassar, who made Babylon his capital.
21. B. C. 590 to 500. Events in this century begin to crowd thick upon
each other. The Greeks rapidly advanced; the Romans succeeded, amid
constant wars, in securely establishing their state in Italy, marching
from conquest to conquest, not without heavy reverses at times, from
which they soon recovered.
598—Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem for the first time.
594—Solon was made archon at Athens, with almost unlimited
power to change the existing institutions, and he introduced
many very useful reforms.
588—Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and the Jews
carried into captivity to Babylon, where they remained
seventy years. Soon after, Nebuchadnezzar conquered Tyre,
after a siege of many years, but he found himself in
possession of the walls only, for the inhabitants had built
another city on an island near by, but inaccessible to the
conqueror, and left him a barren conquest.
560—The most memorable event that followed was the union of
Media and Persia under the military prowess of Cyrus. He
first employed the forces of the Medo-Persian kingdom in
Asia Minor, conquering Lydia and the rest of that region,
549—and dethroning Crœsus. Babylon and Egypt had both
entered into an alliance with Crœsus against Cyrus, but
before they could send Crœsus effectual aid Cyrus had
triumphed. He then turned his arms against Babylon
538—which he took by stratagem after a long siege. Egypt
was afterward obliged to become tributary to the universal
conqueror.
534—Cyrus, who had before been the Persian general of the
united armies under the Median king, Cyaxares, who was his
maternal uncle, succeeded to the kingdom, and soon after sent
the Jews home to their native land. During this period the
Greeks swarmed on the eastern part of the Mediterranean sea
and carried on nearly all its commerce, the Tyrians being
mainly confined to the trade with India, Arabia and the
various parts of the Persian empire.
529—Occurred the death of Cyrus, full of years and glory.
History has described him as the most amiable of all the
great conquerors. He was succeeded by his son, Cambyses, who,
to punish the revolt of the Egyptians
525—invaded that country and made it a Persian province.
522—Cambyses died and was succeeded by a Persian nobleman,
Darius Hystaspes, the line of Cyrus being extinct. He finally
broke the power of the priesthood in his dominions, which
perished at once in Egypt and Babylon, where they had so long
reigned supreme over the minds of men.
515—The second temple was dedicated at Jerusalem.
510—In this year occurred a very important event in Roman
history—the establishment of the republic. Kings had reigned
there two hundred and forty-three years.
SECTION VI.
THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.
1. The Romans, more than any other people of ancient times, understood
how to establish a well ordered state. Respect for order and law
among them was very great. The idea of a government with a definite
constitution, which the rulers should always respect, and which should
be an adequate bulwark to the people against oppression, had never
occurred to any of the Asiatic nations. The nearest approach to it among
the Greeks was in Sparta; but as their aim was directed, not so much
to the general welfare of the state as to training a race of soldiers,
their experiment was a failure. The Greeks had a great impatience of
subjection; they had no great ambition to rule, but were impulsive, and
each state wanted freedom to pursue its own particular fancy. Their
exhaustless energy and acute minds were devoted to the pursuit of ideal
objects. Even the sober and resolute Spartan put aside every other
consideration in order to realize his idea of a well formed, thoroughly
trained, and invincible warrior. Weakly and deformed children were
destroyed in their infancy, by order of the state. The young women were
subjected to the most rigorous physical training, that they might become
mothers of hardy children. Physical training was one of the passions
of all Greece, originating in their delight in beauty and symmetry of
person. Sports that contributed to this were as pleasing to the Greeks as
to our modern school-boys.
2. Athens, which most perfectly represented the Grecian mind, esteemed
a fine poet, an able writer, a skillful painter or sculptor, as much
as an enthusiastic scholar of our day can do. They had a passion for
beauty, and their love of liberty was in great part produced by their
ardent longing for mental freedom and the gratification of their mental
tastes. The worship of their gods was chiefly their admiration for
superhuman majesty, sublimity, and beauty, as they conceived them, and
their theology was compounded of their thirst for knowledge and their
love of the mysterious, the grand, the terrible, and the beautiful. Life
was of no value to them, if they could not gratify these instincts, and
their tenacity in maintaining their liberties found its inspiration in
them. They were a nation of mental enthusiasts. They had no love of
conquest for the sake of power. They were invaded by the Persians, and
a handful of Greeks conquered its immense hosts with ease, by their
intelligence and ardor. It was only when they saw the splendor and
wealth of the East, and felt that they could repeat the glorious deeds
of their mythic heroes, that they became enthusiastic over the romantic
idea of conquering a magnificent empire. It was the mental charm of the
undertaking that gave to Alexander his miraculous success.
