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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17720-0.txt b/17720-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd6e2be --- /dev/null +++ b/17720-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11337 @@ +Project Gutenberg's History Of Ancient Civilization, by Charles Seignobos + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History Of Ancient Civilization + +Author: Charles Seignobos + +Release Date: February 9, 2006 [EBook #17720] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net. + + + + + + + * * * * * + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | | + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Bolded text is distinguished by ='s at start and finish. | + | Italicized text is distinguished by _'s at start and finish. | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +HISTORY OF + +ANCIENT CIVILIZATION + + +BY + +CHARLES SEIGNOBOS + +DOCTOR OF LETTERS OF THE UNIVERSITY +OF PARIS + + +LONDON +T. FISHER UNWIN +ADELPHI TERRACE +MCMVII + + + + +(_All rights reserved_) + + + + +EDITOR'S NOTE + + +In preparing this volume, the Editor has used both the three-volume +edition and the two-volume edition of the "Histoire de la +Civilisation." He has usually preferred the order of topics of the +two-volume edition, but has supplemented the material therein with +other matter drawn from the three-volume edition. + +A few corrections to the text have been given in foot-notes. These +notes are always clearly distinguished from the elucidations of the +author. + + A.H.W. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +PREHISTORIC TIMES. Prehistoric archæology--Prehistoric remains; their + antiquity--Prehistoric science--The four ages. + + THE ROUGH STONE AGE. Remains found in the gravels--The cave-men. + + THE POLISHED STONE AGE. Lake-villages--Megalithic monuments. + + THE BRONZE AGE. Bronze--Bronze objects. + + THE IRON AGE. Iron--Iron weapons--Epochs of the Iron Age. + + Conclusions: How the four ages are to be conceived; uncertainties; + solved questions. + + +CHAPTER II + +HISTORY AND THE DOCUMENTS. History--Legends--History in general--Great + divisions of history--Ancient history--Modern history--The Middle + Ages. + +SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS. + Books--Monuments--Inscriptions--Languages--Lacunæ. + +RACES AND PEOPLES. Anthropology--The races--Civilized peoples--Aryans + and Semites. + + +CHAPTER III + +THE EGYPTIANS. Egypt--The country--The Nile--Fertility of the soil--The + accounts of Herodotus--Champollion--Egyptologists--Discoveries. + +THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE. Antiquity of the Egyptian people--Memphis and the + pyramids--Egyptian civilization--Thebes--The Pharaoh--The + subjects--Despotism--Isolation of the Egyptians. + +RELIGION OF THE EGYPTIANS. The gods--Osiris--Ammon-râ--Gods with animal + heads--Sacred animals--The bull Apis--Worship of the dead--Judgment + of the soul--Mummies--Book of the Dead--The arts--Industry-- + Architecture--Tombs--Temples--Sculpture--Painting--Literature-- + Destinies of the Egyptian civilization. + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS. Chaldea--The land--The people--The + cities. + +THE ASSYRIANS--Assyria--Origins--Ancient accounts--Modern discoveries-- + Inscriptions on bricks--Cuneiform writing--The Assyrian people--The + king--Fall of the Assyrian Empire. + +THE BABYLONIANS. The second Chaldean empire--Babylon--The Tower of + Babylon. + +CUSTOMS AND RELIGION. Customs--Religion--The gods--Astrology-- + Sorcery--The sciences. + +THE ARTS. Architecture--Palaces--Sculpture. + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ARYANS OF INDIA. The Aryans--Aryan languages--The Aryan people. + +PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS. The Aryans on the Indus--The + Vedas--The gods--Indra--Agni--The cult--Worship of ancestors. + +BRAHMANIC SOCIETY. The Hindoos on the Ganges--Castes--The Impure--The + Brahmans--The new religion of Brahma--Transmigration of souls-- + Character of this religion--The rites--Purity--Penances--The monks. + +BUDDHISM. Buddha--Nirvana--Charity--Fraternity--Tolerance--Later + history of Buddhism--Changes in Buddhism--Buddha transformed into a + god--Mechanical prayer--Amelioration of manners. + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PERSIANS. The religion of Zoroaster--Iran--The Iranians-- + Zoroaster--The Zend-Avesta--Ormuzd and Ahriman--Angels and demons-- + Creatures of Ormuzd and Ahriman--The cult--Morality--Funerals-- + Destiny of the soul--Character of Mazdeism. + +THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. The Medes--The Persians--Cyrus--The inscription of + Behistun--The Persian empire--The satrapies--Revenues of the + empire--The Great King--Services rendered by the Persians--Susa and + Persepolis--Persian architecture. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE PHÅ’NICIANS. The PhÅ“nician people--The land--The cities--PhÅ“nician + ruins--Organization of the PhÅ“nician--Tyre--Carthage--Carthaginian + army--The Carthaginians--The PhÅ“nician religion. + +PHÅ’NICIAN COMMERCE. Occupations of the PhÅ“nicians--Caravans--Marine + commerce--Commodities--Secret kept by the PhÅ“nicians--Colonies-- + Influence of the PhÅ“nicians--The alphabet. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HEBREWS. Origin of the Hebrew people--The Bible--The Hebrews--The + patriarchs--The Israelites--The call of Moses--Israel in the + desert--The Promised Land. + +THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. One God--The people of God--The covenant--The + Ten Commandments--The Law--Religion constituted the Jewish people. + +THE EMPIRE OF ISRAEL. The Judges--The Hangs--Jerusalem--The + tabernacle--The temple. + +THE PROPHETS. Disasters of Israel--Sentiments of the Israelites--The + prophets--The new teaching--The Messiah. + +THE JEWISH PEOPLE. Return to Jerusalem--The Jews--The synagogues-- + Destruction of the temple--The Jews after the dispersion. + + +CHAPTER IX + +GREECE AND THE GREEKS. The country--The sea--The climate--Simplicity of + Greek life--The people--Origin of the Greeks--Legends--The Trojan + War--The Homeric Poems--The Greeks at the time of Homer--The + Dorians--The Ionians--The Hellenes--The cities. + +THE HELLENES BEYOND THE SEA. Colonization--Character of the colonies-- + Traditions touching the colonies--Importance of the Greek colonies. + + +CHAPTER X + +GREEK RELIGION. The + gods--Polytheism--Anthropomorphism--Mythology--Local gods--The + great gods--Attributes of the gods--Olympus and Zeus--Morality of + the Greek mythology. + +THE HEROES. Various sorts of heroes--Presence of the heroes-- + Intervention of the heroes. + +WORSHIP. Principle of the cult of the gods--The great Feasts--the sacred + games--Omens--Oracles--Amphictyonies. + + +CHAPTER XI + +SPARTA. The People--Laconia--The Helots--The PeriÅ“ci--Condition of the + Spartiates. + +EDUCATION. The children--The girls--The discipline--Laconism--Music-- + The dance--Heroism of the women. + +INSTITUTIONS. The kings and the council--The ephors--The army--The + hoplites--The phalanx--Gymnastics--Athletes--Rôle of the Spartiates. + + +CHAPTER XII + +ATHENS. Origins of the Athenian people--Attica--Athens--The revolutions + in Athens--Reforms of Cleisthenes. + +THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE. The slaves--The foreigners--The citizens. + +THE GOVERNMENT. The assembly--The courts--The magistrates--Character of + the government--The demagogues. + +PRIVATE LIFE. Children--Marriage--Women. + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WARS. The Persian wars--Origin of these wars--Comparison of the two + adversaries--First Persian war--Second Persian war--Reasons for the + victory of the Greeks--Results of the wars. + +WARS OF THE GREEKS AMONG THEMSELVES. The Peloponnesian war--War with + Sparta--Savage character of the wars--Effects of these wars. + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ARTS IN GREECE. Athens in the time of Pericles--Pericles--Athens + and her monuments--Importance of Athens. + +LETTERS. Orators--Sages--Sophists--Socrates and the philosophers--The + chorus--Tragedy and comedy--Theatre. + +ARTS. The Grecian temples--Characteristics of Grecian + architecture--Sculpture--Pottery--Painting. + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT. Asia before Alexander--Decadence of the + Persian empire--Expedition of the Ten Thousand--Agesilaus. + +CONQUEST OF ASIA BY ALEXANDER. Macedon--Philip--Demosthenes--The + Macedonian supremacy--Alexander--The phalanx--Departure of + Alexander--Victories of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela--Death of + Alexander--Projects of Alexander. + +THE HELLENES IN THE ORIENT. Dismemberment of the empire of Alexander-- + The Hellenistic kingdoms--Alexandria--Museum--Pergamum. + + +CHAPTER XVI + +LATER PERIOD OF GREEK HISTORY. Decadence of the cities--Rich and + poor--Strife between rich and poor--Democracy and oligarchy--The + tyrants--Exhaustion of Greece. + +THE ROMAN CONQUEST. The leagues--The allies of the Romans--The last + struggles. + +THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT. Influence of Greece on Rome-- + Architecture--Sculpture--Literature--Epicureans and Stoics. + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ANCIENT PEOPLES OF ITALY. The Etruscans--Etruria--The Etruscan people-- + The Etruscan tombs--Industry and commerce--Religion--The augurs-- + Influence of the Etruscans. + +THE ITALIAN PEOPLE. Umbrians and Oscans--The Sacred Spring--The + Samnites--The Greeks of Italy. + +LATINS AND ROMANS. The Latins--Rome--Roma Quadrata and the Capitol. + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +RELIGION AND THE FAMILY. Religion--The Roman gods--Form of the + gods--Principle of the Roman religion--Worship--Formalism-- + Prayer--Omens--The priests. + +WORSHIP OF ANCESTORS. The dead--Worship of the dead--Cult of the hearth. + +THE FAMILY. Religion of the family--Marriage--Women--Children--Father of + the family. + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROMAN CITY. Formation of the Roman people--The kings--The Roman + people--The plebeians--Strife between patricians and plebeians-- + The tribunes of the plebs--Triumph of the plebs. + +THE ROMAN PEOPLE. Right of citizenship--The nobles--The knights--The + plebs--Freedmen. + +THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. The comitia--Magistrates--Censors-- + Senate--The course of offices. + + +CHAPTER XX + +ROMAN CONQUEST. The Roman army--Military service--The levy--Legions and + allies--Military exercises--Camp--Order of battle--Discipline-- + Colonies &ad military roads. + +CHARACTER OF THE CONQUESTS. War--Conquest of Italy--Punic + wars--Hannibal--Conquest of the Orient--Conquest of barbarian + lands--The triumph--Booty--Allies of Rome--Motives of conquest. + +RESULTS OF THE CONQUESTS. Empire of the Roman people--The public + domain--Agrarian laws. + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CONQUERED PEOPLES. The provincials--Provinces--The proconsuls-- + Tyranny and oppression of the proconsuls--The publicans--Bankers-- + Defencelessness of the provincials. + +SLAVERY. Sale of slaves--Condition of slaves--Number of slaves--Urban + slaves--Rural slaves--Treatment of slaves--Ergastulum and mill-- + Character of the slaves--Revolts--Admission to citizenship. + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE IN ROME. Influence of Greece and the Orient. + +CHANGES IN RELIGION. Greek gods--The Bacchanals--Superstitions of the + Orient--Sceptics. + +CHANGES IN MANNERS. The old customs--Cato the Elder--The new manners-- + Oriental luxury--Greek humanity--Lucullus--The new education--New + status of women--Divorce. + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +FALL OF THE REPUBLIC. Causes of the decadence--Destruction of the + peasant class--The city plebs--Electoral corruption--Corruption of + the Senate--Corruption of the army. + +THE REVOLUTION. Necessity of the revolution--Civil wars--The Gracchi-- + Marius and Sulla--Pompey and Cæsar--End of the Republic--Need of + peace--Power of the individual. + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT. The twelve Cæsars--The emperor--Apotheosis-- + Senate and people--The prætorians--Freedmen of the emperors-- + Despotism and disorder. + +THE CENTURY OF THE ANTONINES. Marcus Aurelius--Conquests of the + Antonines. + +IMPERIAL INSTITUTIONS. Extent of the empire in the second century-- + Permanent army--Deputies and agents of the emperor--Municipal + life--Imperial regime. + +SOCIAL LIFE UNDER THE EMPIRE. The continued decadence at Rome--The + shows--Theatre--Circus--Amphitheatre--Gladiators--The Roman + peace--Fusion of the peoples--Superstitions. + + +CHAPTER XXV + +ARTS AND SCIENCES IN ROME. Letters--Imitation of the Greeks--The + Augustan Age--Orators and rhetoricians--Importance of the Latin + literature and language--Arts--Sculpture and painting-- + Architecture--Characteristics of Roman architecture--Rome and its + monuments. + +ROMAN LAW. The Twelve Tables--Symbolic process--Formalism-- + Jurisprudence--The prætor's edict--Civil law and the law of + nations--Written reason. + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Origin of Christianity--Christ--Charity-- + Equality--Poverty and humility--The kingdom of God. + +FIRST CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH. Disciples and apostles--The church-- + Sacred books--Persecutions--Martyrs--Catacombs. + +THE MONKS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. Solitaries--Asceticism--Cenobites. + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE LATER EMPIRE. The revolutions of the third century--Military + anarchy--Worship of Mithra--Taurobolia--Confusion of religions. + +REGIME OF THE LATER EMPIRE. Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine-- + Constantinople--The palace--The officials--Society of the later + empire. + +CHURCH AND STATE. Triumph of Christianity--Organization of the + church--Councils--Heretics--Paganism--Theodosius. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION + +PREHISTORIC ARCHÆOLOGY + + +=Prehistoric Remains.=--One often finds buried in the earth, weapons, +implements, human skeletons, débris of every kind left by men of whom +we have no direct knowledge. These are dug up by the thousand in all +the provinces of France, in Switzerland, in England, in all Europe; +they are found even in Asia and Africa. It is probable that they exist +in all parts of the world. + +These remains are called prehistoric because they are more ancient +than written history. For about fifty years men have been engaged in +recovering and studying them. Today most museums have a hall, or at +least, some cases filled with these relics. A museum at +Saint-German-en-Laye, near Paris, is entirely given up to prehistoric +remains. In Denmark is a collection of more than 30,000 objects. Every +day adds to the discoveries as excavations are made, houses built, and +cuts made for railroads. + +These objects are not found on the surface of the ground, but +ordinarily buried deeply where the earth has not been disturbed. They +are recovered from a stratum of gravel or clay which has been +deposited gradually and has fixed them in place safe from the air, a +sure proof that they have been there for a long time. + +=Prehistoric Science.=--Scholars have examined the débris and have +asked themselves what men have left them. From their skeletons, they +have tried to construct their physical appearance; from their tools, +the kind of life they led. They have determined that these instruments +resemble those used by certain savages today. The study of all these +objects constitutes a new science, Prehistoric Archæology.[1] + +=The Four Ages.=--Prehistoric remains come down to us from very +diverse races of men; they have been deposited in the soil at widely +different epochs since the time when the mammoth lived in western +Europe, a sort of gigantic elephant with woolly hide and curved tusks. +This long lapse of time may be divided into four periods, called Ages: + + 1. The Rough Stone Age. + + 2. The Polished Stone Age. + + 3. The Bronze Age. + + 4. The Iron Age. + +The periods take their names from the materials used in the +manufacture of the tools,--stone, bronze, iron. These epochs, however, +are of very unequal length. It may be that the Rough Stone Age was ten +times as long as the Age of Iron. + + +THE ROUGH STONE AGE + +=Gravel Débris.=--The oldest remains of the Stone Age have been found +in the gravels. A French scholar found between 1841 and 1853, in the +valley of the Somme, certain sharp instruments made of flint. They +were buried to a depth of six metres in gravel under three layers of +clay, gravel, and marl which had never been broken up. In the same +place they discovered bones of cattle, deer, and elephants. For a long +time people made light of this discovery. They said that the chipping +of the flints was due to chance. At last, in 1860, several scholars +came to study the remains in the valley of the Somme and recognized +that the flints had certainly been cut by men. Since then there have +been found more than 5,000 similar flints in strata of the same order +either in the valley of the Seine or in England, and some of them by +the side of human bones. There is no longer any doubt that men were +living at the epoch when the gravel strata were in process of +formation. If the strata that cover these remains have always been +deposited as slowly as they are today, these men whose bones and tools +we unearth must have lived more than 200,000 years ago. + +=The Cave Men.=--Remains are also found in caverns cut in rock, often +above a river. The most noted are those on the banks of the Vézère, +but they exist in many other places. Sometimes they have been used as +habitations and even as graves for men. Skeletons, weapons, and tools +are found here together. There are axes, knives, scrapers, +lance-points of flint; arrows, harpoon-points, needles of bone like +those used by certain savages to this day. The soil is strewn with the +bones of animals which these men, untidy like all savages, threw into +a corner after they had eaten the meat; they even split the bones to +extract the marrow just as savages do now. Among the animals are found +not only the hare, the deer, the ox, the horse, the salmon, but also +the rhinoceros, the cave-bear, the mammoth, the elk, the bison, the +reindeer, which are all extinct or have long disappeared from France. +Some designs have been discovered engraved on the bone of a reindeer +or on the tusk of a mammoth. One of these represents a combat of +reindeer; another a mammoth with woolly hide and curved tusks. +Doubtless these men were the contemporaries of the mammoth and the +reindeer. They were, like the Esquimaux of our day, a race of hunters +and fishermen, knowing how to work in flint and to kindle fires. + + +POLISHED STONE AGE + +=Lake Dwellings.=--In 1854, Lake Zurich being very low on account of +the unusual dryness of the summer, dwellers on the shore of the lake +found, in the mud, wooden piles which had been much eaten away, also +some rude utensils. These were the remains of an ancient village built +over the water. Since this time more than 200 similar villages have +been found in the lakes of Switzerland. They have been called Lake +Villages. The piles on which they rest are trunks of trees, pointed +and driven into the lake-bottom to a depth of several yards. Every +village required 30,000 to 40,000 of these. + +A wooden platform was supported by the pile work and on this were +built wooden houses covered with turf. Objects found by the hundred +among the piles reveal the character of the life of the former +inhabitants. They ate animals killed in the chase--the deer, the boar, +and the elk. But they were already acquainted with such domestic +animals as the ox, the goat, the sheep, and the dog. They knew how to +till the ground, to reap, and to grind their grain; for in the ruins +of their villages are to be found grains of wheat and even fragments +of bread, or rather unleavend cakes. They wore coarse cloths of hemp +and sewed them into garments with needles of bone. They made pottery +but were very awkward in its manufacture. Their vases were poorly +burned, turned by hand, and adorned with but few lines. Like the +cave-men, they used knives and arrows of flint; but they made their +axes of a very hard stone which they had learned to polish. This is +why we call their epoch the Polished Stone Age. They are much later +than the cave-men, for they know neither the mammoth nor the +rhinoceros, but still are acquainted with the elk and the reindeer.[2] + +=Megalithic Monuments.=--Megalith is the name given to a monument +formed of enormous blocks of rough stone. Sometimes the rock is bare, +sometimes covered with a mass of earth. The buried monument is called +a _Tumulus_ on account of its resemblance to a hill. When it is +opened, one finds within a chamber of rock, sometimes paved with +flag-stones. The monuments whose stone is above ground are of various +sorts. The _Dolmen_, or table of rock, is formed of a long stone laid +flat over other stones set in the ground. The _Cromlech_, or +stone-circle, consists of massive rocks arranged in a circle. The +_Menhir_ is a block of stone standing on its end. Frequently several +menhirs are ranged in line. At Carnac in Brittany four thousand +menhirs in eleven rows are still standing. Probably there were once +ten thousand of these in this locality. Megalithic monuments appear by +hundreds in western France, especially in Brittany; almost every hill +in England has them; the Orkney Islands alone contain more than two +thousand. Denmark and North Germany are studded with them; the people +of the country call the tumuli the tombs of the giants. + +Megalithic monuments are encountered outside of Europe--in India, and +on the African coast. No one knows what people possessed the power to +quarry such masses and then transport and erect them. For a long time +it was believed that the people were the ancient Gauls, or Celts, +whence the name Celtic Monuments. But why are like remains found in +Africa and in India? + +When one of these tumuli still intact is opened, one always sees a +skeleton, often several, either sitting or reclining; these monuments, +therefore, were used as tombs. Arms, vases, and ornaments are placed +at the side of the dead. In the oldest of these tombs the weapons are +axes of polished stone; the ornaments are shells, pearls, necklaces of +bone or ivory; the vases are very simple, without handle or neck, +decorated only with lines or with points. Calcined bones of animals +lie about on the ground, the relics of a funeral repast laid in the +tomb by the friends of the dead. Amidst these bones we no longer find +those of the reindeer, a fact which proves that these monuments were +constructed after the disappearance of this animal from western +Europe, and therefore at a time subsequent to that of the lake +villages. + + +THE AGE OF BRONZE + +=Bronze Age.=--As soon as men learned to smelt metals, they preferred +these to stone in the manufacture of weapons. The metal first to be +used was copper, easier to extract because found free, and easier to +manipulate since it is malleable without the application of heat. Pure +copper, however, was not employed, as weapons made of it were too +fragile; but a little tin was mixed with it to give it more +resistance. It is this alloy of copper and tin that we call bronze. + +=Bronze Utensils.=--Bronze was used in the manufacture of ordinary +tools--knives, hammers, saws, needles, fish-hooks; in the fabrication +of ornaments--bracelets, brooches, ear-rings; and especially in the +making of arms--daggers, lance-points, axes, and swords. These objects +are found by thousands throughout Europe in the mounds, under the more +recent dolmens, in the turf-pits of Denmark, and in rock-tombs. Near +these objects of bronze, ornaments of gold are often seen and, now and +then, the remains of a woollen garment. It cannot be due to chance +that all implements of bronze are similar and all are made according +to the same alloy. Doubtless they revert to the same period of time +and are anterior to the coming of the Romans into Gaul, for they are +never discovered in the midst of débris of the Roman period. But what +men used them? What people invented bronze? Nobody knows. + + +THE IRON AGE + +=Iron.=--As iron was harder to smelt and work than bronze, it was +later that men learned how to use it. As soon as it was appreciated +that iron was harder and cut better than bronze, men preferred it in +the manufacture of arms. In Homer's time iron is still a precious +metal reserved for swords, bronze being retained for other purposes. +It is for this reason that many tombs contain confused remains of +utensils of bronze and weapons of iron. + +=Iron Weapons.=--These arms are axes, swords, daggers, and bucklers. +They are ordinarily found by the side of a skeleton in a coffin of +stone or wood, for warriors had their arms buried with them. But they +are found also scattered on ancient battle-fields or lost at the +bottom of a marsh which later became a turf-pit. There were found in a +turf-pit in Schleswig in one day 100 swords, 500 lances, 30 axes, 460 +daggers, 80 knives, 40 stilettos--and all of iron. Not far from there +in the bed of an ancient lake was discovered a great boat 66 feet +long, fully equipped with axes, swords, lances, and knives. + +It is impossible to enumerate the iron implements thus found. They +have not been so well preserved as the bronze, as iron is rapidly +eaten away by rust. At the first glance, therefore, they appear the +older, but in reality are more recent. + +=Epoch of the Iron Age.=--The inhabitants of northern Europe knew iron +before the coming of the Romans, the first century before Christ. In +an old cemetery near the salt mines of Hallstadt in Austria they have +opened 980 tombs filled with instruments of iron and bronze without +finding a single piece of Roman money. But the Iron Age continued +under the Romans. Almost always iron objects are found accompanied by +ornaments of gold and silver, by Roman pottery, funeral urns, +inscriptions, and Roman coins bearing the effigy of the emperor. The +warriors whom we find lying near their sword and their buckler lived +for the most part in a period quite close to ours, many under the +Merovingians, some even at the time of Charlemagne. The Iron Age is no +longer a prehistoric age. + + +CONCLUSIONS + +=How the Four Ages are to be Conceived.=--The inhabitants of one and +the same country have successively made use of rough stone, polished +stone, bronze, and iron. But all countries have not lived in the same +age at the same time. Iron was employed by the Egyptians while yet the +Greeks were in their bronze age and the barbarians of Denmark were +using stone. The conclusion of the polished stone age in America came +only with the arrival of Europeans. In our own time the savages of +Australia are still in the rough stone age. In their settlements may +be found only implements of bone and stone similar to those used by +the cave-men. The four ages, therefore, do not mark periods in the +life of humanity, but only epochs in the civilization of each country. + +=Uncertainties.=--Prehistoric archæology is yet a very young science. +We have learned something of primitive men through certain remains +preserved and discovered by chance. A recent accident, a trench, a +landslip, a drought may effect a new discovery any day. Who knows what +is still under ground? The finds are already innumerable. But these +rarely tell us what we wish to know. How long was each of the four +ages? When did each begin and end in the various parts of the world? +Who planned the caverns, the lake villages, the mounds, the dolmens? +When a country passes from polished stone to bronze, is it the same +people changing implements, or is it a new people come on the scene? +When one thinks one has found the solution, a new discovery often +confounds the archæologists. It was thought that the Celts originated +the dolmens, but these have been found in sections which could never +have been traversed by Celts. + +=What has been determined.=--Three conclusions, however, seem certain: + + 1.--Man has lived long on the earth, familiar as he was with the + mammoth and the cave-bear; he lived at least as early as the + geological period known as the Quaternary. + + 2.--Man has emerged from the savage state to civilized life; he + has gradually perfected his tools and his ornaments from the + awkward axe of flint and the necklace of bears' teeth to iron + swords and jewels of gold. The roughest instruments are the + oldest. + + 3.--Man has made more and more rapid progress. Each age has been + shorter than its predecessor. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It originated especially with French, Swiss, and scholars. + +[2] According to Lubbock (Prehistoric Times, N.Y., 1890, p. 212) the +reindeer was not known to the Second Stone Age.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HISTORY AND THE RECORDS + +HISTORY + + +=Legends.=--The most ancient records of people and their doings are +transmitted by oral tradition. They are recited long before they are +written down and are much mixed with fable. The Greeks told how their +heroes of the oldest times had exterminated monsters, fought with +giants, and battled against the gods. The Romans had Romulus nourished +by a wolf and raised to heaven. Almost all peoples relate such stories +of their infancy. But no confidence is to be placed in these legends. + +=History.=--History has its true beginning only with authentic +accounts, that is to say, accounts written by men who were well +informed. This moment is not the same with all peoples. The history of +Egypt commences more than 3,000 years before Christ; that of the +Greeks ascends scarcely to 800 years before Christ; Germany has had a +history only since the first century of our era; Russia dates back +only to the ninth century; certain savage tribes even yet have no +history. + +=Great Divisions of History.=--The history of civilization begins with +the oldest civilized people and continues to the present time. +Antiquity is the most remote period, Modern Times the era in which we +live. + +=Ancient History.=--Ancient History begins with the oldest known +nations, the Egyptians and Chaldeans (about 3,000 years before our +era), and surveys the peoples of the Orient, the Hindoos, Persians, +PhÅ“nicians, Jews, Greeks, and last of all the Romans. It terminates +about the fifth century A.D., when the Roman empire of the west is +extinguished. + +=Modern History.=--Modern History starts with the end of the fifteenth +century, with the invention of printing, the discovery of America and +of the Indies, the Renaissance of the sciences and arts. It concerns +itself especially with peoples of the West, of Spain, Italy, France, +Germany, Russia, and America. + +=The Middle Age.=--Between Antiquity and Modern Times about ten +centuries elapse which belong neither to ancient times (for the +civilization of Antiquity has perished) nor to modern (since modern +civilization does not yet exist). This period we call the Middle Age. + + +SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PEOPLES + +=The Sources.=--The Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans are no longer with +us; all the peoples of antiquity have passed away. To know their +religion, their customs, and arts we have to seek for instruction in +the remains they have left us. These are books, monuments, +inscriptions, and languages, and these are our means for the study of +ancient civilizations. We term these _sources_ because we draw our +knowledge from them. Ancient History flows from these sources. + +=Books.=--Ancient peoples have left written records behind them. Some +of these peoples had sacred books--for example, the Hindoos, the +Persians, and the Jews; the Greeks and Romans have handed down to us +histories, poems, speeches, philosophical treatises. But books are +very far from furnishing all the information that we require. We do +not possess a single Assyrian or PhÅ“nician book. Other peoples have +transmitted very few books to us. The ancients wrote less than we, and +so they had a smaller literature to leave behind them; and as it was +necessary to transcribe all of this by hand, there was but a small +number of copies of books. Further, most of these manuscripts have +been destroyed or have been lost, and those which remain to us are +difficult to read. The art of deciphering them is called Palæography. + +=The Monuments.=--Ancient peoples, like ourselves, built monuments of +different sorts: palaces for their kings, tombs for the dead, +fortresses, bridges, aqueducts, triumphal arches. Of these monuments +many have fallen into ruin, have been razed, shattered by the enemy or +by the people themselves. But some of them survive, either because +there was no desire to destroy them, or because men could not. They +still stand in ruins like the old castles, for repairs are no longer +made; but enough is preserved to enable us to comprehend their former +condition. Some of them are still above ground, like the pyramids, the +temples of Thebes and of the island of Philæ, the palace of Persepolis +in Persia, the Parthenon in Greece, the Colosseum in Rome, and the +Maison Carrée and Pont du Gard in France. Like any modern monument, +these are visible to the traveller. But the majority of these +monuments have been recovered from the earth, from sand, from river +deposits, and from débris. One must disengage them from this thick +covering, and excavate the soil, often to a great depth. Assyrian +palaces may be reached only by cutting into the hills. A trench of +forty feet is necessary to penetrate to the tombs of the kings of +Mycenæ. Time is not the only agency for covering these ruins; men have +aided it. When the ancients wished to build, they did not, as we do, +take the trouble to level off the space, nor to clear the site. +Instead of removing the débris, they heaped it together and built +above it. The new edifice in turn fell into ruins and its débris was +added to that of more remote time; thus there were formed several +strata of remains. When Schliemann excavated the site of Troy, he had +passed through five beds of débris; these were five ruined villages +one above another, the oldest at a depth of fifty feet. + +By accident one town has been preserved to us in its entirety. In 79 +A.D. the volcano of Vesuvius belched forth a torrent of liquid lava +and a rain of ashes, and two Roman cities were suddenly buried, +Herculaneum by lava, and Pompeii by ashes; the lava burnt the objects +it touched, while the ashes enveloped them, preserving them from the +air and keeping them intact. As we remove the ashes, Pompeii reappears +to us just as it was eighteen centuries ago. One still sees the +wheel-ruts in the pavement, the designs traced on the walls with +charcoal; in the houses, the pictures, the utensils, the furniture, +even the bread, the nuts, and olives, and here and there the skeleton +of an inhabitant surprised by the catastrophe. Monuments teach us +much about the ancient peoples. The science of monuments is called +Archæology. + +=Inscriptions.=--By inscriptions one means all writings other than +books. Inscriptions are for the most part cut in stone, but some are +on plates of bronze. At Pompeii they have been found traced on the +walls in colors or with charcoal. Some have the character of +commemorative inscriptions just as these are now attached to our +statues and edifices; thus in the monument of Ancyra the emperor +Augustus publishes the story of his life. + +The greatest number of inscriptions are epitaphs graven on tombs. +Certain others fill the function of our placards, containing, as they +do, a law or a regulation that was to be made public. The science of +inscriptions is called Epigraphy. + +=Languages.=--The languages also which ancient peoples spoke throw +light on their history. Comparing the words of two different +languages, we perceive that the two have a common origin--an evidence +that the peoples who spoke them were descended from the same stock. +The science of languages is called Linguistics. + +=Lacunæ.=--It is not to be supposed that books, monuments, +inscriptions, and languages are sufficient to give complete knowledge +of the history of antiquity. They present many details which we could +well afford to lose, but often what we care most to know escapes us. +Scholars continue to dig and to decipher; each year new discoveries of +inscriptions and monuments are made; but there remain still many gaps +in our knowledge and probably some of these will always exist. + + +RACES AND PEOPLES + +=Anthropology.=--The men who people the earth do not possess exact +resemblances, some differing from others in stature, the form of the +limbs and the head, the features of the face, the color of the hair and +eyes. Other differences are found in language, intelligence, and +sentiments. These variations permit us to separate the inhabitants of +the earth into several groups which we call races. A _race_ is the +aggregate of those men who resemble one another and are distinguished from +all others. The common traits of a race--its characteristics--constitute +the type of the race. For example, the type of the negro race is marked +by black skin, frizzly hair, white teeth, flat nose, projecting lips, and +prominent jaw. That part of Anthropology which concerns itself with races +and their sub-divisions is called Ethnology.[3] This science is yet in +its early development on account of its complete novelty, and is very +complex since types of men are very numerous and often very difficult to +differentiate. + +=The Races.=--The principal races are: + + 1.--The White race, which inhabits Europe, the north of Africa, + and western Asia. + + 2.--The Yellow race in eastern Asia to which belong the Chinese, + the Mongols, Turks, and Hungarians, who invaded Europe as + conquerors. They have yellow skin, small regular eyes, prominent + cheek-bones, and thin beard. + + 3.--The Black race, in central Africa. These are the Negroes, of + black skin, flat nose, woolly hair. + + 4.--The Red race, in America. These are the Indians, with + copper-colored skin and flat heads. + +=Civilized Peoples.=--Almost all civilized peoples belong to the white +race. The peoples of the other races have remained savage or +barbarian, like the men of prehistoric times.[4] + +It is within the limits of Asia and Africa that the first civilized +peoples had their development--the Egyptians in the Nile valley, the +Chaldeans in the plain of the Euphrates. They were peoples of +sedentary and peaceful pursuits. Their skin was dark, the hair short +and thick, the lips strong. Nobody knows their origin with exactness +and scholars are not agreed on the name to give them (some terming +them Cushites, others Hamites). Later, between the twentieth and +twenty-fifth centuries B.C. came bands of martial shepherds who had +spread over all Europe and the west of Asia--the Aryans and the +Semites. + +=The Aryans and the Semites.=--There is no clearly marked external +difference between the Aryans and the Semites. Both are of the white +race, having the oval face, regular features, clear skin, abundant +hair, large eyes, thin lips, and straight nose. Both peoples were +originally nomad shepherds, fond of war. We do not know whence they +came, nor is there agreement whether the Aryans came from the mountain +region in the northwest of the Himalayas or from the plains of +Russia. What distinguishes them is their spiritual bent and especially +their language, sometimes also their religion. Scholars by common +consent call those peoples Aryan who speak an Aryan language: in Asia, +the Hindoos and Persians; in Europe, the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, +Germans, Scandinavians, Slavs (Russians, Poles, Serfs), and Celts.[5] + +Similarly, we call Semites those peoples who speak a Semitic language: +Arabs, Jews and Syrians. But a people may speak an Aryan or a Semitic +language and yet not be of Aryan or Semitic race; a negro may speak +English without being of English stock. Many of the Europeans whom we +classify among the Aryans are perhaps the descendants of an ancient +race conquered by the Aryans and who have adopted their language, just +as the Egyptians received the language of the Arabs, their conquerors. + +These two names (Aryan and Semite), then, signify today rather two +groups of peoples than two distinct races. But even if we use the +terms in this sense, one may say that all the greater peoples of the +world have been Semites or Aryans. The Semitic family included the +PhÅ“nicians, the people of commerce; the Jews, the people of religion; +the Arabs, the people of war. The Aryans, some finding their homes in +India, others in Europe, have produced the nations which have been, +and still are, foremost in the world--in antiquity, the Hindoos, a +people of great philosophical and religious ideas; the Greeks, +creators of art and of science; the Persians and Romans, the +founders, the former in the East, the latter in the West, of the +greatest empires of antiquity; in modern times, the Italians, French, +Germans, Dutch, Russians, English and Americans. + +The history of civilization begins with the Egyptians and the +Chaldeans; but from the fifteenth century before our era, history +concerns itself only with the Aryan and Semitic peoples. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Ethnography is the study of races from the point of view of their +objects and customs. + +[4] The Chinese only of the yellow race have elaborated among themselves +an industry, a regular government, a polite society. But placed at the +extremity of Asia they have had no influence on other civilized peoples. +[The Japanese should be included.--ED.] + +[5] The English and French are mixtures of Celtic and German blood. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST + +THE EGYPTIANS + + +=The Land of Egypt.=--Egypt is only the valley of the Nile, a narrow +strip of fertile soil stretching along both banks of the stream and +shut in by mountains on either side, somewhat over 700[6] miles in +length and 15 in width. Where the hills fall away, the Delta begins, a +vast plain cut by the arms of the Nile and by canals. As Herodotus +says, Egypt is wholly the gift of the Nile. + +=The Nile.=--Every year at the summer solstice the Nile, swollen by +the melted snows of Abyssinia, overflows the parched soil of Egypt. It +rises to a height of twenty-six or twenty-seven feet, sometimes even +to thirty-three feet.[7] The whole country becomes a lake from which +the villages, built on eminences, emerge like little islands. The +water recedes in September; by December it has returned to its proper +channel. Everywhere has been left a fertile, alluvial bed which serves +the purpose of fertilization. On the softened earth the peasant sows +his crop with almost no labor. The Nile, then, brings both water and +soil to Egypt; if the river should fail, Egypt would revert, like the +land on either side of it, to a desert of sterile sand where the rain +never falls. The Egyptians are conscious of their debt to their +stream. A song in its honor runs as follows: "Greeting to thee, O +Nile, who hast revealed thyself throughout the land, who comest in +peace to give life to Egypt. Does it rise? The land is filled with +joy, every heart exults, every being receives its food, every mouth is +full. It brings bounties that are full of delight, it creates all good +things, it makes the grass to spring up for the beasts." + +=Fertility of the Country.=--Egypt is truly an oasis in the midst of +the desert of Africa. It produces in abundance wheat, beans, lentils, +and all leguminous foods; palms rear themselves in forests. On the +pastures irrigated by the Nile graze herds of cattle and goats, and +flocks of geese. With a territory hardly equal to that of Belgium, +Egypt still supports 5,500,000 inhabitants. No country in Europe is so +thickly populated, and Egypt in antiquity was more densely thronged +than it is today. + +=The Accounts of Herodotus.=--Egypt was better known to the Greeks +than the rest of the Orient. Herodotus had visited it in the fifth +century B.C. He describes in his History the inundations of the Nile, +the manners, costume, and religion of the people; he recounts events +of their history and tales which his guides had told him. Diodorus and +Strabo also speak of Egypt. But all had seen the country in its +decadence and had no knowledge of the ancient Egyptians. + +=Champollion.=--The French expedition to Egypt (1798-1801) opened the +country to scholars. They made a close examination of the Pyramids +and ruins of Thebes, and collected drawings and inscriptions. But no +one could decipher the hieroglyphs, the Egyptian writing. It was an +erroneous impression that every sign in this writing must each +represent a word. In 1821 a French scholar, Champollion, experimented +with another system. An official had reported that there was an +inscription at Rosetta in three forms of writing--parallel with the +hieroglyphs was a translation in Greek. The name of King Ptolemy, was +surrounded with a cartouche.[8] Champollion succeeded in finding in +this name the letters P, T, O, L, M, I, S. Comparing these with other +names of kings similarly enclosed, he found the whole alphabet. He +then read the hieroglyphs and found that they were written in a +language like the Coptic, the language spoken in Egypt at the time of +the Romans, and which was already known to scholars. + +=Egyptologists.=--Since Champollion, many scholars have travelled over +Egypt and have ransacked it thoroughly. We call these students +Egyptologists, and they are to be found in every country of Europe. A +French Egyptologist, Mariette (1821-1881), made some excavations for +the Viceroy of Egypt and created the museum of Boulak. France has +established in Cairo a school of Egyptology, directed by Maspero. + +=Discoveries.=--Not every country yields such rich discoveries as does +Egypt. The Egyptians constructed their tombs like houses, and laid in +them objects of every kind for the use of the dead--furniture, +garments, arms, and edibles. The whole country was filled with tombs +similarly furnished. Under this extraordinarily dry climate everything +has been preserved; objects come to light intact after a burial of +4,000 or 5,000 years. No people of antiquity have left so many traces +of themselves as the Egyptians; none is better known to us. + + +THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE + +=Antiquity of the Egyptian People.=--An Egyptian priest said to +Herodotus, "You Greeks are only children." The Egyptians considered +themselves the oldest people of the world. Down to the Persian +conquest (520[9] B.C.) there were twenty-six dynasties of kings. The +first ran back 4,000 years,[10] and during these forty centuries Egypt +had been an empire. The capital down to the tenth dynasty (the period +of the Old Empire) was at Memphis in Lower Egypt, later, in the New +Empire, at Thebes in Upper Egypt. + +=Memphis and the Pyramids.=--Memphis, built by the first king of +Egypt, was protected by an enormous dike. The village has existed for +more than five thousand years; but since the thirteenth century the +inhabitants have taken the stones of its ruins to build the houses of +Cairo; what these people left the Nile recaptured. The Pyramids, not +far from Memphis, are contemporaneous with the old empire; they are +the tombs of three kings of the fourth dynasty. The greatest of the +pyramids, 480 feet high, required the labor of 100,000 men for thirty +years.[11] To raise the stones for it they built gradually ascending +platforms which were removed when the structure was completed. + +=Egyptian Civilization.=--The statues, paintings, and instruments +which are taken from the tombs of this epoch give evidence of an +already civilized people. When all the other eminent nations of +antiquity--the Hindoos, Persians, Jews, Greeks, Romans--were still in +a savage state, 3,500 years before our era, the Egyptians had known +for a long time how to cultivate the soil, to weave cloths, to work +metals, to paint, sculpture, and to write; they had an organized +religion, a king, and an administration. + +=Thebes.=--At the eleventh dynasty Thebes succeeds Memphis as capital. +The ruins of Thebes are still standing. They are marvellous, extending +as they do on both banks of the Nile, with a circuit of about seven +miles. On the left bank there is a series of palaces and temples which +lead to vast cemeteries. On the right bank two villages, Luxor and +Karnak, distant a half-hour one from the other, are built in the midst +of the ruins. They are united by a double row of sphinxes, which must +have once included more than 1,000 of these monuments. Among these +temples in ruins the greatest was the temple of Ammon at Karnak. It +was surrounded by a wall of over one and one-third miles in length; +the famous Hall of Columns, the greatest in the world, had a length +of 334 feet, a width of 174 feet,[12] and was supported by 134 +columns; twelve of these are over 65 feet high. Thebes was for 1,500 +years the capital and sacred city, the residence of kings and the +dwelling-place of the priests. + +=The Pharaoh.=--The king of Egypt, called Pharaoh, was esteemed as the +son of the Sun-god and his incarnation on earth; divinity was ascribed +to him also. We may see in a picture King Rameses II standing in +adoration before the divine Rameses who is sitting between two gods. +The king as man adores himself as god. Being god, the Pharaoh has +absolute power over men; as master, he gives his orders to his great +nobles at court, to his warriors, to all his subjects. But the +priests, though adoring him, surround and watch him; their head, the +high priest of the god Ammon, at last becomes more powerful than the +king; he often governs under the name of the king and in his stead. + +=The Subjects of Pharaoh.=--The king, the priests, the warriors, the +nobles, are proprietors of all Egypt; all the other people are simply +their peasants who cultivate the land for them. Scribes in the service +of the king watch them and collect the farm-dues, often with blows of +the staff. One of these functionaries writes as follows to a friend, +"Have you ever pictured to yourself the existence of the peasant who +tills the soil. The tax-collector is on the platform busily seizing +the tithe of the harvest. He has his men with him armed with staves, +his negroes provided with strips of palm. All cry, 'Come, give us +grain,' If the peasant hasn't it, they throw him full length on the +earth, bind him, draw him to the canal, and hurl him in head +foremost." + +=Despotism.=--The Egyptian people has always been, and still is, gay, +careless, gentle, docile as an infant, always ready to submit to +tyranny. In this country the cudgel was the instrument of education +and of government. "The young man," said the scribes, "has a back to +be beaten; he hears when he is struck." "One day," says a French +traveller, "finding myself before the ruins of Thebes, I exclaimed, +'But how did they do all this?' My guide burst out laughing, touched +me on the arm and, showing me a palm, said to me, 'Here is what they +used to accomplish all this. You know, sir, with 100,000 branches of +palms split on the backs of those who always have their shoulders +bare, you can build many a palace and some temples to boot.'" + +=Isolation of the Egyptians.=--The Egyptians moved but little beyond +their borders. As the sea inspired them with terror, they had no +commerce and did not trade with other peoples. They were not at all a +military nation. Their kings, it is true, often went on expeditions at +the head of mercenaries either against the negroes of Ethiopia or +against the tribes of Syria. They gained victories which they had +painted on the walls of their palaces, they brought back troops of +captives whom they used in building monuments; but they never made +great conquests. Foreigners came more to Egypt than Egyptians went +abroad. + +=Religion of the Egyptians.=--"The Egyptians," said Herodotus, "are +the most religious of all men." We do not know any people so devout; +almost all their paintings represent men in prayer before a god; +almost all their manuscripts are religious books. + +=Egyptian Gods.=--The principal deity is a Sun-god, creator, +beneficent, "who knows all things, who exists from the beginning." +This god has a divine wife and son. All the Egyptians adored this +trinity; but not all gave it the same name. Each region gave a +different name to these three gods. At Memphis they called the father +Phtah, the mother Sekhet, the son Imouthes; at Abydos they called them +Osiris, Isis, and Horus; at Thebes, Ammon, Mouth, and Chons. Then, +too, the people of one province adopted the gods of other provinces. +Further, they made other gods emanate from each god of the trinity. +Thus the number of gods was increased and religion was complicated. + +=Osiris.=--These gods have their history; it is that of the sun; for +the sun appeared to the Egyptians, as to most of the primitive +peoples, the mightiest of beings, and consequently a god. Osiris, the +sun, is slain by Set, god of the night; Isis, the moon, his wife, +bewails and buries him; Horus, his son, the rising sun, avenges him by +killing his murderer. + +=Ammon-râ.=--Ammon-râ, god of Thebes, is represented as traversing +heaven each day in a bark ("the good bark of millions of years"); the +shades of the dead propel it with long oars; the god stands at the +prow to strike the enemy with his lance. The hymn which they chanted +in his honor is as follows: "Homage to thee; thou watchest favoringly, +thou watchest truly, O master of the two horizons.... Thou treadest +the heavens on high, thine enemies are laid low. The heaven is glad, +the earth is joyful, the gods unite in festal cheer to render glory +to Râ when they see him rising in his bark after he has overwhelmed +his enemies. O Râ, give abounding life to Pharaoh, bestow bread for +his hunger (belly), water for his throat, perfumes for his hair." + +=Animal-Headed Gods.=--The Egyptians often represented their gods with +human form, but more frequently under the form of a beast. Each god +has his animal: Phtah incarnates himself in the beetle, Horus in the +hawk, Osiris in the bull. The two figures often unite in a man with +the head of an animal or an animal with the head of a man. Every god +may be figured in four forms: Horus, for example, as a man, a hawk, as +man with the head of a hawk, as a hawk with the head of a man. + +=Sacred Animals.=--What did the Egyptians wish to designate by this +symbol? One hardly knows. They, themselves, came to regard as sacred +the animals which served to represent the gods to them: the bull, the +beetle, the ibis, the hawk, the cat, the crocodile. They cared for +them and protected them. A century before the Christian era a Roman +citizen killed a cat at Alexandria; the people rose in riot, seized +him, and, notwithstanding the entreaties of the king, murdered him, +although at the same time they had great fear of the Romans. There was +in each temple a sacred animal which was adored. The traveller Strabo +records a visit to a sacred crocodile of Thebes: "The beast," said he, +"lay on the edge of a pond, the priests drew near, two of them opened +his mouth, a third thrust in cakes, grilled fish, and a drink made +with meal." + +=The Bull Apis.=--Of these animal gods the most venerated was the bull +Apis. It represented at once Osiris and Phtah and lived at Memphis in +a chapel served by the priests. After its death it became an Osiris +(Osar-hapi), it was embalmed, and its mummy deposited in a vault. The +sepulchres of the "Osar-hapi" constituted a gigantic monument, the +Serapeum, discovered in 1851 by Marietta. + +=Cult of the Dead.=--The Egyptians adored also the spirits of the +dead. They seem to have believed at first that every man had a +"double" (Kâ), and that when the man was dead his double still +survived. Many savage peoples believe this to this day. The Egyptian +tomb in the time of the Old Empire was termed "House of the Double." +It was a low room arranged like a chamber, where for the service of +the double there were placed all that he required, chairs, tables, +beds, chests, linen, closets, garments, toilet utensils, weapons, +sometimes a war-chariot; for the entertainment of the double, statues, +paintings, books; for his sustenance, grain and foods. And then they +set there a double of the dead in the form of a statue in wood or +stone carved in his likeness. At last the opening to the vault was +sealed; the double was enclosed, but the living still provided for +him. They brought him foods or they might beseech a god that he supply +them to the spirit, as in this inscription, "An offering to Osiris +that he may confer on the Kâ of the deceased N. bread, drink, meat, +geese, milk, wine, beer, clothing, perfumes--all good things and pure +on which the god (_i.e._ the Kâ) subsists." + +=Judgment of the Soul.=--Later, originating with the eleventh +dynasty, the Egyptians believed that the soul flew away from the body +and sought Osiris under the earth, the realm into which the sun seemed +every day to sink. There Osiris sits on his tribunal, surrounded by +forty-two judges; the soul appears before these to give account of his +past life. His actions are weighed in the balance of truth, his +"heart" is called to witness. "O heart," cries the dead, "O heart, the +issue of my mother, my heart when I was on earth, offer not thyself as +witness, charge me not before the great god." The soul found on +examination to be bad is tormented for centuries and at last +annihilated. The good soul springs up across the firmament; after many +tests it rejoins the company of the gods and is absorbed into them. + +=Mummies.=--During this pilgrimage the soul may wish to re-enter the +body to rest there. The body must therefore be kept intact, and so the +Egyptians learned to embalm it. The corpse was filled with spices, +drenched in a bath of natron, wound with bandages and thus transformed +into a mummy. The mummy encased in a coffin of wood or plaster was +laid in the tomb with every provision necessary to its life. + +=Book of the Dead.=--A book was deposited with the mummy, the Book of +the Dead, which explains what the soul ought to say in the other world +when it makes its defence before the tribunal of Osiris: "I have never +committed fraud; ... I have never vexed the widow; ... I have never +committed any forbidden act; ... I have never been an idler; ... I +have never taken the slave from his master; ... I never stole the +bread from the temples; ... I never removed the provisions or the +bandages of the dead; I never altered the grain measure; ... I never +hunted sacred beasts; I never caught sacred fish; ... I am pure; ... I +have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the +naked; I have sacrificed to the gods, and offered funeral feasts to +dead." Here we see Egyptian morality: observance of ceremonies, +respect for everything pertaining to the gods, sincerity, honesty, and +beneficence. + + +THE ARTS + +=Industry.=--The Egyptians were the first to practice the arts +necessary to a civilized people. From the first dynasty, 3,000[13] +years B.C., paintings on the tomb exhibit men working, sowing, +harvesting, beating and winnowing grain; we have representations of +herds of cattle, sheep, geese, swine; of persons richly clothed, +processions, feasts where the harp is played--almost the same life +that we behold 3,000 years later. As early as this time the Egyptians +knew how to manipulate gold, silver, bronze; to manufacture arms and +jewels, glass, pottery, and enamel; they wove garments of linen and +wool, and cloths, transparent or embroidered with gold. + +=Architecture.=--They were the oldest artists of the world. They +constructed enormous monuments which appear to be eternal, for down to +the present, time has not been able to destroy them. They never built, +as we do, for the living, but for the gods and for the dead, _i.e._, +temples and tombs. Only a slight amount of débris is left of their +houses, and even the palaces of their kings in comparison with the +tombs appear, in the language of the Greeks, to be only inns. The +house was to serve only for a lifetime, the tomb for eternity. + +=Tombs.=--The Great Pyramid is a royal tomb. Ancient tombs ordinarily +had this form. In Lower Egypt there still remain pyramids arranged in +rows or scattered about, some larger, others smaller. These are the +tombs of kings and nobles. Later the tombs are constructed +underground, some under earth, others cut into the granite of the +hills. Each generation needs new ones, and therefore near the town of +living people is built the richer and greater city of the dead +(necropolis). + +=Temples.=--The gods also required eternal and splendid habitations. +Their temples include a magnificent sanctuary, the dwelling of the +god, surrounded with courts, gardens, chambers where the priests +lodge, wardrobes for his jewels, utensils, and vestments. This +combination of edifices, the work of many generations, is encircled +with a wall. The temple of Ammon at Thebes had the labors of the kings +of all the dynasties from the twelfth to the last. Ordinarily in front +of the temple a great gate-way is erected, with inclined faces--the +pylone. On either side of the entrance is an obelisk, a needle of rock +with gilded point, or perhaps a colossus in stone representing a +sitting giant. Often the approach to the temple is by a long avenue +rimmed with sphinxes. + +Pyramids, pylones, colossi, sphinxes, and obelisks characterize this +architecture. Everything is massive, compact, and, above all, immense. +Hence these monuments appear clumsy but indestructible. + +=Sculpture.=--Egyptian sculptors began with imitating nature. The +oldest statues are impressive for their life and freshness, and are +doubtless portraits of the dead. Of this sort is the famous squatting +scribe of the Louvre.[14] But beginning with the eleventh dynasty the +sculptor is no longer free to represent the human body as he sees it, +but must follow conventional rules fixed by religion. And so all the +statues resemble one another--parallel legs, the feet joined, arms +crossed on the breast, the figure motionless; the statues are often +majestic, but always stiff and monotonous. Art has ceased to reproduce +nature and is become a conventional symbol. + +=Painting.=--The Egyptians used very solid colors; after 5,000 years +they are still fresh and bright. But they were ignorant of coloring +designs; they knew neither tints, shadows, nor perspective. Painting, +like sculpture, was subject to religious rules and was therefore +monotonous. If fifty persons were to be represented, the artist made +them all alike. + +=Literature.=--The literature of the Egyptians is found in the +tombs--not only books of medicine, of magic and of piety, but also +poems, letters, accounts of travels, and even romances. + +=Destiny of the Egyptian Civilization.=--The Egyptians conserved their +customs, religion, and arts even after the fall of their empire. +Subjects of the Persians, then the Greeks, and at last of the Romans, +they kept their old usages, their hieroglyphics, their mummies and +sacred animals. At last between the third and second centuries A.D., +Egyptian civilization was slowly extinguished. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] Following the curves of the stream.--ED. + +[7] In some localities, _e.g._ Thebes, the flood is even higher.--ED. + +[8] An enclosing case. + +[9] 525 B.C.--ED. + +[10] The chronology of early Egyptian history is uncertain. Civilization +existed in this land much earlier than was formerly supposed.--ED. + +[11] According to Petrie ("History of Egypt," New York, 1895, i., 40) +_twenty years_ were consumed.--ED. + +[12] Perrot and Chipiez ("History of Ancient Egyptian Art," London. +1883, i., 365) give 340 feet by 170.--ED. + +[13] Probably much earlier than this.--ED. + +[14] The Louvre Museum in Paris has an excellent collection of Egyptian +subjects. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS + +CHALDEA + + +=The Land.=--From the high and snowy mountains of Armenia flow two +deep and rapid rivers, the Tigris to the east, the Euphrates to the +west. At first in close proximity, they separate as they reach the +plain. The Tigris makes a straight course, the Euphrates a great +détour towards the sandy deserts; then they unite before emptying into +the sea. The country which they embrace is Chaldea. It is an immense +plain of extraordinarily fertile soil; rain is rare and the heat is +overwhelming. But the streams furnish water and this clayey soil when +irrigated by canals becomes the most fertile in the world. Wheat and +barley produce 200-fold; in good years the returns are 300-fold. Palms +constitute the forests and from these the people make their wine, meal +and flour.[15] + +=The People.=--For many centuries, perhaps as long as Egypt, Chaldea +has been the abode of civilized peoples. Many races from various lands +have met and mingled in these great plains. There were Turanians of +the yellow race, similar to the Chinese, who came from the north-east; +Cushites, deep brown in color, related to the Egyptians, came from the +east; Semites, of the white race, of the same stock as the Arabs, +descended from the north.[16] The Chaldean people had its origin in +this mixture of races. + +=The Cities.=--Chaldean priests related that their kings had ruled for +150,000 years. While this is a fable, they were right in ascribing +great antiquity to the Chaldean empire. The soil of Chaldea is +everywhere studded with hills and each of these is a mass of débris, +the residue of a ruined city. Many of these have been excavated and +many cities brought to view, (Our, Larsam, Bal-ilou), and some +inscriptions recovered. De Sarsec, a Frenchman, has discovered the +ruins of an entire city, overwhelmed by the invader and its palace +destroyed by fire. These ancient peoples are still little known to us; +many sites remain to be excavated when it is hoped new inscriptions +will be found. Their empire was destroyed about 2,300 B.C.; it may +then have been very old.[17] + + +THE ASSYRIANS + +=Assyria.=--The country back of Chaldea on the Tigris is Assyria. It +also is fertile, but cut with hills and rocks. Situated near the +mountains, it experiences snow in winter and severe storms in summer. + +=Origins.=--Chaldea had for a long time been covered with towns while +yet the Assyrians lived an obscure life in their mountains. About the +thirteenth century B.C. their kings leading great armies began to +invade the plains and founded a mighty empire whose capital was +Nineveh. + +=Ancient Accounts.=--Until about forty years ago we knew almost +nothing of the Assyrians--only a legend recounted by the Greek +Diodorus Siculus. Ninus, according to the story, had founded Nineveh +and conquered all Asia Minor; his wife, Semiramis, daughter of a +goddess, had subjected Egypt, after which she was changed into the +form of a dove. Incapable kings had succeeded this royal pair for the +space of 1,300 years; the last, Sardanapalus, besieged in his capital, +was burnt with his wives. This romance has not a word of truth in it. + +=Modern Discoveries.=--In 1843, Botta, the French consul at Mossoul, +discovered under a hillock near the Tigris, at Khorsabad, the palace +of an Assyrian king. Here for the first time one could view the +productions of Assyrian art; the winged bulls cut in stone, placed at +the gate of the palace were found intact and removed to the Louvre +Museum in Paris. The excavations of Botta drew the attention of +Europe, so that many expeditions were sent out, especially by the +English; Place and Layard investigated other mounds and discovered +other palaces. These ruins had been well preserved, protected by the +dryness of the climate and by a covering of earth. They found walls +adorned with bas-reliefs and paintings; statues and inscriptions were +discovered in great number. It was now possible to study on the ground +the plan of the structures and to publish reproductions of the +monuments and inscriptions. + +The palace first discovered, that of Khorsabad, had been built by King +Sargon at Nineveh, the site of the capital of the Assyrian kings. The +city was built on several eminences, and was encircled by a wall 25 +to 30 miles[18] in length, in the form of a quadrilateral. The wall +was composed of bricks on the exterior and of earth within. The +dwellings of the city have disappeared leaving no traces, but we have +recovered many palaces constructed by various kings of Assyria. +Nineveh remained the residence of the kings down to the time that the +Assyrian empire was destroyed by the Medes and Chaldeans. + +=Inscriptions on the Bricks.=--In these inscriptions every character +is formed of a combination of signs shaped like an arrow or wedge, and +this is the reason that this style of writing is termed cuneiform +(Latin _cuneus_ and _forma_). To trace these signs the writer used a +stylus with a triangular point; he pressed it into a tablet of soft +clay which was afterwards baked to harden it and to make the +impression permanent. In the palace of Assurbanipal a complete library +of brick tablets has been found in which brick serves the purpose of +paper. + +=Cuneiform Writing.=--For many years the cuneiform writing has +occupied the labors of many scholars impatient to decipher it. It has +been exceedingly difficult to read, for, in the first place, it served +as the writing medium of five different languages--Assyrian, Susian, +Mede, Chaldean, and Armenian, without counting the Old Persian--and +there was no knowledge of these five languages. Then, too, it is very +complicated, for several reasons: + + 1. It is composed at the same time of symbolic signs, each of + which represents a word (sun, god, fish), and of syllabic signs, + each of which represents a syllable. + + 2. There are nearly two hundred syllabic signs, much alike and + easy to confuse. + + 3. The same sign is often the representation of a word and a + syllable. + + 4. Often (and this is the hardest condition) the same sign is used + to represent different syllables. Thus the same sign is sometimes + read "ilou," and sometimes "an." This writing was difficult even + for those who executed it. "A good half of the cuneiform monuments + which we possess comprises guides (grammars, dictionaries, + pictures), which enable us to decipher the other half, and which + we consult just as Assyrian scholars did 2,500 years ago."[19] + +Cuneiform inscriptions have been solved in the same manner as the +Egyptian hieroglyphics--there was an inscription in three +languages--Assyrian, Mede, and Persian. The last gave the key to the +other two. + +=The Assyrian People.=--The Assyrians were a race of hunters and +soldiers. Their bas-reliefs ordinarily represent them armed with bow +and lance, often on horseback. They were good knights--alert, brave, +clever in skirmish and battle; also bombastic, deceitful, and +sanguinary. For six centuries they harassed Asia, issuing from their +mountains to hurl themselves on their neighbors, and returning with +entire peoples reduced to slavery. They apparently made war for the +mere pleasure of slaying, ravaging, and pillaging. No people ever +exhibited greater ferocity. + +=The King.=--Following Asiatic usage they regarded their king as the +representative of God on earth and gave him blind obedience. He was +absolute master of all his subjects, he led them in battle, and at +their head fought against other peoples of Asia. On his return he +recorded his exploits on the walls of his palace in a long inscription +in which he told of his victories, the booty which he had taken, the +cities burned, the captives beheaded or flayed alive. We present some +passages from these stories of campaigns: + +Assurnazir-hapal in 882 says, "I built a wall before the great gates +of the city; I flayed the chiefs of the revolt and with their skins I +covered this wall. Some were immured alive in the masonry, others were +crucified or impaled along the wall. I had some of them flayed in my +presence and had the wall hung with their skins. I arranged their +heads like crowns and their transfixed bodies in the form of +garlands." + +In 745 Tiglath-Pilezer II writes, "I shut up the king in his royal +city. I raised mountains of bodies before his gates. All his villages +I destroyed, desolated, burnt. I made the country desert, I changed it +into hills and mounds of débris." + +In the seventh century Sennacherib wrote: "I passed like a hurricane +of desolation. On the drenched earth the armor and arms swam in the +blood of the enemy as in a river. I heaped up the bodies of their +soldiers like trophies and I cut off their extremities. I mutilated +those whom I took alive like blades of straw; as punishment I cut off +their hands." In a bas-relief which shows the town of Susa +surrendering to Assurbanipal one sees the chiefs of the conquered +tortured by the Assyrians; some have their ears cut off, the eyes of +others are put out, the beard torn out, while some are flayed alive. +Evidently these kings took delight in burnings, massacres, and +tortures. + +=Ruin of the Assyrian Empire.=--The Assyrian régime began with the +capture of Babylon (about 1270). From the ninth century the Assyrians, +always at war, subjected or ravaged Babylonia, Syria, Palestine, and +even Egypt. The conquered always revolted, and the massacres were +repeated. At last the Assyrians were exhausted. The Babylonians and +Medes made an alliance and destroyed their empire. In 625 their +capital, Nineveh, "the lair of lions, the bloody city, the city gorged +with prey," as the Jewish prophets call it, was taken and destroyed +forever. "Nineveh is laid waste," says the prophet Nahum, "who will +bemoan her?" + + +THE BABYLONIANS + +=The Second Chaldean Empire.=--In the place of the fallen Assyrian +empire there arose a new power--in ancient Chaldea. This has received +the name Babylonian Empire or the Second Chaldean Empire. A Jewish +prophet makes one say to Jehovah, "I raise up the Chaldeans, that +bitter and hasty nation which shall march through the breadth of the +land to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. Their horses are +swifter than leopards. Their horsemen spread themselves; (their +horsemen) shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat." They were a +people of knights, martial and victorious, like the Assyrians. They +subjected Susiana, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Jordan. But their régime +was short: founded in 625, the Babylonian Empire was overthrown by the +Persians in 538 B.C. + +=Babylon.=--The mightiest of its kings, Nebuchadrezzar (or +Nebuchadnezzar), 604-561, who destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Jews +into captivity, built many temples and places in Babylon, his capital. +These monuments were in crude brick as the plain of the Euphrates has +no supply of stone; in the process of decay they have left only +enormous masses of earth and débris. And yet it has been possible on +the site of Babylon to recover some inscriptions and to restore the +plan of the city. The Greek Herodotus who had visited Babylon in the +fifth century B.C., describes it in detail. The city was surrounded by +a square wall cut by the Euphrates; it covered about 185 square miles, +or seven times the extent of Paris. This immense space was not filled +with houses; much of it was occupied with fields to be cultivated for +the maintenance of the people in the event of a siege. Babylon was +less a city than a fortified camp. The walls equipped with towers and +pierced by a hundred gates of brass were so thick that a chariot might +be driven on them. All around the wall was a large, deep ditch full of +water, with its sides lined with brick. The houses of the city were +constructed of three or four stories. The streets intersected at right +angles. The bridge and docks of the Euphrates excited admiration; the +fortified palace also, and the hanging gardens, one of the seven +wonders of the world. These gardens were terraces planted with trees, +supported by pillars and rows of arches. + +=Tower of Babylon.=--Hard by the city Nebuchadnezzar had aimed to +rebuild the town of Babel. "For the admiration of men," he says in an +inscription: "I rebuilt and renovated the wonder of Borsippa, the +temple of the seven spheres of the world. I laid the foundations and +built it according to its ancient plan." This temple, in the form of a +square, comprised seven square towers raised one above another, each +tower being dedicated to one of the seven planets and painted with the +color attributed by religion to this planet. They were, beginning with +the lowest: Saturn (black), Venus (white), Jupiter (purple), Mercury +(blue), Mars (vermilion), the moon (silver), the sun (gold). The +highest tower contained a chapel with a table of gold and magnificent +couch whereon a priestess kept watch continually. + + +CUSTOMS AND RELIGION + +=Customs.=--We know almost nothing of these peoples apart from the +testimony of their monuments, and nearly all of these refer to the +achievements of their kings. The Assyrians are always represented at +war, hunting, or in the performance of ceremonies; their women never +appear on the bas-reliefs; they were confined in a harem and never +went into public life. The Chaldeans on the contrary, were a race of +laborers and merchants, but of their life we know nothing. Herodotus +relates that once a year in their towns they assembled all the girls +to give them in marriage; they sold the prettiest, and the profits of +the sale of these became a dower for the marriage of the plainest. +"According to my view," he adds, "this is the wisest of all their +laws." + +=Religion.=--The religion of the Assyrians and Chaldeans was the same, +for the former had adopted that of the latter. It is very obscure to +us, since it originated, like that of the Chaldean people, in a +confusion of religions very differently mingled. The Turanians, like +the present yellow race of Siberia, imagined the world full of demons +(plague, fever, phantoms, vampires), engaged in prowling around men to +do them harm; sorcerers were invoked to banish these demons by magical +formulas. The Cushites adored a pair of gods, the male deity of force +and the female of matter. The Chaldean priests, united in a powerful +guild, confused the two religions into a single one. + +=The Gods.=--The supreme god at Babylon is Ilou; in Assyria, Assur. No +temple was raised to him. Three gods proceed from him: Anou, the "lord +of darkness," under the figure of a man with the head of a fish and +the tail of an eagle; Bel, the "sovereign of spirits," represented as +a king on the throne; Nouah, the "master of the visible world," under +the form of a genius with four extended wings. Each has a feminine +counterpart who symbolizes fruitfulness. Below these gods are the Sun, +the Moon, and the five planets, for in the transparent atmosphere of +Chaldea the stars shine with a brilliancy which is strange to us; they +gleam like deities. To these the Chaldeans raised temples, veritable +observatories in which men who adored them could follow all their +motions. + +=Astrology.=--The priests believed that these stars, being powerful +deities, had determining influence on the lives of men. Every man +comes into the world under the influence of a planet and this moment +decides his destiny; one may foretell one's fortune if the star under +which one is born is known. This is the origin of the horoscope. What +occurs in heaven is indicative of what will come to pass on earth; a +comet, for example, announces a revolution. By observing the heavens +the Chaldean priests believed they could predict events. This is the +origin of Astrology. + +=Sorcery.=--The Chaldeans had also magical words; these were uttered +to banish spirits or to cause their appearance. This custom, a relic +of the Turanian religion, is the origin of sorcery. From Chaldea +astrology and sorcery were diffused over the Roman empire, and later +over all Europe. In the formulas of sorcery of the sixteenth century +corrupted Assyrian words may still be detected.[20] + +=Sciences.=--On the other hand it is in Chaldea that we have the +beginning of astronomy. From this land have come down to us the +zodiac, the week of seven days in honor of the seven planets; the +division of the year into twelve months, of the day into twenty-four +hours, of the hour into sixty minutes, of the minute into sixty +seconds. Here originated, too, the system of weights and measures +reckoned on the unit of length, a system adopted by all the ancient +peoples. + + +ARTS + +=Architecture.=--We do not have direct knowledge of the art of the +Chaldeans, since their monuments have fallen to ruin. But the Assyrian +artists whose works we possess imitated those of Chaldea, and so we +may form a judgment at the same time of the two countries. The +Assyrians like the Chaldeans built with crude, sun-dried brick, but +they faced the exterior of the wall with stone. + +=Palaces.=--They constructed their palaces[21] on artificial mounds, +making these low and flat like great terraces. The crude brick was not +adapted to broad and high arches. Halls must therefore be straight and +low, but in compensation they were very long. An Assyrian palace, +then, resembled a succession of galleries; the roofs were flat +terraces provided with battlements. At the gate stood gigantic winged +bulls. Within, the walls were covered now with panelling in precious +woods, now with enamelled bricks, now with plates of sculptural +alabaster. Sometimes the chambers were painted, and even richly +encrusted marbles were used. + +=Sculpture.=--The sculpture of the Assyrian palaces is especially +admirable. Statues, truly, are rare and coarse; sculptors preferred to +execute bas-reliefs similar to pictures on great slabs of alabaster. +They represented scenes which were often very complicated--battles, +chases, sieges of towns, ceremonies in which the king appeared with a +great retinue. Every detail is scrupulously done; one sees the files +of servants in charge of the feast of the king, the troops of workmen +who built his palace, the gardens, the fields, the ponds, the fish in +the water, the birds perched over their nests or flitting from tree to +tree. Persons are exhibited in profile, doubtless because the artist +could not depict the face; but they possess dignity and life. Animals +often appeared, especially in hunting scenes; they are ordinarily made +with a startling fidelity. The Assyrians observed nature and +faithfully reproduced it; hence the merit of their art. + +The Greeks themselves learned in this school, by imitating the +Assyrian bas-reliefs. They have excelled them, but no people, not even +the Greeks, has better known how to represent animals. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] A Persian song enumerates 300 different uses of the palm. + +[16] Or perhaps from the east (Arabia).--ED. + +[17] Recent discoveries confirm the view of a very ancient +civilization--ED. + +[18] Somewhat exaggerated. See Perrot and Chipiez, "History of Art in +Assyria and Chaldea," ii., 60; and Maspero, "Passing of the Empires," p. +468.--ED. + +[19] Lenormant, "Ancient History." + +[20] For example, hilka, hilka, bescha, bescha (begone! begone! bad! +bad!) + +[21] The temples were pyramidal, of stones or terraces similar to the +tower of Borsippa. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ARYANS OF INDIA + +THE ARYANS + + +=Aryan Languages.=--The races which in our day inhabit Europe--Greeks +and Italians to the south, Slavs in Russia, Teutons in Germany, Celts +in Ireland--speak very different languages. When, however, one studies +these languages closely, it is perceived that all possess a stock of +common words, or at least certain roots. The same roots occur in +Sanscrit, the ancient language of the Hindoos, and also in Zend, the +ancient tongue of the Persians. Thus, + +Father--père (French), pitar (Sanscrit), pater (Greek and Latin). It +is the same word pronounced in various ways. From this (and other such +examples) it has been concluded that all--Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, +Latins, Celts, Germans, Slavs--once spoke the same language, and +consequently were one people. + +=The Aryan People.=--These peoples then called themselves Aryans and +lived to the north-west of India, either in the mountains of Pamir, or +in the steppes of Turkestan or Russia; from this centre they dispersed +in all directions. The majority of the people--Greeks, Latins, +Germans, Slavs--forgot their origin; but the sacred books of the +Hindoos and the Persians preserve the tradition. Effort has been +made[22] to reconstruct the life of our Aryan ancestors in their +mountain home before the dispersion. It was a race of shepherds; they +did not till the soil, but subsisted from their herds of cattle and +sheep, though they already had houses and even villages. + +It was a fighting race; they knew the lance, the javelin, and shield. +Government was patriarchal; a man had but one wife; as head of the +family he was for his wife, his children, and his servants at once +priest, judge, and king. In all the countries settled by the Aryans +they have followed this type of life--patriarchal, martial, and +pastoral. + + +PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS + +=The Aryans on the Indus.=--About 2,000 years before our era some +Aryan tribes traversed the passes of the Hindu-Kush and swarmed into +India. They found the fertile plains of the Indus inhabited by a +people of dark skin, with flat heads, industrious and wealthy; they +called these aborigines Dasyous (the enemy). They made war on them for +centuries and ended by exterminating or subjecting them; they then +gradually took possession of all the Indus valley (the region of the +five rivers).[23] They then called themselves Hindoos. + +=The Vedas.=--These people were accustomed in their ceremonies to +chant hymns (vedas) in honor of their gods. These chants constituted +a vast compilation which has been preserved to the present time. They +were collected, perhaps, about the fourteenth century B.C. when the +Aryans had not yet passed the Indus. The hymns present to us the +oldest religion of the Hindoos. + +=The Gods.=--The Hindoo calls his gods devas (the resplendent). +Everything that shines is a divinity--the heavens, the dawn, the +clouds, the stars--but especially the sun (Indra) and fire (Agni). + +=Indra.=--The sun, Indra, the mighty one, "king of the world and +master of creatures," bright and warm, traverses the heavens on a car +drawn by azure steeds; he it is who hurls the thunderbolt, sends the +rain, and banishes the clouds. India is a country of violent tempests; +the Hindoo struck with this phenomenon explained it in his own +fashion. He conceived the black cloud as an envelope in which were +contained the waters of heaven; these beneficent waters he called the +gleaming cows of Indra. When the storm is gathering, an evil genius, +Vritra, a three-headed serpent, has driven away the cows and enclosed +them in the black cavern whence their bellowings are heard (the +far-away rumblings of thunder). Indra applies himself to the task of +finding them; he strikes the cavern with his club, the strokes of +which are heard (the thunderbolt), and the forked tongue of the +serpent (the lightning) darts forth. At last the serpent is +vanquished, the cave is opened, the waters released fall on the earth, +Indra the victor appears in glory. + +=Agni.=--Fire (Agni, the tireless) is regarded as another form of the +sun. The Hindoo, who produces it by rapidly rubbing two pieces of +wood together, imagines that the fire comes from the wood and that the +rain has placed it there. He conceives it then as the fire of heaven +descended to earth; in fact, when one places it on the hearth, it +springs up as if it would ascend toward heaven. Agni dissipates +darkness, warms mankind, and cooks his food; it is the benefactor and +the protector of the house. It is also "the internal fire," the soul +of the world; even the ancestor of the human race is the "son of +lightning." Thus, heat and light, sources of all life, are the deities +of the Hindoo. + +=Worship.=--To adore his gods he strives to reproduce what he sees in +heaven. He ignites a terrestrial fire by rubbing sticks, he nourishes +it by depositing on the hearth, butter, milk, and soma, a fermented +drink. To delight the gods he makes offerings to them of fruits and +cakes; he even sacrifices to them cattle, rams and horses; he then +invokes them, chanting hymns to their praise. "When thou art bidden by +us to quaff the soma, come with thy sombre steeds, thou deity whose +darts are stones. Our celebrant is seated according to prescription, +the sacred green is spread, in the morning stones have been gathered +together. Take thy seat on the holy sward; taste, O hero, our offering +to thee. Delight thyself in our libations and our chants, vanquisher +of Vritra, thou who art honored in these ceremonies of ours, O Indra." + +The Hindoo thinks that the gods, felicitated by his offerings and +homage, will in their turn make him happy. He says naïvely, "Give +sacrifice to the gods for their profit, and they will requite you. +Just as men traffic by the discussion of prices, let us exchange +force and vigor, O Indra. Give to me and I will give to you; bring to +me and I will bring to you." + +=Ancestor Worship.=--At the same time the Hindoo adores his ancestors +who have become gods, and perhaps this cult is the oldest of all. It +is the basis of the family. The father who has transmitted the "fire +of life" to his children makes offering every day at his hearth-fire, +which must never be extinguished, the sacrifice to gods and ancestors, +and utters the prayers. Here it is seen that among Hindoos, as among +other Aryans, the father is at once a priest and a sovereign. + + +THE BRAHMANIC SOCIETY + +=The Hindoos on the Ganges.=--The Hindoos passing beyond the region of +the Indus, between the fourteenth and tenth century B.C. conquered all +the immense plains of the Ganges. Once settled in this fertile +country, under a burning climate, in the midst of a people of slaves, +they gradually changed customs and religion. And so the Brahmanic +society was established. Many works in Sanscrit are preserved from +this time, which, with the Vedas, form the sacred literature of the +Hindoos. The principal are the great epic poems, the Mahabarata, which +has more than 200,000 verses; the Ramayana with 50,000, and the laws +of Manou, the sacred code of India. + +=Caste.=--In this new society there were no longer, as in the time of +the Vedas, poets who chanted hymns to the gods. The men who know the +prayers and the ceremonies are become theologians by profession; the +people revere and obey them. The following is their conception of the +structure of society: the supreme god, Brahma, has produced four kinds +of men to each of whom he has assigned a mission. From his mouth he +drew the Brahmans, who are, of course, the theologians; their mission +is to study, to teach the hymns, to perform the sacrifices. The +Kchatrias have come from his arms; these are the warriors who are +charged with the protection of the people. The Vaïcyas proceed from +the thigh; they must raise cattle, till the earth, loan money at +interest, and engage in commerce. The Soudras issue from his foot; +their only mission is to serve all the others. + +There were already in the Aryan people theologians, warriors, +artisans, and below them aborigines reduced to slavery. These were +classes which one could enter and from which one could withdraw. But +the Brahmans determined that every man should be attached to the +condition in which he was born, he and his descendants for all time. +The son of a workman could never become a warrior, nor the son of a +warrior a theologian. Thus each is chained to his own state. Society +is divided into four hereditary and closed castes. + +=The Unclean.=--Whoever is not included in one of the four castes is +unclean, excluded from society and religion. The Brahmans reckoned +forty-four grades of outcasts; the last and the lowest is that of the +pariahs; their very name is an insult. The outcasts may not practise +any honorable trade nor approach other men. They may possess only dogs +and asses, for these are unclean beasts. "They must have for their +clothing the garments of the dead; for plates, broken pots; ornaments +of iron; they must be ceaselessly on the move from one place to +another." + +=The Brahmans.=--In the organization of society the Brahmans were +assigned the first place. "Men are the first among intelligent beings; +the Brahmans are the first among men. They are higher than warriors, +than kings, even. As between a Brahman of ten years of age and a +Kchatria of one hundred years, the Brahman is to be regarded as the +father." These are not priests as in Egypt and Chaldea, but only men +who know religion, and pass their time in reading and meditating on +the sacred books; they live from presents made to them by other men. +To this day they are the dominating class of India. As they marry only +among themselves, better than the other Hindoos they have preserved +the Aryan type and have a clearer resemblance to Europeans. + +=The New Religion of Brahma.=--The Brahmans did not discard the +ancient gods of the Vedas, they continued to adore them. But by sheer +ingenuity they invented a new god. When prayers are addressed to the +gods, the deities are made to comply with the demands made on them, as +if they thought that prayer was more powerful than the gods. And so +prayer (Brahma) has become the highest of all deities. He is invoked +with awe:[24] "O god, I behold in thy body all the gods and the +multitudes of living beings. I am powerless to regard thee in thine +entirety, for thou shinest like the fire and the sun in thine +immensity. Thou art the Invisible, thou art the supreme Intelligence, +thou art the sovereign treasure of the universe, without beginning, +middle, or end; equipped with infinite might. Thine arms are without +limit, thine eyes are like the moon and the sun, thy mouth hath the +brightness of the sacred fire. With thyself alone thou fillest all the +space between heaven and earth, and thou permeatest all the universe." +Brahma is not only supreme god; he is the soul of the universe. All +beings are born from Brahma, all issue naturally from him, not as a +product comes from the hands of an artisan, but "as the tree from the +seed, as the web from the spider." Brahma is not a deity who has +created the world; he is the very substance of the world. + +=Transmigration of Souls.=--There is, then, a soul, a part of the soul +of Brahma, in every being, in gods, in men, in animals, in the very +plants and stones. But these souls pass from one body into another; +this is the transmigration of souls. When a man dies, his soul is +tested; if it is good, it passes into the heaven of Indra there to +enjoy felicity; if it is bad, it falls into one of the twenty-eight +hells, where it is devoured by ravens, compelled to swallow burning +cakes, and is tormented by demons. But souls do not remain forever in +heaven or in the hells; they part from these to begin a new life in +another body. The good soul rises, entering the body of a saint, +perhaps that of a god; the evil soul descends, taking its abode in +some impure animal--in a dog, an ass, even in a plant. In this new +state it may rise or fall. And this journey from one body to another +continues until the soul by degrees comes to the highest sphere. From +lowest to highest in the scale, say the Brahmans, twenty-four millions +of years elapse. At last perfect, the soul returns to the level of +Brahma from which it descends and is absorbed into it. + +=Character of this Religion.=--The religion of the Aryans, simple and +happy, was that of a young and vigorous people. This is complicated +and barren; it takes shape among men who are not engaged in practical +life; it is enervated by the heat and vexatious of life. + +=Rites.=--The practice of the religion is much more complicated. Hymns +and sacrifices are still offered to the gods, but the Brahmans have +gradually invented thousands of minute customs so that one's life is +completely engaged with them. For all the ceremonies of the religious +life there are prayers, offerings, vows, libations, ablutions. Some of +the religious requirements attach themselves to dress, ornaments, +etiquette, drinking, eating, mode of walking, of lying down, of +sleeping, of dressing, of undressing, of bathing. It is ordered: "That +a Brahman shall not step over a rope to which a calf is attached; that +he shall not run when it rains; that he shall not drink water in the +hollow of his hand; that he shall not scratch his head with both his +hands. The man who breaks clods of earth, who cuts grass with his +nails or who bites his nails is, like the outcast, speedily hurried to +his doom." An animal must not be killed, for a human soul may perhaps +be dwelling in the body; one must not eat it on penalty of being +devoured in another life by the animals which one has eaten. + +All these rites have a magical virtue; he who observes them all is a +saint; he who neglects any of them is impious and destined to pass +into the body of an animal. + +=Purity.=--The principal duty is keeping one's self pure; for every +stain is a sin and opens one to the attack of evil spirits. But the +Brahmans are very scrupulous concerning purity: men outside of the +castes, many animals, the soil, even the utensils which one uses are +so many impure things; whoever touches these is polluted and must at +once purify himself. Life is consumed in purifications. + +=Penances.=--For every defect in the rites, a penance is necessary, +often a terrible one. He who involuntarily kills a cow must clothe +himself in its skin, and for three months, day and night, follow and +tend a herd of cows. Whoever has drunk of arrack[25] must swallow a +boiling liquid which burns the internal organs until death results. + +=The Monks.=--To escape so many dangers and maintain purity, it is +better to leave the world. Often a Brahman when he has attained to a +considerable age withdraws to the desert, fasts, watches, refrains +from speech, exposes himself naked to the rain, holds himself erect +between four fires under the burning sun. After some years, the +solitary becomes "penitent"; then his only subsistence is from +almsgiving; for whole days he lifts an arm in the air uttering not a +word, holding his breath; or perchance, he gashes himself with +razor-blades; or he may even keep his thumbs closed until the nails +pierce the hands. By these mortifications he destroys passion, +releases himself from this life, and by contemplation rises to Brahma. +And yet, this way of salvation is open only to the Brahman; and even +he has the right to withdraw to the desert only in old age, after +having studied the Vedas all his life, practised all the rites, and +established a family. + + +BUDDHISM + +=Buddha.=--Millions of men who were not Brahmans, suffered by this +life of minutiæ and anguish. A man then appeared who brought a +doctrine of deliverance. He was not a Brahman, but of the caste of the +Kchatrias, son of a king of the north. To the age of twenty-nine he +had lived in the palace of his father. One day he met an old man with +bald head, of wrinkled features, and trembling limbs; a second time he +met an incurable invalid, covered with ulcers, without a home; again +he fell in with a decaying corpse devoured by worms. And so, thought +he, youth, health, and life are nothing for they offer no resistance +to old age, to sickness, and to death. He had compassion on men and +sought a remedy. Then he met a religious mendicant with grave and +dignified air; following his example he decided to renounce the world. +These four meetings had determined his calling. + +Buddha fled to the desert, lived seven years in penitence, undergoing +hunger, thirst, and rain. These mortifications gave him no repose. He +ate, became strong, and found the truth. Then he reëntered the world +to preach it; he made disciples in crowds who called him Buddha (the +scholar); and when he died after forty-five years of preaching, +Buddhism was established. + +=Nirvana.=--To live is to be unhappy, taught Buddha. Every man suffers +because he desires the goods of this world, youth, health, life, and +cannot keep them. All life is a suffering; all suffering is born of +desire. To suppress suffering, it is necessary to root out desire; to +destroy it one must cease from wishing to live, "emancipate one's self +from the thirst of being." The wise man is he who casts aside +everything that attaches to this life and makes it unhappy. One must +cease successively from feeling, wishing, thinking. Then, freed from +passion, volition, even from reflection, he no longer suffers, and +can, after his death, come to the supreme good, which consists in +being delivered from all life and from all suffering. The aim of the +wise man is the annihilation of personality: the Buddhists call it +Nirvana. + +=Charity.=--The Brahmans also considered life as a place of suffering +and annihilation as felicity. Buddha came not with a new doctrine, but +with new sentiments. + +The religion of the Brahmans was egoistic. Buddha had compassion on +men, he loved them, and preached love to his disciples. It was just +this word of sympathy of which despairing souls were in need. He bade +to love even those who do us ill. Purna, one of his disciples, went +forth to preach to the barbarians. Buddha said to him to try him, +"There are cruel, passionate, furious men; if they address angry words +to you, what would you think?" "If they addressed angry words to me," +said Purna, "I should think these are good men, these are gentle men, +these men who attack me with wicked words but who strike me neither +with the hand nor with stones." "But if they strike you, what would +you think?" "I should think that those were good men who did not +strike me with their staves or with their swords." "But if they did +strike you with staff and sword, what would you think then?" "That +those are good men who strike me with staff and sword, but do not take +my life." "But if they should take your life?" "I should think them +good men who delivered me with so little pain from this body filled as +it is with pollution." "Well, well, Purna! You may dwell in the +country of the barbarians. Go, proceed on the way to complete Nirvana +and bring others to the same goal." + +=Fraternity.=--The Brahmans, proud of their caste, assert that they +are purer than the others. Buddha loves all men equally, he calls all +to salvation even the pariahs, even the barbarians--all he declares +are equal. "The Brahman," said he, "just like the pariah, is born of +woman; why should he be noble and the other vile?" He receives as +disciples street-sweepers, beggars, cripples, girls who sleep on +dung-hills, even murderers and thieves; he fears no contamination in +touching them. He preaches to them in the street in language simple +with parables. + +=Tolerance.