But the Greeks were not practical. They wanted worldly wisdom. The
Lacedemonians of Sparta had no adequate object when they sacrificed
almost all that common humanity holds dear, to rear up model soldiers.
Their ambition was confined mainly to preserving the headship of their
state among the petty republics of Greece; and the resources of all the
states were wasted in the effort to preserve a balance of power among the
various members of the nation; or in struggles of the more powerful to
obtain a leading influence. They had little political wisdom, when the
independence of their territories was secured and the governments that
restrained them too much from their favorite enthusiasms were abolished.
Athens and all Greece admired immensely the wise measures of Solon, when
he reformed the government and gave it excellent laws. But they had not
the prudence to maintain them. In ten years all was again confusion. Most
of their great men who possessed a special genius for government, were
abandoned when they showed the most ability for benefitting their country
by their wise statesmanship. Pericles alone, who was the most perfect
embodiment of Grecian character, preserved his influence to the last; but
it was by falling in perfectly with the tone of Grecian feeling, and he
laid the foundation of innovations that corrupted and finally overthrew
their liberty. He was as little practical and prudent as his countrymen.
Beautiful in person, cultivated in mind, possessed of exquisite taste
in literature and art, to which he devoted himself with boundless
enthusiasm, Greece could always appreciate him. His age was the glory
and joy of Greece; but when more homely political virtues were required
to preserve his creations and protect this literary and artistic state,
the people could not follow them. Their best statesmen were ostracised,
banished, or slain, when their practical genius was most needed.
3. Rome was the opposite of this. She had a genius for producing and
preserving a constitution, adding to it by slow degrees, maintaining
checks and balances that preserved the machinery in working order, and
rendered it capable of producing the most valuable results that were
possible in those times. To rule was her passion. She was not wanting in
intelligence, but it was the homely prudence of common life, the skill
to adapt means to ends. Of all the nations, she was the first to carry
organization into every part of her government, and conduct everything by
inexorable system and order. If Rome was resolved to rule others, she was
no less resolved to rule herself. The mission of Greece was in the domain
of thought, to develop the intellectual capabilities of mankind. That of
Rome also required intelligence, but of a lower and more material kind.
She was to teach mankind to follow an orderly development, to introduce
system, to prevent ruinous clashing of interests, to teach respect for
law. Greece taught the world to think to purpose; Rome to govern with
effect. Each served an important purpose. Without either the world was
not prepared for Christianity, which added moral order, nor for true
science, which was the mature fruit of these three, and prepared the
perfect civilization which was to be developed to its conclusion in a New
World.
4. Rome commenced, not with the king, but with the _Senate_—a body of
experienced men, who made the laws and appointed a king to administer
them. The king, except in time of war, was only the executive, the
chief magistrate. The later kings were restive under this restraint and
sought to place themselves above law, and the Romans at once dismissed
them, appointing various officers to fill their place. The fundamental
principles of government were not changed at all, or very little, except
by the subsequent course of development. The Romans knew how to adapt
their invincible spirit of order to all changing circumstances, and when
external changes arose corresponding changes were developed, in a regular
manner, within.
Thus the Roman _spirit_ was constant under the regal government,
throughout the republic, and to the close of the empire, and had then
become so thoroughly established in laws and institutions as to govern
the development of the new states that rose out of its ruins and
produced modern civilization.
At first the Roman government consisted only of the Senate and the king.
The Senate was chosen from the body of citizens, and represented them.
In the course of time the descendants of the first people became the
aristocracy, called patricians, who enjoyed great privileges. A class
was gradually formed called the _plebs_, or common people, who, for some
time, had no share in the government. The patricians alone could hold
office, and marriage between them and plebians was illegal. But, says
an able writer, “the Roman commons were the greatest commons the world
ever saw, except the commons of England and America.” In the course of
time, by wise and prudent management, and taking advantage of favoring
circumstances, resulting from the fact that they supplied the body
of soldiers to the state, without revolution, breaking the laws, or
violating the ancient constitution, they obtained changes or additions
to it, one after another, until they had acquired a due influence in the
conduct of affairs and became fully a match for the patricians. It was a
new lesson to mankind, and one that has had great influence on the good
order of society in all later times.
5. The religious system of that great people was conducted with as much
worldly prudence as all their other affairs. Their religious ceremonies
were, in great part, derived from the Etruscans. They were conducted
with much pomp by state officers, appointed for the purpose, embodying
all the superstitions of the time, and embracing comparatively little of
the lofty sentiment that was so prominent in Greece. Their religion was
an affair of state, and intimately connected with the political working
of the government. The gravest public business was made to depend on the
flight of birds, on omens and accidents, and on the appearance of the
entrails of the animals offered in the sacrifices. An artful use of these
circumstances enabled the officers in power to compass many political
ends. Their original gods were those of Greece, adapted to their
purposes and national character; but they readily adopted the divinities
of all the nations they conquered. Their religion was in a high degree
cool and calculating.
The preceding observations apply especially to the periods of Greece and
Rome when their peculiarities were most fully developed in the days of
their greatest glory. Though always more or less characteristic, in later
times they melted more or less into one another, or were toned down and
transformed by decay and a rising spirit of innovation. Especially were
they displaced by Christianity.
SECTION VII.
GREECE AND ROME.
1. We are now prepared to return to the year
500 B. C.—and follow events in chronological order, with a
fair appreciation of their import. Just before the close
of the last century, Darius Hystaspes, the king of Persia,
sent an army into Europe, to the north of Greece, to
chastise the Scythians, and it conquered Thrace. The Greek
colonies in Asia Minor, which had been recently added to
the Persian empire, became restive under foreign control,
and when the Persian army returned home,
500—organized a rebellion and took and burned the city of
Sardis, the ancient capital of Lydia. They were assisted by
the European Greeks; but the vast resources of Persia soon
enabled Darius to take vengeance on them, and Miletus was
besieged and destroyed. Darius summoned the Grecian states
to offer their submission, but Athens and Sparta sent back
a defiance. Darius thereupon gathered a large armament and
prepared to invade
495—Greece, which he commenced by the conquest of Macedon. But
a tempest destroyed his ships and 20,000 men, and the
expedition returned to Persia. In the same year the
Roman plebeians obtained their first success against the
patricians, by which the debts of the poor plebeians to the
wealthy patricians were cancelled and Tribunes of the People
appointed.
490—This year the glory of Greece broke forth. Darius having
sent another and larger army into Greece, it advanced on
Athens and encamped at Marathon, within twenty-two miles of
the city. The Persian host was said to number from 100,000
to 200,000 men. The Athenians had but 10,000 citizens, but
armed 20,000 slaves, and the city of Platæa sent them 1,000
troops. Miltiades, the very able Athenian general, marched
out and, taking a good position, offered battle. It was
the 20th of September. The little army of the Greeks
obtained a complete victory and the Persians returned home in
confusion. The great services of Miltiades were rewarded with
imprisonment, on a frivolous charge, and he died there of his
wounds.
485—Darius Hystaspes, the Persian king, died while preparing
a still larger armament for the invasion of Greece.
484—An insurrection in Egypt completely subdued by the
Persians.
480—Xerxes, king of Persia, invaded Greece with a million
soldiers. The battle at the pass of Thermopylæ was fought
by a thousand Spartans under Leonidas, their king, and all
but one slain. The Persian fleet was beaten the same day by
Themistocles, the Athenian admiral. Xerxes soon advanced on
Athens, which was abandoned by its inhabitants and burned by
the Persians. Soon after, Themistocles fought the Persian
navy again at Salamis and totally destroyed it. Xerxes,
leaving a large army in Greece, returned to Asia.
479—The battle of Platæa ended the Persian invasion. The
allied Greek army numbered 70,000, under Pausanias, the
Spartan king; the Persians 300,000. The Persians are said
to have had 200,000 slain, and their army was totally
routed. Another victory was gained on the coast of Asia Minor
the same day, and the last remnants of the Persian fleet
destroyed.
478—Athens was rebuilt and surrounded with walls from the
treasures of the conquered Persians. This was the age
of great men in Greece. Phidias, her greatest sculptor,
flourished at this time. The Persians, at the time of their
first invasion, brought a piece of marble to commemorate
the victory of which they were confident. The Greeks caused
Phidias to produce out of it a statue of Nemesis, the goddess
of vengeance, and set it up on the field of Marathon.
478—Themistocles died in banishment about this time, and
Aristides of old age. Both were leading statesmen and
generals of Athens during the Persian war.