=--The Brahmans passed their lives in the practice of +minute rites, regarding as criminal whoever did not observe them. +Buddha demanded neither rites nor exertions. To secure salvation it +was enough to be charitable, chaste, and beneficent. "Benevolence," +says he, "is the first of virtues. Doing a little good avails more +than the fulfilment of the most arduous religious tasks. The perfect +man is nothing unless he diffuses himself in benefits over creatures, +unless he comforts the afflicted. My doctrine is a doctrine of mercy; +this is why the fortunate in the world find it difficult." + +=Later History of Buddhism.=--Thus was established about 500 years +before Christ a religion of an entirely new sort. It is a religion +without a god and without rites; it ordains only that one shall love +his neighbor and become better; annihilation is offered as supreme +recompense. But, for the first time in the history of the world, it +preaches self-renunciation, the love of others, equality of mankind, +charity and tolerance. The Brahmans made bitter war upon it and +extirpated it in India. Missionaries carried it to the barbarians in +Ceylon, in Indo-China, Thibet, China, and Japan. It is today the +religion of about 500,000,000[26] people. + +=Changes in Buddhism.=--During these twenty centuries Buddhism has +undergone change. Buddha had himself formed communities of monks. +Those who entered these renounced their family, took the vow of +poverty and chastity; they had to wear filthy rags and beg their +living. These religious rapidly multiplied; they founded convents in +all Eastern Asia, gathered in councils to fix the doctrine, proclaimed +dogmas and rules. As they became powerful they, like the Brahmans, +came to esteem themselves as above the rest of the faithful. "The +layman," they said, "plight to support the religious and consider +himself much honored that the holy man accepts his offering. It is +more commendable to feed one religious than many thousands of laymen." +In Thibet the religious, men and women together, constitute a fifth of +the entire population, and their head, the Grand Lama, is venerated +as an incarnation of God. + +At the same time that they transformed themselves into masters, the +Buddhist religious constructed a complicated theology, full of +fantastic figures. They say there is an infinite number of worlds. If +one surrounded with a wall a space capable of holding 100,000 times +ten millions of those worlds, if this wall were raised to heaven, and +if the whole space were filled with grains of mustard, the number of +the grains would not even then equal one-half the number of worlds +which occupy but one division of heaven. All these worlds are full of +creatures, gods, men, beasts, demons, who are born and who die. The +universe itself is annihilated and another takes its place. The +duration of each universe is called _kalpa_; and this is the way we +obtain an impression of a kalpa: if there were a rock twelve miles in +height, breadth, and length, and if once in a century it were only +touched with a piece of the finest linen, this rock would be worn and +reduced to the size of a kernel of mango before a quarter of a kalpa +had elapsed. + +=Buddha Transformed into a God.=--It no longer satisfied the Buddhists +to honor their founder as a perfect man; they made him a god, erecting +idols to him, and offering him worship. They adored also the saints, +his disciples; pyramids and shrines were built to preserve their +bones, their teeth, their cloaks. From every quarter the faithful came +to venerate the impression of the foot of Buddha. + +=Mechanical Prayer.=--Modern Buddhists regard prayer as a magical +formula which acts of itself. They spend the day reciting prayers as +they walk or eat, often in a language which they do not understand. +They have invented prayer-machines; these are revolving cylinders and +around these are pasted papers on which the prayer is written; every +turn of the cylinder counts for the utterance of the prayer as many +times as it is written on the papers. + +=Amelioration of Manners.=--And yet Buddhism remains a religion of +peace and charity. Wherever it reigns, kings refrain from war, and +even from the chase; they establish hospitals, caravansaries, even +asylums for animals. Strangers, even Christian missionaries, are +hospitably received; they permit the women to go out, and to walk +without veiling themselves; they neither fight nor quarrel. At +Bangkok, a city of 400,000 souls, hardly more than one murder a year +is known. + +Buddhism has enfeebled the intelligence and sweetened the +character.[27] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] The process is as follows: when a word (or rather a root) is found +in several Aryan languages at once, it is admitted that this was in use +before the dispersion occurred, and therefore the people knew the object +designated by the word. + +[23] The Punjab.--ED. + +[24] Prayer of the Mahabarata cited by Lenormant. + +[25] A spirituous liquor made by the natives.--ED. + +[26] A high estimate.--ED. + +[27] India is for us the country of the Vedas, the Brahmans, and Buddha. +We know the religion of the Hindoos, but of their political history we +are ignorant. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PERSIANS + +THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER + + +=Iran.=--Between the Tigris and the Indus, the Caspian Sea and the +Persian Gulf rises the land of Iran, five times as great as +France,[28] but partly sterile. It is composed of deserts of burning +sand and of icy plateaux cut by deep and wooded valleys. Mountains +surround it preventing the escape of the rivers which must lose +themselves in the sands or in the salt lakes. The climate is harsh, +very uneven, torrid in summer, frigid in winter; in certain quarters +one passes from 104° above zero to 40° below, from the cold of Siberia +to the heat of Senegal. Violent winds blow which "cut like a sword." +But in the valleys along the rivers the soil is fertile. Here the +peach and cherry are indigenous; the country is a land of fruits and +pastures. + +=The Iranians.=--Aryan tribes inhabited Iran. Like all the Aryans, +they were a race of shepherds, but well armed and warlike. The +Iranians fought on horseback, drew the bow, and, to protect themselves +from the biting wind of their country, wore garments of skin sewed on +the body. + +=Zoroaster.=--Like the ancient Aryans, they first adored the forces of +nature, especially the sun (Mithra). Between the tenth and seventh[29] +centuries before our era their religion was reformed by a sage, +Zarathustra (Zoroaster). We know nothing certainly about him except +his name. + +=The Zend-Avesta.=--No writing from the hand of Zoroaster is preserved +to us; but his doctrine, reduced to writing long after his death, is +conserved in the Zend-Avesta (law and reform), the sacred books of the +Persians. It was a compilation written in an ancient language (the +Zend) which the faithful themselves no longer understood. It was +divided into twenty-one books, inscribed on 12,000 cow skins, bound by +golden cords. The Mohammedans destroyed it when they invaded Persia. +But some Persian families, faithful to the teaching of Zoroaster, fled +into India. Their posterity, whom we call Parsees, have there +maintained the old religion. An entire book of the Zend-Avesta and +fragments of two others have been found among them. + +=Ormuzd and Ahriman.=--The Zend-Avesta is the sacred book of the +religion of Zoroaster. According to these writings Ahura Mazda +(Ormuzd), "the omniscient sovereign," created the world. He is +addressed in prayer in the following language: "I invoke and celebrate +the creator, Ahura Mazda, luminous, glorious, most intelligent and +beautiful, eminent in purity, who possessest the good knowledge, +source of joy, who hast treated us, hast fashioned us, and hast +nourished us." Since he is perfect in his goodness, he can create +only that which is good. Everything bad in the world has been created +by an evil deity, Angra Manyou, (Ahriman), the "spirit of anguish." + +=Angels and Demons.=--Over against Ormuzd, the god and the creator, is +Ahriman, wicked and destructive. Each has in his service a legion of +spirits. The soldiers of Ormuzd are the good angels (yazatas), those +of Ahriman the evil demons (devs). The angels dwell in the East in the +light of the rising sun; the demons in the West in the shadows of the +darkness. The two armies wage incessant warfare; the world is their +battleground, for both troops are omnipresent. Ormuzd and his angels +seek to benefit men, to make them good and happy; Ahriman and his +demons gnaw around them to destroy them, to make them unhappy and +wicked. + +=Creatures of Ormuzd and Ahriman.=--Everything good on the earth is +the work of Ormuzd and works for good; the sun and fire that dispel +the night, the stars, fermented drinks that seem to be liquid fire, +the water that satisfies the thirst of man, the cultivated fields that +feed him, the trees that shade him, domestic animals--especially the +dog,[30] the birds (because they live in the air), among all these the +cock since he announces the day. On the other hand everything that is +baneful comes from Ahriman and tends to evil: the night, drought, +cold, the desert, poisonous plants, thorns, beasts of prey, serpents, +parasites (mosquitoes, fleas, bugs) and animals that live in dark +holes--lizards, scorpions, toads, rats, ants. Likewise in the moral +world life, purity, truth, work are good things and come from Ormuzd; +death, filth, falsehood, idleness are bad, and issue from Ahriman. + +=Worship.=--From these notions proceed worship and morality. Man ought +to adore the good god[31] and fight for him. According to Herodotus, +"The Persians are not accustomed to erect statues, temples, or altars +to their gods; they esteem those who do this as lacking in sense for +they do not believe, as the Greeks do, that the gods have human +forms."[32] Ormuzd manifests himself only under the form of fire or +the sun. This is why the Persians perform their worship in the open +air on the mountains, before a lighted fire. To worship Ormuzd they +sing hymns to his praise and sacrifice animals in his honor. + +=Morality.=--Man fights for Ormuzd in aiding his efforts and in +overcoming Ahriman's. He wars against darkness in supplying the fire +with dry wood and perfumes; against the desert in tilling the soil and +in building houses; against the animals of Ahriman in killing +serpents, lizards, parasites, and beasts of prey. He battles against +impurity in keeping himself clean, in banishing from himself +everything that is dead, especially the nails and hair, for "where +hairs and clipped nails are, demons and unclean animals assemble." He +fights against falsehood by always being truthful. "The Persians," +says Herodotus,[33] "consider nothing so shameful as lying, and after +falsehood nothing so shameful as contracting debts, for he who has +debts necessarily lies." He wars against death by marrying and having +many children. "Terrible," says the Zend-Avesta, "are the houses void +of posterity." + +=Funerals.=--As soon as a man is dead his body belongs to the evil +spirit. It is necessary, then, to remove it from the house. But it +ought not to be burned, for in this way the fire would be polluted; it +should not be buried, for so is the soil defiled; nor is it to be +drowned, and thus contaminate the water. These dispositions of the +corpse would bring permanent pollution. The Persians resorted to a +different method. The body with face toward the sun was exposed in an +elevated place and left uncovered, securely fixed with stones; the +bearers then withdrew to escape the demons, for they assemble "in the +places of sepulture, where reside sickness, fever, filth, cold, and +gray hairs." Dogs and birds, pure animals, then come to purify the +body by devouring it. + +=Destiny of the Soul.=--The soul of the dead separates itself from the +body. In the third night after death it is conducted over the "Bridge +of Assembling" (Schinvat) which leads to the paradise above the gulf +of inferno. There Ormuzd questions it on its past life. If it has +practised the good, the pure spirits and the spirits of dogs support +it and aid it in crossing the bridge and give it entrance into the +abode of the blest; the demons flee, for they cannot bear the odor of +virtuous spirits. The soul of the wicked, on the other hand, comes to +the dread bridge, and reeling, with no one to support it, is dragged +by demons to hell, is seized by the evil spirit and chained in the +abyss of darkness. + +=Character of Mazdeism.=--This religion originated in a country of +violent contrasts, luxuriant valleys side by side with barren steppes, +cool oases with burning deserts, cultivated fields and stretches of +sand, where the forces of nature seem engaged in an eternal warfare. +This combat which the Iranian saw around him he assumed to be the law +of the universe. Thus a religion of great purity was developed, which +urged man to work and to virtue; but at the same time issued a belief +in the devil and in demons which was to propagate itself in the west +and torment all the peoples of Europe. + + +THE PERSIAN EMPIRE + +=The Medes.=--Many were the tribes dwelling in Iran; two of these have +become noted in history--the Medes and the Persians. The Medes at the +west, nearer the Assyrians, destroyed Nineveh and its empire (625). +But soon they softened their manners, taking the flowing robes, the +indolent life, the superstitious religion of the degenerate Assyrians. +They at last were confused with them. + +=The Persians.=--The Persians to the east preserved their manners, +their religion, and their vigor. "For twenty years," says Herodotus, +"the Persians teach their children but three things--to mount a horse, +to draw the bow, and to tell the truth." + +=Cyrus.=--About 550 Cyrus, their chief, overthrew the king of the +Medes, reunited all the peoples of Iran, and then conquered Lydia, +Babylon, and all Asia Minor. Herodotus recounts in detail a legend +which became attached to this prince. Cyrus himself in an inscription +says of himself, "I am Cyrus, king of the legions, great king, mighty +king, king of Babylon, king of Sumir and Akkad, king of the four +regions, son of Cambyses, great king of Susiana, grand-son of Cyrus, +king of Susiana." + +=The Inscription of Behistun.=--The eldest son of Cyrus, Cambyses, put +to death his brother Smerdis and conquered Egypt. What occurred +afterward is known to us from an inscription. Today one may see on the +frontier of Persia, in the midst of a plain, an enormous rock, cut +perpendicularly, about 1,500 feet high, the rock of Behistun. A +bas-relief carved on the rock represents a crowned king, with left +hand on a bow; he tramples on one captive while nine other prisoners +are presented before him in chains. An inscription in three languages +relates the life of the king: "Darius the king declares, This is what +I did before I became king. Cambyses, son of Cyrus, of our race, +reigned here before me. This Cambyses had a brother Smerdis, of the +same father and the same mother. One day Cambyses killed Smerdis. When +Cambyses had killed Smerdis the people were ignorant that Smerdis was +dead. After this Cambyses made an expedition to Egypt and while he was +there the people became rebellious; falsehood was then rife in the +country, in Persia, in Media and the other provinces. There was at +that time a magus named Gaumata; he deceived the people by saying that +he was Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. Then the whole people rose in +revolt, forsook Cambyses and went over to the pretender. After this +Cambyses died from a wound inflicted by himself. + +"After Gaumata had drawn away Persia, Media, and the other countries +from Cambyses, he followed out his purpose: he became king. The people +feared him on account of his cruelty: he would have killed the people +so that no one might learn that he was not Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. +Darius the king declares there was not a man in all Persia or in Media +who dared to snatch the crown from this Gaumata, the magus. Then I +presented myself, I prayed Ormuzd. Ormuzd accorded me his +protection.... Accompanied by faithful men I killed this Gaumata and +his principal accomplices. By the will of Ormuzd I became king. The +empire which had been stolen from our race I restored to it. The +altars that Gaumata, the magus, had thrown down I rebuilt to the +deliverance of the people; I received the chants and the sacred +ceremonials." Having overturned the usurper, Darius had to make war on +many of the revolting princes, "I have," said he, "won nineteen +battles and overcome nine kings." + +=The Persian Empire.=--Darius then subjected the peoples in revolt and +reëstablished the empire of the Persians. He enlarged it also by +conquering Thrace and a province of India. This empire reunited all +the peoples of the Orient: Medes and Persians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, +Jews, PhÅ“nicians, Syrians, Lydians, Egyptians, Indians; it covered +all the lands from the Danube on the west to the Indus on the east, +from the Caspian Sea on the north to the cataracts of the Nile on the +south. It was the greatest empire up to this time. One tribe of +mountaineers, the last to come, thus received the heritage of all the +empires of Asia. + +=The Satrapies.=--Oriental kings seldom concerned themselves with +their subjects more than to draw money from them, levy soldiers, and +collect presents; they never interfered in their local affairs. +Darius, like the rest, left each of the peoples of his empire to +administer itself according to its own taste, to keep its language, +its religion, its laws, often its ancient princes. But he took care to +regulate the taxes which his subjects paid him. He divided all the +empire into twenty[34] districts called satrapies. There were in the +same satrapy peoples who differed much in language, customs, and +beliefs; but each satrapy was to pay a fixed annual tribute, partly in +gold and silver, partly in natural products (wheat, horses, ivory). +The satrap, or governor, had the tribute collected and sent it to the +king. + +=Revenues of the Empire.=--The total revenue of the king amounted to +sixteen millions of dollars and this money was paid by weight. This +sum was in addition to the tributes in kind. These sixteen millions of +dollars, if we estimate them by the value of the metals at this time, +would be equivalent to one hundred and twenty millions in our day. +With this sum the king supported his satraps, his army, his domestic +servants and an extravagant court; there still remained to him every +year enormous ingots of metal which accumulated in his treasuries. +The king of Persia, like all the Orientals, exercised his vanity in +possessing an immense treasure. + +=The Great King.=--No king had ever been so powerful and rich. The +Greeks called the Persian king The Great King. Like all the monarchs +of the East, the king had absolute sway over all his subjects, over +the Persians as well as over tributary peoples. From Herodotus one can +see how Cambyses treated the great lords at his court. "What do the +Persians think of me?" said he one day to Prexaspes, whose son was his +cupbearer. "Master, they load you with praises, but they believe that +you have a little too strong desire for wine." "Learn," said Cambyses +in anger, "whether the Persians speak the truth. If I strike in the +middle of the heart of your son who is standing in the vestibule, that +will show that the Persians do not know what they say." He drew his +bow and struck the son of Prexaspes. The youth fell; Cambyses had the +body opened to see where the shot had taken effect The arrow was found +in the middle of the heart. The prince, full of joy said in derision +to the father of the young man, "You see that it is the Persians who +are out of their senses; tell me if you have seen anybody strike the +mark with so great accuracy." "Master," replied Prexaspes, "I do not +believe that even a god could shoot so surely."[35] + +=Services Rendered by the Persians.=--The peoples of Asia have always +paid tribute to conquerors and given allegiance to despots. The +Persians, at least, rendered them a great service: in subjecting all +these peoples to one master they prevented them from fighting among +themselves. Under their domination we do not see a ceaseless burning +of cities, devastation of fields, massacre or wholesale enslavement of +inhabitants. It was a period of peace. + +=Susa and Persepolis.=--The kings of the Medes and Persians, following +the example of the lords of Assyria, had palaces built for them. Those +best known to us are the palaces at Susa and Persepolis. The ruins of +Susa have been excavated by a French engineer,[36] who has discovered +sculptures, capitals, and friezes in enameled bricks which give +evidence of an advanced stage of art. The palace of Persepolis has +left ruins of considerable mass. The rock of the hill had been +fashioned into an enormous platform on which the palace was built. The +approach to it was by a gently rising staircase so broad that ten +horsemen could ascend riding side by side. + +=Persian Architecture.=--Persian architects had copied the palaces of +the Assyrians. At Persepolis and Susa, as in Assyria, are flat-roofed +edifices with terraces, gates guarded by monsters carved in stone, +bas-reliefs and enameled bricks, representing hunting-scenes and +ceremonies. At three points, however, the Persians improved on their +models: + +(1) They used marble instead of brick; (2) they made in the halls +painted floors of wood; (3) they erected eight columns in the form of +trunks of trees, the slenderest that we know, twelve times as high as +they were thick. + +Thus their architecture is more elegant and lighter than that of +Assyria. + +The Persians had made little progress in the arts. But they seem to +have been the most honest, the sanest, and the bravest people of the +time. For two centuries they exercised in Asia a sovereignty the least +cruel and the least unjust that it had ever known. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] That is, of about the same area as that part of the United States +east of the Mississippi, with Minnesota and Iowa. Modern Persia is not +two-thirds of this area.--ED. + +[29] Most historians place Zoroaster before 1000 B.C.--ED. + +[30] "I created the dog," said Ormuzd, "with a delicate scent and strong +teeth, attached to man, biting the enemy to protect the herds. Thieves +and wolves come not near the sheep-fold when the dog is on guard, strong +in voice and defending the flocks." + +[31] Certain Persian heretics of our day, on the contrary, adore only +the evil god, for, they say, the principle of the good being in itself +good and indulgent does not require appeasing. They are called Yezidis +(worshippers of the devil). + +[32] Herod., i., 131. + +[33] i., 138. + +[34] Herodotus mentions 20, but we find as many as 31 enumerated in the +inscriptions. + +[35] Herod., iii., 34, 35. Compare also iii., 78, 79; and the book of +Esther. + +[36] M. Dieulafoi. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE PHÅ’NICIANS + +THE PHÅ’NICIAN PEOPLE + + +=The Land.=--PhÅ“nicia is the narrow strip of country one hundred and +fifty miles long by twenty-four to thirty wide, shut in between the +sea of Syria and the high range of Lebanon. It is a succession of +narrow valleys and ravines confined by abrupt hills which descend +towards the sea; little torrents formed by the snows or rain-storms +course through these in the early spring; in summer no water remains +except in wells and cisterns. The mountains in this quarter were +always covered with trees; at the summit were the renowned cedars of +Lebanon, on the ridges, pines and cypresses; while lower yet palms +grew even to the sea-shore. In the valleys flourished the olive, the +vine, the fig, and the pomegranate. + +=The Cities.=--At intervals along the rocky coast promontories or +islands formed natural harbors. On these the PhÅ“nicians had founded +their cities; Tyre and Arad were each built on a small island. The +people housed themselves in dwellings six to eight stories in height. +Fresh water was ferried over in ships. The other cities, Gebel, +Beirut, and Sidon arose on the mainland. The soil was inadequate to +support these swarms of men, and so the PhÅ“nicians were before all +else seamen and traders. + +=PhÅ“nician Ruins.=--Not a book of the PhÅ“nicians has come down to us, +not even their sacred book. The sites of their cities have been +excavated. But, in the words of the scholar sent to do this work, +"Ruins are not preserved, especially in countries where people are not +occupied with them," and the Syrians are not much occupied with ruins. +They have violated the tombs to remove the jewels of the dead, have +demolished edifices to secure stone for building purposes, and +Mussulman hatred of chiseled figures has shattered the sculptures.[37] +Very little is found beyond broken marble, cisterns, wine-presses cut +in the rock and some sarcophagi hewn in rock. All this débris gives us +little information and we know very little more of the PhÅ“nicians than +Greek writers and Jewish prophets have taught us. + +=Political Organization of the PhÅ“nicians.=--The PhÅ“nicians never +built an empire. Each city had its little independent territory, its +assemblies, its king, and its government. For general state business +each city sent delegates to Tyre, which from the thirteenth century +B.C. was the principal city of PhÅ“nicia. The PhÅ“nicians were not a +military people, and so submitted themselves to all the +conquerors--Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians. They +fulfilled all their obligations to them in paying tribute. + +=Tyre.=--From the thirteenth century Tyre was the most notable of the +cities. Its island becoming too small to contain it, a new city was +built on the coast opposite. Tyrian merchants had founded colonies in +every part of the Mediterranean, receiving silver from the mines of +Spain and commodities from the entire ancient world. The prophet +Isaiah[38] calls these traders princes; Ezekiel[39] describes the +caravans which came to them from all quarters. It is Hiram, a king of +Tyre, from whom Solomon asked workmen to build his palace and temple +at Jerusalem. + +=Carthage.=--A colony of Tyre surpassed even her in power. In the +ninth century some Tyrians, exiled by a revolution, founded on the +shore of Africa near Tunis the city of Carthage. A woman led them, +Elissar, whom we call Dido (the fugitive). The inhabitants of the +country, says the legend, were willing to sell her only as much land +as could be covered by a bull's hide; but she cut the hide in strips +so narrow that it enclosed a wide territory; and there she constructed +a citadel. Situated at the centre of the Mediterranean, provided with +two harbors, Carthage flourished, sent out colonies in turn, made +conquests, and at last came to reign over all the coasts of Africa, +Spain, and Sardinia. Everywhere she had agencies for her commerce and +subjects who paid her tribute. + +=The Carthaginian Army.=--To protect her colonies from the natives, to +hold her subjects in check who were always ready to revolt, a strong +army was necessary. But the life of a Carthaginian was too valuable to +risk it without necessity. Carthage preferred to pay mercenary +soldiers, recruiting them among the barbarians of her empire and among +the adventurers of all countries. Her army was a bizarre aggregation +in which all languages were spoken, all religions practised, and in +which every soldier wore different arms and costume. There were seen +Numidians clothed in lion skins which served them as couch, mounted +bareback on small fleet horses, and drawing the bow with horse at full +gallop; Libyans with black skins, armed with pikes; Iberians from +Spain in white garments adorned with red, armed with a long pointed +sword; Gauls, naked to the girdle, bearing enormous shields and a +rounded sword which they held in both hands; natives of the Balearic +Islands, trained from infancy to sling with stones or balls of lead. +The generals were Carthaginians; the government distrusted them, +watched them closely, and when they were defeated, had them crucified. + +=The Carthaginians.=--Carthage had two kings, but the senate was the +real power, being composed of the richest merchants of the city. And +so every state question for this government became a matter of +commerce. The Carthaginians were hated by all other peoples, who found +them cruel, greedy, and faithless. And yet, since they had a good +fleet, had money to purchase soldiers, and possessed an energetic +government, they succeeded in the midst of barbarous and divided +peoples in maintaining their empire over the western Mediterranean for +300 years (from the sixth to the third century B.C.). + +=The PhÅ“nician Religion.=--The PhÅ“nicians and the Carthaginians had a +religion similar to that of the Chaldeans. The male god, Baal, is a +sun-god; for the sun and the moon are in the eyes of the PhÅ“nicians +the great forces which create and which destroy. Each of the cities of +PhÅ“nicia has therefore its divine pair: at Sidon it is Baal Sidon (the +sun) and Astoreth (the moon); at Gebel, Baal Tammouz and Baaleth; at +Carthage, Baal-Hamon, and Tanith. But the same god changes his name +according as he is conceived as creator or destroyer; thus Baal as +destroyer is worshipped at Carthage under the name of Moloch. These +gods, represented by idols, have their temples, altars, and priests. +As creators they are honored with orgies, with tumultuous feasts; as +destroyers, by human victims. Astoreth, the great goddess of Sidon, +whom they represented by the crescent of the moon and the dove, had +her cult in the sacred woods. Baal Moloch is figured at Carthage as a +bronze colossus with arms extended and lowered. When they wished to +appease him they laid children in his hands who fell at once into a +pit of fire. During the siege of Carthage by Agathocles the principal +men of the city sacrificed to Moloch as many as two hundred of their +children. + +This sensual and sanguinary religion inspired other peoples with +horror, but they imitated it. The Jews sacrificed to Baal on the +mountains; the Greeks adored Astarte of Sidon under the name of +Aphrodite, and Baal Melkhart of Tyre under the name of Herakles. + + +PHÅ’NICIAN COMMERCE + +=PhÅ“nicians Occupations.=--Crowded into a small territory, the +PhÅ“nicians gained their livelihood mainly from commerce. None of the +other peoples of the East--the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the +Assyrians, nor the barbarian tribes of the West (Spaniards, Gauls, +Italians) had a navy. The PhÅ“nicians alone in this time dared to +navigate. They were the commission merchants of the old world; they +went to every people to buy their merchandise and sold them in +exchange the commodities of other countries. This traffic was by +caravan with the East, by sea with the West. + +=Caravans.=--On land the PhÅ“nicians sent caravans in three directions: + + 1.--Towards Arabia, from which they brought gold, agate, and onyx, + incense and myrrh, and the perfumes of Arabia; pearls, spices, + ivory, ebony, ostrich plumes and apes from India. + + 2.--Towards Assyria, whence came cotton and linen cloths, asphalt, + precious stones, perfumery, and silk from China. + + 3.--Towards the Black Sea, where they went to receive horses, + slaves, and copper vases made by the mountaineers of the Caucasus. + +=Marine Commerce.=--For their sea commerce they built ships from the +cedars of Lebanon to be propelled by oars and sails. In their sailing +it was not necessary to remain always in sight of the coast, for they +knew how to direct their course by the polar star. Bold mariners, they +pushed in their little boats to the mouth of the Mediterranean; they +ventured even to pass through the strait of Gibraltar or, as the +ancients called it, the Pillars of Hercules, and took the ocean course +to the shores of England, and perhaps to Norway, PhÅ“nicians in the +service of a king of Egypt started in the seventh century B.C. to +circumnavigate Africa, and returned, it is said, at the end of three +years by the Red Sea. An expedition issuing from Carthage skirted the +coast of Africa to the Gulf of Guinea; the commander Hanno wrote an +account of the voyage which is still preserved. + +=Commodities.=--To civilized peoples the PhÅ“nicians sold the products +of their industry. In barbarous countries they went to search for what +they could not find in the Orient. On the coast of Greece they +gathered shell-fish from which they extracted a red tint, the purple; +cloths colored with purple were used among all the peoples of ancient +times for garments of kings and great lords. + +From Spain and Sardinia they brought the silver which the inhabitants +took from the mines. Tin was necessary to make bronze, an alloy of +copper and tin, but the Orient did not furnish this, and so they +sought it even on the coasts of England, in the Isles of Tin (the +Cassiterides). In every country they procured slaves. Sometimes they +bought them, as lately the slavers bought negroes on the coast of +Africa, for all the peoples of this time made commerce in slaves; +sometimes they swooped down on a coast, threw themselves on the women +and children and carried them off to be retained in their own cities +or to be sold abroad; for on occasion they were pirates and did not +scruple to plunder strangers. + +=The Secrets Kept by the PhÅ“nicians.=--The PhÅ“nicians did not care to +have mariners of other peoples come into competition with them. On the +return from these far countries they concealed the road which they had +travelled. No one in antiquity knew where were the famous Isles of the +Cassiterides from which they got their tin. It was by chance that a +Greek ship discovered Spain, with which the PhÅ“nicians had traded for +centuries. Carthage drowned the foreign merchants whom they found in +Sardinia or on the shore of Gibraltar. Once a Carthaginian +merchantman, seeing a strange ship following it, was run aground by +the pilot that the foreigner might not see where he was going. + +=Colonies.=--In the countries where they traded, the PhÅ“nicians +founded factories, or branch-houses. They were fortified posts on a +natural harbor. There they landed their merchandise, ordinarily +cloths, pottery, ornaments, and idols.[40] The natives brought down +their commodities and an exchange was made, just as now European +merchants do with the negroes of Africa. There were PhÅ“nician markets +in Cyprus, in Egypt, and in all the then barbarous countries of the +Mediterranean--in Crete, Greece, Sicily, Africa, Malta, Sardinia, on +the coasts of Spain at Malaga and Cadiz, and perhaps in Gaul at +Monaco. Often around these PhÅ“nician buildings the natives set up +their cabins and the mart became a city. The inhabitants adopted the +PhÅ“nician gods, and even after the city had become Greek, the cult of +the dove-goddess was found there (as in Cythera), that of the god +Melkhart (as at Corinth), or of the god with the bull-face that +devours human victims (as in Crete). + +=Influence of the PhÅ“nicians.=--It is certain that the PhÅ“nicians in +founding their trading stations cared only for their own interest. But +it came to pass that their colonies contributed to civilization. The +barbarians of the West received the cloths, the jewels, the utensils +of the peoples of the East who were more civilized, and, receiving +them, learned to imitate them. For a long time the Greeks had only +vases, jewels, and idols brought by the PhÅ“nicians, and these served +them as models. The PhÅ“nicians brought simultaneously from Egypt and +from Assyria industry and commodities. + +=The Alphabet.=--At the same time they exported their alphabet. The +PhÅ“nicians did not invent writing. The Egyptians knew how to write many +centuries before them, they even made use of letters each of which +expressed its own sound, as in our alphabet. But their alphabet was +still encumbered with ancient signs which represented, some a syllable, +others an entire word. Doubtless the PhÅ“nicians had need of a simpler +system for their books of commerce. They rejected all the syllabic signs +and ideographs, preserving only twenty-two letters, each of which marks +a sound (or rather an articulation of the language). The other peoples +imitated this alphabet of twenty-two letters. Some, like the Jews, wrote +from right to left just as the PhÅ“nicians themselves did; others, like +the Greeks, from left to right. All have slightly changed the form of +the letters, but the PhÅ“nician alphabet is found at the basis of all +the alphabets--Hebrew, Lycian, Greek, Italian, Etruscan, Iberian, +perhaps even in the runes of the Norse. It is the PhÅ“nicians that taught +the world how to write. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] Renan ("Mission de Phénicio," p. 818) says, "I noticed at Tripolis +a sarcophagus serving as a public fountain and the sculptured face of it +was turned to the wall. I was told that a governor had placed it thus so +as not to provide distractions for the inhabitants." + +[38] See ch. xxiii. + +[39] See chs. xxvi., xxvii., xxviii. + +[40] These idols, one of their principal exports, are found wherever the +PhÅ“nicians traded. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HEBREWS + +ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE + + +=The Bible.=--The Jews united all their sacred books into a single +aggregation which we call by a Greek name the Bible, that is to say, +the Book. It is the Book par excellence. The sacred book of the Jews +became also the sacred book of the Christians. The Bible is at the +same time the history of the Jewish nation, and all that we know of +the sacred people we owe to the sacred books. + +=The Hebrews.=--When the Semites had descended from the mountains of +Armenia into the plains of the Euphrates, one of their tribes, at the +time of the first Chaldean empire, withdrew to the west, crossed the +Euphrates, the desert, and Syria and came to the country of the Jordan +beyond PhÅ“nicia. This tribe was called the Hebrews, that is to say, +the people from beyond the river. Like the majority of the Semites +they were a race of nomadic shepherds. They did not till the soil and +had no houses; they moved from place to place with their herds of +cattle, sheep, and camels, seeking pasturage and living in tents as +the Arabs of the desert do to this day. In the book of Genesis one has +a glimpse of this nomad life. + +=The Patriarchs.=--The tribe was like a great family; it was composed +of the chief, his wives, his children, and his servants. The chief had +absolute authority over all; for the tribe he was father, priest, +judge, and king. We call these tribal chiefs patriarchs. The principal +ones were Abraham and Jacob; the former the father of the Hebrews, the +latter of the Israelites. The Bible represents both of them as +designed by God to be the scions of a sacred people. Abraham made a +covenant with God that he and his descendants would obey him; God +promised to Abraham a posterity more numerous than the stars of +heaven. Jacob received from God the assurance that a great nation +should issue from himself. + +=The Israelites.=--Moved by a vision Jacob took the name of Israel +(contender with God). His tribe was called Beni-Israel (sons of +Israel) or Israelites. The Bible records that, driven by famine, Jacob +abandoned the Jordan country to settle with all his house on the +eastern frontier of Egypt, to which Joseph, one of his sons who had +become minister of a Pharaoh, invited him. There the sons of Israel +abode for several centuries. Coming hither but seventy in number, they +multiplied, according to the Bible, until they became six hundred +thousand men, without counting women and children. + +=The Call of Moses.=--The king of Egypt began to oppress them, +compelling them to make mortar and bricks for the construction of his +strong cities. It was then that one of them, Moses, received from God +the mission to deliver them. One day while he was keeping his herds on +the mountain, an angel appeared to him in the midst of a burning +bush, and he heard these words: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of +Isaac, the God of Jacob. I have seen the affliction of my people which +is in Egypt, I have heard their cry against their oppressors, I know +their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of +the Egyptians and to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey, +to the place of the Canaanites.... Come now therefore and I will send +thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children +of Israel, out of Egypt."[41] The Israelites under the guidance of +Moses fled from Egypt (the Exodus); they journeyed to the foot of +Mount Sinai, where they received the law of God, and for an entire +generation wandered in the deserts to the south of Syria. + +=Israel in the Desert.=--Often the Israelites wished to turn back. "We +remember," said they, "the fish which we ate in Egypt, the cucumbers, +melons, leeks, and onions. Let us appoint a chief who will lead us +back to Egypt." Moses, however, held them to obedience. At last they +reached the land promised by God to their race. + +=The Promised Land.=--It was called the land of Canaan or Palestine; +the Jews named it the land of Israel, later Judea. Christians have +termed it =the= Holy Land. It is an arid country, burning with heat in +the summer, but a country of mountains. The Bible describes it thus: +"Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of +water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a +land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and +pomegranates; a land of oil olive and honey, wherein thou shalt eat +bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it." The +Israelites according to their estimate were then 601,700 men capable +of bearing arms, divided among twelve tribes, ten descended from +Jacob, two from Joseph; this enumeration does not include the Levites +or priests to the number of 23,000. The land was occupied by several +small peoples who were called Canaanites. The Israelites exterminated +them and at last occupied their territory. + + +THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL + +=One God.=--The other ancient peoples adored many gods; the Israelites +believed in but one God, immaterial, who made the world and governs +it. "In the beginning," says the book of Genesis, "God created the +heavens and the earth." He created plants and animals, he "created man +in his own image." All men are the handiwork of God. + +=The People of God.=--But among all mankind God has chosen the +children of Israel to make of them "his people." He called Abraham and +said to him, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy +seed after me ... to be a God unto thee and to thy seed." He appeared +to Jacob: "I am God," said he to him, "the God of thy father; fear not +to go down into Egypt, for I will make of thee there a great nation." +When Moses asks his name, he replies, "Thou shalt say to the children +of Israel, The Lord, the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the +God of Isaac, the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you. This is my name +forever." + +=The Covenant.=--There is, then, a covenant between the Israelites and +God. Jehovah (the Eternal) loves and protects the Israelites, they are +"a holy nation," "his most precious jewel among all the nations." He +promises to make them mighty and happy. In return, the Israelites +swear to worship him, to serve him, to obey him in everything as a +lawgiver, a judge, and a sovereign. + +=The Ten Commandments.=--Jehovah, lawgiver of the Israelites, dictated +his precepts to Moses on Mount Sinai amidst lightnings and +thunderings. They were inscribed on two tables, the Tables of the Law, +in these terms: + +"Hear, O Israel, I am Jehovah, thy God, who brought you out of the +land of Egypt, from the land of bondage." (Then follow the ten +commandments to be found in the twentieth chapter of the book of +Exodus.) + +=The Law.=--Beside the ten commandments, the Israelites are required +to obey many other divine ordinances. These are all delivered to them +in the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and constitute +the Law of Israel. The Law regulates the ceremonies of religion, +establishes the feasts--including the Sabbath every seven days, the +Passover in memory of the escape from Egypt, the week of harvest, the +feast of Tabernacles during the vintage; it organizes marriage, the +family, property, government, fixes the penalty of crimes, indicates +even foods and remedies. It is a code at once religious, political, +civil and penal. God the ruler of the Israelites has the right to +regulate all the details of their lives. + +=Religion has made the Jewish People.=--The Israelites did not receive +with docility the government of God. Moses on his death-bed could say +to the Levites in delivering to them the book of the law, "Take this +book that it may be a witness against you, Israel, for I know thy +rebellion and thy stiff neck" (Deut. xxxi. 27). "During my life you +have been rebellious against the Lord, and how much more after my +death." During these centuries some of the Israelites, often the +majority of the nation, had been idolaters. They became similar to the +other Semites of Syria. Only the Israelites who remained faithful to +God formed the Jewish people. It is the religion of Jehovah which has +transformed an obscure tribe into the holy nation, a small nation, but +one of the most significant in the history of the world. + + +THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL + +=The Judges.=--Once established in Palestine the Hebrews remained +divided for several centuries. "In those days," says the Bible, "there +was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own +eyes." Often the Israelites forgot Jehovah and served the gods of +neighboring tribes. Then "the anger of the Lord was kindled against +the Israelites, and he delivered them into the hands of their +enemies." When they had repented and had humbled themselves, "the Lord +raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those that +spoiled them." "But it came to pass that at the death of the judge +they corrupted themselves anew ... bowing themselves to other gods." +These judges--Gideon, Jephthah, Samson--were warriors who came in the +name of Jehovah to free the people. Then they fell at once into +idolatry again and their servitude was repeated. + +=The Kings.=--At last the Israelites were wearied and asked of Samuel, +the high-priest, that he would give them a king. Samuel unwillingly +placed Saul at their head. This king should have been the ready +servant of the will of God; he dared to disobey him, upon which the +high-priest said to him, "Thou hast rejected the word of the Lord and +the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel." A war-chief, +David, was set in his place. He defeated all the enemies of Israel, +captured from them Mount Zion, and transferred his capital thither. +This was Jerusalem. + +=Jerusalem.=--Compared with Babylon or Thebes, Jerusalem was a poor +capital. The Hebrews were not builders; their religion prevented them +from raising temples; the houses of individuals were shaped like cubes +of rock which may be seen today on the sides of Lebanon in the midst +of vines and fig-trees. But Jerusalem was the holy city of the +Hebrews. The king had his palace there--the palace of Solomon, who +astonished the Hebrews with his throne of ivory; Jehovah had his +temple there, the first Hebrew temple. + +=The Tabernacle.=--The emblem of the covenant between God and Israel +was a great chest of cedar-wood furnished with rings of gold, which +contained the tables of the Law. This was borne before the people on +high feast-days; it was the Ark of the Covenant. To preserve this ark +and necessary objects of worship, Moses is said to have made the +Tabernacle--a pavilion of wood covered with skins and hangings. It was +a portable temple which the Hebrews carried with them until they could +erect a true temple in the promised land. + +=The Temple.=--The Temple of Jerusalem, built at last under Solomon, +was divided into three parts: + + 1.--To the rear, the Holy of Holies, in which rested the ark of + the covenant; the high-priest only had the right to enter here, + and that but once a year. + + 2.--In the middle, the Holy Place, in which were kept the altar of + incense, the candle-stick with the seven arms, the table of + shew-bread; the priests entered to burn incense and to present the + offerings. + + 3.--At the front, the Court open to the people, where the victims + were sacrificed on the great altar. + +The Temple of Jerusalem was from the first the centre of the nation; +from all Palestine the people came to be present at the ceremonies. +The high-priest who directed the worship was a person sometimes of +greater power than the king. + + +THE PROPHETS + +=Disasters of Israel.=--Solomon was the last king who enjoyed great +power. After him ten tribes separated themselves and constituted the +kingdom of Israel, whose inhabitants worshipped the golden calves and +the gods of the PhÅ“nicians. Two tribes only remained faithful to +Jehovah and to the king at Jerusalem; these formed the kingdom of +Judah (977).[42] The two kingdoms exhausted their energies in making +war on each other. Then came the armies of the Eastern conquerors; +Israel was destroyed by Sargon, king of Assyria (722); Judah, by +Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadrezzar), king of Chaldea (586). + +=Sentiments of the Israelites.=--Faithful Israelites regarded these +woes as a chastisement: God was punishing his people for their +disobedience; as before, he delivered them from their conquerors. "The +children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah, their God, they had +built them high places in every city, they imitated the nations around +them, although the Lord had forbidden them to do like them; they made +them idols of brass; they bowed themselves before all the host of +heaven [the stars], they worshipped Baal. It is for this that Jehovah +rejected all the race of Israel, he afflicted them and delivered them +into the hands of those that plundered them." + +=The Prophets.=--Then appeared the prophets, or as they were called, +the Seers: Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. Usually they came from +the desert where they had fasted, prayed, and given themselves to +meditation. They came in the name of Jehovah, not as warriors in +judgment, but as preachers. They called the Israelites to repent, to +overthrow their idols, to return to Jehovah; they foretold all the +woes that would come upon them if they did not reconcile themselves to +him. They preached and uttered prophecies at the same time. + +=The New Teaching.=--These men on fire with the divine spirit found +the official religion at Jerusalem mean and cold. Why should they, +like the idolaters, slaughter cattle and burn incense to the honor of +God? "Hear the word of Jehovah," says Isaiah: "To what purpose is the +multitude of your sacrifices? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams +and of the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of +bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.... Bring no more vain +oblations, your incense is an abomination to me.... When ye spread +forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you ... for your hands +are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean ... cease to do evil, +learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the +fatherless, plead for the widow.... Though your sins be as scarlet, +they shall be as white as snow." In place of sacrifices, the prophets +would set justice and good works. + +=The Messiah.=--Israel deserved its afflictions, but there would be a +limit to the chastisement. "O my people," says Isaiah in the name of +Jehovah, "be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a +rod ... after the manner of Egypt ... for yet a very little while and +the indignation shall cease ... and the burden shall be taken away +from off thy shoulder." The prophets taught the people to look for the +coming of Him who should deliver them; they prepared the way for the +Messiah. + + +THE JEWISH PEOPLE + +=Return to Jerusalem.=--The children of Judah, removed to the plain of +the Euphrates, did not forget their country, but sang of it in their +chants: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept +when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the +midst thereof, for there they that carried us away required a song ... +saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' How shall we sing the +Lord's song in a strange land?" After seventy years of captivity, +Cyrus, victor over Babylon, allowed the Israelites to return to +Palestine. They rebuilt Jerusalem, reconstructed the temple, restored +the feasts, and recovered the sacred books. As a sign that they were +again the people of Jehovah they renewed the covenant with him; it was +a formal treaty, written and signed by the chiefs of the people. + +=The Jews.=--The little kingdom of Jerusalem maintained itself for +seven centuries, governed now by a king, now by the high-priest, but +always paying tribute to the masters of Syria--to the Persians first, +later to the Macedonians and the Syrians, and last of all to the +Romans. Faithful to the end to Jehovah, the Jews (their proper name +since the return) continued to live the law of Moses, to celebrate at +Jerusalem the feasts and the sacrifices. The high-priest, assisted by +a council of the elders, preserved the law; scribes copied it and +doctors expounded it to the people. The faithful obliged themselves to +observe it in the smallest details. The Pharisees were eminent among +them for their zeal in fulfilling all its requirements. + +=The Synagogues.=--Meanwhile the Jews for the sake of trade were +pushing beyond the borders of Judæa into Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and +even to Italy. Some of them were to be found in all the great +cities--Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome. +Dispersed among the Gentiles, the Jews were strenuous to preserve +their religion. They raised no temples, for the law prevented this; +there could be but one Jewish temple, that at Jerusalem, where they +celebrated the solemn feasts. But they joined themselves together to +read and comment on the word of God. These places of assembling were +called Synagogues, from a Greek word signifying meetings. + +=Destruction of the Temple.=--The Christ appeared at this moment. The +Jews crucified him and persecuted his disciples not only in Judæa but +in every city where they found them in any number. In the year 70 A.D. +Jerusalem, in revolt against the Romans, was taken by assault, and all +the inhabitants were massacred or sold into slavery. The Romans burnt +the temple and carried away the sacred utensils. From that time there +was no longer a centre of the Jewish religion. + +=Fortunes of the Jews after the Dispersion.=--The Jewish nation +survived the ruin of its capital. The Jews, scattered throughout the +world, learned to dispense with the temple. They preserved their +sacred books in the Hebrew tongue. Hebrew is the primitive language of +Israel; the Jews since the return from Babylon no longer spoke it, but +adopted the languages of the neighboring peoples--the Syriac, the +Chaldean, and especially the Greek. The Rabbis, however, instructed in +the religion, still learned the Hebrew, explained it, and commented on +the Scripture.[43] Thus the Jewish religion was preserved, and, +thanks to it, the Jewish people. It made converts even among the +Gentiles; there were in the empire proselytes, that is, people who +practised the religion of Jehovah without being of the Jewish race. + +The Christian Church, powerful since the fourth century, commenced to +persecute the Jews. This persecution has endured to this day in all +Christian countries. Usually the Jews were tolerated on account of +their wealth and because they transacted all banking operations; but +they were kept apart, not being permitted to hold any office. In the +majority of cities they were compelled to wear a special costume, to +live in a special quarter,[44] gloomy, filthy, unhealthy, and +sometimes at Easter time to send one of their number to suffer insult. +The people suspected them of poisoning fountains, of killing children, +of profaning the consecrated host; often the people rose against them, +massacred them, and pillaged their houses. Judges under the least +pretext had them imprisoned, tortured, and burned. Sometimes the +church tried to convert them by force; sometimes the government exiled +them _en masse_ from the country and confiscated their goods. The Jews +at last disappeared from France,[45] from Spain, England, and Italy. +In Portugal, Germany, and Poland, and in the Mohammedan lands they +maintained themselves. From these countries after the cessation of +persecution they returned to the rest of Europe. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[41] Exodus iii, 1-10. + +[42] There is much uncertainty regarding the chronology of this +period.--ED. + +[43] The Talmud is the accumulation of these commentaries. + +[44] The Jewish Quarter at Rome was called the Ghetto. This name has +since been applied to all Jewish quarters. + +[45] Except at Avignon, on the domains of the Pope, and in +Alsace-Lorraine. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +GREECE AND THE GREEKS + + +=The Country.=--Greece is a very little country (about 20,000 square +miles), hardly larger than Switzerland; but it is a country of great +variety, bristling with mountains, indented with gulfs--a country +originally constituted to influence mightily the character of the men +who inhabited it. + +A central chain, the Pindus, traverses Greece through the centre and +covers it with its rocky system. Toward the isthmus of Corinth it +becomes lower; but the Peloponnesus, on the other side of the isthmus, +is elevated about 2,000 feet above the sea level, like a citadel +crowned with lofty chains, abrupt and snowy, which fall +perpendicularly into the sea. The islands themselves scattered along +the coast are only submerged mountains whose summits rise above the +surface of the sea. In this diverse land there is little tillable +ground, but almost everywhere bare rock. The streams, like brooks, +leave between their half-dried channel and the sterile rock of the +mountain only a narrow strip of fertile soil. In this beautiful +country are found some forests, cypresses, laurels, palms, here and +there vines scattered on the rocky hillsides; but there are no rich +harvests and no green pasturages. Such a country produces wiry +mountaineers, active and sober. + +=The Sea.=--Greece is a land of shores: smaller than Portugal, it has +as great a coast-line as Spain. The sea penetrates it to a great +number of gulfs, coves, and indentations; it is ordinarily surrounded +with projecting rocks, or with approaching islands that form a natural +port. This sea is like a lake; it has not, like the ocean, a pale and +sombre color; usually it is calm, lustrous, and, as Homer says, "of +the color of violets." + +No sea lends itself better to navigation with small ships. Every +morning the north wind rises to conduct the barques of Athens to Asia; +in the evening the south wind brings them back to port. From Greece to +Asia Minor the islands are placed like stepping-stones; on a clear day +the mariner always has land in view. Such a sea beckons people to +cross it. + +And so the Greeks have been sailors, traders, travellers, pirates, and +adventurers; like the PhÅ“nicians, they have spread over all the +ancient world, carrying with them the merchandise and the inventions +of Egypt, of Chaldea, and of Asia. + +=The Climate.=--The climate of Greece is mild. In Athens it freezes +hardly once in twenty years; in summer the heat is moderated by the +breeze from the sea.[46] Today the people still lie in the streets +from the month of May to September. The air is cool and transparent; +for many leagues could once be seen the crest of the statue of Pallas. +The contours of distant mountains are not, as with us, enveloped in +haze, but show a clear line against the clear sky. It is a beautiful +country which urges man to take life as a feast, for everything is +happy about him. "Walking at night in the gardens, listening to the +grasshoppers, playing the lute in the clear of the moon, going to +drink at the spring at the mountain, carrying with him some wine that +he may drink while he sings, spending the days in dancing--these are +Greek pleasures, the joys of a race poor, economical, and eternally +young." + +=Simplicity of Greek Life.=--In this country men are not melted with +the heat nor stiffened with cold; they live in the open air gay and at +slight expense. Food in great quantity is not required, nor warm +clothing, nor a comfortable house. The Greek could live on a handful +of olives and a sardine. His entire clothing consisted of sandals, a +tunic, a large mantle; very often he went bare-footed and bare-headed. +His house was a meagre and unsubstantial building; the air easily +entered through the walls. A couch with some coverings, a coffer, some +beautiful vases, a lamp,--this was his furniture. The walls were bare +and whitened with lime. This house was only a sleeping place. + + +THE PEOPLE + +=Origin of the Greeks.=--The people who inhabited this charming little +land were an Aryan people, related to the Hindoos and the Persians, +and like them come from the mountains of Asia or the steppes beyond +the Caspian Sea. The Greeks had forgotten the long journey made by +their ancestors; they said that they, like the grasshoppers, were the +children of the soil.[47] But their language and the names of their +gods leave no doubt of their origin.... Like all the Aryans, the +primitive Greeks nourished themselves with milk and with the flesh of +their herds; they moved about under arms, always ready to fight, and +grouped themselves in tribes governed by patriarchs. + +=The Legends.=--The Greeks like all the other ancient peoples were +ignorant of their origin. They neither knew whence their ancestors had +come nor when they had established themselves in Greece, nor what they +had done there. To preserve the exact memory of things as they occur, +there is need of some means of fixing them; but the Greeks did not +know how to write; they did not employ writing until about the eighth +century B.C. They had no way of calculating the number of years. Later +they adopted the usage of counting the years according to the great +feast which was celebrated every four years at Olympia; a period of +four years was called an olympiad. But the first olympiad was placed +in 776 B.C., and the chronology of the Greeks does not rise beyond +this date. + +And yet they used to tell in Greece a great number of legends about +this primitive period. These were especially the exploits of ancient +kings and of heroes who were adored as demi-gods. These stories were +so mingled with fable that it is impossible to know how much truth +they may contain. They said at Athens that the first king, Cecrops, +was half man and half serpent; at Thebes, that Cadmus, founder of the +city, had come from PhÅ“nicia to seek his sister Europa who had been +stolen by a bull; that he had killed a dragon and had sowed his teeth, +from which was sprung a race of warriors, and that the noble families +of Thebes descended from these warriors. At Argos it was said that the +royal family was the issue of Pelops to whom Zeus had given a shoulder +of ivory to replace the one devoured by a goddess. Thus each country +had its legends and the Greeks continued to the end to relate them and +to offer worship to their ancient heroes--Perseus, Bellerophon, +Herakles, Theseus, Minos, Castor and Pollux, Meleager, Å’dipus. The +majority of the Greeks, even among the better educated, admitted, at +least in part, the truth of these traditions. They accepted as +historical facts the war between the two sons of Å’dipus, king of +Thebes, and the expedition of the Argonauts, sailing forth in quest of +the Golden Fleece, which was guarded by two brazen-footed bulls +vomiting flames. + +=The Trojan War.=--Of all these legends the most fully developed and +the most celebrated was the legend of the Trojan War. It recounted +that about the twelfth century, Troy, a rich and powerful city, held +sway over the coast of Asia. Paris, a Trojan prince, having come to +Greece, had abducted Helen, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. +Agamemnon, king of Argos, made a league of the kings of Greece; a +Greek army went in a fleet of two hundred galleys to besiege Troy. The +siege endured ten years because the supreme god, Zeus, had taken the +side of the Trojans. All the Greek chiefs participated in this +adventure. Achilles, the bravest and the most beautiful of these, +killed Hector, the principal defender of Troy, and dragged his corpse +around the city; he fought clad in divine armor which had been +presented him by his mother, a goddess of the sea; in turn he died, +shot by an arrow in the heel. The Greeks, despairing of taking the +city by force, employed a trick: they pretended to depart, and left an +immense horse of wood in which were concealed the chiefs of the army. +The Trojans drew this horse into the city; during the night the chiefs +came forth and opened the city to the Greeks. Troy was burnt, the men +slaughtered, the women led away as slaves. But the chiefs of the +Greeks on their return were beset by tempest. Some perished in the +sea, others were cast on foreign shores. Odysseus, the most crafty of +the chiefs, was for ten years buffeted from one land to another, +losing successively all his ships, himself the sole survivor of the +disasters. + +All antiquity had steadfast faith in the Trojan War. 1184 B.C. was set +as the date of the ending of the siege, and men pointed out the site +of the city. In 1874 Schliemann purposed to excavate this site; it was +necessary to traverse the débris of many cities which lay over it; at +last at a depth of about fifty feet he found in the deepest bed of +débris the traces of a mighty city reduced to ashes, and in the ruins +of the principal edifice a casket filled with gems of gold which he +called the Treasury of Priam. There was no inscription, and the city, +the whole wall of which we have been able to bring to light, was a +very small one. A large number of small, very rude idols have been +found, which represent an owl-headed goddess (the Greeks thus +represented the goddess Pallas). Beyond this no proof has been found +that this city was called Troy. + +=The Homeric Poems.=--It is the two poems attributed to Homer which +have made the taking of Troy renowned throughout the world--the +Iliad, which related the combats of the Greeks and the exploits of +Achilles before Troy; and the Odyssey, which recounts the adventures +of Odysseus (Ulysses) after the capture of Troy. + +These two poems were handed down for centuries without being committed +to writing; the rhapsodists, wandering singers, knew long passages +from them by heart and recited them at feasts. It is not till the +sixth century that Pisistratus, a prince of Athens, had them collected +and edited.[48] The two poems became from that time and always +remained the most admired works of Greek literature. + +The Greeks said that the author of these poems was Homer, a Greek of +Ionia, who lived about the tenth or the ninth century B.C. They +represented him as a blind old man, poor and a wanderer. Seven towns +disputed the honor of being his birth-place. This tradition was +received without hesitation. But at the end of the eighteenth century +a German scholar, Wolf, noticed certain contradictions in these poems, +and at last asserted that they were not the work of a single poet, but +a collection of fragments from several different poets. This theory +has been attacked and supported with great energy: for a half century +men have flown into a passion for or against the existence of Homer. +Today we begin to think the problem insoluble. What is certain is that +these poems are very old, probably of the ninth century. The Iliad was +composed in Asia Minor and is perhaps the result of the union of two +poems--one dedicated to the combats of the Trojans, and the other to +the adventures of Achilles. The Odyssey appears to be the work of one +author; but it cannot be affirmed that it is of the same author as the +Iliad. + +=The Greeks at the Time of Homer.=--We are not able to go back very +far in the history of the Greeks; the Homeric poems are their oldest +historical document. When these were composed, about the ninth century +B.C., there was not yet any general name to designate all the +inhabitants of Greece: Homer mentions them under the names of their +principal tribes. From his description it appears that they have made +some progress since their departure from Asia. They know how to till +the ground, how to construct strong cities and to organize themselves +into little peoples. They obey kings; they have a council of old men +and an assembly of the people. They are proud of their institutions, +they despise their less advanced neighbors, the Barbarians, as they +call them. Odysseus, to show how rude the Cyclops were, says, "They +have no rules of justice nor places where they deliberate; each one +governs himself, his wife, and children, and has no association with +others." But these Greeks themselves are half barbarians; they do not +know how to write, to coin money, nor the art of working in iron. They +hardly dare to trust themselves on the sea and they imagine that +Sicily is peopled with monsters. + +=The Dorians.=--Dorians was the name given to those sons of the +mountaineers who had come from the north and had expelled or subjected +those dwelling in the plains and on the shore of the Peloponnesus; +the latter, crowded into too narrow limits, sent colonies into Asia. +Of these mountain bands the most renowned came from a little canton +called Doris and preserved the name Dorians. These invaders told how +certain kings of Sparta, the posterity of Herakles, having been thrust +out by their subjects, had come to seek the Dorians in their +mountains. These people of the mountains, moved by their love for +Herakles, had followed his descendants and had replaced them on their +throne. By the same stroke they dispossessed the inhabitants and took +their place. They were a martial, robust, and healthy race, accustomed +to cold, to meagre food, to a scant existence. Men and women wore a +short tunic which did not reach to the knee. They spoke a rude and +primitive dialect. The Dorians were a race of soldiers, always obliged +to keep themselves under arms; they were the least cultivated in +Greece, since, situated far from the sea, they preserved the customs +of the barbarous age; they were the most Greek because, being +isolated, they could neither mingle with strangers nor imitate their +manners. + +=The Ionians.=--The peoples of Attica, the isles, and the coast of +Asia were called Ionians; no one knows the origin of the name. Unlike +the Dorians, they were a race of sailors or traders, the most cultured +of Greece, gaining instruction from contact with the most civilized +peoples of the Orient; the least Greek, because they associated with +Asiatics and had in part adopted their dress. They were peaceful and +industrious, living luxuriously, speaking a smooth dialect, and +wearing long flowing garments like the Orientals. + +=The Hellenes.=--Dorians and Ionians--these are the two opposing +races, the most remarkable of Greece, and the most powerful: Sparta is +Dorian, Athens is Ionian. But the majority of the Greeks are neither +Dorians nor Ionians: they are called Æolians, a vague name which +covers very different peoples. + +All the Greeks from early times take the name "Hellenes" which they +have kept to this day. What is the origin of the term? They did not +know any more than we: they said only that Dorus and Æolus were sons +of Hellen, and Ion was his grandson. + +=Cities.=--The Hellenes were still in little peoples as at the time of +Homer. The land of Greece, cut by mountains and sea, breaks naturally +into a large number of small cantons, each isolated from its neighbor +by an arm of the sea or by a wall of rocks, so that it is easy to +defend the land and difficult to communicate with other parts. Each +canton constituted a separate state which was called a city. There +were more than a hundred of these; counting the colonies, more than a +thousand. To us a Greek state seems a miniature. The whole of Attica +was but little larger than the state of Delaware, and Corinth or +Megara was much smaller. Usually the state was only a city with a +strip of shore and a harbor, or some villages scattered in the plain +around a citadel. From one state one sees the citadel, mountains, or +harbor of the next state. Many of them count their citizens only by +thousands; the largest included hardly 200,000 or 300,000. + +The Hellenes never formed one nation; they never ceased to fight and +destroy one another. And yet all spoke the same language, worshipped +the same gods, and lived the same sort of a life. In these respects +they recognized the bonds of a common race and distinguished +themselves from all other peoples whom they called barbarians and +regarded with disdain. + + +THE HELLENES BEYOND SEA + +=Colonization.=--The Hellenes did not inhabit Greece alone. Colonists +from the Greek cities had gone forth to found new cities in all the +neighboring countries. There were little states in all the islands of +the Archipelago, over all the coast of Asia Minor, in Crete and +Cyprus, on the whole circumference of the Black Sea as far as the +Caucasus and the Crimea, along the shore of Turkey in Europe (then +called Thrace), on the shore of Africa, in Sicily, in south Italy, and +even on the coasts of France and Spain. + +=Character of These Colonies.=--Greek colonies were being founded all +the time from the twelfth century to the fifth; they issued from +various cities and represented all the Greek races--Dorian, Ionian, +and Æolian. They were established in the wilderness, in an inhabited +land, by conquest, or by an agreement with the natives. Mariners, +merchants, exiles, or adventurers were their founders. But with all +this diversity of time, place, race, and origin, the colonies had +common characteristics: they were established at one stroke and +according to certain fixed rules. The colonists did not arrive one by +one or in small bands; nor did they settle at random, building houses +which little by little became a city, as is the case now with European +colonists in America. All the colonists started at once under a +leader, and the new city was founded in one day. The foundation was a +religious ceremony; the "founder" traced a sacred enclosure, +constructed a sacred hearth, and lighted there the holy fire. + +=Traditions Concerning the Colonists.=--The old stories about the +founding of some of these colonies enable us to see how they differed +from modern colonies. The account of the settlement of Marseilles runs +as follows: Euxenus, a citizen of Phocæa, coming to Gaul in a merchant +galley, was invited by a Gallic chief to the marriage of his daughter; +according to the custom of this people, the young girl about the time +of the feast entered bearing a cup which she was to present to the one +whom she would choose for a husband; she stopped before the Greek and +offered him the cup. This unpremeditated act appeared to have been +inspired from heaven; the Gallic chief gave his daughter to Euxenus +and permitted him and his companions to found a city on the gulf of +Marseilles. Later the Phocæans, seeing their city blockaded by the +Persian army, loaded on their ships their families, their movables, +the statues and treasures of their temple and went to sea, abandoning +their city. As they started, they threw into the sea a mass of red-hot +iron and swore never to return to Phocæa until the iron should rise to +the surface of the water. Many violated this oath and returned; but +the rest continued the voyage and after many adventures came to +Marseilles. + +At Miletus the Ionians who founded the city had brought no wives with +them; they seized a city inhabited by the natives of Asia, slaughtered +all the men, and forcibly married the women and girls of the families +of their victims. It was said that the women, affronted in this +manner, swore never to eat food with their captors and never to call +them by the name of husband; this custom was for centuries preserved +among the women of Miletus.[49] + +The colony at Cyrene in Africa was founded according to the express +command of the oracle of Apollo. The inhabitants of Thera, who had +received this order, did not care to go to an unknown country. They +yielded only at the end of seven years since their island was +afflicted with dearth; they believed that Apollo had sent misfortune +on them as a penalty. Nevertheless the citizens who were sent out +attempted to abandon the enterprise, but their fellow-citizens +attacked them and forced them to return. After having spent two years +on an island where no success came to them, they at last came to +settle at Cyrene, which soon became a prosperous city.[50] + +=Importance of the Colonies.=--Wherever they settled, the colonists +constituted a new state which in no respect obeyed the mother town +from which they had come out. And so the whole Mediterranean found +itself surrounded by Greek cities independent one of the others. Of +these cities many became richer and more powerful than their mother +towns; they had a territory which was larger and more fertile, and in +consequence a greater population. Sybaris, it was said, had 300,000 +men who were capable of bearing arms. Croton could place in the field +an infantry force of 120,000 men. Syracuse in Sicily, Miletus in Asia +had greater armies than even Sparta and Athens. South Italy was termed +Great Greece. In comparison with this great country fully peopled with +Greek colonies the home country was, in fact, only a little Greece. +And so it happened that the Greeks were much more numerous in the +neighboring countries than in Greece proper; and among these people of +the colonies figure a good share of the most celebrated names: Homer, +Alcæus, Sappho, Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus, +Empedocles, Aristotle, Archimedes, Theocritus, and many others. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[46] "Balmy and clement," says Euripides, "is our atmosphere. The cold +of winter has no extremes for us, and the shafts of the sun do not +wound." + +[47] Autochthones. + +[48] The story of the collection of the Homeric poems by Pisistratus is +without foundation--"eine blosse Fabel." Busolt, "Griechische +Geschichte." Gotha, 1893, i., 127.--ED. + +[49] Probably this custom has another origin the recollection of which +was lost.--ED. + +[50] Herodotus, iv., 150-158. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GREEK RELIGION + + +=The Gods. Polytheism.=--The Greeks, like the ancient Aryans, believed +in many gods. They had neither the sentiment of infinity nor that of +eternity; they did not conceive of God as one for whom the heavens are +only a tent and the earth a foot-stool. To the Greeks every force of +nature--the air, the sun, the sea--was divine, and as they did not +conceive of all these phenomena as produced by one cause, they +assigned each to a particular god. This is the reason that they +believed in many gods. They were polytheists. + +=Anthropomorphism.=--Each god was a force in nature and carried a +distinct name. The Greeks, having a lively imagination, figured under +this name a living being, of beautiful form and human characteristics. +A god or goddess was represented as a beautiful man or woman. When +Odysseus or Telemachus met a person peculiarly great and beautiful, +they began by asking him if he were not a god. Homer in describing the +army pictured on the shield of Achilles adds, "Ares and Athena led the +army, both clad in gold, beautiful and great, as becomes the gods, for +men were smaller." Greek gods are men; they have clothing, palaces, +bodies similar to ours; if they cannot die, they can at least be +wounded. Homer relates how Ares, the god of war, struck by a warrior, +fled howling with pain. This fashion of making gods like men is what +is called _Anthropomorphism_. + +=Mythology.=--The gods, being men, have parents, children, property. +Their mothers were goddesses, their brothers were gods, and their +children other gods or men who were half divine. This genealogy of the +gods is what is called the _Theogony_. The gods have also a history; +we are told the story of their birth, the adventures of their youth, +their exploits. Apollo, for example, was born on the island of Delos +to which his mother Latona had fled; he slew a monster which was +desolating the country at the foot of Parnassus. Each canton of Greece +had thus its tales of the gods. These are called myths; the sum of +them is termed _Mythology_, or the history of the gods. + +=The Local Gods.=--The Greek gods, even under their human form, +remained what they were at first, phenomena of nature. They were +thought of both as men and as forces of nature. The Naiad is a young +woman, but at the same time a bubbling fountain. Homer represents the +river Xanthus as a god, and yet he says, "The Xanthus threw itself on +Achilles, boiling with fury, full of tumult, foam, and the bodies of +the dead." The people itself continued to say "Zeus rains" or "Zeus +thunders." To the Greek the god was first of all rain, storm, heaven, +or sun, and not the heaven, sun, or earth in general, but that corner +of the heaven under which he lived, the land of his canton, the river +which traversed it. Each city, then, had its divinities, its sun-god, +its earth-goddess, its sea-god, and these are not to be confounded +with the sun, the earth, and the sea of the neighboring city. The +Zeus of Sparta is not the same as the Zeus of Athens; in the same oath +one sometimes invokes two Athenas or two Apollos. A traveller who +would journey through Greece[51] would therefore meet thousands of +local gods (they called them Poliades, or gods of the city). No +torrent, no wood, no mountain was without its own deity,[52] although +often a minor divinity, adored only by the people of the vicinity and +whose sanctuary was only a grotto in the rock. + +=The Great Gods.=--Above the innumerable legion of local gods of each +canton the Greeks imagined certain great divinities--the heaven, the +sun, the earth, and the sea--and these everywhere had the same name, +and had their temple or sanctuary in every place. Each represented one +of the principal forces of nature. These gods common to all the Greeks +were never numerous; if all are included, we have hardly twenty.[53] +We have the bad habit of calling them by the name of a Latin god. The +following are their true names: Zeus (Jupiter), Hera (Juno), Athena +(Minerva), Apollo, Artemis (Diana), Hermes (Mercury), Hephaistos +(Vulcan), Hestia (Vesta), Ares (Mars), Aphrodite (Venus), Poseidon +(Neptune), Amphitrite, Proteus, Kronos (Saturn), Rhea (Cybele), +Demeter (Ceres), Persephone (Proserpina), Hades (Pluto), Dionysos +(Bacchus). It is this little group of gods that men worshipped in all +the temples, that men ordinarily invoked in their prayers. + +=Attributes of the Gods.=--Each of these great gods had his form, his +costume, his instruments (which we call his attributes); it is thus +that the faithful imagined him and that the sculptors represented him. +Each has his character which is well known to his worshippers. Each +has his rôle in the world, performing his determined functions, +ordinarily with the aid of secondary divinities who obey him. + +Athena, virgin of clear eye, is represented standing, armed with a +lance, a helmet on the head, and gleaming armor on the breast. She is +the goddess of the clear air, of wisdom, and of invention, a goddess +of dignity and majesty. + +Hephaistos, the god of fire, is figured with a hammer and in the form +of a lame and ugly blacksmith. It is he who forges the thunderbolt. + +Artemis, shy maiden, armed with bow and quiver, courses the forests +hunting with a troop of nymphs. She is the goddess of the woods, of +the chase, and of death. + +Hermes, represented with winged sandals, is the god of the fertile +showers. But he has other offices; he is the god of streets and +squares, the god of commerce, of theft, and of eloquence. He it is who +guides the souls of the dead, the messenger of the gods, the deity +presiding over the breeding of cattle. + +Almost always a Greek god has several functions, quite dissimilar to +our eyes, but to the Greeks bearing some relation to one another. + +=Olympus and Zeus.=--Each one of these gods is like a king in his own +domain. Still the Greeks had remarked that all the forces of nature do +not operate by chance and that they act in harmony; the same word +served them for the idea of order and of universe. They supposed, +then, that the gods were in accord for the administration of the +world, and that they, like men, had laws and government among them. + +In the north of Greece there was a mountain to whose snowy summit no +man had ever climbed. This was Olympus. On this summit, which was +hidden by clouds from the eyes of men, it was imagined the gods +assembled. Meeting under the light of heaven, they conferred on the +affairs of the world. Zeus, the mightiest of them, presided over the +gathering: he was god of the heavens and of the light, the god "who +masses the clouds," who launches the thunderbolt--an old man of +majestic mien, with long beard, sitting on a throne of gold. It is he +who commands and the other gods bow before him. Should they essay to +resist, Zeus menaces them; Homer makes him say,[54] "Bind to heaven a +chain of gold, and all of you, gods or goddesses, throw your weight +upon it; all your united efforts cannot draw Zeus, the sovereign +ordainer, to the earth. On the contrary, if I wished to draw the chain +to myself, I should bring with it the earth and the very sea. Then I +would attach it to the summit of Olympus and all the universe would be +suspended. By so much am I superior to gods and men." + +=Morality of the Greek Mythology.=--The greater part of their gods +were conceived by the Greeks as violent, sanguinary, deceitful, +dissolute. They ascribed to them scandalous adventures or dishonest +acts. Hermes was notorious for his thieving, Aphrodite for her +coquetry, Ares for his ferocity. All were so vain as to persecute +those who neglected to offer sacrifices to them. Niobe had seen all +her children pierced with arrows by Apollo because she herself had +boasted of her numerous family. The gods were so jealous that they +could not endure seeing a man thoroughly happy; prosperity for the +Greeks was the greatest of dangers, for it never failed to draw the +anger of the gods, and this anger became a goddess (Nemesis) about +whom were told such anecdotes as the following: Once Polycrates of +Samos, become very powerful, feared the jealousy of the gods; and so a +ring of gold which he still retained was cast into the sea that his +good fortune might not be unmixed with evil. Some time after, a +fisherman brought to Polycrates an enormous fish and in its belly was +found the ring. This was a certain presage of evil. Polycrates was +besieged in his city, taken, and crucified. The gods punished him for +his good fortune. + +Greek mythology was immoral in that the gods gave bad examples to men. +The Greek philosophers were already saying this and were inveighing +against the poets who had published these stories. A disciple of +Pythagoras affirmed that his master, descending to hell, had seen the +soul of Homer hanging to a tree and that of Hesiod bound to a column +to punish them for calumniating the gods. "Homer and Hesiod," Said +Xenophanes, "attribute to the gods all the acts which among men are +culpable and shameful; there is but one god who neither in body nor in +soul resembles men." And he added this profound remark: "If oxen and +lions had hands and could manipulate like men, they would have made +gods with bodies similar to their own, horses would have framed gods +with horses' bodies, and cattle with cattle's.... Men think that the +gods have their feelings, their voice, and their body." Xenophanes was +right; the primitive Greeks had created their gods in their own image. +As they were then sanguinary, dissolute, jealous, and vain, their gods +were the same. Later, as the people became better, their descendants +were shocked with all these vices; but the history and the character +of the gods were fixed by the ancient traditions, and later +generations, without daring to change them, had received the gross and +dishonest gods of their ancestors. + + +THE HEROES + +=The Hero.=--The hero in Greece is a man who has become illustrious, +and after death a mighty spirit--not a god, but a demi-god. The heroes +do not live on Olympus in the heaven of the gods, they do not direct +the life of the world. And yet they, too, possess a power higher than +that of any human, and this permits them to aid their friends and +destroy their enemies. For this reason the Greeks rendered them +worship as to the gods and implored their protection. There was not a +city, not a tribe, not a family but had its hero, a protecting spirit +which it adored. + +=Different Kinds of Heroes.=--Of these heroes many are legendary +persons (Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon); some without doubt never +existed (Herakles, Å’dipus); others like Hellen, Dorus, Æolus are only +names. But their worshippers regarded them as men of the olden time; +and, in fact, the most of the heroes lived at one time. Many are +historical personages: generals like Leonidas, Lysander; philosophers +like Democritus and Aristotle; legislators like Lycurgus and Solon. +The people of Croton adored even one of their fellow-citizens, Philip +by name, because he had been in his time the most beautiful man in +Greece. The leader who had guided a band of colonists and founded a +city became for the inhabitants the Founder; a temple was raised to +him and every year sacrifices were offered to him. The Athenian +Miltiades was thus worshipped in a city of Thrace. The Spartiate +Brasidas, killed in the defence of Amphipolis, had divine honors paid +to him in that city, for the inhabitants had come to regard him as +their Founder. + +=Presence of the Heroes.=--The hero continued to reside in the place +where his body was interred, either in his tomb or in the +neighborhood. A story told by Herodotus (v. 67) depicts this belief in +a lively way. The city of Sicyon adored the hero Adrastus and in a +public place was a chapel dedicated to his honor. Cleisthenes, the +tyrant of Sicyon, took a fancy to rid himself of this hero. He went to +the oracle at Delphi to ask if it would aid him in expelling Adrastus. +The oracle replied to his question that Adrastus was king of the +Sicyonians and Cleisthenes was a brigand. The tyrant, not daring to +evict the hero, adopted a ruse; he sent to Thebes to seek the bones +of Melanippus, another hero, and installed them with great pomp in the +sanctuary of the city. "He did this," says Herodotus, "because +Melanippus during his life had been the greatest enemy of Adrastus and +had killed his brother and his son-in-law." Then he transferred to +Melanippus the festivals and the sacrifices formerly paid to the honor +of Adrastus. He was persuaded, and all the Greeks with him, that the +hero would be irritated and would flee. + +=Intervention of the Heroes.=--The heroes have divine power; like the +gods, they can according to their whim send good or evil. The poet +Stesichorus had spoken ill of the famous Helen (that Helen who the +legend states was carried away to Troy); he suddenly became blind; +when he retracted what he had said, the heroine restored his sight. + +The protecting heroes of a city kept it from plagues and famine and +even fought against its enemies. At the battle of the Marathon the +Athenian soldiers saw in the midst of them Theseus, the mythical +founder of Athens, clad in shining armor. During the battle of Salamis +the heroes Ajax and Telamon, once kings of Salamis, appeared on the +highest point of the island extending their hands to the Greek fleet. +"It is not we," said Themistocles, "that have vanquished the Persians; +it is the gods and heroes." In "Å’dipus at Colonus," a tragedy of +Sophocles, Å’dipus at the point of death receives the visit of the king +of Athens and of the king of Thebes, both of whom as gods request him +to have his body interred in their territory, and to become a +protecting hero. Å’dipus at last consents to be buried in the soil of +the Athenians, and says to the king, "Dead, I shall not be a useless +inhabitant of this country, I shall be a rampart for you, stronger +than millions of warriors." In himself alone a hero was as efficient +as a whole army; his spirit was mightier than all living men. + + +WORSHIP + +=Principles of Worship of the Gods.=--Gods and heroes, potent as they +were, bestowed on men all good or evil fortune according to their +will. It was dangerous to have them against you, wise to have them on +your side. They were conceived as like men, irritated if they were +neglected, contented if they were venerated. On this principle worship +was based. It consisted in doing things agreeable to the gods to +obtain their favor. Plato expresses as follows[55] the thought of the +common man, "To know how to say and do those things that are pleasing +to the gods, either in prayers or in offerings, this is piety which +brings prosperity to individuals and to states. The reverse is impiety +which ruins everything." "It is natural," says Xenophon at the end of +his treatise on Cavalry, "that the gods should favor those especially +who not only consult them in need, but honor them in the day of +prosperity." Religion was first of all a contract; the Greek sought to +delight the gods and in return required their services. "For a long +time," says a priest of Apollo to his god, "I have burned fat +bullocks for you; now grant my petitions and discharge your arrows +against my enemies." + +=The Great Festivals.=--Since the gods had the feelings of men they +were to be pleased in the same way as men. Wine, cakes, fruits, food +were brought to them. Palaces were built for them. Festivals were +given in their honor, for they were "joyous gods" who loved pleasure +and beautiful spectacles. A festival was not, as with us, purely an +occasion of rejoicing, but a religious ceremony. On those days free +from the daily toil men were required to rejoice in public before the +god. The Greek, without doubt, delighted in these fêtes; but it is for +the god and not for himself that he celebrates them. "The Ionians," +says an ancient hymn to Apollo, "delight thee with trial of strength, +the hymn, and the dance." + +=The Sacred Games.=--From these diversions offered to the gods +originated the solemn games. Each city had them to the honor of its +gods; ordinarily only its citizens were admitted to them; but in four +districts of Greece were celebrated games at which all Greeks could be +present and participate. These are called the Four Great Games. + +The principal of these four festivals was that at Olympia. This was +given every four years in honor of Zeus and continued five or six +days. The multitude coming from all parts of Greece filled the +amphitheatre. They commenced by sacrificing victims and addressing +prayers to Zeus and the other gods. Then came the contests; they were: + +The foot-race around the stadion. + +The Pentathlon, so called because it comprised five exercises. The +competitors were to leap, run from one end of the stadion to the +other, make a long throw of the metal discus, hurl the javelin, and +wrestle. + +Boxing, in which one fought with arms bound with thongs of hide. + +The chariot races, which were held in the hippodrome; the cars were +light and were drawn by four horses. + +The judges of the games were clothed in purple, crowned with laurel. +After the combat a herald proclaimed before the whole assembly the +name of the victor and of his city. A crown of olive was the only +reward given him; but his fellow-citizens on his return received him +as a conquering hero; sometimes they threw down a section of the city +wall to give him entrance. He arrived in a chariot drawn by four +horses, clothed in purple, escorted by all the people. "These +victories which we leave today to the athletes of the public shows +appeared then the greatest of all. Poets of greatest renown celebrated +them; Pindar, the most illustrious lyric poet of antiquity, has hardly +done more than sing of chariot races. It is related that a certain +Diagoras, who had seen his two sons crowned on the same day, was borne +in triumph by them in the sight of the spectators. The people, holding +such an honor too great for a mortal, cried out, 'Perish, Diagoras, +for after all you cannot become a god.' Diagoras, suffocated with +emotion, died in the arms of his sons. In his eyes and the eyes of the +Greeks the fact that his sons possessed the stoutest fists and the +nimblest limbs in Greece was the acme of earthly happiness."[56] The +Greeks had their reasons for thus admiring physical prowess: in their +wars in which they fought hand to hand the most vigorous athletes were +the best soldiers. + +=Omens.=--In return for so much homage, so many festivals and +offerings, the Greeks expected no small amount of service from their +gods. The gods protected their worshippers, gave them health, riches, +victory. They preserved them from the evils that menaced them, sending +signs which men interpreted. These are called Omens. "When a city," +says Herodotus,[57] "is about to suffer some great misfortune, this is +usually anticipated by signs. The people of Chios had omens of their +defeat: of a band of one hundred youths sent to Delphi but two +returned; the others had died of the plague. About the same time the +roof of a school of the city fell on the children who were learning to +read; but one escaped of the one hundred and twenty. Such were the +anticipating signs sent them by the deity." + +The Greeks regarded as supernatural signs, dreams, the flight of birds +in the heavens, the entrails of animals sacrificed--in a word, +everything that they saw, from the tremblings of the earth and +eclipses to a simple sneeze. In the expedition to Sicily, Nicias, the +general of the Athenians, at the moment of embarking his army for the +retreat, was arrested by an eclipse of the moon; the gods, thought he, +had sent this prodigy to warn the Athenians not to continue their +enterprise. And so Nicias waited; he waited twenty-seven days offering +sacrifices to appease the gods. During this inactivity the enemy +closed the port, destroyed the fleet, and exterminated his army. The +Athenians on learning this news found but one thing with which to +reproach Nicias: he should have known that for an army in retreat the +eclipse of the moon was a favorable sign. During the retreat of the +Ten Thousand, Xenophon, the general, making an address to his +soldiers, uttered this sentiment: "With the help of the gods we have +the surest hope that we shall save ourselves with glory." At this +point a soldier sneezed. At once all adored the god who had sent this +omen. "Since at the very instant when we are deliberating concerning +our safety," exclaimed Xenophon, "Zeus the savior has sent us an omen, +let us with one consent offer sacrifices to him."[58] + +=The Oracles.=--Often the god replies to the faithful who consult him +not by a mute sign, but by the mouth of an inspired person. The +faithful enter the sanctuary of the god seeking responses and counsel. +These are Oracles. + +There were oracles in many places in Greece and Asia. The most noted +were at Dodona in Epirus, and at Delphi, at the foot of Mount +Parnassus. At Dodona it was Zeus who spoke by the rustling of the +sacred oaks. At Delphi it was Apollo who was consulted. Below his +temple, in a grotto, a current of cool air issued from a rift in the +ground. This air the Greeks thought[59] was sent by the god, for he +threw into a frenzy those who inhaled it. A tripod was placed over the +orifice, a woman (the Pythia), prepared by a bath in the sacred +spring, took her seat on the tripod, and received the inspiration. At +once, seized with a nervous frenzy, she uttered cries and broken +sentences. Priests sitting about her caught these expressions, set +them to verse, and brought them to him who sought advice of the god. + +The oracles of the Pythia were often obscure and ambiguous. When +CrÅ“sus asked if he should make war on the Persians, the reply was, +"CrÅ“sus will destroy a great empire." In fact, a great empire was +destroyed, but it was that of CrÅ“sus. + +The Spartans had great confidence in the Pythia, and never initiated +an expedition without consulting her. The other Greeks imitated them, +and Delphi thus became a sort of national oracle. + +=Amphictyonies.=--To protect the sanctuary of Delphi twelve of the +principal peoples of Greece had formed an association called an +Amphictyony.[60] Every year deputies from these peoples assembled at +Delphi to celebrate the festival of Apollo and see that the temple was +not threatened; for this temple contained immense wealth, a temptation +to pillage it. In the sixth century the people of Cirrha, a +neighboring city of Delphi, appropriated these treasures.[61] The +Amphictyons declared war against them for sacrilege. Cirrha was taken +and destroyed, the inhabitants sold as slaves, the territory left +fallow. In the fourth century the Amphictyons made war on the +Phocidians also who had seized the treasury of Delphi, and on the +people of Amphissa who had tilled a field dedicated to Apollo. + +Still it is not necessary to believe that the assembly of the +Amphictyons ever resembled a Greek senate. It was concerned only with +the temple of Apollo, not at all with political affairs. It did not +even prevent members of the Amphictyony fighting one another. The +oracle and the Amphictyony of Delphi were more potent than the other +oracles and the other amphictyonies; but they never united the Greeks +into a single nation. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] See the account of the traveller Pausanias. + +[52] "There are," says Hesiod, "30,000 gods on the fruitful earth." + +[53] Greek scholars formed a select society of twelve gods and +goddesses, but their choice was arbitrary, and all did not agree on the +same series. The Greeks of different countries and of different epochs +often represented the same god under different forms. Further, the +majority of the gods seem to us to have vague and undetermined +attributes; this is because they were not the same everywhere. + +[54] Iliad, viii., 18. + +[55] In the dialogue "Eutyphron." + +[56] Taine, "Philosophy of Art." + +[57] Herodotus, vi., 27 + +[58] Xenophon, "Anabasis," iii, 2. + +[59] This idea gained currency only in the later periods of Grecian +history.