470—Socrates, the most eminent philosopher of all ancient
times, was born this year.
”—The death of Xerxes by assassination occurred this year.
466—Cimon, son of Miltiades, was now the great man of
Athens. He was soon superseded by Pericles. From 480 B. C.
to 430 was the golden period of Athens. She was pre-eminent
politically, conducting the war of the Grecian allies
against Persian supremacy on the western shores of Asia and
in the Mediterranean sea. Republican liberty was everywhere
predominant. The greatest writers, painters and sculptors
lived in this period or immediately after it. Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, philosophers; Æschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides, tragic poets; Zeuxis and Apelles, painters; and
Phidias in sculpture, were a few among the many great names
which are found in or immediately following this period.
457—Cincinnatus was made dictator at Rome. During this
period the Romans laid the foundation of their dominion over
all Italy by waging successful war with the Etruscans and
Samnites, the most vigorous and powerful of their opponents.
450—The Decemvirate was appointed at Rome. They were ten
magistrates empowered to produce a more perfect code. It was
called the “Laws of the Twelve Tables.” The plebeians about
this time succeeded in wresting important privileges from the
patricians, which more equally balanced the different powers
of the state.
2. Athens was the centre of civilization, and Greek culture and ideas
were penetrating all the nations in her vicinity. Rome was rapidly
developing and Carthage was at the summit of her glory. She had control
of much of the Spanish or Iberian peninsula. Persia, after absorbing all
the old monarchies of the east, was declining. The “march of empire” was
distinctly defining its “westward course.”
It was about the middle of this century that Herodotus, the “Father of
History,” was rising to fame, and a few years later Xenophon, the Greek
general and historian, was born. Thucydides, another historian, dates
from this period. The great career of history now fairly commenced.
443—Herodotus emigrated from Halicarnassus, in Asia, to
Greece.
431—The Peloponnesian war, a bitter contest between Athens
and Sparta, commenced. It lasted twenty-three years, and was
again revived, ending in the conquest of Athens by Sparta.
This war was followed, after some time, by the rise of the
power of Thebes, under their famous general, Epaminondas, who
broke the power of Sparta. Thebes sunk into insignificance
after his death, and Philip of Macedon commenced the
subjugation of all Greece. He was followed by Alexander the
Great, who, in return for the loss of republican liberty,
rendered Greece illustrious by conquering the Persian empire,
and imbuing all the Eastern World with its philosophy and
arts. For all these great events one hundred years were
required.
429—The death of the illustrious Pericles occurred in this
year.
”—Plato, the disciple of Socrates, and, in some points,
superior to him in mental discipline, was born.
420—About this time Alcibiades, the nephew of Pericles,
became prominent in Athenian affairs. He had brilliant
powers, but little principle.
406—The battle of Ægospotamos, gained by Lysander the
Spartan, broke the power of Athens.
404—Athens was taken by Lysander, its walls demolished, and
the government of the “Thirty Tyrants” established by the
Spartans. Alcibiades, banished from Athens, was assassinated
by the Persians, at the instigation of the Spartans.
401—Occurred the battle of Cunaxa, in Babylonia, between
Cyrus, the brother of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, and that
king. Cyrus, who had been governor, or satrap, in Asia Minor,
gathered a large army including more than 10,000 Greeks.
Cyrus was killed and his own army defeated, but the Greeks
repelled all assaults. Their generals having been decoyed
into the power of the Persians, on the plea of making terms
with them, were treacherously slain. The army appointed
other commanders, chief among whom was Xenophon, afterward
the celebrated historian, and they made good their return to
Greece. It was finely described by Xenophon, and known as the
“Retreat of the Ten Thousand.”
400—Socrates taught doctrines too pure and high-toned for his
countrymen to understand, and was condemned to drink poison,
as a dangerous man and despiser of the gods, in the 70th year
of his age. The Athenians soon repented it.
396—The capital of Veii, taken by the Romans, ended the
contest with the Etruscans.
389—Rome was conquered and, except the capitol, destroyed, by
the Gauls under Brennus. The barbarians soon retired and the
city was rebuilt.
384—Aristotle, the most learned of the Grecian philosophers,
was born at Stagira, in Macedon. He laid the foundation of
scientific study, and was the tutor of Alexander the Great.
371—Epaminondas defeated the Spartans at Leuctra, and
362—again at Mantinea, where he was killed.
360—Philip became king of Macedon, and soon began to
undermine the liberties of Greece in a very artful way.