--ED. + +[60] There were similar amphictyonies at Delos, Calauria, and Onchestus. + +[61] The special charge against Cirrha was the levying of toll on +pilgrims coming to Delphi.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SPARTA + +THE PEOPLE + + +=Laconia.=--When the Dorian mountaineers invaded the Peloponnesus, the +main body of them settled at Sparta in Laconia. Laconia is a narrow +valley traversed by a considerable stream (the Eurotas) flowing +between two massive mountain ranges with snowy summits. A poet +describes the country as follows: "A land rich in tillable soil, but +hard to cultivate, deep set among perpendicular mountains, rough in +aspect, inaccessible to invasion." In this enclosed country lived the +Dorians of Sparta in the midst of the ancient inhabitants who had +become, some their subjects, others their serfs. There were, then, in +Laconia three classes: Helots, PeriÅ“ci, Spartiates. + +=The Helots.=--The Helots dwelt in the cottages scattered in the plain +and cultivated the soil. But the land did not belong to them--indeed, +they were not even free to leave it. They were, like the serfs of the +Middle Ages, peasants attached to the soil, from father to son. They +labored for a Spartiate proprietor who took from them the greater part +of the harvest. The Spartiates instructed them, feared them, and ill +treated them. They compelled them to wear rude garments, beat them +unreasonably to remind them of their servile condition, and sometimes +made them intoxicated to disgust their children with the sight of +drunkenness. A Spartiate poet compares the Helots to "loaded asses +stumbling under their burdens and the blows inflicted." + +=The PeriÅ“ci.=--The PeriÅ“ci (those who live around) inhabited a +hundred villages in the mountains or on the coast. They were sailors, +they engaged in commerce, and manufactured the objects necessary to +life. They were free and administered the business of their village, +but they paid tribute to the magistrates of Sparta and obeyed them. + +=Condition of the Spartiates.=--Helots and PeriÅ“ci despised the +Spartiates, their masters. "Whenever one speaks to them of the +Spartiates," says Xenophon,[62] "there isn't one of them who can +conceal the pleasure he would feel in eating them alive." Once an +earthquake nearly destroyed Sparta: the Helots at once rushed from all +sides of the plain to massacre those of the Spartiates who had escaped +the catastrophe. At the same time the PeriÅ“ci rose and refused +obedience. The Spartiates' bearing toward the PeriÅ“ci was certain to +exasperate them. At the end of a war in which many of the Helots had +fought in their army, they bade them choose those who had especially +distinguished themselves for bravery, with the promise of freeing +them. It was a ruse to discover the most energetic and those most +capable of revolting. Two thousand were chosen; they were conducted +about the temples with heads crowned as an evidence of their +manumission; then the Spartiates put them out of the way, but how it +was done no one ever knew.[63] + +And yet the oppressed classes were ten times more, numerous than their +masters. While there were more than 200,000 Helots and 120,000 +PeriÅ“ci, there were never more than 9,000 Spartiate heads of families. +In a matter of life and death, then, it was necessary that a Spartiate +be as good as ten Helots. As the form of battle was hand-to-hand, they +needed agile and robust men. Sparta was like a camp without walls; its +people was an army always in readiness. + + +EDUCATION + +=The Children.=--They began to make soldiers of them at birth. The +newly-born infant was brought before a council; if it was found +deformed, it was exposed on the mountain to die; for an army has use +only for strong men. The children who were permitted to grow up were +taken from their parents at the age of seven years and were trained +together as members of a group. Both summer and winter they went +bare-foot and had but a single mantle. They lay on a heap of reeds and +bathed in the cold waters of the Eurotas. They ate little and that +quickly and had a rude diet. This was to teach them not to satiate the +stomach. They were grouped by hundreds, each under a chief. Often they +had to contend together with blows of feet and fists. At the feast of +Artemis they were beaten before the statue of the goddess till the +blood flowed; some died under this ordeal, but their honor required +them not to weep. They were taught to fight and suffer. + +Often they were given nothing to eat; provision must be found by +foraging. If they were captured on these predatory expeditions, they +were roughly beaten. A Spartiate boy who had stolen a little fox and +had hidden it under his mantle, rather than betray himself let the +animal gnaw out his vitals. They were to learn how to escape from +perplexing situations when they were in the field. + +They walked with lowered glance, silent, hands under the mantle, +without turning the head and "making no more noise than statues." They +were not to speak at table and were to obey all men that they +encountered. This was to accustom them to discipline. + +=The Girls.=--The other Greeks kept their daughters secluded in the +house, spinning flax. The Spartiates would have robust women capable +of bearing vigorous children. The girls, therefore, were trained in +much the same manner as the boys. In their gymnasia they practised +running, leaping, throwing the disc and Javelin. A poet describes a +play in which Spartiate girls "like colts with flowing manes make the +dust fly about them." They were reputed the healthiest and bravest +women in Greece. + +=The Discipline.=--The men, too, have their regular life and this a +soldier's life. The presence of many enemies requires that no one +shall weaken. At seventeen years the Spartiate becomes a soldier and +this he until he is sixty. The costume, hour of rising and retiring, +meals, exercise--everything is fixed by regulations as in barracks. + +Since the Spartiate engages only in war, he is to prepare himself for +that; he exercises himself in running, leaping, and wielding his arms; +he disciplines all the members of the body--the neck, the arms, the +shoulders, the legs, and that too, every day. He has no right to +engage in trade, to pursue an industry, nor to cultivate the earth; he +is a soldier and is not to allow himself to be diverted to any other +occupation. He cannot live at his pleasure with his own family; the +men eat together in squads; they cannot leave the country without +permission. It is the discipline of a regiment in the enemy's +territory. + +=Laconism.=--These warriors had a rude life, with clean-cut aims and +proud disposition. They spoke in short phrases--or as we say, +laconically--the word has still persisted. The Greeks cited many +examples of these expressions. To a garrison in danger of being +surprised the government sent this message, "Attention!" A Spartan +army was summoned by the king of Persia to lay down his arms; the +general replied, "Come and take them." When Lysander captured Athens, +he wrote simply, "Athens is fallen." + +=Music. The Dance.=--The arts of Sparta were those that pertained to +an army. The Dorian conquerors brought with them a peculiar sort of +music--the Dorian style, serious, strong, even harsh. It was military +music; the Spartiates went into battle to the sound of the flute so +that the step might be regular. + +Their dance was a military movement. In the "Pyrrhic" the dancers were +armed and imitated all the movements of a battle; they made the +gestures of striking, of parrying, of retreating, and of throwing the +javelin. + +=Heroism of the Women.=--The women stimulated the men to combat; their +exhibitions of courage were celebrated in Greece, so much so that +collections of stories of them were made.[64] A Spartan mother, seeing +her son fleeing from battle, killed him with her own hand, saying; +"The Eurotas does not flow for deer." Another, learning that her five +sons had perished, said, "This is not what I wish to know; does +victory belong to Sparta?" "Yes." "Then let us render thanks to the +gods." + + +THE INSTITUTIONS OF SPARTA + +=The Kings and the Council.=--The Spartiates had at first, like the +other Greeks, an assembly of the people. All these institutions were +preserved, but only in form. The kings, descendants of the god +Herakles, were loaded with honors; they were given the first place at +the feasts and were served with a double portion; when they died all +the inhabitants made lamentation for them. But no power was left to +them and they were closely watched. + +The Senate was composed of twenty-eight old men taken from the rich +and ancient families, appointed for life; but it did not govern. + +=The Ephors.=--The real masters of Sparta were the Ephors (the name +signifies overseers), five magistrates who were renewed every year. +They decided peace and war, and had judicial functions; when the king +commanded the army, they accompanied him, directed the operations, and +sometimes made him return. Usually they consulted the senators and +took action in harmony with them. Then they assembled the Spartiates +in one place, announced to them what had been decided and asked their +approbation. The people without discussing the matter approved the +action by acclamation. No one knew whether he had the right to refuse +assent; accustomed to obey, the Spartiate never refused. It was, +therefore, an aristocracy of governing families. Sparta was not a +country of equality. There were some men who were called Equals, but +only because they were equal among themselves. The others were termed +Inferiors and had no part in the government. + +=The Army.=--Thanks to this régime, the Spartiates preserved the rude +customs of mountaineers; they had no sculptors, no architects, no +orators, no philosophers. They had sacrificed everything to war; they +became "adepts in the military art,"[65] and instructors of the other +Greeks. They introduced two innovations especially: a better method of +combat, a better method of athletic exercise. + +=The Hoplites.=--Before them the Greeks marched into battle in +disorder; the chiefs, on horseback or in a light chair, rushed ahead, +the men following on foot, armed each in his own fashion, +helter-skelter, incapable of acting together or of resisting. A +battle reduced itself to a series of duels and to a massacre. At +Sparta all the soldiers had the same arms; for defence, the +breastplate covering the chest, the casque which protected the head, +the greaves over the legs, the buckler held before the body. For +offence the soldier had a short sword and a long lance. The man thus +armed was called a hoplite. The Spartan hoplites were drawn up in +regiments, battalions, companies, squads, almost like our armies. An +officer commanded each of these groups and transmitted to his men the +orders of his superior officer, so that the general in chief might +have the same movement executed throughout the whole army. This +organization which appears so simple to us was to the Greeks an +astonishing novelty. + +=The Phalanx.=--Come into the presence of the enemy, the soldiers +arrange themselves in line, ordinarily eight ranks deep, each man +close to his neighbor, forming a compact mass which we call a Phalanx. +The king, who directs the army, sacrifices a goat to the gods; if the +entrails of the victim are propitious, he raises a chant which all the +army takes up in unison. Then they advance. With rapid and measured +step, to the sound of the flute, with lance couched and buckler before +the body, they meet the enemy in dense array, overwhelm him by their +mass and momentum, throw him into rout, and only check themselves to +avoid breaking the phalanx. So long as they remain together each is +protected by his neighbor and all form an impenetrable mass on which +the enemy could secure no hold. These were rude tactics, but +sufficient to overcome a disorderly troop. Isolated men could not +resist such a body. The other Greeks understood this, and all, as far +as they were able, imitated the Spartans; everywhere men were armed +as hoplites and fought in phalanx. + +=Gymnastics.=--To rush in orderly array on the enemy and stand the +shock of battle there was need of agile and robust men; every man had +to be an athlete. The Spartans therefore organized athletic exercises, +and in this the other Greeks imitated them; gymnastics became for all +a national art, the highest esteemed of all the arts, the crowning +feature of the great festivals. + +In the most remote countries, in the midst of the barbarians of Gaul +or of the Black Sea, a Greek city was recognized by its gymnasium. +There was a great square surrounded by porticoes or walks, usually +near a spring, with baths and halls for exercise. The citizens came +hither to walk and chat: it was a place of association. All the young +men entered the gymnasium; for two years or less they came here every +day; they learned to leap, to run, to throw the disc and the javelin, +to wrestle by seizing about the waist. To harden the muscles and +strengthen the skin they plunged into cold water, dispensed with oil +for the body, and rubbed the flesh with a scraper (the strigil). + +=Athletes.=--Many continued these exercises all their lives as a point +of honor and became Athletes. Some became marvels of skill. Milo of +Croton in Italy, it was said, would carry a bull on his shoulders; he +stopped a chariot in its course by seizing it from behind. These +athletes served sometimes in combats as soldiers, or as generals. +Gymnastics were the school of war. + +=Rôle of the Spartiates.=--The Spartans taught the other Greeks to +exercise and to fight. They always remained the most vigorous +wrestlers and the best soldiers, and were recognized as such by the +rest of Greece. Everywhere they were respected. When the rest of the +Greeks had to fight together against the Persians, they unhesitatingly +took the Spartans as chiefs--and with justice, said an Athenian +orator. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[62] "Hellenica," iii., 3, 6. + +[63] See Thucydides, iv., 80. + +[64] A collection by Plutarch is still preserved. + +[65] A phrase of Xenophon. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ATHENS + +THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE + + +=Attica.=--The Athenians boasted of having always lived in the same +country; their ancestors, according to their story, originated from +the soil itself. The mountaineers who conquered the south land passed +by the country without invading it; Attica was hardly a temptation to +them. + +Attica is composed of a mass of rocks which in the form of a triangle +advances into the sea. These rocks, renowned for their blocks of +marble and for the honey of their bees,[66] are bare and sterile. +Between them and the sea are left three small plains with meagre soil, +meanly watered (the streams are dry in summer) and incapable of +supporting a numerous population. + +=Athens.=--In the largest of these plains, a league from the sea, +rises a massive isolated rock: Athens was built at its foot. The old +city, called the Acropolis, occupied the summit of the rock. + +The inhabitants of Attica commenced, not by forming a single state, +but by founding scattered villages, each of which had its own king and +its own government. Later all these villages united under one +king,[67] the king of Athens, and established a single city. This +does not mean that all the people came to dwell in one town. They +continued to have their own villages and to cultivate their lands; but +all adored one and the same protecting goddess, Athena, divinity of +Athens, and all obeyed the same king. + +=Athenian Revolutions.=--Later still the kings were suppressed. In +their place Athens had nine chiefs (the archons) who changed every +year. This whole history is little known to us for no writing of the +time is preserved. They used to say that for centuries the Athenians +had lived in discord; the nobles (Eupatrids) who were proprietors of +the soil oppressed the peasants on their estates; creditors held their +debtors as slaves. To reëstablish order the Athenians commissioned +Solon, a sage, to draft a code of laws for them (594). + +Solon made three reforms: + + 1. He lessened the value of the money, which allowed the debtors + to release themselves more easily. + + 2. He made the peasants proprietors of the land that they + cultivated. From this time there were in Attica more small + proprietors than in any other part of Greece. + + 3. He grouped all the citizens into four classes according to + their incomes. Each had to pay taxes and to render military + service according to his wealth, the poor being exempt from + taxation and military service. + +After Solon the Athenians were subject to Pisistratus, one of their +powerful and clever citizens; but in 510 the dissensions revived. + +=Reforms of Cleisthenes.=--Cleisthenes, leader of one of the parties, +used the occasion to make a thoroughgoing revolution. + +There were many strangers in Athens, especially seamen and traders who +lived in Piræus near the harbor. Cleisthenes gave them the rights of +citizenship and made them equal[68] to the older inhabitants. From +this time there were two populations side by side--the people of +Attica and those of Piræus. A difference of physical features was +apparent for three centuries afterward: the people of Attica resembled +the rest of the Greeks; those in Piræus resembled Asiatics. The +Athenian people thus augmented was a new people, the most active in +Greece. + + +THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE + +In the fifth century the society of Athens was definitely formed: +three classes inhabited the district of Attica--slaves, foreigners, +and citizens. + +=The Slaves.=--The slaves constituted the great majority of the +population; there was no man so poor that he did not have at least one +slave; the rich owned a multitude of them, some as many as five +hundred. The larger part of the slaves lived in the house occupied +with grinding grain, kneading bread, spinning and weaving cloth, +performing the service of the kitchens, and in attendance on their +masters. Others labored in the shops as blacksmiths, as dyers, or in +stone quarries or silver mines. Their master fed them but sold at a +profit everything which they produced, giving them in return nothing +but their living. All the domestic servants, all the miners, and the +greater part of the artisans were slaves. These men lived in society +but without any part in it; they had not even the disposition of their +own bodies, being wholly the property of other men. They were thought +of only as objects of property; they were often referred to as "a +body" (σωμα). There was no other law for them than the will of their +master, and he had all power over them--to make them work, to imprison +them, to deprive them of their sustenance, to beat them. When a +citizen went to law, his adversary had the right to require that the +former's slaves should be put to the torture to tell what they knew. +Many Athenian orators commend this usage as an ingenious means for +obtaining true testimony. "Torture," says the orator Isæus, "is the +surest means of proof; and so when you wish to clear up a contested +question, you do not address yourselves to freemen, but, placing the +slaves to the torture, you seek to discover the truth." + +=Foreigners.=--The name Metics was applied to people of foreign origin +who were established in Athens. To become a citizen of Athens it was +not enough, as with us, to be born in the country; one must be the son +of a citizen. It might be that some aliens had resided in Attica for +several generations and yet their family not become Athenian. The +metics could take no part in the government, could not marry a +citizen, nor acquire land. But they were personally free, they had the +right of commerce by sea, of banking and of trade on condition that +they take a patron to represent them in the courts. There were in +Athens more than ten thousand families of metics, the majority of them +bankers or merchants. + +=The Citizens.=--To be a citizen of Athens it was necessary that both +parents should be citizens. The young Athenian, come to maturity at +about eighteen years of age, appeared before the popular assembly, +received the arms which he was to bear and took the following oath: "I +swear never to dishonor these sacred arms, not to quit my post, to +obey the magistrates and the laws, to honor the religion of my +country." He became simultaneously citizen and soldier. Thereafter he +owed military service until he was sixty years of age. With this he +had the right to sit in the assembly and to fulfil the functions of +the state. + +Once in a while the Athenians consented to receive into the +citizenship a man who was not the son of a citizen, but this was rare +and a sign of great favor. The assembly had to vote the stranger into +its membership, and then nine days after six thousand citizens had to +vote for him on a secret ballot. The Athenian people was like a closed +circle; no new members were admitted except those pleasing to the old +members, and they admitted few beside their sons. + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS + +=The Assembly.=--The Athenians called their government a democracy (a +government by the people). But this people was not, as with us, the +mass of inhabitants, but the body of citizens, a true aristocracy of +15,000 to 20,000 men who governed the whole nation as masters. This +body had absolute power, and was the true sovereign of Athens. It +assembled at least three times a month to deliberate and to vote. The +assembly was held in the open air on the Pnyx; the citizens sat on +stone benches arranged in an amphitheatre; the magistrates before them +on a platform opened the session with a religious ceremony and a +prayer, then a herald proclaimed in a loud voice the business which +was to occupy the assembly, and said, "Who wishes to speak?" Every +citizen had the right to this privilege; the orators mounted the +tribune according to age. When all had spoken, the president put the +question; the assembly voted by a show of hands, and then dissolved. + +=The Courts.=--The people itself, being sovereign, passed judgment in +the courts. Every citizen of thirty years of age could participate in +the judicial assembly (the Heliæa). The heliasts sat in the great +halls in sections of five hundred; the tribunal was, then, composed of +one thousand to fifteen hundred judges. The Athenians had no +prosecuting officer as we have; a citizen took upon himself to make +the accusation. The accused and the accuser appeared before the court; +each delivered a plea which was not to exceed the time marked off by a +water-clock. Then the judges voted by depositing a black or white +stone. If the accuser did not obtain a certain number of votes, he +himself was condemned. + +=The Magistrates.=--The sovereign people needed a council to prepare +the business for discussion and magistrates to execute their +decisions. The council was composed of five hundred citizens drawn by +lot for one year. The magistrates were very numerous: ten generals to +command the army, thirty officials for financial administration, sixty +police officials to superintend the streets, the markets, weights and +measures, etc.[69] + +=Character of This Government.=--The power in Athens did not pertain +to the rich and the noble, as in Sparta. In the assembly everything +was decided by a majority of votes and all the votes were equal. All +the jurors, all the members of the council, all the magistrates except +the generals were chosen by lot. The citizens were equal not only in +theory, but also in practice. Socrates said[70] to a well-informed +Athenian who did not dare to speak before the people: "Of what are you +afraid? Is it of the fullers, the shoe-makers, the masons, the +artisans, or the merchants? for the assembly is composed of all these +people." + +Many of these people had to ply their trade in order to make a living, +and could not serve the state gratuitously; and so a salary was +instituted: every citizen who sat in the assembly or in the courts +received for every day of session three obols (about eight cents of +our money), a sum just sufficient to maintain life at that time. From +this day the poor administered the government. + +=The Demagogues.=--Since all important affairs whether in the assembly +or in the courts were decided by discussion and discourse, the +influential men were those who knew how to speak best. The people +accustomed themselves to listen to the orators, to follow their +counsels, to charge them with embassies, and even to appoint them +generals. These men were called Demagogues (leaders of the people). +The party of the rich scoffed at them: in a comedy Aristophanes +represents the people (Demos) under the form of an old man who has +lost his wits: "You are foolishly credulous, you let flatterers and +intriguers pull you around by the nose and you are enraptured when +they harangue you." And the chorus, addressing a charlatan, says to +him, "You are rude, vicious; you have a strong voice, an impudent +eloquence, and violent gestures; believe me, you have all that is +necessary to govern Athens." + + +PRIVATE LIFE + +The Athenians created so many political functions that a part of the +citizens was engaged in fulfilling them. The citizen of Athens, like +the functionary or soldier of our days, was absorbed in public +affairs. Warring and governing were the whole of his life. He spent +his days in the assembly, in the courts, in the army, at the +gymnasium, or at the market. Almost always he had a wife and children, +for his religion commanded this, but he did not live at home. + +=The Children.=--When a child came into the world, the father had the +right to reject it. In this case it was laid outside the house where +it died from neglect, unless a passer-by took it and brought it up as +a slave. In this custom Athens followed all the Greeks. It was +especially the girls that were exposed to death. "A son," says a +writer of comedy, "is always raised even if the parents are in the +last stage of misery; a daughter is exposed even though the parents +are rich." + +If the father accepted the child, the latter entered the family. He +was left at first in the women's apartments with the mother. The girls +remained there until the day of their marriage; the boys came out when +they were seven years old. The boy was then entrusted to a preceptor +(pedagogue), whose business it was to teach him to conduct himself +well and to obey. The pedagogue was often a slave, but the father gave +him the right to beat his son. This was the general usage in +antiquity. + +Later the boy went to school, where he learned to read, write, cipher, +recite poetry, and to sing in the chorus or to the sound of the flute. +At last came gymnastics. This was the whole of the instruction; it +made men sound in body and calm in spirit--what the Greeks called +"good and beautiful." + +To the young girl, secluded with her mother, nothing of the liberal +arts was taught; it was thought sufficient if she learned to obey. +Xenophon represents a rich and well-educated Athenian speaking thus of +his wife with Socrates: "She was hardly twenty years old when I +married her, and up to that time she had been subjected to an exacting +surveillance; they had no desire that she should live, and she learned +almost nothing. Was it not enough that one should find in her a woman +who could spin the flax to make garments, and who had learned how to +distribute duties to the slaves?" When her husband proposed that she +become his assistant, she replied with great surprise, "In what can I +aid you? Of what am I capable? My mother has always taught me that my +business was to be prudent." Prudence or obedience was the virtue +which was required of the Greek woman. + +=Marriage.=--At the age of fifteen the girl married. The parents had +chosen the husband; it might be a man from a neighboring family, or a +man who had been a long-time friend of the father, but always a +citizen of Athens. It was rare that the young girl knew him; she was +never consulted in the case. Herodotus, speaking of a Greek, adds: +"This Callias deserves mention for his conduct toward his daughters; +for when they were of marriageable age he gave them a rich dowry, +permitted them to choose husbands from all the people, and he then +married them to the men of their choice." + +=Athenian Women.=--In the inner recess of the Athenian house there was +a retired apartment reserved for the women--the Gynecæum. Husband and +relatives were the only visitors; the mistress of the household +remained here all day with her slaves; she directed them, +superintended the house-keeping, and distributed to them the flax for +them to spin. She herself was engaged with weaving garments. She left +the house seldom save for the religious festivals. She never appeared +in the society of men: "No one certainly would venture," says the +orator Isæus, "to dine with a married woman; married women do not go +out to dine with men or permit themselves to eat with strangers." An +Athenian woman who frequented society could not maintain a good +reputation. + +The wife, thus secluded and ignorant, was not an agreeable companion. +The husband had taken her not for his life-long companion, but to +keep his house in order, to be the mother of his children, and because +Greek custom and religion required that he should marry. Plato says +that one does not marry because he wants to, but "because the law +constrains him." And the comic poet Menander had found this saying: +"Marriage, to tell the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil." And +so the women in Athens, as in most of the other states of Greece, +always held but little place in society. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[66] The marble of Pentelicus and the honey of Hymettus. + +[67] This legendary king was called Theseus. + +[68] Certain limitations, however, are referred to below, under +"Metics."--ED. + +[69] Not to mention the Archons, whom they had not ventured to suppress. + +[70] Xenophon, "Memorabilia," iii., 7, 6. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WARS OF THE GREEKS + +THE PERSIAN WARS + + +=Origin of the Persian Wars.=--While the Greeks were completing the +organization of their cities, the Persian king was uniting all the +nations of the East in a single empire. Greeks and Orientals at length +found themselves face to face. It is in Asia Minor that they first +meet. + +On the coast of Asia Minor there were rich and populous colonies of +the Greeks;[71] Cyrus, the king of Persia, desired to subject them. +These cities sent for help to the Spartans, who were reputed the +bravest of the Greeks, and this action was reported to Cyrus; he +replied,[72] "I have never feared this sort of people that has in the +midst of the city a place where the people assemble to deceive one +another with false oaths." (He was thinking of the market-place.) The +Greeks of Asia were subdued and made subject to the Great King. + +Thirty years later King Darius found himself in the presence of the +Greeks of Europe. But this time it was the Greeks that attacked the +Great King. The Athenians sent twenty galleys to aid the revolting +Ionians; their soldiers entered Lydia, took Sardis by surprise and +burned it. Darius revenged himself by destroying the Greek cities of +Asia, but he did not forget the Greeks of Europe. He had decreed, they +say, that at every meal an officer should repeat to him: "Master, +remember the Athenians." He sent to the Greek cities to demand earth +and water, a symbol in use among the Persians to indicate submission +to the Great King. Most of the Greeks were afraid and yielded. But the +Spartans cast the envoys into a pit, bidding them take thence earth +and water to carry to the king. This was the beginning of the Median +wars. + +=Comparison of the Two Adversaries.=--The contrast between the two +worlds which now entered into conflict is well marked by Herodotus[73] +in the form of a conversation of King Xerxes with Demaratus, a Spartan +exile: "'I venture to assure you,' said Demaratus, 'that the Spartans +will offer you battle even if all the rest of the Greeks fight on your +side, and if their army should not amount to more than one thousand +men.' 'What!' said Xerxes, 'one thousand men attack so immense an army +as mine! I fear your words are only boasting; for although they be +five thousand, we are more than one thousand to one. If they had a +master like us, fear would inspire them with courage; they would march +under the lash against a larger army; but being free and independent, +they will have no more courage than that with which nature has endowed +them.' 'The Spartans,' replied Demaratus, 'are not inferior to anybody +in a hand-to-hand contest, and united in a phalanx they are the +bravest of all men. Yet, though free, they have an absolute master, +the Law, which they dread more than all your subjects do you; they +obey it, and this law requires them to stand fast to their post and +conquer or die.'" This is the difference between the two parties to +the conflict: on the one side, a multitude of subjects united by force +under a capricious master; on the other, little martial republics +whose citizens govern themselves according to laws which they respect. + +=First Persian War.=--There were two Persian wars. The first was +simply an expedition against Athens; six hundred galleys sent by +Darius disembarked a Persian army on the little plain of Marathon, +seven hours distant from Athens. + +Religious sentiment prevented the Spartans from taking the field +before the full moon, and it was still only the first quarter; the +Athenians had to fight alone.[74] Ten thousand citizens armed as +hoplites camped before the Persians. The Athenians had ten generals, +having the command on successive days; of these Miltiades, when his +turn came, drew up the army for battle. The Athenians charged the +enemy in serried ranks, but the Persians seeing them advancing without +cavalry and without archers, thought them fools. It was the first time +that the Greeks had dared to face the Persians in battle array. The +Athenians began by turning both flanks, and then engaged the centre, +driving the Persians in disorder to the sea and forcing them to +reëmbark on their ships. + +The victory of Marathon delivered the Athenians and made them famous +in all Greece (490). + +=Second Persian War.=--The second war began ten years later with an +invasion. Xerxes united all the peoples of the empire, so that the +land force amounted, as some say, to 1,700,000 men.[75] There were +Medes and Persians clad in sleeved tunics, armed with cuirasses of +iron, bucklers, bows and arrows; Assyrians with cuirass of linen, +armed with clubs pointed with iron; Indians clad in cotton with bows +and arrows of bamboo; savages of Ethiopia with leopard skins for +clothing; nomads armed only with lassos; Phrygians armed with short +pikes; Lydians equipped like Greeks; Thracians carrying javelins and +daggers. The enumeration of these fills twenty chapters in +Herodotus.[76] These warriors brought with them a crowd equally +numerous of non-combatants, of servants, slaves, women, together with +a mass of mules, horses, camels, and baggage wagons. + +This horde crossed the Hellespont by a bridge of boats in the spring +of 480. For seven days and nights it defiled under the lash. Then +traversing Thrace, it marched on Greece, conquering the peoples whom +it met. + +The Persian fleet, 1,200 galleys strong, coasted the shores of Thrace, +passing through the canal at Mount Athos which Xerxes had had built +for this very purpose. + +The Greeks, terrified, submitted for the most part to the Great King +and joined their armies to the Persian force. The Athenians sent to +consult the oracle of Delphi, but received only the reply; "Athens +will be destroyed from base to summit." The god being asked to give a +more favorable response, replied, "Zeus accords to Pallas [protectress +of Athens] a wall of wood which alone shall not be taken; in that +shall you and your children find safety." The priests of whom they +asked the interpretation of this oracle bade the Athenians quit Attica +and go to establish themselves elsewhere. But Themistocles explained +the "wall of wood" as meaning the ships; they should retire to the +fleet and fight the Persians on sea. + +Athens and Sparta, having decided on resistance, endeavored to form a +league of the Greeks against the Persians. Few cities had the courage +to enter it, and these placed themselves under the command of the +Spartans. Four battles in one year settled the war. At Thermopylæ, +Leonidas, king of Sparta, who tried to bar the entrance to a defile +was outflanked and overwhelmed. At Salamis, the Persian fleet, crowded +into a narrow space where the ships embarrassed one another, was +defeated by the Greek navy (480). At Platæa the rest of the Persian +army left in Greece was annihilated by the Greek hoplites; of 300,000 +men but 40,000 escaped. The same day at Mycale, on the coast of Asia, +an army of the Greeks landed and routed the Persians (479). The Greeks +had conquered the Great King. + +=Reasons for the Greek Victory.=--The Median war was not a national +war between Greeks and barbarians. All the Greeks of Asia and half the +Greeks of Europe fought on the Persian side. Many of the other Greeks +gave no assistance. In reality it was a fight of the Great King and +his subjects against Sparta, Athens, and their allies. + +The conquest of this great horde by two small peoples appeared at that +time as a prodigy. The gods, said the Greeks, had fought for them. But +there is less wonder when we examine the two antagonists more closely: +the Persian army was innumerable, and Xerxes had thought that victory +was a matter of numbers. But this multitude was an embarrassment to +itself. It did not know where to secure food for itself, it advanced +but slowly, and it choked itself on the day of combat. Likewise the +ships arranged in too close order drove their prows into neighboring +ships and shattered their oars. Then in this immense crowd there were, +according to Herodotus, many men but few soldiers. Only the Persians +and Medes, the flower of the army, fought with energy; the rest +advanced only under the lash, they had come under pressure to a war +which had no interest for them, ill-armed and without discipline, +ready to desert as soon as no one was watching them. At Platæa the +Medes and Persians were the only ones to do any fighting; the subjects +kept aloof. + +The Persian soldiers were ill-equipped; they were embarrassed by their +long robes, the head was poorly protected by a felt hat, the body +ill-defended by a shield of wicker-work. For arms they had a bow, a +dagger, and a very short pike; they could fight only at a great +distance or hand-to-hand. The Spartans and their allies, on the +contrary, secure in the protection of great buckler, helmet and +greaves, marched in solid line and were irresistible; they broke the +enemy with their long pikes and at once the battle became a massacre. + +=Results of the Persian Wars.=--Sparta had commanded the troops, but +as Herodotus says,[77] it was Athens who had delivered Greece by +setting an example of resistance and constituting the fleet of +Salamis. It was Athens who profited by the victory. All the Ionian +cities of the Archipelago and of the coast of Asia revolted and formed +a league against the Persians. The Spartans, men of the mountains, +could not conduct a maritime war, and so withdrew; the Athenians +immediately became chiefs of the league. In 476[78] Aristides, +commanding the fleet, assembled the delegates of the confederate +cities. They decided to continue the war against the Great King, and +engaged to provide ships and warriors and to pay each year a +contribution of 460 talents ($350,000). The treasure was deposited at +Delos in the temple of Apollo, god of the Ionians. Athens was charged +with the leadership of the military force and with collecting the tax. +To make the agreement irrevocable Aristides had a mass of hot iron +cast into the sea, and all swore to maintain the oaths until the day +that the iron should mount to the surface. + +A day came, however, when the war ceased, and the Greeks, always the +victors, concluded a peace, or at least a truce,[79] with the Great +King. He surrendered his claim on the Asiatic Greeks (about 449). + +What was to become of the treaty of Aristides? Were the confederate +cities still to pay their contribution now that there was no more +fighting? Some refused it even before the war was done. Athens +asserted that the cities had made their engagements in perpetuity and +forced them to pay them. + +The war finished, the treasury at Delos had no further use; the +Athenians transferred the money to Athens and used it in building +their monuments. They maintained that the allies paid for deliverance +from the Persians; they, therefore, had no claim against Athens so +long as she defended them from the Great King. The allies had now +become the tributaries of Athens: they were now her subjects. Athens +increased the tax on them, and required their citizens to bring their +cases before the Athenian courts; she even sent colonists to seize a +part of their lands. Athens, mistress of the league, was sovereign +over more than three hundred cities spread over the islands and the +coasts of the Archipelago, and the tribute paid her amounted to six +hundred talents a year. + + +STRIFE AMONG THE GREEK STATES + +=The Peloponnesian War.=--After the foundation of the Athenian empire +in the Archipelago the Greeks found themselves divided between two +leagues--the maritime cities were subject to Athens; the cities of the +interior remained under the domination of Sparta. After much +preliminary friction war arose between Sparta and her continental +allies on the one side and Athens and her maritime subjects on the +other. This was the _Peloponnesian War_. It continued twenty-seven +years (431-404), and when it ceased, it was revived under other names +down to 360. + +These wars were complicated affairs. They were fought simultaneously +on land and sea, in Greece, Asia, Thrace, and Sicily, ordinarily at +several points at once. The Spartans had a better army and ravaged +Attica; the Athenians had a superior fleet and made descents on the +coasts of the Peloponnesus. Then Athens sent its army to Sicily where +it perished to the last man (413); Lysander, a Spartan general, +secured a fleet from the Persians and destroyed the Athenian fleet in +Asia (405). The Athenian allies who fought only under compulsion +abandoned her. Lysander took Athens, demolished its walls, and burnt +its ships. + +=Wars against Sparta.=--Sparta was for a time mistress on both land +and sea. "In those days," says Xenophon, "all cities obeyed when a +Spartan issued his orders." But soon the allies of Sparta, wearied of +her domination, formed a league against her. The Spartans, driven at +first from Asia, still maintained their power in Greece for some years +by virtue of their alliance with the king of the Persians (387). But +the Thebans, having developed a strong army under the command of +Epaminondas, fought them at Leuctra (371) and at Mantinea (362). The +allies of Sparta detached themselves from her, but the Thebans could +not secure from the rest of the Greeks the recognition of their +supremacy. From this time no Greek city was sovereign over the others. + +=Savage Character of These Wars.=--These wars between the Greek cities +were ferocious. A few incidents suffice to show their character. At +the opening of the war the allies of Sparta threw into the sea all the +merchants from cities hostile to them. The Athenians in return put to +death the ambassadors of Sparta without allowing them to speak a word. +The town of Platæa was taken by capitulation, and the Spartans had +promised that no one should be punished without a trial; but the +Spartan judges demanded of every prisoner if during the war he had +rendered any service to the Peloponnesians; when the prisoner replied +in the negative, he was condemned to death. The women were sold as +slaves. The city of Mitylene having revolted from Athens was retaken +by her. The Athenians in an assembly deliberated and decreed that all +the people of Mitylene should be put to death. It is true that the +next day the Athenians revised the decree and sent a second ship to +carry a more favorable commission, but still more than one thousand +Mityleneans were executed. + +After the Syracusan disaster all the Athenian army was taken captive. +The conquerors began by slaughtering all the generals and many of the +soldiers. The remainder were consigned to the quarries which served as +prison. They were left there crowded together for seventy days, +exposed without protection to the burning sun of summer, and then to +the chilly nights of autumn. Many died from sickness, from cold and +hunger--for they were hardly fed at all; their corpses remained on the +ground and infected the air. At last the Syracusans drew out the +survivors sold them into slavery. + +Ordinarily when an army invaded a hostile state it levelled the +houses, felled the trees, burned the crops and killed the laborers. +After battle it made short shrift of the wounded and killed prisoners +in cold blood. In a captured city everything belonged to the captor: +men, women, children were sold as slaves. Such was at this time the +right of war. Thucydides sums up the case as follows:[80] "Business is +regulated between men by the laws of justice when there is obligation +on both sides; but the stronger does whatever is in his power, and the +weaker yields. The gods rule by a necessity of their nature because +they are strongest; men do likewise." + +=Results of These Wars.=--These wars did not result in uniting the +Greeks into one body. No city, Sparta more than Athens, was able to +force the others to obey her. They only exhausted themselves by +fighting one another. It was the king of Persia who profited by the +strife. Not only did the Greek cities not unite against him, but all +in succession allied themselves with him against the other Greeks. In +the notorious Peace of Antalcidas (387) the Great King declared that +all the Greek cities of Asia belonged to him, and Sparta recognized +this claim. Athens and Thebes did as much some years later. An +Athenian orator said, "It is the king of Persia who governs Greece; he +needs only to establish governors in our cities. Is it not he who +directs everything among us? Do we not summon the Great King as if we +were his slaves?" The Greeks by their strife had lost the vantage that +the Median war had gained for them. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[71] Twelve Ionian colonies, twelve Æolian, four Dorian. + +[72] Herod., i., 153. + +[73] Herod., vii., 103, 104. + +[74] 1,000 Platæans came to the assistance of the Athenians.--ED. + +[75] Herodotus's statements of the numbers in Xerxes' army are +incredible.--ED. + +[76] Herod., vii., 61-80. + +[77] vii., 139. + +[78] The chronology of these events is uncertain.--ED. + +[79] Called the Peace of Cimon, but it is very doubtful whether Cimon +really concluded a treaty. [With more right may it be called the Peace +of Callias, who was probably principal ambassador.--ED.] + +[80] In his chapters on the Mityleneans. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ARTS IN GREECE + +ATHENS AT THE TIME OF PERICLES + + +=Pericles.=--In the middle of the fifth century Athens found herself +the most powerful city in Greece. Pericles, descended from one of the +noble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state. He +wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the +vanity of the people. But the Athenians respected him and acted only +in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of +all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and +so they permitted him to govern. For forty years Pericles was the soul +of the politics of Athens; as Thucydides his contemporary said, "The +democracy existed in name; in reality it was the government of the +first citizen." + +=Athens and Her Monuments.=--In Athens, as in the majority of Greek +cities, the houses of individuals were small, low, packed closely +together, forming narrow streets, tortuous and ill paved. The +Athenians reserved their display for their public monuments. Ever +after they levied heavy war taxes on their allies they had large sums +of money to expend, and these were employed in erecting beautiful +edifices. In the market-place they built a portico adorned with +paintings (the Poikile), in the city a theatre, a temple in honor of +Theseus, and the Odeon for the contests in music. But the most +beautiful monuments rose on the rock of the Acropolis as on a gigantic +pedestal. There were two temples of which the principal, the +Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena, protecting goddess of the city; a +colossal statue of bronze which represented Athena; and a staircase of +ornamental character leading up to the Propylæa. Athens was from this +time the most beautiful of the Greek cities.[81] + +=Importance of Athens.=--Athens became at the same time the city of +artists. Poets, orators, architects, painters, sculptors--some +Athenians by birth, others come from all corners of the Greek +world--met here and produced their masterpieces. There were without +doubt many Greek artists elsewhere than at Athens; there had been +before the fifth century, and there were a long time afterward; but +never were so many assembled at one time in the same city. Most of the +Greeks had fine sensibilities in matters of art; but the Athenians +more than all others had a refined taste, a cultivated spirit and love +of the beautiful. If the Greeks have gained renown in the history of +civilization, it is that they have been a people of artists; neither +their little states nor their small armies have played a great rôle in +the world. This is why the fifth century is the most beautiful moment +in the history of Greece; this is why Athens has remained renowned +above all the rest of the Greek cities. + + +LETTERS + +=The Orators.=--Athens is above all the city of eloquence. Speeches in +the assembly determine war, peace, taxes, all state business of +importance; speeches before the courts condemn or acquit citizens and +subjects. Power is in the hands of the orators; the people follow +their counsels and often commit to them important public functions: +Cleon is appointed general; Demosthenes directs the war against +Philip. + +The orators have influence; they employ their talents in eloquence to +accuse their political enemies. Often they possess riches, for they +are paid for supporting one party or the other: Æschines is retained +by the king of Macedon; Demosthenes accepts fees from the king of +Persia. + +Some of the orators, instead of delivering their own orations, wrote +speeches for others. When an Athenian citizen had a case at court, he +did not desire, as we do, that an advocate plead his case for him; the +law required that each speak in person. He therefore sought an orator +and had him compose a speech which he learned by heart and recited +before the tribunal. + +Other orators travelled through the cities of Greece speaking on +subjects which pleased their fancy. Sometimes they gave lectures, as +we should say. + +The oldest orators spoke simply, limiting themselves to an account of +the facts without oratorical flourishes; on the platform they were +almost rigid without loud speaking or gesticulation. Pericles +delivered his orations with a calm air, so quietly, indeed, that no +fold of his mantle was disturbed. When he appeared at the tribune, +his head, according to custom, crowned with leaves, he might have been +taken, said the people, "for a god of Olympus." But the orators who +followed wished to move the public. They assumed an animated style, +pacing the tribune in a declamatory and agitated manner. The people +became accustomed to this form of eloquence. The first time that +Demosthenes came to the tribune the assembly shouted with laughter; +the orator could not enunciate, he carried himself ill. He disciplined +himself in declamation and gesture and became the favorite of the +people. Later when he was asked what was the first quality of the +orator, he replied, "Action, and the second, action, and the third, +action." Action, that is delivery, was more to the Greeks than the +sense of the discourse. + +=The Sages.=--For some centuries there had been, especially among the +Greeks of Asia, men who observed and reflected on things. They were +called by a name which signifies at once wise men and scholars. They +busied themselves with physics, astronomy, natural history, for as yet +science was not separated from philosophy. Such were in the seventh +century the celebrated Seven Sages of Greece. + +=The Sophists.=--About the time of Pericles there came to Athens men +who professed to teach wisdom. They gathered many pupils and charged +fees for their lessons. Ordinarily they attacked the religion, +customs, and institutions of Greek cities, showing that they were not +founded on reason. They concluded that men could not know anything +with certainty (which was quite true for their time), that men can +know nothing at all, and that nothing is true or false: "Nothing +exists," said one of them, "and if it did exist, we could not know +it." These professors of scepticism were called sophists. Some of them +were at the same time orators. + +=Socrates and the Philosophers.=--Socrates, an old man of Athens, +undertook to combat the sophists. He was a poor man, ugly, and without +eloquence. He opened no school like the sophists but contented himself +with going about the city, conversing with those he met, and leading +them by the force of his questions to discover what he himself had in +mind. He sought especially the young men and gave them instruction and +counsel. Socrates made no pretensions as a scholar: "All my +knowledge," said he, "is to know that I know nothing." He would call +himself no longer a sage, like the others, but a philosopher, that is +to say, a lover of wisdom. He did not meditate on the nature of the +world nor on the sciences; man was his only interest. His motto was, +"Know thyself." He was before all a preacher of virtue. + +As he always spoke of morals and religion, the Athenians took him for +a sophist.[82] In 399 he was brought before the court, accused "of not +worshipping the gods of the city, of introducing new gods, and of +corrupting the youth." He made no attempt to defend himself, and was +condemned to death. He was then seventy years old. + +Xenophon, one of his disciples, wrote out his conversations and an +apology for him.[83] Another disciple, Plato, composed dialogues in +which Socrates is always the principal personage. Since this time +Socrates has been regarded as the "father of philosophy." Plato +himself was the head of a school (429-348); Aristotle (384-322), a +disciple of Plato, summarized in his books all the science of his +time. The philosophers that followed attached themselves to one or the +other of these two masters: the disciples of Plato called themselves +Academicians,[84] those of Aristotle, Peripatetics.[85] + +=The Chorus.=--It was an ancient custom of the Greeks to dance in +their religious ceremonies. Around the altar dedicated to the god a +group of young men passed and repassed, assuming noble and expressive +attitudes, for the ancients danced with the whole body. Their dance, +very different from ours, was a sort of animated procession, something +like a solemn pantomime. Almost always this religious dance was +accompanied by chants in honor of the god. The group singing and +dancing at the same time was called the Chorus. All the cities had +their festival choruses in which the children of the noblest families +participated after long time of preparation. The god required the +service of a troop worthy of him. + +=Tragedy and Comedy.=--In the level country about Athens the young men +celebrated in this manner each year religious dances in honor of +Dionysos, the god of the vintage. One of these dances was grave; it +represented the actions of the god. The leader of the chorus played +Dionysos, the chorus itself the satyrs, his companions. Little by +little they came to represent also the life of the other gods and the +ancient heroes. Then some one (the Greeks call him Thespis) conceived +the idea of setting up a stage on which the actor could play while the +chorus rested. The spectacle thus perfected was transferred to the +city near the black poplar tree in the market. Thus originated +Tragedy. + +The other dance was comic. The masked dancers chanted the praises of +Dionysos mingled with jeers addressed to the spectators or with +humorous reflections on the events of the day. The same was done for +the comic chorus as for the tragic chorus: actors were introduced, a +dialogue, all of a piece, and the spectacle was transferred to Athens. +This was the origin of Comedy. This is the reason that from this time +tragedy has been engaged with heroes, and comedy with every-day life. + +Tragedy and comedy preserved some traces of their origin. Even when +they were represented in the theatre, they continued to be played +before the altar of the god. Even after the actors mounted on the +platform had become the most important personages of the spectacle, +the choir continued to dance and to chant around the altar. In the +comedies, like the masques in other days, sarcastic remarks on the +government came to be made; this was the Parabasis. + +=The Theatre.=--That all the Athenians might be present at these +spectacles there was built on the side of the Acropolis the theatre of +Dionysos which could hold 30,000 spectators. Like all the Greek +theatres, it was open to heaven and was composed of tiers of rock +ranged in a half-circle about the orchestra where the chorus performed +and before the stage where the play was given. + +Plays were produced only at the time of the festivals of the god, but +then they continued for several days in succession. They began in the +morning at sunrise and occupied all the time till torch-light with the +production of a series of three tragedies (a trilogy) followed by a +satirical drama. Each trilogy was the work of one author. Other +trilogies were presented on succeeding days, so that the spectacle was +a competition between poets, the public determining the victor. The +most celebrated of these competitors were Æschylus, Sophocles, and +Euripides. There were also contests in comedy, but there remain to us +only the works of one comic poet, Aristophanes. + + +THE ARTS + +=Greek Temples.=--In Greece the most beautiful edifices were +constructed to the honor of the gods, and when we speak of Greek +architecture it is their temples that we have in mind. + +A Greek temple is not, like a Christian church, designed to receive +the faithful who come thither to pray. It is the palace[86] where the +god lives, represented by his idol, a palace which men feel under +compulsion to make splendid. The mass of the faithful do not enter the +interior of the temple; they remain without, surrounding the altar in +the open air. + +At the centre of the temple is the "chamber" of the god, a mysterious +sanctuary without windows, dimly lighted from above.[87] On the +pavement rises the idol of wood, of marble, or of ivory, clad in gold +and adorned with garments and jewels. The statue is often of colossal +size; in the temple of Olympia Zeus is represented sitting and his +head almost touches the summit of the temple. "If the god should +rise," they said, "his head would shatter the roof." This sanctuary, a +sort of reliquary for the idol, is concealed on every side from the +eyes. To enter, it is necessary to pass through a porch formed by a +row of columns. + +Behind the "chamber" is the "rear-chamber" in which are kept the +valuable property of the god--his riches,[88] and often the gold and +silver of the city. The temple is therefore storehouse, treasury, and +museum. + +Rows of columns surround the building on four sides, like a second +wall protecting the god and his treasures. There are three orders of +columns which differ in base and capital, each bearing the name of the +people that invented it or most frequently used it. They are, in the +order of age, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The temple is +named from the style of the columns supporting it. + +Above the columns, around the edifice are sculptured surfaces of +marble (the metopes) which alternate with plain blocks of marble (the +triglyphs). Metopes and triglyphs constitute the frieze. + +The temple is surmounted with a triangular pediment adorned with +statues. + +Greek temples were polychrome, that is to say, were painted in several +colors, yellow, blue, and red. For a long time the moderns refused to +believe this; it was thought that the Greeks possessed too sober taste +to add color to an edifice. But traces of painting have been +discovered on several temples, which cannot leave the matter in doubt. +It has at last been concluded, on reflection, that these bright colors +were to give a clearer setting to the lines. + +=Characteristics of Greek Architecture.=--A Greek temple appears at +first a simple, bare edifice; it is only a long box of stone set upon +a rock; the façade is a square surmounted by a triangle. At first +glance one sees only straight lines and cylinders. But on nearer +inspection "it is discovered[89] that not a single one of these lines +is truly straight." The columns swell at the middle, vertical lines +are slightly inclined to the centre, and horizontal lines bulge a +little at the middle. And all this is so fine that exact measurements +are necessary to detect the artifice. Greek architects discovered +that, to produce a harmonious whole, it is necessary to avoid +geometrical lines which would appear stiff, and take account of +illusions in perspective. "The aim of the architect," says a Greek +writer, "is to invent processes for deluding the sight." + +Greek artists wrought conscientiously for they worked for the gods. +And so their monuments are elaborated in all their parts, even in +those that are least in view, and are constructed so solidly that +they exist to this day if they have not been violently destroyed. The +Parthenon was still intact in the seventeenth century. An explosion of +gunpowder wrecked it. + +The architecture of the Greeks was at once solid and elegant, simple +and scientific. Their temples have almost all disappeared; here and +there are a very few,[90] wholly useless, in ruins, with roofs fallen +in, often nothing left but rows of columns. And yet, even in this +state, they enrapture those who behold them. + +=Sculpture.=--Among the Egyptians and the Assyrians sculpture was +hardly more than an accessory ornament of their edifices; the Greeks +made it the principal art. Their most renowned artists, Phidias, +Praxiteles, and Lysippus, were sculptors. + +They executed bas-reliefs to adorn the walls of a temple, its façade +or its pediment. Of this style of work is the famous frieze of the +Panathenaic procession which was carved around the Parthenon, +representing young Athenian women on the day of the great festival of +the goddess.[91] + +They sculptured statues for the most part, of which some represented +gods and served as idols; others represented athletes victorious in +the great games, and these were the recompense of his victory. + +The most ancient statues of the Greeks are stiff and rude, quite +similar to the Assyrian sculptures. They are often colored. Little by +little they become graceful and elegant. The greatest works are those +of Phidias in the fifth century and of Praxiteles in the fourth. The +statues of the following centuries are more graceful, but less noble +and less powerful. + +There were thousands of statues in Greece,[92] for every city had its +own, and the sculptors produced without cessation for five centuries. +Of all this multitude there remain to us hardly fifteen complete +statues. Not a single example of the masterpieces celebrated among the +Greeks has come down to us. Our most famous Greek statues are either +copies, like the Venus of Milo, or works of the period of the +decadence, like the Apollo of the Belvidere.[93] Still there remains +enough, uniting the fragments of statues and of bas-reliefs which are +continually being discovered,[94] to give us a general conception of +Greek sculpture. + +Greek sculptors sought above everything else to represent the most +beautiful bodies in a calm and noble attitude. They had a thousand +occasions for viewing beautiful bodies of men in beautiful poses, at +the gymnasium, in the army, in the sacred dances and choruses. They +studied them and learned to reproduce them; no one has ever better +executed the human body. + +Usually in a Greek statue the head is small, the face without emotion +and dull. The Greeks did not seek, as we do, the expression of the +face; they strove for beauty of line and did not sacrifice the limbs +for the head. In a Greek statue it is the whole body that is +beautiful. + +=Pottery.=--The Greeks came to make pottery a real art. They called it +Ceramics (the potter's art), and this name is still preserved. Pottery +had not the same esteem in Greece as the other arts, but for us it has +the great advantage of being better known than the others. While +temples and statues fell into ruin, the achievements of Greek potters +are preserved in the tombs. This is where they are found today. +Already more than 20,000 specimens have been collected in all the +museums of Europe. They are of two sorts: + + 1. Painted vases, with black or red figures, of all sizes and + every form; + + 2. Statuettes of baked earth; hardly known twenty years ago, they + have now attained almost to celebrity since the discovery of the + charming figurines of Tanagra in BÅ“otia. The most of them are + little idols, but some represent children or women. + +=Painting.=--There were illustrious painters in Greece--Zeuxis, +Parrhasius, and Apelles. We know little of them beyond some anecdotes, +often doubtful, and some descriptions of pictures. To obtain an +impression of Greek painting we are limited to the frescoes found in +the houses of Pompeii, an Italian city of the first century of our +era. This amounts to the same as saying we know nothing of it. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[81] The moderns have called this time the Age of Pericles, because +Pericles was then governing and was the friend of many of these artists; +but the ancients never employed the phrase. + +[82] See Aristophanes' "Clouds." + +[83] The "Memorabilia" and "Apologia." + +[84] Because Plato had lectured in the gardens of a certain Academus. + +[85] Because Aristotle had given instruction while moving about. [Or +rather from a favorite walk (Peripatus) in the Lyceum.--ED.] + +[86] The Greek word for temple signifies "dwelling." + +[87] But not by a square opening in the roof as formerly supposed.--ED. +See Gardner, "Ancient Athens," N.Y., 1902, p. 268. + +[88] The Parthenon contained vases of gold and silver, a crown of gold, +shields, helmets, swords, serpents of gold, an ivory table, eighteen +couches, and quivers of ivory. + +[89] Boutmy, "Philosophie de l'Architecture en Grèce." + +[90] The most noted are the Parthenon at Athens and the temple of +Poseidon at Pæstum, in south Italy. + +[91] Knights and other subjects were also shown.--ED. + +[92] Even in the second century after the Romans had pillaged Greece to +adorn their palaces, there were many thousands of statues in the Greek +cities. + +[93] It is not certain that the Apollo Belvidere was not a Roman copy. + +[94] In the ruins of Olympia has been found a statue of Hermes, the work +of Praxiteles. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT + +ASIA BEFORE ALEXANDER + + +=Decadence of the Persian Empire.=--The Greeks, engaged in strife, +ceased to attack the Great King; they even received their orders from +him. But the Persian empire still continued to become enfeebled. The +satraps no longer obeyed the government; each had his court, his +treasure, his army, made war according to his fancy, and in short, +became a little king in his province. When the Great King desired to +remove a satrap, he had scarcely any way of doing it except by +assassinating him. The Persians themselves were no longer that nation +before which all the Asiatic peoples were wont to tremble. Xenophon, a +Greek captain, who had been in their pay, describes them as follows: +"They recline on tapestries wearing gloves and furs. The nobles, for +the sake of the pay, transform their porters, their bakers, and cooks +into knights--even the valets who served them at table, dressed them +or perfumed them. And so, although their armies were large, they were +of no service, as is apparent from the fact that their enemies +traversed the empire more freely than their friends. They no longer +dared to fight. The infantry as formerly was equipped with buckler, +sword, and axe, but they had no courage to use them. The drivers of +chariots before facing the enemy basely allowed themselves to be +overthrown at once or leaped down from the cars, so that these being +no longer under control injured the Persians more than the enemy. For +the rest, the Persians do not disguise their military weakness, they +concede their inferiority and do not dare to take the field except +there are Greeks in their army. They have for their maxim 'never to +fight Greeks without Greek auxiliaries on their side.'" + +=Expedition of the Ten Thousand.=--This weakness was very apparent +when in 400 Cyrus, brother of the Great King Artaxerxes, marched +against him to secure his throne. There were then some thousands of +adventurers or Greek exiles who hired themselves as mercenaries. Cyrus +retained ten thousand of them. Xenophon, one of their number, has +written the story of their expedition. + +This army crossed the whole of Asia even to the Euphrates without +resistance from any one.[95] They at last came to battle near Babylon. +The Greeks according to their habit broke into a run, raising the +war-cry. The barbarians took flight before the Greeks had come even +within bow-shot. The Greeks followed in pursuit urging one another to +keep ranks. + +When the war-chariots attacked them, they opened their ranks and let +them through. Not a Greek received the least stroke with the exception +of one only who was wounded with an arrow. Cyrus was killed; his army +disbanded without fighting, and the Greeks remained alone in the heart +of a hostile country threatened by a large army. And yet the Persians +did not dare to attack them, but treacherously killed their five +generals, twenty captains, and two hundred soldiers who had come to +conclude a truce. + +The friendless mercenaries elected new chiefs, burned their tents and +their chariots, and began their retreat. They broke into the rugged +mountains of Armenia, and notwithstanding famine, snow, and the arrows +of the natives who did not wish to let them pass, they came to the +Black Sea and returned to Greece after traversing the whole Persian +empire. At their return (399) their number amounted still to 8,000. + +=Agesilaus.=--Three years after, Agesilaus, king of Sparta, with a +small army invaded the rich country of Asia Minor, Lydia, and Phrygia. +He fought the satraps and was about to invade Asia when the Spartans +ordered his return to fight the armies of Thebes and Athens. Agesilaus +was the first of the Greeks to dream of conquering Persia. He was +distressed to see the Greeks fighting among themselves. When they +announced to him the victory at Corinth where but eight Spartans had +perished and 10,000 of the enemy, instead of rejoicing he sighed and +said, "Alas, unhappy Greece, to have lost enough men to have +subjugated all the barbarians!" He refused one day to destroy a Greek +city. "If we exterminate all the Greeks who fail of their duty," said +he, "where shall we find the men to vanquish the barbarians?" This +feeling was rare at that time. In relating these words of Agesilaus +Xenophon, his biographer, exclaims, "Who else regarded it as a +misfortune to conquer when he was making war on peoples of his own +race?" + + +CONQUEST OF ASIA BY ALEXANDER + +=Macedon.=--Sparta and Athens, exhausted by a century of wars, had +abandoned the contest against the king of Persia. A new people resumed +it and brought it to an end; these were the Macedonians. They were a +very rude people, crude, similar to the ancient Dorians, a people of +shepherds and soldiers. They lived far to the north of Greece in two +great valleys that opened to the sea. The Greeks had little regard for +them, rating them as half barbarians; but since the kings of Macedon +called themselves sons of Herakles they had been permitted to run +their horses in the races of the Olympian games. This gave them +standing as Greeks. + +=Philip of Macedon.=--These kings ruling in the interior, remote from +the sea, had had but little part in the wars of the Greeks. But in 359 +B.C. Philip ascended the throne of Macedon, a man young, active, bold, +and ambitious. Philip had three aims: + + 1. To develop a strong army; + + 2. To conquer all the ports on the coast of Macedon; + + 3. To force all the other Greeks to unite under his command + against the Persians. + +He consumed twenty-four years in fulfilling these purposes and +succeeded in all. The Greeks let him alone, often even aided him; in +every city he bribed partisans who spoke in his favor. "No fortress is +impregnable," said he, "if only one can introduce within it a mule +laden with gold." And by these means he took one after another all the +cities of northern Greece. + +=Demosthenes.=--The most illustrious opponent of Philip was the orator +Demosthenes. The son of an armorer, he was left an orphan at the age +of seven, and his guardians had embezzled a part of his fortune. As +soon as he gained his majority he entered a case against them and +compelled them to restore the property. He studied the orations of +Isæus and the history of Thucydides which he knew by heart. But when +he spoke at the public tribune he was received with shouts of +laughter; his voice was too feeble and his breath too short. For +several years he labored to discipline his voice. It is said that he +shut himself up for months with head half shaved that he might not be +tempted to go out, that he declaimed with pebbles in his mouth, and on +the sea-shore, in order that his voice might rise above the uproar of +the crowd. When he reappeared on the tribune, he was master of his +voice, and, as he preserved the habit of carefully preparing all his +orations, he became the most finished and most potent orator of +Greece. + +The party that then governed Athens, whose chief was Phocion, wished +to maintain the peace: Athens had neither soldiers nor money enough to +withstand the king of Macedon. "I should counsel you to make war," +said Phocion, "when you are ready for it." Demosthenes, however, +misunderstood Philip, whom he regarded as a barbarian; he placed +himself at the service of the party that wished to make war on him and +employed all his eloquence to move the Athenians from their policy of +peace. For fifteen years he seized every occasion to incite them to +war; many of his speeches have no other object than an attack on +Philip. He himself called these Philippics, and there are three of +them. (The name Olynthiacs has been applied to the orations delivered +with the purpose of enlisting the Athenians in the aid of Olynthus +when it was besieged by Philip.) The first Philippic is in 352. "When, +then, O Athenians, will you be about your duty? Will you always roam +about the public places asking one of another: What is the news? Ah! +How can there be anything newer than the sight of a Macedonian +conquering Athens and dominating Greece? I say, then, that you ought +to equip fifty galleys and resolve, if necessary, to man them +yourselves. Do not talk to me of an army of 10,000 or of 20,000 aliens +that exists only on paper. I would have only citizen soldiers." + +In the third Philippic (341) Demosthenes calls to the minds of the +Athenians the progress made by Philip, thanks to their inaction. "When +the Greeks once abused their power to oppress others, all Greece rose +to prevent this injustice; and yet today we suffer an unworthy +Macedonian, a barbarian of a hated race, to destroy Greek cities, +celebrate the Pythian games, or have them celebrated by his slaves. +And the Greeks look on without doing anything, just as one sees hail +falling while he prays that it may not touch him. You let increase his +power without taking a step to stop it, each regarding it as so much +time gained when he is destroying another, instead of planning and +working for the safety of Greece, when everybody knows that the +disaster will end with the inclusion of the most remote." + +At last, when Philip had taken Elatea on the borders of BÅ“otia, the +Athenians, on the advice of Demosthenes, determined to make war and to +send envoys to Thebes. Demosthenes was at the head of the embassy; he +met at Thebes an envoy come from Philip; the Thebans hesitated. +Demosthenes besought them to bury the old enmities and to think only +of the safety of Greece, to defend its honor and its history. He +persuaded them to an alliance with Athens and to undertake the war. A +battle was fought at Chæronea in BÅ“otia, Demosthenes, then at the age +of forty-eight, serving as a private hostile. But the army of the +Athenians and Thebans, levied in haste, was not equal to the veterans +of Philip and was thrown into rout. + +=The Macedonian Supremacy.=--Philip, victorious at Chæronea, placed a +garrison in Thebes and offered peace to Athens. He then entered the +Peloponnesus and was received as a liberator among the peoples whom +Sparta had oppressed. From this time he met with no resistance. He +came to Corinth and assembled delegates from all the Greek states +(337)[96] except Sparta. + +Here Philip published his project of leading a Greek army to the +invasion of Persia. The delegates approved the proposition and made a +general confederation of all the Greek states. Each city was to govern +itself and to live at peace with its neighbors. A general council was +initiated to prevent wars, civil dissensions, proscriptions, and +confiscations. + +This confederacy made an alliance with the king of Macedon and +conferred on him the command of all the Greek troops and navies. Every +Greek was prohibited making war on Philip on pain of banishment. + +=Alexander.=--Philip of Macedon was assassinated in 336. His son +Alexander was then twenty years old. Like all the Greeks of good +family he was accustomed to athletic exercises, a vigorous fighter, an +excellent horseman (he alone had been able to master Bucephalus, his +war-horse). But at the same time he was informed in politics, in +eloquence, and in natural history, having had as teacher from his +thirteenth to his seventeenth year Aristotle, the greatest scholar of +Greece. He read the Iliad with avidity, called this the guide to the +military art, and desired to imitate its heroes. He was truly born to +conquer, for he loved to fight and was ambitious to distinguish +himself. His father said to him, "Macedon is too small to contain +you." + +=The Phalanx.=--Philip left a powerful instrument of conquest, the +Macedonian army, the best that Greece had seen. It comprised the +phalanx of infantry and a corps of cavalry. + +The phalanx of Macedonians was formed of 16,000 men ranged with 1,000 +in front and 16 men deep. Each had a sarissa, a spear about twenty +feet in length. On the field of battle the Macedonians, instead of +marching on the enemy facing all in the same direction, held +themselves in position and presented their pikes to the enemy on all +sides, those in the rear couching their spears above the heads of the +men of the forward ranks. The phalanx resembled "a monstrous beast +bristling with iron," against which the enemy was to throw itself. +While the phalanx guarded the field of battle, Alexander charged the +enemy at the head of his cavalry. This Macedonian cavalry was a +distinguished body formed of young nobles. + +=Departure of Alexander.=--Alexander started in the spring of 334 with +30,000 infantry (the greater part of these Macedonians) and 4,500 +knights; he carried only seventy talents (less than eighty thousand +dollars) and supplies for forty days. He had to combat not only the +crowd of ill-armed peoples such as Xerxes had brought together, but an +army of 50,000 Greeks enrolled in the service of the Great King under +a competent general, Memnon of Rhodes. These Greeks might have +withstood the invasion of Alexander, but Memnon died and his army +dispersed. Alexander, delivered from his only dangerous opponent, +conquered the Persian empire in two years. + +=Victories of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela.=--Three victories gave the +empire to Alexander. In Asia Minor he overthrew the Persian troops +stationed behind the river Granicus (May, 333). At Issus, in the +ravines of Cilicia, he routed King Darius and his army of 600,000 men +(November, 333). At Arbela, near the Tigris, he scattered and +massacred a still more numerous army (331). + +This was a repetition of the Median wars. The Persian army was ill +equipped and knew nothing of manÅ“uvring; it was embarrassed with its +mass of soldiers, valets, and baggage. The picked troops alone gave +battle, the rest were scattered and massacred. Between the battles the +conquest was only a triumphal progress. Nobody resisted (except the +city of Tyre, commercial rival of the Greeks); what cared the peoples +of the empire whether they were subject to Darius or Alexander? Each +victory gave Alexander the whole of the country: the Granicus opened +Asia Minor, Issus Syria and Egypt, Arbela the rest of the empire. + +=Death of Alexander.=--Master now of the Persian empire Alexander +regarded himself as the heir of the Great King. He assumed Persian +dress, adopted the ceremonies of the Persian court and compelled his +Greek generals to prostrate themselves before him according to Persian +usage. He married a woman of the land and united eighty of his +officers to daughters of the Persian nobles. He aimed to extend his +empire to the farthest limits of the ancient kings and advanced even +to India, warring with the combative natives. After his return with +his army to Babylon (324), he died at the age of thirty-three, +succumbing to a fever of brief duration (323). + +=Projects of Alexander.=--It is very difficult to know exactly what +Alexander's purposes were. Did he conquer for the mere pleasure of it? +Or did he have a plan? Did he wish to fuse into one all the peoples of +his empire? Was he following the example already set him by Persia? Or +did he, perhaps, imitate the Great King simply for vain-glory? And so +of his intentions we know nothing. But his acts had great results. He +founded seventy cities--many Alexandrias in Egypt, in Tartary, and +even in India. He distributed to his subjects the treasures that had +been uselessly hoarded in the chests of the Great King. He stimulated +Greek scholars to study the plants, the animals, and the geography of +Asia. But what is of special importance, he prepared the peoples of +the Orient to receive the language and customs of the Greeks. This is +why the title "Great" has been assigned to Alexander. + + +THE HELLENES IN THE ORIENT + +=Dissolution of the Empire of Alexander.=--Alexander had united under +one master all the ancient world from the Adriatic to the Indus, from +Egypt to the Caucasus. This vast empire endured only while he lived. +Soon after his death his generals disputed as to who should succeed +him; they made war on one another for twenty years, at first under the +pretext of supporting some one of the house of Alexander--his brother, +his son, his mother, his sisters or one of his wives, later openly in +their own names. + +Each had on his side a part of the Macedonian army or some of the +Greek mercenary soldiers. The Greeks were thus contending among +themselves who should possess Asia. The inhabitants were indifferent +in these wars as they had been in the strife between the Greeks and +the Persians. When the war ceased, there remained but three generals; +from the empire of Alexander each of them had carved for himself a +great kingdom: Ptolemy had Egypt, Seleucus Syria, Lysimachus +Macedonia. Other smaller kingdoms were already separated or detached +themselves later: in Europe Epirus; in Asia Minor, Pontus, Bithynia, +Galatia, Cappadocia, Pergamos; in Persia, Bactriana and Parthia. Thus +the empire of Alexander was dismembered. + +=The Hellenistic Kingdoms.=--In these new kingdoms the king was a +Greek; accustomed to speak Greek, to adore the Greek gods, and to live +in Greek fashion, he preserved his language, his religion, and his +customs. His subjects were Asiatics, that is to say, barbarians; but +he sought to maintain a Greek court about him; he recruited his army +with Greek mercenaries, his administrative officers were Greeks, he +invited to his court Greek poets, scholars, and artists. + +Already in the time of the Persian kings there were many Greeks in the +empire as colonists, merchants, and especially soldiers. The Greek +kings attracted still more of these. They came in such numbers that at +last the natives adopted the costume, the religion, the manners, and +even the language of the Greeks. The Orient ceased to be Asiatic, and +became Hellenic. The Romans found here in the first century B.C. only +peoples like the Greeks and who spoke Greek.[97] + +=Alexandria.=--The Greek kings of Egypt, descendants of Ptolemy,[98] +accepted the title of Pharaoh held by the ancient kings, wore the +diadem, and, like the earlier sovereigns, had themselves worshipped +as children of the Sun. But they surrounded themselves with Greeks +and founded their capital on the edge of the sea in a Greek city, +Alexandria, a new city established by the order of Alexander. + +Built on a simple plan, Alexandria was more regular than other Greek +cities. The streets intersected at right angles; a great highway 100 +feet broad and three and one-half miles in length traversed the whole +length of the city. It was bordered with great monuments--the Stadium +where the public games were presented, the Gymnasium, the Museum, and +the Arsineum. The harbor was enclosed with a dike nearly a mile long +which united the mainland to the island of Pharos. At the very +extremity of this island a tower of marble was erected, on the summit +of which was maintained a fire always burning to guide the mariners +who wished to enter the port. Alexandria superseded the PhÅ“nician +cities and became the great port of the entire world. + +=The Museum.=--The Museum was an immense edifice of marble connected +with the royal palace. The kings of Egypt purposed to make of it a +great scientific institution. + +The Museum contained a great library.[99] The chief librarian had a +commission to buy all the books that he could find. Every book that +entered Egypt was brought to the library; copyists transcribed the +manuscript and a copy was rendered the owner to indemnify him. Thus +they collected 400,000 volumes, an unheard-of number before the +invention of printing. Until then the manuscripts of celebrated books +were scarce, always in danger of being lost; now it was known where to +find them. In the Museum were also a botanical and zoölogical garden, +an astronomical observatory, a dissecting room established +notwithstanding the prejudices of the Egyptians, and even a chemical +laboratory.[100] + +The Museum provided lodgings for scholars, mathematicians, +astronomers, physicians, and grammarians. They were supported at the +expense of the state; often to show his esteem for them the king dined +with them. These scholars held conferences and gave lectures. Auditors +came from all parts of the Greek world; it was to Alexandria that the +youth were sent for instruction. In the city were nearly 14,000 +students. + +The Museum was at once a library, an academy, and a school--something +like a university. This sort of institution, common enough among us, +was before that time completely unheard of. Alexandria, thanks to its +Museum, became the rendezvous for all the Orientals--Greeks, +Egyptians, Jews, and Syrians; each brought there his religion, his +philosophy, his science, and all were mingled together. Alexandria +became and remained for several centuries the scientific and +philosophical capital of the world. + +=Pergamum.=--The kingdom of Pergamum in Asia Minor was small and weak. +But Pergamum, its capital, was, like Alexandria, a city of artists and +of letters. The sculptors of Pergamum constituted a celebrated school +in the third century before our era.[101] Pergamum, like Alexandria, +possessed a great library where King Attalus had assembled all the +manuscripts of the ancient authors. + +It was at Pergamum that, to replace the papyrus on which down to that +time they used to write, they invented the art of preparing skins. +This new paper of Pergamum was the parchment on which the manuscripts +of antiquity have been preserved. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[95] An episode told by Xenophon shows what fear the Greeks inspired. +One day, to make a display before the queen of Cilicia, Cyrus had his +Greeks drawn up in battle array. "They all had their brazen helmets, +their tunics of purple, their gleaming shields and greaves. The trumpet +sounded, and the soldiers, with arms in action, began the charge; +hastening their steps and raising the war-cry, they broke into a run. +The barbarians were terrified; the Cilician queen fled from her chariot, +the merchants of the market abandoning their goods took to flight, and +the Greeks returned with laughter to their tents." + +[96] There were two assemblies in Corinth--the first in, 338, the second +in 337.--ED. + +[97] The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles composed in Asia Minor +were written in Greek. + +[98] They were called Lagidæ from the father of Ptolemy I. + +[99] The library of the Museum was burnt during the siege of Alexandria +by Cæsar. But it had a successor in the Serapeum which contained 300,000 +volumes. This is said to have been burnt in the seventh century by the +Arabs. [The tale of the destruction of the library under orders of Omar +is doubtful.--ED.] + +[100] King Ptolemy Philadelphus who had great fear of death passed many +years searching for an elixir of life. + +[101] There still remain to us some of the statues executed by the +orders of King Attalus to commemorate his victory over the Gauls of +Asia. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE LAST YEARS OF GREECE + +DECADENCE OF THE GREEK CITIES + + +=Rich and Poor.=--In almost all the Greek cities the domains, the +shops of trade, the merchant ships, in short, all the sources of +financial profit were in the hands of certain rich families. The other +families, that is to say, the majority of the citizens,[102] had +neither lands nor money. What, then, could a poor citizen do to gain a +livelihood? Hire himself as a farmer, an artisan, or a sailor? But the +proprietors already had their estates, their workshops, their +merchantmen manned by slaves who served them much more cheaply than +free laborers, for they fed them ill and did not pay them. Could he +work on his own account? But money was very scarce; he could not +borrow, since interest was at the rate of ten per cent. Then, too, +custom did not permit a citizen to become an artisan. "Trade," said +the philosophers, "injures the body, enfeebles the soul and leaves no +leisure to engage in public affairs." "And so," says Aristotle, "a +well-constituted city ought not to receive the artisan into +citizenship." The citizens in Greece constituted a noble class whose +only honorable functions, like the nobles of ancient France, were to +govern and go to war; working with the hands was degrading. Thus by +the competition of slaves and their exalted situation the greater part +of the citizens were reduced to extreme misery. + +=Social Strife.=--The poor governed the cities and had no means of +living. The idea occurred to them to despoil the rich, and the latter, +to resist them, organized associations. Then every Greek city was +divided into two parties: the rich, called the minority, and the poor, +called the majority or the people. Rich and poor hated one another and +fought one another. When the poor got the upper hand, they exiled the +rich and confiscated their goods; often they even adopted these two +radical measures: + + 1. The abolition of debts; + + 2. A new partition of lands. + +The rich, when they returned to power, exiled the poor. In many cities +they took this oath among themselves: "I swear always to be an enemy +to the people and to do them all the injury I can." + +No means were found of reconciling the two parties: the rich could not +persuade themselves to surrender their property; the poor were +unwilling to die of hunger. According to Aristotle all revolutions +have their origin in the distribution of wealth. "Every civil war," +says Polybius, "is initiated to subvert wealth." + +They fought savagely, as is always the case between neighbors. "At +Miletus the poor were at first predominant and forced the rich to flee +the city. But afterwards, regretting that they had not killed them +all, they took the children of the exiles, assembled them in barns +and had them trodden under the feet of cattle. The rich reëntered the +city and became masters of it. In their turn they seized the children +of the poor, coated them with pitch, and burned them alive." + +=Democracy and Oligarchy.=--Each of the two parties--rich and +poor--had its favorite form of government and set it in operation when +the party held the city. The party of the rich was the Oligarchy which +gave the government into the hands of a few people. That of the poor +was the Democracy which gave the power to an assembly of the people. +Each of the two parties maintained an understanding with the similar +party in the other cities. Thus were formed two leagues which divided +all the Greek cities: the league of the rich, or Oligarchy, the league +of the poor, or Democracy. This régime began during the Peloponnesian +War. Athens supported the democratic party, Sparta the oligarchic. The +cities in which the poor had the sovereignty allied themselves with +Athens; the cities where the rich governed, with Sparta. Thus at Samos +when the poor gained supremacy they slew two hundred of the rich, +exiled four hundred of them, and confiscated their lands and houses. +Samos then adopted a democratic government and allied itself with +Athens. The Spartan army came to besiege Samos, bringing with it the +rich exiles of Samos who wished to return to the city by force. The +city was captured, set up an oligarchy, and joined the league of +Sparta. + +=The Tyrants.=--At length, the poor perceived that the democratic form +of government did not give them strength enough to maintain the +contest. In most of the cities they consented to receive a chief. This +chief was called Tyrant. He governed as master without obeying any +law, condemning to death, and confiscating property at will. +Mercenaries defended him against his enemies. The following anecdote +represents the policy of the tyrants: "Periander, tyrant of Corinth, +sent one day to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, to ask what conduct he +ought to follow in order to govern with safety. Thrasybulus led the +envoy into the field end walked with him through the wheat, striking +off with his staff all heads that were higher than the others. He sent +off the envoy without further advice." The messenger took him for a +fool, but Periander understood: Thrasybulus was counselling him to +slay the principal citizens. + +Everywhere the rich were killed by the tyrant and their goods +confiscated; often the wealth was distributed among the poor. This is +why the populace always sustained the tyrant. + +There were tyrants in Greece from the sixth century; some, like +Pisistratus, Polycrates, and Pittacus, were respected for their +wisdom. At that time every man was called tyrant who exercised +absolute power outside the limits of the constitution; it was not a +title of reproach. + +But when the tyrants made incessant warfare on the rich they became +sanguinary and so were detested. Their situation is depicted in the +famous story of Damocles. This Damocles said to Dionysius, tyrant of +Syracuse, "You are the happiest of men." "I will show you the delight +of being a tyrant," replied Dionysius. He had Damocles served with a +sumptuous feast and ordered his servants to show the guest the same +honors as to himself. During the feast Damocles raised his eyes and +perceived a sword suspended to the ceiling held only by a horse hair, +and hanging directly over his head. The comparison was a striking +one--the tyrant's life hung only by a thread. The rich, his enemies, +watched for an opportunity to cut it, for it was regarded as +praiseworthy to assassinate a tyrant. This danger irritated him and +made him suspicious and cruel. He dared not trust anybody, believed +himself secure only after the massacre of all his enemies, and +condemned the citizens to death on the slightest suspicion. Thus the +name tyrant became a synonym of injustice. + +=Exhaustion of Greece.=--The civil wars between rich and poor +continued for nearly three centuries (430-150 B.C.). Many citizens +were massacred, a greater number exiled. These exiles wandered about +in poverty. Knowing no trade but that of a soldier, they entered as +mercenaries into the armies of Sparta, Athens, the Great King, the +Persian satraps--in short, of anybody who would hire them. There were +50,000 Greeks in the service of Darius against Alexander. It was +seldom that such men returned to their own country. + +Thus the cities lost their people. At the same time families became +smaller, many men preferring not to marry or raise children, others +having but one or two. "Is not this," says Polybius, "the root of the +evil, that of these two children war or sickness removes one, then the +home becomes deserted and the city enfeebled?" A time came when there +were no longer enough citizens in the towns to resist a conqueror. + + +THE ROMAN CONQUEST + +=The Greek Leagues.=--The most discerning of the Greeks commenced to +see the danger during the second war of Rome with Carthage. In an +assembly held at Naupactus in 207 B.C. a Greek orator said, "Turn your +eyes to the Occident; the Romans and Carthaginians are disputing +something else than the possession of Italy. A cloud is forming on +that coast, it increases, and impends over Greece."[103] + +The Greek cities at this time grouped themselves in two leagues +hostile to each other. Two little peoples, the Ætolians and Achæans, +had the direction of them; they commanded the armies and determined on +peace and war, just as Athens and Sparta once did. Each league +supported in the Greek states one of the two political parties--the +Ætolian League the democratic, the Achæan League[104] the +oligarchical. + +=The Roman Allies.=--Neither of the two leagues was strong enough to +unite all the Greek states. The Romans then appeared. Philip, the king +of Macedon (197), and later Antiochus,[105] the king of Syria +(193-169), made war on them. Both were beaten. Rome destroyed their +armies and made them surrender their fleets. + +Perseus, the new king of Macedon, was conquered, made prisoner, and +his kingdom overthrown (167).[106] The Greeks made no effort to unite +for the common defence; rich and poor persisted in their strife, and +each hated the other more than the foreigner. The democratic party +allied itself with Macedon, the oligarchical party called in the +Romans.[107] While the Theban democrats were fighting in the army of +Philip, the Theban oligarchs opened the town to the Roman general. At +Rhodes all were condemned to death who had acted or spoken against +Rome. Even among the Achæans, Callicrates, a partisan of the Romans, +prepared a list of a thousand citizens whom he accused of having been +favorable to Perseus; these suspects were sent to Rome where they were +held twenty years without trial. + +=The Last Fight.=--The Romans were not at first introduced as enemies. +In 197 the consul Flamininus, after conquering the king of Macedon, +betook himself to the Isthmus of Corinth and before the Greeks +assembled to celebrate the games, proclaimed that "all the Greek +peoples were free." The crowd in transports of joy approached +Flamininus to thank him; they wished to salute their liberator, see +his form, touch his hand; crowns and garlands were cast upon him. The +pressure upon him was so great that he was nearly suffocated. + +The Romans seeing themselves in control soon wished to command. The +rich freely recognized their sovereignty; Rome served them by +shattering the party of the poor. This endured for forty years. At +last in 147, Rome being engaged with Carthage, the democratic party +gained the mastery in Greece and declared war on the Romans. A part of +the Greeks were panic-stricken; many came before the Roman soldiers +denouncing their compatriots and themselves; others betook themselves +to a safe distance from the cities; some hurled themselves into wells +or over precipices. The leaders of the opposition confiscated the +property of the rich, abolished debts, and gave arms to the slaves. It +was a desperate contest. Once overcome, the Achæans reassembled an +army and marched to the combat with their wives and children. The +general DiÅ“us shut himself in his house with his whole family and set +fire to the building. Corinth had been the centre of the resistance; +the Romans entered it, massacred the men, and sold the women and +children as slaves. The city full of masterpieces of art was pillaged +and burnt; pictures of the great painters were thrown into the dust, +Roman soldiers lying on them and playing at dice. + + +THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT + +=Influence of Greece on Rome.=--The Romans at the time of their +conquest of the Greeks were still only soldiers, peasants, and +merchants; they had no statues, monuments, literature, science, or +philosophy. All this was found among the Greeks. Rome sought to +imitate these, as the Assyrian conquerors imitated the Chaldeans, as +the Persians did the Assyrians. The Romans kept their costume, tongue, +and religion, and never confused these with those of the Greeks. But +thousands of Greek scholars and artists came to establish themselves +in Rome and to open schools of literature and of eloquence. Later it +was the fashion for the youth of the great Roman families to go as +students to the schools of Athens and Alexandria. Thus the arts and +science of the Greeks were gradually introduced into Rome. "Vanquished +Greece overcame her savage conqueror," says Horace, the Roman poet; +"she brought the arts to uncultured Latium." + +=Architecture.=--The Romans had a national architecture. But they +borrowed the column from the Greeks and often imitated their +buildings. Many Roman temples resemble a Greek temple. + +A wealthy Roman's house is composed ordinarily of two parts: the +first, the ancient Roman house; the other is only a Greek house added +to the first. + +=Sculpture.=--The Greeks had thousands of statues, in temples, squares +of the city, gymnasia, and in their dwellings. The Romans regarded +themselves as the owners of everything that had belonged to the +vanquished people. Their generals, therefore, removed a great number +of statues, transporting them to the temples and the porticos of Rome. +In the triumph of Æmilius Paullus, victor over the king of Macedon +(Perseus), a notable spectacle was two hundred and fifty cars full of +statues and paintings. + +Soon the Romans became accustomed to adorn with statues their +theatres, council-halls, and private villas; every great noble wished +to have some of them and gave commissions for them to Greek artists. +Thus a Roman school of sculpture was developed which continued to +imitate ancient Greek models. And so it was Greek sculpture, a little +blunted and disfigured, which was spread over all the world subject to +the Romans. + +=Literature.=--The oldest Latin writer was a Greek, Livius Andronicus, +a freedman, a schoolmaster, and later an actor. The first works in +Latin were translations from the Greek. Livius Andronicus had +translated the Odyssey and several tragedies. The Roman people took +pleasure in Greek pieces and would have no others. Even the Roman +authors who wrote for the theatre did nothing but translate or arrange +Greek tragedies and comedies. Thus the celebrated works of Plautus and +of Terence are imitations of the comedies of Menander and of Diphilus, +now lost to us. + +The Romans imitated also the Greek historians. For a long time it was +the fashion to write history, even Roman history, in Greek. + +The only great Roman poets declare themselves pupils of the Greeks. +Lucretius writes only to expound the philosophy of Epicurus; Catullus +imitates the poets of Alexander; Vergil, Theocritus and Homer; Horace +translates the odes of the Greek lyrics. + +=Epicureans and Stoics.=--The Romans had a practical and literal +spirit, very indifferent to pure science and metaphysics. They took +interest in Greek philosophy only so far as they believed it had a +bearing on morals. + +Epicureans and Stoics were two sects of Greek philosophers. The +Epicureans maintained that pleasure is the supreme good, not sensual +pleasure, but the calm and reasonable pleasure of the temperate man; +happiness consists in the quiet enjoyment of a peaceful life, +surrounded with friends and without concern for imaginary goods. For +the Stoics the supreme good is virtue, which consists in conducting +one's self according to reason, with a view to the good of the whole +universe. Riches, honor, health, beauty, all the goods of earth are +nothing for the wise man; even if one torture him, he remains happy in +the possession of the true good. + +The Romans took sides for one or the other philosophy, usually without +thoroughly comprehending either. Those who passed for Epicureans spent +their lives in eating and drinking and even compared themselves to +swine. Those calling themselves Stoics, like Cato and Brutus, affected +a rude language, a solemn demeanor and emphasized the evils of life. +Nevertheless these doctrines, spreading gradually, aided in destroying +certain prejudices of the Romans. Epicureans and Stoics were in +harmony on two points: they disdained the ancient religion and taught +that all men are equal, slaves or citizens, Greeks or barbarians. +Their Roman disciples renounced in their school certain old +superstitions, and learned to show themselves less cruel to their +slaves, less insolent toward other peoples. + +The conquest of Greece by the Romans gave the arts, letters, and +morals of the Greeks currency in the west, just as the conquest of the +Persian empire by the Greeks had carried their language, customs, and +religion into the Orient. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[102] In almost all the Greek cities there was no middle class. In this +regard Athens with its thirteen thousand small proprietors is a +remarkable exception. + +[103] Polybius, v., 104. + +[104] The Achæan league had illustrious leaders. In the third century, +Aratus, who for twenty-seven years (251-224) traversed Greece, expelling +tyrants, recalling the rich and returning to them their property and the +government; in the second century PhilopÅ“men, who fought the tyrants of +Sparta and died by poison. + +[105] There were two kings of Syria by the name of Antiochus, between +193 and 169.--ED. + +[106] The decisive battle (Pydna) was fought in 168. Perseus walked in +the triumph of Paullus the next year.--ED. + +[107] The party policies of the Greeks of this period were hardly so +clearly drawn as the above would seem to indicate. Thus the Achæan +League allied itself with Macedon against the Ætolians and against +Sparta. The Ætolians leagued with the Romans against Macedon.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ROME + +ANCIENT PEOPLES OF ITALY + + +THE ETRUSCANS + +=Etruria.=--The word Italy never signified for the ancients the same +as for us: the Po Valley (Piedmont and Lombardy) was a part of Gaul. +The frontier country at the north was Tuscany. The Etruscans who dwelt +there have left it their name (Tusci). + +Etruria was a country at once warm and humid; the atmosphere hung +heavily over the inhabitants. The region on the shore of the sea where +the Etruscans had most of their cities is the famous Maremma, a +wonderfully fertile area, covered with beautiful forests, but where +the water having no outlet forms marshes that poison the air. "In the +Maremma," says an Italian proverb, "one gets rich in a year, but dies +in six months." + +=The Etruscan People.=--The Etruscans were for the ancients, and are +still for us, a mysterious people. They had no resemblance to their +neighbor's, and doubtless they came from a distance--from Germany, +Asia, or from Egypt; all these opinions have been maintained, but no +one of them is demonstrated. + +We are ignorant even of the language that they spoke. Their alphabet +resembles that of the Greeks, but the Etruscan inscriptions present +only proper names, and these are too short to furnish a key to the +language. + +The Etruscans established twelve cities in Tuscany, united in a +confederation, each with its own fortress, its king, and its +government. They had colonies on both coasts, twelve in Campania in +the vicinity of Naples, and twelve more in the valley of the Po. + +=Etruscan Tombs.=--There remain to us from the Etruscans only city +walls and tombs. + +When an Etruscan tomb is opened, one perceives a porch supported by +columns and behind this chambers with couches, and bodies laid on +these. Round about are ornaments of gold, ivory, and amber; purple +cloths, utensils, and especially large painted vases. On the walls are +paintings of combats, games, banquets, and fantastic scenes. + +=Industry and Commerce.=--The Etruscans knew how to turn their fertile +soil to some account, but they were for the most part mariners and +traders. Like the PhÅ“nicians they made long journeys to seek the ivory +of India, amber from the Baltic, tin, the PhÅ“nician purple, Egyptian +jewels adorned with hieroglyphics, and even ostrich eggs. All these +objects are found in their tombs. Their navies sailed to the south as +far as Sicily. The Greeks hated them and called them "savage +Tyrrhenians" or "Etruscan pirates." At this time every mariner on +occasion was a pirate, and the Etruscans were especially interested to +exclude the Greeks so that they might keep for themselves the trade of +the west coast of Italy. + +The famous Etruscan vases, which have been taken from the tombs by +the thousand to enrich our museums, were imitations of Greek vases, +but manufactured by the Etruscans. They represent scenes from Greek +mythology, especially the combats about Troy; the human figures are in +red on a black ground. + +=Religion.=--The Etruscans were a sombre people. Their gods were +stern, often malevolent. The two most exalted gods were "the veiled +deities," of whom we know nothing. Below these were the gods who +hurled the lightning and these form a council of twelve gods. Under +the earth, in the abode of the dead, were gods of evil omen. These are +represented on the Etruscan vases. The king of the lower world, +Mantus, a winged genius, sits with crown on his head and torch in his +hand. Other demons armed with sword or club with serpents in their +hands receive the souls of the dead; the principal of these under the +name Charun (the Charon of the Greeks), an old man of hideous form, +bears a heavy mallet to strike his victims. The souls of the dead (the +Manes) issue from the lower world three days in the year, wandering +about the earth, terrifying the living and doing them evil. Human +victims are offered to appease their lust for blood. The famous +gladiatorial combats which the Romans adopted had their origin in +bloody sacrifices in honor of the dead. + +=The Augurs.=--The Etruscans used to say that a little evil spirit +named Tages issued one day from a furrow and revealed to the people +assembled the secrets of divination. The Etruscan priests who called +themselves haruspices or augurs had rules for predicting the future. +They observed the entrails of victims, the thunderbolt, but +especially the flight of birds (whence their name "augurs"). The augur +at first with face turned to the north, holding a crooked staff in his +hand, describes a line which cuts the heavens in two sections; the +part to the right is favorable, to the left unfavorable. A second line +cutting the first at right angles, and others parallel to these form +in the heavens a square which was called the Temple. The augur +regarded the birds that flew in this square: some like the eagle have +a lucky significance; others like the owl presage evil. + +The Etruscans predicted the future destiny of their own people. They +are the only people of antiquity who did not expect that they were to +persist forever. Etruria, they said, was to endure ten centuries. +These centuries were not of exactly one hundred years each, but +certain signs marked the end of each period. In the year 44, the year +of the death of Cæsar, a comet appeared; an Etruscan haruspex stated +to the Romans in an assembly of the people that this comet announced +the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, the last +of the Etruscan people. + +=Influence of the Etruscans.=--The Romans, a semi-barbarous people, +always imitated their more civilized neighbors, the Etruscans. They +drew from them especially the forms of their religion: the costume of +the priests and of the magistrates, the religious rites, and the art +of divining the future from birds (the auspices). When the Romans +found a city, they observe the Etruscan rites: the founder traces a +square enclosure with a plough with share of bronze, drawn by a white +bull and a white heifer. Men follow the founder and carefully cast +the clods of earth from the side of the furrow. The whole ditch left +by the plough is sacred and is not to be crossed. To allow entrance to +the enclosure, it is necessary that the founder break the ditch at +certain points, and he does this by lifting the plough and carrying it +an instant; the interval made in this manner remains profane and it +becomes the gate by which one enters. Rome itself was founded +according to these rites. It was called Roma Quadrata, and it was said +that the founder had killed his brother to punish him for crossing the +sacred furrow. Later the limits of Roman colonies and of camps, and +even the bounds of domains were always traced in conformity with +religious rules and with geometrical lines. + +The Roman religion was half Etruscan. The Fathers of the church were +right, therefore, in calling Etruria the "Mother of Superstitions." + + +THE ITALIAN PEOPLE + +=Umbrians and Oscans.=--In the rugged mountains of the Apennines, to +the east and south of the Roman plain, resided numerous tribes. These +peoples did not bear the same name and did not constitute a single +nation. They were Umbrians, Sabines, Volscians, Æquians, Hernicans, +Marsians, and Samnites. But all spoke almost the same language, +worshipped the same gods, and had similar customs. Like the Persians, +Hindoos, and Greeks, they were of Aryan race; secluded in their +mountains, remote from strangers, they remained like the Aryans of the +ancient period; they lived in groups with their herds scattered in the +plains; they had no villages nor cities. Fortresses erected on the +mountains defended them in time of war. They were brave martial +people, of simple and substantial manners. They later constituted the +strength of the Roman armies. A proverb ran: "Who could vanquish the +Marsians without the Marsians?" + +=The Sacred Spring.=--In the midst of a pressing danger, the Sabines, +according to a legend, believing their gods to be angry, decided to +appease their displeasure by sacrificing to the god of war and of +death everything that was born during a certain spring. This sacrifice +was called a "Sacred Spring." All the children born in this year +belonged to the god. Arrived at the age of manhood, they left the +country and journeyed abroad. These exiles formed several groups, each +taking for guide one of the sacred animals of Italy, a woodpecker, a +wolf, or a bull, and followed it as a messenger of the god. Where the +animal halted the band settled itself. Many peoples of Italy, it was +said, had originated in these colonies of emigrants and still +preserved the name of the animal which had led their ancestors. Such +were, the Hirpines (people of the wolf), the Picentines (people of the +woodpecker), and the Samnites whose capital was named Bovianum (city +of the ox). + +=The Samnites.=--The Samnites were the most powerful of all. Settled +in the Abruzzi, a paradise for brigands, they descended into the +fertile plains of Naples and of Apulia and put Etruscan and Greek +towns to ransom. + +The Samnites fought against the Romans for two centuries; although +always beaten because they had no central administration and no +discipline they yet reopened the war. Their last fight was heroic. An +old man brought to the chiefs of the army a sacred book written on +linen. They formed in the interior of the camp a wall of linen, raised +an altar in the midst of it, and around this stood soldiers with +unsheathed swords. One by one the bravest of the warriors entered the +precinct. They swore not to flee before the enemy and to kill the +fugitives. Those who took the oath, to the number of 16,000, donned +linen garments. This was the "linen legion"; it engaged in battle, and +was slaughtered to the last man. + +=The Greeks of Italy.=--All south Italy was covered with Greek +colonies, some, like Sybaris, Croton, and Tarentum, very populous and +powerful. But the Greeks did not venture on the Roman coast for fear +of the Etruscans. Except the city of Cumæ the Greek colonies down to +the third century had almost no relations with the Romans. + +=The Latins.=--The Latins dwelt in the country of hills and ravines to +the south of the Tiber, called today the Roman Campagna. They were a +small people, their territory comprising no more than one hundred +square miles. They were of the same race as the other Italians, +similar to them in language, religion, and manners, but slightly more +advanced in civilization. They cultivated the soil and built strong +cities. They separated themselves into little independent peoples. +Each people had its little territory, its city, and its government. +This miniature state was called a city. Thirty Latin cities had formed +among themselves a religious association analogous to the Greek +amphictyonies. Every year they celebrated a common festival, when +their delegates, assembled at Alba, sacrificed a bull in honor of +their common god, the Latin Jupiter. + +=Rome.=--On the frontier of Latium, on the borders of Etruria, in the +marshy plain studded with hills that followed the Tiber, rose the city +of Rome, the centre of the Roman people scattered in the plain. The +land was malarial and dreary; but the situation was good. The Tiber +served as a barrier against the enemy from Etruria, the hills were +fortresses. The sea was but six leagues away, far enough to escape +fear of pirates, and near enough to permit the transportation of +merchandise. The port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a suburb +of Rome, as Piræus was of Athens. The locality was therefore agreeable +to a people of soldiers and merchants. + +=Roma Quadrata and the Capitol.=--Of the first centuries of Rome we +know only some legends, and the Romans knew no more than we. Rome, +they said, was a little square town, limited to the Palatine Hill. The +founder whom they called Romulus had according to the Etruscan forms +traced the circuit with the plough. Every year, on the 21st of April, +the Romans celebrated the anniversary of these ceremonies: a +procession marched about the primitive enclosure and a priest fixed a +nail in a temple in commemoration of it. It was calculated that the +founding had occurred in the year 754[108] B.C. + +On the other hills facing the Palatine other small cities rose. A band +of Sabine mountaineers established themselves on the Capitoline, a +group of Etruscan adventurers[109] on Mount CÅ“lius; perhaps there +were still other peoples. All these small settlements ended with +uniting with Rome on the Palatine. A new wall was built to include the +seven hills. The Capitol was then for Rome what the Acropolis was for +Athens: here rose the temples of the three protecting deities of the +city--Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and the citadel that contained the +treasure and the archives of the people. In laying the foundations, it +was said there was found a human head recently cleft from the body; +this head was a presage that Rome should become the head of the world. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[108] Rather 753 B.C.--ED. + +[109] There were three tribes in old Rome, the Ramnes on the Palatine, +the Tities or Sabines on the Capitoline, and the Luceres; but whether +the last were Etruscans or Ramnians or neither is uncertain.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +ROMAN RELIGION + + +=The Roman Gods.=--The Romans, like the Greeks, believed that +everything that occurs in the world was the work of a deity. But in +place of a God who directs the whole universe, they had a deity for +every phenomenon which they saw. There was a divinity to make the seed +sprout, another to protect the bounds of the fields, another to guard +the fruits. Each had its name, its sex, and its functions. + +The principal gods were Jupiter, god of the heaven; Janus, the +two-faced god (the deity who opens); Mars, god of war; Mercury, god of +trade; Vulcan, god of fire; Neptune, god of the sea; Ceres, goddess of +grains, the Earth, the Moon, Juno, and Minerva. + +Below these were secondary deities. Some personified a quality--for +example, Youth, Concord, Health, Peace. Others presided over a certain +act in life: when the infant came into the world there were a god to +teach him to speak, a goddess to teach him to drink, another charged +with knitting his bones, two to accompany him to school, two to take +him home again. In short, there was a veritable legion of minor +special deities. + +Other gods protected a city, a certain section of a mountain, a +forest; every river, every fountain, every tree had its little local +divinity. It is this that makes an old woman in a Latin romance +exclaim, "Our country is so full of gods that it is much easier to +find a god than a man." + +=Form of the Gods.=--The Romans, unlike the Greeks, did not give their +gods a precise form. For a long time there was no idol in Rome; they +worshipped Jupiter under the form of a rock, Mars under that of a +sword. It was later that they imitated the wooden statues of the +Etruscans and the marbles of the Greeks. Perhaps they did not at first +conceive of the gods as having human forms. + +Unlike the Greeks they did not imagine marriage and kinship among +their gods; they had no legends to tell of these relationships; they +knew of no Olympus where the gods met together. The Latin language had +a very significant word for designating the gods: they were called +Manifestations. They were the manifestations of a mysterious divine +power. This is why they were formless, without family relationship, +without legends. Everything that was known of the gods was that each +controlled a natural force and could benefit or injure men. + +=Principles of the Roman Religion.=--The Roman was no lover of these +pale and frigid abstractions; he even seemed to fear them. When he +invoked them, he covered his face, perhaps that he might not see them. +But he thought that they were potent and that they would render him +service, if he knew how to please them. "The man whom the gods favor," +says Plautus, "they cause to gain wealth." + +The Roman conceives of religion as an exchange of good offices; the +worshipper brings offerings and homage; the god in return confers some +advantage.[110] If after having made a present to the god the man +receives nothing, he considers himself cheated. During the illness of +Germanicus the people offered sacrifices for his restoration. When it +was announced that Germanicus was dead, the people in their anger +overturned the altars and cast the statues of the gods into the +streets, because they had not done what was expected of them. And so +in our day the Italian peasant abuses the saint who does not give him +what he asks. + +=Worship.=--Worship, therefore, consists in doing those things that +please the gods. They are presented with fruits, milk, wine, or animal +sacrifices. Sometimes the statues of the gods are brought from their +temples, laid on couches, and served with a feast. As in Greece, +magnificent homes (temples[111]) were built for them, and diversions +were arranged for them. + +=Formalism.=--But it is not enough that one make a costly offering to +the gods. The Roman gods are punctilious as to form; they require that +all the acts of worship, the sacrifices, games, dedications, shall +proceed according to the ancient rules (the rites). When one desires +to offer a victim to Jupiter, one must select a white beast, sprinkle +salted meal on its head, and strike it with an axe; one must stand +erect with hands raised to heaven, the abode of Jupiter, and +pronounce a sacred formula. If any part of the ceremonial fails, the +sacrifice is of no avail; the god, it is thought, will have no +pleasure in it. A magistrate may be celebrating games in honor of the +protecting deities of Rome; "if he alters a word in his formula, if a +flute-player rests, if the actor stops short, the games do not conform +to the rites; they must be recommenced."[112] + +And so the prudent man secures the assistance of two priests, one to +pronounce the formula, the other to follow the ritual accurately. + +Every year the Arval Brothers, a college of priests, assemble in a +temple in the environs of Rome where they perform a sacred dance and +recite a prayer; this is written in an archaic language which no one +any longer comprehends, so much so that at the beginning of the +ceremony a written formulary must be given to each of the priests. And +yet, ever since the time that they ceased to comprehend it, they +continued to chant it without change. This is because the Romans hold +before all to the letter of the law in dealing with their gods. This +exactness in performing the prescribed ritual is for them their +religion. And so they regarded themselves as "the most religious of +men." "On all other points we are the inferiors or only the equals of +other peoples, but we excel all in religion, that is, the worship we +pay the gods." + +=Prayer.=--When the Roman prays, it is not to lift his soul and feel +himself in communion with a god, but to ask of him a service. He is +concerned, then, first to find the god who can render it. "It is as +important," says Varro, "to know what god can aid us in a special case +as to know where the carpenter and baker live." Thus one must address +Ceres if one wants rich harvests, Mercury to make a fortune, Neptune +to have a happy voyage. Then the suppliant dons the proper garments, +for the gods love neatness; he brings an offering, for the gods love +not that one should come with empty hands. Then, erect, the head +veiled, the worshipper invokes the god. But he does not know the exact +name of the god, for, say the Romans, "no one knows the true names of +the gods." He says, then, for example, "Jupiter, greatest and best, or +whatever is the name that thou preferrest...." Then he proposes his +request, taking care to use always the clearest expressions so that +the god may make no mistake. If a libation is offered, one says, +"Receive the homage of this wine that I am pouring"; for the god might +think that one would present other wine and keep this back. The +prayers, too, are long, verbose, and full of repetitions. + +=Omens.=--The Romans, like the Greeks, believe in omens. The gods, +they think, know the future, and they send signs that permit men to +divine them. Before undertaking any act, the Roman consults the gods. +The general about to engage in battle examines the entrails of +victims; the magistrates before holding an assembly regards the +passing birds (called "taking the auspices"). If the signs are +favorable, the gods are thought to approve the enterprise; if not, +they are against it. The gods often send a sign that had not been +requested. Every unexpected phenomenon is the presage of an event. A +comet appeared before the death of Cæsar and was thought to have +announced it. + +When the assembly of the people deliberates and it thunders, it is +because Jupiter does not wish that anything shall be decided on that +day and the assembly must dissolve. The most insignificant fact may be +interpreted as a sign--a flash of lightning, a word overheard, a rat +crossing the road, a diviner met on the way. And so when Marcellus had +determined on an enterprise, he had himself carried in a closed litter +that he might be sure of not seeing anything which could impose itself +on him as a portent. + +These were not the superstitions of the populace; the republic +supported six augurs charged with predicting the future. It carefully +preserved a collection of prophecies, the Sibylline Books. It had +sacred chickens guarded by priests. No public act--assembly, election, +deliberation--could be done without the taking of the auspices, that +is to say, observation of the flight of birds. In the year 195 it was +learned that lightning had struck a temple of Jupiter and that it had +hit a hair on the head of the statue of Hercules; a governor wrote +that a chicken with three feet had been hatched; the senate assembled +to discuss these portents. + +=The Priests.=--The priest in Rome, as in Greece, is not charged with +the care of souls, he exists only for the service of the god. He +guards his temple, administers his property, and performs the +ceremonies in his honor. Thus the guild of the Salii (the leapers) +watches over a shield which fell from heaven, they said, and which +was adored as an idol; every year they perform a dance in arms, and +this is their sole function. + +The augurs predict the future. The pontiffs superintend the ceremonies +of worship; they regulate the calendar and fix the festivals to be +celebrated on the various days of the year. + +Neither the priests, the augurs, nor the pontiffs form a separate +class. They are chosen from among the great families and continue to +exercise all the functions of state--judging, presiding over +assemblies, and commanding armies. This is the reason that the Roman +priests, potent as they were, did not constitute, as in Egypt, a +sacerdotal caste. At Rome it was a state religion, but not a +government by the priests. + +=The Dead.=--The Romans, like the Hindoos and the Greeks, believed +that the soul survived the body. If care were taken to bury the body +according to the proper rites, the soul went to the lower world and +became a god; otherwise the soul could not enter the abode of the +dead, but returned to the earth terrifying the living and tormenting +them until suitable burial was performed. Pliny the Younger[113] +relates the story of a ghost which haunted a house and terrified to +death all the inhabitants of the dwelling; a philosopher who was brave +enough to follow it discovered at the place where the spectre stopped +some bones which had not been buried in the proper manner. The shade +of the Emperor Caligula wandered in the gardens of the palace; it was +necessary to disinter the body and bury it anew in regular form. + +=Cult of the Dead.=--It was of importance, therefore, to both the +living and the dead that the rites should be observed. The family of +the deceased erected a funeral pile, burned the body on it, and placed +the ashes in an urn which was deposited in the tomb, a little chapel +dedicated to the Manes,[114] _i.e._, the souls that had become gods. +On fixed days of the year the relatives came to the tomb to bring +food; doubtless they believed that the soul was in need of +nourishment, for wine and milk were poured on the earth, flesh of +victims was burned, and vessels of milk and cakes were left behind. +These funeral ceremonies were perpetuated for an indefinite period; a +family could not abandon the souls of its ancestors, but continued to +maintain their tomb and the funeral feasts. In return, these souls +which had become gods loved and protected their posterity. Each +family, therefore, had its guardian deities which they called Lares. + +=Cult of the Hearth.=--Each family had a hearth, also, that it adored. +For the Romans, as for the Hindoos, fire was a god and the hearth an +altar. The flame was to be maintained day and night, and offerings +made on the hearth of oil, fat, wine, and incense; the fire then +became brilliant and rose higher as if nourished by the offering. + +Before beginning his meal the Roman thanked the god of the hearth, +gave him a part of the food, and poured out for him a little wine +(this was the libation). Even the sceptical Horace supped with his +slaves before the hearth and offered libation and prayer. + +Every Roman family had in its house a sanctuary where were to be found +the Lares, the souls of the ancestors, and the altar of the hearth. +Rome also had its sacred hearth, called Vesta, an ancient word +signifying the hearth itself. Four virgins of the noblest families, +the Vestals, were charged with keeping the hearth, for it was +necessary that the flame should never be extinguished, and the care of +it could be confided only to pure beings. If a Vestal broke her vow, +she was buried alive in a cave, for she had committed sacrilege and +had endangered the whole Roman people. + + +THE FAMILY + +=Religion of the Family.=--All the members of a family render worship +to the same ancestors and unite about the same hearth. They have +therefore the same gods, and these are their peculiar possession. The +sanctuary where the Lares[115] were kept was concealed in the house +and no stranger was to approach it. Thus the Roman family was a little +church; it had its religion and its worship to which no others than +its members had access. The ancient family was very different from the +modern, having its basis in the principles of religion. + +=Marriage.=--The first rule of this religion is that one should be the +issue of a regular marriage if one is to have the right of adoring the +ancestors of the family. Roman marriage, therefore, is at the start a +religious ceremony. The father of the bride gives her away outside the +house when a procession conducts her to the house of the groom +chanting an ancient sacred refrain, "Hymen, O Hymen!" The bride is +then led before the altar of the husband where water and fire are +presented, and there in the presence of the gods of the family the +bride and groom divide between them a cake of meal. Marriage at this +period was called confarreatio (communion through the cake). Later +another form of marriage was invented. A relative of the bride in the +presence of witnesses sells her to the husband who declares that he +buys her for his wife. This is marriage by sale (coemptio). + +For the Romans as for the Greeks marriage is a religious duty; +religion ordains that the family should not become extinct. The Roman, +therefore, declares when he marries that he takes his wife to +perpetuate the family through their children. A noble Roman who +sincerely loved his wife repudiated her because she brought him no +children. + +=The Roman Woman.=--The Roman woman is never free. As a young girl, +she belongs to her father who chooses her husband for her; married, +she comes under the power of her husband--the jurisconsults say she is +under his "manus," _i.e._, she is in the same position as his +daughter. The woman always has a master who has the right of life and +death over her. And yet, she is never treated like a slave. She is the +equal in dignity of her husband; she is called the mother of the +family (materfamilias) just as her husband is called the father of the +family (paterfamilias). She is the mistress in the house, as he is the +master. She gives orders to the slaves whom she charges with all the +heavy tasks--the grinding of the grain, the making of bread, and the +cooking. She sits in the seat of honor (the atrium), spins and weaves, +apportions work to the slaves, watches the children, and directs the +house. She is not excluded from association with the men, like the +Greek woman; she eats at the table with her husband, receives +visitors, goes into town to dinner, appears at the public ceremonies, +at the theatre, and even at the courts. And still she is ordinarily +uncultured; the Romans do not care to instruct their daughters; the +quality which they most admire in woman is gravity, and on her tomb +they write by way of eulogy, "She kept the house and spun linen." + +=The Children.=--The Roman child belongs to the father like a piece of +property. The father has the right of exposing him in the street. If +he accepts the child, the latter is brought up at first in the house. +Girls remain here until marriage; they spin and weave under the +supervision of their mother. The boys walk to the fields with their +father and exercise themselves in arms. The Romans are not an artistic +people; they require no more of their children than that they know how +to read, write, and reckon; neither music nor poetry is taught them. +They are brought up to be sober, silent, modest in their demeanor, and +obedient. + +=The Father of the Family.=--The master of the house was called by the +Romans the father of the family. The paterfamilias is at once the +proprietor of the domain, the priest of the cult of the ancestors, and +the sovereign of the family. He reigns as master in his house. He has +the right of repudiating his wife, of rejecting his children, of +selling them, and marrying them at his pleasure. He can take for +himself all that belongs to them, everything that his wife brings to +him, and everything that his children gain; for neither the wife nor +the children may be proprietors. Finally he has over them all[116] the +"right of life and death," that is to say, he is their only judge. If +they commit crime, it is not the magistrate who punishes them, but the +father of the family who condemns them. One day (186 B.C.) the Roman +Senate decreed the penalty of death for all those who had participated +in the orgies of the cult of Bacchus. The men were executed, but for +all the women who were discovered among the guilty, it was necessary +that the Senate should address itself to the fathers of families, and +it was these who condemned to death their wives or their daughters. +"The husband," said the elder Cato, "is the judge of the wife, he can +do with her as he will; if she has committed any fault, he chastises +her; if she has drunk wine, he condemns her; if she has been +unfaithful to him, he kills her." When Catiline conspired against the +Senate, a senator perceived that his own son had taken part in the +conspiracy; he had him arrested, judged him, and condemned him to +death. + +The power of the father of the family endured as long as life; the son +was never freed from it. Even if he became consul, he remained subject +to the power of his father. When the father died, the sons became in +turn fathers of families. As for the wife, she could never attain +freedom; she fell under the power of the heir of her husband; she +could, then, become subject to her own son. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[110] A legend represents King Numa debating with Jupiter the terms of a +contract: "You will sacrifice a head to me?" says Jupiter. "Very well," +says Numa, "the head of an onion that I shall take in my garden." "No," +replies Jupiter, "but I want something that pertains to a man." "We will +give you then the tip of the hair." "But it must be alive." "Then we +will add to this a little fish." Jupiter laughed and consented to this. + +[111] In Rome, as in Greece, the temple was called a house. + +[112] The remark is Cicero's. + +[113] Pliny, Epistles, vii, 27. See another story in Plautus's +Mostellaria. + +[114] The letters D.M. found on Roman tombs are the initials of Dei +Manes. + +[115] They were called the Penates, that is to say, the gods of the +interior. + +[116] In the language of the Roman law the wife, children, and slaves +"are not their own masters." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROMAN CITY + +FORMATION OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE + + +=The Kings.=--Tradition relates that Rome for two centuries and a half +was governed by kings. They told not only the names of these kings and +the date of their death, but the life of each. + +They said there were seven kings. Romulus, the first king, came from +the Latin city of Alba, founded the hamlet on the Palatine, and killed +his brother who committed the sacrilege of leaping over the sacred +furrow encircling the settlement; he then allied himself with Tatius, +a Sabine king. (A legend of later origin added that he had founded at +the foot of the hill-city a quarter surrounded with a palisade where +he received all the adventurers who wished to come to him.) + +Numa Pompilius, the second king, was a Sabine. It was he who organized +the Roman religion, taking counsel with a goddess, the nymph Egeria +who dwelt in a wood. + +The third king, Tullus Hostilius, was a warrior. He made war on Alba, +the capital of the Latin confederation, took and destroyed it. + +Ancus Martius, the fourth king, was the grandson of Numa and built the +wooden bridge over the Tiber and founded the port of Ostia through +which commerce passed up the river to Rome. + +The last three kings were Etruscans. Tarquin the Elder enlarged the +territory of Rome and introduced religious ceremonies from Etruria. +Servius Tullius organized the Roman army, admitting all the citizens +without distinction of birth and separating them into centuries +(companies) according to wealth. The last king, Tarquinius Superbus, +oppressed the great families of Rome; some of the nobles conspired +against him and succeeded in expelling him. Since this time there were +no longer any kings. The Roman state, or as they said, the +commonwealth (res publica) was governed by the consuls, two +magistrates elected each year. + +It is impossible to know how much truth there is in this tradition, +for it took shape a long time after the Romans began to write their +history, and it includes so many legends that we cannot accept it in +its entirety. + +Attempt has been made to explain these names of kings as symbols of a +race or class. The early history of Rome has been reconstructed in a +variety of ways, but the greater the labor applied to it, the less the +agreement among students with regard to it. + +=The Roman People.=--About the fifth century before Christ there were +in Rome two classes of people, the patricians and the plebeians. The +patricians were the descendants of the old families who had lived from +remote antiquity on the little territory in the vicinity of the city; +they alone had the right to appear in the assembly of the people, to +assist in religious ceremonies, and to hold office. Their ancestors +had founded the Roman state, or as they called it, the Roman city +(Civitas), and these had bequeathed it to them. And so they were the +true people of Rome. + +=The Plebs.=--The plebeians were descended from the foreigners[117] +established in the city, and especially from the conquered peoples of +the neighboring cities; for Rome had gradually subjected all the Latin +cities and had forcibly annexed their inhabitants. Subjects and yet +aliens, they obeyed the government of Rome, but they could have no +part in it. They did not possess the Roman religion and could not +participate in its ceremonies. They had not even the right of +intermarrying with the patrician families. They were called the plebs +(the multitude) and were not considered a part of the Roman people. In +the old prayers we still find this formula: "For the welfare of the +people and the plebs of Rome." + +=Strife between Patricians and Plebeians.=--The people and the plebs +were like two distinct peoples, one of masters, the other of subjects. +And yet the plebeians were much like the patricians. Soldiers, like +them, they served in the army at their own cost and suffered death in +the service of the Roman people; peasants like them, they lived on +their domains. Many of the plebeians were rich and of ancient family. +The only difference was that they were descended from a great family +of some conquered Latin city, while the patricians were the scions of +an old family in the conquering city. + +=Tribunes of the Plebs.=--One day, says the legend, the plebeians, +finding themselves mistreated, withdrew under arms to a mountain, +determined to break with the Roman people. The patricians in +consternation sent to them Menenius Agrippa who told them the fable of +the members and the stomach. The plebs consented to return but they +made a treaty with the people. It was agreed that their chiefs (they +called them tribunes of the plebs) should have the right of protecting +the plebeians against the magistrates of the people and of prohibiting +any measure against them. All that was necessary was to pronounce the +word "Veto" (I forbid); this single word stopped everything; for +religion prevented attacks on a tribune under penalty of being devoted +to the infernal gods. + +=Triumph of the Plebs.=--The strife between the two orders beginning +at the end of the fifth century continued for two centuries (494 B.C. +to about 300 B.C.).[118] + +The plebeians, much more numerous and wealthy, ended by gaining the +victory. They first secured the adoption of laws common to the two +orders; afterward that marriage should be permitted between the +patricians and the plebeians. The hardest task was to obtain the high +magistracies, or, as it was said, "secure the honors." Religious +scruple ordained, indeed, that before one could be named as a +magistrate, the gods must be asked for their approval of the choice. +This was determined by inspecting the flight of birds ("taking the +auspices"). But the old Roman religion allowed the auspices to be +taken only on the name of a patrician; it was not believed that the +gods could accept a plebeian magistrate. But there were great plebeian +families who were bent on being the equals of the patrician families +in dignity, as they were in riches and in importance. They gradually +forced the patricians to open to them all the offices, beginning with +the consulship, and ending with the great pontifical office (Pontifex +Maximus). The first plebeian consul was named in 366 B.C., the first +plebeian pontifex maximus in 302 B.C.[119] Patricians and plebeians +then coalesced and henceforth formed but one people. + + +THE ROMAN PEOPLE + +=The Right of Citizenship.=--The _people_ in Rome, as in Greece, is +not the whole of the inhabitants, but the body of citizens. Not every +man who lives in the territory is a citizen, but only he who has the +right of citizenship. The citizen has numerous privileges: + + 1. He alone is a member of the body politic; he alone has the + right of voting in the assemblies of the Roman people, of serving + in the army, of being present at the religious ceremonials at + Rome, of being elected a Roman magistrate. These are what were + called public rights. + + 2. The citizen alone is protected by the Roman law; he only has + the right of marrying legally, of becoming the father of a family, + that is to say, of being master of his wife and his children, of + making his will, of buying or selling. These were the private + rights. + +Those who were not citizens were not only excluded from the army and +the assembly, but they could not marry, could not possess the absolute +power of the father, could not hold property legally, could not invoke +the Roman law, nor demand justice at a Roman tribunal. Thus the +citizens constituted an aristocracy amidst the other inhabitants of +the city. But they were not equal among themselves; there were class +differences, or, as the Romans said, ranks. + +=The Nobles.=--In the first rank are the nobles. A citizen is noble +when one of his ancestors has held a magistracy, for the magisterial +office in Rome is an honor, it ennobles the occupant and also his +posterity. + +When a citizen becomes ædile, prætor, or consul, he receives a +purple-bordered toga, a sort of throne (the curule chair), and the +right of having an image made of himself. These images are statuettes, +at first in wax, later in silver. They are placed in the atrium, the +sanctuary of the house, near the hearth and the gods of the family; +there they stand in niches like idols, venerated by posterity. When +any one of the family dies, the images are brought forth and carried +in the funeral procession, and a relative pronounces the oration for +the dead. It is these images that ennoble a family that preserves +them. The more images there are in a family, the nobler it is. The +Romans spoke of those who were "noble by one image" and those who were +"noble by many images." + +The noble families of Rome were very few (they would not amount to +300), for the magistracies which conferred nobility were usually given +to men who were already noble. + +=The Knights.=--Below the nobles were the knights. They were the rich +who were not noble. Their fortune as inscribed on the registers of the +treasury must amount to at least 400,000[120] sesterces. They were +merchants, bankers, and contractors; they did not govern, but they +grew rich. At the theatre they had places reserved for them behind the +nobles. + +If a knight were elected to a magistracy, the nobles called him a "new +man" and his son became noble. + +=The Plebs.=--Those who were neither nobles nor knights formed the +mass of the people, the plebs. The majority of them were peasants, +cultivating a little plat in Latium or in the Sabine country. They +were the descendants of the Latins or the Italians who were subjugated +by the Romans. Cato the Elder in his book on Agriculture gives us an +idea of their manners: "Our ancestors, when they wished to eulogize a +man, said 'a good workman,' 'a good farmer'; this encomium seemed the +greatest of all."[121] + +Hardened to work, eager for the harvest, steady and economical, these +laborers constituted the strength of the Roman armies. For a long time +they formed the assembly too, and dictated the elections. The nobles +who wished to be elected magistrates came to the parade-ground to +grasp the hand of these peasants ("prensare manus," was the common +expression). A candidate, finding the hand of a laborer callous, +ventured to ask him, "Is it because you walk on your hands?" He was a +noble of great family, but he was not elected. + +=The Freedmen.=--The last of all the citizens are the freedmen, once +slaves, or the sons of slaves. The taint of their origin remains on +them; they are not admitted to service in the Roman army and they vote +after all the rest. + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC + +=The Comitia.=--The government of Rome called itself a republic +(Respublica), that is to say, a thing of the people. The body of +citizens called the people was regarded as absolute master in the +state. It is this body that elects the magistrates, votes on peace and +war, and that makes the laws. "The law," say the jurisconsults, "is +what the Roman people ordains." At Rome, as in Greece, the people do +not appoint deputies, they pass on the business itself. Even after +more than 500,000 men scattered over all Italy were admitted into the +citizenship, the citizens had to go in person to Rome to exercise +their rights. The people, therefore, meet at but one place; the +assembly is called the Comitia. + +A magistrate convokes the people and presides over the body. Sometimes +the people are convoked by the blast of the trumpet and come to the +parade-ground (the Campus Martius), ranging themselves by companies +under their standards. This is the Comitia by centuries. Sometimes +they assemble in the market-place (the forum) and separate themselves +into thirty-five groups, called tribes. Each tribe in turn enters an +enclosed space where it does its voting. This is the Comitia by +tribes. The magistrate who convokes the assembly indicates the +business on which the suffrages are to be taken, and when the assembly +has voted, it dissolves. The people are sovereign, but accustomed to +obey their chiefs. + +=The Magistrates.=--Every year the people elect officials to govern +them and to them they delegate absolute power. These are called +magistrates (those who are masters). Lictors march before them bearing +a bundle of rods and an axe, emblems of the magisterial powers of +chastising and condemning to death. The magistrate has at once the +functions of presiding over the popular assembly and the senate, of +sitting in court, and of commanding the army; he is master everywhere. +He convokes and dissolves the assembly at will, he alone renders +judgment, he does with the soldiers as he pleases, putting them to +death without even taking counsel with his officers. In a war against +the Latins Manlius, the Roman general, had forbidden the soldiers +leaving camp: his son, provoked by one of the enemy, went forth and +killed him; Manlius had him arrested and executed him immediately. + +According to the Roman expression, the magistrate has the power of a +king; but this power is brief and divided. The magistrate is elected +for but one year and he has a colleague who has the same power as +himself. There are at once in Rome two consuls who govern the people +and command the armies, and several prætors to serve as subordinate +governors or commanders and to pronounce judgment. There are other +magistrates, besides--two censors, four ædiles to supervise the +public ways and the markets, ten tribunes of the plebs, and quæstors +to care for the state treasure. + +=The Censors.=--The highest of all the magistrates are the censors. +They are charged with taking the census every five years, that is to +say, the enumeration of the Roman people. All the citizens appear +before them to declare under oath their name, the number of their +children and their slaves, the amount of their fortune; all this is +inscribed on the registers. It is their duty, too, to draw up the list +of the senators, of the knights, and of the citizens, assigning to +each his proper rank in the city. They are charged as a result with +making the lustrum, a great ceremony of purification which occurs +every five years.[122] + +On that day all the citizens are assembled on the Campus Martius +arranged in order of battle; thrice there are led around the assembly +three expiatory victims, a bull, a ram, and a swine; these are killed +and their blood sprinkled on the people; the city is purified and +reconciled with the gods. + +The censors are the masters of the registration and they rank each as +they please; they may degrade a senator by striking him from the +senate-list, a knight by not registering him among the knights, and a +citizen by not placing his name on the registers of the tribes. It is +for them an easy means of punishing those whom they regard at fault +and of reaching those whom the law does not condemn. They have been +known to degrade citizens for poor tillage of the soil and for having +too costly an equipage, a senator because he possessed ten pounds of +silver, another for having repudiated his wife. It is this overweening +power that the Romans call the supervision of morals. It makes the +censors the masters of the city. + +=The Senate.=--The Senate is composed of about 300 persons appointed +by the censor. But the censor does not appoint at random; he chooses +only rich citizens respected and of high family, the majority of them +former magistrates. Almost always he appoints those who are already +members of the Senate, so that ordinarily one remains a senator for +life. The Senate is an assembly of the principal men of Rome, hence +its authority. As soon as business is presented, one of the +magistrates convokes the senators in a temple, lays the question +before them, and then asks "what they think concerning this matter." +The senators reply one by one, following the order of dignity. This is +what they call "consulting the Senate," and the judgment of the +majority is a senatus consultum (decree of the Senate). This +conclusion is only advisory as the Senate has no power to make laws; +but Rome obeys this advice as if it were a law. The people have +confidence in the senators, knowing that they have more experience +than themselves; the magistrates do not dare to resist an assembly +composed of nobles who are their peers. And so the Senate regulates +all public business: it declares war and determines the number of the +armies; it receives ambassadors and makes peace; it fixes the revenues +and the expenses. The people ratify these measures and the magistrates +execute them. In 200 B.C. the Senate decided on war with the king of +Macedon, but the people in terror refused to approve it: the Senate +then ordered a magistrate to convoke the comitia anew and to adopt a +more persuasive speech. This time the people voted for the war. In +Rome it was the people who reigned, just as is the case with the king +in England, but it was the Senate that governed. + +=The Offices.=--Being magistrate or senator in Rome is not a +profession. Magistrates or senators spend their time and their money +without receiving any salary. A magistracy in Rome is before all an +honor. Entrance to it is to nobles, at most to knights, but always to +the rich; but these come to the highest magistracies only after they +have occupied all the others. The man who aims one day to govern Rome +must serve in the army during ten campaigns. Then he may be elected +quæstor and he receives the administration of the state treasury. +After this he becomes ædile, charged with the policing of the city and +with the provision of the corn supply. Later he is elected prætor and +gives judgment in the courts. Later yet, elected consul, he commands +an army and presides over the assemblies. Then only may he aspire to +the censorship. This is the highest round of the ladder and may be +reached hardly before one's fiftieth year. The same man has therefore, +been financier, administrator, judge, general, and governor before +arriving at this original function of censor, the political +distribution of the Roman people. This series of offices is what is +called the "order of the honors." Each of these functions lasts but +one year, and to rise to the one next higher a new election is +necessary. In the year which precedes the voting one must show one's +self continually in the streets, "circulate" as the Romans say +(_ambire_: hence the word "ambition"), to solicit the suffrages of the +people. For all this time it is the custom to wear a white toga, the +very sense of the word "candidate" (white garment). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[117] Probably some of the plebeians originated in non-noble Roman +families.--ED. + +[118] We know the story of this contest only through Livy and Dionysius +of Halicarnassus; their very dramatic account has become celebrated, but +it is only a legend frequently altered by falsifiers. + +[119] The pontificate was opened to the plebeians by the Ogulnian Law of +300 B.C. The first plebeian pontifex maximus was in 254 B.C. Livy, +Epitome, xviii.--ED. + +[120] This qualification was set in the last century of the +republic.--ED. + +[121] He cites several of their old proverbs: "A bad farmer is one who +buys what his land can raise." "It is bad economy to do in the day what +can be done at night." + +[122] After the completion of the census.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ROMAN CONQUEST + +THE ROMAN ARMY + + +=Military Service.=--To be admitted to service in the Roman army one +must be a Roman citizen. It is necessary to have enough wealth to +equip one's self at one's own expense, for the state furnishes no arms +to its soldiers; down to 402 B.C. it did not even pay them. And so +only those citizens are enrolled who are provided with at least a +small fortune. The poor (called the proletariat) are exempt from +service, or rather, they have no right to serve. Every citizen who is +rich enough to be admitted to the army owes the state twenty +campaigns; until these are completed the man remains at the +disposition of the consul and this from the age of seventeen to +forty-six. In Rome, as in the Greek cities, every man is at once +citizen and soldier. The Romans are a people of small proprietors +disciplined in war. + +=The Levy.=--When there was need of soldiers, the consul ordered all +the citizens qualified for service to assemble at the Capitol. There +the officers elected by the people chose as many men as were necessary +to form the army. This was the enrolment (the Romans called it the +Choice); then came the military oath. The officers first took the +oath, and then the rank and file; they swore to obey their general, +to follow him wherever he led them and to remain under the standards +until he released them from their oath. One man pronounced the formula +and each in turn advanced and said, "I also." From this time the army +was bound to the general by the bonds of religion. + +=Legions and Allies.=--The Roman army was at first called the Legion +(levy). When the people increased in number, instead of one legion, +several were formed. + +The legion was a body of 4,200 to 5,000 men, all Roman citizens. The +smallest army had always at least one legion, every army commanded by +a consul had at least two. But the legions constituted hardly a half +of the Roman army. All the subject peoples in Italy were required to +send troops, and these soldiers, who were called allies, were placed +under the orders of Roman officers. In a Roman army the allies were +always a little more numerous than the citizens of the legions. +Ordinarily with four legions (16,800 men) there were enrolled 20,000 +archers and 40,000 horse from the allies. In the Second Punic War, in +218 B.C., 26,000 citizens and 45,000 allies were drawn for service. +Thus the Roman people, in making war, made use of its subjects as well +as of its citizens. + +=Military Exercises.=--Rome had no gymnasium; the future soldiers +exercised themselves on the parade-ground, the Campus Martius, on the +other side of the Tiber. There the young man marched, ran, leaped +under the weight of his arms, fenced with his sword, hurled the +javelin, wielded the mattock, and then, covered with dust and with +perspiration, swam across the Tiber. Often the older men, sometimes +even the generals, mingled with the young men, for the Roman never +ceased to exercise. Even in the campaign the rule was not to allow the +men to be unoccupied; once a day, at least, they were required to take +exercise, and when there was neither enemy to fight nor intrenchment +to erect, they were employed in building roads, bridges, and +aqueducts. + +=The Camp.=--The Roman soldier carried a heavy burden--his arms, his +utensils, rations for seventeen days, and a stake, in all sixty Roman +pounds. The army moved more rapidly as it was not encumbered with +baggage. Every time that a Roman army halted for camp, a surveyor +traced a square enclosure, and along its lines the soldiers dug a deep +ditch; the earth which was excavated, thrown inside, formed a bank +which they fortified with stakes. The camp was thus defended by a +ditch and a palisade. In this improvised fortress the soldiers erected +their tents, and in the middle was set the Prætorium, the tent of the +general. Sentinels mounted guard throughout the night, and so +prevented the army from being surprised. + +=The Order of Battle.=--In the presence of the enemy the soldiers did +not form in a solid mass, as did the Greeks. The legion was divided +into small bodies of 120 men, called maniples because they had for +standards bundles of hay.[123] The maniples were ranged in quincunx +form in three lines, each separated from the neighboring maniple in +such a way as to manÅ“uvre separately. The soldiers of the maniples of +the first line hurled their javelins, grasped their swords, and began +the battle. If they were repulsed, they withdrew to the rear through +the vacant spaces. The second line of the maniples then in turn +marched to the combat. If it was repulsed, it fell back on the third +line. The third line was composed of the best men of the legion and +was equipped with lances. They received the others into their ranks +and threw themselves on the enemy. The army was no longer a single +mass incapable of manÅ“uvring; the general could form his lines +according to the nature of the ground. At Cynoscephalæ, where for the +first time the two most renowned armies of antiquity met, the Roman +legion and the Macedonian phalanx, the ground was bristling with +hills; on this rugged ground the 16,000 Macedonion hoplites could not +remain in order, their ranks were opened, and the Roman platoons threw +themselves into the gaps and demolished the phalanx. + +=Discipline.=--The Roman army obeyed a rude discipline. The general +had the right of life and death over all his men. The soldier who +quitted his post or deserted in battle was condemned to death; the +lictors bound him to a post, beat him with rods, and cut off his head; +or the soldiers may have killed him with blows of their staves. When +an entire body of troops mutinied, the general separated the guilty +into groups of ten and drew by lot one from every group to be +executed. This was called decimation (from decimus, the tenth). The +others were placed on a diet of barley-bread and made to camp outside +the lines, always in danger of surprise from the enemy. The Romans +never admitted that their soldiers were conquered or taken prisoners: +after the battle of Cannæ the 3,000 soldiers who escaped the carnage +were sent by the senate to serve in Sicily without pay and without +honors until the enemy should be expelled from Italy; the 8,000 left +in the camp were taken by Hannibal who offered to return them for a +small ransom, but the senate refused to purchase them. + +=Colonies and Military Roads.=--In the countries that were still only +partially subject, Rome established a small garrison. This body of +soldiers founded a town which served as a fortress, and around about +it the lands were cut into small domains and distributed to the +soldiers. This is what they called a Colony. The colonists continued +to be Roman citizens and obeyed all commands from Rome. Quite +different from a Greek colony which emancipated itself even to the +point of making war on its mother city, the Roman colony remained a +docile daughter. It was only a Roman garrison posted in the midst of +the enemy. Almost all these military posts were in Italy, but there +were others besides; Narbonne and Lyons were once Roman colonies. + +To hold these places and to send their armies to a distance the Romans +built military roads. These were causeways constructed in a straight +line, of limestone, stone, and sand. The Romans covered their empire +with them. In a land like France there is no part where one does not +find traces of the Roman roads. + + +CHARACTER OF THE CONQUEST + +=War.=--There was at Rome a temple consecrated to the god Janus whose +gates remained open while the Roman people continued at war. For the +five hundred years of the republic this temple was closed but once +and that for only a few years. Rome, then, lived in a state of war. As +it had the strongest army of the time, it finished by conquering all +the other peoples and by overcoming the ancient world. + +=Conquest of Italy.=--Rome began by subjecting her neighbors, the +Latins, first, then the little peoples of the south, the Volscians, +the Æquians, the Hernicans, later the Etruscans and the Samnites, and +finally the Greek cities. This was the hardest and slowest of their +conquests: beginning with the time of the kings, it did not terminate +until 266, after four centuries of strife.[124] + +The Romans had to fight against peoples of the same race as +themselves, as vigorous and as brave as they. Some who were not +content to obey they exterminated. The rich plains of the Volscians +became a swampy wilderness, uninhabitable even to the present time, +the gloomy region of the Pontine marshes. + +In the land of the Samnites there were still recognizable, three +hundred years after the war, the forty-five camps of Decius and the +eighty-six of Fabius, less apparent by the traces of their +intrenchments than by the solitude of the neighborhood. + +=The Punic Wars.=--Come into Sicily, Rome antagonized Carthage. Then +began the Punic wars (that is to say, against the PhÅ“nicians). There +were three of these wars. The first, from 264 to 241, was determined +by naval battles; Rome became mistress of Sicily. It was related that +Rome had never had any war-ships, that she took as a model a +Carthaginian galley cast ashore by accident on her coast and began by +exercising her oarsmen in rowing on the land. This legend is without +foundation for the Roman navy had long endured. This is the Roman +account of this war: the Roman consul Duillius had vanquished the +Carthaginian fleet at Mylæ (260); a Roman army had disembarked in +Africa under the lead of Regulus, had been attacked and destroyed +(255); Regulus was sent as a prisoner to Rome to conclude a peace, but +persuading the Senate to reject it, he returned to Carthage where he +perished by torture. The war was concentrated in Sicily where the +Carthaginian fleet, at first victorious at Drepana, was defeated at +the Ægates Islands; Hamilcar, besieged on Mount Eryx, signed the +peace. + +The second war (from 218 to 201) was the work of Hannibal. + +The third war was a war of extermination: the Romans took Carthage by +assault, razed it, and conquered Africa. + +These wars had long made Rome tremble. Carthage had the better navy, +but its warriors were armed adventurers fighting not for country but +for pay, lawless, terrible under a general like Hannibal. + +=Hannibal.=--Hannibal, who directed the whole of the second war and +almost captured Rome, was of the powerful family of the Barcas. His +father Hamilcar had commanded a Carthaginian army in the first Punic +war and had afterwards been charged with the conquest of Spain. +Hannibal was then but a child, but his father took him with him. The +departure of an army was always accompanied by sacrifices to the gods +of the country; it was said that Hamilcar after the sacrifice made his +infant son swear eternal enmity to Rome. + +Hannibal, brought up in the company of the soldiers, became the best +horseman and the best archer of the army. War was his only aim in +life; his only needs, therefore, were a horse and arms. He had made +himself so popular that at the death of Hasdrubal who was in the +command of the army, the soldiers elected him general without waiting +for orders from the Carthaginian senate. Thus Hannibal found himself +at the age of twenty-one at the head of an army which was obedient +only to himself. He began war, regardless of the senate at Carthage, +by advancing to the siege of Saguntum, a Greek colony allied with +Rome; he took this and destroyed it. + +The glory of Hannibal was that he did not wait for the Romans, but had +the audacity to march into Italy to attack them. As he had no fleet, +he resolved to advance by land, through the Pyrenees, crossing the +Rhone and the Alps. He made sure of the alliance of the Gallic peoples +and penetrated the Pyrenees with an army of 60,000 men, African and +Spanish mercenaries, and with 37 war-elephants. A Gallic people wished +to stop him at the Rhone, but he sent a detachment to pass the river +some leagues farther up the stream and to attack the Gauls in the +rear; the mass of the army crossed the river in boats, the elephants +on great rafts. + +He next ascended the valley of the Isère and arrived at the Alps at +the end of October; he crossed them regardless of the snow and the +attacks of the mountaineers; many men and horses rolled down the +precipices. But nine days were consumed in attaining the summits of +the Alps. The descent was very difficult; the pass by which he had to +go was covered with ice and he was compelled to cut a road out of the +rock. When he arrived in the plain, the army was reduced to half its +former number. + +Hannibal met three Roman armies in succession, first at the Ticinus, +next on the banks of the Trebia, and last near Lake Trasimenus in +Etruria. He routed all of them. As he advanced, his army increased in +number; the warriors of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) joined him +against the Romans. He took up position beyond Rome in Apulia, and it +was here that the Roman army came to attack him. Hannibal had an army +only half as large as theirs, but he had African cavalrymen mounted on +swift horses; he formed his lines in the plain of Cannæ so that the +Romans had the sun in their face and the dust driven by the wind +against them; the Roman army was surrounded and almost annihilated +(216). It was thought that Hannibal would march on Rome, but he did +not consider himself strong enough to do it. The Carthaginian senate +sent him no reënforcements. Hannibal endeavored to take Naples and to +have Rome attacked by the king of Macedon; he succeeded only in +gaining some towns which Rome besieged and destroyed. Hannibal +remained nine years in south Italy; at last his brother Hasdrubal +started with the army of Spain to assist him, and made his way almost +to central Italy. The two Carthaginian armies marched to unite their +forces, each opposed by a Roman army under the command of a consul. +Nero, facing Hannibal, had the audacity to traverse central Italy and +to unite with his colleague who was intrenched against Hasdrubal. One +morning Hasdrubal heard the trumpets sounding twice in the camp of the +Romans, a sign that there were two consuls in the camp. He believed +his brother was conquered and so retreated; the Romans pursued him, he +was killed and his entire army massacred. Then Nero rejoined the army +which he had left before Hannibal and threw the head of Hasdrubal into +the Carthaginian camp (207). Hannibal, reduced to his own troops, +remained in Calabria for five years longer. The descent of a Roman +army on Africa compelled him to leave Italy; he massacred the Italian +soldiers who refused to accompany him and embarked for Carthage (203). +The battle of Zama (202) terminated the war. Hannibal had counted as +usual on drawing the Romans within his lines and surrounding them; but +Scipio, the Roman general, kept his troops in order and on a second +attack threw the enemy's army into rout. Carthage was obliged to treat +for peace; she relinquished everything she possessed outside of +Africa, ceding Spain to the Romans. She bound herself further to +surrender her navy and the elephants, to pay over $10,000,000 and to +agree not to make war without the permission of Rome. + +Hannibal reorganized Carthage for a new war. The Romans, disturbed at +this, demanded that the Carthaginians put him to death. Hannibal fled +to Antiochus, king of Syria, and proposed to him to incite a revolt +in Italy against Rome; but Antiochus, following the counsel of his +courtiers, distrusted Hannibal and invaded Greece, where his army was +captured. Hannibal withdrew to the king of Bithynia. The Romans sent +Flamininus thither to take him, but Hannibal, seeing his house +surrounded, took the poison which he always had by him (183). + +=Conquests of the Orient.=--The Greek kings, successors of the +generals of Alexander, divided the Orient among themselves. The most +powerful of these took up war against Rome; but they were +defeated--Philip, the king of Macedon, in 197, his son Perseus in 168, +Antiochus, the king of Syria, in 190. The Romans, having from this +time a free field, conquered one by one all the lands which they found +of use to them: Macedon (148), the kingdom of Pergamum (129), the rest +of Asia (from 74 to 64) after the defeat of Mithradates, and Egypt +(30). + +With the exception of the Macedonians, the Orient opposed the Romans +with mercenaries only or with undisciplined barbarians who fled at the +first onset. In the great victory over Antiochus at Magnesia there +were only 350 Romans killed. At Chæronea, Sulla was victorious with +the loss of but twelve men. The other kings, now terrified, obeyed the +Senate without resistance. + +Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, having conquered a part of Egypt, +was bidden by Popilius acting under the command of the Senate to +abandon his conquest. Antiochus hesitated; but Popilius, taking a rod +in his hand, drew a circle about the king, and said, "Before you move +from this circle, give answer to the Senate." Antiochus submitted, and +surrendered Egypt. The king of Numidia desired of the Senate that it +should regard his kingdom as the property of the Roman people. +Prusias, the king of Bithynia, with shaved head and in the garb of a +freedman, prostrated himself before the Senate. Mithradates alone, +king of Pontus, endeavored to resist; but after thirty years of war he +was driven from his states and compelled to take his life by poison. + +=Conquest of the Barbarian Lands.=--The Romans found more difficult +the subjection of the barbarous and warlike peoples of the west. A +century was required to conquer Spain. The shepherd Viriathus made +guerilla warfare on them in the mountains of Portugal (149-139), +overwhelmed five armies, and compelled even a consul to treat for +peace; the Senate got rid of him by assassination. + +Against the single town of Numantia it was necessary to send Scipio, +the best general of Rome. + +The little and obscure peoples of Corsica, of Sardinia, and of the +mountains of Genoa (the Ligurians) were always reviving the war with +Rome. + +But the most indomitable of all were the Gauls. Occupying the whole of +the valley of the Po, they threw themselves on Italy to the south. One +of their bands had taken Rome in 390. Their big white bodies, their +long red mustaches, their blue eyes, their savage yells terrified the +Roman soldiers. As soon as their approach was learned, consternation +seized Rome, and the Senate proclaimed the levy of the whole army +(they called this the "Gallic tumult"). These wars were the bloodiest +but the shortest; the first (225-222) gave to the Romans all Cisalpine +Gaul (northern Italy); the second (120), the Rhone lands (Languedoc, +Provence, Dauphiné); the third (58-51), all the rest of Gaul. + + +ROMAN WARFARE + +=The Triumph.=--When a general has won a great victory, the Senate +permits him as a signal honor to celebrate the triumph. This is a +religious procession to the temple of Jupiter. The magistrates and +senators march at the head; then come the chariots filled with booty, +the captives chained by the feet, and, at last, on a golden car drawn +by four horses, the victorious general crowned with laurel. His +soldiers follow him singing songs with the solemn refrain "Io, +Triomphe."[125] The procession traverses the city in festal attire and +ascends to the Capitol: there the victor lays down his laurel on the +knees of Jupiter and thanks him for giving victory. After the ceremony +the captives are imprisoned, or, as in the case of Vercingetorix, +beheaded, or, like Jugurtha, cast into a dungeon to die of hunger. The +triumph of Æmilius Paullus, conqueror of Macedon, lasted for three +days. The first day witnessed a procession of 250 chariots bearing +pictures and statues, the second the trophies of weapons and 25 casks +of silver, the third the vases of gold and 120 sacrificial bulls. At +the rear walked King Perseus, clad in black, surrounded by his +followers in chains and his three young children who extended their +hands to the people to implore their pity. + +=Booty.=--In the wars of antiquity the victor took possession of +everything that had belonged to the vanquished, not only of the arms +and camp-baggage, but of the treasure, the movable property, beasts of +the hostile people, the men, women, and children. At Rome the booty +did not belong to the soldiers but to the people. The prisoners were +enslaved, the property was sold and the profits of the sale turned +into the public chest. And so every war was a lucrative enterprise. +The kings of Asia had accumulated enormous treasure and this the Roman +generals transported to Rome. The victor of Carthage deposited in the +treasury more than 100,000 pounds of silver; the conqueror of +Antiochus 140,000 pounds of silver and 1,000 pounds of gold without +counting the coined metals; the victor over Persia remitted +120,000,000 sesterces. + +=The Allies of Rome.=--The ancient world was divided among a great +number of kings, little peoples, and cities that hated one another. +They never united for resistance and so Rome absorbed them one by one. + +Those whom she did not attack remained neutral and indifferent; often +they even united with the Romans. In the majority of her wars Rome did +not fight alone, but had the assistance of allies: against Carthage, +the king of Numidia; against the king of Macedon, the Ætolians; +against the king of Syria, the Rhodians. In the east many kings +proudly assumed the title of "Ally of the Roman People." In the +countries divided into small states, some peoples called in the Romans +against their neighbors, receiving the Roman army, furnishing it with +provisions, and guiding it to the frontiers of the hostile country. +And so in Gaul it was Marseilles that introduced the Romans into the +valley of the Rhone; it was the people of Autun (the Ædui) who +permitted them to establish themselves in the heart of the land. + +=Motives of Conquest.=--The Romans did not from the first have the +purpose to conquer the world. Even after winning Italy and Carthage +they waited a century before subjecting the Orient which really laid +itself at their feet. They conquered, it appears, without +predetermined plan, and because they all had interest in conquest. The +magistrates who were leaders of the armies saw in conquest a means of +securing the honors of the triumph and the surest instrument for +making themselves popular. The most powerful statesmen in Rome, +Papirius, Fabius, the two Scipios, Cato, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Cæsar, +and Crassus, were victorious generals. The nobles who composed the +Senate gained by the increase of Roman subjects, and with these they +allied themselves as governors to receive their homage and their +presents. For the knights--that is to say, the bankers, the merchants, +and the contractors--every new conquest was a new land to exploit. The +people itself profited by the booty taken from the enemy. After the +treasure of the king of Macedon was deposited in the public chest, +taxes were finally abolished. As for the soldiers, as soon as war was +carried into rich lands, they received immense sums from their +general, to say nothing of what they took from the vanquished. The +Romans conquered the world less for glory than for the profits of +war. + + +EFFECTS OF ROMAN CONQUEST + +=The Empire of the Roman People.=--Rome subjected all the lands around +the Mediterranean from Spain to Asia Minor. These countries were not +annexed, their inhabitants did not become citizens of Rome, nor their +territory Roman territory. They remained aliens entering simply into +the Roman empire, that is, under the domination of the Roman people. +In just the same way today the Hindoos are not citizens but subjects +of England; India is a part, not of England, but of the British +Empire. + +=The Public Domain.=--When a conquered people asked peace, this is the +formula which its deputies were expected to pronounce: "We surrender +to you the people, the town, the fields, the waters, the gods of the +boundaries, and movable property; all things which belonged to the +gods and to men we deliver to the power of the Roman people." By this +act, the Roman people became the proprietor of everything that the +vanquished possessed, even of their persons. Sometimes it sold the +inhabitants into slavery: Æmilius Paullus sold 150,000 Epeirots who +surrendered to him. Ordinarily Rome left to the conquered their +liberty, but their territory was incorporated into the _domain of the +Roman people_. Of this land three equal parts were made: + + 1. A part of their lands was returned to the people, but on + condition that they pay a tribute in money or in grain, and Rome + reserved the right of recalling the land at will. + + 2. The fields and pastures were farmed out to publicans. + + 3. Some of the uncultivated land was resigned to the first + occupant, every Roman citizen having the right of settling there + and of cultivating it. + +=Agrarian Laws.=--The Agrarian Laws which deeply agitated Rome were +concerned with this public domain. No Roman had leave to expel the +possessors, for the boundaries of these domains were gods (Termini) +and religious scruple prevented them from being disturbed. By the +Agrarian Laws the people resumed the lands of the public domain which +they distributed to citizens as property. Legally the people had the +right to do this, since all the domain belonged to them. But for some +centuries certain subjects or citizens had been permitted to enjoy +these lands; at last they regarded them as their own property; they +bequeathed them, bought and sold them. To take these from the +occupants would suddenly ruin a multitude of people. In Italy +especially, if this were done, all the people of a city would be +expelled. Thus Augustus deprived the inhabitants of Mantua of the +whole of their territory; Vergil was among the victims, but, thanks to +his verse, he obtained the return of his domain, while the other +proprietors who were not poets remained in exile. These lands thus +recovered were sometimes distributed to poor citizens of Rome, but +most frequently to old soldiers. Sulla bestowed lands on 120,000 +veterans at the expense of the people of Etruria. The Agrarian Laws +were a menace to all the subjects of Rome, and it was one of the +benefits conferred by the emperors that they were abolished. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[123] Wisps or bundle of hay were twisted around poles.--ED. + +[124] Regarding all these Italian wars the Romans had only a number of +legends, most of them developed to glorify the heroism of some ancestor +of a noble family--a Valerius, a Fabius, a Decius, or a Manlius. + +[125] These songs were mingled with coarse ribaldry at the expense of +the general.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CONQUERED PEOPLES + +THE PROVINCIALS + + +=The Provinces.=--The inhabitants of conquered countries did not enter +into Roman citizenship, but remained strangers (peregrini), while yet +subjects of the Roman empire. They were to pay tribute--the tithe of +their crops, a tax in silver, a capitation tax. They must obey Romans +of every order. But as the Roman people could not itself administer +the province, it sent a magistrate in its place with the mission of +governing. The country subject to a governor was called _province_ +(which signifies mission). + +At the end of the republic (in 46), there were seventeen provinces: +ten in Europe, five in Asia, two in Africa--the majority of these very +large. Thus the entire territory of Gaul constituted but four +provinces, and Spain but two. "The provinces," said Cicero, "are the +domains of the Roman people"--if it made all these peoples subjects, +it was not for their advantage, but for its own. Its aim was not to +administer, but to exploit them. + +=The Proconsuls.=--For the administration of a province the Roman +people always appointed a magistrate, consul or prætor, who was just +finishing the term of his office, and whose prerogative it +prolonged.[126] The proconsul, like the consul, had absolute power +and he could exercise it to his fancy, for he was alone in his +province;[127] there were no other magistrates to dispute the power +with him, no tribunes of the people to veto his acts, no senate to +watch him. He alone commanded the troops, led them to battle, and +posted them where he wished. He sat in his tribunal (prætorium), +condemning to fine, imprisonment, or death. He promulgated decrees +which had the force of law. He was the sole authority over himself for +he was in himself the incarnation of the Roman people. + +=Tyranny and Oppression of the Proconsuls.=--This governor, whom no +one resisted, was a true despot. He made arrests, cast into prison, +beat with rods, or executed those who displeased him. The following is +one of a thousand of these caprices of the governor as a Roman orator +relates it: "At last the consul came to Termini, where his wife took a +fancy to bathe in the men's bath. All the men who were bathing there +were driven out The wife of the consul complained that it had not been +done quickly enough and that the baths were not well prepared. The +consul had a post set up in a public place, brought to it one of the +most eminent men of the city, stripped him of his garments, and had +him beaten with rods." + +The proconsul drew from the province as much money as he wanted; thus +he regarded it as his private property. Means were not wanting to +exploit it. He plundered the treasuries of the cities, removed the +statues and jewels stored in the temples, and made requisitions on +the rich inhabitants for money or grain. As he was able to lodge +troops where he pleased, the cities paid him money to be exempt from +the presence of the soldiers. As he could condemn to death at will, +individuals gave him security-money. If he demanded an object of art +or even a sum of money, who would dare to refuse him? The men of his +escort imitated his example, pillaging under his name, and even under +his protection. The governor was in haste to accumulate his wealth as +it was necessary that he make his fortune in one year. After he +returned to Rome, another came who recommenced the whole process. +There was, indeed, a law that prohibited every governor from accepting +a gift, and a tribunal (since 149) expressly for the crime of +extortion. But this tribunal was composed of nobles and Roman knights +who would not condemn their compatriot, and the principal result of +this system was, according to the remark of Cicero, to compel the +governor to take yet more plunder from the province in order to +purchase the judges of the tribunal. + +It cannot surprise one that the term "proconsul" came to be a synonym +for despot. Of these brigands by appointment the most notorious was +Verres, proprætor of Sicily, since Cicero from political motives +pronounced against him seven orations which have made him famous. But +it is probable that many others were as bad as he. + +=The Publicans.=--In every province the Roman people had considerable +revenues--the customs, the mines, the imposts, the grain-lands, and +the pastures. These were farmed out to companies of contractors who +were called publicans. These men bought from the state the right of +collecting the impost in a certain place, and the provincials had to +obey them as the representatives of the Roman people. And so in every +province there were many companies of publicans, each with a crowd of +clerks and collectors. These people carried themselves as masters, +extorted more than was due them, reduced the debtors to misery, +sometimes selling them as slaves. In Asia they even exiled the +inhabitants without any pretext. When Marius required the king of +Bithynia to furnish him with soldiers, the king replied that, thanks +to the publicans, he had remaining as citizens only women, children, +and old people. The Romans were well informed of these excesses. +Cicero wrote to his brother, then a governor, "If you find the means +of satisfying the publicans without letting the provincials be +destroyed, it is because you have the attributes of a god." But the +publicans were judged in the tribunals and the proconsuls themselves +obeyed them. Scaurus, the proconsul of Asia, a man of rigid +probity,[128] wished to prevent them from pillaging his province; on +his return to Rome they had him accused and condemned. + +The publicans drove to extremities even the peaceable and submissive +inhabitants of the Orient: in a single night, at the order of +Mithradates, 100,000 Romans were massacred. A century later, in the +time of Christ, the word "publican" was synonymous with thief. + +=The Bankers.=--The Romans had heaped up at home the silver of the +conquered countries. And so silver was very abundant in Rome and +scarce in the provinces. At Rome one could borrow at four or five per +cent.; in the provinces not less than twelve per cent. was charged. +The bankers borrowed money in Rome and loaned it in the provinces, +especially to kings or to cities. When the exhausted peoples could not +return the principal and the interest, the bankers imitated the +procedure of the publicans. In 84 the cities of Asia made a loan to +pay an enormous war-levy; fourteen years later, the interest alone had +made the debt amount to six times the original amount. The bankers +compelled the cities to sell even their objects of art; parents sold +even their children. Some years later one of the most highly esteemed +Romans of his time, Brutus, the Stoic, loaned to the city of Salamis +in Cyprus a sum of money at forty-eight per cent. interest (four per +cent. a month). Scaptius, his business manager, demanded the sum with +interest; the city could not pay; Scaptius then went in search of the +proconsul Appius, secured a squadron of cavalry and came to Salamis to +blockade the senate in its hall of assembly; five senators died of +famine. + +=Defencelessness of the Provincials.=--The provincials had no redress +against all these tyrants. The governor sustained the publicans, and +the Roman army and people sustained the governor. Admit that a Roman +citizen could enter suit against the plunderers of the provinces: a +governor was inviolable and could not be accused until he had given up +his office; while he held his office there was nothing to do but to +watch him plunder. If he were accused on his return to Rome, he +appeared before a tribunal of nobles and of publicans who were more +interested to support him than to render justice to the provincials. +If, perchance, the tribunal condemned him, exile exempted him from all +further penalty and he betook himself to a city of Italy to enjoy his +plunder. This punishment was nothing to him and was not even a loss to +him. And so the provincials preferred to appease their governor by +submission. They treated him like a king, flattered him, sent +presents, and raised statues to him. Often, indeed, in Asia they +raised altars to him,[129] built temples to him, and adored him as a +god. + + +SLAVERY + +=The Sale of Slaves.=--Every prisoner of war, every inhabitant of a +captured city belonged to the victor. If they were not killed, they +were enslaved. Such was the ancient custom and the Romans exercised +the right to the full. Captives were treated as a part of the booty +and were therefore either sold to slave-merchants who followed the +army or, if taken to Rome, were put up at auction.[130] After every +war thousands of captives, men and women, were sold as slaves. +Children born of slave mothers would themselves be slaves. Thus it was +the conquered peoples who furnished the slave-supply for the Romans. + +=Condition of the Slave.=--The slave belonged to a master, and so was +regarded not as a person but as a piece of property. He had, then, no +rights; he could not be a citizen or a proprietor; he could be neither +husband nor father. "Slave marriages!" says a character in a Roman +comedy;[131] "A slave takes a wife; it is contrary to the custom of +every people." The master has full right over his slave; he sends him +where he pleases, makes him work according to his will, even beyond +his strength, ill feeds him, beats him, tortures him, kills him +without accounting to anybody for it. The slave must submit to all the +whims of his master; the Romans declare, even, that he is to have no +conscience, his only duty is blind obedience. If he resists, if he +flees, the state assists the master to subdue or recover him; the man +who gives refuge to a fugitive slave renders himself liable to the +charge of theft, as if he had taken an ox or a horse belonging to +another. + +=Number of Slaves.=--Slaves were far more numerous than free men. Rich +citizens owned 10,000 to 20,000 of them,[132] some having enough of +them to constitute a real army. We read of Cæcilius Claudius Isidorius +who had once been a slave and came to possess more than 4,000 slaves. +Horace, who had seven slaves, speaks of his modest patrimony. Having +but three was in Rome a mark of poverty. + +=Urban Slaves.=--The Roman nobles, like the Orientals of our day, +delighted in surrounding themselves with a crowd of servants. In a +great Roman house lived hundreds of slaves, organized for different +services. There were slaves to care for the furniture, for the silver +plate, for the objects of art; slaves of the wardrobe, valets and +chambermaids, the troop of cooks, the slaves of the bath, the master +of the house and his aids, the slaves to escort the master and +mistress on the street, the litter-carriers, coachmen and grooms, +secretaries, readers, copyists, physicians, teachers, actors, +musicians, artisans of every kind, for in every great house grain was +ground, flax was spun, and garments were woven. Others, gathered in +workshops, manufactured objects which the master sold to his profit. +Others were hired out as masons or as sailors; Crassus had 500 +carpenter-slaves. These classes of slaves were called "slaves of the +city." + +=Rural Slaves.=--Every great domain was tilled by a band of slaves. +They were the laborers, the shepherds, the vine-dressers, the +gardeners, the fishermen, grouped together in squads of ten. An +overseer, himself a slave, superintended them. The proprietor made it +a matter to produce everything on his lands: "He buys nothing; +everything that he consumes he raises at home," this is the compliment +paid to the rich. The Roman, therefore, kept a great number of +country-slaves, as they were called. A Roman domain had a strong +resemblance to a village; indeed it was called a "villa." The name has +been preserved: what the French call "ville" since the Middle Ages is +only the old Roman domain increased in size. + +=Treatment of Slaves.=--The kind of treatment the slaves received +depended entirely on the character of the master. Some enlightened and +humane masters may be enumerated, such as Cicero, Seneca, and Pliny, +who fed their slaves well, talked with them, sometimes had them sit +at table with them, and permitted them to have families and small +fortunes (the peculium). + +But other masters are mentioned who treated their slaves as animals, +punished them cruelly, and even had them put to death for a whim. +Examples of these are not lacking. Vedius Pollio, a freedman of +Augustus, used to keep some lampreys in his fish-pond: when one of his +slaves carelessly broke a vase, he had him thrown into the fish-pond +as food for the lampreys. The philosopher Seneca paints in the +following words the violent cruelty of the masters: "If a slave coughs +or sneezes during a meal, if he pursues the flies too slowly, if he +lets a key fall noisily lo the floor, we fall into a great rage. If he +replies with too much spirit, if his countenance shows ill humor, have +we any right to have him flogged? Often we strike too hard and shatter +a limb or break a tooth." The philosopher Epictetus, who was a slave, +had had his ankle fractured in this way by his master. Women were no +more humane. Ovid, in a compliment paid to a woman, says, "Many times +she had her hair dressed in my presence, but never did she thrust her +needle into the arm of the serving-woman." + +Public opinion did not condemn these cruelties. Juvenal represents a +woman angry at one of her slaves. "Crucify him," says she. "By what +crime has the slave merited this punishment? Blockhead! Is a slave, +then, a man? It may be that he has done nothing. I wish it, I order +it, my will is reason enough." + +The law was no milder than custom. As late as the first century after +Christ, when a master was assassinated in his house, all the slaves +were put to death. When some wished to abolish this law, Thraseas, +one of the philosophers of high repute, rose to address the Senate to +demand that the law be maintained. + +=The Ergastulum.=--A subterranean prison, lighted by narrow windows so +high that they could not be reached by the hand, was called the +ergastulum. The slaves who had displeased their master spent the night +there; during the day they were sent to work loaded with heavy chains +of iron. Many were branded with a red-hot iron. + +=The Mill.=--The ancients had no mills run by machinery; they had the +grain ground by slaves with hand-mills. It was the most difficult kind +of work and was usually inflicted as a punishment. The mill of +antiquity was like a convict-prison. "There," says Plautus, "moan the +wicked slaves who are fed on polenta; there resound the noise of whips +and the clanking of chains." Three centuries later, in the second +century, Apuleius the novelist, depicts the interior of a mill as +follows: "Gods! what poor shrunken up men! with white skin striped +with blows of the whip, ... they wear only the shreds of a tunic; bent +forward, head shaved, the feet held in a chain, the body deformed by +the heat of the fire, the eyelids eaten away by the fumes, everything +covered with grain-dust." + +=Character of the Slaves.=--Subjected to crushing labor or to enforced +idleness, always under the threat of the whip or of torture, slaves +became, according to their nature, either melancholy and savage, or +lazy and subservient. The most energetic of them committed suicide; +the others led a life that was merely mechanical. "The slave," said +Cato the Elder, "ought always to work or to sleep." The majority of +them lost all sense of honor. And so they used to call a mean act +"servile," that is, like a slave. + +=Slave Revolts.=--The slaves did not write and so we do not know from +their own accounts what they thought of their masters. But the masters +felt themselves surrounded by hate. Pliny the Younger, learning that a +master was to be assassinated at the bath by his slaves, made this +reflection, "This is the peril under which we all live." "More +Romans," says another writer, "have fallen victims to the hate of +their slaves than to that of tyrants." + +At different times slave revolts flamed up (the servile wars), almost +always in Sicily and south Italy where slaves were armed to guard the +herds. The most noted of these wars was the one under Spartacus. A +band of seventy gladiators, escaping from Capua, plundered a chariot +loaded with arms, and set themselves to hold the country. The slaves +escaped to them in crowds to unite their fortunes with theirs, and +soon they became an army. + +The slaves defeated three Roman armies sent in succession against +them. + +Their chief Spartacus wished to traverse the whole peninsula of Italy +in order to return to Thrace, from which country he had been brought +as a prisoner of war to serve as a gladiator. But at last these +ill-disciplined bands were shattered by the army of Crassus. The +revolutionists were all put to death. Rome now prohibited the slaves +from carrying arms thereafter, and it is reported that a shepherd was +once executed for having killed a boar with a spear. + +=Admission to Citizenship.=--Rome treated its subjects and its slaves +brutally, but it did not drive them out, as the Greek cities did. + +The alien could become a Roman citizen by the will of the Roman +people, and the people often accorded this favor, sometimes they even +bestowed it upon a whole people at once. They created the Latins +citizens at one stroke; in 89 it was the turn of the Italians; in 46 +the people of Cisalpine Gaul entered the body of citizens. All the +inhabitants of Italy thus became the equals of the Romans. + +The slave could be manumitted by his master and soon became a citizen. + +This is the reason why the Roman people, gradually exhausting +themselves, were renewed by accessions from the subjects and the +slaves. The number of the citizens was increased at every census; it +rose from 250,000 to 700,000. The Roman city, far from emptying itself +as did Sparta, replenished itself little by little from all those whom +it had conquered. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[126] In the smallest provinces the title of the governor was +_proprætor_. + +[127] In the oriental countries Rome left certain little kings (like +King Herod in Judæa), but they paid tribute and obeyed the governor. + +[128] This estimate of the character of Scaurus is too favorable.--ED. + +[129] Cicero speaks of the temples which were raised to him by the +people of Cilicia, of which county he was governor. + +[130] Every important town had its market for slaves as for cattle and +horses. The slave to be sold was exhibited on a platform with a label +about his neck indicating his age, his better qualities and his defects. + +[131] In the Casina of Plautus. + +[132] Athenæus, who makes this statement, is probably guilty of +exaggeration.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE IN ROME + + +=Greek and Oriental Influence.