357—The “Sacred War” against the Phocians, who had plundered
the temple of Apollo, at Delphi, commenced.
356—Birth of Alexander the Great. Rutilius, the first plebean
dictator at Rome.
349—Death of Plato, the brightest light of Grecian
philosophy. He systematized and enlarged the doctrines of
Socrates.
338—Occurred the battle of Chaeronea between Philip and
the allied Athenians and Thebans. The Greeks were totally
defeated and their liberty lost. Demosthenes, the most
celebrated orator of the Greeks, spent his whole life and
his magnificent eloquence in the effort to rouse the Greeks
against Philip; but Philip was too crafty and the Greeks too
little accustomed to act in concert. For nearly a hundred
years the states of Greece had been exhausted by wars among
themselves, and they were too weary of fighting to make
the necessary effort against so powerful and skillful an
adversary.
336—Philip was assassinated on the eve of an expedition
against Persia, as chief of the Grecian states. This popular
idea consoled them for the loss of liberty. Alexander
succeeded his father.
335—Thebes rebelled against Alexander, and he took and
destroyed that ancient city.
334—Alexander carried out the project of his father and
invaded the Persian empire. The battle of the Granicus, his
first great victory, took place this year.
333—Darius, the Persian king, was again thoroughly defeated
in the battle of Issus. Damascus, in Syria, was taken and
Tyre besieged by Alexander.
332—Tyre was taken and finally destroyed, and Alexandria, at
the mouth of the Nile, founded.
331—A final battle at Arbela, in Assyria, overthrew the
Persian Empire. Darius escaped, but was murdered by Bessus,
one of his officers. Four years were spent by the Greeks in
subduing the wild tribes on the eastern border of the Empire,
and settling the government of these vast conquests.
327—Alexander invaded India and was constantly triumphant
till his soldiers refused to go farther from home. They had
grown tired of conquering, and Alexander reluctantly returned
to Babylon to consolidate his government.
323—Alexander died of a fever, the result of excessive
drinking. He left no heir, and his generals divided his
empire.
322—The Samnites obtained a temporary success by surprising
a Roman army in a narrow defile of the mountains called
the Candine Forks, and subjected it to a humiliating
capitulation. The Romans never bowed before misfortune or
defeat. They prosecuted the war with invincible resolution
until the Samnite power was wholly broken, a contest, in all,
of about 50 years, which was soon followed by the complete
subjugation of the whole peninsula.
3. In this year died the two greatest Grecians, Demosthenes, the orator,
by suicide; and Aristotle, by old age. On the death of Alexander,
Demosthenes aroused the Athenians to make a stand for their liberties.
Few of the Grecian states joined them and they were totally defeated
by Antipater, the governor appointed by Alexander. Demosthenes avoided
punishment by taking poison. The Achaian League, about forty years after,
maintained the liberties of Greece for fifty years or more, which then
fell before the invincible Romans. For many years all the eastern world
was in confusion from the struggles of competitors for the Empire of
Alexander. Ptolemy established himself soon and firmly in Egypt, and
Seleucus, after various
312—Reverses, obtained full possession of the eastern parts
of the empire, Babylonia, Assyria and Persia. This year is
called the era of the Seleucidæ. Asia Minor and Greece were a
scene of the greatest confusion for seventy years, so far as
rulers were concerned. But nearly all these were Greeks, and
Greek culture and philosophy exerted a wide spread influence.
In the end it became fully evident that the want of genius in
the Greek mind to organize, and steadiness in Greek character
to sustain, settled institutions was absolute. They had,
at different times, men of the greatest ability, but when
they passed away their plans and institutions perished with
them. The acute and accomplished Greeks were ever children
in the science of government, and the advent of Rome alone,
whose special skill was in government, saved the world from
irretrievable anarchy or fatal despotism.
300—The Roman plebeans completed their struggle for
constitutional liberty by acquiring a share in the priestly
office, which was essential to the full value of their other
victories over the patricians, and the Roman constitution was
complete. It was maintained very fairly for more that one
hundred and fifty years, when the spoils of their conquests
corrupted the virtue of the citizens and produced the
internal disorder that, about a century later still brought
about the establishment of the Roman Empire. Yet the forms
of government, municipal and other regulations, and the
administration of justice, though often interfered with in
particular cases, were so well settled on sound principles,
and secured so uniformly the welfare of society, that they
were preserved longest from general ruin, and revived first
in more modern times. Greek thought and culture, and Roman
law remained indestructible.