=--Conquest gave the Romans a clearer +view of the Greeks and Orientals. Thousands of foreigners brought to +Rome as slaves, or coming thither to make their fortune, established +themselves in the city as physicians, professors, diviners, or actors. +Generals, officers and soldiers lived in the midst of Asia, and thus +the Romans came to know the customs and the new beliefs and gradually +adopted them. This transformation had its beginning with the first +Macedonian war (about 200 B.C.), and continued until the end of the +empire. + + +CHANGES IN RELIGION + +=The Greek Gods.=--The Roman gods bore but a slight resemblance to the +Greek gods, even in name; yet in the majority of the divinities of +Rome the Greeks recognized or believed they recognized their own. The +Roman gods up to that time had neither precise form nor history; this +rendered confusion all the easier. Every Roman god was represented +under the form of a Greek god and a history was made of the adventures +of this god. + +The Latin Jupiter was confounded with the Greek Zeus; Juno with Hera; +Minerva, the goddess of memory, with Pallas, goddess of wisdom; Diana, +female counterpart of Janus, unites with Artemis, the brilliant +huntress; Hercules, the god of the enclosure, was assimilated to +Herakles, the victor over monsters. Thus Greek mythology insinuated +itself under Latin names, and the gods of Rome found themselves +transformed into Greek gods. The fusion was so complete that we have +preserved the custom of designating the Greek gods by their Latin +names; we still call Artemis Diana, and Pallas Minerva. + +=The Bacchanals.=--The Greeks had adopted an oriental god, Bacchus, +the god of the vintage, and the Romans began to adore him also. The +worshippers of Bacchus celebrated his cult at night and in secret. +Only the initiated were admitted to the mysteries of the Bacchanals, +who swore not to reveal any of the ceremonies. A woman, however, dared +to denounce to the Senate the Bacchanalian ceremonies that occurred in +Rome in 186. The Senate made an inquiry, discovered 7,000 persons, men +and women, who had participated in the mysteries, and had them put to +death. + +=Oriental Superstitions.=--Already in 220 there was in Rome a temple +of the Egyptian god Serapis. The Senate ordered it to be demolished. +As no workman dared to touch it, the consul himself had to come and +beat down the doors with blows of an axe. + +Some years after, in 205, during the war with Hannibal, it was the +Senate itself that sent an ambassador to Asia Minor to seek the +goddess Cybele. The Great Mother (as she was called) was represented +by a black stone, and this the envoys of the Senate brought in great +pomp and installed in Rome. Her priests followed her and paced the +streets to the sound of fifes and cymbals, clad in oriental fashion, +and begging from door to door. + +Later, Italy was filled with Chaldean sorcerers. The mass of the +people were not the only ones to believe in these diviners. When the +Cimbri menaced Rome (104), Martha, a prophetess of Syria, came to the +Senate to offer it victory over the barbarians; the Senate drove her +out, but the Roman women brought her to the camp, and Marius, the +general in chief, kept her by him and consulted her to the end of the +war. Sulla, likewise, had seen in vision the goddess of Cappadocia and +it was on her advice that he took his way to Italy. + +=Sceptics.=--Not only priests and diviners came to Rome, but also +philosophers who scoffed at the old religion. The best known of these, +Carneades, the ambassador of the Athenians, spoke in Rome in public, +and the youth of Rome came in crowds to hear him. The Senate bade him +leave the city. But the philosophers continued to teach in the schools +of Athens and Rhodes, and it was the fashion to send the Roman youth +thither for instruction. About the third century before Christ +Euhemerus, a Greek, had written a book to prove that there were no +gods; the gods, he said, were only men of ancient times who had been +deified; Jupiter himself had been a king of Crete. This book had a +great success and was translated into Latin by the poet Ennius. The +nobles of Rome were accustomed to mock at their gods, maintaining only +the cult of the old religion. The higher Roman society was for a +century at once superstitious and sceptical. + + +CHANGES IN MANNERS + +=The Old Customs.=--The old Romans had for centuries been diligent and +rude husbandmen, engaged in cultivating their fields, in fighting, and +in fulfilling the ceremonies of their religion. Their ideal was the +_grave_ man. Cincinnatus, they said, was pushing his plough when the +deputies of the Senate came to offer him the dictatorship. Fabricius +had of plate only a cup and a salt-cellar of silver. Curius Dentatus, +the conqueror of the Samnites, was sitting on a bench eating some +beans in a wooden bowl when the envoys of the Samnites presented +themselves before him to offer him a bribe.[133] "Go and tell the +Samnites," said he, "that Curius prefers commanding those who have +gold to having it himself." These are some of the anecdotes that they +used to tell about the generals of the olden time. True or false, +these legends exhibit the ideas that were current in Rome at a later +time regarding the ancient Romans. + +=Cato the Elder.=--At the time when manners were changing, one man +made himself notable by his attachment to the "customs of the +fathers." This was Cato. He was born in 232[134] in the little village +of Tusculum and had spent his youth in manual labor. Entering the +army, according to the usage of the time, at the age of seventeen, he +fought in all the campaigns against Hannibal. He was not noble, but he +made himself popular by his energy, his probity, and his austerity. +He passed through the whole course of political honors--quæstor, +ædile, prætor, consul, and censor. He showed himself everywhere, like +the old Romans, rude, stern, and honest. As quæstor he remonstrated +with the consul about his expenses; but the consul, who was Scipio, +replied to him, "I have no need of so exact a quæstor." As prætor in +Sardinia, he refused the money that was offered him by the province +for the expenses of entertainment. As consul, he spoke with vigor for +the Oppian law which prohibited Roman women from wearing costly +attire; the women put it off, and the law was abrogated. Sent to +command the army of Spain, Cato took 400 towns, securing immense +treasure which he turned into the public chest; at the moment of +embarking, he sold his horse to save the expenses of transportation. +As censor, he erased from the senate-list many great persons on the +ground of their extravagance; he farmed the taxes at a very high price +and taxed at ten times their value the women's habits, jewels, and +conveyances. Having obtained the honor of a triumph, he withdrew to +the army in Macedonia as a simple officer. + +All his life he fought with the nobles of the new type, extravagant +and elegant. He "barked" especially at the Scipios, accusing them of +embezzling state moneys. In turn he was forty-four times made +defendant in court, but was always acquitted. + +On his farm Cato labored with his slaves, ate with them, and when he +had to correct them, beat them with his own hand. In his treatise on +Agriculture, written for his son, he has recorded all the old axioms +of the Roman peasantry.[135] He considered it to be a duty to become +rich. "A widow," he said, "can lessen her property; a man ought to +increase his. He is worthy of fame and inspired of the gods who gains +more than he inherits." Finding that agriculture was not profitable +enough, he invested in merchant ships; he united with fifty associates +and all together constructed fifty ships of commerce, that each might +have a part in the risks and the profits. A good laborer, a good +soldier, a foe to luxury, greedy of gain, Cato was the type of the +Roman of the old stock. + +=The New Manners.=--Many Romans on the contrary, especially the +nobles, admired and imitated the foreigners. At their head were the +generals who had had a nearer view of Greece and the Orient--Scipio, +conqueror of the king of Syria, Flamininus and Æmilius Paullus, +victors over the kings of Macedon, later Lucullus, conqueror of the +king of Armenia. They were disgusted with the mean and gross life of +their ancestors, and adopted a more luxurious and agreeable mode of +living. Little by little all the nobles, all the rich followed their +example; one hundred and fifty years later in Italy all the great were +living in Greek or oriental fashion. + +=Oriental Luxury.=--In the East the Romans found models in the royal +successors of Alexander, possessors of enormous wealth; for all the +treasure that was not employed in paying mercenaries was squandered by +the court. These oriental kings indulged their vanity by displaying +gleaming robes, precious stones, furniture of silver, golden plate; +by surrounding themselves with a multitude of useless servants, by +casting money to the people who were assembled to admire them.[136] + +The Romans, very vain and with artistic tastes but slightly developed, +had a relish for this species of luxury. They had but little regard +for beauty or for comfort, and had thought for nothing else than +display. They had houses built with immense gardens adorned with +statues, sumptuous villas projecting into the sea in the midst of +enormous gardens. They surrounded themselves with troops of slaves. +They and their wives substituted for linen garments those of gauze, +silk, and gold. At their banquets they spread embroidered carpets, +purple coverings, gold and silver plate. Sulla had one hundred and +fifty dishes of silver; the plate of Marcus Drusus weighed 10,000 +pounds. While the common people continued to sit at table in +accordance with old Italian custom, the rich adopted the oriental +usage of reclining on couches at their meals. At the same time was +introduced the affected and costly cookery of the East--exotic fishes, +brains of peacocks, and tongues of birds. + +From the second century the extravagance was such that a consul who +died in 152 could say in his will: "As true glory does not consist in +vain pomp but in the merits of the dead and of one's ancestors, I bid +my children not to spend on my funeral ceremonies more than a million +as" ($10,000). + +=Greek Humanity.=--In Greece the Romans saw the monuments, the +statues, and the pictures which had crowded their cities for +centuries; they came to know their learned people and the +philosophers. Some of the Romans acquired a taste for the beautiful +and for the life of the spirit. The Scipios surrounded themselves with +cultivated Greeks. Æmilius Paullus asked from all the booty taken by +him from Macedon only the library of King Perseus; he had his children +taught by Greek preceptors. It was then the fashion in Rome to speak, +and even to write in Greek.[137] The nobles desired to appear +connoisseurs in painting and in sculpture; they imported statues by +the thousand, the famous bronzes of Corinth, and they heaped these up +in their houses. Thus Verres possessed a whole gallery of objects of +art which he had stolen in Sicily. Gradually the Romans assumed a +gloss of Greek art and literature. This new culture was called +"humanity," as opposed to the "rusticity" of the old Roman peasants. + +It was little else than gloss; the Romans had realized but slightly +that beauty and truth were to be sought for their own sakes; art and +science always remained objects of luxury and parade. Even in the time +of Cicero the soldier, the peasant, the politician, the man of +affairs, the advocate were alone regarded as truly occupied. Writing, +composing, contributing to science, philosophy, or criticism--all this +was called "being at leisure."[138] Artists and scholars were never +regarded at Rome as the equals of the rich merchant. Lucian, a Greek +writer, said, "If you would be a Pheidias, if you would make a +thousand masterpieces, nobody will care to imitate you, for as skilful +as you are, you will always pass for an artisan, a man who lives by +the work of his hands." + +=Lucullus.=--Lucullus, the type of the new Roman, was born in 145 of a +noble and rich family; thus he entered without difficulty into the +course of political honors. From his first campaigns he was notable +for his magnanimity to the vanquished. Become consul, he was placed at +the head of the army against Mithradates. He found the inhabitants of +Asia exasperated by the brigandage and the cruelties of the publicans, +and gave himself to checking these excesses; he forbade, too, his +soldiers pillaging conquered towns. In this way he drew to him the +useless affection of the Asiatics and the dangerous hate of the +publicans and the soldiers. They intrigued to have him recalled; he +had then defeated Mithradates and was pursuing him with his ally, the +king of Armenia; he came with a small army of 20,000 men to put to +rout an immense multitude of barbarians. His command was taken from +him and given to Pompey, the favorite of the publicans. + +Lucullus then retired to enjoy the riches that he had accumulated in +Asia. He had in the neighborhood of Rome celebrated gardens, at Naples +a villa constructed in part in the sea, and at Tusculum a summer +palace with a whole museum of objects of art. He spent the beautiful +season at Tusculum surrounded by his friends, by scholars and men of +letters, reading Greek authors, and discussing literature and +philosophy. + +Many anecdotes are told of the luxury of Lucullus. One day, being +alone at dinner, he found his table simpler than ordinary and +reproached the cook, who excused himself by saying there was no guest +present. "Do you not know," replied his master, "that Lucullus dines +today with Lucullus?" Another day he invited Cæsar and Cicero to dine, +who accepted on condition that he would make no change from his +ordinary arrangements. Lucullus simply said to a slave to have dinner +prepared in the hall of Apollo. A magnificent feast was spread, the +guests were astonished. Lucullus replied he had given no order, that +the expense of his dinners was regulated by the hall where he gave +them; those of the hall of Apollo were to cost not less than $10,000. +A prætor who had to present a grand spectacle asked Lucullus if he +would lend him one hundred purple robes; he replied by tendering two +hundred. + +Lucullus remained the representative of the new manners, as Cato of +the old customs. For the ancients Cato was the virtuous Roman, +Lucullus the degenerate Roman. Lucullus, in effect, discarded the +manners of his ancestors, and so acquired a broader, more elevated, +and more refined spirit, more humanity toward his slaves and his +subjects. + +=The New Education.=--At the time when Polybius lived in Rome (before +150) the old Romans taught their children nothing else than to +read.[139] The new Romans provided Greek instructors for their +children. Some Greeks opened in Rome schools of poesy, rhetoric, and +music. The great families took sides between the old and new systems. +But there always remained a prejudice against music and the dance; +they were regarded as arts belonging to the stage, improper for a man +of good birth. Scipio Æmilianus, the protector of the Greeks, speaks +with indignation of a dancing-school to which children and young girls +of free birth resorted: "When it was told me, I could not conceive +that nobles would teach such things to their children. But when some +one took me to the dancing-school, I saw there more than 500 boys and +girls and, among the number a twelve-year-old child, a candidate's +son, who danced to the sound of castanets." Sallust, speaking of a +Roman woman of little reputation, says, "She played on the lyre and +danced better than is proper for an honest woman." + +=The New Status of Women.=--The Roman women gave themselves with +energy to the religions and the luxury of the East. They flocked in +crowds to the Bacchanals and the mysteries of Isis. Sumptuary laws +were made against their fine garments, their litters, and their +jewels, but these laws had to be abrogated and the women allowed to +follow the example of the men. Noble women ceased to walk or to remain +in their homes; they set out with great equipages, frequented the +theatre, the circus, the baths, and the places of assembly. Idle and +exceedingly ignorant, they quickly became corrupt. In the nobility, +women of fine character became the exception. The old discipline of +the family fell to the ground. The Roman law made the husband the +master of his wife; but a new form of marriage was invented which left +the woman under the authority of her father and gave no power to her +husband. To make their daughter still more independent, her parents +gave her a dower. + +=Divorce.=--Sometimes the husband alone had the right to repudiate his +wife, but the custom was that this right should be exercised only in +the gravest circumstances. The woman gained the right of leaving her +husband, and so it became very easy to break a marriage. There was no +need of a judgment, or even of a motive. It was enough for the +discontented husband or wife to say to the other, "Take what belongs +to you, and return what is mine." After the divorce either could marry +again. + +In the aristocracy, marriage came to be regarded as a passing union; +Sulla had five wives, Cæsar four, Pompey five, and Antony four. The +daughter of Cicero had three husbands. Hortensius divorced his wife to +give her to a friend. "There are noble women," says Seneca, "who count +their age not by the years of the consuls, but by the husbands they +have had; they divorce to marry again, they marry to divorce again." + +But this corruption affected hardly more than the nobles of Rome and +the upstarts. In the families of Italy and the provinces the more +serious manners of the old time still prevailed; but the discipline of +the family gradually slackened and the woman slowly freed herself from +the despotism of her husband. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[133] Another version is that he was sitting at the hearth roasting +turnips.--ED. + +[134] 232 and 234 are both given as the date of Cato's birth. The latter +is the more probable.--ED. + +[135] Nearly all Romans of Cato's time were husbandmen, tilling the soil +with their own hands.--ED. + +[136] This taste for useless magnificence is exhibited in the stories of +the Thousand and One Nights. + +[137] Cato the Elder had a horror of the Greeks. He said to his son: "I +will tell what I have seen in Athens. This race is the most perverse and +intractable. Listen to me as to an oracle: whenever this people teaches +us its arts it will corrupt everything." + +[138] "Schola," from which we derive "school," signified leisure. + +[139] Also to write and reckon, as previously stated.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +FALL OF THE REPUBLIC + +DECADENCE OF REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS + + +=Destruction of the Peasantry.=--The old Roman people consisted of +small proprietors who cultivated their own land. These honest and +robust peasants constituted at once the army and the assembly of the +people. Though still numerous in 221 and during the Second Punic War, +in 133 there were no more of them. Many without doubt had perished in +the foreign wars; but the special reason for their disappearance was +that it had become impossible for them to subsist. + +The peasants lived by the culture of grain. When Rome received the +grain of Sicily and Africa, the grain of Italy fell to so low a price +that laborers could not raise enough to support their families and pay +the military tax. They were compelled to sell their land and this was +bought by a rich neighbor. Of many small fields he made a great +domain; he laid the land down to grazing, and to protect his herds or +to cultivate it he sent shepherds and slave laborers. On the soil of +Italy at that time there were only great proprietors and troops of +slaves. "Great domains," said Pliny the Elder, "are the ruin of +Italy." + +It was, in fact, the great domains that drove the free peasants from +the country districts. The old proprietor who sold his land could no +longer remain a farmer; he had to yield the place to slaves, and he +himself wandered forth without work. "The majority of these heads of +families," says Varro in his treatise on agriculture, "have slipped +within our walls, leaving the scythe and the plough; they prefer +clapping their hands at the circus to working in their fields and +their vineyards." Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the plebs, exclaimed +in a moment of indignation, "The wild beasts of Italy have at least +their lairs, but the men who offer their blood for Italy have only the +light and the air that they breathe; they wander about without +shelter, without a dwelling, with their wives and their children. +Those generals do but mock them who exhort them to fight for their +tombs and their temples. Is there one of them who still possesses the +sacred altar of his house and the tomb of his ancestors? They are +called the masters of the world while they have not for themselves a +single foot of earth." + +=The City Plebs.=--While the farms were being drained, the city of +Rome was being filled with a new population. They were the descendants +of the ruined peasants whom misery had driven to the city; besides +these, there were the freedmen and their children. They came from all +the corners of the world--Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Asiatics, +Africans, Spaniards, Gauls--torn from their homes, and sold as slaves; +later freed by their masters and made citizens, they massed themselves +in the city. It was an entirely new people that bore the name Roman. +One day Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage and of Numantia, haranguing +the people in the forum, was interrupted by the cries of the mob. +"Silence! false sons of Italy," he cried; "do as you like; those whom +I brought to Rome in chains will never frighten me even if they are no +longer slaves." The populace preserved quiet, but these "false sons of +Italy," the sons of the vanquished, had already taken the place of the +old Romans. + +This new plebeian order could not make a livelihood for itself, and so +the state had to provide food for it. A beginning was made in 123 with +furnishing corn at half price to all citizens, and this grain was +imported from Sicily and Africa. Since the year 63[140] corn was +distributed gratuitously and oil was also provided. There were +registers and an administration expressly for these distributions, a +special service for furnishing provisions (the Annona). In 46 Cæsar +found 320,000 citizens enrolled for these distributions. + +=Electoral Corruption.=--This miserable and lazy populace filled the +forum on election days and made the laws and the magistrates. The +candidates sought to win its favors by giving shows and public feasts, +and by dispensing provisions. They even bought votes. This sale took +place on a large scale and in broad day; money was given to +distributers who divided it among the voters. Once the Senate +endeavored to stop this trade; but when Piso, the consul, proposed a +law to prohibit the sale of suffrages, the distributers excited a riot +and drove the consul from the forum. In the time of Cicero no +magistrate could be elected without enormous expenditures. + +=Corruption of the Senate.=--Poverty corrupted the populace who formed +the assemblies; luxury tainted the men of the old families who +composed the Senate. The nobles regarded the state as their property +and so divided among themselves the functions of the state and +intrigued to exclude the rest of the citizens from them. When Cicero +was elected magistrate, he was for thirty years the first "new man" to +enter the succession of offices. + +Accustomed to exercise power, some of the senators believed themselves +to be above the law. When Scipio was accused of embezzlement, he +refused even to exonerate himself and said at the tribune, "Romans, it +was on this day that I conquered Hannibal and the Carthaginians. +Follow me to the Capitol to render thanks to the gods and to beseech +them always to provide generals like myself." + +To support their pretensions at home, the majority of the nobles +required a large amount of money. Many used their power to get it for +themselves: some sent as governors plundered the subjects of Rome; +others compelled foreign or hostile kings to pay for the peace granted +them, or even for letting their army be beaten. It was in this way +that Jugurtha bribed a Roman general. Cited to Rome to answer for a +murder, he escaped trial by buying up a tribune who forbade him to +speak. It was related that in leaving Rome he had said, "O city for +sale, if thou only couldst find a purchaser!" + +=Corruption of the Army.=--The Roman army was composed of small +proprietors who, when a war was finished, returned to the cultivation +of their fields. In becoming soldiers they remained citizens and +fought only for their country. Marius began to admit to the legions +poor citizens who enrolled themselves for the purpose of making +capital from their campaigns. Soon the whole army was full of +adventurers who went to war, not to perform their service, but to +enrich themselves from the vanquished. One was no longer a soldier +from a sense of duty, but as a profession. + +The soldiers enrolled themselves for twenty years; their time +completed, they reëngaged themselves at higher pay and became +veterans. These people knew neither the Senate nor the laws; their +obedience was only to their general. To attach them to himself, the +general distributed to them the money taken from the vanquished. +During the war against Mithradates Sulla lodged his men with the rich +inhabitants of Asia; they lived as they chose, they and their friends, +receiving each sixteen drachmas a day. These first generals, Marius +and Sulla, were still Roman magistrates. But soon rich individuals +like Pompey and Crassus drew the soldiers to their pay. In 78 at the +death of Sulla there were four armies, levied entirely and commanded +by simple citizens. From that time there was no further question of +the legions of Rome, there were left only the legions of Pompey or +Cæsar. + + +THE REVOLUTION + +=Necessity of the Revolution.=--The Roman people was no longer +anything but an indigent and lazy multitude, the army only an +aggregation of adventurers. Neither the assembly nor the legions +obeyed the Senate, for the corrupt nobles had lost all moral +authority, so that there was left but one real power--the army; there +were no men of influence beside the generals, and the generals had no +longer any desire to obey. The government by the Senate, now no longer +practicable, gave place to the government of the general. + +=The Civil Wars.=--The revolution was inevitable, but it did not come +at one stroke; it required more than a hundred years to accomplish it. +The Senate resisted, but too weak itself to govern, it was strong +enough to prevent domination by another power. The generals fought +among themselves to see who should remain master. For a century the +Romans and their subjects lived in the midst of riot and civil war. + +=The Gracchi.=--The first civil discord that blazed up in Rome was the +contest of the Gracchi against the Senate. The two brothers, Tiberius +and Gaius Gracchus, were of one of the noblest families of Rome, but +both endeavored to take the government from the nobles who formed the +Senate by making themselves tribunes of the plebs. There was at that +time, either in Rome or in Italy, a crowd of citizens without means +who desired a revolution; even among the rich the majority were of the +class of the knights, who complained that they had no part in the +government. Tiberius Gracchus had himself named tribune of the plebs +and sought to gain control of the government. He proposed to the +people an agrarian law. All the lands of the public domain occupied by +individuals were to be resumed by the state (with the exception of 500 +acres for each one); these lands taken by the state were to be +distributed in small lots to poor citizens. The law was voted. It +caused general confusion regarding property, for almost all of the +lands of the empire constituted a part of the public domain, but they +had been occupied for a long time and the possessors were accustomed +to regard themselves as proprietors. Further, as the Romans had no +registry of the lands, it was often very difficult to ascertain +whether a domain were private or public property. To direct these +operations, Tiberius had three commissioners named on whom the people +conferred absolute authority; they were Tiberius, his brother, and his +father-in-law, and it was uncertain whether Tiberius had acted in the +interest of the people, or simply to have a pretext for having power +placed in his hands. For a year he was master of Rome; but when he +wished to be elected tribune of the plebs for the succeeding year, his +enemies protested, as this was contrary to custom. A riot followed. +Tiberius and his friends seized the Capitol; the partisans of the +Senate and their slaves, armed with clubs and fragments of benches, +pursued them and despatched them (133). + +Ten years later Gaius, the younger of the Gracchi, elected tribune of +the plebs (123), had the agrarian law voted anew, and established +distributions[141] of corn to the poor citizens. Then, to destroy the +power of the nobles, he secured a decree that the judges should be +taken from among the knights. For two years Gaius dominated the +government, but while he was absent from the city conducting a colony +of Roman citizens to Carthage the people abandoned him. On his return +he could not be reëlected. The consul armed the partisans of the +Senate and marched against Gaius and his friends who had fled to the +Aventine Hill. Gaius had himself killed by a slave; his followers were +massacred or executed in prison; their houses were razed and their +property confiscated. + +=Marius and Sulla.=--The contests of the Gracchi and the Senate had +been no more than riots in the streets of Rome, terminating in a +combat between bands hastily armed. The strife that followed was a +succession of real wars between regular armies, wars in Italy, wars in +all the provinces. From this time the party chiefs were no other than +the generals. + +The first to use his army to secure obedience in Rome was Marius. He +was born in Arpinum, a little town in the mountains, and was not of +noble descent. He had attained reputation as an officer in the army, +and had been elected tribune of the plebs, then prætor, with the help +of the nobles. He turned against them and was elected consul and +commissioned with the war against Jugurtha, king of Numidia, who had +already fought several Roman armies. It was then that Marius enrolled +poor citizens for whom military service became a profession. With his +army Marius conquered Jugurtha and the barbarians, the Cimbri and +Teutones, who had invaded the empire. He then returned to Rome where +he had himself elected consul for the sixth time and now exercised +absolute power. Two parties now took form in Rome who called +themselves the party of the people (the party of Marius), and the +party of the nobles (that of the Senate). + +The partisans of Marius committed so many acts of violence that they +ended by making him unpopular. Sulla, a noble, of the great family of +the Cornelii, profited by this circumstance to dispute the power of +Marius; Sulla was also a general. When the Italians rose against Rome +to secure the right of citizenship and levied great armies which +marched almost to the gates of the city, it was Sulla who saved Rome +by fighting the Italians. + +He became consul and was charged with the war against Mithradates, +king of Pontus, who had invaded Asia Minor and massacred all the +Romans (88). Marius in jealousy excited a riot in the city; Sulla +departed, joined his army which awaited him in south Italy, then +returned to Rome. Roman religion prohibited soldiers entering the city +under arms; the consul even before passing the gates had to lay aside +his mantle of war and assume the toga. Sulla was the first general who +dared to violate this restriction. Marius took flight. + +But when Sulla had left for Asia, Marius came with an army of +adventurers and entered Rome by force (87). Then commenced the +proscriptions. + +The principal partisans of Sulla were outlawed, and command was given +to kill them anywhere they were met and to confiscate their goods. +Marius died some months later; but his principal partisan, Cinna, +continued to govern Rome and to put to death whomever he pleased. + +During this time Sulla had conquered Mithradates and had assured the +loyalty of his soldiers by giving them the free pillage of Asia. He +returned with his army (83) to Italy. His enemies opposed him with +five armies, but these were defeated or they deserted. Sulla entered +Rome, massacred his prisoners and overthrew the partisans of Marius. +After some days of slaughter he set himself to proceed regularly: he +posted three lists of those whom he wished killed. "I have posted now +all those whom I can recall; I have forgotten many, but their names +will be posted as the names occur to me." Every proscribed man--that +is to say, every man whose name was on the list, was marked for death; +the murderer who brought his head was rewarded. The property of the +proscribed was confiscated. Proscription was not the result of any +trial but of the caprice of the general, and that too without any +warning. Sulla thus massacred not only his enemies but the rich whose +property he coveted. It is related that a citizen who was unaccustomed +to politics glanced in passing at the list of proscriptions and saw +his own name inscribed at the top of the list. "Alas!" he cried, "my +Alban house has been the death of me!" Sulla is said to have +proscribed 1800[142] knights. + +After having removed his enemies, he endeavored to organize a +government in which all power should be in the hands of the Senate. He +had himself named Dictator, an old title once given to generals in +moments of danger and which conferred absolute power. Sulla used the +office to make laws which changed the entire constitution. From that +time all the judges were to be taken from the Senate, no law could be +discussed before it had been accepted by the Senate, the right of +proposing laws was taken from the tribunes of the plebs. + +After these reforms Sulla abdicated his functions and retired to +private life (79). He knew he had nothing to fear, for he had +established 100,000 of his soldiers in Italy. + +=Pompey and Cæsar.=--The Senate had recovered its power because Sulla +saw fit to give it this, but it had not the strength to retain it if a +general wished again to seize it. The government of the Senate +endured, however, in appearance for more than thirty years; this was +because there were several generals and each prevented a rival from +gaining all power. + +At the death of Sulla four armies took the field: two obeyed the +generals who were partisans of the Senate, Crassus and Pompey; two +followed generals who were adversaries of the Senate, Lepidus in +Italy, and Sertorius in Spain. It is very remarkable that no one of +these armies was regular, no one of the generals was a magistrate and +therefore had the right to command troops; down to this time the +generals had been consuls, but now they were individuals--private +persons; their soldiers came to them not to serve the interests of the +state, but to profit at the expense of the inhabitants. + +The armies of the enemies of the Senate were destroyed, and Crassus +and Pompey, left alone, joined issues to control affairs. They had +themselves elected consuls and Pompey received the conduct of two +wars. He went to Asia with a devoted army and was for several years +the master of Rome; but as he was more the possessor of offices than +of power, he changed nothing in the government. It was during this +time that Cæsar, a young noble, made himself popular. Pompey, +Crassus, and Cæsar united to divide the power between themselves. +Crassus received the command of the army sent to Asia against the +Parthians and was killed (53). Pompey remained at Rome. Cæsar went to +Gaul where he stayed eight years subjecting the country and making an +army for himself. + +Pompey and Cæsar were now the only persons on the stage. Each wished +to be master. Pompey had the advantage of being at Rome and of +dominating the Senate; Cæsar had on his side his army, disciplined by +eight years of expeditions. Pompey secured a decree of the Senate that +Cæsar should abandon his army and return to Rome. Cæsar decided then +to cross the boundary of his province (the river Rubicon), and to +march on Rome. Pompey had no army in Italy to defend himself, and so +with the majority of the senators took flight to the other side of the +Adriatic. He had several armies in Spain, in Greece, and in Africa. +Cæsar defeated them, one after another--that of Spain first (49), then +that of Greece at Pharsalus (48), at last, that of Africa (46). +Pompey, vanquished at Pharsalus, fled to Egypt where the king had him +assassinated. + +On his return to Rome Cæsar was appointed dictator for ten years and +exercised absolute power. The Senate paid him divine honors, and it is +possible that Cæsar desired the title of king. He was assassinated by +certain of his favorites who aimed to reëstablish the sovereignty of +the Senate (44). + +=End of the Republic.=--The people of Rome, who loved Cæsar, compelled +Brutus and Cassius, the chiefs of the assassins, to flee. They +withdrew to the East where they raised a large army. The West remained +in the hand of Antony, who with the support of the army of Cæsar, +governed Rome despotically. + +Cæsar in his will had adopted a young man of eighteen years, his +sister's son,[143] Octavian, who according to Roman usage assumed the +name of his adoptive father and called himself from that time Julius +Cæsar Octavianus. Octavian rallied to his side the soldiers of Cæsar +and was charged by the Senate with the war against Antony. But after +conquering him he preferred to unite with him for a division of power; +they associated Lepidus with them, and all three returned to Rome +where they secured absolute power for five years under the title of +triumvirs for organizing public affairs. They began by proscribing +their adversaries and their personal enemies. Antony secured the death +of Cicero (43). Then they left for the East to destroy the army of the +conspirators. After they had divided the empire among themselves it +was impossible to preserve harmony and war was undertaken in Italy. It +was the soldiers who compelled them to make terms of peace. A new +partition was made; Antony took the East and Octavian the West (39). +For some years peace was preserved; Antony resigned himself to the +life of an oriental sovereign in company with Cleopatra, queen of +Egypt; Octavian found it necessary to fight a campaign against the +sons of Pompey. The two leaders came at last to an open breach, and +then flamed up the last of the civil wars. This was a war between the +East and West. It was decided by the naval battle of Actium; Antony, +abandoned by the fleet of Cleopatra, fled to Egypt and took his own +life. Octavian, left alone, was absolute master of the empire. The +government of the Senate was at an end. + +=Need of Peace.=--Everybody had suffered by these wars. The +inhabitants of the provinces were plundered, harassed, and massacred +by the soldiers; each of the hostile generals forced them to take +sides with him, and the victor punished them for supporting the +vanquished. To reward the old soldiers the generals promised them +lands, and then expelled all the inhabitants of a city to make room +for the veterans. + +Rich Romans risked their property and their life; when their party was +overthrown, they found themselves at the mercy of the victor. Sulla +had set the example for organized massacres (81). Forty years later +(in 43) Octavian and Antony again drew up lists of proscription. + +The populace suffered. The grain on which they lived came no longer to +Rome with the former regularity, being intercepted either by pirates +or by the fleet of an enemy. + +After a century of this régime all the Romans and provincials, rich +and poor, had but one desire--peace. + +=The Power of the Individual.=--It was then that the heir of Cæsar, +his nephew[144] Octavian, one of the triumvirs, after having conquered +his two colleagues presented himself to the people now wearied with +civil discord. "He drew to himself all the powers of the people, of +the Senate, and of the magistrates;" for twelve years he was emperor +without having the title. No one dreamed of resisting him; he had +closed the temple of Janus and given peace to the world, and this was +what everybody wished. The government of the republic by the Senate +represented only pillage and civil war. A master was needed strong +enough to stop the wars and revolutions. Thus the Roman empire was +founded. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[140] The Lex Clodia of 58 B.C. made these distributions legal.--ED. + +[141] At a very low price.--ED. + +[142] 1600, according to Mommsen, "History of Rome," Bk. IV, ch. x.--ED. + +[143] Grandson.--ED. + +[144] Grand-nephew.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT + +THE TWELVE CÆSARS + + +=The Emperor.=--In the new régime absolute authority was lodged in a +single man; he was called the emperor (imperator--the commander). In +himself alone he exercised all those functions which the ancient +magistrates distributed among themselves: he presided over the Senate; +he levied and commanded all the armies; he drew up the lists of +senators, knights, and people; he levied taxes; he was supreme judge; +he was pontifex maximus; he had the power of the tribunes. And to +indicate that this authority made him a superhuman being, it was +decreed that he should bear a religious surname: Augustus (the +venerable). + +The empire was not established by a radical revolution. The name of +the republic was not suppressed and for more than three centuries the +standards of the soldiers continued to bear the initials S.P.Q.R. +(senate and people of Rome). The emperor's power was granted to him +for life instead of for one year, as with the old magistrates. The +emperor was the only and lifelong magistrate of the republic. In him +the Roman people was incarnate; this is why he was absolute. + +=Apotheosis of the Emperor.=--As long as the emperor lived he was sole +master of the empire, since the Roman people had conveyed all its +power to him. But at his death the Senate in the name of the people +reviewed his life and passed judgment upon it. If he were condemned, +all the acts which he had made were nullified, his statues thrown +down, and his name effaced from the monuments.[145] If, on the +contrary, his acts were ratified (which almost always occurred), the +Senate at the same time decreed that the deceased emperor should be +elevated to the rank of the gods. The majority of the emperors, +therefore, became gods after their death. Temples were raised to them +and priests appointed to render them worship. Throughout the empire +there were temples dedicated to the god Augustus and to the goddess +Roma, and persons are known who performed the functions of flamen +(priest) of the divine Claudius, or of the divine Vespasian. This +practice of deifying the dead emperor was called Apotheosis. The word +is Greek; the custom probably came from the Greeks of the Orient. + +=The Senate and the People.=--The Roman Senate remained what it had +always been--the assembly of the richest and most eminent personages +of the empire. To be a senator was still an eagerly desired honor; in +speaking of a great family one would say, "a senatorial family." But +the Senate, respected as it was, was now powerless, because the +emperor could dispense with it. It was still the most distinguished +body in the state, but it was no longer the master of the government. +The emperor often pretended to consult it, but he was not bound by its +advice. + +The people had lost all its power since the assemblies (the Comitia) +were suppressed in the reign of Tiberius. The population of 2,000,000 +souls crowded into Rome was composed only of some thousands of great +lords with their slaves and a mob of paupers. Already the state had +assumed the burden of feeding the latter; the emperors continued to +distribute grain to them, and supplemented this with donations of +money (the congiarium). Augustus thus donated $140 apiece in nine +different distributions, and Nero $50 in three. At the same time to +amuse this populace shows were presented. The number of days regularly +appointed for the shows under the republic had already amounted to 66 +in the year; it had increased in a century and a half, under Marcus +Aurelius, to 135, and in the fourth century to 175 (without counting +supplementary days). These spectacles continued each day from sunrise +to sunset; the spectators ate their lunch in their places. This was a +means used by the emperors for the occupation of the crowd. "It is for +your advantage, Cæsar," said an actor to Augustus, "that the people +engage itself with us." It was also a means for securing popularity. +The worst emperors were among the most popular; Nero was adored for +his magnificent spectacles; the people refused to believe that he was +dead, and for thirty years they awaited his return.[146] + +The multitude of Rome no longer sought to govern; it required only to +be amused and fed: in the forceful expression of Juvenal--to be +provided with bread and the games of the circus (panem et circenses). + +=The Prætorians.=--Under the republic a general was prohibited from +leading his army into the city of Rome. The emperor, chief of all the +armies, had at Rome his military escort (prætorium), a body of about +10,000 men quartered in the interior of the city. The prætorians, +recruited among the veterans, received high pay and frequent +donatives. Relying on these soldiers, the emperor had nothing to fear +from malcontents in Rome. But the danger came from the prætorians +themselves; as they had the power they believed they had free rein, +and their chief, the prætorian prefect, was sometimes stronger than +the emperor. + +=The Freedmen of the Emperor.=--Ever since the monarchy had superseded +the republic, there was no other magistrate than the emperor. All the +business of the empire of 80,000,000 people originated with him. For +this crushing task he required assistants. He found them, not among +the men of great family whom he mistrusted, but among the slaves of +whom he felt sure. The secretaries, the men of trust, the ministers of +the emperor were his freedmen, the majority of them foreigners from +Greece or the Orient, pliant people, adepts in flattery, +inventiveness, and loquacity. Often the emperor, wearied with serious +matters, gave the government into their hands, and, as occurs in +absolute monarchies, instead of aiding their master, they supplemented +him. Pallas and Narcissus, the freedmen of Claudius, distributed +offices and pronounced judgments; Helius, Nero's freedman, had +knights and senators executed without even consulting his master. Of +all the freedmen Pallas was the most powerful, the richest, and the +most insolent; he gave his orders to his underlings only by signs or +in writing. Nothing so outraged the old noble families of Rome as +this. "The princes," said a Roman writer, "are the masters of citizens +and the slaves of their freedmen." Among the scandals with which the +emperors were reproached, one of the gravest was governing Roman +citizens by former slaves. + +=Despotism and Disorder.=--This régime had two great vices: + +1. _Despotism._--The emperor was invested for life with a power +unlimited, extravagant, and hardly conceivable; according to his fancy +he disposed of persons and their property, condemned, confiscated, and +executed without restraint. No institution, no law fettered his will. +"The decree of the emperor has the force of law," say the +jurisconsults themselves. Rome recognized then the unlimited despotism +that the tyrants had exercised in the Greek cities, no longer +circumscribed within the borders of a single city, but gigantic as the +empire itself. As in Greece some honorable tyrants had presented +themselves, one sees in Rome some wise and honest monarchs (Augustus, +Vespasian, Titus). But few men had a head strong enough to resist +vertigo when they saw themselves so elevated above other men. The +majority of the emperors profited by their tremendous power only to +make their names proverbial: Tiberius, Nero, Domitian by their +cruelty, Vitellius by his gluttony, Claudius by his imbecility. One +of them, Caligula, was a veritable fool; he had his horse made consul +and himself worshipped as a god. The emperors persecuted the nobles +especially to keep them from conspiring against them, and the rich to +confiscate their goods. + +2. _Disorder._--This overweening authority was, moreover, very ill +regulated; it resided entirely in the person of the emperor. When he +was dead, everything was in question. It was well known that the world +could not continue without a master, but no law nor usage determined +who was to be this master. The Senate alone had the right of +nominating the emperor, but almost always it would elect under +pressure the one whom the preceding emperor had designated or the man +who was pleasing to the soldiers. + +After the death of Caligula, some prætorians who were sacking the +palace discovered, concealed behind the tapestry, a poor man trembling +with fear. This was a relative of Caligula; the prætorians made him +emperor (it was the emperor Claudius). After the death of Nero, the +Senate had elected Galba; the prætorians did not find him liberal +enough and so they massacred him to set up in his place Otho, a +favorite of Nero. In their turn the soldiers on the frontier wished to +make an emperor: the legions of the Rhine entered Italy, met the +prætorians at Bedriac near Cremona, and overthrew them in so furious a +battle that it lasted all night; then they compelled the Senate to +elect Vitellius, their general, as emperor. During this time the army +of Syria had elected its chief Vespasian, who in turn defeated +Vitellius and was named in his place; thus in two years three emperors +had been created and three overthrown by the soldiers. The new +emperor often undid what his predecessor had done; imperial despotism +had not even the advantage of being stable. + +=The Twelve Cæsars.=--This regime of oppression interrupted by +violence endured for more than a century (31 B.C. to 96 A.D.). + +The twelve emperors who came to the throne during this time are called +the Twelve Cæsars, although only the first six were of the family of +Augustus. It is difficult to judge them equitably. Almost all of them +persecuted the noble families of Rome of whom they were afraid, and it +is the writers of these families that have made their reputation. But +it is quite possible that in the provinces their government was mild +and just, superior to that of the senators of the republic. + + +THE CENTURY OF THE ANTONINES + +=The Antonines.=--The five emperors succeeding the twelve Cæsars, +Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius (96-180), have +left a reputation for justice and wisdom. They were called the +Antonines, though this name properly belongs only to the last two. +They were not descended from the old families of Rome; Trajan and +Hadrian were Spaniards, Antoninus was born at Nîmes in Gaul. They were +not princes of imperial family, destined from their birth to rule. +Four emperors came to the throne without sons and so the empire could +not be transmitted by inheritance. On each occasion the prince chose +among his generals and his governors the man most capable of +succeeding him; he adopted him as his son and sought his confirmation +by the Senate. Thus there came to the empire only experienced men, who +without confusion assumed the throne of their adoptive fathers. + +=Government of the Antonines.=--This century of the Antonines was the +calmest that the ancient world had ever known. Wars were relegated to +the frontier of the empire. In the interior there were still military +seditions, tyranny, and arbitrary condemnations. The Antonines held +the army in check, organized a council of state of jurisconsults, +established tribunals, and replaced the freedmen who had so long +irritated the Romans under the twelve Cæsars by regular functionaries +taken from among the men of the second class--that is, the knights. +The emperor was no longer a tyrant served by the soldiers; he was +truly the first magistrate of the republic, using his authority only +for the good of the citizens. The last two Antonines especially, +Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, honored the empire by their integrity. +Both lived simply, like ordinary men, although they were very rich, +without anything that resembled a court or a palace, never giving the +impression that they were masters. Marcus Aurelius consulted the +Senate on all state business and regularly attended its sessions. + +=Marcus Aurelius.=--Marcus Aurelius has been termed the Philosopher on +the Throne. He governed from a sense of duty, against his disposition, +for he loved solitude; and yet he spent his life in administration and +the command of armies. His private journal (his "Thoughts") exhibits +the character of the Stoic--virtuous, austere, separated from the +world, and yet mild and good. "The best form of vengeance on the +wicked is not to imitate them; the gods themselves do good to evil +men; it is your privilege to act like the gods." + +=Conquests of the Antonines.=--The emperors of the first century had +continued the course of conquest; they had subjected the Britons of +England, the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine, and in the +provinces had reduced several countries which till then had retained +their kings--Mauretania, Thrace, Cappadocia. The Rhine, the Danube, +and the Euphrates were the limits of the empire. + +The emperors of the second century were almost all generals; they had +the opportunity of waging numerous wars to repel the hostile peoples +who sought to invade the empire. The enemies were in two quarters +especially: + + 1. On the Danube were the Dacians, barbarous people, who occupied + the country of mountains and forests now called Transylvania. + + 2. On the Euphrates was the great military monarchy of the + Parthians which had its capital at Ctesiphon, near the ruins of + Babylon, and which extended over all Persia. + +Trajan made several expeditions against the Dacians, crossed the +Danube, won three great battles, and took the capital of the Dacians +(101-102). He offered them peace, but when they reopened the war he +resolved to end matters with them: he had a stone bridge built over +the Danube, invaded Dacia and reduced it to a Roman province (106). +Colonies were transferred thither, cities were built, and Dacia became +a Roman province where Latin was spoken and Roman customs were +assimilated. When the Roman armies withdrew at the end of the third +century, the Latin language remained and continued throughout the +Middle Ages, notwithstanding the invasions of the barbarian Slavs. It +is from Transylvania (ancient Dacia) that the peoples came from the +twelfth to the fourteenth century who now inhabit the plains to the +north of the Danube. It has preserved the name of Rome (Roumania) and +speaks a language derived from the Latin, like the French or Spanish. +Trajan made war on the Parthians also. He crossed the Euphrates, took +Ctesiphon, the capital, and advanced into Persia, even to Susa, whence +he took away the massive gold throne of the kings of Persia. He +constructed a fleet on the Tigris, descended the stream to its mouth +and sailed into the Persian Gulf; he would have delighted, like +Alexander, in the conquest of India. He took from the Parthians the +country between the Euphrates and the Tigris--Assyria and +Mesopotamia--and erected there two Roman provinces. + +To commemorate his conquests Trajan erected monuments which still +remain. The Column of Trajan on the Roman Forum is a shaft whose +bas-reliefs represent the war against the Dacians. The arch of triumph +of Benevento recalls the victories over the Parthians. + +Of these two conquests one alone was permanent, that of Dacia. The +provinces conquered from the Parthians revolted after the departure of +the Roman army. The emperor Hadrian retained Dacia, but returned their +provinces to the Parthians, and the Roman empire again made the +Euphrates its eastern frontier. To escape further warfare with the +highlanders of Scotland, Hadrian built a wall in the north of England +(the Wall of Hadrian) extending across the whole island. There was no +need of other wars save against the revolting Jews; these people were +overthrown and expelled from Jerusalem, the name of which was changed +to obliterate the memory of the old Jewish kingdom. + +Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Antonines, had to resist the invasion +of several barbarous peoples of Germany who had crossed the Danube on +the ice and had penetrated even to Aquileia, in the north of Italy. In +order to enroll a sufficient army he had to enlist slaves and +barbarians (172). The Germans retreated, but while Marcus was occupied +with a general uprising in Syria, they renewed their attacks on the +empire, and the emperor died on the banks of the Danube (180). This +was the end of conquest. + + +IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION + +=Extent of the Empire in the Second Century.=--The Roman emperors were +but little bent on conquest. But to occupy their army and to secure +frontiers which might be easily defended, they continued to conquer +barbarian peoples for more than a century. When the course of conquest +was finally arrested after Trajan, the empire extended over all the +south of Europe, all the north of Africa and the west of Asia; it was +limited only by natural frontiers--the ocean to the west; the +mountains of Scotland, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Caucasus to the +north; the deserts of the Euphrates and of Arabia to the east; the +cataracts of the Nile and the great desert to the south. The empire, +therefore, embraced the countries which now constitute England, Spain, +Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, +European Turkey, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and +Asiatic Turkey. It was more than double the extent of the empire of +Alexander. + +This immense territory was subdivided into forty-eight provinces,[147] +unequal in size, but the majority of them very large. Thus Gaul from +the Pyrenees to the Rhine formed but seven provinces. + +=The Permanent Army.=--In the provinces of the interior there was no +Roman army, for the peoples of the empire had no desire to revolt. It +was on the frontier that the empire had its enemies, foreigners always +ready to invade: behind the Rhine and the Danube the barbarian +Germans; behind the sands of Africa the nomads of the desert; behind +the Euphrates the Persian army. On this frontier which was constantly +threatened it was necessary to have soldiers always in readiness. +Augustus had understood this, and so created a permanent army. The +soldiers of the empire were no longer proprietors transferred from +their fields to serve during a few campaigns, but poor men who made +war a profession. They enlisted for sixteen or twenty years and often +reënlisted. There were, then, thirty legions of citizens--that is, +180,000 legionaries, and, according to Roman usage, a slightly larger +number of auxiliaries--in all about 400,000 men. This number was small +for so large a territory. + +Each frontier province had its little army, garrisoned in a permanent +camp similar to a fortress. Merchants came to establish themselves in +the vicinity, and the camp was transformed into a city; but still the +soldiers, encamped in the face of the enemy, preserved their valor and +their discipline. There were for three centuries severe wars, +especially on the banks of the Rhine and of the Danube, where Romans +fought fierce barbarians in a swampy country, uncultivated, covered +with forests and bogs. The imperial army exhibited, perhaps, as much +bravery and energy in these obscure wars as the ancient Romans in the +conquest of the world. + +=Deputies and Agents of the Emperor.=--All the provinces belonged to +the emperor[148] as the representative of the Roman people. He is +there the general of all the soldiers, master of all persons, and +proprietor of all lands.[149] But as the emperor could not be +everywhere at once, he sent deputies appointed by himself. To each +province went a lieutenant (called a deputy of Augustus with the +function of prætor); this official governed the country, commanded the +army, and went on circuit through his province to judge important +cases, for he, like the emperor, had the right of life and death. + +The emperor sent also a financial agent to levy the taxes and return +the money to the imperial chest. This official was called the +"procurator of Augustus." These two men represented the emperor, +governing his subjects, commanding his soldiers, and exploiting his +domain. The emperor always chose them among the two nobilities of +Rome, the prætors from the senators, the procurators from the knights. +For them, as for the magistrates of old Rome, there was a succession +of offices: they passed from one province to another, from one end of +the empire to the other,[150] from Syria to Spain, from Britain to +Africa. In the epitaphs of officials of this time we always find +carefully inscribed all the posts which they have occupied; +inscriptions on their tombs are sufficient to construct their +biographies. + +=Municipal life.=--Under these omnipotent representatives of the +emperor the smaller subject peoples continued to administer their own +government. The emperor had the right of interfering in their local +affairs, but ordinarily he did not exercise this right. He only +demanded of them that they keep the peace, pay their taxes regularly, +and appear before the tribunal of the governor. There were in every +province several of these little subordinate governments; they were +called, just as at other times the Roman state was called, "cities," +and sometimes municipalities. A city in the empire was copied after +the Roman city: it also had its assembly of the people, its +magistrates elected for a year and grouped into colleges of two +members, its senate called a curia, formed of the great proprietors, +people rich and of old family. There, as at Rome, the assembly of the +people was hardly more than a form; it is the senate--that is to say, +the nobility, that governs. + +The centre of the provincial city was always a town, a Rome in +miniature, with its temples, its triumphal arches, its public baths, +its fountains, its theatres, and its arenas for the combats. The life +led there was that of Rome on a small scale: distributions of grain +and money, public banquets, grand religious ceremonies, and bloody +spectacles. Only, in Rome, it was the money of the provinces that paid +the expenses; in the municipalities the nobility itself defrayed the +costs of government and fêtes. The tax levied for the treasury of the +emperor went entirely to the imperial chest; it was necessary, then, +that the rich of the city should at their own charges celebrate the +games, heat the baths, pave the streets, construct the bridges, +aqueducts, and circuses. They did this for more than two centuries, +and did it generously; monuments scattered over the whole of the +empire and thousands of inscriptions are a witness to this. + +=The Imperial Régime.=--After the conquest three or four hundred +families of the nobility of Rome governed and exploited the rest of +the world. The emperor deprived them of the government and subjected +them to his tyranny. The Roman writers could groan over their lost +liberty. The inhabitants of the provinces had nothing to regret; they +remained subject, but in place of several hundreds of masters, +ceaselessly renewed and determined to enrich themselves, they had now +a single sovereign, the emperor, interested to spare them. Tiberius +stated the imperial policy in the following words: "A good shepherd +shears his sheep, but does not flay them." For more than two centuries +the emperors contented themselves with shearing the people of the +empire; they took much of their money, but they protected them from +the enemy without, and even against their own agents. When the +provincials had grounds of complaint on account of the violence or the +robbery of their governor, they could appeal to the emperor and secure +justice. It was known that the emperor received complaints against his +subordinates; this was sufficient to frighten bad governors and +reassure subjects. Some emperors, like Marcus Aurelius, came to +recognize that they had duties to their subjects. The other emperors +at least left their subjects to govern themselves when they had no +interest to prevent this. + +The imperial régime was a loss for the Romans, but a deliverance for +their subjects: it abased the conquerors and raised the vanquished, +reconciling them and preparing them for assimilation in the empire. + + +SOCIAL LIFE UNDER THE EMPIRE + +=Moral Decay Continues at Rome.=--Seneca in his Letters and Juvenal in +his Satires have presented portraits of the men and women of their +time so striking that the corruption of the Rome of the Cæsars has +remained proverbial. They were not only the disorders left over from +the republic--the gross extravagance of the rich, the ferocity of +masters against their slaves, the unbridled frivolity of women. The +evil did not arise with the imperial régime, but resulted from the +excessive accumulation of the riches of the world in the hands of some +thousands of nobles or upstarts, under whom lived some hundreds of +free men in poverty, and slaves by millions subjected to an +unrestrained oppression. Each of these great proprietors lived in the +midst of his slaves like a petty prince, indolent and capricious. His +house at Rome was like a palace; every morning the hall of honor (the +atrium) was filled with clients, citizens who came for a meagre salary +to salute the master[151] and escort him in the street. For fashion +required that a rich man should never appear in public unless +surrounded by a crowd; Horace ridicules a prætor who traversed the +streets of Tibur with only five slaves in his following. Outside Rome +the great possessed magnificent villas at the sea-shore or in the +mountains; they went from one to the other, idle and bored. + +These great families were rapidly extinguished. Alarmed at the +diminishing number of free men, Augustus had made laws to encourage +marriage and to punish celibacy. As one might expect, his laws did not +remedy the evil. There were so many rich men who had not married that +it had become a lucrative trade to flatter them in order to be +mentioned in their will; by having no children one could surround +himself with a crowd of flatterers. "In the city," says a Roman +story-teller, "all men divide themselves into two classes, those who +fish, and those who are angled for." "Losing his children augments the +influence of a man." + +=The Shows.=--In the life of this idle people of Rome the spectacles +held a place that we are now hardly able to conceive. They were, as +in Greece, games, that is to say, religious ceremonies. The games +proceeded throughout the day and again on the following day, and this +for a week at least. The amphitheatre was, as it were, the rendezvous +of the whole free population; it was there that they manifested +themselves. Thus in 196, during the civil wars, all the spectators +cried with one voice, "Peace!" The spectacle was the passion of the +time. Three emperors appeared in public, Caligula as a driver, Nero as +an actor, Commodus as a gladiator. + +=The Theatre.=--There were three sorts of spectacles: the theatre, the +circus, and the amphitheatre. + +The theatre was organized on Greek models. The actors were masked and +presented plays imitated from the Greek. The Romans had little taste +for this recreation which was too delicate for them. They preferred +the mimes, comedies of gross character, and especially the pantomimes +in which the actor without speaking expressed by his attitudes the +sentiments of the character. + +=The Circus.=--Between the two hills of the Aventine and the Palatine +extended a field filled with race courses surrounded by arcades and +tiers of seats rising above them. This was the Circus Maximus. After +Nero enlarged it it could accommodate 250,000 spectators; in the +fourth century its size was increased to provide sittings for 385,000 +people. + +Here was presented the favorite spectacle of the Roman people, the +four-horse chariot race (quadrigæ); in each race the chariot made a +triple circuit of the circus and there were twenty-five races in a +single day. The drivers belonged to rival companies whose colors they +wore; there were at first four of these colors, but they were later +reduced to two--the Blue and the Green, notorious in the history of +riots. At Rome there was the same passion for chariot-races that there +is now for horse-races; women and even children talked of them. Often +the emperor participated and the quarrel between the Blues and the +Greens became an affair of state. + +=The Amphitheatre.=--At the gates of Rome the emperor Vespasian had +built the Colosseum, an enormous structure of two stories, +accommodating 87,000 spectators. It was a circus surrounding an arena +where hunts and combats were represented. + +For the hunts the arena was transformed into a forest where wild +beasts were released and men armed with spears came into combat with +them. Variety was sought in this spectacle by employing the rarest +animals--lions, panthers, elephants, bears, buffaloes, rhinoceroses, +giraffes, tigers, and crocodiles. In the games presented by Pompey had +already appeared seventeen elephants and five hundred lions; some of +the emperors maintained a large menagerie. + +Sometimes instead of placing armed men before the beasts, it was found +more dramatic to let loose the animals on men who were naked and +bound. The custom spread into all cities of the empire of compelling +those condemned to death to furnish this form of entertainment for the +people. Thousands of persons of both sexes and of every age, and among +them Christian martyrs, were thus devoured by beasts under the eyes of +the multitude. + +=The Gladiators.=--But the national spectacle of the Romans was the +fight of gladiators (men armed with swords). Armed men descended into +the arena and fought a duel to the death. From the time of Cæsar[152] +as many as 320 pairs of gladiators were fought at once; Augustus in +his whole life fought 10,000 of them, Trajan the same number in four +months. The vanquished was slain on the field unless the people wished +to show him grace. + +Sometimes the condemned were compelled to fight, but more often slaves +and prisoners of war. Each victory thus brought to the amphitheatre +bands of barbarians who exterminated one another for the delight of the +spectators.[153] Gladiators were furnished by all countries--Gauls, +Germans, Thracians, and sometimes negroes. These peoples fought with +various weapons, usually with their national arms. The Romans loved to +behold these battles in miniature. + +There were also, among these contestants in the circus, some who +fought from their own choice, free men who from a taste for danger +submitted to the terrible discipline of the gladiator, and swore to +their chief "to allow themselves to be beaten with rods, be burned +with hot iron, and even be killed." Many senators enrolled themselves +in these bands of slaves and adventurers, and even an emperor, +Commodus, descended into the arena. + +These bloody games were practised not only at Rome, but in all the +cities of Italy, Gaul, and Africa. The Greeks always opposed their +adoption. An inscription on a statue raised to one of the notables in +the little city of Minturnæ runs as follows: "He presented in four +days eleven pairs of gladiators who ceased to fight only when half of +them had fallen in the arena. He gave a hunt of ten terrible bears. +Treasure this in memory, noble fellow-citizens." The people, +therefore, had the passion for blood,[154] which still manifests +itself in Spain in bull-fights. The emperor, like the modern king of +Spain, must be present at these butcheries. Marcus Aurelius became +unpopular in Rome because he exhibited his weariness at the spectacles +of the amphitheatre by reading, speaking, or giving audiences instead +of regarding the games. When he enlisted gladiators to serve against +the barbarians who invaded Italy, the populace was about to revolt. +"He would deprive us of our amusements," cried one, "to compel us to +become philosophers." + +=The Roman Peace.=--But there was in the empire something else than +the populace of Rome. To be just to the empire as a whole one must +consider events in the provinces. By subjecting all peoples, the +Romans had suppressed war in the interior of their empire. Thus was +established the Roman Peace which a Greek author describes in the +following language: "Every man can go where he will; the harbors are +full of ships, the mountains are safe for travellers just as the towns +for their inhabitants. Fear has everywhere ceased. The land has put +off its old armor of iron and put on festal garments. You have +realized the word of Homer, 'the earth is common to all.'" For the +first time, indeed, men of the Occident could build their houses, +cultivate their fields, enjoy their property and their leisure without +fearing at every moment being robbed, massacred, or thrown into +slavery--a security which we can hardly appreciate since we have +enjoyed it from infancy, but which seemed very sweet to the men of +antiquity. + +=The Fusion of Peoples.=--In this empire now at peace travel became +easy. The Romans had built roads in every direction with stations and +relays; they had also made road-maps of the empire. Many people, +artisans, traders, journeyed from one end of the empire to the +other.[155] Rhetors and philosophers penetrated all Europe, going from +one city to another giving lectures. In every province could be found +men from the most remote provinces. Inscriptions show us in Spain +professors, painters, Greek sculptors; in Gaul, goldsmiths and Asiatic +workmen. Everybody transported and mingled customs, arts, and +religion. Little by little they accustomed themselves to speak the +language of the Romans. From the third century the Latin had become +the common language of the West, as the Greek since the successors of +Alexander had been the language of the Orient. Thus, as in Alexandria, +a common civilization was developed. This has been called by the name +Roman, though it was this hardly more than in name and in language. In +reality, it was the civilization of the ancient world united under +the emperor's authority. + +=Superstitions.=--Religious beliefs were everywhere blended. As the +ancients did not believe in a single God, it was easy for them to +adopt new gods. All peoples, each of whom had its own religion, far +from rejecting the religions of others, adopted the gods of their +neighbors and fused them with their own. The Romans set the example by +raising the Pantheon, a temple to "all the gods," where each deity had +his sanctuary. + +Everywhere there was much credulity. Men believed in the divinity of +the dead emperors; it was believed that Vespasian had in Egypt healed +a blind man and a paralytic. During the war with the Dacians the Roman +army was perishing of thirst; all at once it began to rain, and the +sudden storm appeared to all as a miracle; some said that an Egyptian +magician had conjured Hermes, others believed that Jupiter had taken +pity on the soldiers; and on the column of Marcus Aurelius Jupiter was +represented, thunderbolt in hand, sending the rain which the soldiers +caught in their bucklers. + +When the apostles Barnabas and Paul came to the city of Lystra in Asia +Minor, the inhabitants invoked Barnabas as Jupiter and Paul as +Mercury; they were met by a procession, with priests at the head +leading a bull which they were about to sacrifice. + +Cultured people were none the less credulous.[156] The Stoic +philosophers admitted omens. The emperor Augustus regarded it as a +bad sign when he put on the wrong shoe. Suetonius wrote to Pliny the +Younger, begging him to transfer his case to another day on account of +a dream which he had had. Pliny the Younger believed in ghosts. + +Among peoples ready to admit everything, different religions, instead +of going to pieces, fused into a common religion. This religion, at +once Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Asiatic, dominated the world at the +second century of our era; and so the Christians called it the +religion of the nations; down to the fourth century they gave the +pagans the name of "gentiles" (men of the nations); at the same time +the common law was called the Law of Nations. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[145] Inscriptions have been found where the name of Domitian has thus +been cut away. + +[146] Suetonius ("Lives of the Twelve Cæsars," Nero, ch. lvii.) relates, +that the king of the Parthians, when he sent ambassadors to the Senate +to renew his alliance with the Roman people, earnestly requested that +due honor should be paid to the memory of Nero. The historian continues, +"When, twenty years afterwards, at which time I was a young man, some +person of obscure birth gave himself out for Nero, that name secured him +so favorable a reception from the Parthians that he was very zealously +supported, and it was with much difficulty that they were persuaded to +give him up."--ED. + +[147] Italy was not included among the provinces. + +[148] A few provinces, the less important, remained to the Senate, but +the emperor was almost always master in these as well. + +[149] The jurisconsult Gaius says, "On provincial soil we can have +possession only; the emperor owns the property." + +[150] "Great personages," says Epictetus, "cannot root themselves like +plants; they must be much on the move in obedience to the commands of +the emperor." + +[151] A client's task was a hard one; the poet Martial, who had served +thus, groans about it. He had to rise before day, put on his toga which +was an inconvenient and cumbersome garment, and wait a long time in the +ante-room. + +[152] Cæsar gave also a combat between two troops, each composed of 500 +archers, 300 knights (30 knights according to Suetonius; Julius, ch. +39), and 20 elephants. + +[153] In an official discourse an orator thanks the emperor Constantine +who had given to the amphitheatre an entire army of barbarian captives, +"to bring about the destruction of these men for the amusement of the +people. What triumph," he cried, "could have been more glorious?" + +[154] St. Augustine in his "Confessions" describes the irresistible +attraction of these sanguinary spectacles. + +[155] A Phrygian relates in an inscription that he had made seventy-two +voyages from Asia to Italy. + +[156] There were some sceptical writers, like Lucian, but they were +isolated. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ARTS AND SCIENCES IN ROME + +LETTERS + + +=Imitation of the Greeks.=--The Romans were not artists naturally. +They became so very late and by imitating the Greeks. From Greece they +took their models of tragedy, comedy, the epic, the ode, the didactic +poem, pastoral poetry, and history. Some writers limited themselves to +the free translation of a Greek original (as Horace in his Odes). All +borrowed from the Greeks at least their ideas and their forms. But +they carried into this work of adaptation their qualities of patience +and vigor, and many came to a true originality. + +=The Age of Augustus.=--There is common agreement in regarding the +fifty years of the government of Augustus as the most brilliant period +in Latin literature. It is the time of Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, +Propertius, and Livy. The emperor, or rather his friend Mæcenas, +personally patronized some of these poets, especially Horace and +Vergil, who sang the glory of Augustus and of his time. But this +Augustan Age was preceded and followed by two centuries that perhaps +equalled it. It was in the preceding century,[157] the first before +Christ, that the most original Roman poet[158] appeared, Cæsar the +most elegant prose-writer, and Cicero the greatest orator. It was in +the following age that Seneca, Lucan, Tacitus, Pliny, and Juvenal +wrote. Between Lucretius and Tacitus there were for three centuries +many great writers in Rome. One might also add another century by +recurring to the time of Plautus, the second century before Christ. + +Of these great authors a few had their origin in Roman families; but +the majority of them were Italians. Many came from the provinces, +Vergil from Mantua, Livy from Padua (in Cisalpine Gaul), while Seneca +was a Spaniard. + +=Orators and Rhetors.=--The true national art at Rome was eloquence. +Like the Italians of our day, the Romans loved to speak in public. In +the forum where they held the assemblies of the people was the +rostrum, the platform for addressing the people, so named from the +prows of captured ships that ornamented it like trophies of war. +Thither the orators came in the last epoch of the republic to declaim +and to gesticulate before a tumultuous crowd. + +The tribunals, often composed of a hundred judges, furnished another +occasion for eloquent advocates. The Roman law permitted the accused +to have an advocate speak in his place. + +There were orators in Rome from the second century. Here, as in +Athens, the older orators, such as Cato and the Gracchi, spoke simply, +too simply for the taste of Cicero. Those who followed them in the +first century learned in the schools of the Greek rhetors the long +oratorical periods and pompous style. The greatest of all was Cicero, +the only one whose works have come down to us in anything but +fragments; and yet we have his speeches as they were left by him and +not as they were delivered.[159] + +With the fall of the republic the assemblies and the great political +trials ceased. Eloquence perished for the want of matter, and the +Roman writers remarked this with bitterness.[160] Then the rhetors +commenced to multiply, who taught the art of speaking well.[161] Some +of these teachers had their pupils compose as exercises pleas on +imaginary rhetorical subjects. The rhetor Seneca has left us many of +these oratorical themes; they discuss stolen children, brigands, and +romantic adventures. + +Then came the mania for public lectures. Pollio, a favorite of +Augustus, had set the example. For a century it was the fashion to +read poems, panegyrics, even tragedies before an audience of friends +assembled to applaud them. The taste for eloquence that had once +produced great orators exhibited in the later centuries only finished +declaimers. + +=Importance of the Latin Literature and Language.=--Latin literature +profited by the conquests of Rome; the Romans carried it with their +language to their barbarian subjects of the West. All the peoples of +Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, and the Danubian lands discarded their +language and took the Latin. Having no national literature, they +adopted that of their masters. The empire was thus divided between the +two languages of the two great peoples of antiquity: the Orient +continued to speak Greek; almost the entire Occident acquired the +Latin. Latin was not only the official language of the state +functionaries and of great men, like the English of our day in India; +the people themselves spoke it with greater or less correctness--in +fact, so well that today eighteen centuries after the conquest five +languages of Europe are derived from the Latin--the Italian, Spanish, +Portuguese, French, and Roumanian. + +With the Latin language the Latin literature extended itself over all +the West. In the schools of Bordeaux and Autun in the fifth century +only Latin poets and orators were studied. After the coming of the +barbarians, bishops and monks continued to write in Latin and they +carried this practice among the peoples of England and Germany who +were still speaking their native languages. Throughout almost the +whole mediæval period, acts, laws, histories, and books of science +were written in Latin. In the convents and the schools they read, +copied, and appreciated only works written in Latin; beside books of +piety only the Latin authors were known--Vergil, Horace, Cicero, and +Pliny the Younger. The renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries consisted partly in reviving the forgotten Latin writers. +More than ever it was the fashion to know and to imitate them. + +As the Romans constructed a literature in imitation of the Greeks, the +moderns have taken the Latin writers for their models. Was this good +or bad? Who would venture to say? But the fact is indisputable. Our +romance languages are daughters of the Latin, our literatures are full +of the ideas and of the literary methods of the Romans. The whole +western world is impregnated with the Latin literature. + + +THE ARTS + +=Sculpture and Painting.=--Great numbers of Roman statues and +bas-reliefs of the time of the empire have come to light. Some are +reproductions and almost all are imitations of Greek works, but less +elegant and less delicate than the models. The most original +productions of this form of art are the bas-reliefs and the busts. + +Bas-reliefs adorned the monuments (temples, columns, and triumphal +arches), tombs, and sarcophagi. They represent with scrupulous +fidelity real scenes, such as processions, sacrifices, combats, and +funeral ceremonies and so give us information about ancient life. The +bas-reliefs which surround the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius +bring us into the presence of the great scenes of their wars. One may +see the soldiers fighting against the barbarians, besieging their +fortresses, leading away the captives; the solemn sacrifices, and the +emperor haranguing the troops. + +The busts are especially those of the emperors, of their wives and +their children. As they were scattered in profusion throughout the +empire, so many have been found that today all the great museums of +Europe have collections of imperial busts. They are real portraits, +probably very close resemblances, for each emperor had a well-marked +physiognomy, often of a striking ugliness that no one attempted to +disguise. + +In general, Roman sculpture holds itself much more close to reality +than does the Greek; it may be said that the artist is less concerned +with representing things beautifully than exactly. + +Of Roman painting we know only the frescoes painted on the walls of +the rich houses of Pompeii and of the house of Livy at Rome. We do not +know but these were the work of Greek painters; they bear a close +resemblance to the paintings on Greek vases, having the same simple +and elegant grace. + +=Architecture.=--The true Roman art, because it operated to satisfy a +practical need, is architecture. In this too the Romans imitated the +Greeks, borrowing the column from them. But they had a form that the +Greeks never employed--the arch, that is to say, the art of arranging +cut stones in the arc of a circle so that they supported one another. +The arch allowed them to erect buildings much larger and more varied +than those of the Greeks. The following are the principal varieties of +Roman monuments: + + 1. The _Temple_ was sometimes similar to a Greek temple with a + broad vestibule, sometimes vaster and surmounted with a dome. Of + this sort is the Pantheon built in Rome under Augustus. + + 2. The _Basilica_ was a long low edifice, covered with a roof and + surrounded with porticos. There sat the judge with his assistants + about him; traders discussed the price of goods; the place was at + once a bourse and a tribunal. It was in the basilicas that the + assemblies of the Christians were later held, and for several + centuries the Christian churches preserved the name and form of + basilicas. + + 3. The _Amphitheatre_ and the _Circus_ were constructed of several + stories of arcades surrounding an arena; each range of arcades + supported many rows of seats. Such were the Colosseum at Rome and + the arenas at Arles and Nîmes. + + 4. The _Arch of Triumph_ was a gate of honor wide enough for the + passage of a chariot, adorned with columns and surmounted with a + group of sculpture. The Arch of Titus is an example. + + 5. The _Sepulchral Vault_ was an arched edifice provided with many + rows of niches, in each of which were laid the ashes of a corpse. + It was called a Columbarium (pigeon-house) from its shape. + + 6. The _Thermæ_ were composed of bathing-halls furnished with + basins. The heat was provided by a furnace placed in an + underground chamber. The Thermæ in a Roman city were what the + gymnasium was in a Greek city--a rendezvous for the idle. Much + more than the gymnasium it was a labyrinth of halls of every sort: + there were a cool hall, warm apartments, a robing-room, a hall + where the body was anointed with oil, parlors, halls for exercise, + gardens, and the whole surrounded by an enormous wall. Thus the + Thermæ of Caracalla covered an immense area. + + 7. The _Bridge_ and the _Aqueduct_ were supported by a range of + arches thrown over a river or over a valley. Examples are the + bridge of Alcantara and the Pont du Gard. + + 8. The _House_ of a rich Roman was a work of art. Unlike our + modern houses, the ancient house had no façade; the house was + turned entirely toward the interior; on the outside it showed only + bare walls. + + The rooms were small, ill furnished, and dark; they were lighted + only through the atrium. In the centre was the great hall of honor + (the atrium) where the statues of the ancestors were erected and + where visitors were received. It was illuminated by an opening in + the roof. + + Behind the atrium was the peristyle, a garden surrounded by + colonnades, in which were the dining halls, richly ornamented and + provided with couches, for among the rich Romans, as among the + Asiatic Greeks, guests reclined on couches at the banquets. The + pavement was often made of mosaic. + +=Character of the Roman Architecture.=--The Romans,[162] unlike the +Greeks, did not always build in marble. Ordinarily they used the stone +that they found in the country, binding this together with an +indestructible mortar which has resisted even dampness for eighteen +hundred years. Their monuments have not the wonderful grace of the +Greek monuments, but they are large, strong, and solid--like the Roman +power. The soil of the empire is still covered with their débris. We +are astonished to find monuments almost intact as remote as the +deserts of Africa. When it was planned to furnish a water-system for +the city of Tunis, all that had to be done was to repair a Roman +aqueduct. + +=Rome and Its Monuments.=--Rome at the time of the emperors was a +city of 2,000,000 inhabitants.[163] This population was herded in +houses of five and six stories, poorly built and crowded together. The +populous quarters were a labyrinth of tortuous paths, steep, and ill +paved. Juvenal who frequented them leaves us a picture of them which +has little attractiveness. At Pompeii, a city of luxury, it may be +seen how narrow were the streets of a Roman city. In the midst of +hovels monuments by the hundred would be erected. The emperor Augustus +boasted of having restored more than eighty temples. "I found a city +of bricks," said he; "I leave a city of marble." His successors all +worked to embellish Rome. It was especially about the Forum that the +monuments accumulated. The Capitol with its temple of Jupiter became +almost like the Acropolis at Athens. In the same quarter many +monumental areas were constructed--the forum of Cæsar, the forum of +Augustus, the forum of Nerva, and, most brilliant of all, the forum of +Trajan. Two villas surrounded by a park were situated in the midst of +the city; the most noted was the Golden House, built for Nero. + + +THE LAW + +=The Twelve Tables.=--The Romans, like all other ancient peoples, had +at first no written laws. They followed the customs of the +ancestors--that is to say, each generation did in everything just as +the preceding generation did. + +In 450 ten specially elected magistrates, the decemvirs, made a +series of laws that they wrote on twelve tables of stone. This was the +Law of the Twelve Tables, codified in short, rude, and trenchant +sentences--a legislation severe and rude like the semi-barbarous +people for whom it was made. It punished the sorcerer who by magical +words blasted the crop of his neighbor. It pronounced against the +insolvent debtor, "If he does not pay, he shall be cited before the +court; if sickness or age deter him, a horse shall be furnished him, +but no litter; he may have thirty days' delay, but if he does not +satisfy the debt in this time, the creditor may bind him with straps +or chains of fifteen pounds weight; at the end of sixty days he may be +sold beyond the Tiber; if there are many creditors, they may cut him +in parts, and if they cut more or less, there is no wrong in the act." +According to the word of Cicero, the Law of the Twelve Tables was "the +source of all the Roman law." Four centuries after it was written down +the children had to learn it in the schools. + +=The Symbolic Process.=--In the ancient Roman law it was not enough in +buying, selling, or inheriting that this was the intention of the +actor; to obtain justice in the Roman tribunal it was not sufficient +to present the case; one had to pronounce certain words and use +certain gestures. Consider, for example, the manner of purchasing. In +the presence of five citizens who represent an assembly and of a sixth +who holds a balance in his hand, the buyer places in the balance a +piece of brass which represents the price of the thing sold. If it be +an animal or a slave that is sold, the purchaser touches it with his +hand saying, "This is mine by the law of the Romans, I have bought it +with this brass duly weighed." Before the tribunal every process is a +pantomime: to reclaim an object one seizes it with the hand; to +protest against a neighbor who has erected a wall, a stone is thrown +against the wall. When two men claim proprietorship in a field, the +following takes place at the tribunal: the two adversaries grasp hands +and appear to fight; then they separate and each says, "I declare this +field is mine by the law of the Romans; I cite you before the tribunal +of the prætor to debate our right at the place in question." The judge +orders them to go to the place. "Before these witnesses here present, +this is your road to the place; go!" The litigants take a few steps as +if to go thither, and this is the symbol of the journey. A witness +says to them, "Return," and the journey is regarded as completed. Each +of the two presents a clod of earth, the symbol of the field. Thus the +trial commences;[164] then the judge alone hears the case. Like all +primitive peoples, the Romans comprehended well only what they +actually saw; the material acts served to represent to them the right +that could not be seen. + +=The Formalism of Roman Law.=--The Romans scrupulously respected their +ancient forms. In justice, as in religion, they obeyed the letter of +the law, caring nothing for its sense. For them every form was sacred +and ought to be strictly applied. In cases before the courts their +maxim was: "What has already been pronounced ought to be the law." If +an advocate made a mistake in one word in reciting the formula, his +case was lost. A man entered a case against his neighbor for having +cut down his vines: the formula that he ought to use contained the +word "arbor," he replaced it with the word "vinea," and could not win +his case. + +This absolute reverence for the form allowed the Romans some strange +accommodations. The law said that if a father sold his son three +times, the son should be freed from the power of the father; when, +therefore, a Roman wished to emancipate his son, he sold him three +times in succession, and this comedy of sale sufficed to emancipate +him. + +The law required that before beginning war a herald should be sent to +declare it at the frontier of the enemy. When Rome wished to make war +on Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had his kingdom on the other side of +the Adriatic, they were much embarrassed to execute this formality. +They hit on the following: a subject of Pyrrhus, perhaps a deserter, +bought a field in Rome; they then assumed that this territory had +become territory of Epirus, and the herald threw his javelin on this +land and made his solemn declaration. Like all other immature peoples, +the Romans believed that consecrated formulas had a magical virtue. + +=Jurisprudence.=--The Law of the Twelve Tables and the laws made after +them were brief and incomplete. But many questions presented +themselves that had no law for their solution. In these embarrassing +cases it was the custom at Rome to consult certain persons who were of +high reputation for their knowledge of questions of law. These were +men of eminence, often old consuls or pontiffs; they gave their advice +in writing, and their replies were called the Responses of the Wise. +Usually these responses were authoritative according to the respect +had for the sages. The emperor Augustus went further: he named some of +them whose responses should have the force of law. Thus Law began to +be a science and the men versed in law formulated new rules which +became obligatory. This was Jurisprudence. + +=The Prætor's Edict.=--To apply the sacred rules of law a supreme +magistrate was needed at Rome. Only a consul or a prætor could direct +a tribunal and, according to the Roman expression, "say the law." The +consuls engaged especially with the army ordinarily left this care to +the prætors. + +There were always at Rome at least two prætors as judges: one +adjudicated matters between citizens and was called the prætor of the +city (prætor urbanus); the other judged cases between citizens and +aliens and was called prætor of the aliens (prætor peregrinus), or, +more exactly, prætor between aliens and citizens. There was need of at +least two tribunals, since an alien could not be admitted to the +tribunal of the citizens. These prætors, thanks to their absolute +power, adjusted cases according to their sense of equity; the prætor +of the aliens was bound by no law, for the Roman laws were made only +for Roman citizens. And yet, since each prætor was to sit and judge +for a year, on entering upon his office he promulgated a decree in +which he indicated the rules that he expected to follow in his +tribunal; this was the Prætor's Edict. At the end of the year, when +the præter left his office, his ordinance was no longer in force, and +his successor had the right to make an entirely different one. But it +came to be the custom for each prætor to preserve the edicts of his +predecessors, making a few changes and some additions. Thus +accumulated for centuries the ordinances of the magistrates. At last +the emperor Hadrian in the second century had the Prætorian Edict +codified and gave it the force of law. + +=Civil Law and the Law of Nations.=--As there were two separate +tribunals, there developed two systems of rules, two different laws. +The rules applied to the affairs of citizens by the prætor of the city +formed the Civil Law--that is to say, the law of the city. The rules +followed by the prætor of aliens constituted the Law of Nations--that +is to say, of the peoples (alien to Rome). It was then perceived that +of these two laws the more human, the more sensible, the simpler--in a +word, the better, was the law of aliens. The law of citizens, derived +from the superstitious and strict rules of the old Romans, had +preserved from this rude origin troublesome formulas and barbarous +regulations. The Law of Nations, on the contrary, had for its +foundation the dealings of merchants and of men established in Rome, +dealings that were free from every formula, from every national +prejudice, and were slowly developed and tried by the experience of +several centuries. And so it may be seen how contrary to reason the +ancient law was. "Strict law is the highest injustice," is a Roman +proverb. The prætors of the city set themselves to correct the ancient +law and to judge according to equity or justice. They came gradually +to apply to citizens the same rules that the prætor of the aliens +followed in his tribunal. For example, the Roman law ordained that +only relatives on the male side should be heirs; the prætor summoned +the relatives on the female side also to participate in the +succession. + +The old law required that a man to become a proprietor must perform a +complicated ceremony of sale; the prætor recognized that it was +sufficient to have paid the price of the sale and to be in possession +of the property. Thus the Law of Nations invaded and gradually +superseded the Civil Law. + +="Written Reason."=--It was especially under the emperors that the new +Roman law took its form. The Antonines issued many ordinances (edicts) +and re-scripts (letters in which the emperor replied to those who +consulted him). Jurisconsults who surrounded them assisted them in +their reforms. Later, at the beginning of the third century, under the +bad emperors as under the good, others continued to state new rules +and to rectify the old. Papinian, Ulpian, Modestinus, and Paullus were +the most noted of these lawyers; their works definitively fixed the +Roman law. + +This law of the third century has little resemblance to the old Roman +law, so severe on the weak. The jurisconsults adopt the ideas of the +Greek philosophers, especially of the Stoics. They consider that all +men have the right of liberty: "By the law of nature all men are born +free," which is to say that slavery is contrary to nature. They also +admit that a slave could claim redress even against his master, and +that the master, if he killed his slave, should be punished as a +murderer. Likewise they protect the child against the tyranny of the +father. + +It is this new law that was in later times called Written Reason. In +fact, it is a philosophical law such as reason can conceive for all +men. And so there remains no longer an atom of the strict and gross +law of the Twelve Tables. The Roman law which has for a long time +governed all Europe, and which today is preserved in part in the laws +of several European states is not the law of the old Romans. It is +constructed, on the contrary, of the customs of all the peoples of +antiquity and the maxims of Greek philosophers fused together and +codified in the course of centuries by Roman magistrates and +jurisconsults. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[157] Sometimes called the Age of Cicero. + +[158] Lucretius.--ED. + +[159] One of the most noted, the plea for Milo, was written much later. +Cicero at the time of the delivery was distracted and said almost +nothing. + +[160] See the "Dialogue of the Orators," attributed to Tacitus. + +[161] The word "rhetor" signified in Greek simply orator; the Romans +used the word in a mistaken sense to designate the men who made a +profession of speaking. + +[162] The same reserve must be maintained with regard to the arts as to +the literature. The builders of the Roman monuments were not Romans, but +provincials, often slaves; the only Roman would be the master for whom +the slaves worked. + +[163] This estimate is too liberal. 1,500,00 is probably nearer the +truth. See Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms, i. 25.--ED. + +[164] Cicero describes this juridical comedy which was still in force in +his time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION + +ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY + + +=The Christ.=--He whom the Jews were expecting as their liberator and +king, the Messiah, appeared in Galilee, a small province of the North, +hardly regarded as Jewish, and in a humble family of carpenters. He +was called Jesus, but his Greek disciples called him the Christ (the +anointed), that is to say, the king consecrated by the holy oil. He +was also called the Master, the Lord, and the Saviour. The religion +that he came to found is that we now possess. We all know his life: it +is the model of every Christian. We know his instructions by heart; +they form our moral law. It is sufficient, then, to indicate what new +doctrines he disseminated in the world. + +=Charity.=--Before all, Christ commended love. "Thou shalt love the +Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and thy neighbor +as thyself.... On these two commandments hang all the law and the +prophets." The first duty is to love others and to benefit them. When +God will judge men, he will set on his right hand those who have fed +the hungry, given drink to those who were thirsty, and have clad those +that were naked. To those who would follow him the Christ said at the +beginning: "Go, ... sell all that ye have and give to the poor." + +For the ancients the good man was the noble, the rich, the brave. +Since the time of Christ the word has changed its sense: the good man +is he who loves others. Doing good is loving others and seeking to be +of service to them. Charity (the Latin name of love) from that time +has been the cardinal virtue. Charitable becomes synonymous with +beneficent. To the old doctrine of vengeance the Christ formally +opposes his doctrine of charity. "Ye have heard that it was said, An +eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you ... +whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other +also.... Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy +neighbor and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you love your enemies, +do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute you, +... that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who +maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on +the just and the unjust." He himself on the cross prayed for his +executioners, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." + +=Equality.=--The Christ loved all men; he died not for one people +only, but for all humanity. He never made a difference between men; +all are equal before God. The ancient religions, even the Jewish, were +religions of peoples who kept them with jealous care, as a treasure, +without wishing to communicate them to other peoples. Christ said to +his disciples, "Go, and teach all nations." And the apostle Paul thus +formulated the doctrine of Christian equality: "There is neither Greek +nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, bond nor free." +Two centuries later Tertullian, a Christian writer, said, "The world +is a republic, the common land of the human race." + +=Poverty and Humility.=--The ancients thought that riches ennobled a +man and they regarded pride as a worthy sentiment. "Blessed are the +poor," said Christ, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." He that +would not renounce all that he had could not be his disciple. He +himself went from city to city, possessing nothing, and when his +disciples were preoccupied with the future, he said, "Be not anxious +for what ye shall eat, nor for what ye shall put on. Behold the birds +of the heaven, they sow not neither do they reap, yet your heavenly +Father feedeth them." + +The Christian was to disdain riches, and more yet, worldly honors. One +day when his disciples were disputing who should have the highest rank +in heaven, he said, "He that is greatest among you shall be your +servant." "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that +humbleth himself shall be exalted." Till our day the successor of +Saint Peter calls himself "Servant of the servants of God." Christ +drew to himself by preference the poor, the sick, women, children,--in +a word, the weak and the helpless. He took all his disciples from +among the populace and bade them be "meek and lowly of heart." + +=The Kingdom of God.=--Christ said that he had come to the earth to +found the kingdom of God. His enemies believed that he wished to be a +king, and when he was crucified, they placed this inscription on his +cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews." This was a gross +mistake. Christ himself had declared, "My kingdom is not of this +world." He did not come to overturn governments nor to reform +society. To him who asked if he should pay the Roman tax, he replied, +"Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things +that are God's." And so the Christian accepted what he found +established and himself worked to perfect it, not to remodel society. +To make himself pleasing to God and worthy of his kingdom it was not +necessary to offer him sacrifices or to observe minute formulas as the +pagans did: "True worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and +truth." Their moral law is contained in this word of Christ: "Be ye +therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." + + +THE FIRST CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH + +=Disciples and Apostles.=--The twelve disciples who associated with +Christ received from him the mission to preach his doctrine to all +peoples. From that time they were called Apostles. The majority of +them lived in Jerusalem and preached in Judæa; the first Christians +were still Jews. It was Saul, a new convert, who carried Christianity +to the other peoples of the Orient. Paul (for he took this name) spent +his life visiting the Greek cities of Asia, Greece, and Macedonia, +inviting to the new religion not only the Jews, but also and +especially the Gentiles: "You were once without Christ," said he to +them, "strangers to the covenant and to the promises; but you have +been brought nigh by the blood of Christ, for it is he who of two +peoples hath made both one." From this time it was no longer necessary +to be a Jew if one would become a Christian. The other nations, +disregarded by the law of Moses, are brought near by the law of +Christ. This fusion was the work of St. Paul, also called the Apostle +to the Gentiles. + +The religion of Christ spread very slowly, as he himself had +announced: "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed ... +which is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the +greatest among herbs ... and the birds of the air lodge under its +branches." + +=The Church.=--In every city where Christians were found they +assembled to pray together, to sing the praises of God, and to +celebrate the mystery of the Lord's Supper. Their meeting was called +Ecclesia (assembly). Usually the Christians of the same assembly +regarded themselves as brothers; they contributed of their property to +support the widows, the poor, and the sick. The most eminent directed +the community and celebrated the religious ceremonies. These were the +Priests (their name signifies "elders"). Others were charged with the +administration of the goods of the community, and were called Deacons +(servants). Besides these officers, there was in each city a supreme +head--the Bishop (overseer). + +Later the functions of the church became so exacting that the body of +Christians was divided into two classes of people: the clergy, who +were the officials of the community; the rest, the faithful, who were +termed the laity. + +Each city had its independent church; thus they spoke of the church of +Antioch, of Corinth, of Rome; and yet they all formed but one church, +the church of Christ, in which all were united in one faith. The +universal or Catholic faith was regarded as the only correct body of +belief; all conflicting opinions (the heresies) were condemned as +errors. + +=The Sacred Books.=--The sacred scripture of the Jews, the Old +Testament, remained sacred for the Christians, but they had other +sacred books which the church had brought into one structure (the New +Testament). The four Gospels recount the life of Christ and the "good +news" of salvation which he brought. The Acts of the Apostles +describes how the gospel was disseminated in the world. The Epistles +are the letters addressed by the apostles to the Christians of the +first century. The Apocalypse (Revelation) is the revelation made +through St. John to the seven churches of Asia. Many other +pseudo-sacred books were current among the Christians, but the church +has rejected all of these, and has termed them apocryphal. + +=The Persecutions.=--The Christian religion was persecuted from its +birth. Its first enemies were the Jews, who forced the Roman governor +of Judæa to crucify Christ; who stoned St. Stephen, the first martyr, +and so set themselves against St. Paul that they almost compassed his +death. + +Then came the persecution by the Pagans. The Romans tolerated all the +religions of the East because the devotees of Osiris, of Mithra, and +of the Good Goddess recognized at the same time the Roman gods. But +the Christians, worshippers of the living God, scorned the petty +divinities of antiquity. More serious still in the eyes of the Romans, +they refused to adore the emperor as a god and to burn incense on the +altar of the goddess Roma. Several emperors promulgated edicts +against the Christians, bidding the governors arrest them and put them +to death. A letter of Pliny the Younger, then governor in Asia, to the +emperor Trajan, shows the procedure against them. "Up to this time, +regarding the people who have been denounced as Christians, I have +always operated as follows: I asked them if they were Christians; if +they confessed it, I put the question to them a second time, and then +a third time, threatening them with the penalty of death. When they +persisted, I had them put to death, convinced that, whatever their +fault that they avowed, their disobedience and their resolute +obstinacy merited punishment. Many who have been denounced in +anonymous writings have denied that they were Christians, have +repeated a prayer that I pronounced before them, have offered wine and +incense to your statue, which I had set forth for this purpose +together with the statues of the gods, and have even reviled the name +of Christ. All these are things which it is not possible to compel any +true Christians to do. Others have confessed that they were +Christians, but they affirm that their crime and their error consisted +only in assembling on certain days before sunrise to adore Christ as +God, to sing together in his honor, and to bind themselves by oath to +commit no crime, to perpetrate no theft, murder, adultery, nor to +violate their word. I have believed it necessary in order to secure +the truth to put to the torture two female slaves whom they called +deaconesses; but I have discovered only an absurd and exaggerated +superstition." + +The Roman government was a persecutor,[165] but the populace were +severer yet. They could not endure these people who worshipped another +god than theirs and contemned their deities. Whenever famine or +epidemic occurred, the well-known cry was heard, "To the lions with +the Christians!" The people forced the magistrates to hunt and +persecute the Christians. + +=The Martyrs.=--For the two centuries and a half that the Christians +were persecuted, throughout the empire there were thousands of +victims, of every age, sex, and condition. Roman citizens, like St. +Paul, were beheaded; the others were crucified, burned, most often +sent to the beasts in the amphitheatre. If they were allowed to escape +with their lives, they were set at forced labor in the mines. +Sometimes torture was aggravated by every sort of invention. In the +great execution at Lyons, in 177, the Christians, after being tortured +and confined in narrow prison quarters, were brought to the arena. The +beasts mutilated without killing them. They were then seated in iron +chairs heated red by fire. Blandina, a young slave, who survived all +these torments was bound with cords and exposed to the fury of a bull. +The Christians joyfully suffered these persecutions which gave them +entrance to heaven. The occasion presented an opportunity for +rendering public testimony to Christ. And so they did not call +themselves victims, but martyrs (witnesses); their torture was a +testimony. They compared it to the combat of the Olympian games; like +the victor in the athletic contests, they spoke of the palm or the +crown. Even now the festal day of a martyr is the day of his death. + +Frequently a Christian who was present at the persecution would draft +a written account of the martyrdom--he related the arrest, the +examination, the tortures, and the death. These brief accounts, filled +with edifying details, were called The Acts of the Martyrs. They were +circulated in the remotest communities; from one end of the empire to +the other they published the glory of the martyrs and excited a desire +to imitate them. Thousands of the faithful, seized by a thirst for +martyrdom, pressed forward to incriminate themselves and to demand +condemnation. One day a governor of Asia had decreed persecutions +against some Christians: all the Christians of the city presented +themselves in his tribunal and demanded to be persecuted. The +governor, exasperated, had some of them executed and sent away the +others. "Begone, you wretches! If you are so bent on death, you have +precipices and ropes." Some of the faithful, to be surer of torture, +entered the temples and threw down the idols of the gods. It was +several times necessary for even the church to prohibit the +solicitation of martyrdom. + +=The Catacombs.=--The ancient custom of burning the dead was repugnant +to the Christians. Like the Jews, they interred their dead wrapped +with a shroud in a sarcophagus. Cemeteries[166] were therefore +required. At Rome where land was very high in price the Christians +went below ground, and in the brittle tufa on which Rome was built may +be seen long galleries and subterranean chambers. There, in niches +excavated along the passages, they laid the bodies of their dead. As +each generation excavated new galleries, there was formed at length a +subterranean city, called the Catacombs ("to the tombs"). There were +similar catacombs in several cities--Naples, Milan, Alexandria, but +the most celebrated were those in Rome. These have been investigated +in our day and thousands of Christian tombs and inscriptions +recovered. The discovery of this subterranean world gave birth to a +new department of historical science--Christian Epigraphy and +Archæology. + +The sepulchral halls of the catacombs do not resemble those of the +Egyptians or those of the Etruscans; they are bare and severe. The +Christians knew that a corpse had no bodily wants and so they did not +adorn the tombs. The most important halls are decorated with very +simple ornaments and paintings which almost always represent the same +scenes. The most common subjects are the faithful in prayer, and the +Good Shepherd, symbolical of Christ. Some of these halls were like +chapels. In them were interred the bodies of the holy martyrs and the +faithful who wished to lie near them; every year Christians came here +to celebrate the mysteries. During the persecutions of the third +century the Christians of Rome often took refuge in these subterranean +chapels to hold their services of worship, or to escape from pursuit. +The Christians could feel safe in this bewildering labyrinth of +galleries whose entrance was usually marked by a pagan tomb. + + +THE MONKS OF THE THIRD CENTURY + +=The Solitaries.=--It was an idea current among Christians, especially +in the East, that one could not become a perfect Christian by +remaining in the midst of other men. Christ himself had said, "If any +man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and +children, and brethren, and sisters ... he cannot be my disciple." The +faithful man or woman who thus withdrew from the world to work out his +salvation the more surely, was termed an Anchorite (the man who is set +apart), or a Monk (solitary). This custom began in the East in the +middle of the third century. The first anchorites established +themselves in the deserts and the ruins of the district of Thebes in +Upper Egypt, which remained the holy land of the solitaries. + +Paul (235-340), the oldest of the monks, lived to his ninetieth year +in a grotto near a spring and a palm-tree which furnished him with +food and clothing. The model of the monks was St Anthony.[167] At the +age of twenty he heard read one day the text of the gospel, "If thou +wilt be perfect, sell all thy goods and give to the poor." He was fine +looking, noble, and rich, having received an inheritance from his +parents. He sold all his property, distributed it in alms and buried +himself in the desert of Egypt. He first betook himself to an empty +tomb, then to the ruins of a fortress; he was clad in a hair-shirt, +had for food only the bread that was brought to him every six months, +fasted, starved himself, prayed day and night. Often sunrise found +him still in prayer. "O sun," cried he, "why hast thou risen and +prevented my contemplating the true light?" He felt himself surrounded +by demons, who, under every form, sought to distract him from his +religious thoughts. When he became old and revered by all Egypt, he +returned to Alexandria for a day to preach against the Arian heretics, +but soon repaired to the desert again. They besought him to remain: he +replied, "The fishes die on land, the monks waste away in the city; we +return to our mountains like the fish to the water." + +Women also became solitaries. Alexandra, one of these, shut herself in +an empty tomb and lived there for ten years without leaving it to see +anybody. + +=Asceticism.=--These men who had withdrawn to the desert to escape the +world thought that everything that came from the world turned the soul +from God and placed it in the peril of losing salvation. The Christian +ought to belong entirely to God; he should forget everything behind +him. "Do you not know," said St. Nilus later, "that it is a trap of +Satan to be too much attached to one's family?" The monk Poemen had +withdrawn to the desert with his brothers, and their mother came to +visit them. As they refused to appear, she waited a little until they +were going to the church; but on seeing her, they fled and would not +consent to speak to her unless they were concealed. She asked to see +them, but they consoled her by saying, "You will see us in the other +world." + +But the world is not the only danger for the monk. Every man carried +about with himself an enemy from whom he could not deliver himself as +he had delivered himself from the world--that is, his own body. The +body prevented the soul from rising to God and drew it to worldly +pleasures that came from the devil. And so the solitaries applied +themselves to overcoming the body by refusing to it everything that it +loved. They subsisted only on bread and water; many ate but twice a +week, some went to the mountains to cut herbs which they ate raw. They +dwelt in grottoes, ruins, and tombs, lying on the earth or on a mat of +rushes. The most zealous of them added other tortures to mortify, or +kill, the body. St. Pachomius for fifteen years slept only in an erect +position, leaning against a wall. Macarius remained six months in a +morass, the prey of mosquitoes "whose stings would have penetrated the +hide of a wild boar." The most noted of these monks was St. Simeon, +surnamed Stylites (the man of the column). For forty years he lived in +the desert of Arabia on the summit of a column, exposed to the sun and +the rain, compelling himself to stay in one position for a whole day; +the faithful flocked from afar to behold him; he gave them audience +from the top of his column, bidding creditors free their debtors, and +masters liberate their slaves; he even sent reproaches to ministers +and counsellors of the emperor. This form of life was called +Asceticism (exercise). + +=The Cenobites.=--The solitaries who lived in the same desert drew +together and adopted a common life for the practice of their +austerities. About St. Anthony were already assembled many anchorites +who gave him their obedience. St. Pachomius (272-348) in this way +assembled 3,000. Their establishment was at Tabenna, near the first +cataract of the Nile. He founded many other similar communities, +either of men or women. In 256 a traveller said he had seen in a +single city of Egypt 10,000 monks and 20,000 vowed to a religious +life. There were more of them in Syria, in Palestine, in all the +Orient. The monks thus united in communities became Cenobites (people +who live in common). They chose a chief, the abbot (the word signifies +in Syriac "father"), and they implicitly obeyed him. Cassian relates +that in one community in Egypt he had seen the abbot before the whole +refectory give a cenobite a violent blow on the head to try his +obedience. + +The primitive monks renounced all property and family relations; the +cenobites surrendered also their will. On entering the community they +engaged to possess nothing, not to marry, and to obey. "The monks," +says St. Basil, "live a spiritual life like the angels." The first +union among the cenobites was the construction of houses in close +proximity. Later each community built a monastery, a great edifice, +where each monk had his cell. A Christian compares these cells "to a +hive of bees where each has in his hands the wax of work, in his mouth +the honey of psalms and prayers." These great houses needed a written +constitution; this was the Monastic Rule. St. Pachomius was the first +to prepare one. St. Basil wrote another that was adopted by almost all +the monasteries of the Orient. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[165] The church counted ten persecutions, the first under Nero, the +last under Diocletian. + +[166] The word is Greek and signifies place of repose. + +[167] See his biography in the "Lives of the Fathers of the Desert," by +Rufinus. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE LATER EMPIRE + +THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE THIRD CENTURY + + +=Military Anarchy.=--After the reigns of the Antonines the civil wars +commenced. There were in the empire, beside the prætorian guard in +Rome, several great armies on the Rhine, on the Danube, in the East, +and in England. Each aimed to make its general emperor. Ordinarily the +rivals fought it out until there was but one left; this one then +governed for a few years, after which he was assassinated,[168] or if, +by chance, he could transmit his power to his son, the soldiers +revolted against the son and the war recommenced. The following, for +example, is what occurred in 193. The prætorians had massacred the +emperor Pertinax, and the army conceived the notion of putting up the +empire at auction; two purchasers presented themselves, Sulpicius +offering each soldier $1,000 and Didius more than $1,200. The +prætorians brought the latter to the Senate and had him named emperor; +later, when he did not pay them, they murdered him. At the same time +the great armies of Britain, Illyricum, and Syria proclaimed each its +own general as emperor and the three rivals marched on Rome. The +Illyrian legions arrived first, and their general Septimius Severus +was named emperor by the Senate. Then commenced two sanguinary wars, +the one against the legions of Syria, and the other against the +legions of Britain. At the end of two years the emperor was +victorious. It is he who states his policy as follows, "My son, +content the soldiers and you may despise the rest." For a century +there was no other form of government than the will of the soldiers. +They killed the emperors who displeased them and replaced them by +their favorites. + +Strange emperors, therefore, occupied the throne: Elagabalus, a Syrian +priest, who garbed himself as a woman and had his mother assemble a +senate of women; Maximin, a soldier of fortune, a rough and +bloodthirsty giant, who ate, it was said, thirty pounds of food and +drank twenty-one quarts of wine a day. Once there were twenty emperors +at the same time, each in a corner of the empire (260-278). These have +been called the Thirty Tyrants. + +The Cult of Mithra.--This century of wars is also a century of +superstitions. The deities of the Orient, Isis, Osiris, the Great +Mother, have their devotees everywhere. But, more than all the others, +Mithra, a Persian god, becomes the universal god of the empire. Mithra +is no other than the sun. The monuments in his honor that are found in +all parts of the empire represent him slaughtering a bull, with this +inscription: "To the unconquerable sun, to the god Mithra." His cult +is complicated, sometimes similar to the Christian worship; there are +a baptism, sacred feasts, an anointing, penances, and chapels. To be +admitted to this one must pass through an initiatory ceremony, through +fasting and certain fearful tests. + +At the end of the third century the religion of Mithra was the +official religion of the empire. The Invincible God was the god of the +emperors; he had his chapels everywhere in the form of grottoes with +altars and bas-reliefs; in Rome, even, he had a magnificent temple +erected by the emperor Aurelian. + +=The Taurobolia.=--One of the most urgent needs of this time was +reconciliation with the deity; and so ceremonies of purification were +invented. + +The most striking of these was the Taurobolia. The devotee, clad in a +white robe with ornaments of gold, takes his place in the bottom of a +ditch which is covered by a platform pierced with holes. A bull is led +over this platform, the priest kills him and his blood runs through +the holes of the platform upon the garments, the face, and the hair of +the worshipper. It was believed that this "baptism of blood" purified +one of all sins. He who had received it was born to a new life; he +came forth from the ditch hideous to look upon, but happy and envied. + +=Confusion of Religions.=--In the century that preceded the victory of +Christianity, all religions fell into confusion. The sun was adored at +once under many names (Sol, Helios, Baal, Elagabal, and Mithra). All +the cults imitated one another and sometimes copied Christian forms. +Even the life of Christ was copied. The Asiatic philosopher, +Apollonius of Tyana, who lived in the first century (3-96), became in +legend a kind of prophet, son of a god, who went about surrounded by +his disciples, expelling demons, curing sicknesses, raising the dead. +He had come, it was said, to reform the doctrine of Pythagoras and +Plato. In the third century an empress had the life of Apollonius of +Tyana written, to be, as it were, a Pythagorean gospel opposed to the +gospel of Christ. The most remarkable example of this confusion in +religion was given by Alexander Severus, a devout emperor, mild and +conscientious: he had in his palace a chapel where he adored the +benefactors of humanity--Abraham, Orpheus, Jesus, and Apollonius of +Tyana. + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF THE LATER EMPIRE + +=Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.=--After a century of civil +wars emperors were found who were able to stop the anarchy. They were +men of the people, rude and active, soldiers of fortune rising from +one grade to another to become generals-in-chief, and then emperors. +Almost all arose in the semi-barbarous provinces of the Danube and of +Illyria; some in their infancy had been shepherds or peasants. They +had the simple manners of the old Roman generals. When the envoys of +the king of Persia asked to see the emperor Probus, they found a bald +old man clad in a linen cassock, lying on the ground, who ate peas and +bacon. It was the story of Curius Dentatus repeated after five +centuries. + +Severe with their soldiers, these emperors reëstablished discipline in +the army, and then order in the empire. But a change had become +necessary. A single man was no longer adequate to the government and +defence of this immense territory; and so from this time each emperor +took from among his relatives or his friends two or three +collaborators, each charged with a part of the empire. Usually their +title was that of Cæsar, but sometimes there were two equal emperors, +and both had the title of Augustus. When the emperor died, one of the +Cæsars succeeded him; it was no longer possible for the army to create +emperors. The provinces were too great, and Diocletian divided them. +The prætorians of Rome being dangerous, Diocletian replaced them with +two legions. The Occident was in ruins and depopulated and hence the +Orient had become the important part of the empire; Diocletian, +therefore, abandoned Rome and established his capital at Nicomedia in +Asia Minor.[169] Constantine did more and founded a new Rome in the +East--Constantinople. + +=Constantinople.=--On a promontory where Europe is separated from Asia +only by the narrow channel of the Bosporus, in a country of vineyards +and rich harvests, under a beautiful sky, Greek colonists had founded +the town of Byzantium. The hills of the vicinity made the place easily +defensible; its port, the Golden Horn, one of the best in the world, +could shelter 1,200 ships, and a chain of 820 feet in length was all +that was necessary to exclude a hostile fleet. This was the site of +Constantine's new city, Constantinople (the city of Constantine). + +Around the city were strong walls; two public squares surrounded with +porticos were constructed; a palace was erected, a circus, theatres, +aqueducts, baths, temples, and a Christian church. To ornament his +city Constantine transferred from other cities the most celebrated +statues and bas-reliefs. To furnish it with population he forced the +people of the neighboring towns to remove to it, and offered rewards +and honors to the great families who would come hither to make their +home. He established, as in Rome, distributions of grain, of wine, of +oil, and provided a continuous round of shows. This was one of those +rapid transformations, almost fantastic, in which the Orient delights. +The task began the 4th of November, 326; on the 11th of May, 330, the +city was dedicated. But it was a permanent creation. For ten centuries +Constantinople resisted invasions, preserving always in the ruins of +the empire its rank of capital. Today it is still the first city of +the East. + +=The Palace.=--The emperors who dwelt in the East[170] adopted the +customs of the Orient, wearing delicate garments of silk and gold and +for a head-dress a diadem of pearls. They secluded themselves in the +depths of their palace where they sat on a throne of gold, surrounded +by their ministers, separated from the world by a crowd of courtiers, +servants, functionaries and military guards. One must prostrate one's +self before them with face to the earth in token of adoration; they +were called Lord and Majesty; they were treated as gods. Everything +that touched their person was sacred, and so men spoke of the sacred +palace, the sacred bed-chamber, the sacred Council of State, even the +sacred treasury. + +The régime of this period has been termed that of the Later Empire as +distinguished from that of the three preceding centuries, which we +call the Early Empire. + +The life of an emperor of the Early Empire (from the first to the +third century) was still that of a magistrate and a general; the +palace of an emperor of the Later Empire became similar to the court +of the Persian king. + +=The Officials.=--The officials often became very numerous. Diocletian +found the provinces too large and so made several divisions of them. +In Gaul, for example, Lugdunensis (the province about Lyons) was +partitioned into four, Aquitaine into three. In place of forty-six +governors there were from this time 117.[171] + +At the same time the duties of the officials were divided. Besides the +governors and the deputies in the provinces there were in the border +provinces military commanders--the dukes and the counts. The emperor +had about him a small picked force to guard the palace, body-guards, +chamberlains, assistants, domestics, a council of state, bailiffs, +messengers, and a whole body of secretaries organized in four bureaus. + +All these officials did not now receive their orders directly from +the emperor; they communicated with him only through their superior +officers. The governors were subordinate to the two prætorian +prefects, the officials of public works to the two prefects of the +city, the collectors of taxes to the Count of the Sacred Largesses, +the deputies to the Count of the Domains, all the officers of the +palace to the Master of the Offices, the domestics of the court to the +Chamberlain. These heads of departments had the character of +ministers. + +This system is not very difficult for us to comprehend. We are +accustomed to see officials, judges, generals, collectors, and +engineers, organized in distinct departments, each with his special +duty, and subordinated to the commands of a chief of the service. We +even have more ministers than there were in Constantinople; but this +administrative machine which has become so familiar to us because we +have been acquainted with it from our infancy, is none the less +complicated and unnatural. It is the Later Empire that gave us the +first model of this; the Byzantine empire preserved it and since that +time all absolute governments have been forced to imitate it because +it has made the work of government easier for those who have it to do. + +=Society in the Later Empire.=--The Later Empire is a decisive moment +in the history of civilization. The absolute power of the Roman +magistrate is united to the pompous ceremonial of the eastern kings to +create a power unknown before in history. This new imperial majesty +crushes everything beneath it; the inhabitants of the empire cease to +be citizens and from the fourth century are called in Latin "subjects" +and in Greek "slaves." In reality all are slaves of the emperor, but +there are different grades of servitude. There are various degrees of +nobility which the master confers on them and which they transmit to +their posterity. The following is the series:[172] + + 1. The _Nobilissimi_ (the very noble); these are the imperial + family; + + 2. The _Illustres_ (the notable)--the chief ministers of + departments; + + 3. The _Spectabiles_ (the eminent)--the high dignitaries; + + 4. The _Clarissimi_ (most renowned)--the great officials, also + sometimes called senators; + + 5. The _Perfectissimi_ (very perfect).[173] + +Every important man has his rank, his title, and his functions.[174] +The only men who are of consequence are the courtiers and officials; +it is the régime of titles and of etiquette. A clearer instance has +never been given of the issue of absolute power united with the mania +for titles and with the purpose to regulate everything. The Later +Empire exhibits the completed type of a society reduced to a machine +and of a government absorbed by a court. It realized the ideal that is +proposed today by the partisans of absolute power; and for a long time +the friends of liberty must fight against the traditions which the +Later Empire has left to us. + + +THE CHURCH AND THE STATE + +=Triumph of Christianity.=--During the first two centuries of our era +the Christians occupied but a small place in the empire. Almost all of +them were of the lower classes, workmen, freedmen, slaves, who lived +obscure lives in the multitude of the great cities. For a long time +the aristocracy ignored the Christians; even in the second century +Suetonius in his "Lives of the Twelve Cæsars" speaks of a certain +Chrestus who agitated the populace of Rome. When the religion first +concerned the world of the rich and cultivated people, they were +interested simply to deride it as one only for the poor and ignorant. +It was precisely because it addressed the poor of this world in +providing a compensation in the life to come that Christianity made so +many proselytes. Persecution, far from suppressing it, gave it more +force. "The blood of the martyrs," said the faithful, "is the seed of +the church." During the whole of the third century conversions +continued, not only among the poor, but among the aristocracy as well. +At the first of the fourth century all the East had become Christian. +Helena, the mother of Constantine, was a Christian and has been +canonized by the church. When Constantine marched against his rival, +he took for his ensign a standard (the labarum), which bore the cross +and the monogram of Christ. His victory was the victory of the +Christians. He allowed them now to perform their religious rites +freely (by the edict of 313), and later he favored them openly. Yet +he did not break with the ancient religion: while he presided at the +great assembly of the Christian bishops, he continued to hold the +title of Pontifex Maximus; he carried in his helmet a nail of the true +cross and on his coins he still had the sun-god represented. In his +city of Constantinople he had a Christian church built, but also a +temple to Victory. For a half-century it was difficult to know what +was the official religion of the empire. + +=Organization of the Church.=--The Christians even under persecution +had never dreamed of overthrowing the empire. As soon as persecution +ceased, the bishops became the allies of the emperors. Then the +Christian church was organized definitively, and it was organized on +the model of the Later Empire, in the form that it preserves to this +day. Each city had a bishop who resided in the city proper and +governed the people of the territory; this territory subject to the +bishop was termed a Diocese. In any country in the Later Empire, there +were as many bishops and dioceses as there were cities. This is why +the bishops were so numerous and dioceses so many in the East and in +Italy where the country was covered with cities. In Gaul, on the +contrary, there were but 120 dioceses between the Rhine and the +Pyrenees, and the most of these, save in the south, were of the size +of a modern French department. Each province became an ecclesiastical +province; the bishop of the capital (metropolis) became the +metropolitan, or as he was later termed, the archbishop. + +=The Councils.=--In this century began the councils, the great +assemblies of the church. There had already been some local councils +at which the bishops and priests of a single province had been +present. For the first time, in 324,[175] Constantine convoked a +General Assembly of the World (an ecumenical council) at Nicæa, in +Asia Minor; 318 ecclesiastics were in attendance. They discussed +questions of theology and drew up the Nicene Creed, the Catholic +confession of faith. Then the emperor wrote to all the churches, +bidding them "conform to the will of God as expressed by the council." +This was the first ecumenical council, and there were three +others[176] of these before the arrival of the barbarians made an +assembly of the whole church impossible. The decisions reached by +these councils had the force of law for all Christians: the decisions +are called Canons[177] (rules). The collection of these regulations +constitutes the Canon Law. + +=The Heretics.=--From the second century there were among the +Christians heretics who professed opinions contrary to those of the +majority of the church. Often the bishops of a country assembled to +pronounce the new teaching as false, to compel the author to abjure, +and, if he refused, to separate him from the communion of Christians. +But frequently the author of the heresy had partisans convinced of the +truth of his teaching who would not submit and continued to profess +the condemned opinions. This was the cause of hatred and violent +strife between them and the faithful who were attached to the creed of +the church (the orthodox). As long as the Christians were weak and +persecuted by the state, they fought among themselves only with words +and with books; but when all society was Christian, the contests +against the heretics turned into persecutions, and sometimes into +civil wars. + +Almost all of the heresies of this time arose among the Greeks of Asia +or Egypt, peoples who were subtle, sophistical, and disputatious. The +heresies were usually attempts to explain the mysteries of the Trinity +and of the Incarnation. The most significant of these heresies was +that of Arius; he taught that Christ was created by God the Father and +was not equal to him. The Council of Nicæa condemned this view, but +his doctrine, called Arianism, spread throughout the East. From that +time for two centuries Catholics and Arians fought to see who should +have the supremacy in the church; the stronger party anathematized, +exiled, imprisoned, and sometimes killed the chiefs of the opposition. +For a long time the Arians had the advantage; several emperors took +sides with them; then, too, as the barbarians entered the empire, they +were converted to Arianism and received Arian bishops. More than two +centuries had passed before the Catholics had overcome this heresy. + +=Paganism.=--The ancient religion of the Gentiles did not disappear at +a single stroke. The Orient was quickly converted; but in the Occident +there were few Christians outside the cities, and even there many +continued to worship idols. The first Christian emperors did not wish +to break with the ancient imperial religion; they simultaneously +protected the bishops of the Christians and the priests of the gods; +they presided over councils and yet remained pontifex maximus. One of +them, Julian (surnamed the Apostate), openly returned to the ancient +religion. The emperor Gratian in 384[178] was the first to refuse the +insignia of the pontifex maximus. But as intolerance was general in +this century, as soon as the Roman religion ceased to be official, men +began to persecute it. The sacred fire of Rome that had burned for +eleven centuries was extinguished, the Vestals were removed, the +Olympian games were celebrated for the last time in 394. Then the +monks of Egypt issued from their deserts to destroy the altars of the +false gods and to establish relics in the temples of Anubis and +Serapis. Marcellus, a bishop of Syria, at the head of a band of +soldiers and gladiators sacked the temple of Jupiter at Aparnæa and +set himself to scour the country for the destruction of the +sanctuaries; he was killed by the peasants and raised by the church to +the honor of a saint. + +Soon idolatry persisted only in the rural districts where it escaped +detection; the idolaters were peasants who continued to adore sacred +trees and fountains and to assemble in proscribed sanctuaries.[179] +The Christians commenced to call "pagans" (the peasants) those whom up +to this time they had called Gentiles. And this name has still clung +to them. Paganism thus led an obscure existence in Italy, in Gaul, and +in Spain down to the end of the sixth century. + +=Theodosius.=--The incursions of the Germanic peoples into the empire +continued for two centuries until the Huns, a people of Tartar +horsemen, came from the steppes of Asia, and threw themselves on the +Germans, who occupied the country to the north of the Danube. In that +country there was already a great German kingdom, that of the Goths, +who had been converted to Christianity by Ulfilas, an Arian. To escape +the Huns, a part of this people, the West Goths (Visigoths), fled into +Roman territory, defeated the Roman armies, and overspread the country +even to Greece. Valens, the emperor of the East, had perished in the +defeat of Adrianople (378); Gratian, the emperor of the West, took as +colleague a noble Spaniard, Theodosius by name, and gave him the title +of Augustus of the East (379). Theodosius was able to rehabilitate his +army by avoiding a great battle with the Visigoths and by making a war +of skirmishes against them; this decided them to conclude a treaty. +They accepted service under the empire, land was given them in the +country to the south of the Danube, and they were charged with +preventing the enemies of the empire from crossing the river. + +Theodosius, having reëstablished peace in the East, came to the West +where Gratian had been killed by order of the usurper Maximus (383). +This Maximus was the commander of the Roman army of Britain; he had +crossed into Gaul with his army, abandoning the Roman provinces of +Britain to the ravages of the highland Scotch, had defeated Gratian, +and invaded Italy. He was master of the West, Theodosius of the East. +The contest between them was not only one between persons; it was a +battle between two religions: Theodosius was Catholic and had +assembled a council at Constantinople to condemn the heresy of Arius +(381); Maximus was ill-disposed toward the church. The engagement +occurred on the banks of the Save; Maximus was defeated, taken, and +executed. + +Theodosius established Valentinian II, the son of Gratian, in the West +and then returned to the East. But Arbogast, a barbarian Frank, the +general of the troops of Valentinian, had the latter killed, and +without venturing to proclaim himself emperor since he was not a +Roman, had his Roman secretary Eugenius made emperor. This was a +religious war: Arbogast had taken the side of the pagans; Theodosius, +the victor, had Eugenius executed and himself remained the sole +emperor. His victory was that of the Catholic church. + +In 391 the emperor Theodosius promulgated the Edict of Milan. It +prohibited the practice of the ancient religion; whoever offered a +sacrifice, adored an idol, or entered a temple should be condemned to +death as a state criminal, and his goods should be confiscated to the +profit of the informer. All the pagan temples were razed to the ground +or converted into Christian churches. And so Theodosius was extolled +by ecclesiastical writers as the model for emperors. + +Theodosius gave a rare example of submission to the church. The +inhabitants of Thessalonica had risen in riot, had killed their +governor, and overthrown the statues of the emperor. Theodosius in +irritation ordered the people to be massacred; 7,000 persons suffered +death. When the emperor presented himself some time after to enter the +cathedral of Milan, Ambrose, the bishop, charged him with his crime +before all the people, and declared that he could not give entrance +to the church to a man defiled with so many murders. Theodosius +confessed his sin, accepted the public penance which the bishop +imposed upon him, and for eight months remained at the door of the +church. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[168] Of the forty-five emperors from the first to the third century, +twenty-nine died by assassination. + +[169] Other considerations also led to the change of capital--ED. + +[170] There were often two emperors, one in the East, the other in the +West, but there was but one empire. The two emperors, though they may +have resided, one in Constantinople and the other in Italy, were +considered as being but one person. In addressing one of them the word +"you" (in the plural) was used, as if both were addressed at the same +time. This was the first use of the pronoun of the second person in the +plural for such a purpose; for throughout antiquity even kings and +emperors were addressed in the singular. + +[171] The number under Diocletian was 101; under Constantine (Bury's +Gibbon, ii., 170), 116.--ED. + +[172] Without counting the ancient titles of consul and præter, which +were still preserved, and the new title of patrician which was given by +special favor. + +[173] Of inferior rank. + +[174] We know the whole system by an official almanac of about the year +419, entitled Notitia Dignitatum, a list of all the civil and military +dignities and powers in the East and West. Each dignitary has a special +section preceded by an emblem which represents his honors. + +[175] It met in 325.--ED. + +[176] It is to be noted that the author is speaking of ecumenical or +world councils. The three referred to are Constantinople (381), Ephesus +(431), and Chalcedon (451).--ED. + +[177] Today, even, the word "canonical" signifies "in accordance with +rule." + +[178] Probably 375; Gratian died in 383.--ED. + +[179] Several saints, like St. Marcellus, found martyrdom at the hands +of peasants exasperated at the destruction of their idols. + + + + +APPENDIX + +REFERENCES FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING + + +PREHISTORIC TIMES + +Lubbock: Prehistoric Times. 1878. +Lubbock: Origin of Civilisation. 1881. +Hoernes: Primitive Man. Temple Primers. 1901. +Lyell: Antiquity of Man. London: 1863. +Keary: Dawn of History. +Tylor: Anthropology. 1881. +McLennan: Studies in Ancient History. 1886. +Ripley: Races of Europe. 1899. +Sergi: The Mediterranean Race. 1901. +Maine: Ancient Law. 1883. +Mason: Woman's Share in Primitive Culture. 1894. + +GENERAL WORKS OF REFERENCE-- + Ploetz: Epitome of Universal History. 1883. + Ranke: Universal History, edited by Prothero. 1885. + Andrews: Institutes of General History. 1887. + Haydn: Dictionary of Dates. 1889. + Lamed: History for Ready Reference. + +ATLASES-- + Spruner-Sieglin: Atlas Antiquus. + Kiepert: Atlas Antiquus. Leach. + Putzger: Historischer Schul-atlas. 1902. + Droysen: Allgemeiner Historischer Hand-atlas. Leipsic, 1885. + Freeman: Historical Geography of Europe. Edited by Bury. 1903. + Schrader: Atlas de Géographique Historique. + +GENERAL HISTORIES OF THE EAST-- + Sayce: Ancient Empires of the East. 1885. + Lenormant and Chevallier: Ancient History of the East. 1875. + Duncker: History of Antiquity. 1877-82 + Rawlinson: Manual of Ancient History. 1871. + Clarke: Ten Great Religions. 1894. + Cunningham: Western Civilisation in Its Economic Aspects. 1898. + +EGYPT + +SOURCES-- + Records of the Past, 1888-92. Old Series, 1875-8. + Herodotus: Book II. Rawlinson's edition. 1897. + +LITERATURE-- + Rawlinson: Ancient Egypt. 1887. + Flinders-Petrie: History of Egypt. 1899. + Breasted: History of Egypt. 1905. + Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt. 1894. + Maspero: Dawn of Civilisation. 1896. + Maspero: Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria. 1892. + Wilkinson: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Ancient Egypt. 1882. + Flinders-Petrie: Egyptian Decorative Art. 1895. + + +BABYLON AND ASSYRIA + +SOURCES-- + Records of the Past. + +LITERATURE-- + Ragozin: Chaldea. 1886. + Ragozin: Assyria. 1887. + Sayce: Assyria: Its Princes, Priests, and People. 1890. + Sayce: Social Life among the Assyrians and Babylonians. 1893. + Sayce: Fresh Light from Ancient Monuments. 1883. + Sayce: Babylonians and Assyrians. 1889. + Goodspeed: History of the Babylonians and Assyrians. 1902. + Layard: Discoveries among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. 1875. + Maspero: Dawn of Civilisation. 1896. + Maspero: Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria. 1892. + Maspero: Struggle of the Nations. 1897. + Maspero: Passing of the Empires. 1899. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Chaldea and Assyria. 1884. + + +INDIA + +SOURCES-- + Sacred Books of the East. + +LITERATURE-- + Wheeler: Primer of Indian History. 1890. + Smith, V.A.: Early History of India. 1904. + Ragozin: Vedic India. 1895. + Davids: Buddhist India. 1903. + Rhys-Davids: Buddhism. 1899. + Lane-Poole: Mediæval India under Mohammedan Rule. 1903. + Monier-Williams: Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism. 1889. + Monier-Williams: Indian Wisdom. London: 1875-6. + Frazer: Literary History of India. 1898. + Maine: Early History of Institutions. 1875. + + +PERSIA + +SOURCES-- + Records of the Past. + Herodotus. + Church: Stories of the East (from Herodotus). 1883. + +LITERATURE-- + Benjamin: Persia. 1887. + Markham: General Sketch of the History of Persia. 1874. + Vaux: Persia from the Monuments. 1878. + Jackson: Zoroaster, Prophet of Ancient Iran. 1899. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Persia, Phrygia, etc. 1895. + + +THE PHÅ’NICIANS + +SOURCES-- + The Old Testament. + Voyage of Hanno, translated by Falconer. + +LITERATURE-- + Rawlinson: PhÅ“nicia. 1889. + Maspero: Struggle of the Nations. 1897. + Paton: Early History of Syria and Palestine. 1901. + Taylor: The Alphabet. 1899. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in PhÅ“nicia and Cyprus. 1885. + + +THE HEBREWS + +SOURCES-- + The Old Testament. + The Talmud. + Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews; Wars of the Jews; Whiston's + translation. 1825. New edition of Whiston by Shilleto. 1889-90 + +LITERATURE-- + Hosmer: The Jews. 1885. + Sayce: Early History of the Hebrews. 1897. + Kent: History of the Hebrew People. 1899. + Kent: History of the Jewish People. 1899. + Milman: History of the Jews. 1870. + Stanley: History of the Jewish Church. 1884. + McCurdy: History, Prophecy, and the Monuments. 1901. 3 V. + Graetz: History of the Jews. 1891-98. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Sardinia, Judea, Syria, and + Asia Minor. 1890. + Day: Social Life of the Hebrews. 1901. + Rosenau: Jewish Ceremonial Institutions and Customs. Baltimore. 1903. + Leroy-Boileau: Israel among the Nations; translated by Hellman. 1900. + Cheyne: Jewish Religious Life after the Exile. 1898. + + +GREECE + +GENERAL HISTORIES-- + Grote: History of Greece. 1851-6. + Holm: History of Greece. 1894-8. + Duruy: History of Greece. 1890-2. + Abbott: History of Greece. 1888-99. + One volume histories of Greece are: Bury. 1903; Oman 1901; Botsford. + 1899; Myers. 1895; Cox, 1883. + +GREEK ANTIQUITIES-- + Smith: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. 1890-1 2 v. + Gardner and Jevons: Manual of Greek Antiquities. 1895. + Schömann: The Antiquities of Greece. London, 1880. A new and improved + edition in the German. + Harpers' Classical Literature and Antiquities. 1896. + +GREEK HISTORICAL SOURCES (translated into English)-- + Homer: Iliad. Translated by Lang, Leaf, and Myers. + Homer: Odyssey. Translated by Butcher and Lang. + Herodotus: Translated by Rawlinson. + Text of same with abridged notes. 1897. + Herodotus: Translated by Macaulay. + Thucydides: Translated by Jowett. + Xenophon: Dakyns' edition. 1890-7. + Demosthenes: Works translated by Kennedy. + Arrian: Translated in Bonn Library. + Pausanias: Description of Greece. Frazer's edition. + Polybius: Shuckburgh's edition. 1889. + Plutarch: Lives. Translated by Stewart and Long. 4 v., 1880. + Plutarch: Lives. North's translation. + +PERIODS OF GREEK HISTORY-- + Tsountas-Manatt: Mycenæan Age. 1896. + Ridgeway: The Early Age in Greece. 1901. + Freeman: Studies of Travel: Greece. 1893. + Clerke: Familiar Studies in Homer. 1892. + Jebb: Introduction to Homer. 1887. + Allcroft and Mason: Early Grecian History. 1898. + Benjamin: Troy. 1880. + Allcroft and Mason: Making of Athens. 1898. + Cox: Greeks and Persians. 1876. + Grundy: The Great Persian War. 1901. + Cox: Athenian Empire. 1877. + Lloyd: Age of Pericles. 1875. + Abbott: Pericles. 1895. + Grant: Greece in the Age of Pericles. 1893. + Allcroft and Mason: Peloponnesian War. 1898. + Freeman: Sicily. 1892. + Allcroft and Mason: Sparta and Thebes. 1898. + Sankey: Spartan and Theban Supremacies. 1877. + Allcroft and Mason: Decline of Hellas. 1898. + Curteis: Rise of the Macedonian Empire. 1878. + Hogarth: Philip and Alexander. 1897. + Wheeler: Alexander the Great. 1900. + Mahaffy: Alexander's Empire. 1887. + Mahaffy: Problems in Greek History. 1892. + Bevan: House of Seleucus. 1902. + Mahaffy: Empire of Egypt under the Ptolemies. 1899. + Mahaffy: Greek Life and Thought. 1887. + +GREEK POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT-- + Fowler: City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 1893. + Greenidge: Greek Constitutional History. 1896. + Schömann: Antiquities of Greece. 1886. + Cox: Lives of Greek Statesmen. 1886. + Gilbert: Constitutional Antiquities of Athens and Sparta. 1895. + Botsford: Athenian Constitution. 1893 + Whibley: Greek Oligarchies. 1896. + Whibley: Political Parties in Athens in the Pelopponnesian War. 1889. + Freeman: History of Federal Government. 1863. + +SOCIAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS-- + Blümner: Home Life of the Ancient Greeks. 1893. + Mahaffy: Social Life in Greece. 1887. + Mahaffy: A Survey of Greek Civilisation. 1899. + Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans. 1877. + Becker: Charicles. + Cunningham: Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects 1898. + Davidson: Education of the Greek People. 1894. + Mahaffy: Old Greek Education. 1882. + +HISTORIES OF GREEK LITERATURE-- + Mahaffy: History of Classical Greek Literature. 1880. + Murray: Ancient Greek Literature. 1897. + Jevons: History of Greek Literature. 1886. + Jebb: Primer of Greek Literature. 1878. + Jebb: Classical Greek Poetry. + Symonds: The Greek Poets. + Jebb: The Attic Orators. 1876. + Pater: Greek Studies. 1895. + +HISTORIES OF ART-- + Reber: History of Ancient Art. 1882. + Lübke: Outlines of the History of Art. 1881. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Primitive Greece. 1895. + Tarbell: History of Greek Art. 1896. + Fergusson: History of Architecture. 1875. + Gardner: Handbook of Greek Sculpture. 1896-7. + Harrison and Verall: Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens. 1894. + Harrison: Introductory Studies in Greek Art. 1892. + Gardner: Ancient Athens. 1902. + +GREEK ARCHÆOLOGY-- + Collignon: Manual of Greek Archæology. 1886. + Murray: Handbook of Greek Archæology. 1892. + Schuckardt: Schliemann's Excavations. 1891. + Diehl: Excursions in Greece. 1893. + Gardner: New Chapters in Greek History. 1892. + +GREEK PHILOSOPHY-- + Mayor: Sketch of Ancient Philosophy. 1881. + Marshall: Short History of Greek Philosophy. 1891. + Plato: Translated by Jowett. + Aristotle: Translated in Bohn's Library. + Zeller: Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. 1890. + +GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY-- + Gayley: Classic Myths. 1893. + Guerber: Myths of Greece and Rome. 1893. + + +ROME + +GENERAL HISTORIES-- + Mommsen: History of Rome. + Ihne: History of Rome. 1871-82. + Duruy: History of Rome. 1884-5. + Long: Decline of the Roman Republic. 1864-74. + Greenidge: History of Rome during the Latin Republic. 1904. + Shuckburgh: History of Rome. 1894. + How and Leigh: History of Rome. 1896. + Pelham: Outlines of Roman History. 1893. + Botsford: History of Rome. 1903. + Merivale: History of the Romans under the Empire. 1875. + Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Bury's edition. + +SOURCES OF ROMAN HISTORY (translated into English)-- + Livy: History and Epitome, translated by Spillan. 1887-90. + Polybius: Histories, translated by Shuckburgh. 1889. + Plutarch: Lives, translated by Stewart and Long. 1880. + Appian: Roman History, translated by White. 1899. + Sallust, Florus, and Velleius Paterculus, translated by Watson. 1887. + Cicero: Orations, translated by Yonge. 1851-2. + Cicero: Letters, translated by Shuckburgh. 1899. + Cæsar: Gallic War and Civil War. + Justin, Nepos, and Eutropius, translated by Watson. + Suetonius: Lives of the Twelve Cæsars, translated by Thomas Forester. + 1898. + Tacitus: Annals, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1895. + Tacitus: History, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1894. + Tacitus: Germania, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1893. + Josephus: Antiquities and Wars of the Jews, translated by + Whiston-Shilleto. 1889-90. + Pliny the Younger: Letters, translated by Melmoth. + Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, translated by Long. + Ammianus Marcellinus: Roman History, translated by Yonge. 1894. + Julian the Emperor: Works, translated by King. 1888. + Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History and Life of Constantine translated + by McGiffert. 1890. + Jerome: Works. + Augustine: Works. + Munro: Source Book of Roman History. 1904. + Greenidge and Clay: Sources for Roman History B.C. 133-70. 1903. + Gwatkin: Selections from Early Christian Writers. 1893. + +PERIODS OF ROMAN HISTORY-- + Ihne: Early Rome. 1893. + Allcroft and Mason: Struggle for Empire. 1893 + Church: Carthage. 1886. + Smith: Carthage and the Carthaginians. 1890. + Smith: Rome and Carthage. 1891. + Arnold: Second Punic War. 1849. + Dodge: Life of Hannibal. 1891. + Morris: Hannibal. 1897. + How: Hannibal and the Great War between Rome and Carthage. 1899. + Allcroft and Mason: Rome under the Oligarchs. 1893. + Beesly: Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla. 1893. + Allcroft and Mason: Decline of the Oligarchy. 1893. + Oman: Seven Roman Statesmen. 1902. + Beesly: Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius. 1898. + Strachan-Davidson: Cicero. 1894. + Forsyth: Life of Cicero. 1877. + Boissier: Cicero and His Friends. 1897. + Froude: Cæsar. 1879. + Dodge: Cæsar. 1892. + Fowler: Cæsar. 1892. + Merivale: The Roman Triumvirates. 1877. + Holmes: Cæsar's Conquest of Gaul. 1899. + Mahaffy: Greek World under Roman Sway. 1890. + Bossier: Roman Africa. 1899. + Bossier: Rome and Pompeii. 1896. + Hall: The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhone. 1898. + Bury: (Students') Roman Empire. 1893. + Capes: Early Roman Empire. 1886. + Mommsen: Provinces of the Roman Empire. 1887. + Firth: Augustus Cæsar. 1903. + Shuckburgh: Augustus. 1903. + Tarver: Tiberius the Tyrant. 1902. + Dill: Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. 1904. + Gregorovius: The Emperor Hadrian. 1898. + Bryant: Reign of Antoninus. 1896. + Capes: Age of the Antonines. 1887. + Watson: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 1884. + Firth: Constantine the Great. 1905. + Negri: Julian the Apostate. 1905. + Gardner: Julian. 1895. + Glover: Life and Letters in the Fourth Century. 1901. + Dill: Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. 1899. + Kingsley: Roman and Teuton. 1889. + Hodgkin: Dynasty of Theodosius. 1889. + Villari: Barbarian Invasions of Italy. 1902. + Hodgkin: Italy and Her Invaders, 1892-9. + Sheppard: Fall of Rome. 1861. + Bury: Later Roman Empire. 1889. + Oman: Byzantine Empire. 1892. + +ROMAN ANTIQUITIES-- + Ramsay-Lanciani: Manual of Roman Antiquities. 1895. + Smith: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Murray. 1890-1. + Sayffert: Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, edited by Nettleship + and Sandys. 1895. + Schreiber: Atlas of Classical Antiquities. 1895. + +ROMAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT-- + Fowler: City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 1895. + Taylor: Constitutional and Political History of Rome. 1899. + Greenidge: Roman Public Life. 1901. + Abbott: Roman Political Institutions. 1901. + Arnold: Roman Provincial Administration. 1879. + Mommsen: Provinces of the Roman Empire. 1887. + Seely: Roman Imperialism. 1871. + +SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMANS-- + Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans. 1889. + Church: Roman Life in the Days of Cicero. 1883. + Fowler: Roman Festivals. 1899. + Ingram: History of Slavery. 1895. + Rydberg: Roman Days. 1879. + Thomas: Roman Life under the Cæsars. 1899. + Johnston: Private Life of the Romans. 1903. + Inge: Society in Rome under the Cæsars. 1888. + Pellison: Roman Life in Pliny's Time. 1896. + Lecky: History of European Morals. 1869. + +ROMAN LITERATURE-- + Mackail: Latin Literature. 1898. + Cruttwell: History of Roman Literature. 1878. + Simcox: History of Latin Literature. 1883. + Teuffel-Schwabe: History of Roman Literature. 1891. + Tyrrell: Latin Poetry. 1895. + Sellar: Roman Poets of the Republic. 1881. + Sellar: Roman Poets of the Augustan Age. 1877. + +ROMAN ART-- + Reber: History of Ancient Art. 1882. + Burn: Roman Literature in Relation to Roman Art. 1890. + Wickoff: Roman Art. 1900. + Falke: Greece and Rome: Their Life and Art. 1885. + See under Greece for other histories of art. + +ROMAN LAW-- + Hadley: Introduction to Roman Law. 1876. + Morey: Outlines of Roman Law. 1893. + Muirhead: Historical Introduction to the Private Law of Rome. 1899. + Howe: Studies in the Civil Law. 1896. + +ROMAN ARCHÆOLOGY-- + Lanciani: Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries. 1888. + Lanciani: Pagan and Christian Rome. 1896. + Lanciani: Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, 1897. + Lanciani: Destruction of Ancient Rome. 1899. + Mau: Pompeii, translated by Kelsey. 1899. + Plainer: Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome. 1904. + Lovell: Stories in Stone upon the Roman Forum. 1902. + Burton-Brown: Recent Excavations in the Roman Forum. 1905. + +CHRISTIANITY-- + General Church Histories: + Moeller: History of the Christian Church. 1898-1900. + Gieseler: Church History. 1857-79. + Neander: History of the Christian Religion and Church. 1853-4. + Schaff: History of the Christian Church. 1884-92. + Alzog: Manual of Universal Church History. 1874-8. + Kurtz: Church History. 1860. + Milman: History of Christianity. + Milman: Latin Christianity. 1881. + Allen: Outline of Christian History. 1886. + Allen: Christian Institutions. 1897. + Fisher: History of the Christian Church. 1887. + + The Early Church: + Pressensé: Early Years of Christianity. 1873. + Fisher: Beginnings of Christianity. 1877. + Carr: Church and the Roman Empire. 1902. + Spence: Early Christianity and Paganism. 1902. + Ramsay: Church in the Roman Empire before 170. 1893. + Gregg: Decian Persecution. 1898. + Healy: The Valerian Persecution. 1905. + Mason: Persecution of Diocletian. 1876. + Renan: Influence of the Institutions, Thought, and Culture of Rome + on Christianity. 1898. + Hardy: Studies in Roman History. 1906. + Uhlhorn: Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism. 1879. + Newman: Arians of the Fourth Century. 1888. + Gwatkin: Arian Controversy 1889. + Cutts: St. Augustine. 1881. + Stanley: Eastern Church. 1884. + Smith-Wace: Dictionary of Christian Biography. 1877-87. + +COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + + +Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History Of Ancient Civilization + +Author: Charles Seignobos + +Release Date: February 9, 2006 [EBook #17720] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net. + + + + + + + * * * * * + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | | + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Bolded text is distinguished by ='s at start and finish. | + | Italicized text is distinguished by _'s at start and finish. | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +HISTORY OF + +ANCIENT CIVILIZATION + + +BY + +CHARLES SEIGNOBOS + +DOCTOR OF LETTERS OF THE UNIVERSITY +OF PARIS + + +LONDON +T. FISHER UNWIN +ADELPHI TERRACE +MCMVII + + + + +(_All rights reserved_) + + + + +EDITOR'S NOTE + + +In preparing this volume, the Editor has used both the three-volume +edition and the two-volume edition of the "Histoire de la +Civilisation." He has usually preferred the order of topics of the +two-volume edition, but has supplemented the material therein with +other matter drawn from the three-volume edition. + +A few corrections to the text have been given in foot-notes. These +notes are always clearly distinguished from the elucidations of the +author. + + A.H.W. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +PREHISTORIC TIMES. Prehistoric archæology--Prehistoric remains; their + antiquity--Prehistoric science--The four ages. + + THE ROUGH STONE AGE. Remains found in the gravels--The cave-men. + + THE POLISHED STONE AGE. Lake-villages--Megalithic monuments. + + THE BRONZE AGE. Bronze--Bronze objects. + + THE IRON AGE. Iron--Iron weapons--Epochs of the Iron Age. + + Conclusions: How the four ages are to be conceived; uncertainties; + solved questions. + + +CHAPTER II + +HISTORY AND THE DOCUMENTS. History--Legends--History in general--Great + divisions of history--Ancient history--Modern history--The Middle + Ages. + +SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS. + Books--Monuments--Inscriptions--Languages--Lacunæ. + +RACES AND PEOPLES. Anthropology--The races--Civilized peoples--Aryans + and Semites. + + +CHAPTER III + +THE EGYPTIANS. Egypt--The country--The Nile--Fertility of the soil--The + accounts of Herodotus--Champollion--Egyptologists--Discoveries. + +THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE. Antiquity of the Egyptian people--Memphis and the + pyramids--Egyptian civilization--Thebes--The Pharaoh--The + subjects--Despotism--Isolation of the Egyptians. + +RELIGION OF THE EGYPTIANS. The gods--Osiris--Ammon-râ--Gods with animal + heads--Sacred animals--The bull Apis--Worship of the dead--Judgment + of the soul--Mummies--Book of the Dead--The arts--Industry-- + Architecture--Tombs--Temples--Sculpture--Painting--Literature-- + Destinies of the Egyptian civilization. + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS. Chaldea--The land--The people--The + cities. + +THE ASSYRIANS--Assyria--Origins--Ancient accounts--Modern discoveries-- + Inscriptions on bricks--Cuneiform writing--The Assyrian people--The + king--Fall of the Assyrian Empire. + +THE BABYLONIANS. The second Chaldean empire--Babylon--The Tower of + Babylon. + +CUSTOMS AND RELIGION. Customs--Religion--The gods--Astrology-- + Sorcery--The sciences. + +THE ARTS. Architecture--Palaces--Sculpture. + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ARYANS OF INDIA. The Aryans--Aryan languages--The Aryan people. + +PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS. The Aryans on the Indus--The + Vedas--The gods--Indra--Agni--The cult--Worship of ancestors. + +BRAHMANIC SOCIETY. The Hindoos on the Ganges--Castes--The Impure--The + Brahmans--The new religion of Brahma--Transmigration of souls-- + Character of this religion--The rites--Purity--Penances--The monks. + +BUDDHISM. Buddha--Nirvana--Charity--Fraternity--Tolerance--Later + history of Buddhism--Changes in Buddhism--Buddha transformed into a + god--Mechanical prayer--Amelioration of manners. + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PERSIANS. The religion of Zoroaster--Iran--The Iranians-- + Zoroaster--The Zend-Avesta--Ormuzd and Ahriman--Angels and demons-- + Creatures of Ormuzd and Ahriman--The cult--Morality--Funerals-- + Destiny of the soul--Character of Mazdeism. + +THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. The Medes--The Persians--Cyrus--The inscription of + Behistun--The Persian empire--The satrapies--Revenues of the + empire--The Great King--Services rendered by the Persians--Susa and + Persepolis--Persian architecture. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE PHOENICIANS. The Phoenician people--The land--The cities--Phoenician + ruins--Organization of the Phoenician--Tyre--Carthage--Carthaginian + army--The Carthaginians--The Phoenician religion. + +PHOENICIAN COMMERCE. Occupations of the Phoenicians--Caravans--Marine + commerce--Commodities--Secret kept by the Phoenicians--Colonies-- + Influence of the Phoenicians--The alphabet. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HEBREWS. Origin of the Hebrew people--The Bible--The Hebrews--The + patriarchs--The Israelites--The call of Moses--Israel in the + desert--The Promised Land. + +THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. One God--The people of God--The covenant--The + Ten Commandments--The Law--Religion constituted the Jewish people. + +THE EMPIRE OF ISRAEL. The Judges--The Hangs--Jerusalem--The + tabernacle--The temple. + +THE PROPHETS. Disasters of Israel--Sentiments of the Israelites--The + prophets--The new teaching--The Messiah. + +THE JEWISH PEOPLE. Return to Jerusalem--The Jews--The synagogues-- + Destruction of the temple--The Jews after the dispersion. + + +CHAPTER IX + +GREECE AND THE GREEKS. The country--The sea--The climate--Simplicity of + Greek life--The people--Origin of the Greeks--Legends--The Trojan + War--The Homeric Poems--The Greeks at the time of Homer--The + Dorians--The Ionians--The Hellenes--The cities. + +THE HELLENES BEYOND THE SEA. Colonization--Character of the colonies-- + Traditions touching the colonies--Importance of the Greek colonies. + + +CHAPTER X + +GREEK RELIGION. The + gods--Polytheism--Anthropomorphism--Mythology--Local gods--The + great gods--Attributes of the gods--Olympus and Zeus--Morality of + the Greek mythology. + +THE HEROES. Various sorts of heroes--Presence of the heroes-- + Intervention of the heroes. + +WORSHIP. Principle of the cult of the gods--The great Feasts--the sacred + games--Omens--Oracles--Amphictyonies. + + +CHAPTER XI + +SPARTA. The People--Laconia--The Helots--The Perioeci--Condition of the + Spartiates. + +EDUCATION. The children--The girls--The discipline--Laconism--Music-- + The dance--Heroism of the women. + +INSTITUTIONS. The kings and the council--The ephors--The army--The + hoplites--The phalanx--Gymnastics--Athletes--Rôle of the Spartiates. + + +CHAPTER XII + +ATHENS. Origins of the Athenian people--Attica--Athens--The revolutions + in Athens--Reforms of Cleisthenes. + +THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE. The slaves--The foreigners--The citizens. + +THE GOVERNMENT. The assembly--The courts--The magistrates--Character of + the government--The demagogues. + +PRIVATE LIFE. Children--Marriage--Women. + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WARS. The Persian wars--Origin of these wars--Comparison of the two + adversaries--First Persian war--Second Persian war--Reasons for the + victory of the Greeks--Results of the wars. + +WARS OF THE GREEKS AMONG THEMSELVES. The Peloponnesian war--War with + Sparta--Savage character of the wars--Effects of these wars. + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ARTS IN GREECE. Athens in the time of Pericles--Pericles--Athens + and her monuments--Importance of Athens. + +LETTERS. Orators--Sages--Sophists--Socrates and the philosophers--The + chorus--Tragedy and comedy--Theatre. + +ARTS. The Grecian temples--Characteristics of Grecian + architecture--Sculpture--Pottery--Painting. + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT. Asia before Alexander--Decadence of the + Persian empire--Expedition of the Ten Thousand--Agesilaus. + +CONQUEST OF ASIA BY ALEXANDER. Macedon--Philip--Demosthenes--The + Macedonian supremacy--Alexander--The phalanx--Departure of + Alexander--Victories of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela--Death of + Alexander--Projects of Alexander. + +THE HELLENES IN THE ORIENT. Dismemberment of the empire of Alexander-- + The Hellenistic kingdoms--Alexandria--Museum--Pergamum. + + +CHAPTER XVI + +LATER PERIOD OF GREEK HISTORY. Decadence of the cities--Rich and + poor--Strife between rich and poor--Democracy and oligarchy--The + tyrants--Exhaustion of Greece. + +THE ROMAN CONQUEST. The leagues--The allies of the Romans--The last + struggles. + +THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT. Influence of Greece on Rome-- + Architecture--Sculpture--Literature--Epicureans and Stoics. + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ANCIENT PEOPLES OF ITALY. The Etruscans--Etruria--The Etruscan people-- + The Etruscan tombs--Industry and commerce--Religion--The augurs-- + Influence of the Etruscans. + +THE ITALIAN PEOPLE. Umbrians and Oscans--The Sacred Spring--The + Samnites--The Greeks of Italy. + +LATINS AND ROMANS. The Latins--Rome--Roma Quadrata and the Capitol. + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +RELIGION AND THE FAMILY. Religion--The Roman gods--Form of the + gods--Principle of the Roman religion--Worship--Formalism-- + Prayer--Omens--The priests. + +WORSHIP OF ANCESTORS. The dead--Worship of the dead--Cult of the hearth. + +THE FAMILY. Religion of the family--Marriage--Women--Children--Father of + the family. + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROMAN CITY. Formation of the Roman people--The kings--The Roman + people--The plebeians--Strife between patricians and plebeians-- + The tribunes of the plebs--Triumph of the plebs. + +THE ROMAN PEOPLE. Right of citizenship--The nobles--The knights--The + plebs--Freedmen. + +THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. The comitia--Magistrates--Censors-- + Senate--The course of offices. + + +CHAPTER XX + +ROMAN CONQUEST. The Roman army--Military service--The levy--Legions and + allies--Military exercises--Camp--Order of battle--Discipline-- + Colonies &ad military roads. + +CHARACTER OF THE CONQUESTS. War--Conquest of Italy--Punic + wars--Hannibal--Conquest of the Orient--Conquest of barbarian + lands--The triumph--Booty--Allies of Rome--Motives of conquest. + +RESULTS OF THE CONQUESTS. Empire of the Roman people--The public + domain--Agrarian laws. + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CONQUERED PEOPLES. The provincials--Provinces--The proconsuls-- + Tyranny and oppression of the proconsuls--The publicans--Bankers-- + Defencelessness of the provincials. + +SLAVERY. Sale of slaves--Condition of slaves--Number of slaves--Urban + slaves--Rural slaves--Treatment of slaves--Ergastulum and mill-- + Character of the slaves--Revolts--Admission to citizenship. + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE IN ROME. Influence of Greece and the Orient. + +CHANGES IN RELIGION. Greek gods--The Bacchanals--Superstitions of the + Orient--Sceptics. + +CHANGES IN MANNERS. The old customs--Cato the Elder--The new manners-- + Oriental luxury--Greek humanity--Lucullus--The new education--New + status of women--Divorce. + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +FALL OF THE REPUBLIC. Causes of the decadence--Destruction of the + peasant class--The city plebs--Electoral corruption--Corruption of + the Senate--Corruption of the army. + +THE REVOLUTION. Necessity of the revolution--Civil wars--The Gracchi-- + Marius and Sulla--Pompey and Cæsar--End of the Republic--Need of + peace--Power of the individual. + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT. The twelve Cæsars--The emperor--Apotheosis-- + Senate and people--The prætorians--Freedmen of the emperors-- + Despotism and disorder. + +THE CENTURY OF THE ANTONINES. Marcus Aurelius--Conquests of the + Antonines. + +IMPERIAL INSTITUTIONS. Extent of the empire in the second century-- + Permanent army--Deputies and agents of the emperor--Municipal + life--Imperial regime. + +SOCIAL LIFE UNDER THE EMPIRE. The continued decadence at Rome--The + shows--Theatre--Circus--Amphitheatre--Gladiators--The Roman + peace--Fusion of the peoples--Superstitions. + + +CHAPTER XXV + +ARTS AND SCIENCES IN ROME. Letters--Imitation of the Greeks--The + Augustan Age--Orators and rhetoricians--Importance of the Latin + literature and language--Arts--Sculpture and painting-- + Architecture--Characteristics of Roman architecture--Rome and its + monuments. + +ROMAN LAW. The Twelve Tables--Symbolic process--Formalism-- + Jurisprudence--The prætor's edict--Civil law and the law of + nations--Written reason. + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Origin of Christianity--Christ--Charity-- + Equality--Poverty and humility--The kingdom of God. + +FIRST CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH. Disciples and apostles--The church-- + Sacred books--Persecutions--Martyrs--Catacombs. + +THE MONKS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. Solitaries--Asceticism--Cenobites. + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE LATER EMPIRE. The revolutions of the third century--Military + anarchy--Worship of Mithra--Taurobolia--Confusion of religions. + +REGIME OF THE LATER EMPIRE. Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine-- + Constantinople--The palace--The officials--Society of the later + empire. + +CHURCH AND STATE. Triumph of Christianity--Organization of the + church--Councils--Heretics--Paganism--Theodosius. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION + +PREHISTORIC ARCHÆOLOGY + + +=Prehistoric Remains.=--One often finds buried in the earth, weapons, +implements, human skeletons, débris of every kind left by men of whom +we have no direct knowledge. These are dug up by the thousand in all +the provinces of France, in Switzerland, in England, in all Europe; +they are found even in Asia and Africa. It is probable that they exist +in all parts of the world. + +These remains are called prehistoric because they are more ancient +than written history. For about fifty years men have been engaged in +recovering and studying them. Today most museums have a hall, or at +least, some cases filled with these relics. A museum at +Saint-German-en-Laye, near Paris, is entirely given up to prehistoric +remains. In Denmark is a collection of more than 30,000 objects. Every +day adds to the discoveries as excavations are made, houses built, and +cuts made for railroads. + +These objects are not found on the surface of the ground, but +ordinarily buried deeply where the earth has not been disturbed. They +are recovered from a stratum of gravel or clay which has been +deposited gradually and has fixed them in place safe from the air, a +sure proof that they have been there for a long time. + +=Prehistoric Science.=--Scholars have examined the débris and have +asked themselves what men have left them. From their skeletons, they +have tried to construct their physical appearance; from their tools, +the kind of life they led. They have determined that these instruments +resemble those used by certain savages today. The study of all these +objects constitutes a new science, Prehistoric Archæology.[1] + +=The Four Ages.=--Prehistoric remains come down to us from very +diverse races of men; they have been deposited in the soil at widely +different epochs since the time when the mammoth lived in western +Europe, a sort of gigantic elephant with woolly hide and curved tusks. +This long lapse of time may be divided into four periods, called Ages: + + 1. The Rough Stone Age. + + 2. The Polished Stone Age. + + 3. The Bronze Age. + + 4. The Iron Age. + +The periods take their names from the materials used in the +manufacture of the tools,--stone, bronze, iron. These epochs, however, +are of very unequal length. It may be that the Rough Stone Age was ten +times as long as the Age of Iron. + + +THE ROUGH STONE AGE + +=Gravel Débris.=--The oldest remains of the Stone Age have been found +in the gravels. A French scholar found between 1841 and 1853, in the +valley of the Somme, certain sharp instruments made of flint. They +were buried to a depth of six metres in gravel under three layers of +clay, gravel, and marl which had never been broken up. In the same +place they discovered bones of cattle, deer, and elephants. For a long +time people made light of this discovery. They said that the chipping +of the flints was due to chance. At last, in 1860, several scholars +came to study the remains in the valley of the Somme and recognized +that the flints had certainly been cut by men. Since then there have +been found more than 5,000 similar flints in strata of the same order +either in the valley of the Seine or in England, and some of them by +the side of human bones. There is no longer any doubt that men were +living at the epoch when the gravel strata were in process of +formation. If the strata that cover these remains have always been +deposited as slowly as they are today, these men whose bones and tools +we unearth must have lived more than 200,000 years ago. + +=The Cave Men.=--Remains are also found in caverns cut in rock, often +above a river. The most noted are those on the banks of the Vézère, +but they exist in many other places. Sometimes they have been used as +habitations and even as graves for men. Skeletons, weapons, and tools +are found here together. There are axes, knives, scrapers, +lance-points of flint; arrows, harpoon-points, needles of bone like +those used by certain savages to this day. The soil is strewn with the +bones of animals which these men, untidy like all savages, threw into +a corner after they had eaten the meat; they even split the bones to +extract the marrow just as savages do now. Among the animals are found +not only the hare, the deer, the ox, the horse, the salmon, but also +the rhinoceros, the cave-bear, the mammoth, the elk, the bison, the +reindeer, which are all extinct or have long disappeared from France. +Some designs have been discovered engraved on the bone of a reindeer +or on the tusk of a mammoth. One of these represents a combat of +reindeer; another a mammoth with woolly hide and curved tusks. +Doubtless these men were the contemporaries of the mammoth and the +reindeer. They were, like the Esquimaux of our day, a race of hunters +and fishermen, knowing how to work in flint and to kindle fires. + + +POLISHED STONE AGE + +=Lake Dwellings.=--In 1854, Lake Zurich being very low on account of +the unusual dryness of the summer, dwellers on the shore of the lake +found, in the mud, wooden piles which had been much eaten away, also +some rude utensils. These were the remains of an ancient village built +over the water. Since this time more than 200 similar villages have +been found in the lakes of Switzerland. They have been called Lake +Villages. The piles on which they rest are trunks of trees, pointed +and driven into the lake-bottom to a depth of several yards. Every +village required 30,000 to 40,000 of these. + +A wooden platform was supported by the pile work and on this were +built wooden houses covered with turf. Objects found by the hundred +among the piles reveal the character of the life of the former +inhabitants. They ate animals killed in the chase--the deer, the boar, +and the elk. But they were already acquainted with such domestic +animals as the ox, the goat, the sheep, and the dog. They knew how to +till the ground, to reap, and to grind their grain; for in the ruins +of their villages are to be found grains of wheat and even fragments +of bread, or rather unleavend cakes. They wore coarse cloths of hemp +and sewed them into garments with needles of bone. They made pottery +but were very awkward in its manufacture. Their vases were poorly +burned, turned by hand, and adorned with but few lines. Like the +cave-men, they used knives and arrows of flint; but they made their +axes of a very hard stone which they had learned to polish. This is +why we call their epoch the Polished Stone Age. They are much later +than the cave-men, for they know neither the mammoth nor the +rhinoceros, but still are acquainted with the elk and the reindeer.[2] + +=Megalithic Monuments.=--Megalith is the name given to a monument +formed of enormous blocks of rough stone. Sometimes the rock is bare, +sometimes covered with a mass of earth. The buried monument is called +a _Tumulus_ on account of its resemblance to a hill. When it is +opened, one finds within a chamber of rock, sometimes paved with +flag-stones. The monuments whose stone is above ground are of various +sorts. The _Dolmen_, or table of rock, is formed of a long stone laid +flat over other stones set in the ground. The _Cromlech_, or +stone-circle, consists of massive rocks arranged in a circle. The +_Menhir_ is a block of stone standing on its end. Frequently several +menhirs are ranged in line. At Carnac in Brittany four thousand +menhirs in eleven rows are still standing. Probably there were once +ten thousand of these in this locality. Megalithic monuments appear by +hundreds in western France, especially in Brittany; almost every hill +in England has them; the Orkney Islands alone contain more than two +thousand. Denmark and North Germany are studded with them; the people +of the country call the tumuli the tombs of the giants. + +Megalithic monuments are encountered outside of Europe--in India, and +on the African coast. No one knows what people possessed the power to +quarry such masses and then transport and erect them. For a long time +it was believed that the people were the ancient Gauls, or Celts, +whence the name Celtic Monuments. But why are like remains found in +Africa and in India? + +When one of these tumuli still intact is opened, one always sees a +skeleton, often several, either sitting or reclining; these monuments, +therefore, were used as tombs. Arms, vases, and ornaments are placed +at the side of the dead. In the oldest of these tombs the weapons are +axes of polished stone; the ornaments are shells, pearls, necklaces of +bone or ivory; the vases are very simple, without handle or neck, +decorated only with lines or with points. Calcined bones of animals +lie about on the ground, the relics of a funeral repast laid in the +tomb by the friends of the dead. Amidst these bones we no longer find +those of the reindeer, a fact which proves that these monuments were +constructed after the disappearance of this animal from western +Europe, and therefore at a time subsequent to that of the lake +villages. + + +THE AGE OF BRONZE + +=Bronze Age.=--As soon as men learned to smelt metals, they preferred +these to stone in the manufacture of weapons. The metal first to be +used was copper, easier to extract because found free, and easier to +manipulate since it is malleable without the application of heat. Pure +copper, however, was not employed, as weapons made of it were too +fragile; but a little tin was mixed with it to give it more +resistance. It is this alloy of copper and tin that we call bronze. + +=Bronze Utensils.=--Bronze was used in the manufacture of ordinary +tools--knives, hammers, saws, needles, fish-hooks; in the fabrication +of ornaments--bracelets, brooches, ear-rings; and especially in the +making of arms--daggers, lance-points, axes, and swords. These objects +are found by thousands throughout Europe in the mounds, under the more +recent dolmens, in the turf-pits of Denmark, and in rock-tombs. Near +these objects of bronze, ornaments of gold are often seen and, now and +then, the remains of a woollen garment. It cannot be due to chance +that all implements of bronze are similar and all are made according +to the same alloy. Doubtless they revert to the same period of time +and are anterior to the coming of the Romans into Gaul, for they are +never discovered in the midst of débris of the Roman period. But what +men used them? What people invented bronze? Nobody knows. + + +THE IRON AGE + +=Iron.=--As iron was harder to smelt and work than bronze, it was +later that men learned how to use it. As soon as it was appreciated +that iron was harder and cut better than bronze, men preferred it in +the manufacture of arms. In Homer's time iron is still a precious +metal reserved for swords, bronze being retained for other purposes. +It is for this reason that many tombs contain confused remains of +utensils of bronze and weapons of iron. + +=Iron Weapons.=--These arms are axes, swords, daggers, and bucklers. +They are ordinarily found by the side of a skeleton in a coffin of +stone or wood, for warriors had their arms buried with them. But they +are found also scattered on ancient battle-fields or lost at the +bottom of a marsh which later became a turf-pit. There were found in a +turf-pit in Schleswig in one day 100 swords, 500 lances, 30 axes, 460 +daggers, 80 knives, 40 stilettos--and all of iron. Not far from there +in the bed of an ancient lake was discovered a great boat 66 feet +long, fully equipped with axes, swords, lances, and knives. + +It is impossible to enumerate the iron implements thus found. They +have not been so well preserved as the bronze, as iron is rapidly +eaten away by rust. At the first glance, therefore, they appear the +older, but in reality are more recent. + +=Epoch of the Iron Age.=--The inhabitants of northern Europe knew iron +before the coming of the Romans, the first century before Christ. In +an old cemetery near the salt mines of Hallstadt in Austria they have +opened 980 tombs filled with instruments of iron and bronze without +finding a single piece of Roman money. But the Iron Age continued +under the Romans. Almost always iron objects are found accompanied by +ornaments of gold and silver, by Roman pottery, funeral urns, +inscriptions, and Roman coins bearing the effigy of the emperor. The +warriors whom we find lying near their sword and their buckler lived +for the most part in a period quite close to ours, many under the +Merovingians, some even at the time of Charlemagne. The Iron Age is no +longer a prehistoric age. + + +CONCLUSIONS + +=How the Four Ages are to be Conceived.=--The inhabitants of one and +the same country have successively made use of rough stone, polished +stone, bronze, and iron. But all countries have not lived in the same +age at the same time. Iron was employed by the Egyptians while yet the +Greeks were in their bronze age and the barbarians of Denmark were +using stone. The conclusion of the polished stone age in America came +only with the arrival of Europeans. In our own time the savages of +Australia are still in the rough stone age. In their settlements may +be found only implements of bone and stone similar to those used by +the cave-men. The four ages, therefore, do not mark periods in the +life of humanity, but only epochs in the civilization of each country. + +=Uncertainties.=--Prehistoric archæology is yet a very young science. +We have learned something of primitive men through certain remains +preserved and discovered by chance. A recent accident, a trench, a +landslip, a drought may effect a new discovery any day. Who knows what +is still under ground? The finds are already innumerable. But these +rarely tell us what we wish to know. How long was each of the four +ages? When did each begin and end in the various parts of the world? +Who planned the caverns, the lake villages, the mounds, the dolmens? +When a country passes from polished stone to bronze, is it the same +people changing implements, or is it a new people come on the scene? +When one thinks one has found the solution, a new discovery often +confounds the archæologists. It was thought that the Celts originated +the dolmens, but these have been found in sections which could never +have been traversed by Celts. + +=What has been determined.=--Three conclusions, however, seem certain: + + 1.--Man has lived long on the earth, familiar as he was with the + mammoth and the cave-bear; he lived at least as early as the + geological period known as the Quaternary. + + 2.--Man has emerged from the savage state to civilized life; he + has gradually perfected his tools and his ornaments from the + awkward axe of flint and the necklace of bears' teeth to iron + swords and jewels of gold. The roughest instruments are the + oldest. + + 3.--Man has made more and more rapid progress. Each age has been + shorter than its predecessor. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It originated especially with French, Swiss, and scholars. + +[2] According to Lubbock (Prehistoric Times, N.Y., 1890, p. 212) the +reindeer was not known to the Second Stone Age.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HISTORY AND THE RECORDS + +HISTORY + + +=Legends.=--The most ancient records of people and their doings are +transmitted by oral tradition. They are recited long before they are +written down and are much mixed with fable. The Greeks told how their +heroes of the oldest times had exterminated monsters, fought with +giants, and battled against the gods. The Romans had Romulus nourished +by a wolf and raised to heaven. Almost all peoples relate such stories +of their infancy. But no confidence is to be placed in these legends. + +=History.=--History has its true beginning only with authentic +accounts, that is to say, accounts written by men who were well +informed. This moment is not the same with all peoples. The history of +Egypt commences more than 3,000 years before Christ; that of the +Greeks ascends scarcely to 800 years before Christ; Germany has had a +history only since the first century of our era; Russia dates back +only to the ninth century; certain savage tribes even yet have no +history. + +=Great Divisions of History.=--The history of civilization begins with +the oldest civilized people and continues to the present time. +Antiquity is the most remote period, Modern Times the era in which we +live. + +=Ancient History.=--Ancient History begins with the oldest known +nations, the Egyptians and Chaldeans (about 3,000 years before our +era), and surveys the peoples of the Orient, the Hindoos, Persians, +Phoenicians, Jews, Greeks, and last of all the Romans. It terminates +about the fifth century A.D., when the Roman empire of the west is +extinguished. + +=Modern History.=--Modern History starts with the end of the fifteenth +century, with the invention of printing, the discovery of America and +of the Indies, the Renaissance of the sciences and arts. It concerns +itself especially with peoples of the West, of Spain, Italy, France, +Germany, Russia, and America. + +=The Middle Age.=--Between Antiquity and Modern Times about ten +centuries elapse which belong neither to ancient times (for the +civilization of Antiquity has perished) nor to modern (since modern +civilization does not yet exist). This period we call the Middle Age. + + +SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PEOPLES + +=The Sources.=--The Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans are no longer with +us; all the peoples of antiquity have passed away. To know their +religion, their customs, and arts we have to seek for instruction in +the remains they have left us. These are books, monuments, +inscriptions, and languages, and these are our means for the study of +ancient civilizations. We term these _sources_ because we draw our +knowledge from them. Ancient History flows from these sources. + +=Books.=--Ancient peoples have left written records behind them. Some +of these peoples had sacred books--for example, the Hindoos, the +Persians, and the Jews; the Greeks and Romans have handed down to us +histories, poems, speeches, philosophical treatises. But books are +very far from furnishing all the information that we require. We do +not possess a single Assyrian or Phoenician book. Other peoples have +transmitted very few books to us. The ancients wrote less than we, and +so they had a smaller literature to leave behind them; and as it was +necessary to transcribe all of this by hand, there was but a small +number of copies of books. Further, most of these manuscripts have +been destroyed or have been lost, and those which remain to us are +difficult to read. The art of deciphering them is called Palæography. + +=The Monuments.=--Ancient peoples, like ourselves, built monuments of +different sorts: palaces for their kings, tombs for the dead, +fortresses, bridges, aqueducts, triumphal arches. Of these monuments +many have fallen into ruin, have been razed, shattered by the enemy or +by the people themselves. But some of them survive, either because +there was no desire to destroy them, or because men could not. They +still stand in ruins like the old castles, for repairs are no longer +made; but enough is preserved to enable us to comprehend their former +condition. Some of them are still above ground, like the pyramids, the +temples of Thebes and of the island of Philæ, the palace of Persepolis +in Persia, the Parthenon in Greece, the Colosseum in Rome, and the +Maison Carrée and Pont du Gard in France. Like any modern monument, +these are visible to the traveller. But the majority of these +monuments have been recovered from the earth, from sand, from river +deposits, and from débris. One must disengage them from this thick +covering, and excavate the soil, often to a great depth. Assyrian +palaces may be reached only by cutting into the hills. A trench of +forty feet is necessary to penetrate to the tombs of the kings of +Mycenæ. Time is not the only agency for covering these ruins; men have +aided it. When the ancients wished to build, they did not, as we do, +take the trouble to level off the space, nor to clear the site. +Instead of removing the débris, they heaped it together and built +above it. The new edifice in turn fell into ruins and its débris was +added to that of more remote time; thus there were formed several +strata of remains. When Schliemann excavated the site of Troy, he had +passed through five beds of débris; these were five ruined villages +one above another, the oldest at a depth of fifty feet. + +By accident one town has been preserved to us in its entirety. In 79 +A.D. the volcano of Vesuvius belched forth a torrent of liquid lava +and a rain of ashes, and two Roman cities were suddenly buried, +Herculaneum by lava, and Pompeii by ashes; the lava burnt the objects +it touched, while the ashes enveloped them, preserving them from the +air and keeping them intact. As we remove the ashes, Pompeii reappears +to us just as it was eighteen centuries ago. One still sees the +wheel-ruts in the pavement, the designs traced on the walls with +charcoal; in the houses, the pictures, the utensils, the furniture, +even the bread, the nuts, and olives, and here and there the skeleton +of an inhabitant surprised by the catastrophe. Monuments teach us +much about the ancient peoples. The science of monuments is called +Archæology. + +=Inscriptions.=--By inscriptions one means all writings other than +books. Inscriptions are for the most part cut in stone, but some are +on plates of bronze. At Pompeii they have been found traced on the +walls in colors or with charcoal. Some have the character of +commemorative inscriptions just as these are now attached to our +statues and edifices; thus in the monument of Ancyra the emperor +Augustus publishes the story of his life. + +The greatest number of inscriptions are epitaphs graven on tombs. +Certain others fill the function of our placards, containing, as they +do, a law or a regulation that was to be made public. The science of +inscriptions is called Epigraphy. + +=Languages.=--The languages also which ancient peoples spoke throw +light on their history. Comparing the words of two different +languages, we perceive that the two have a common origin--an evidence +that the peoples who spoke them were descended from the same stock. +The science of languages is called Linguistics. + +=Lacunæ.=--It is not to be supposed that books, monuments, +inscriptions, and languages are sufficient to give complete knowledge +of the history of antiquity. They present many details which we could +well afford to lose, but often what we care most to know escapes us. +Scholars continue to dig and to decipher; each year new discoveries of +inscriptions and monuments are made; but there remain still many gaps +in our knowledge and probably some of these will always exist. + + +RACES AND PEOPLES + +=Anthropology.