290—The Samnites, Sabines and Gauls, being all defeated,
Rome was virtually mistress of Italy, although the Grecian
cities on the eastern coast remained to be subdued. They had
little strength in themselves against a power so warlike,
and invited Pyrrhus, the king of
281—Epirus, to their assistance. He twice defeated the Roman
consuls, but they inflicted on him so much loss that they
vainly offered him battle immediately after, and rejected all
his overtures to treat for peace. He was at length vanquished
and obliged to abandon Italy to the Republic.
4. The Romans soon subdued all opposition and began to look about for
other lands to conquer.
264—The Carthaginians, on the opposite coast of Africa,
had become a colossal power, and sought to establish their
control over Sicily—not an easy task, since it had many
colonies of Greeks whose national spirit and bravery did
not desert them. In this year a call for assistance from a
plundering band who had captured a Greek city, a part of
whom had also invited Carthaginian aid, brought Rome and
Carthage in conflict. The Carthaginians were enraged at this
interference with an island which they had long intended to
make their own, and raised an immense army to drive out the
intruders. The Romans defeated the army and took Agrigentum,
one of the best strongholds of the Carthaginians on the
island.
260—The Carthaginians were masters of the sea, and the Romans
had little knowledge of naval affairs. Taking a Carthaginian
vessel which had been driven ashore for a model, they, in
a short time, created a fleet and worsted their enemies on
their own special element.
256—The Romans again defeated the Carthaginians in a sea
fight near the island of Lipara.
255—The Romans determined to carry the war into Africa,
and fitting out a large fleet, inflicted a still heavier
loss on the Carthaginian armaments, landed in Africa and
defeated an immense army. The Carthaginians sued for peace,
but the terms proposed by Regulus, the Roman general, were
so severe that they resolved to continue the war. A Grecian
general, Xanthippus, took command of their army and totally
defeated the Romans, taking Regulus prisoner, and destroying
or
248—capturing all his army but 2000. The Romans lost
three fleets by storms, but conquered once in a sea fight,
and defeated an army in Sicily. The Carthaginians again
sought peace, but the Romans would not abate their first
terms, and continued the war until the
240—Carthaginians, completely humbled, accepted the severe
alternative of submission or destruction. The temple of
Janus, the god of war, never shut but in time of absolute
peace, was now closed for the second time since the building
of the city.
The people, whose special occupation was war, soon grew
tired of peace, and carried on various conflicts with the
Gauls settled at the foot of the Alps in the
227—north of Italy. They invaded Illyria, on the east coast of
the Adriatic Sea, whose people were very troublesome pirates.
This war was again renewed with a more complete defeat of the
Illyrians. They had before this subdued Sardinia and Corsica.
219—The Carthaginians pursued their conquests in Spain, and
the celebrated Hannibal took Saguntum, which
218—brought on the second Punic war, as the war with Carthage
was termed.
217—Hannibal, with great celerity, crossed the Pyrenees and
the Alps—having first completed the conquest of Spain—and
defeated the Romans in the battle of Ticinus, and again at
Trebia.
217—The Achaian confederacy, now in the height of its glory
in maintaining the liberties of Greece, united all the Greeks
in a confederacy under the influence of Philip, king of
Macedon, with the hope of arresting the power and ambition of
Rome.
216—Hannibal inflicted a dreadful defeat on the Romans near
the Thrasymenean Lake. The Romans were greatly alarmed, and
made Fabius Maximus dictator, whose habit of refusing a
pitched battle, wearing out his adversary by skirmishes and
cutting off his supplies, is called “The Fabian Policy.” This
plan is, by maneuvering and delay, to wear out and destroy
an invader in detail without peril of defeat in battle. The
Romans kept armies in Spain to prevent the Carthaginians from
sending reinforcements to Hannibal.
215—At the close of this year Fabius resigned his
dictatorship and the consuls appointed to succeed him
abandoned his policy. They offered battle to Hannibal at
Cannæ and the army was annihilated. 40,000 Romans were slain
on the field. These defeats had destroyed the flower of
their fighting population, but Roman courage and resolution
always rose with defeat. They did not despair, but raised a
fresh army and put Fabius again at its head, against whom the
talents of Hannibal were vain. They fomented disturbances in
Greece to keep Philip, King of Macedon at home, and besieged
Syracuse in Sicily, which had joined the Carthaginians,