=--The men who people the earth do not possess exact +resemblances, some differing from others in stature, the form of the +limbs and the head, the features of the face, the color of the hair and +eyes. Other differences are found in language, intelligence, and +sentiments. These variations permit us to separate the inhabitants of +the earth into several groups which we call races. A _race_ is the +aggregate of those men who resemble one another and are distinguished from +all others. The common traits of a race--its characteristics--constitute +the type of the race. For example, the type of the negro race is marked +by black skin, frizzly hair, white teeth, flat nose, projecting lips, and +prominent jaw. That part of Anthropology which concerns itself with races +and their sub-divisions is called Ethnology.[3] This science is yet in +its early development on account of its complete novelty, and is very +complex since types of men are very numerous and often very difficult to +differentiate. + +=The Races.=--The principal races are: + + 1.--The White race, which inhabits Europe, the north of Africa, + and western Asia. + + 2.--The Yellow race in eastern Asia to which belong the Chinese, + the Mongols, Turks, and Hungarians, who invaded Europe as + conquerors. They have yellow skin, small regular eyes, prominent + cheek-bones, and thin beard. + + 3.--The Black race, in central Africa. These are the Negroes, of + black skin, flat nose, woolly hair. + + 4.--The Red race, in America. These are the Indians, with + copper-colored skin and flat heads. + +=Civilized Peoples.=--Almost all civilized peoples belong to the white +race. The peoples of the other races have remained savage or +barbarian, like the men of prehistoric times.[4] + +It is within the limits of Asia and Africa that the first civilized +peoples had their development--the Egyptians in the Nile valley, the +Chaldeans in the plain of the Euphrates. They were peoples of +sedentary and peaceful pursuits. Their skin was dark, the hair short +and thick, the lips strong. Nobody knows their origin with exactness +and scholars are not agreed on the name to give them (some terming +them Cushites, others Hamites). Later, between the twentieth and +twenty-fifth centuries B.C. came bands of martial shepherds who had +spread over all Europe and the west of Asia--the Aryans and the +Semites. + +=The Aryans and the Semites.=--There is no clearly marked external +difference between the Aryans and the Semites. Both are of the white +race, having the oval face, regular features, clear skin, abundant +hair, large eyes, thin lips, and straight nose. Both peoples were +originally nomad shepherds, fond of war. We do not know whence they +came, nor is there agreement whether the Aryans came from the mountain +region in the northwest of the Himalayas or from the plains of +Russia. What distinguishes them is their spiritual bent and especially +their language, sometimes also their religion. Scholars by common +consent call those peoples Aryan who speak an Aryan language: in Asia, +the Hindoos and Persians; in Europe, the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, +Germans, Scandinavians, Slavs (Russians, Poles, Serfs), and Celts.[5] + +Similarly, we call Semites those peoples who speak a Semitic language: +Arabs, Jews and Syrians. But a people may speak an Aryan or a Semitic +language and yet not be of Aryan or Semitic race; a negro may speak +English without being of English stock. Many of the Europeans whom we +classify among the Aryans are perhaps the descendants of an ancient +race conquered by the Aryans and who have adopted their language, just +as the Egyptians received the language of the Arabs, their conquerors. + +These two names (Aryan and Semite), then, signify today rather two +groups of peoples than two distinct races. But even if we use the +terms in this sense, one may say that all the greater peoples of the +world have been Semites or Aryans. The Semitic family included the +Phoenicians, the people of commerce; the Jews, the people of religion; +the Arabs, the people of war. The Aryans, some finding their homes in +India, others in Europe, have produced the nations which have been, +and still are, foremost in the world--in antiquity, the Hindoos, a +people of great philosophical and religious ideas; the Greeks, +creators of art and of science; the Persians and Romans, the +founders, the former in the East, the latter in the West, of the +greatest empires of antiquity; in modern times, the Italians, French, +Germans, Dutch, Russians, English and Americans. + +The history of civilization begins with the Egyptians and the +Chaldeans; but from the fifteenth century before our era, history +concerns itself only with the Aryan and Semitic peoples. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Ethnography is the study of races from the point of view of their +objects and customs. + +[4] The Chinese only of the yellow race have elaborated among themselves +an industry, a regular government, a polite society. But placed at the +extremity of Asia they have had no influence on other civilized peoples. +[The Japanese should be included.--ED.] + +[5] The English and French are mixtures of Celtic and German blood. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST + +THE EGYPTIANS + + +=The Land of Egypt.=--Egypt is only the valley of the Nile, a narrow +strip of fertile soil stretching along both banks of the stream and +shut in by mountains on either side, somewhat over 700[6] miles in +length and 15 in width. Where the hills fall away, the Delta begins, a +vast plain cut by the arms of the Nile and by canals. As Herodotus +says, Egypt is wholly the gift of the Nile. + +=The Nile.=--Every year at the summer solstice the Nile, swollen by +the melted snows of Abyssinia, overflows the parched soil of Egypt. It +rises to a height of twenty-six or twenty-seven feet, sometimes even +to thirty-three feet.[7] The whole country becomes a lake from which +the villages, built on eminences, emerge like little islands. The +water recedes in September; by December it has returned to its proper +channel. Everywhere has been left a fertile, alluvial bed which serves +the purpose of fertilization. On the softened earth the peasant sows +his crop with almost no labor. The Nile, then, brings both water and +soil to Egypt; if the river should fail, Egypt would revert, like the +land on either side of it, to a desert of sterile sand where the rain +never falls. The Egyptians are conscious of their debt to their +stream. A song in its honor runs as follows: "Greeting to thee, O +Nile, who hast revealed thyself throughout the land, who comest in +peace to give life to Egypt. Does it rise? The land is filled with +joy, every heart exults, every being receives its food, every mouth is +full. It brings bounties that are full of delight, it creates all good +things, it makes the grass to spring up for the beasts." + +=Fertility of the Country.=--Egypt is truly an oasis in the midst of +the desert of Africa. It produces in abundance wheat, beans, lentils, +and all leguminous foods; palms rear themselves in forests. On the +pastures irrigated by the Nile graze herds of cattle and goats, and +flocks of geese. With a territory hardly equal to that of Belgium, +Egypt still supports 5,500,000 inhabitants. No country in Europe is so +thickly populated, and Egypt in antiquity was more densely thronged +than it is today. + +=The Accounts of Herodotus.=--Egypt was better known to the Greeks +than the rest of the Orient. Herodotus had visited it in the fifth +century B.C. He describes in his History the inundations of the Nile, +the manners, costume, and religion of the people; he recounts events +of their history and tales which his guides had told him. Diodorus and +Strabo also speak of Egypt. But all had seen the country in its +decadence and had no knowledge of the ancient Egyptians. + +=Champollion.=--The French expedition to Egypt (1798-1801) opened the +country to scholars. They made a close examination of the Pyramids +and ruins of Thebes, and collected drawings and inscriptions. But no +one could decipher the hieroglyphs, the Egyptian writing. It was an +erroneous impression that every sign in this writing must each +represent a word. In 1821 a French scholar, Champollion, experimented +with another system. An official had reported that there was an +inscription at Rosetta in three forms of writing--parallel with the +hieroglyphs was a translation in Greek. The name of King Ptolemy, was +surrounded with a cartouche.[8] Champollion succeeded in finding in +this name the letters P, T, O, L, M, I, S. Comparing these with other +names of kings similarly enclosed, he found the whole alphabet. He +then read the hieroglyphs and found that they were written in a +language like the Coptic, the language spoken in Egypt at the time of +the Romans, and which was already known to scholars. + +=Egyptologists.=--Since Champollion, many scholars have travelled over +Egypt and have ransacked it thoroughly. We call these students +Egyptologists, and they are to be found in every country of Europe. A +French Egyptologist, Mariette (1821-1881), made some excavations for +the Viceroy of Egypt and created the museum of Boulak. France has +established in Cairo a school of Egyptology, directed by Maspero. + +=Discoveries.=--Not every country yields such rich discoveries as does +Egypt. The Egyptians constructed their tombs like houses, and laid in +them objects of every kind for the use of the dead--furniture, +garments, arms, and edibles. The whole country was filled with tombs +similarly furnished. Under this extraordinarily dry climate everything +has been preserved; objects come to light intact after a burial of +4,000 or 5,000 years. No people of antiquity have left so many traces +of themselves as the Egyptians; none is better known to us. + + +THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE + +=Antiquity of the Egyptian People.=--An Egyptian priest said to +Herodotus, "You Greeks are only children." The Egyptians considered +themselves the oldest people of the world. Down to the Persian +conquest (520[9] B.C.) there were twenty-six dynasties of kings. The +first ran back 4,000 years,[10] and during these forty centuries Egypt +had been an empire. The capital down to the tenth dynasty (the period +of the Old Empire) was at Memphis in Lower Egypt, later, in the New +Empire, at Thebes in Upper Egypt. + +=Memphis and the Pyramids.=--Memphis, built by the first king of +Egypt, was protected by an enormous dike. The village has existed for +more than five thousand years; but since the thirteenth century the +inhabitants have taken the stones of its ruins to build the houses of +Cairo; what these people left the Nile recaptured. The Pyramids, not +far from Memphis, are contemporaneous with the old empire; they are +the tombs of three kings of the fourth dynasty. The greatest of the +pyramids, 480 feet high, required the labor of 100,000 men for thirty +years.[11] To raise the stones for it they built gradually ascending +platforms which were removed when the structure was completed. + +=Egyptian Civilization.=--The statues, paintings, and instruments +which are taken from the tombs of this epoch give evidence of an +already civilized people. When all the other eminent nations of +antiquity--the Hindoos, Persians, Jews, Greeks, Romans--were still in +a savage state, 3,500 years before our era, the Egyptians had known +for a long time how to cultivate the soil, to weave cloths, to work +metals, to paint, sculpture, and to write; they had an organized +religion, a king, and an administration. + +=Thebes.=--At the eleventh dynasty Thebes succeeds Memphis as capital. +The ruins of Thebes are still standing. They are marvellous, extending +as they do on both banks of the Nile, with a circuit of about seven +miles. On the left bank there is a series of palaces and temples which +lead to vast cemeteries. On the right bank two villages, Luxor and +Karnak, distant a half-hour one from the other, are built in the midst +of the ruins. They are united by a double row of sphinxes, which must +have once included more than 1,000 of these monuments. Among these +temples in ruins the greatest was the temple of Ammon at Karnak. It +was surrounded by a wall of over one and one-third miles in length; +the famous Hall of Columns, the greatest in the world, had a length +of 334 feet, a width of 174 feet,[12] and was supported by 134 +columns; twelve of these are over 65 feet high. Thebes was for 1,500 +years the capital and sacred city, the residence of kings and the +dwelling-place of the priests. + +=The Pharaoh.=--The king of Egypt, called Pharaoh, was esteemed as the +son of the Sun-god and his incarnation on earth; divinity was ascribed +to him also. We may see in a picture King Rameses II standing in +adoration before the divine Rameses who is sitting between two gods. +The king as man adores himself as god. Being god, the Pharaoh has +absolute power over men; as master, he gives his orders to his great +nobles at court, to his warriors, to all his subjects. But the +priests, though adoring him, surround and watch him; their head, the +high priest of the god Ammon, at last becomes more powerful than the +king; he often governs under the name of the king and in his stead. + +=The Subjects of Pharaoh.=--The king, the priests, the warriors, the +nobles, are proprietors of all Egypt; all the other people are simply +their peasants who cultivate the land for them. Scribes in the service +of the king watch them and collect the farm-dues, often with blows of +the staff. One of these functionaries writes as follows to a friend, +"Have you ever pictured to yourself the existence of the peasant who +tills the soil. The tax-collector is on the platform busily seizing +the tithe of the harvest. He has his men with him armed with staves, +his negroes provided with strips of palm. All cry, 'Come, give us +grain,' If the peasant hasn't it, they throw him full length on the +earth, bind him, draw him to the canal, and hurl him in head +foremost." + +=Despotism.=--The Egyptian people has always been, and still is, gay, +careless, gentle, docile as an infant, always ready to submit to +tyranny. In this country the cudgel was the instrument of education +and of government. "The young man," said the scribes, "has a back to +be beaten; he hears when he is struck." "One day," says a French +traveller, "finding myself before the ruins of Thebes, I exclaimed, +'But how did they do all this?' My guide burst out laughing, touched +me on the arm and, showing me a palm, said to me, 'Here is what they +used to accomplish all this. You know, sir, with 100,000 branches of +palms split on the backs of those who always have their shoulders +bare, you can build many a palace and some temples to boot.'" + +=Isolation of the Egyptians.=--The Egyptians moved but little beyond +their borders. As the sea inspired them with terror, they had no +commerce and did not trade with other peoples. They were not at all a +military nation. Their kings, it is true, often went on expeditions at +the head of mercenaries either against the negroes of Ethiopia or +against the tribes of Syria. They gained victories which they had +painted on the walls of their palaces, they brought back troops of +captives whom they used in building monuments; but they never made +great conquests. Foreigners came more to Egypt than Egyptians went +abroad. + +=Religion of the Egyptians.=--"The Egyptians," said Herodotus, "are +the most religious of all men." We do not know any people so devout; +almost all their paintings represent men in prayer before a god; +almost all their manuscripts are religious books. + +=Egyptian Gods.=--The principal deity is a Sun-god, creator, +beneficent, "who knows all things, who exists from the beginning." +This god has a divine wife and son. All the Egyptians adored this +trinity; but not all gave it the same name. Each region gave a +different name to these three gods. At Memphis they called the father +Phtah, the mother Sekhet, the son Imouthes; at Abydos they called them +Osiris, Isis, and Horus; at Thebes, Ammon, Mouth, and Chons. Then, +too, the people of one province adopted the gods of other provinces. +Further, they made other gods emanate from each god of the trinity. +Thus the number of gods was increased and religion was complicated. + +=Osiris.=--These gods have their history; it is that of the sun; for +the sun appeared to the Egyptians, as to most of the primitive +peoples, the mightiest of beings, and consequently a god. Osiris, the +sun, is slain by Set, god of the night; Isis, the moon, his wife, +bewails and buries him; Horus, his son, the rising sun, avenges him by +killing his murderer. + +=Ammon-râ.=--Ammon-râ, god of Thebes, is represented as traversing +heaven each day in a bark ("the good bark of millions of years"); the +shades of the dead propel it with long oars; the god stands at the +prow to strike the enemy with his lance. The hymn which they chanted +in his honor is as follows: "Homage to thee; thou watchest favoringly, +thou watchest truly, O master of the two horizons.... Thou treadest +the heavens on high, thine enemies are laid low. The heaven is glad, +the earth is joyful, the gods unite in festal cheer to render glory +to Râ when they see him rising in his bark after he has overwhelmed +his enemies. O Râ, give abounding life to Pharaoh, bestow bread for +his hunger (belly), water for his throat, perfumes for his hair." + +=Animal-Headed Gods.=--The Egyptians often represented their gods with +human form, but more frequently under the form of a beast. Each god +has his animal: Phtah incarnates himself in the beetle, Horus in the +hawk, Osiris in the bull. The two figures often unite in a man with +the head of an animal or an animal with the head of a man. Every god +may be figured in four forms: Horus, for example, as a man, a hawk, as +man with the head of a hawk, as a hawk with the head of a man. + +=Sacred Animals.=--What did the Egyptians wish to designate by this +symbol? One hardly knows. They, themselves, came to regard as sacred +the animals which served to represent the gods to them: the bull, the +beetle, the ibis, the hawk, the cat, the crocodile. They cared for +them and protected them. A century before the Christian era a Roman +citizen killed a cat at Alexandria; the people rose in riot, seized +him, and, notwithstanding the entreaties of the king, murdered him, +although at the same time they had great fear of the Romans. There was +in each temple a sacred animal which was adored. The traveller Strabo +records a visit to a sacred crocodile of Thebes: "The beast," said he, +"lay on the edge of a pond, the priests drew near, two of them opened +his mouth, a third thrust in cakes, grilled fish, and a drink made +with meal." + +=The Bull Apis.=--Of these animal gods the most venerated was the bull +Apis. It represented at once Osiris and Phtah and lived at Memphis in +a chapel served by the priests. After its death it became an Osiris +(Osar-hapi), it was embalmed, and its mummy deposited in a vault. The +sepulchres of the "Osar-hapi" constituted a gigantic monument, the +Serapeum, discovered in 1851 by Marietta. + +=Cult of the Dead.=--The Egyptians adored also the spirits of the +dead. They seem to have believed at first that every man had a +"double" (Kâ), and that when the man was dead his double still +survived. Many savage peoples believe this to this day. The Egyptian +tomb in the time of the Old Empire was termed "House of the Double." +It was a low room arranged like a chamber, where for the service of +the double there were placed all that he required, chairs, tables, +beds, chests, linen, closets, garments, toilet utensils, weapons, +sometimes a war-chariot; for the entertainment of the double, statues, +paintings, books; for his sustenance, grain and foods. And then they +set there a double of the dead in the form of a statue in wood or +stone carved in his likeness. At last the opening to the vault was +sealed; the double was enclosed, but the living still provided for +him. They brought him foods or they might beseech a god that he supply +them to the spirit, as in this inscription, "An offering to Osiris +that he may confer on the Kâ of the deceased N. bread, drink, meat, +geese, milk, wine, beer, clothing, perfumes--all good things and pure +on which the god (_i.e._ the Kâ) subsists." + +=Judgment of the Soul.=--Later, originating with the eleventh +dynasty, the Egyptians believed that the soul flew away from the body +and sought Osiris under the earth, the realm into which the sun seemed +every day to sink. There Osiris sits on his tribunal, surrounded by +forty-two judges; the soul appears before these to give account of his +past life. His actions are weighed in the balance of truth, his +"heart" is called to witness. "O heart," cries the dead, "O heart, the +issue of my mother, my heart when I was on earth, offer not thyself as +witness, charge me not before the great god." The soul found on +examination to be bad is tormented for centuries and at last +annihilated. The good soul springs up across the firmament; after many +tests it rejoins the company of the gods and is absorbed into them. + +=Mummies.=--During this pilgrimage the soul may wish to re-enter the +body to rest there. The body must therefore be kept intact, and so the +Egyptians learned to embalm it. The corpse was filled with spices, +drenched in a bath of natron, wound with bandages and thus transformed +into a mummy. The mummy encased in a coffin of wood or plaster was +laid in the tomb with every provision necessary to its life. + +=Book of the Dead.=--A book was deposited with the mummy, the Book of +the Dead, which explains what the soul ought to say in the other world +when it makes its defence before the tribunal of Osiris: "I have never +committed fraud; ... I have never vexed the widow; ... I have never +committed any forbidden act; ... I have never been an idler; ... I +have never taken the slave from his master; ... I never stole the +bread from the temples; ... I never removed the provisions or the +bandages of the dead; I never altered the grain measure; ... I never +hunted sacred beasts; I never caught sacred fish; ... I am pure; ... I +have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the +naked; I have sacrificed to the gods, and offered funeral feasts to +dead." Here we see Egyptian morality: observance of ceremonies, +respect for everything pertaining to the gods, sincerity, honesty, and +beneficence. + + +THE ARTS + +=Industry.=--The Egyptians were the first to practice the arts +necessary to a civilized people. From the first dynasty, 3,000[13] +years B.C., paintings on the tomb exhibit men working, sowing, +harvesting, beating and winnowing grain; we have representations of +herds of cattle, sheep, geese, swine; of persons richly clothed, +processions, feasts where the harp is played--almost the same life +that we behold 3,000 years later. As early as this time the Egyptians +knew how to manipulate gold, silver, bronze; to manufacture arms and +jewels, glass, pottery, and enamel; they wove garments of linen and +wool, and cloths, transparent or embroidered with gold. + +=Architecture.=--They were the oldest artists of the world. They +constructed enormous monuments which appear to be eternal, for down to +the present, time has not been able to destroy them. They never built, +as we do, for the living, but for the gods and for the dead, _i.e._, +temples and tombs. Only a slight amount of débris is left of their +houses, and even the palaces of their kings in comparison with the +tombs appear, in the language of the Greeks, to be only inns. The +house was to serve only for a lifetime, the tomb for eternity. + +=Tombs.=--The Great Pyramid is a royal tomb. Ancient tombs ordinarily +had this form. In Lower Egypt there still remain pyramids arranged in +rows or scattered about, some larger, others smaller. These are the +tombs of kings and nobles. Later the tombs are constructed +underground, some under earth, others cut into the granite of the +hills. Each generation needs new ones, and therefore near the town of +living people is built the richer and greater city of the dead +(necropolis). + +=Temples.=--The gods also required eternal and splendid habitations. +Their temples include a magnificent sanctuary, the dwelling of the +god, surrounded with courts, gardens, chambers where the priests +lodge, wardrobes for his jewels, utensils, and vestments. This +combination of edifices, the work of many generations, is encircled +with a wall. The temple of Ammon at Thebes had the labors of the kings +of all the dynasties from the twelfth to the last. Ordinarily in front +of the temple a great gate-way is erected, with inclined faces--the +pylone. On either side of the entrance is an obelisk, a needle of rock +with gilded point, or perhaps a colossus in stone representing a +sitting giant. Often the approach to the temple is by a long avenue +rimmed with sphinxes. + +Pyramids, pylones, colossi, sphinxes, and obelisks characterize this +architecture. Everything is massive, compact, and, above all, immense. +Hence these monuments appear clumsy but indestructible. + +=Sculpture.=--Egyptian sculptors began with imitating nature. The +oldest statues are impressive for their life and freshness, and are +doubtless portraits of the dead. Of this sort is the famous squatting +scribe of the Louvre.[14] But beginning with the eleventh dynasty the +sculptor is no longer free to represent the human body as he sees it, +but must follow conventional rules fixed by religion. And so all the +statues resemble one another--parallel legs, the feet joined, arms +crossed on the breast, the figure motionless; the statues are often +majestic, but always stiff and monotonous. Art has ceased to reproduce +nature and is become a conventional symbol. + +=Painting.=--The Egyptians used very solid colors; after 5,000 years +they are still fresh and bright. But they were ignorant of coloring +designs; they knew neither tints, shadows, nor perspective. Painting, +like sculpture, was subject to religious rules and was therefore +monotonous. If fifty persons were to be represented, the artist made +them all alike. + +=Literature.=--The literature of the Egyptians is found in the +tombs--not only books of medicine, of magic and of piety, but also +poems, letters, accounts of travels, and even romances. + +=Destiny of the Egyptian Civilization.=--The Egyptians conserved their +customs, religion, and arts even after the fall of their empire. +Subjects of the Persians, then the Greeks, and at last of the Romans, +they kept their old usages, their hieroglyphics, their mummies and +sacred animals. At last between the third and second centuries A.D., +Egyptian civilization was slowly extinguished. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] Following the curves of the stream.--ED. + +[7] In some localities, _e.g._ Thebes, the flood is even higher.--ED. + +[8] An enclosing case. + +[9] 525 B.C.--ED. + +[10] The chronology of early Egyptian history is uncertain. Civilization +existed in this land much earlier than was formerly supposed.--ED. + +[11] According to Petrie ("History of Egypt," New York, 1895, i., 40) +_twenty years_ were consumed.--ED. + +[12] Perrot and Chipiez ("History of Ancient Egyptian Art," London. +1883, i., 365) give 340 feet by 170.--ED. + +[13] Probably much earlier than this.--ED. + +[14] The Louvre Museum in Paris has an excellent collection of Egyptian +subjects. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS + +CHALDEA + + +=The Land.=--From the high and snowy mountains of Armenia flow two +deep and rapid rivers, the Tigris to the east, the Euphrates to the +west. At first in close proximity, they separate as they reach the +plain. The Tigris makes a straight course, the Euphrates a great +détour towards the sandy deserts; then they unite before emptying into +the sea. The country which they embrace is Chaldea. It is an immense +plain of extraordinarily fertile soil; rain is rare and the heat is +overwhelming. But the streams furnish water and this clayey soil when +irrigated by canals becomes the most fertile in the world. Wheat and +barley produce 200-fold; in good years the returns are 300-fold. Palms +constitute the forests and from these the people make their wine, meal +and flour.[15] + +=The People.=--For many centuries, perhaps as long as Egypt, Chaldea +has been the abode of civilized peoples. Many races from various lands +have met and mingled in these great plains. There were Turanians of +the yellow race, similar to the Chinese, who came from the north-east; +Cushites, deep brown in color, related to the Egyptians, came from the +east; Semites, of the white race, of the same stock as the Arabs, +descended from the north.[16] The Chaldean people had its origin in +this mixture of races. + +=The Cities.=--Chaldean priests related that their kings had ruled for +150,000 years. While this is a fable, they were right in ascribing +great antiquity to the Chaldean empire. The soil of Chaldea is +everywhere studded with hills and each of these is a mass of débris, +the residue of a ruined city. Many of these have been excavated and +many cities brought to view, (Our, Larsam, Bal-ilou), and some +inscriptions recovered. De Sarsec, a Frenchman, has discovered the +ruins of an entire city, overwhelmed by the invader and its palace +destroyed by fire. These ancient peoples are still little known to us; +many sites remain to be excavated when it is hoped new inscriptions +will be found. Their empire was destroyed about 2,300 B.C.; it may +then have been very old.[17] + + +THE ASSYRIANS + +=Assyria.=--The country back of Chaldea on the Tigris is Assyria. It +also is fertile, but cut with hills and rocks. Situated near the +mountains, it experiences snow in winter and severe storms in summer. + +=Origins.=--Chaldea had for a long time been covered with towns while +yet the Assyrians lived an obscure life in their mountains. About the +thirteenth century B.C. their kings leading great armies began to +invade the plains and founded a mighty empire whose capital was +Nineveh. + +=Ancient Accounts.=--Until about forty years ago we knew almost +nothing of the Assyrians--only a legend recounted by the Greek +Diodorus Siculus. Ninus, according to the story, had founded Nineveh +and conquered all Asia Minor; his wife, Semiramis, daughter of a +goddess, had subjected Egypt, after which she was changed into the +form of a dove. Incapable kings had succeeded this royal pair for the +space of 1,300 years; the last, Sardanapalus, besieged in his capital, +was burnt with his wives. This romance has not a word of truth in it. + +=Modern Discoveries.=--In 1843, Botta, the French consul at Mossoul, +discovered under a hillock near the Tigris, at Khorsabad, the palace +of an Assyrian king. Here for the first time one could view the +productions of Assyrian art; the winged bulls cut in stone, placed at +the gate of the palace were found intact and removed to the Louvre +Museum in Paris. The excavations of Botta drew the attention of +Europe, so that many expeditions were sent out, especially by the +English; Place and Layard investigated other mounds and discovered +other palaces. These ruins had been well preserved, protected by the +dryness of the climate and by a covering of earth. They found walls +adorned with bas-reliefs and paintings; statues and inscriptions were +discovered in great number. It was now possible to study on the ground +the plan of the structures and to publish reproductions of the +monuments and inscriptions. + +The palace first discovered, that of Khorsabad, had been built by King +Sargon at Nineveh, the site of the capital of the Assyrian kings. The +city was built on several eminences, and was encircled by a wall 25 +to 30 miles[18] in length, in the form of a quadrilateral. The wall +was composed of bricks on the exterior and of earth within. The +dwellings of the city have disappeared leaving no traces, but we have +recovered many palaces constructed by various kings of Assyria. +Nineveh remained the residence of the kings down to the time that the +Assyrian empire was destroyed by the Medes and Chaldeans. + +=Inscriptions on the Bricks.=--In these inscriptions every character +is formed of a combination of signs shaped like an arrow or wedge, and +this is the reason that this style of writing is termed cuneiform +(Latin _cuneus_ and _forma_). To trace these signs the writer used a +stylus with a triangular point; he pressed it into a tablet of soft +clay which was afterwards baked to harden it and to make the +impression permanent. In the palace of Assurbanipal a complete library +of brick tablets has been found in which brick serves the purpose of +paper. + +=Cuneiform Writing.=--For many years the cuneiform writing has +occupied the labors of many scholars impatient to decipher it. It has +been exceedingly difficult to read, for, in the first place, it served +as the writing medium of five different languages--Assyrian, Susian, +Mede, Chaldean, and Armenian, without counting the Old Persian--and +there was no knowledge of these five languages. Then, too, it is very +complicated, for several reasons: + + 1. It is composed at the same time of symbolic signs, each of + which represents a word (sun, god, fish), and of syllabic signs, + each of which represents a syllable. + + 2. There are nearly two hundred syllabic signs, much alike and + easy to confuse. + + 3. The same sign is often the representation of a word and a + syllable. + + 4. Often (and this is the hardest condition) the same sign is used + to represent different syllables. Thus the same sign is sometimes + read "ilou," and sometimes "an." This writing was difficult even + for those who executed it. "A good half of the cuneiform monuments + which we possess comprises guides (grammars, dictionaries, + pictures), which enable us to decipher the other half, and which + we consult just as Assyrian scholars did 2,500 years ago."[19] + +Cuneiform inscriptions have been solved in the same manner as the +Egyptian hieroglyphics--there was an inscription in three +languages--Assyrian, Mede, and Persian. The last gave the key to the +other two. + +=The Assyrian People.=--The Assyrians were a race of hunters and +soldiers. Their bas-reliefs ordinarily represent them armed with bow +and lance, often on horseback. They were good knights--alert, brave, +clever in skirmish and battle; also bombastic, deceitful, and +sanguinary. For six centuries they harassed Asia, issuing from their +mountains to hurl themselves on their neighbors, and returning with +entire peoples reduced to slavery. They apparently made war for the +mere pleasure of slaying, ravaging, and pillaging. No people ever +exhibited greater ferocity. + +=The King.=--Following Asiatic usage they regarded their king as the +representative of God on earth and gave him blind obedience. He was +absolute master of all his subjects, he led them in battle, and at +their head fought against other peoples of Asia. On his return he +recorded his exploits on the walls of his palace in a long inscription +in which he told of his victories, the booty which he had taken, the +cities burned, the captives beheaded or flayed alive. We present some +passages from these stories of campaigns: + +Assurnazir-hapal in 882 says, "I built a wall before the great gates +of the city; I flayed the chiefs of the revolt and with their skins I +covered this wall. Some were immured alive in the masonry, others were +crucified or impaled along the wall. I had some of them flayed in my +presence and had the wall hung with their skins. I arranged their +heads like crowns and their transfixed bodies in the form of +garlands." + +In 745 Tiglath-Pilezer II writes, "I shut up the king in his royal +city. I raised mountains of bodies before his gates. All his villages +I destroyed, desolated, burnt. I made the country desert, I changed it +into hills and mounds of débris." + +In the seventh century Sennacherib wrote: "I passed like a hurricane +of desolation. On the drenched earth the armor and arms swam in the +blood of the enemy as in a river. I heaped up the bodies of their +soldiers like trophies and I cut off their extremities. I mutilated +those whom I took alive like blades of straw; as punishment I cut off +their hands." In a bas-relief which shows the town of Susa +surrendering to Assurbanipal one sees the chiefs of the conquered +tortured by the Assyrians; some have their ears cut off, the eyes of +others are put out, the beard torn out, while some are flayed alive. +Evidently these kings took delight in burnings, massacres, and +tortures. + +=Ruin of the Assyrian Empire.=--The Assyrian régime began with the +capture of Babylon (about 1270). From the ninth century the Assyrians, +always at war, subjected or ravaged Babylonia, Syria, Palestine, and +even Egypt. The conquered always revolted, and the massacres were +repeated. At last the Assyrians were exhausted. The Babylonians and +Medes made an alliance and destroyed their empire. In 625 their +capital, Nineveh, "the lair of lions, the bloody city, the city gorged +with prey," as the Jewish prophets call it, was taken and destroyed +forever. "Nineveh is laid waste," says the prophet Nahum, "who will +bemoan her?" + + +THE BABYLONIANS + +=The Second Chaldean Empire.=--In the place of the fallen Assyrian +empire there arose a new power--in ancient Chaldea. This has received +the name Babylonian Empire or the Second Chaldean Empire. A Jewish +prophet makes one say to Jehovah, "I raise up the Chaldeans, that +bitter and hasty nation which shall march through the breadth of the +land to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. Their horses are +swifter than leopards. Their horsemen spread themselves; (their +horsemen) shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat." They were a +people of knights, martial and victorious, like the Assyrians. They +subjected Susiana, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Jordan. But their régime +was short: founded in 625, the Babylonian Empire was overthrown by the +Persians in 538 B.C. + +=Babylon.=--The mightiest of its kings, Nebuchadrezzar (or +Nebuchadnezzar), 604-561, who destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Jews +into captivity, built many temples and places in Babylon, his capital. +These monuments were in crude brick as the plain of the Euphrates has +no supply of stone; in the process of decay they have left only +enormous masses of earth and débris. And yet it has been possible on +the site of Babylon to recover some inscriptions and to restore the +plan of the city. The Greek Herodotus who had visited Babylon in the +fifth century B.C., describes it in detail. The city was surrounded by +a square wall cut by the Euphrates; it covered about 185 square miles, +or seven times the extent of Paris. This immense space was not filled +with houses; much of it was occupied with fields to be cultivated for +the maintenance of the people in the event of a siege. Babylon was +less a city than a fortified camp. The walls equipped with towers and +pierced by a hundred gates of brass were so thick that a chariot might +be driven on them. All around the wall was a large, deep ditch full of +water, with its sides lined with brick. The houses of the city were +constructed of three or four stories. The streets intersected at right +angles. The bridge and docks of the Euphrates excited admiration; the +fortified palace also, and the hanging gardens, one of the seven +wonders of the world. These gardens were terraces planted with trees, +supported by pillars and rows of arches. + +=Tower of Babylon.=--Hard by the city Nebuchadnezzar had aimed to +rebuild the town of Babel. "For the admiration of men," he says in an +inscription: "I rebuilt and renovated the wonder of Borsippa, the +temple of the seven spheres of the world. I laid the foundations and +built it according to its ancient plan." This temple, in the form of a +square, comprised seven square towers raised one above another, each +tower being dedicated to one of the seven planets and painted with the +color attributed by religion to this planet. They were, beginning with +the lowest: Saturn (black), Venus (white), Jupiter (purple), Mercury +(blue), Mars (vermilion), the moon (silver), the sun (gold). The +highest tower contained a chapel with a table of gold and magnificent +couch whereon a priestess kept watch continually. + + +CUSTOMS AND RELIGION + +=Customs.=--We know almost nothing of these peoples apart from the +testimony of their monuments, and nearly all of these refer to the +achievements of their kings. The Assyrians are always represented at +war, hunting, or in the performance of ceremonies; their women never +appear on the bas-reliefs; they were confined in a harem and never +went into public life. The Chaldeans on the contrary, were a race of +laborers and merchants, but of their life we know nothing. Herodotus +relates that once a year in their towns they assembled all the girls +to give them in marriage; they sold the prettiest, and the profits of +the sale of these became a dower for the marriage of the plainest. +"According to my view," he adds, "this is the wisest of all their +laws." + +=Religion.=--The religion of the Assyrians and Chaldeans was the same, +for the former had adopted that of the latter. It is very obscure to +us, since it originated, like that of the Chaldean people, in a +confusion of religions very differently mingled. The Turanians, like +the present yellow race of Siberia, imagined the world full of demons +(plague, fever, phantoms, vampires), engaged in prowling around men to +do them harm; sorcerers were invoked to banish these demons by magical +formulas. The Cushites adored a pair of gods, the male deity of force +and the female of matter. The Chaldean priests, united in a powerful +guild, confused the two religions into a single one. + +=The Gods.=--The supreme god at Babylon is Ilou; in Assyria, Assur. No +temple was raised to him. Three gods proceed from him: Anou, the "lord +of darkness," under the figure of a man with the head of a fish and +the tail of an eagle; Bel, the "sovereign of spirits," represented as +a king on the throne; Nouah, the "master of the visible world," under +the form of a genius with four extended wings. Each has a feminine +counterpart who symbolizes fruitfulness. Below these gods are the Sun, +the Moon, and the five planets, for in the transparent atmosphere of +Chaldea the stars shine with a brilliancy which is strange to us; they +gleam like deities. To these the Chaldeans raised temples, veritable +observatories in which men who adored them could follow all their +motions. + +=Astrology.=--The priests believed that these stars, being powerful +deities, had determining influence on the lives of men. Every man +comes into the world under the influence of a planet and this moment +decides his destiny; one may foretell one's fortune if the star under +which one is born is known. This is the origin of the horoscope. What +occurs in heaven is indicative of what will come to pass on earth; a +comet, for example, announces a revolution. By observing the heavens +the Chaldean priests believed they could predict events. This is the +origin of Astrology. + +=Sorcery.=--The Chaldeans had also magical words; these were uttered +to banish spirits or to cause their appearance. This custom, a relic +of the Turanian religion, is the origin of sorcery. From Chaldea +astrology and sorcery were diffused over the Roman empire, and later +over all Europe. In the formulas of sorcery of the sixteenth century +corrupted Assyrian words may still be detected.[20] + +=Sciences.=--On the other hand it is in Chaldea that we have the +beginning of astronomy. From this land have come down to us the +zodiac, the week of seven days in honor of the seven planets; the +division of the year into twelve months, of the day into twenty-four +hours, of the hour into sixty minutes, of the minute into sixty +seconds. Here originated, too, the system of weights and measures +reckoned on the unit of length, a system adopted by all the ancient +peoples. + + +ARTS + +=Architecture.=--We do not have direct knowledge of the art of the +Chaldeans, since their monuments have fallen to ruin. But the Assyrian +artists whose works we possess imitated those of Chaldea, and so we +may form a judgment at the same time of the two countries. The +Assyrians like the Chaldeans built with crude, sun-dried brick, but +they faced the exterior of the wall with stone. + +=Palaces.=--They constructed their palaces[21] on artificial mounds, +making these low and flat like great terraces. The crude brick was not +adapted to broad and high arches. Halls must therefore be straight and +low, but in compensation they were very long. An Assyrian palace, +then, resembled a succession of galleries; the roofs were flat +terraces provided with battlements. At the gate stood gigantic winged +bulls. Within, the walls were covered now with panelling in precious +woods, now with enamelled bricks, now with plates of sculptural +alabaster. Sometimes the chambers were painted, and even richly +encrusted marbles were used. + +=Sculpture.=--The sculpture of the Assyrian palaces is especially +admirable. Statues, truly, are rare and coarse; sculptors preferred to +execute bas-reliefs similar to pictures on great slabs of alabaster. +They represented scenes which were often very complicated--battles, +chases, sieges of towns, ceremonies in which the king appeared with a +great retinue. Every detail is scrupulously done; one sees the files +of servants in charge of the feast of the king, the troops of workmen +who built his palace, the gardens, the fields, the ponds, the fish in +the water, the birds perched over their nests or flitting from tree to +tree. Persons are exhibited in profile, doubtless because the artist +could not depict the face; but they possess dignity and life. Animals +often appeared, especially in hunting scenes; they are ordinarily made +with a startling fidelity. The Assyrians observed nature and +faithfully reproduced it; hence the merit of their art. + +The Greeks themselves learned in this school, by imitating the +Assyrian bas-reliefs. They have excelled them, but no people, not even +the Greeks, has better known how to represent animals. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] A Persian song enumerates 300 different uses of the palm. + +[16] Or perhaps from the east (Arabia).--ED. + +[17] Recent discoveries confirm the view of a very ancient +civilization--ED. + +[18] Somewhat exaggerated. See Perrot and Chipiez, "History of Art in +Assyria and Chaldea," ii., 60; and Maspero, "Passing of the Empires," p. +468.--ED. + +[19] Lenormant, "Ancient History." + +[20] For example, hilka, hilka, bescha, bescha (begone! begone! bad! +bad!) + +[21] The temples were pyramidal, of stones or terraces similar to the +tower of Borsippa. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ARYANS OF INDIA + +THE ARYANS + + +=Aryan Languages.=--The races which in our day inhabit Europe--Greeks +and Italians to the south, Slavs in Russia, Teutons in Germany, Celts +in Ireland--speak very different languages. When, however, one studies +these languages closely, it is perceived that all possess a stock of +common words, or at least certain roots. The same roots occur in +Sanscrit, the ancient language of the Hindoos, and also in Zend, the +ancient tongue of the Persians. Thus, + +Father--père (French), pitar (Sanscrit), pater (Greek and Latin). It +is the same word pronounced in various ways. From this (and other such +examples) it has been concluded that all--Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, +Latins, Celts, Germans, Slavs--once spoke the same language, and +consequently were one people. + +=The Aryan People.=--These peoples then called themselves Aryans and +lived to the north-west of India, either in the mountains of Pamir, or +in the steppes of Turkestan or Russia; from this centre they dispersed +in all directions. The majority of the people--Greeks, Latins, +Germans, Slavs--forgot their origin; but the sacred books of the +Hindoos and the Persians preserve the tradition. Effort has been +made[22] to reconstruct the life of our Aryan ancestors in their +mountain home before the dispersion. It was a race of shepherds; they +did not till the soil, but subsisted from their herds of cattle and +sheep, though they already had houses and even villages. + +It was a fighting race; they knew the lance, the javelin, and shield. +Government was patriarchal; a man had but one wife; as head of the +family he was for his wife, his children, and his servants at once +priest, judge, and king. In all the countries settled by the Aryans +they have followed this type of life--patriarchal, martial, and +pastoral. + + +PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS + +=The Aryans on the Indus.=--About 2,000 years before our era some +Aryan tribes traversed the passes of the Hindu-Kush and swarmed into +India. They found the fertile plains of the Indus inhabited by a +people of dark skin, with flat heads, industrious and wealthy; they +called these aborigines Dasyous (the enemy). They made war on them for +centuries and ended by exterminating or subjecting them; they then +gradually took possession of all the Indus valley (the region of the +five rivers).[23] They then called themselves Hindoos. + +=The Vedas.=--These people were accustomed in their ceremonies to +chant hymns (vedas) in honor of their gods. These chants constituted +a vast compilation which has been preserved to the present time. They +were collected, perhaps, about the fourteenth century B.C. when the +Aryans had not yet passed the Indus. The hymns present to us the +oldest religion of the Hindoos. + +=The Gods.=--The Hindoo calls his gods devas (the resplendent). +Everything that shines is a divinity--the heavens, the dawn, the +clouds, the stars--but especially the sun (Indra) and fire (Agni). + +=Indra.=--The sun, Indra, the mighty one, "king of the world and +master of creatures," bright and warm, traverses the heavens on a car +drawn by azure steeds; he it is who hurls the thunderbolt, sends the +rain, and banishes the clouds. India is a country of violent tempests; +the Hindoo struck with this phenomenon explained it in his own +fashion. He conceived the black cloud as an envelope in which were +contained the waters of heaven; these beneficent waters he called the +gleaming cows of Indra. When the storm is gathering, an evil genius, +Vritra, a three-headed serpent, has driven away the cows and enclosed +them in the black cavern whence their bellowings are heard (the +far-away rumblings of thunder). Indra applies himself to the task of +finding them; he strikes the cavern with his club, the strokes of +which are heard (the thunderbolt), and the forked tongue of the +serpent (the lightning) darts forth. At last the serpent is +vanquished, the cave is opened, the waters released fall on the earth, +Indra the victor appears in glory. + +=Agni.=--Fire (Agni, the tireless) is regarded as another form of the +sun. The Hindoo, who produces it by rapidly rubbing two pieces of +wood together, imagines that the fire comes from the wood and that the +rain has placed it there. He conceives it then as the fire of heaven +descended to earth; in fact, when one places it on the hearth, it +springs up as if it would ascend toward heaven. Agni dissipates +darkness, warms mankind, and cooks his food; it is the benefactor and +the protector of the house. It is also "the internal fire," the soul +of the world; even the ancestor of the human race is the "son of +lightning." Thus, heat and light, sources of all life, are the deities +of the Hindoo. + +=Worship.=--To adore his gods he strives to reproduce what he sees in +heaven. He ignites a terrestrial fire by rubbing sticks, he nourishes +it by depositing on the hearth, butter, milk, and soma, a fermented +drink. To delight the gods he makes offerings to them of fruits and +cakes; he even sacrifices to them cattle, rams and horses; he then +invokes them, chanting hymns to their praise. "When thou art bidden by +us to quaff the soma, come with thy sombre steeds, thou deity whose +darts are stones. Our celebrant is seated according to prescription, +the sacred green is spread, in the morning stones have been gathered +together. Take thy seat on the holy sward; taste, O hero, our offering +to thee. Delight thyself in our libations and our chants, vanquisher +of Vritra, thou who art honored in these ceremonies of ours, O Indra." + +The Hindoo thinks that the gods, felicitated by his offerings and +homage, will in their turn make him happy. He says naïvely, "Give +sacrifice to the gods for their profit, and they will requite you. +Just as men traffic by the discussion of prices, let us exchange +force and vigor, O Indra. Give to me and I will give to you; bring to +me and I will bring to you." + +=Ancestor Worship.=--At the same time the Hindoo adores his ancestors +who have become gods, and perhaps this cult is the oldest of all. It +is the basis of the family. The father who has transmitted the "fire +of life" to his children makes offering every day at his hearth-fire, +which must never be extinguished, the sacrifice to gods and ancestors, +and utters the prayers. Here it is seen that among Hindoos, as among +other Aryans, the father is at once a priest and a sovereign. + + +THE BRAHMANIC SOCIETY + +=The Hindoos on the Ganges.=--The Hindoos passing beyond the region of +the Indus, between the fourteenth and tenth century B.C. conquered all +the immense plains of the Ganges. Once settled in this fertile +country, under a burning climate, in the midst of a people of slaves, +they gradually changed customs and religion. And so the Brahmanic +society was established. Many works in Sanscrit are preserved from +this time, which, with the Vedas, form the sacred literature of the +Hindoos. The principal are the great epic poems, the Mahabarata, which +has more than 200,000 verses; the Ramayana with 50,000, and the laws +of Manou, the sacred code of India. + +=Caste.=--In this new society there were no longer, as in the time of +the Vedas, poets who chanted hymns to the gods. The men who know the +prayers and the ceremonies are become theologians by profession; the +people revere and obey them. The following is their conception of the +structure of society: the supreme god, Brahma, has produced four kinds +of men to each of whom he has assigned a mission. From his mouth he +drew the Brahmans, who are, of course, the theologians; their mission +is to study, to teach the hymns, to perform the sacrifices. The +Kchatrias have come from his arms; these are the warriors who are +charged with the protection of the people. The Vaïcyas proceed from +the thigh; they must raise cattle, till the earth, loan money at +interest, and engage in commerce. The Soudras issue from his foot; +their only mission is to serve all the others. + +There were already in the Aryan people theologians, warriors, +artisans, and below them aborigines reduced to slavery. These were +classes which one could enter and from which one could withdraw. But +the Brahmans determined that every man should be attached to the +condition in which he was born, he and his descendants for all time. +The son of a workman could never become a warrior, nor the son of a +warrior a theologian. Thus each is chained to his own state. Society +is divided into four hereditary and closed castes. + +=The Unclean.=--Whoever is not included in one of the four castes is +unclean, excluded from society and religion. The Brahmans reckoned +forty-four grades of outcasts; the last and the lowest is that of the +pariahs; their very name is an insult. The outcasts may not practise +any honorable trade nor approach other men. They may possess only dogs +and asses, for these are unclean beasts. "They must have for their +clothing the garments of the dead; for plates, broken pots; ornaments +of iron; they must be ceaselessly on the move from one place to +another." + +=The Brahmans.=--In the organization of society the Brahmans were +assigned the first place. "Men are the first among intelligent beings; +the Brahmans are the first among men. They are higher than warriors, +than kings, even. As between a Brahman of ten years of age and a +Kchatria of one hundred years, the Brahman is to be regarded as the +father." These are not priests as in Egypt and Chaldea, but only men +who know religion, and pass their time in reading and meditating on +the sacred books; they live from presents made to them by other men. +To this day they are the dominating class of India. As they marry only +among themselves, better than the other Hindoos they have preserved +the Aryan type and have a clearer resemblance to Europeans. + +=The New Religion of Brahma.=--The Brahmans did not discard the +ancient gods of the Vedas, they continued to adore them. But by sheer +ingenuity they invented a new god. When prayers are addressed to the +gods, the deities are made to comply with the demands made on them, as +if they thought that prayer was more powerful than the gods. And so +prayer (Brahma) has become the highest of all deities. He is invoked +with awe:[24] "O god, I behold in thy body all the gods and the +multitudes of living beings. I am powerless to regard thee in thine +entirety, for thou shinest like the fire and the sun in thine +immensity. Thou art the Invisible, thou art the supreme Intelligence, +thou art the sovereign treasure of the universe, without beginning, +middle, or end; equipped with infinite might. Thine arms are without +limit, thine eyes are like the moon and the sun, thy mouth hath the +brightness of the sacred fire. With thyself alone thou fillest all the +space between heaven and earth, and thou permeatest all the universe." +Brahma is not only supreme god; he is the soul of the universe. All +beings are born from Brahma, all issue naturally from him, not as a +product comes from the hands of an artisan, but "as the tree from the +seed, as the web from the spider." Brahma is not a deity who has +created the world; he is the very substance of the world. + +=Transmigration of Souls.=--There is, then, a soul, a part of the soul +of Brahma, in every being, in gods, in men, in animals, in the very +plants and stones. But these souls pass from one body into another; +this is the transmigration of souls. When a man dies, his soul is +tested; if it is good, it passes into the heaven of Indra there to +enjoy felicity; if it is bad, it falls into one of the twenty-eight +hells, where it is devoured by ravens, compelled to swallow burning +cakes, and is tormented by demons. But souls do not remain forever in +heaven or in the hells; they part from these to begin a new life in +another body. The good soul rises, entering the body of a saint, +perhaps that of a god; the evil soul descends, taking its abode in +some impure animal--in a dog, an ass, even in a plant. In this new +state it may rise or fall. And this journey from one body to another +continues until the soul by degrees comes to the highest sphere. From +lowest to highest in the scale, say the Brahmans, twenty-four millions +of years elapse. At last perfect, the soul returns to the level of +Brahma from which it descends and is absorbed into it. + +=Character of this Religion.=--The religion of the Aryans, simple and +happy, was that of a young and vigorous people. This is complicated +and barren; it takes shape among men who are not engaged in practical +life; it is enervated by the heat and vexatious of life. + +=Rites.=--The practice of the religion is much more complicated. Hymns +and sacrifices are still offered to the gods, but the Brahmans have +gradually invented thousands of minute customs so that one's life is +completely engaged with them. For all the ceremonies of the religious +life there are prayers, offerings, vows, libations, ablutions. Some of +the religious requirements attach themselves to dress, ornaments, +etiquette, drinking, eating, mode of walking, of lying down, of +sleeping, of dressing, of undressing, of bathing. It is ordered: "That +a Brahman shall not step over a rope to which a calf is attached; that +he shall not run when it rains; that he shall not drink water in the +hollow of his hand; that he shall not scratch his head with both his +hands. The man who breaks clods of earth, who cuts grass with his +nails or who bites his nails is, like the outcast, speedily hurried to +his doom." An animal must not be killed, for a human soul may perhaps +be dwelling in the body; one must not eat it on penalty of being +devoured in another life by the animals which one has eaten. + +All these rites have a magical virtue; he who observes them all is a +saint; he who neglects any of them is impious and destined to pass +into the body of an animal. + +=Purity.=--The principal duty is keeping one's self pure; for every +stain is a sin and opens one to the attack of evil spirits. But the +Brahmans are very scrupulous concerning purity: men outside of the +castes, many animals, the soil, even the utensils which one uses are +so many impure things; whoever touches these is polluted and must at +once purify himself. Life is consumed in purifications. + +=Penances.=--For every defect in the rites, a penance is necessary, +often a terrible one. He who involuntarily kills a cow must clothe +himself in its skin, and for three months, day and night, follow and +tend a herd of cows. Whoever has drunk of arrack[25] must swallow a +boiling liquid which burns the internal organs until death results. + +=The Monks.=--To escape so many dangers and maintain purity, it is +better to leave the world. Often a Brahman when he has attained to a +considerable age withdraws to the desert, fasts, watches, refrains +from speech, exposes himself naked to the rain, holds himself erect +between four fires under the burning sun. After some years, the +solitary becomes "penitent"; then his only subsistence is from +almsgiving; for whole days he lifts an arm in the air uttering not a +word, holding his breath; or perchance, he gashes himself with +razor-blades; or he may even keep his thumbs closed until the nails +pierce the hands. By these mortifications he destroys passion, +releases himself from this life, and by contemplation rises to Brahma. +And yet, this way of salvation is open only to the Brahman; and even +he has the right to withdraw to the desert only in old age, after +having studied the Vedas all his life, practised all the rites, and +established a family. + + +BUDDHISM + +=Buddha.=--Millions of men who were not Brahmans, suffered by this +life of minutiæ and anguish. A man then appeared who brought a +doctrine of deliverance. He was not a Brahman, but of the caste of the +Kchatrias, son of a king of the north. To the age of twenty-nine he +had lived in the palace of his father. One day he met an old man with +bald head, of wrinkled features, and trembling limbs; a second time he +met an incurable invalid, covered with ulcers, without a home; again +he fell in with a decaying corpse devoured by worms. And so, thought +he, youth, health, and life are nothing for they offer no resistance +to old age, to sickness, and to death. He had compassion on men and +sought a remedy. Then he met a religious mendicant with grave and +dignified air; following his example he decided to renounce the world. +These four meetings had determined his calling. + +Buddha fled to the desert, lived seven years in penitence, undergoing +hunger, thirst, and rain. These mortifications gave him no repose. He +ate, became strong, and found the truth. Then he reëntered the world +to preach it; he made disciples in crowds who called him Buddha (the +scholar); and when he died after forty-five years of preaching, +Buddhism was established. + +=Nirvana.=--To live is to be unhappy, taught Buddha. Every man suffers +because he desires the goods of this world, youth, health, life, and +cannot keep them. All life is a suffering; all suffering is born of +desire. To suppress suffering, it is necessary to root out desire; to +destroy it one must cease from wishing to live, "emancipate one's self +from the thirst of being." The wise man is he who casts aside +everything that attaches to this life and makes it unhappy. One must +cease successively from feeling, wishing, thinking. Then, freed from +passion, volition, even from reflection, he no longer suffers, and +can, after his death, come to the supreme good, which consists in +being delivered from all life and from all suffering. The aim of the +wise man is the annihilation of personality: the Buddhists call it +Nirvana. + +=Charity.=--The Brahmans also considered life as a place of suffering +and annihilation as felicity. Buddha came not with a new doctrine, but +with new sentiments. + +The religion of the Brahmans was egoistic. Buddha had compassion on +men, he loved them, and preached love to his disciples. It was just +this word of sympathy of which despairing souls were in need. He bade +to love even those who do us ill. Purna, one of his disciples, went +forth to preach to the barbarians. Buddha said to him to try him, +"There are cruel, passionate, furious men; if they address angry words +to you, what would you think?" "If they addressed angry words to me," +said Purna, "I should think these are good men, these are gentle men, +these men who attack me with wicked words but who strike me neither +with the hand nor with stones." "But if they strike you, what would +you think?" "I should think that those were good men who did not +strike me with their staves or with their swords." "But if they did +strike you with staff and sword, what would you think then?" "That +those are good men who strike me with staff and sword, but do not take +my life." "But if they should take your life?" "I should think them +good men who delivered me with so little pain from this body filled as +it is with pollution." "Well, well, Purna! You may dwell in the +country of the barbarians. Go, proceed on the way to complete Nirvana +and bring others to the same goal." + +=Fraternity.=--The Brahmans, proud of their caste, assert that they +are purer than the others. Buddha loves all men equally, he calls all +to salvation even the pariahs, even the barbarians--all he declares +are equal. "The Brahman," said he, "just like the pariah, is born of +woman; why should he be noble and the other vile?" He receives as +disciples street-sweepers, beggars, cripples, girls who sleep on +dung-hills, even murderers and thieves; he fears no contamination in +touching them. He preaches to them in the street in language simple +with parables. + +=Tolerance.=--The Brahmans passed their lives in the practice of +minute rites, regarding as criminal whoever did not observe them. +Buddha demanded neither rites nor exertions. To secure salvation it +was enough to be charitable, chaste, and beneficent. "Benevolence," +says he, "is the first of virtues. Doing a little good avails more +than the fulfilment of the most arduous religious tasks. The perfect +man is nothing unless he diffuses himself in benefits over creatures, +unless he comforts the afflicted. My doctrine is a doctrine of mercy; +this is why the fortunate in the world find it difficult." + +=Later History of Buddhism.=--Thus was established about 500 years +before Christ a religion of an entirely new sort. It is a religion +without a god and without rites; it ordains only that one shall love +his neighbor and become better; annihilation is offered as supreme +recompense. But, for the first time in the history of the world, it +preaches self-renunciation, the love of others, equality of mankind, +charity and tolerance. The Brahmans made bitter war upon it and +extirpated it in India. Missionaries carried it to the barbarians in +Ceylon, in Indo-China, Thibet, China, and Japan. It is today the +religion of about 500,000,000[26] people. + +=Changes in Buddhism.=--During these twenty centuries Buddhism has +undergone change. Buddha had himself formed communities of monks. +Those who entered these renounced their family, took the vow of +poverty and chastity; they had to wear filthy rags and beg their +living. These religious rapidly multiplied; they founded convents in +all Eastern Asia, gathered in councils to fix the doctrine, proclaimed +dogmas and rules. As they became powerful they, like the Brahmans, +came to esteem themselves as above the rest of the faithful. "The +layman," they said, "plight to support the religious and consider +himself much honored that the holy man accepts his offering. It is +more commendable to feed one religious than many thousands of laymen." +In Thibet the religious, men and women together, constitute a fifth of +the entire population, and their head, the Grand Lama, is venerated +as an incarnation of God. + +At the same time that they transformed themselves into masters, the +Buddhist religious constructed a complicated theology, full of +fantastic figures. They say there is an infinite number of worlds. If +one surrounded with a wall a space capable of holding 100,000 times +ten millions of those worlds, if this wall were raised to heaven, and +if the whole space were filled with grains of mustard, the number of +the grains would not even then equal one-half the number of worlds +which occupy but one division of heaven. All these worlds are full of +creatures, gods, men, beasts, demons, who are born and who die. The +universe itself is annihilated and another takes its place. The +duration of each universe is called _kalpa_; and this is the way we +obtain an impression of a kalpa: if there were a rock twelve miles in +height, breadth, and length, and if once in a century it were only +touched with a piece of the finest linen, this rock would be worn and +reduced to the size of a kernel of mango before a quarter of a kalpa +had elapsed. + +=Buddha Transformed into a God.=--It no longer satisfied the Buddhists +to honor their founder as a perfect man; they made him a god, erecting +idols to him, and offering him worship. They adored also the saints, +his disciples; pyramids and shrines were built to preserve their +bones, their teeth, their cloaks. From every quarter the faithful came +to venerate the impression of the foot of Buddha. + +=Mechanical Prayer.=--Modern Buddhists regard prayer as a magical +formula which acts of itself. They spend the day reciting prayers as +they walk or eat, often in a language which they do not understand. +They have invented prayer-machines; these are revolving cylinders and +around these are pasted papers on which the prayer is written; every +turn of the cylinder counts for the utterance of the prayer as many +times as it is written on the papers. + +=Amelioration of Manners.=--And yet Buddhism remains a religion of +peace and charity. Wherever it reigns, kings refrain from war, and +even from the chase; they establish hospitals, caravansaries, even +asylums for animals. Strangers, even Christian missionaries, are +hospitably received; they permit the women to go out, and to walk +without veiling themselves; they neither fight nor quarrel. At +Bangkok, a city of 400,000 souls, hardly more than one murder a year +is known. + +Buddhism has enfeebled the intelligence and sweetened the +character.[27] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] The process is as follows: when a word (or rather a root) is found +in several Aryan languages at once, it is admitted that this was in use +before the dispersion occurred, and therefore the people knew the object +designated by the word. + +[23] The Punjab.--ED. + +[24] Prayer of the Mahabarata cited by Lenormant. + +[25] A spirituous liquor made by the natives.--ED. + +[26] A high estimate.--ED. + +[27] India is for us the country of the Vedas, the Brahmans, and Buddha. +We know the religion of the Hindoos, but of their political history we +are ignorant. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PERSIANS + +THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER + + +=Iran.=--Between the Tigris and the Indus, the Caspian Sea and the +Persian Gulf rises the land of Iran, five times as great as +France,[28] but partly sterile. It is composed of deserts of burning +sand and of icy plateaux cut by deep and wooded valleys. Mountains +surround it preventing the escape of the rivers which must lose +themselves in the sands or in the salt lakes. The climate is harsh, +very uneven, torrid in summer, frigid in winter; in certain quarters +one passes from 104° above zero to 40° below, from the cold of Siberia +to the heat of Senegal. Violent winds blow which "cut like a sword." +But in the valleys along the rivers the soil is fertile. Here the +peach and cherry are indigenous; the country is a land of fruits and +pastures. + +=The Iranians.=--Aryan tribes inhabited Iran. Like all the Aryans, +they were a race of shepherds, but well armed and warlike. The +Iranians fought on horseback, drew the bow, and, to protect themselves +from the biting wind of their country, wore garments of skin sewed on +the body. + +=Zoroaster.=--Like the ancient Aryans, they first adored the forces of +nature, especially the sun (Mithra). Between the tenth and seventh[29] +centuries before our era their religion was reformed by a sage, +Zarathustra (Zoroaster). We know nothing certainly about him except +his name. + +=The Zend-Avesta.=--No writing from the hand of Zoroaster is preserved +to us; but his doctrine, reduced to writing long after his death, is +conserved in the Zend-Avesta (law and reform), the sacred books of the +Persians. It was a compilation written in an ancient language (the +Zend) which the faithful themselves no longer understood. It was +divided into twenty-one books, inscribed on 12,000 cow skins, bound by +golden cords. The Mohammedans destroyed it when they invaded Persia. +But some Persian families, faithful to the teaching of Zoroaster, fled +into India. Their posterity, whom we call Parsees, have there +maintained the old religion. An entire book of the Zend-Avesta and +fragments of two others have been found among them. + +=Ormuzd and Ahriman.=--The Zend-Avesta is the sacred book of the +religion of Zoroaster. According to these writings Ahura Mazda +(Ormuzd), "the omniscient sovereign," created the world. He is +addressed in prayer in the following language: "I invoke and celebrate +the creator, Ahura Mazda, luminous, glorious, most intelligent and +beautiful, eminent in purity, who possessest the good knowledge, +source of joy, who hast treated us, hast fashioned us, and hast +nourished us." Since he is perfect in his goodness, he can create +only that which is good. Everything bad in the world has been created +by an evil deity, Angra Manyou, (Ahriman), the "spirit of anguish." + +=Angels and Demons.=--Over against Ormuzd, the god and the creator, is +Ahriman, wicked and destructive. Each has in his service a legion of +spirits. The soldiers of Ormuzd are the good angels (yazatas), those +of Ahriman the evil demons (devs). The angels dwell in the East in the +light of the rising sun; the demons in the West in the shadows of the +darkness. The two armies wage incessant warfare; the world is their +battleground, for both troops are omnipresent. Ormuzd and his angels +seek to benefit men, to make them good and happy; Ahriman and his +demons gnaw around them to destroy them, to make them unhappy and +wicked. + +=Creatures of Ormuzd and Ahriman.=--Everything good on the earth is +the work of Ormuzd and works for good; the sun and fire that dispel +the night, the stars, fermented drinks that seem to be liquid fire, +the water that satisfies the thirst of man, the cultivated fields that +feed him, the trees that shade him, domestic animals--especially the +dog,[30] the birds (because they live in the air), among all these the +cock since he announces the day. On the other hand everything that is +baneful comes from Ahriman and tends to evil: the night, drought, +cold, the desert, poisonous plants, thorns, beasts of prey, serpents, +parasites (mosquitoes, fleas, bugs) and animals that live in dark +holes--lizards, scorpions, toads, rats, ants. Likewise in the moral +world life, purity, truth, work are good things and come from Ormuzd; +death, filth, falsehood, idleness are bad, and issue from Ahriman. + +=Worship.=--From these notions proceed worship and morality. Man ought +to adore the good god[31] and fight for him. According to Herodotus, +"The Persians are not accustomed to erect statues, temples, or altars +to their gods; they esteem those who do this as lacking in sense for +they do not believe, as the Greeks do, that the gods have human +forms."[32] Ormuzd manifests himself only under the form of fire or +the sun. This is why the Persians perform their worship in the open +air on the mountains, before a lighted fire. To worship Ormuzd they +sing hymns to his praise and sacrifice animals in his honor. + +=Morality.=--Man fights for Ormuzd in aiding his efforts and in +overcoming Ahriman's. He wars against darkness in supplying the fire +with dry wood and perfumes; against the desert in tilling the soil and +in building houses; against the animals of Ahriman in killing +serpents, lizards, parasites, and beasts of prey. He battles against +impurity in keeping himself clean, in banishing from himself +everything that is dead, especially the nails and hair, for "where +hairs and clipped nails are, demons and unclean animals assemble." He +fights against falsehood by always being truthful. "The Persians," +says Herodotus,[33] "consider nothing so shameful as lying, and after +falsehood nothing so shameful as contracting debts, for he who has +debts necessarily lies." He wars against death by marrying and having +many children. "Terrible," says the Zend-Avesta, "are the houses void +of posterity." + +=Funerals.=--As soon as a man is dead his body belongs to the evil +spirit. It is necessary, then, to remove it from the house. But it +ought not to be burned, for in this way the fire would be polluted; it +should not be buried, for so is the soil defiled; nor is it to be +drowned, and thus contaminate the water. These dispositions of the +corpse would bring permanent pollution. The Persians resorted to a +different method. The body with face toward the sun was exposed in an +elevated place and left uncovered, securely fixed with stones; the +bearers then withdrew to escape the demons, for they assemble "in the +places of sepulture, where reside sickness, fever, filth, cold, and +gray hairs." Dogs and birds, pure animals, then come to purify the +body by devouring it. + +=Destiny of the Soul.=--The soul of the dead separates itself from the +body. In the third night after death it is conducted over the "Bridge +of Assembling" (Schinvat) which leads to the paradise above the gulf +of inferno. There Ormuzd questions it on its past life. If it has +practised the good, the pure spirits and the spirits of dogs support +it and aid it in crossing the bridge and give it entrance into the +abode of the blest; the demons flee, for they cannot bear the odor of +virtuous spirits. The soul of the wicked, on the other hand, comes to +the dread bridge, and reeling, with no one to support it, is dragged +by demons to hell, is seized by the evil spirit and chained in the +abyss of darkness. + +=Character of Mazdeism.=--This religion originated in a country of +violent contrasts, luxuriant valleys side by side with barren steppes, +cool oases with burning deserts, cultivated fields and stretches of +sand, where the forces of nature seem engaged in an eternal warfare. +This combat which the Iranian saw around him he assumed to be the law +of the universe. Thus a religion of great purity was developed, which +urged man to work and to virtue; but at the same time issued a belief +in the devil and in demons which was to propagate itself in the west +and torment all the peoples of Europe. + + +THE PERSIAN EMPIRE + +=The Medes.=--Many were the tribes dwelling in Iran; two of these have +become noted in history--the Medes and the Persians. The Medes at the +west, nearer the Assyrians, destroyed Nineveh and its empire (625). +But soon they softened their manners, taking the flowing robes, the +indolent life, the superstitious religion of the degenerate Assyrians. +They at last were confused with them. + +=The Persians.=--The Persians to the east preserved their manners, +their religion, and their vigor. "For twenty years," says Herodotus, +"the Persians teach their children but three things--to mount a horse, +to draw the bow, and to tell the truth." + +=Cyrus.=--About 550 Cyrus, their chief, overthrew the king of the +Medes, reunited all the peoples of Iran, and then conquered Lydia, +Babylon, and all Asia Minor. Herodotus recounts in detail a legend +which became attached to this prince. Cyrus himself in an inscription +says of himself, "I am Cyrus, king of the legions, great king, mighty +king, king of Babylon, king of Sumir and Akkad, king of the four +regions, son of Cambyses, great king of Susiana, grand-son of Cyrus, +king of Susiana." + +=The Inscription of Behistun.=--The eldest son of Cyrus, Cambyses, put +to death his brother Smerdis and conquered Egypt. What occurred +afterward is known to us from an inscription. Today one may see on the +frontier of Persia, in the midst of a plain, an enormous rock, cut +perpendicularly, about 1,500 feet high, the rock of Behistun. A +bas-relief carved on the rock represents a crowned king, with left +hand on a bow; he tramples on one captive while nine other prisoners +are presented before him in chains. An inscription in three languages +relates the life of the king: "Darius the king declares, This is what +I did before I became king. Cambyses, son of Cyrus, of our race, +reigned here before me. This Cambyses had a brother Smerdis, of the +same father and the same mother. One day Cambyses killed Smerdis. When +Cambyses had killed Smerdis the people were ignorant that Smerdis was +dead. After this Cambyses made an expedition to Egypt and while he was +there the people became rebellious; falsehood was then rife in the +country, in Persia, in Media and the other provinces. There was at +that time a magus named Gaumata; he deceived the people by saying that +he was Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. Then the whole people rose in +revolt, forsook Cambyses and went over to the pretender. After this +Cambyses died from a wound inflicted by himself. + +"After Gaumata had drawn away Persia, Media, and the other countries +from Cambyses, he followed out his purpose: he became king. The people +feared him on account of his cruelty: he would have killed the people +so that no one might learn that he was not Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. +Darius the king declares there was not a man in all Persia or in Media +who dared to snatch the crown from this Gaumata, the magus. Then I +presented myself, I prayed Ormuzd. Ormuzd accorded me his +protection.... Accompanied by faithful men I killed this Gaumata and +his principal accomplices. By the will of Ormuzd I became king. The +empire which had been stolen from our race I restored to it. The +altars that Gaumata, the magus, had thrown down I rebuilt to the +deliverance of the people; I received the chants and the sacred +ceremonials." Having overturned the usurper, Darius had to make war on +many of the revolting princes, "I have," said he, "won nineteen +battles and overcome nine kings." + +=The Persian Empire.=--Darius then subjected the peoples in revolt and +reëstablished the empire of the Persians. He enlarged it also by +conquering Thrace and a province of India. This empire reunited all +the peoples of the Orient: Medes and Persians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, +Jews, Phoenicians, Syrians, Lydians, Egyptians, Indians; it covered +all the lands from the Danube on the west to the Indus on the east, +from the Caspian Sea on the north to the cataracts of the Nile on the +south. It was the greatest empire up to this time. One tribe of +mountaineers, the last to come, thus received the heritage of all the +empires of Asia. + +=The Satrapies.=--Oriental kings seldom concerned themselves with +their subjects more than to draw money from them, levy soldiers, and +collect presents; they never interfered in their local affairs. +Darius, like the rest, left each of the peoples of his empire to +administer itself according to its own taste, to keep its language, +its religion, its laws, often its ancient princes. But he took care to +regulate the taxes which his subjects paid him. He divided all the +empire into twenty[34] districts called satrapies. There were in the +same satrapy peoples who differed much in language, customs, and +beliefs; but each satrapy was to pay a fixed annual tribute, partly in +gold and silver, partly in natural products (wheat, horses, ivory). +The satrap, or governor, had the tribute collected and sent it to the +king. + +=Revenues of the Empire.=--The total revenue of the king amounted to +sixteen millions of dollars and this money was paid by weight. This +sum was in addition to the tributes in kind. These sixteen millions of +dollars, if we estimate them by the value of the metals at this time, +would be equivalent to one hundred and twenty millions in our day. +With this sum the king supported his satraps, his army, his domestic +servants and an extravagant court; there still remained to him every +year enormous ingots of metal which accumulated in his treasuries. +The king of Persia, like all the Orientals, exercised his vanity in +possessing an immense treasure. + +=The Great King.=--No king had ever been so powerful and rich. The +Greeks called the Persian king The Great King. Like all the monarchs +of the East, the king had absolute sway over all his subjects, over +the Persians as well as over tributary peoples. From Herodotus one can +see how Cambyses treated the great lords at his court. "What do the +Persians think of me?" said he one day to Prexaspes, whose son was his +cupbearer. "Master, they load you with praises, but they believe that +you have a little too strong desire for wine." "Learn," said Cambyses +in anger, "whether the Persians speak the truth. If I strike in the +middle of the heart of your son who is standing in the vestibule, that +will show that the Persians do not know what they say." He drew his +bow and struck the son of Prexaspes. The youth fell; Cambyses had the +body opened to see where the shot had taken effect The arrow was found +in the middle of the heart. The prince, full of joy said in derision +to the father of the young man, "You see that it is the Persians who +are out of their senses; tell me if you have seen anybody strike the +mark with so great accuracy." "Master," replied Prexaspes, "I do not +believe that even a god could shoot so surely."[35] + +=Services Rendered by the Persians.=--The peoples of Asia have always +paid tribute to conquerors and given allegiance to despots. The +Persians, at least, rendered them a great service: in subjecting all +these peoples to one master they prevented them from fighting among +themselves. Under their domination we do not see a ceaseless burning +of cities, devastation of fields, massacre or wholesale enslavement of +inhabitants. It was a period of peace. + +=Susa and Persepolis.=--The kings of the Medes and Persians, following +the example of the lords of Assyria, had palaces built for them. Those +best known to us are the palaces at Susa and Persepolis. The ruins of +Susa have been excavated by a French engineer,[36] who has discovered +sculptures, capitals, and friezes in enameled bricks which give +evidence of an advanced stage of art. The palace of Persepolis has +left ruins of considerable mass. The rock of the hill had been +fashioned into an enormous platform on which the palace was built. The +approach to it was by a gently rising staircase so broad that ten +horsemen could ascend riding side by side. + +=Persian Architecture.=--Persian architects had copied the palaces of +the Assyrians. At Persepolis and Susa, as in Assyria, are flat-roofed +edifices with terraces, gates guarded by monsters carved in stone, +bas-reliefs and enameled bricks, representing hunting-scenes and +ceremonies. At three points, however, the Persians improved on their +models: + +(1) They used marble instead of brick; (2) they made in the halls +painted floors of wood; (3) they erected eight columns in the form of +trunks of trees, the slenderest that we know, twelve times as high as +they were thick. + +Thus their architecture is more elegant and lighter than that of +Assyria. + +The Persians had made little progress in the arts. But they seem to +have been the most honest, the sanest, and the bravest people of the +time. For two centuries they exercised in Asia a sovereignty the least +cruel and the least unjust that it had ever known. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] That is, of about the same area as that part of the United States +east of the Mississippi, with Minnesota and Iowa. Modern Persia is not +two-thirds of this area.--ED. + +[29] Most historians place Zoroaster before 1000 B.C.--ED. + +[30] "I created the dog," said Ormuzd, "with a delicate scent and strong +teeth, attached to man, biting the enemy to protect the herds. Thieves +and wolves come not near the sheep-fold when the dog is on guard, strong +in voice and defending the flocks." + +[31] Certain Persian heretics of our day, on the contrary, adore only +the evil god, for, they say, the principle of the good being in itself +good and indulgent does not require appeasing. They are called Yezidis +(worshippers of the devil). + +[32] Herod., i., 131. + +[33] i., 138. + +[34] Herodotus mentions 20, but we find as many as 31 enumerated in the +inscriptions. + +[35] Herod., iii., 34, 35. Compare also iii., 78, 79; and the book of +Esther. + +[36] M. Dieulafoi. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE PHOENICIANS + +THE PHOENICIAN PEOPLE + + +=The Land.=--Phoenicia is the narrow strip of country one hundred and +fifty miles long by twenty-four to thirty wide, shut in between the +sea of Syria and the high range of Lebanon. It is a succession of +narrow valleys and ravines confined by abrupt hills which descend +towards the sea; little torrents formed by the snows or rain-storms +course through these in the early spring; in summer no water remains +except in wells and cisterns. The mountains in this quarter were +always covered with trees; at the summit were the renowned cedars of +Lebanon, on the ridges, pines and cypresses; while lower yet palms +grew even to the sea-shore. In the valleys flourished the olive, the +vine, the fig, and the pomegranate. + +=The Cities.=--At intervals along the rocky coast promontories or +islands formed natural harbors. On these the Phoenicians had founded +their cities; Tyre and Arad were each built on a small island. The +people housed themselves in dwellings six to eight stories in height. +Fresh water was ferried over in ships. The other cities, Gebel, +Beirut, and Sidon arose on the mainland. The soil was inadequate to +support these swarms of men, and so the Phoenicians were before all +else seamen and traders. + +=Phoenician Ruins.=--Not a book of the Phoenicians has come down to us, +not even their sacred book. The sites of their cities have been +excavated. But, in the words of the scholar sent to do this work, +"Ruins are not preserved, especially in countries where people are not +occupied with them," and the Syrians are not much occupied with ruins. +They have violated the tombs to remove the jewels of the dead, have +demolished edifices to secure stone for building purposes, and +Mussulman hatred of chiseled figures has shattered the sculptures.[37] +Very little is found beyond broken marble, cisterns, wine-presses cut +in the rock and some sarcophagi hewn in rock. All this débris gives us +little information and we know very little more of the Phoenicians than +Greek writers and Jewish prophets have taught us. + +=Political Organization of the Phoenicians.=--The Phoenicians never +built an empire. Each city had its little independent territory, its +assemblies, its king, and its government. For general state business +each city sent delegates to Tyre, which from the thirteenth century +B.C. was the principal city of Phoenicia. The Phoenicians were not a +military people, and so submitted themselves to all the +conquerors--Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians. They +fulfilled all their obligations to them in paying tribute. + +=Tyre.=--From the thirteenth century Tyre was the most notable of the +cities. Its island becoming too small to contain it, a new city was +built on the coast opposite. Tyrian merchants had founded colonies in +every part of the Mediterranean, receiving silver from the mines of +Spain and commodities from the entire ancient world. The prophet +Isaiah[38] calls these traders princes; Ezekiel[39] describes the +caravans which came to them from all quarters. It is Hiram, a king of +Tyre, from whom Solomon asked workmen to build his palace and temple +at Jerusalem. + +=Carthage.=--A colony of Tyre surpassed even her in power. In the +ninth century some Tyrians, exiled by a revolution, founded on the +shore of Africa near Tunis the city of Carthage. A woman led them, +Elissar, whom we call Dido (the fugitive). The inhabitants of the +country, says the legend, were willing to sell her only as much land +as could be covered by a bull's hide; but she cut the hide in strips +so narrow that it enclosed a wide territory; and there she constructed +a citadel. Situated at the centre of the Mediterranean, provided with +two harbors, Carthage flourished, sent out colonies in turn, made +conquests, and at last came to reign over all the coasts of Africa, +Spain, and Sardinia. Everywhere she had agencies for her commerce and +subjects who paid her tribute. + +=The Carthaginian Army.=--To protect her colonies from the natives, to +hold her subjects in check who were always ready to revolt, a strong +army was necessary. But the life of a Carthaginian was too valuable to +risk it without necessity. Carthage preferred to pay mercenary +soldiers, recruiting them among the barbarians of her empire and among +the adventurers of all countries. Her army was a bizarre aggregation +in which all languages were spoken, all religions practised, and in +which every soldier wore different arms and costume. There were seen +Numidians clothed in lion skins which served them as couch, mounted +bareback on small fleet horses, and drawing the bow with horse at full +gallop; Libyans with black skins, armed with pikes; Iberians from +Spain in white garments adorned with red, armed with a long pointed +sword; Gauls, naked to the girdle, bearing enormous shields and a +rounded sword which they held in both hands; natives of the Balearic +Islands, trained from infancy to sling with stones or balls of lead. +The generals were Carthaginians; the government distrusted them, +watched them closely, and when they were defeated, had them crucified. + +=The Carthaginians.=--Carthage had two kings, but the senate was the +real power, being composed of the richest merchants of the city. And +so every state question for this government became a matter of +commerce. The Carthaginians were hated by all other peoples, who found +them cruel, greedy, and faithless. And yet, since they had a good +fleet, had money to purchase soldiers, and possessed an energetic +government, they succeeded in the midst of barbarous and divided +peoples in maintaining their empire over the western Mediterranean for +300 years (from the sixth to the third century B.C.). + +=The Phoenician Religion.=--The Phoenicians and the Carthaginians had a +religion similar to that of the Chaldeans. The male god, Baal, is a +sun-god; for the sun and the moon are in the eyes of the Phoenicians +the great forces which create and which destroy. Each of the cities of +Phoenicia has therefore its divine pair: at Sidon it is Baal Sidon (the +sun) and Astoreth (the moon); at Gebel, Baal Tammouz and Baaleth; at +Carthage, Baal-Hamon, and Tanith. But the same god changes his name +according as he is conceived as creator or destroyer; thus Baal as +destroyer is worshipped at Carthage under the name of Moloch. These +gods, represented by idols, have their temples, altars, and priests. +As creators they are honored with orgies, with tumultuous feasts; as +destroyers, by human victims. Astoreth, the great goddess of Sidon, +whom they represented by the crescent of the moon and the dove, had +her cult in the sacred woods. Baal Moloch is figured at Carthage as a +bronze colossus with arms extended and lowered. When they wished to +appease him they laid children in his hands who fell at once into a +pit of fire. During the siege of Carthage by Agathocles the principal +men of the city sacrificed to Moloch as many as two hundred of their +children. + +This sensual and sanguinary religion inspired other peoples with +horror, but they imitated it. The Jews sacrificed to Baal on the +mountains; the Greeks adored Astarte of Sidon under the name of +Aphrodite, and Baal Melkhart of Tyre under the name of Herakles. + + +PHOENICIAN COMMERCE + +=Phoenicians Occupations.=--Crowded into a small territory, the +Phoenicians gained their livelihood mainly from commerce. None of the +other peoples of the East--the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the +Assyrians, nor the barbarian tribes of the West (Spaniards, Gauls, +Italians) had a navy. The Phoenicians alone in this time dared to +navigate. They were the commission merchants of the old world; they +went to every people to buy their merchandise and sold them in +exchange the commodities of other countries. This traffic was by +caravan with the East, by sea with the West. + +=Caravans.=--On land the Phoenicians sent caravans in three directions: + + 1.--Towards Arabia, from which they brought gold, agate, and onyx, + incense and myrrh, and the perfumes of Arabia; pearls, spices, + ivory, ebony, ostrich plumes and apes from India. + + 2.--Towards Assyria, whence came cotton and linen cloths, asphalt, + precious stones, perfumery, and silk from China. + + 3.--Towards the Black Sea, where they went to receive horses, + slaves, and copper vases made by the mountaineers of the Caucasus. + +=Marine Commerce.=--For their sea commerce they built ships from the +cedars of Lebanon to be propelled by oars and sails. In their sailing +it was not necessary to remain always in sight of the coast, for they +knew how to direct their course by the polar star. Bold mariners, they +pushed in their little boats to the mouth of the Mediterranean; they +ventured even to pass through the strait of Gibraltar or, as the +ancients called it, the Pillars of Hercules, and took the ocean course +to the shores of England, and perhaps to Norway, Phoenicians in the +service of a king of Egypt started in the seventh century B.C. to +circumnavigate Africa, and returned, it is said, at the end of three +years by the Red Sea. An expedition issuing from Carthage skirted the +coast of Africa to the Gulf of Guinea; the commander Hanno wrote an +account of the voyage which is still preserved. + +=Commodities.=--To civilized peoples the Phoenicians sold the products +of their industry. In barbarous countries they went to search for what +they could not find in the Orient. On the coast of Greece they +gathered shell-fish from which they extracted a red tint, the purple; +cloths colored with purple were used among all the peoples of ancient +times for garments of kings and great lords. + +From Spain and Sardinia they brought the silver which the inhabitants +took from the mines. Tin was necessary to make bronze, an alloy of +copper and tin, but the Orient did not furnish this, and so they +sought it even on the coasts of England, in the Isles of Tin (the +Cassiterides). In every country they procured slaves. Sometimes they +bought them, as lately the slavers bought negroes on the coast of +Africa, for all the peoples of this time made commerce in slaves; +sometimes they swooped down on a coast, threw themselves on the women +and children and carried them off to be retained in their own cities +or to be sold abroad; for on occasion they were pirates and did not +scruple to plunder strangers. + +=The Secrets Kept by the Phoenicians.=--The Phoenicians did not care to +have mariners of other peoples come into competition with them. On the +return from these far countries they concealed the road which they had +travelled. No one in antiquity knew where were the famous Isles of the +Cassiterides from which they got their tin. It was by chance that a +Greek ship discovered Spain, with which the Phoenicians had traded for +centuries. Carthage drowned the foreign merchants whom they found in +Sardinia or on the shore of Gibraltar. Once a Carthaginian +merchantman, seeing a strange ship following it, was run aground by +the pilot that the foreigner might not see where he was going. + +=Colonies.=--In the countries where they traded, the Phoenicians +founded factories, or branch-houses. They were fortified posts on a +natural harbor. There they landed their merchandise, ordinarily +cloths, pottery, ornaments, and idols.[40] The natives brought down +their commodities and an exchange was made, just as now European +merchants do with the negroes of Africa. There were Phoenician markets +in Cyprus, in Egypt, and in all the then barbarous countries of the +Mediterranean--in Crete, Greece, Sicily, Africa, Malta, Sardinia, on +the coasts of Spain at Malaga and Cadiz, and perhaps in Gaul at +Monaco. Often around these Phoenician buildings the natives set up +their cabins and the mart became a city. The inhabitants adopted the +Phoenician gods, and even after the city had become Greek, the cult of +the dove-goddess was found there (as in Cythera), that of the god +Melkhart (as at Corinth), or of the god with the bull-face that +devours human victims (as in Crete). + +=Influence of the Phoenicians.=--It is certain that the Phoenicians in +founding their trading stations cared only for their own interest. But +it came to pass that their colonies contributed to civilization. The +barbarians of the West received the cloths, the jewels, the utensils +of the peoples of the East who were more civilized, and, receiving +them, learned to imitate them. For a long time the Greeks had only +vases, jewels, and idols brought by the Phoenicians, and these served +them as models. The Phoenicians brought simultaneously from Egypt and +from Assyria industry and commodities. + +=The Alphabet.=--At the same time they exported their alphabet. The +Phoenicians did not invent writing. The Egyptians knew how to write many +centuries before them, they even made use of letters each of which +expressed its own sound, as in our alphabet. But their alphabet was +still encumbered with ancient signs which represented, some a syllable, +others an entire word. Doubtless the Phoenicians had need of a simpler +system for their books of commerce. They rejected all the syllabic signs +and ideographs, preserving only twenty-two letters, each of which marks +a sound (or rather an articulation of the language). The other peoples +imitated this alphabet of twenty-two letters. Some, like the Jews, wrote +from right to left just as the Phoenicians themselves did; others, like +the Greeks, from left to right. All have slightly changed the form of +the letters, but the Phoenician alphabet is found at the basis of all +the alphabets--Hebrew, Lycian, Greek, Italian, Etruscan, Iberian, +perhaps even in the runes of the Norse. It is the Phoenicians that taught +the world how to write. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] Renan ("Mission de Phénicio," p. 818) says, "I noticed at Tripolis +a sarcophagus serving as a public fountain and the sculptured face of it +was turned to the wall. I was told that a governor had placed it thus so +as not to provide distractions for the inhabitants." + +[38] See ch. xxiii. + +[39] See chs. xxvi., xxvii., xxviii. + +[40] These idols, one of their principal exports, are found wherever the +Phoenicians traded. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HEBREWS + +ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE + + +=The Bible.=--The Jews united all their sacred books into a single +aggregation which we call by a Greek name the Bible, that is to say, +the Book. It is the Book par excellence. The sacred book of the Jews +became also the sacred book of the Christians. The Bible is at the +same time the history of the Jewish nation, and all that we know of +the sacred people we owe to the sacred books. + +=The Hebrews.=--When the Semites had descended from the mountains of +Armenia into the plains of the Euphrates, one of their tribes, at the +time of the first Chaldean empire, withdrew to the west, crossed the +Euphrates, the desert, and Syria and came to the country of the Jordan +beyond Phoenicia. This tribe was called the Hebrews, that is to say, +the people from beyond the river. Like the majority of the Semites +they were a race of nomadic shepherds. They did not till the soil and +had no houses; they moved from place to place with their herds of +cattle, sheep, and camels, seeking pasturage and living in tents as +the Arabs of the desert do to this day. In the book of Genesis one has +a glimpse of this nomad life. + +=The Patriarchs.=--The tribe was like a great family; it was composed +of the chief, his wives, his children, and his servants. The chief had +absolute authority over all; for the tribe he was father, priest, +judge, and king. We call these tribal chiefs patriarchs. The principal +ones were Abraham and Jacob; the former the father of the Hebrews, the +latter of the Israelites. The Bible represents both of them as +designed by God to be the scions of a sacred people. Abraham made a +covenant with God that he and his descendants would obey him; God +promised to Abraham a posterity more numerous than the stars of +heaven. Jacob received from God the assurance that a great nation +should issue from himself. + +=The Israelites.=--Moved by a vision Jacob took the name of Israel +(contender with God). His tribe was called Beni-Israel (sons of +Israel) or Israelites. The Bible records that, driven by famine, Jacob +abandoned the Jordan country to settle with all his house on the +eastern frontier of Egypt, to which Joseph, one of his sons who had +become minister of a Pharaoh, invited him. There the sons of Israel +abode for several centuries. Coming hither but seventy in number, they +multiplied, according to the Bible, until they became six hundred +thousand men, without counting women and children. + +=The Call of Moses.=--The king of Egypt began to oppress them, +compelling them to make mortar and bricks for the construction of his +strong cities. It was then that one of them, Moses, received from God +the mission to deliver them. One day while he was keeping his herds on +the mountain, an angel appeared to him in the midst of a burning +bush, and he heard these words: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of +Isaac, the God of Jacob. I have seen the affliction of my people which +is in Egypt, I have heard their cry against their oppressors, I know +their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of +the Egyptians and to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey, +to the place of the Canaanites.... Come now therefore and I will send +thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children +of Israel, out of Egypt."[41] The Israelites under the guidance of +Moses fled from Egypt (the Exodus); they journeyed to the foot of +Mount Sinai, where they received the law of God, and for an entire +generation wandered in the deserts to the south of Syria. + +=Israel in the Desert.=--Often the Israelites wished to turn back. "We +remember," said they, "the fish which we ate in Egypt, the cucumbers, +melons, leeks, and onions. Let us appoint a chief who will lead us +back to Egypt." Moses, however, held them to obedience. At last they +reached the land promised by God to their race. + +=The Promised Land.=--It was called the land of Canaan or Palestine; +the Jews named it the land of Israel, later Judea. Christians have +termed it =the= Holy Land. It is an arid country, burning with heat in +the summer, but a country of mountains. The Bible describes it thus: +"Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of +water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a +land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and +pomegranates; a land of oil olive and honey, wherein thou shalt eat +bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it." The +Israelites according to their estimate were then 601,700 men capable +of bearing arms, divided among twelve tribes, ten descended from +Jacob, two from Joseph; this enumeration does not include the Levites +or priests to the number of 23,000. The land was occupied by several +small peoples who were called Canaanites. The Israelites exterminated +them and at last occupied their territory. + + +THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL + +=One God.=--The other ancient peoples adored many gods; the Israelites +believed in but one God, immaterial, who made the world and governs +it. "In the beginning," says the book of Genesis, "God created the +heavens and the earth." He created plants and animals, he "created man +in his own image." All men are the handiwork of God. + +=The People of God.=--But among all mankind God has chosen the +children of Israel to make of them "his people." He called Abraham and +said to him, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy +seed after me ... to be a God unto thee and to thy seed." He appeared +to Jacob: "I am God," said he to him, "the God of thy father; fear not +to go down into Egypt, for I will make of thee there a great nation." +When Moses asks his name, he replies, "Thou shalt say to the children +of Israel, The Lord, the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the +God of Isaac, the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you. This is my name +forever." + +=The Covenant.=--There is, then, a covenant between the Israelites and +God. Jehovah (the Eternal) loves and protects the Israelites, they are +"a holy nation," "his most precious jewel among all the nations." He +promises to make them mighty and happy. In return, the Israelites +swear to worship him, to serve him, to obey him in everything as a +lawgiver, a judge, and a sovereign. + +=The Ten Commandments.=--Jehovah, lawgiver of the Israelites, dictated +his precepts to Moses on Mount Sinai amidst lightnings and +thunderings. They were inscribed on two tables, the Tables of the Law, +in these terms: + +"Hear, O Israel, I am Jehovah, thy God, who brought you out of the +land of Egypt, from the land of bondage." (Then follow the ten +commandments to be found in the twentieth chapter of the book of +Exodus.) + +=The Law.=--Beside the ten commandments, the Israelites are required +to obey many other divine ordinances. These are all delivered to them +in the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and constitute +the Law of Israel. The Law regulates the ceremonies of religion, +establishes the feasts--including the Sabbath every seven days, the +Passover in memory of the escape from Egypt, the week of harvest, the +feast of Tabernacles during the vintage; it organizes marriage, the +family, property, government, fixes the penalty of crimes, indicates +even foods and remedies. It is a code at once religious, political, +civil and penal. God the ruler of the Israelites has the right to +regulate all the details of their lives. + +=Religion has made the Jewish People.=--The Israelites did not receive +with docility the government of God. Moses on his death-bed could say +to the Levites in delivering to them the book of the law, "Take this +book that it may be a witness against you, Israel, for I know thy +rebellion and thy stiff neck" (Deut. xxxi. 27). "During my life you +have been rebellious against the Lord, and how much more after my +death." During these centuries some of the Israelites, often the +majority of the nation, had been idolaters. They became similar to the +other Semites of Syria. Only the Israelites who remained faithful to +God formed the Jewish people. It is the religion of Jehovah which has +transformed an obscure tribe into the holy nation, a small nation, but +one of the most significant in the history of the world. + + +THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL + +=The Judges.=--Once established in Palestine the Hebrews remained +divided for several centuries. "In those days," says the Bible, "there +was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own +eyes." Often the Israelites forgot Jehovah and served the gods of +neighboring tribes. Then "the anger of the Lord was kindled against +the Israelites, and he delivered them into the hands of their +enemies." When they had repented and had humbled themselves, "the Lord +raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those that +spoiled them." "But it came to pass that at the death of the judge +they corrupted themselves anew ... bowing themselves to other gods." +These judges--Gideon, Jephthah, Samson--were warriors who came in the +name of Jehovah to free the people. Then they fell at once into +idolatry again and their servitude was repeated. + +=The Kings.=--At last the Israelites were wearied and asked of Samuel, +the high-priest, that he would give them a king. Samuel unwillingly +placed Saul at their head. This king should have been the ready +servant of the will of God; he dared to disobey him, upon which the +high-priest said to him, "Thou hast rejected the word of the Lord and +the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel." A war-chief, +David, was set in his place. He defeated all the enemies of Israel, +captured from them Mount Zion, and transferred his capital thither. +This was Jerusalem. + +=Jerusalem.=--Compared with Babylon or Thebes, Jerusalem was a poor +capital. The Hebrews were not builders; their religion prevented them +from raising temples; the houses of individuals were shaped like cubes +of rock which may be seen today on the sides of Lebanon in the midst +of vines and fig-trees. But Jerusalem was the holy city of the +Hebrews. The king had his palace there--the palace of Solomon, who +astonished the Hebrews with his throne of ivory; Jehovah had his +temple there, the first Hebrew temple. + +=The Tabernacle.=--The emblem of the covenant between God and Israel +was a great chest of cedar-wood furnished with rings of gold, which +contained the tables of the Law. This was borne before the people on +high feast-days; it was the Ark of the Covenant. To preserve this ark +and necessary objects of worship, Moses is said to have made the +Tabernacle--a pavilion of wood covered with skins and hangings. It was +a portable temple which the Hebrews carried with them until they could +erect a true temple in the promised land. + +=The Temple.=--The Temple of Jerusalem, built at last under Solomon, +was divided into three parts: + + 1.--To the rear, the Holy of Holies, in which rested the ark of + the covenant; the high-priest only had the right to enter here, + and that but once a year. + + 2.--In the middle, the Holy Place, in which were kept the altar of + incense, the candle-stick with the seven arms, the table of + shew-bread; the priests entered to burn incense and to present the + offerings. + + 3.--At the front, the Court open to the people, where the victims + were sacrificed on the great altar. + +The Temple of Jerusalem was from the first the centre of the nation; +from all Palestine the people came to be present at the ceremonies. +The high-priest who directed the worship was a person sometimes of +greater power than the king. + + +THE PROPHETS + +=Disasters of Israel.=--Solomon was the last king who enjoyed great +power. After him ten tribes separated themselves and constituted the +kingdom of Israel, whose inhabitants worshipped the golden calves and +the gods of the Phoenicians. Two tribes only remained faithful to +Jehovah and to the king at Jerusalem; these formed the kingdom of +Judah (977).[42] The two kingdoms exhausted their energies in making +war on each other. Then came the armies of the Eastern conquerors; +Israel was destroyed by Sargon, king of Assyria (722); Judah, by +Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadrezzar), king of Chaldea (586). + +=Sentiments of the Israelites.=--Faithful Israelites regarded these +woes as a chastisement: God was punishing his people for their +disobedience; as before, he delivered them from their conquerors. "The +children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah, their God, they had +built them high places in every city, they imitated the nations around +them, although the Lord had forbidden them to do like them; they made +them idols of brass; they bowed themselves before all the host of +heaven [the stars], they worshipped Baal. It is for this that Jehovah +rejected all the race of Israel, he afflicted them and delivered them +into the hands of those that plundered them." + +=The Prophets.=--Then appeared the prophets, or as they were called, +the Seers: Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. Usually they came from +the desert where they had fasted, prayed, and given themselves to +meditation. They came in the name of Jehovah, not as warriors in +judgment, but as preachers. They called the Israelites to repent, to +overthrow their idols, to return to Jehovah; they foretold all the +woes that would come upon them if they did not reconcile themselves to +him. They preached and uttered prophecies at the same time. + +=The New Teaching.=--These men on fire with the divine spirit found +the official religion at Jerusalem mean and cold. Why should they, +like the idolaters, slaughter cattle and burn incense to the honor of +God? "Hear the word of Jehovah," says Isaiah: "To what purpose is the +multitude of your sacrifices? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams +and of the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of +bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.... Bring no more vain +oblations, your incense is an abomination to me.... When ye spread +forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you ... for your hands +are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean ... cease to do evil, +learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the +fatherless, plead for the widow.... Though your sins be as scarlet, +they shall be as white as snow." In place of sacrifices, the prophets +would set justice and good works. + +=The Messiah.=--Israel deserved its afflictions, but there would be a +limit to the chastisement. "O my people," says Isaiah in the name of +Jehovah, "be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a +rod ... after the manner of Egypt ... for yet a very little while and +the indignation shall cease ... and the burden shall be taken away +from off thy shoulder." The prophets taught the people to look for the +coming of Him who should deliver them; they prepared the way for the +Messiah. + + +THE JEWISH PEOPLE + +=Return to Jerusalem.=--The children of Judah, removed to the plain of +the Euphrates, did not forget their country, but sang of it in their +chants: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept +when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the +midst thereof, for there they that carried us away required a song ... +saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' How shall we sing the +Lord's song in a strange land?" After seventy years of captivity, +Cyrus, victor over Babylon, allowed the Israelites to return to +Palestine. They rebuilt Jerusalem, reconstructed the temple, restored +the feasts, and recovered the sacred books. As a sign that they were +again the people of Jehovah they renewed the covenant with him; it was +a formal treaty, written and signed by the chiefs of the people. + +=The Jews.=--The little kingdom of Jerusalem maintained itself for +seven centuries, governed now by a king, now by the high-priest, but +always paying tribute to the masters of Syria--to the Persians first, +later to the Macedonians and the Syrians, and last of all to the +Romans. Faithful to the end to Jehovah, the Jews (their proper name +since the return) continued to live the law of Moses, to celebrate at +Jerusalem the feasts and the sacrifices. The high-priest, assisted by +a council of the elders, preserved the law; scribes copied it and +doctors expounded it to the people. The faithful obliged themselves to +observe it in the smallest details. The Pharisees were eminent among +them for their zeal in fulfilling all its requirements. + +=The Synagogues.=--Meanwhile the Jews for the sake of trade were +pushing beyond the borders of Judæa into Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and +even to Italy. Some of them were to be found in all the great +cities--Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome. +Dispersed among the Gentiles, the Jews were strenuous to preserve +their religion. They raised no temples, for the law prevented this; +there could be but one Jewish temple, that at Jerusalem, where they +celebrated the solemn feasts. But they joined themselves together to +read and comment on the word of God. These places of assembling were +called Synagogues, from a Greek word signifying meetings. + +=Destruction of the Temple.=--The Christ appeared at this moment. The +Jews crucified him and persecuted his disciples not only in Judæa but +in every city where they found them in any number. In the year 70 A.D. +Jerusalem, in revolt against the Romans, was taken by assault, and all +the inhabitants were massacred or sold into slavery. The Romans burnt +the temple and carried away the sacred utensils. From that time there +was no longer a centre of the Jewish religion. + +=Fortunes of the Jews after the Dispersion.=--The Jewish nation +survived the ruin of its capital. The Jews, scattered throughout the +world, learned to dispense with the temple. They preserved their +sacred books in the Hebrew tongue. Hebrew is the primitive language of +Israel; the Jews since the return from Babylon no longer spoke it, but +adopted the languages of the neighboring peoples--the Syriac, the +Chaldean, and especially the Greek. The Rabbis, however, instructed in +the religion, still learned the Hebrew, explained it, and commented on +the Scripture.[43] Thus the Jewish religion was preserved, and, +thanks to it, the Jewish people. It made converts even among the +Gentiles; there were in the empire proselytes, that is, people who +practised the religion of Jehovah without being of the Jewish race. + +The Christian Church, powerful since the fourth century, commenced to +persecute the Jews. This persecution has endured to this day in all +Christian countries. Usually the Jews were tolerated on account of +their wealth and because they transacted all banking operations; but +they were kept apart, not being permitted to hold any office. In the +majority of cities they were compelled to wear a special costume, to +live in a special quarter,[44] gloomy, filthy, unhealthy, and +sometimes at Easter time to send one of their number to suffer insult. +The people suspected them of poisoning fountains, of killing children, +of profaning the consecrated host; often the people rose against them, +massacred them, and pillaged their houses. Judges under the least +pretext had them imprisoned, tortured, and burned. Sometimes the +church tried to convert them by force; sometimes the government exiled +them _en masse_ from the country and confiscated their goods. The Jews +at last disappeared from France,[45] from Spain, England, and Italy. +In Portugal, Germany, and Poland, and in the Mohammedan lands they +maintained themselves. From these countries after the cessation of +persecution they returned to the rest of Europe. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[41] Exodus iii, 1-10. + +[42] There is much uncertainty regarding the chronology of this +period.--ED. + +[43] The Talmud is the accumulation of these commentaries. + +[44] The Jewish Quarter at Rome was called the Ghetto. This name has +since been applied to all Jewish quarters. + +[45] Except at Avignon, on the domains of the Pope, and in +Alsace-Lorraine. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +GREECE AND THE GREEKS + + +=The Country.=--Greece is a very little country (about 20,000 square +miles), hardly larger than Switzerland; but it is a country of great +variety, bristling with mountains, indented with gulfs--a country +originally constituted to influence mightily the character of the men +who inhabited it. + +A central chain, the Pindus, traverses Greece through the centre and +covers it with its rocky system. Toward the isthmus of Corinth it +becomes lower; but the Peloponnesus, on the other side of the isthmus, +is elevated about 2,000 feet above the sea level, like a citadel +crowned with lofty chains, abrupt and snowy, which fall +perpendicularly into the sea. The islands themselves scattered along +the coast are only submerged mountains whose summits rise above the +surface of the sea. In this diverse land there is little tillable +ground, but almost everywhere bare rock. The streams, like brooks, +leave between their half-dried channel and the sterile rock of the +mountain only a narrow strip of fertile soil. In this beautiful +country are found some forests, cypresses, laurels, palms, here and +there vines scattered on the rocky hillsides; but there are no rich +harvests and no green pasturages. Such a country produces wiry +mountaineers, active and sober. + +=The Sea.=--Greece is a land of shores: smaller than Portugal, it has +as great a coast-line as Spain. The sea penetrates it to a great +number of gulfs, coves, and indentations; it is ordinarily surrounded +with projecting rocks, or with approaching islands that form a natural +port. This sea is like a lake; it has not, like the ocean, a pale and +sombre color; usually it is calm, lustrous, and, as Homer says, "of +the color of violets." + +No sea lends itself better to navigation with small ships. Every +morning the north wind rises to conduct the barques of Athens to Asia; +in the evening the south wind brings them back to port. From Greece to +Asia Minor the islands are placed like stepping-stones; on a clear day +the mariner always has land in view. Such a sea beckons people to +cross it. + +And so the Greeks have been sailors, traders, travellers, pirates, and +adventurers; like the Phoenicians, they have spread over all the +ancient world, carrying with them the merchandise and the inventions +of Egypt, of Chaldea, and of Asia. + +=The Climate.=--The climate of Greece is mild. In Athens it freezes +hardly once in twenty years; in summer the heat is moderated by the +breeze from the sea.[46] Today the people still lie in the streets +from the month of May to September. The air is cool and transparent; +for many leagues could once be seen the crest of the statue of Pallas. +The contours of distant mountains are not, as with us, enveloped in +haze, but show a clear line against the clear sky. It is a beautiful +country which urges man to take life as a feast, for everything is +happy about him. "Walking at night in the gardens, listening to the +grasshoppers, playing the lute in the clear of the moon, going to +drink at the spring at the mountain, carrying with him some wine that +he may drink while he sings, spending the days in dancing--these are +Greek pleasures, the joys of a race poor, economical, and eternally +young." + +=Simplicity of Greek Life.=--In this country men are not melted with +the heat nor stiffened with cold; they live in the open air gay and at +slight expense. Food in great quantity is not required, nor warm +clothing, nor a comfortable house. The Greek could live on a handful +of olives and a sardine. His entire clothing consisted of sandals, a +tunic, a large mantle; very often he went bare-footed and bare-headed. +His house was a meagre and unsubstantial building; the air easily +entered through the walls. A couch with some coverings, a coffer, some +beautiful vases, a lamp,--this was his furniture. The walls were bare +and whitened with lime. This house was only a sleeping place. + + +THE PEOPLE + +=Origin of the Greeks.=--The people who inhabited this charming little +land were an Aryan people, related to the Hindoos and the Persians, +and like them come from the mountains of Asia or the steppes beyond +the Caspian Sea. The Greeks had forgotten the long journey made by +their ancestors; they said that they, like the grasshoppers, were the +children of the soil.[47] But their language and the names of their +gods leave no doubt of their origin.... Like all the Aryans, the +primitive Greeks nourished themselves with milk and with the flesh of +their herds; they moved about under arms, always ready to fight, and +grouped themselves in tribes governed by patriarchs. + +=The Legends.=--The Greeks like all the other ancient peoples were +ignorant of their origin. They neither knew whence their ancestors had +come nor when they had established themselves in Greece, nor what they +had done there. To preserve the exact memory of things as they occur, +there is need of some means of fixing them; but the Greeks did not +know how to write; they did not employ writing until about the eighth +century B.C. They had no way of calculating the number of years. Later +they adopted the usage of counting the years according to the great +feast which was celebrated every four years at Olympia; a period of +four years was called an olympiad. But the first olympiad was placed +in 776 B.C., and the chronology of the Greeks does not rise beyond +this date. + +And yet they used to tell in Greece a great number of legends about +this primitive period. These were especially the exploits of ancient +kings and of heroes who were adored as demi-gods. These stories were +so mingled with fable that it is impossible to know how much truth +they may contain. They said at Athens that the first king, Cecrops, +was half man and half serpent; at Thebes, that Cadmus, founder of the +city, had come from Phoenicia to seek his sister Europa who had been +stolen by a bull; that he had killed a dragon and had sowed his teeth, +from which was sprung a race of warriors, and that the noble families +of Thebes descended from these warriors. At Argos it was said that the +royal family was the issue of Pelops to whom Zeus had given a shoulder +of ivory to replace the one devoured by a goddess. Thus each country +had its legends and the Greeks continued to the end to relate them and +to offer worship to their ancient heroes--Perseus, Bellerophon, +Herakles, Theseus, Minos, Castor and Pollux, Meleager, OEdipus. The +majority of the Greeks, even among the better educated, admitted, at +least in part, the truth of these traditions. They accepted as +historical facts the war between the two sons of OEdipus, king of +Thebes, and the expedition of the Argonauts, sailing forth in quest of +the Golden Fleece, which was guarded by two brazen-footed bulls +vomiting flames. + +=The Trojan War.=--Of all these legends the most fully developed and +the most celebrated was the legend of the Trojan War. It recounted +that about the twelfth century, Troy, a rich and powerful city, held +sway over the coast of Asia. Paris, a Trojan prince, having come to +Greece, had abducted Helen, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. +Agamemnon, king of Argos, made a league of the kings of Greece; a +Greek army went in a fleet of two hundred galleys to besiege Troy. The +siege endured ten years because the supreme god, Zeus, had taken the +side of the Trojans. All the Greek chiefs participated in this +adventure. Achilles, the bravest and the most beautiful of these, +killed Hector, the principal defender of Troy, and dragged his corpse +around the city; he fought clad in divine armor which had been +presented him by his mother, a goddess of the sea; in turn he died, +shot by an arrow in the heel. The Greeks, despairing of taking the +city by force, employed a trick: they pretended to depart, and left an +immense horse of wood in which were concealed the chiefs of the army. +The Trojans drew this horse into the city; during the night the chiefs +came forth and opened the city to the Greeks. Troy was burnt, the men +slaughtered, the women led away as slaves. But the chiefs of the +Greeks on their return were beset by tempest. Some perished in the +sea, others were cast on foreign shores. Odysseus, the most crafty of +the chiefs, was for ten years buffeted from one land to another, +losing successively all his ships, himself the sole survivor of the +disasters. + +All antiquity had steadfast faith in the Trojan War. 1184 B.C. was set +as the date of the ending of the siege, and men pointed out the site +of the city. In 1874 Schliemann purposed to excavate this site; it was +necessary to traverse the débris of many cities which lay over it; at +last at a depth of about fifty feet he found in the deepest bed of +débris the traces of a mighty city reduced to ashes, and in the ruins +of the principal edifice a casket filled with gems of gold which he +called the Treasury of Priam. There was no inscription, and the city, +the whole wall of which we have been able to bring to light, was a +very small one. A large number of small, very rude idols have been +found, which represent an owl-headed goddess (the Greeks thus +represented the goddess Pallas). Beyond this no proof has been found +that this city was called Troy. + +=The Homeric Poems.=--It is the two poems attributed to Homer which +have made the taking of Troy renowned throughout the world--the +Iliad, which related the combats of the Greeks and the exploits of +Achilles before Troy; and the Odyssey, which recounts the adventures +of Odysseus (Ulysses) after the capture of Troy. + +These two poems were handed down for centuries without being committed +to writing; the rhapsodists, wandering singers, knew long passages +from them by heart and recited them at feasts. It is not till the +sixth century that Pisistratus, a prince of Athens, had them collected +and edited.[48] The two poems became from that time and always +remained the most admired works of Greek literature. + +The Greeks said that the author of these poems was Homer, a Greek of +Ionia, who lived about the tenth or the ninth century B.C. They +represented him as a blind old man, poor and a wanderer. Seven towns +disputed the honor of being his birth-place. This tradition was +received without hesitation. But at the end of the eighteenth century +a German scholar, Wolf, noticed certain contradictions in these poems, +and at last asserted that they were not the work of a single poet, but +a collection of fragments from several different poets. This theory +has been attacked and supported with great energy: for a half century +men have flown into a passion for or against the existence of Homer. +Today we begin to think the problem insoluble. What is certain is that +these poems are very old, probably of the ninth century. The Iliad was +composed in Asia Minor and is perhaps the result of the union of two +poems--one dedicated to the combats of the Trojans, and the other to +the adventures of Achilles. The Odyssey appears to be the work of one +author; but it cannot be affirmed that it is of the same author as the +Iliad. + +=The Greeks at the Time of Homer.=--We are not able to go back very +far in the history of the Greeks; the Homeric poems are their oldest +historical document. When these were composed, about the ninth century +B.C., there was not yet any general name to designate all the +inhabitants of Greece: Homer mentions them under the names of their +principal tribes. From his description it appears that they have made +some progress since their departure from Asia. They know how to till +the ground, how to construct strong cities and to organize themselves +into little peoples. They obey kings; they have a council of old men +and an assembly of the people. They are proud of their institutions, +they despise their less advanced neighbors, the Barbarians, as they +call them. Odysseus, to show how rude the Cyclops were, says, "They +have no rules of justice nor places where they deliberate; each one +governs himself, his wife, and children, and has no association with +others." But these Greeks themselves are half barbarians; they do not +know how to write, to coin money, nor the art of working in iron. They +hardly dare to trust themselves on the sea and they imagine that +Sicily is peopled with monsters. + +=The Dorians.=--Dorians was the name given to those sons of the +mountaineers who had come from the north and had expelled or subjected +those dwelling in the plains and on the shore of the Peloponnesus; +the latter, crowded into too narrow limits, sent colonies into Asia. +Of these mountain bands the most renowned came from a little canton +called Doris and preserved the name Dorians. These invaders told how +certain kings of Sparta, the posterity of Herakles, having been thrust +out by their subjects, had come to seek the Dorians in their +mountains. These people of the mountains, moved by their love for +Herakles, had followed his descendants and had replaced them on their +throne. By the same stroke they dispossessed the inhabitants and took +their place. They were a martial, robust, and healthy race, accustomed +to cold, to meagre food, to a scant existence. Men and women wore a +short tunic which did not reach to the knee. They spoke a rude and +primitive dialect. The Dorians were a race of soldiers, always obliged +to keep themselves under arms; they were the least cultivated in +Greece, since, situated far from the sea, they preserved the customs +of the barbarous age; they were the most Greek because, being +isolated, they could neither mingle with strangers nor imitate their +manners. + +=The Ionians.=--The peoples of Attica, the isles, and the coast of +Asia were called Ionians; no one knows the origin of the name. Unlike +the Dorians, they were a race of sailors or traders, the most cultured +of Greece, gaining instruction from contact with the most civilized +peoples of the Orient; the least Greek, because they associated with +Asiatics and had in part adopted their dress. They were peaceful and +industrious, living luxuriously, speaking a smooth dialect, and +wearing long flowing garments like the Orientals. + +=The Hellenes.=--Dorians and Ionians--these are the two opposing +races, the most remarkable of Greece, and the most powerful: Sparta is +Dorian, Athens is Ionian. But the majority of the Greeks are neither +Dorians nor Ionians: they are called Æolians, a vague name which +covers very different peoples. + +All the Greeks from early times take the name "Hellenes" which they +have kept to this day. What is the origin of the term? They did not +know any more than we: they said only that Dorus and Æolus were sons +of Hellen, and Ion was his grandson. + +=Cities.=--The Hellenes were still in little peoples as at the time of +Homer. The land of Greece, cut by mountains and sea, breaks naturally +into a large number of small cantons, each isolated from its neighbor +by an arm of the sea or by a wall of rocks, so that it is easy to +defend the land and difficult to communicate with other parts. Each +canton constituted a separate state which was called a city. There +were more than a hundred of these; counting the colonies, more than a +thousand. To us a Greek state seems a miniature. The whole of Attica +was but little larger than the state of Delaware, and Corinth or +Megara was much smaller. Usually the state was only a city with a +strip of shore and a harbor, or some villages scattered in the plain +around a citadel. From one state one sees the citadel, mountains, or +harbor of the next state. Many of them count their citizens only by +thousands; the largest included hardly 200,000 or 300,000. + +The Hellenes never formed one nation; they never ceased to fight and +destroy one another. And yet all spoke the same language, worshipped +the same gods, and lived the same sort of a life. In these respects +they recognized the bonds of a common race and distinguished +themselves from all other peoples whom they called barbarians and +regarded with disdain. + + +THE HELLENES BEYOND SEA + +=Colonization.=--The Hellenes did not inhabit Greece alone. Colonists +from the Greek cities had gone forth to found new cities in all the +neighboring countries. There were little states in all the islands of +the Archipelago, over all the coast of Asia Minor, in Crete and +Cyprus, on the whole circumference of the Black Sea as far as the +Caucasus and the Crimea, along the shore of Turkey in Europe (then +called Thrace), on the shore of Africa, in Sicily, in south Italy, and +even on the coasts of France and Spain. + +=Character of These Colonies.=--Greek colonies were being founded all +the time from the twelfth century to the fifth; they issued from +various cities and represented all the Greek races--Dorian, Ionian, +and Æolian. They were established in the wilderness, in an inhabited +land, by conquest, or by an agreement with the natives. Mariners, +merchants, exiles, or adventurers were their founders. But with all +this diversity of time, place, race, and origin, the colonies had +common characteristics: they were established at one stroke and +according to certain fixed rules. The colonists did not arrive one by +one or in small bands; nor did they settle at random, building houses +which little by little became a city, as is the case now with European +colonists in America. All the colonists started at once under a +leader, and the new city was founded in one day. The foundation was a +religious ceremony; the "founder" traced a sacred enclosure, +constructed a sacred hearth, and lighted there the holy fire. + +=Traditions Concerning the Colonists.=--The old stories about the +founding of some of these colonies enable us to see how they differed +from modern colonies. The account of the settlement of Marseilles runs +as follows: Euxenus, a citizen of Phocæa, coming to Gaul in a merchant +galley, was invited by a Gallic chief to the marriage of his daughter; +according to the custom of this people, the young girl about the time +of the feast entered bearing a cup which she was to present to the one +whom she would choose for a husband; she stopped before the Greek and +offered him the cup. This unpremeditated act appeared to have been +inspired from heaven; the Gallic chief gave his daughter to Euxenus +and permitted him and his companions to found a city on the gulf of +Marseilles. Later the Phocæans, seeing their city blockaded by the +Persian army, loaded on their ships their families, their movables, +the statues and treasures of their temple and went to sea, abandoning +their city. As they started, they threw into the sea a mass of red-hot +iron and swore never to return to Phocæa until the iron should rise to +the surface of the water. Many violated this oath and returned; but +the rest continued the voyage and after many adventures came to +Marseilles. + +At Miletus the Ionians who founded the city had brought no wives with +them; they seized a city inhabited by the natives of Asia, slaughtered +all the men, and forcibly married the women and girls of the families +of their victims. It was said that the women, affronted in this +manner, swore never to eat food with their captors and never to call +them by the name of husband; this custom was for centuries preserved +among the women of Miletus.[49] + +The colony at Cyrene in Africa was founded according to the express +command of the oracle of Apollo. The inhabitants of Thera, who had +received this order, did not care to go to an unknown country. They +yielded only at the end of seven years since their island was +afflicted with dearth; they believed that Apollo had sent misfortune +on them as a penalty. Nevertheless the citizens who were sent out +attempted to abandon the enterprise, but their fellow-citizens +attacked them and forced them to return. After having spent two years +on an island where no success came to them, they at last came to +settle at Cyrene, which soon became a prosperous city.[50] + +=Importance of the Colonies.=--Wherever they settled, the colonists +constituted a new state which in no respect obeyed the mother town +from which they had come out. And so the whole Mediterranean found +itself surrounded by Greek cities independent one of the others. Of +these cities many became richer and more powerful than their mother +towns; they had a territory which was larger and more fertile, and in +consequence a greater population. Sybaris, it was said, had 300,000 +men who were capable of bearing arms. Croton could place in the field +an infantry force of 120,000 men. Syracuse in Sicily, Miletus in Asia +had greater armies than even Sparta and Athens. South Italy was termed +Great Greece. In comparison with this great country fully peopled with +Greek colonies the home country was, in fact, only a little Greece. +And so it happened that the Greeks were much more numerous in the +neighboring countries than in Greece proper; and among these people of +the colonies figure a good share of the most celebrated names: Homer, +Alcæus, Sappho, Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus, +Empedocles, Aristotle, Archimedes, Theocritus, and many others. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[46] "Balmy and clement," says Euripides, "is our atmosphere. The cold +of winter has no extremes for us, and the shafts of the sun do not +wound." + +[47] Autochthones. + +[48] The story of the collection of the Homeric poems by Pisistratus is +without foundation--"eine blosse Fabel." Busolt, "Griechische +Geschichte." Gotha, 1893, i., 127.--ED. + +[49] Probably this custom has another origin the recollection of which +was lost.--ED. + +[50] Herodotus, iv., 150-158. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GREEK RELIGION + + +=The Gods. Polytheism.=--The Greeks, like the ancient Aryans, believed +in many gods. They had neither the sentiment of infinity nor that of +eternity; they did not conceive of God as one for whom the heavens are +only a tent and the earth a foot-stool. To the Greeks every force of +nature--the air, the sun, the sea--was divine, and as they did not +conceive of all these phenomena as produced by one cause, they +assigned each to a particular god. This is the reason that they +believed in many gods. They were polytheists. + +=Anthropomorphism.=--Each god was a force in nature and carried a +distinct name. The Greeks, having a lively imagination, figured under +this name a living being, of beautiful form and human characteristics. +A god or goddess was represented as a beautiful man or woman. When +Odysseus or Telemachus met a person peculiarly great and beautiful, +they began by asking him if he were not a god. Homer in describing the +army pictured on the shield of Achilles adds, "Ares and Athena led the +army, both clad in gold, beautiful and great, as becomes the gods, for +men were smaller." Greek gods are men; they have clothing, palaces, +bodies similar to ours; if they cannot die, they can at least be +wounded. Homer relates how Ares, the god of war, struck by a warrior, +fled howling with pain. This fashion of making gods like men is what +is called _Anthropomorphism_. + +=Mythology.=--The gods, being men, have parents, children, property. +Their mothers were goddesses, their brothers were gods, and their +children other gods or men who were half divine. This genealogy of the +gods is what is called the _Theogony_. The gods have also a history; +we are told the story of their birth, the adventures of their youth, +their exploits. Apollo, for example, was born on the island of Delos +to which his mother Latona had fled; he slew a monster which was +desolating the country at the foot of Parnassus. Each canton of Greece +had thus its tales of the gods. These are called myths; the sum of +them is termed _Mythology_, or the history of the gods. + +=The Local Gods.=--The Greek gods, even under their human form, +remained what they were at first, phenomena of nature. They were +thought of both as men and as forces of nature. The Naiad is a young +woman, but at the same time a bubbling fountain. Homer represents the +river Xanthus as a god, and yet he says, "The Xanthus threw itself on +Achilles, boiling with fury, full of tumult, foam, and the bodies of +the dead." The people itself continued to say "Zeus rains" or "Zeus +thunders." To the Greek the god was first of all rain, storm, heaven, +or sun, and not the heaven, sun, or earth in general, but that corner +of the heaven under which he lived, the land of his canton, the river +which traversed it. Each city, then, had its divinities, its sun-god, +its earth-goddess, its sea-god, and these are not to be confounded +with the sun, the earth, and the sea of the neighboring city. The +Zeus of Sparta is not the same as the Zeus of Athens; in the same oath +one sometimes invokes two Athenas or two Apollos. A traveller who +would journey through Greece[51] would therefore meet thousands of +local gods (they called them Poliades, or gods of the city). No +torrent, no wood, no mountain was without its own deity,[52] although +often a minor divinity, adored only by the people of the vicinity and +whose sanctuary was only a grotto in the rock. + +=The Great Gods.=--Above the innumerable legion of local gods of each +canton the Greeks imagined certain great divinities--the heaven, the +sun, the earth, and the sea--and these everywhere had the same name, +and had their temple or sanctuary in every place. Each represented one +of the principal forces of nature. These gods common to all the Greeks +were never numerous; if all are included, we have hardly twenty.[53] +We have the bad habit of calling them by the name of a Latin god. The +following are their true names: Zeus (Jupiter), Hera (Juno), Athena +(Minerva), Apollo, Artemis (Diana), Hermes (Mercury), Hephaistos +(Vulcan), Hestia (Vesta), Ares (Mars), Aphrodite (Venus), Poseidon +(Neptune), Amphitrite, Proteus, Kronos (Saturn), Rhea (Cybele), +Demeter (Ceres), Persephone (Proserpina), Hades (Pluto), Dionysos +(Bacchus). It is this little group of gods that men worshipped in all +the temples, that men ordinarily invoked in their prayers. + +=Attributes of the Gods.=--Each of these great gods had his form, his +costume, his instruments (which we call his attributes); it is thus +that the faithful imagined him and that the sculptors represented him. +Each has his character which is well known to his worshippers. Each +has his rôle in the world, performing his determined functions, +ordinarily with the aid of secondary divinities who obey him. + +Athena, virgin of clear eye, is represented standing, armed with a +lance, a helmet on the head, and gleaming armor on the breast. She is +the goddess of the clear air, of wisdom, and of invention, a goddess +of dignity and majesty. + +Hephaistos, the god of fire, is figured with a hammer and in the form +of a lame and ugly blacksmith. It is he who forges the thunderbolt. + +Artemis, shy maiden, armed with bow and quiver, courses the forests +hunting with a troop of nymphs. She is the goddess of the woods, of +the chase, and of death. + +Hermes, represented with winged sandals, is the god of the fertile +showers. But he has other offices; he is the god of streets and +squares, the god of commerce, of theft, and of eloquence. He it is who +guides the souls of the dead, the messenger of the gods, the deity +presiding over the breeding of cattle. + +Almost always a Greek god has several functions, quite dissimilar to +our eyes, but to the Greeks bearing some relation to one another. + +=Olympus and Zeus.=--Each one of these gods is like a king in his own +domain. Still the Greeks had remarked that all the forces of nature do +not operate by chance and that they act in harmony; the same word +served them for the idea of order and of universe. They supposed, +then, that the gods were in accord for the administration of the +world, and that they, like men, had laws and government among them. + +In the north of Greece there was a mountain to whose snowy summit no +man had ever climbed. This was Olympus. On this summit, which was +hidden by clouds from the eyes of men, it was imagined the gods +assembled. Meeting under the light of heaven, they conferred on the +affairs of the world. Zeus, the mightiest of them, presided over the +gathering: he was god of the heavens and of the light, the god "who +masses the clouds," who launches the thunderbolt--an old man of +majestic mien, with long beard, sitting on a throne of gold. It is he +who commands and the other gods bow before him. Should they essay to +resist, Zeus menaces them; Homer makes him say,[54] "Bind to heaven a +chain of gold, and all of you, gods or goddesses, throw your weight +upon it; all your united efforts cannot draw Zeus, the sovereign +ordainer, to the earth. On the contrary, if I wished to draw the chain +to myself, I should bring with it the earth and the very sea. Then I +would attach it to the summit of Olympus and all the universe would be +suspended. By so much am I superior to gods and men." + +=Morality of the Greek Mythology.=--The greater part of their gods +were conceived by the Greeks as violent, sanguinary, deceitful, +dissolute. They ascribed to them scandalous adventures or dishonest +acts. Hermes was notorious for his thieving, Aphrodite for her +coquetry, Ares for his ferocity. All were so vain as to persecute +those who neglected to offer sacrifices to them. Niobe had seen all +her children pierced with arrows by Apollo because she herself had +boasted of her numerous family. The gods were so jealous that they +could not endure seeing a man thoroughly happy; prosperity for the +Greeks was the greatest of dangers, for it never failed to draw the +anger of the gods, and this anger became a goddess (Nemesis) about +whom were told such anecdotes as the following: Once Polycrates of +Samos, become very powerful, feared the jealousy of the gods; and so a +ring of gold which he still retained was cast into the sea that his +good fortune might not be unmixed with evil. Some time after, a +fisherman brought to Polycrates an enormous fish and in its belly was +found the ring. This was a certain presage of evil. Polycrates was +besieged in his city, taken, and crucified. The gods punished him for +his good fortune. + +Greek mythology was immoral in that the gods gave bad examples to men. +The Greek philosophers were already saying this and were inveighing +against the poets who had published these stories. A disciple of +Pythagoras affirmed that his master, descending to hell, had seen the +soul of Homer hanging to a tree and that of Hesiod bound to a column +to punish them for calumniating the gods. "Homer and Hesiod," Said +Xenophanes, "attribute to the gods all the acts which among men are +culpable and shameful; there is but one god who neither in body nor in +soul resembles men." And he added this profound remark: "If oxen and +lions had hands and could manipulate like men, they would have made +gods with bodies similar to their own, horses would have framed gods +with horses' bodies, and cattle with cattle's.... Men think that the +gods have their feelings, their voice, and their body." Xenophanes was +right; the primitive Greeks had created their gods in their own image. +As they were then sanguinary, dissolute, jealous, and vain, their gods +were the same. Later, as the people became better, their descendants +were shocked with all these vices; but the history and the character +of the gods were fixed by the ancient traditions, and later +generations, without daring to change them, had received the gross and +dishonest gods of their ancestors. + + +THE HEROES + +=The Hero.=--The hero in Greece is a man who has become illustrious, +and after death a mighty spirit--not a god, but a demi-god. The heroes +do not live on Olympus in the heaven of the gods, they do not direct +the life of the world. And yet they, too, possess a power higher than +that of any human, and this permits them to aid their friends and +destroy their enemies. For this reason the Greeks rendered them +worship as to the gods and implored their protection. There was not a +city, not a tribe, not a family but had its hero, a protecting spirit +which it adored. + +=Different Kinds of Heroes.=--Of these heroes many are legendary +persons (Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon); some without doubt never +existed (Herakles, OEdipus); others like Hellen, Dorus, Æolus are only +names. But their worshippers regarded them as men of the olden time; +and, in fact, the most of the heroes lived at one time. Many are +historical personages: generals like Leonidas, Lysander; philosophers +like Democritus and Aristotle; legislators like Lycurgus and Solon. +The people of Croton adored even one of their fellow-citizens, Philip +by name, because he had been in his time the most beautiful man in +Greece. The leader who had guided a band of colonists and founded a +city became for the inhabitants the Founder; a temple was raised to +him and every year sacrifices were offered to him. The Athenian +Miltiades was thus worshipped in a city of Thrace. The Spartiate +Brasidas, killed in the defence of Amphipolis, had divine honors paid +to him in that city, for the inhabitants had come to regard him as +their Founder. + +=Presence of the Heroes.=--The hero continued to reside in the place +where his body was interred, either in his tomb or in the +neighborhood. A story told by Herodotus (v. 67) depicts this belief in +a lively way. The city of Sicyon adored the hero Adrastus and in a +public place was a chapel dedicated to his honor. Cleisthenes, the +tyrant of Sicyon, took a fancy to rid himself of this hero. He went to +the oracle at Delphi to ask if it would aid him in expelling Adrastus. +The oracle replied to his question that Adrastus was king of the +Sicyonians and Cleisthenes was a brigand. The tyrant, not daring to +evict the hero, adopted a ruse; he sent to Thebes to seek the bones +of Melanippus, another hero, and installed them with great pomp in the +sanctuary of the city. "He did this," says Herodotus, "because +Melanippus during his life had been the greatest enemy of Adrastus and +had killed his brother and his son-in-law." Then he transferred to +Melanippus the festivals and the sacrifices formerly paid to the honor +of Adrastus. He was persuaded, and all the Greeks with him, that the +hero would be irritated and would flee. + +=Intervention of the Heroes.=--The heroes have divine power; like the +gods, they can according to their whim send good or evil. The poet +Stesichorus had spoken ill of the famous Helen (that Helen who the +legend states was carried away to Troy); he suddenly became blind; +when he retracted what he had said, the heroine restored his sight. + +The protecting heroes of a city kept it from plagues and famine and +even fought against its enemies. At the battle of the Marathon the +Athenian soldiers saw in the midst of them Theseus, the mythical +founder of Athens, clad in shining armor. During the battle of Salamis +the heroes Ajax and Telamon, once kings of Salamis, appeared on the +highest point of the island extending their hands to the Greek fleet. +"It is not we," said Themistocles, "that have vanquished the Persians; +it is the gods and heroes." In "OEdipus at Colonus," a tragedy of +Sophocles, OEdipus at the point of death receives the visit of the king +of Athens and of the king of Thebes, both of whom as gods request him +to have his body interred in their territory, and to become a +protecting hero. OEdipus at last consents to be buried in the soil of +the Athenians, and says to the king, "Dead, I shall not be a useless +inhabitant of this country, I shall be a rampart for you, stronger +than millions of warriors." In himself alone a hero was as efficient +as a whole army; his spirit was mightier than all living men. + + +WORSHIP + +=Principles of Worship of the Gods.=--Gods and heroes, potent as they +were, bestowed on men all good or evil fortune according to their +will. It was dangerous to have them against you, wise to have them on +your side. They were conceived as like men, irritated if they were +neglected, contented if they were venerated. On this principle worship +was based. It consisted in doing things agreeable to the gods to +obtain their favor. Plato expresses as follows[55] the thought of the +common man, "To know how to say and do those things that are pleasing +to the gods, either in prayers or in offerings, this is piety which +brings prosperity to individuals and to states. The reverse is impiety +which ruins everything." "It is natural," says Xenophon at the end of +his treatise on Cavalry, "that the gods should favor those especially +who not only consult them in need, but honor them in the day of +prosperity." Religion was first of all a contract; the Greek sought to +delight the gods and in return required their services. "For a long +time," says a priest of Apollo to his god, "I have burned fat +bullocks for you; now grant my petitions and discharge your arrows +against my enemies." + +=The Great Festivals.=--Since the gods had the feelings of men they +were to be pleased in the same way as men. Wine, cakes, fruits, food +were brought to them. Palaces were built for them. Festivals were +given in their honor, for they were "joyous gods" who loved pleasure +and beautiful spectacles. A festival was not, as with us, purely an +occasion of rejoicing, but a religious ceremony. On those days free +from the daily toil men were required to rejoice in public before the +god. The Greek, without doubt, delighted in these fêtes; but it is for +the god and not for himself that he celebrates them. "The Ionians," +says an ancient hymn to Apollo, "delight thee with trial of strength, +the hymn, and the dance." + +=The Sacred Games.=--From these diversions offered to the gods +originated the solemn games. Each city had them to the honor of its +gods; ordinarily only its citizens were admitted to them; but in four +districts of Greece were celebrated games at which all Greeks could be +present and participate. These are called the Four Great Games. + +The principal of these four festivals was that at Olympia. This was +given every four years in honor of Zeus and continued five or six +days. The multitude coming from all parts of Greece filled the +amphitheatre. They commenced by sacrificing victims and addressing +prayers to Zeus and the other gods. Then came the contests; they were: + +The foot-race around the stadion. + +The Pentathlon, so called because it comprised five exercises. The +competitors were to leap, run from one end of the stadion to the +other, make a long throw of the metal discus, hurl the javelin, and +wrestle. + +Boxing, in which one fought with arms bound with thongs of hide. + +The chariot races, which were held in the hippodrome; the cars were +light and were drawn by four horses. + +The judges of the games were clothed in purple, crowned with laurel. +After the combat a herald proclaimed before the whole assembly the +name of the victor and of his city. A crown of olive was the only +reward given him; but his fellow-citizens on his return received him +as a conquering hero; sometimes they threw down a section of the city +wall to give him entrance. He arrived in a chariot drawn by four +horses, clothed in purple, escorted by all the people. "These +victories which we leave today to the athletes of the public shows +appeared then the greatest of all. Poets of greatest renown celebrated +them; Pindar, the most illustrious lyric poet of antiquity, has hardly +done more than sing of chariot races. It is related that a certain +Diagoras, who had seen his two sons crowned on the same day, was borne +in triumph by them in the sight of the spectators. The people, holding +such an honor too great for a mortal, cried out, 'Perish, Diagoras, +for after all you cannot become a god.' Diagoras, suffocated with +emotion, died in the arms of his sons. In his eyes and the eyes of the +Greeks the fact that his sons possessed the stoutest fists and the +nimblest limbs in Greece was the acme of earthly happiness."[56] The +Greeks had their reasons for thus admiring physical prowess: in their +wars in which they fought hand to hand the most vigorous athletes were +the best soldiers. + +=Omens.=--In return for so much homage, so many festivals and +offerings, the Greeks expected no small amount of service from their +gods. The gods protected their worshippers, gave them health, riches, +victory. They preserved them from the evils that menaced them, sending +signs which men interpreted. These are called Omens. "When a city," +says Herodotus,[57] "is about to suffer some great misfortune, this is +usually anticipated by signs. The people of Chios had omens of their +defeat: of a band of one hundred youths sent to Delphi but two +returned; the others had died of the plague. About the same time the +roof of a school of the city fell on the children who were learning to +read; but one escaped of the one hundred and twenty. Such were the +anticipating signs sent them by the deity." + +The Greeks regarded as supernatural signs, dreams, the flight of birds +in the heavens, the entrails of animals sacrificed--in a word, +everything that they saw, from the tremblings of the earth and +eclipses to a simple sneeze. In the expedition to Sicily, Nicias, the +general of the Athenians, at the moment of embarking his army for the +retreat, was arrested by an eclipse of the moon; the gods, thought he, +had sent this prodigy to warn the Athenians not to continue their +enterprise. And so Nicias waited; he waited twenty-seven days offering +sacrifices to appease the gods. During this inactivity the enemy +closed the port, destroyed the fleet, and exterminated his army. The +Athenians on learning this news found but one thing with which to +reproach Nicias: he should have known that for an army in retreat the +eclipse of the moon was a favorable sign. During the retreat of the +Ten Thousand, Xenophon, the general, making an address to his +soldiers, uttered this sentiment: "With the help of the gods we have +the surest hope that we shall save ourselves with glory." At this +point a soldier sneezed. At once all adored the god who had sent this +omen. "Since at the very instant when we are deliberating concerning +our safety," exclaimed Xenophon, "Zeus the savior has sent us an omen, +let us with one consent offer sacrifices to him."[58] + +=The Oracles.=--Often the god replies to the faithful who consult him +not by a mute sign, but by the mouth of an inspired person. The +faithful enter the sanctuary of the god seeking responses and counsel. +These are Oracles. + +There were oracles in many places in Greece and Asia. The most noted +were at Dodona in Epirus, and at Delphi, at the foot of Mount +Parnassus. At Dodona it was Zeus who spoke by the rustling of the +sacred oaks. At Delphi it was Apollo who was consulted. Below his +temple, in a grotto, a current of cool air issued from a rift in the +ground. This air the Greeks thought[59] was sent by the god, for he +threw into a frenzy those who inhaled it. A tripod was placed over the +orifice, a woman (the Pythia), prepared by a bath in the sacred +spring, took her seat on the tripod, and received the inspiration. At +once, seized with a nervous frenzy, she uttered cries and broken +sentences. Priests sitting about her caught these expressions, set +them to verse, and brought them to him who sought advice of the god. + +The oracles of the Pythia were often obscure and ambiguous. When +Croesus asked if he should make war on the Persians, the reply was, +"Croesus will destroy a great empire." In fact, a great empire was +destroyed, but it was that of Croesus. + +The Spartans had great confidence in the Pythia, and never initiated +an expedition without consulting her. The other Greeks imitated them, +and Delphi thus became a sort of national oracle. + +=Amphictyonies.=--To protect the sanctuary of Delphi twelve of the +principal peoples of Greece had formed an association called an +Amphictyony.[60] Every year deputies from these peoples assembled at +Delphi to celebrate the festival of Apollo and see that the temple was +not threatened; for this temple contained immense wealth, a temptation +to pillage it. In the sixth century the people of Cirrha, a +neighboring city of Delphi, appropriated these treasures.[61] The +Amphictyons declared war against them for sacrilege. Cirrha was taken +and destroyed, the inhabitants sold as slaves, the territory left +fallow. In the fourth century the Amphictyons made war on the +Phocidians also who had seized the treasury of Delphi, and on the +people of Amphissa who had tilled a field dedicated to Apollo. + +Still it is not necessary to believe that the assembly of the +Amphictyons ever resembled a Greek senate. It was concerned only with +the temple of Apollo, not at all with political affairs. It did not +even prevent members of the Amphictyony fighting one another. The +oracle and the Amphictyony of Delphi were more potent than the other +oracles and the other amphictyonies; but they never united the Greeks +into a single nation. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] See the account of the traveller Pausanias. + +[52] "There are," says Hesiod, "30,000 gods on the fruitful earth." + +[53] Greek scholars formed a select society of twelve gods and +goddesses, but their choice was arbitrary, and all did not agree on the +same series. The Greeks of different countries and of different epochs +often represented the same god under different forms. Further, the +majority of the gods seem to us to have vague and undetermined +attributes; this is because they were not the same everywhere. + +[54] Iliad, viii., 18. + +[55] In the dialogue "Eutyphron." + +[56] Taine, "Philosophy of Art." + +[57] Herodotus, vi., 27 + +[58] Xenophon, "Anabasis," iii, 2. + +[59] This idea gained currency only in the later periods of Grecian +history.--ED. + +[60] There were similar amphictyonies at Delos, Calauria, and Onchestus. + +[61] The special charge against Cirrha was the levying of toll on +pilgrims coming to Delphi.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SPARTA + +THE PEOPLE + + +=Laconia.=--When the Dorian mountaineers invaded the Peloponnesus, the +main body of them settled at Sparta in Laconia. Laconia is a narrow +valley traversed by a considerable stream (the Eurotas) flowing +between two massive mountain ranges with snowy summits. A poet +describes the country as follows: "A land rich in tillable soil, but +hard to cultivate, deep set among perpendicular mountains, rough in +aspect, inaccessible to invasion." In this enclosed country lived the +Dorians of Sparta in the midst of the ancient inhabitants who had +become, some their subjects, others their serfs. There were, then, in +Laconia three classes: Helots, Perioeci, Spartiates. + +=The Helots.=--The Helots dwelt in the cottages scattered in the plain +and cultivated the soil. But the land did not belong to them--indeed, +they were not even free to leave it. They were, like the serfs of the +Middle Ages, peasants attached to the soil, from father to son. They +labored for a Spartiate proprietor who took from them the greater part +of the harvest. The Spartiates instructed them, feared them, and ill +treated them. They compelled them to wear rude garments, beat them +unreasonably to remind them of their servile condition, and sometimes +made them intoxicated to disgust their children with the sight of +drunkenness. A Spartiate poet compares the Helots to "loaded asses +stumbling under their burdens and the blows inflicted." + +=The Perioeci.=--The Perioeci (those who live around) inhabited a +hundred villages in the mountains or on the coast. They were sailors, +they engaged in commerce, and manufactured the objects necessary to +life. They were free and administered the business of their village, +but they paid tribute to the magistrates of Sparta and obeyed them. + +=Condition of the Spartiates.=--Helots and Perioeci despised the +Spartiates, their masters. "Whenever one speaks to them of the +Spartiates," says Xenophon,[62] "there isn't one of them who can +conceal the pleasure he would feel in eating them alive." Once an +earthquake nearly destroyed Sparta: the Helots at once rushed from all +sides of the plain to massacre those of the Spartiates who had escaped +the catastrophe. At the same time the Perioeci rose and refused +obedience. The Spartiates' bearing toward the Perioeci was certain to +exasperate them. At the end of a war in which many of the Helots had +fought in their army, they bade them choose those who had especially +distinguished themselves for bravery, with the promise of freeing +them. It was a ruse to discover the most energetic and those most +capable of revolting. Two thousand were chosen; they were conducted +about the temples with heads crowned as an evidence of their +manumission; then the Spartiates put them out of the way, but how it +was done no one ever knew.[63] + +And yet the oppressed classes were ten times more, numerous than their +masters. While there were more than 200,000 Helots and 120,000 +Perioeci, there were never more than 9,000 Spartiate heads of families. +In a matter of life and death, then, it was necessary that a Spartiate +be as good as ten Helots. As the form of battle was hand-to-hand, they +needed agile and robust men. Sparta was like a camp without walls; its +people was an army always in readiness. + + +EDUCATION + +=The Children.=--They began to make soldiers of them at birth. The +newly-born infant was brought before a council; if it was found +deformed, it was exposed on the mountain to die; for an army has use +only for strong men. The children who were permitted to grow up were +taken from their parents at the age of seven years and were trained +together as members of a group. Both summer and winter they went +bare-foot and had but a single mantle. They lay on a heap of reeds and +bathed in the cold waters of the Eurotas. They ate little and that +quickly and had a rude diet. This was to teach them not to satiate the +stomach. They were grouped by hundreds, each under a chief. Often they +had to contend together with blows of feet and fists. At the feast of +Artemis they were beaten before the statue of the goddess till the +blood flowed; some died under this ordeal, but their honor required +them not to weep. They were taught to fight and suffer. + +Often they were given nothing to eat; provision must be found by +foraging. If they were captured on these predatory expeditions, they +were roughly beaten. A Spartiate boy who had stolen a little fox and +had hidden it under his mantle, rather than betray himself let the +animal gnaw out his vitals. They were to learn how to escape from +perplexing situations when they were in the field. + +They walked with lowered glance, silent, hands under the mantle, +without turning the head and "making no more noise than statues." They +were not to speak at table and were to obey all men that they +encountered. This was to accustom them to discipline. + +=The Girls.=--The other Greeks kept their daughters secluded in the +house, spinning flax. The Spartiates would have robust women capable +of bearing vigorous children. The girls, therefore, were trained in +much the same manner as the boys. In their gymnasia they practised +running, leaping, throwing the disc and Javelin. A poet describes a +play in which Spartiate girls "like colts with flowing manes make the +dust fly about them." They were reputed the healthiest and bravest +women in Greece. + +=The Discipline.=--The men, too, have their regular life and this a +soldier's life. The presence of many enemies requires that no one +shall weaken. At seventeen years the Spartiate becomes a soldier and +this he until he is sixty. The costume, hour of rising and retiring, +meals, exercise--everything is fixed by regulations as in barracks. + +Since the Spartiate engages only in war, he is to prepare himself for +that; he exercises himself in running, leaping, and wielding his arms; +he disciplines all the members of the body--the neck, the arms, the +shoulders, the legs, and that too, every day. He has no right to +engage in trade, to pursue an industry, nor to cultivate the earth; he +is a soldier and is not to allow himself to be diverted to any other +occupation. He cannot live at his pleasure with his own family; the +men eat together in squads; they cannot leave the country without +permission. It is the discipline of a regiment in the enemy's +territory. + +=Laconism.=--These warriors had a rude life, with clean-cut aims and +proud disposition. They spoke in short phrases--or as we say, +laconically--the word has still persisted. The Greeks cited many +examples of these expressions. To a garrison in danger of being +surprised the government sent this message, "Attention!" A Spartan +army was summoned by the king of Persia to lay down his arms; the +general replied, "Come and take them." When Lysander captured Athens, +he wrote simply, "Athens is fallen." + +=Music. The Dance.=--The arts of Sparta were those that pertained to +an army. The Dorian conquerors brought with them a peculiar sort of +music--the Dorian style, serious, strong, even harsh. It was military +music; the Spartiates went into battle to the sound of the flute so +that the step might be regular. + +Their dance was a military movement. In the "Pyrrhic" the dancers were +armed and imitated all the movements of a battle; they made the +gestures of striking, of parrying, of retreating, and of throwing the +javelin. + +=Heroism of the Women.=--The women stimulated the men to combat; their +exhibitions of courage were celebrated in Greece, so much so that +collections of stories of them were made.[64] A Spartan mother, seeing +her son fleeing from battle, killed him with her own hand, saying; +"The Eurotas does not flow for deer." Another, learning that her five +sons had perished, said, "This is not what I wish to know; does +victory belong to Sparta?" "Yes." "Then let us render thanks to the +gods." + + +THE INSTITUTIONS OF SPARTA + +=The Kings and the Council.=--The Spartiates had at first, like the +other Greeks, an assembly of the people. All these institutions were +preserved, but only in form. The kings, descendants of the god +Herakles, were loaded with honors; they were given the first place at +the feasts and were served with a double portion; when they died all +the inhabitants made lamentation for them. But no power was left to +them and they were closely watched. + +The Senate was composed of twenty-eight old men taken from the rich +and ancient families, appointed for life; but it did not govern. + +=The Ephors.=--The real masters of Sparta were the Ephors (the name +signifies overseers), five magistrates who were renewed every year. +They decided peace and war, and had judicial functions; when the king +commanded the army, they accompanied him, directed the operations, and +sometimes made him return. Usually they consulted the senators and +took action in harmony with them. Then they assembled the Spartiates +in one place, announced to them what had been decided and asked their +approbation. The people without discussing the matter approved the +action by acclamation. No one knew whether he had the right to refuse +assent; accustomed to obey, the Spartiate never refused. It was, +therefore, an aristocracy of governing families. Sparta was not a +country of equality. There were some men who were called Equals, but +only because they were equal among themselves. The others were termed +Inferiors and had no part in the government. + +=The Army.=--Thanks to this régime, the Spartiates preserved the rude +customs of mountaineers; they had no sculptors, no architects, no +orators, no philosophers. They had sacrificed everything to war; they +became "adepts in the military art,"[65] and instructors of the other +Greeks. They introduced two innovations especially: a better method of +combat, a better method of athletic exercise. + +=The Hoplites.=--Before them the Greeks marched into battle in +disorder; the chiefs, on horseback or in a light chair, rushed ahead, +the men following on foot, armed each in his own fashion, +helter-skelter, incapable of acting together or of resisting. A +battle reduced itself to a series of duels and to a massacre. At +Sparta all the soldiers had the same arms; for defence, the +breastplate covering the chest, the casque which protected the head, +the greaves over the legs, the buckler held before the body. For +offence the soldier had a short sword and a long lance. The man thus +armed was called a hoplite. The Spartan hoplites were drawn up in +regiments, battalions, companies, squads, almost like our armies. An +officer commanded each of these groups and transmitted to his men the +orders of his superior officer, so that the general in chief might +have the same movement executed throughout the whole army. This +organization which appears so simple to us was to the Greeks an +astonishing novelty. + +=The Phalanx.=--Come into the presence of the enemy, the soldiers +arrange themselves in line, ordinarily eight ranks deep, each man +close to his neighbor, forming a compact mass which we call a Phalanx. +The king, who directs the army, sacrifices a goat to the gods; if the +entrails of the victim are propitious, he raises a chant which all the +army takes up in unison. Then they advance. With rapid and measured +step, to the sound of the flute, with lance couched and buckler before +the body, they meet the enemy in dense array, overwhelm him by their +mass and momentum, throw him into rout, and only check themselves to +avoid breaking the phalanx. So long as they remain together each is +protected by his neighbor and all form an impenetrable mass on which +the enemy could secure no hold. These were rude tactics, but +sufficient to overcome a disorderly troop. Isolated men could not +resist such a body. The other Greeks understood this, and all, as far +as they were able, imitated the Spartans; everywhere men were armed +as hoplites and fought in phalanx. + +=Gymnastics.=--To rush in orderly array on the enemy and stand the +shock of battle there was need of agile and robust men; every man had +to be an athlete. The Spartans therefore organized athletic exercises, +and in this the other Greeks imitated them; gymnastics became for all +a national art, the highest esteemed of all the arts, the crowning +feature of the great festivals. + +In the most remote countries, in the midst of the barbarians of Gaul +or of the Black Sea, a Greek city was recognized by its gymnasium. +There was a great square surrounded by porticoes or walks, usually +near a spring, with baths and halls for exercise. The citizens came +hither to walk and chat: it was a place of association. All the young +men entered the gymnasium; for two years or less they came here every +day; they learned to leap, to run, to throw the disc and the javelin, +to wrestle by seizing about the waist. To harden the muscles and +strengthen the skin they plunged into cold water, dispensed with oil +for the body, and rubbed the flesh with a scraper (the strigil). + +=Athletes.=--Many continued these exercises all their lives as a point +of honor and became Athletes. Some became marvels of skill. Milo of +Croton in Italy, it was said, would carry a bull on his shoulders; he +stopped a chariot in its course by seizing it from behind. These +athletes served sometimes in combats as soldiers, or as generals. +Gymnastics were the school of war. + +=Rôle of the Spartiates.=--The Spartans taught the other Greeks to +exercise and to fight. They always remained the most vigorous +wrestlers and the best soldiers, and were recognized as such by the +rest of Greece. Everywhere they were respected. When the rest of the +Greeks had to fight together against the Persians, they unhesitatingly +took the Spartans as chiefs--and with justice, said an Athenian +orator. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[62] "Hellenica," iii., 3, 6. + +[63] See Thucydides, iv., 80. + +[64] A collection by Plutarch is still preserved. + +[65] A phrase of Xenophon. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ATHENS + +THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE + + +=Attica.=--The Athenians boasted of having always lived in the same +country; their ancestors, according to their story, originated from +the soil itself. The mountaineers who conquered the south land passed +by the country without invading it; Attica was hardly a temptation to +them. + +Attica is composed of a mass of rocks which in the form of a triangle +advances into the sea. These rocks, renowned for their blocks of +marble and for the honey of their bees,[66] are bare and sterile. +Between them and the sea are left three small plains with meagre soil, +meanly watered (the streams are dry in summer) and incapable of +supporting a numerous population. + +=Athens.=--In the largest of these plains, a league from the sea, +rises a massive isolated rock: Athens was built at its foot. The old +city, called the Acropolis, occupied the summit of the rock. + +The inhabitants of Attica commenced, not by forming a single state, +but by founding scattered villages, each of which had its own king and +its own government. Later all these villages united under one +king,[67] the king of Athens, and established a single city. This +does not mean that all the people came to dwell in one town. They +continued to have their own villages and to cultivate their lands; but +all adored one and the same protecting goddess, Athena, divinity of +Athens, and all obeyed the same king. + +=Athenian Revolutions.=--Later still the kings were suppressed. In +their place Athens had nine chiefs (the archons) who changed every +year. This whole history is little known to us for no writing of the +time is preserved. They used to say that for centuries the Athenians +had lived in discord; the nobles (Eupatrids) who were proprietors of +the soil oppressed the peasants on their estates; creditors held their +debtors as slaves. To reëstablish order the Athenians commissioned +Solon, a sage, to draft a code of laws for them (594). + +Solon made three reforms: + + 1. He lessened the value of the money, which allowed the debtors + to release themselves more easily. + + 2. He made the peasants proprietors of the land that they + cultivated. From this time there were in Attica more small + proprietors than in any other part of Greece. + + 3. He grouped all the citizens into four classes according to + their incomes. Each had to pay taxes and to render military + service according to his wealth, the poor being exempt from + taxation and military service. + +After Solon the Athenians were subject to Pisistratus, one of their +powerful and clever citizens; but in 510 the dissensions revived. + +=Reforms of Cleisthenes.=--Cleisthenes, leader of one of the parties, +used the occasion to make a thoroughgoing revolution. + +There were many strangers in Athens, especially seamen and traders who +lived in Piræus near the harbor. Cleisthenes gave them the rights of +citizenship and made them equal[68] to the older inhabitants. From +this time there were two populations side by side--the people of +Attica and those of Piræus. A difference of physical features was +apparent for three centuries afterward: the people of Attica resembled +the rest of the Greeks; those in Piræus resembled Asiatics. The +Athenian people thus augmented was a new people, the most active in +Greece. + + +THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE + +In the fifth century the society of Athens was definitely formed: +three classes inhabited the district of Attica--slaves, foreigners, +and citizens. + +=The Slaves.=--The slaves constituted the great majority of the +population; there was no man so poor that he did not have at least one +slave; the rich owned a multitude of them, some as many as five +hundred. The larger part of the slaves lived in the house occupied +with grinding grain, kneading bread, spinning and weaving cloth, +performing the service of the kitchens, and in attendance on their +masters. Others labored in the shops as blacksmiths, as dyers, or in +stone quarries or silver mines. Their master fed them but sold at a +profit everything which they produced, giving them in return nothing +but their living. All the domestic servants, all the miners, and the +greater part of the artisans were slaves. These men lived in society +but without any part in it; they had not even the disposition of their +own bodies, being wholly the property of other men. They were thought of +only as objects of property; they were often referred to as "a body" +({~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL +LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}). There was no other law for +them than the will of their master, and he had all power over them--to +make them work, to imprison them, to deprive them of their sustenance, +to beat them. When a citizen went to law, his adversary had the right to +require that the former's slaves should be put to the torture to tell +what they knew. Many Athenian orators commend this usage as an ingenious +means for obtaining true testimony. "Torture," says the orator Isæus, +"is the surest means of proof; and so when you wish to clear up a +contested question, you do not address yourselves to freemen, but, +placing the slaves to the torture, you seek to discover the truth." + +=Foreigners.=--The name Metics was applied to people of foreign origin +who were established in Athens. To become a citizen of Athens it was +not enough, as with us, to be born in the country; one must be the son +of a citizen. It might be that some aliens had resided in Attica for +several generations and yet their family not become Athenian. The +metics could take no part in the government, could not marry a +citizen, nor acquire land. But they were personally free, they had the +right of commerce by sea, of banking and of trade on condition that +they take a patron to represent them in the courts. There were in +Athens more than ten thousand families of metics, the majority of them +bankers or merchants. + +=The Citizens.=--To be a citizen of Athens it was necessary that both +parents should be citizens. The young Athenian, come to maturity at +about eighteen years of age, appeared before the popular assembly, +received the arms which he was to bear and took the following oath: "I +swear never to dishonor these sacred arms, not to quit my post, to +obey the magistrates and the laws, to honor the religion of my +country." He became simultaneously citizen and soldier. Thereafter he +owed military service until he was sixty years of age. With this he +had the right to sit in the assembly and to fulfil the functions of +the state. + +Once in a while the Athenians consented to receive into the +citizenship a man who was not the son of a citizen, but this was rare +and a sign of great favor. The assembly had to vote the stranger into +its membership, and then nine days after six thousand citizens had to +vote for him on a secret ballot. The Athenian people was like a closed +circle; no new members were admitted except those pleasing to the old +members, and they admitted few beside their sons. + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS + +=The Assembly.=--The Athenians called their government a democracy (a +government by the people). But this people was not, as with us, the +mass of inhabitants, but the body of citizens, a true aristocracy of +15,000 to 20,000 men who governed the whole nation as masters. This +body had absolute power, and was the true sovereign of Athens. It +assembled at least three times a month to deliberate and to vote. The +assembly was held in the open air on the Pnyx; the citizens sat on +stone benches arranged in an amphitheatre; the magistrates before them +on a platform opened the session with a religious ceremony and a +prayer, then a herald proclaimed in a loud voice the business which +was to occupy the assembly, and said, "Who wishes to speak?" Every +citizen had the right to this privilege; the orators mounted the +tribune according to age. When all had spoken, the president put the +question; the assembly voted by a show of hands, and then dissolved. + +=The Courts.=--The people itself, being sovereign, passed judgment in +the courts. Every citizen of thirty years of age could participate in +the judicial assembly (the Heliæa). The heliasts sat in the great +halls in sections of five hundred; the tribunal was, then, composed of +one thousand to fifteen hundred judges. The Athenians had no +prosecuting officer as we have; a citizen took upon himself to make +the accusation. The accused and the accuser appeared before the court; +each delivered a plea which was not to exceed the time marked off by a +water-clock. Then the judges voted by depositing a black or white +stone. If the accuser did not obtain a certain number of votes, he +himself was condemned. + +=The Magistrates.=--The sovereign people needed a council to prepare +the business for discussion and magistrates to execute their +decisions. The council was composed of five hundred citizens drawn by +lot for one year. The magistrates were very numerous: ten generals to +command the army, thirty officials for financial administration, sixty +police officials to superintend the streets, the markets, weights and +measures, etc.[69] + +=Character of This Government.=--The power in Athens did not pertain +to the rich and the noble, as in Sparta. In the assembly everything +was decided by a majority of votes and all the votes were equal. All +the jurors, all the members of the council, all the magistrates except +the generals were chosen by lot. The citizens were equal not only in +theory, but also in practice. Socrates said[70] to a well-informed +Athenian who did not dare to speak before the people: "Of what are you +afraid? Is it of the fullers, the shoe-makers, the masons, the +artisans, or the merchants? for the assembly is composed of all these +people." + +Many of these people had to ply their trade in order to make a living, +and could not serve the state gratuitously; and so a salary was +instituted: every citizen who sat in the assembly or in the courts +received for every day of session three obols (about eight cents of +our money), a sum just sufficient to maintain life at that time. From +this day the poor administered the government. + +=The Demagogues.=--Since all important affairs whether in the assembly +or in the courts were decided by discussion and discourse, the +influential men were those who knew how to speak best. The people +accustomed themselves to listen to the orators, to follow their +counsels, to charge them with embassies, and even to appoint them +generals. These men were called Demagogues (leaders of the people). +The party of the rich scoffed at them: in a comedy Aristophanes +represents the people (Demos) under the form of an old man who has +lost his wits: "You are foolishly credulous, you let flatterers and +intriguers pull you around by the nose and you are enraptured when +they harangue you." And the chorus, addressing a charlatan, says to +him, "You are rude, vicious; you have a strong voice, an impudent +eloquence, and violent gestures; believe me, you have all that is +necessary to govern Athens." + + +PRIVATE LIFE + +The Athenians created so many political functions that a part of the +citizens was engaged in fulfilling them. The citizen of Athens, like +the functionary or soldier of our days, was absorbed in public +affairs. Warring and governing were the whole of his life. He spent +his days in the assembly, in the courts, in the army, at the +gymnasium, or at the market. Almost always he had a wife and children, +for his religion commanded this, but he did not live at home. + +=The Children.=--When a child came into the world, the father had the +right to reject it. In this case it was laid outside the house where +it died from neglect, unless a passer-by took it and brought it up as +a slave. In this custom Athens followed all the Greeks. It was +especially the girls that were exposed to death. "A son," says a +writer of comedy, "is always raised even if the parents are in the +last stage of misery; a daughter is exposed even though the parents +are rich." + +If the father accepted the child, the latter entered the family. He +was left at first in the women's apartments with the mother. The girls +remained there until the day of their marriage; the boys came out when +they were seven years old. The boy was then entrusted to a preceptor +(pedagogue), whose business it was to teach him to conduct himself +well and to obey. The pedagogue was often a slave, but the father gave +him the right to beat his son. This was the general usage in +antiquity. + +Later the boy went to school, where he learned to read, write, cipher, +recite poetry, and to sing in the chorus or to the sound of the flute. +At last came gymnastics. This was the whole of the instruction; it +made men sound in body and calm in spirit--what the Greeks called +"good and beautiful." + +To the young girl, secluded with her mother, nothing of the liberal +arts was taught; it was thought sufficient if she learned to obey. +Xenophon represents a rich and well-educated Athenian speaking thus of +his wife with Socrates: "She was hardly twenty years old when I +married her, and up to that time she had been subjected to an exacting +surveillance; they had no desire that she should live, and she learned +almost nothing. Was it not enough that one should find in her a woman +who could spin the flax to make garments, and who had learned how to +distribute duties to the slaves?" When her husband proposed that she +become his assistant, she replied with great surprise, "In what can I +aid you? Of what am I capable? My mother has always taught me that my +business was to be prudent." Prudence or obedience was the virtue +which was required of the Greek woman. + +=Marriage.=--At the age of fifteen the girl married. The parents had +chosen the husband; it might be a man from a neighboring family, or a +man who had been a long-time friend of the father, but always a +citizen of Athens. It was rare that the young girl knew him; she was +never consulted in the case. Herodotus, speaking of a Greek, adds: +"This Callias deserves mention for his conduct toward his daughters; +for when they were of marriageable age he gave them a rich dowry, +permitted them to choose husbands from all the people, and he then +married them to the men of their choice." + +=Athenian Women.=--In the inner recess of the Athenian house there was +a retired apartment reserved for the women--the Gynecæum. Husband and +relatives were the only visitors; the mistress of the household +remained here all day with her slaves; she directed them, +superintended the house-keeping, and distributed to them the flax for +them to spin. She herself was engaged with weaving garments. She left +the house seldom save for the religious festivals. She never appeared +in the society of men: "No one certainly would venture," says the +orator Isæus, "to dine with a married woman; married women do not go +out to dine with men or permit themselves to eat with strangers." An +Athenian woman who frequented society could not maintain a good +reputation. + +The wife, thus secluded and ignorant, was not an agreeable companion. +The husband had taken her not for his life-long companion, but to +keep his house in order, to be the mother of his children, and because +Greek custom and religion required that he should marry. Plato says +that one does not marry because he wants to, but "because the law +constrains him." And the comic poet Menander had found this saying: +"Marriage, to tell the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil." And +so the women in Athens, as in most of the other states of Greece, +always held but little place in society. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[66] The marble of Pentelicus and the honey of Hymettus. + +[67] This legendary king was called Theseus. + +[68] Certain limitations, however, are referred to below, under +"Metics."--ED. + +[69] Not to mention the Archons, whom they had not ventured to suppress. + +[70] Xenophon, "Memorabilia," iii., 7, 6. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WARS OF THE GREEKS + +THE PERSIAN WARS + + +=Origin of the Persian Wars.=--While the Greeks were completing the +organization of their cities, the Persian king was uniting all the +nations of the East in a single empire. Greeks and Orientals at length +found themselves face to face. It is in Asia Minor that they first +meet. + +On the coast of Asia Minor there were rich and populous colonies of +the Greeks;[71] Cyrus, the king of Persia, desired to subject them. +These cities sent for help to the Spartans, who were reputed the +bravest of the Greeks, and this action was reported to Cyrus; he +replied,[72] "I have never feared this sort of people that has in the +midst of the city a place where the people assemble to deceive one +another with false oaths." (He was thinking of the market-place.) The +Greeks of Asia were subdued and made subject to the Great King. + +Thirty years later King Darius found himself in the presence of the +Greeks of Europe. But this time it was the Greeks that attacked the +Great King. The Athenians sent twenty galleys to aid the revolting +Ionians; their soldiers entered Lydia, took Sardis by surprise and +burned it. Darius revenged himself by destroying the Greek cities of +Asia, but he did not forget the Greeks of Europe. He had decreed, they +say, that at every meal an officer should repeat to him: "Master, +remember the Athenians." He sent to the Greek cities to demand earth +and water, a symbol in use among the Persians to indicate submission +to the Great King. Most of the Greeks were afraid and yielded. But the +Spartans cast the envoys into a pit, bidding them take thence earth +and water to carry to the king. This was the beginning of the Median +wars. + +=Comparison of the Two Adversaries.=--The contrast between the two +worlds which now entered into conflict is well marked by Herodotus[73] +in the form of a conversation of King Xerxes with Demaratus, a Spartan +exile: "'I venture to assure you,' said Demaratus, 'that the Spartans +will offer you battle even if all the rest of the Greeks fight on your +side, and if their army should not amount to more than one thousand +men.' 'What!' said Xerxes, 'one thousand men attack so immense an army +as mine! I fear your words are only boasting; for although they be +five thousand, we are more than one thousand to one. If they had a +master like us, fear would inspire them with courage; they would march +under the lash against a larger army; but being free and independent, +they will have no more courage than that with which nature has endowed +them.' 'The Spartans,' replied Demaratus, 'are not inferior to anybody +in a hand-to-hand contest, and united in a phalanx they are the +bravest of all men. Yet, though free, they have an absolute master, +the Law, which they dread more than all your subjects do you; they +obey it, and this law requires them to stand fast to their post and +conquer or die.'" This is the difference between the two parties to +the conflict: on the one side, a multitude of subjects united by force +under a capricious master; on the other, little martial republics +whose citizens govern themselves according to laws which they respect. + +=First Persian War.=--There were two Persian wars. The first was +simply an expedition against Athens; six hundred galleys sent by +Darius disembarked a Persian army on the little plain of Marathon, +seven hours distant from Athens. + +Religious sentiment prevented the Spartans from taking the field +before the full moon, and it was still only the first quarter; the +Athenians had to fight alone.[74] Ten thousand citizens armed as +hoplites camped before the Persians. The Athenians had ten generals, +having the command on successive days; of these Miltiades, when his +turn came, drew up the army for battle. The Athenians charged the +enemy in serried ranks, but the Persians seeing them advancing without +cavalry and without archers, thought them fools. It was the first time +that the Greeks had dared to face the Persians in battle array. The +Athenians began by turning both flanks, and then engaged the centre, +driving the Persians in disorder to the sea and forcing them to +reëmbark on their ships. + +The victory of Marathon delivered the Athenians and made them famous +in all Greece (490). + +=Second Persian War.=--The second war began ten years later with an +invasion. Xerxes united all the peoples of the empire, so that the +land force amounted, as some say, to 1,700,000 men.[75] There were +Medes and Persians clad in sleeved tunics, armed with cuirasses of +iron, bucklers, bows and arrows; Assyrians with cuirass of linen, +armed with clubs pointed with iron; Indians clad in cotton with bows +and arrows of bamboo; savages of Ethiopia with leopard skins for +clothing; nomads armed only with lassos; Phrygians armed with short +pikes; Lydians equipped like Greeks; Thracians carrying javelins and +daggers. The enumeration of these fills twenty chapters in +Herodotus.[76] These warriors brought with them a crowd equally +numerous of non-combatants, of servants, slaves, women, together with +a mass of mules, horses, camels, and baggage wagons. + +This horde crossed the Hellespont by a bridge of boats in the spring +of 480. For seven days and nights it defiled under the lash. Then +traversing Thrace, it marched on Greece, conquering the peoples whom +it met. + +The Persian fleet, 1,200 galleys strong, coasted the shores of Thrace, +passing through the canal at Mount Athos which Xerxes had had built +for this very purpose. + +The Greeks, terrified, submitted for the most part to the Great King +and joined their armies to the Persian force. The Athenians sent to +consult the oracle of Delphi, but received only the reply; "Athens +will be destroyed from base to summit." The god being asked to give a +more favorable response, replied, "Zeus accords to Pallas [protectress +of Athens] a wall of wood which alone shall not be taken; in that +shall you and your children find safety." The priests of whom they +asked the interpretation of this oracle bade the Athenians quit Attica +and go to establish themselves elsewhere. But Themistocles explained +the "wall of wood" as meaning the ships; they should retire to the +fleet and fight the Persians on sea. + +Athens and Sparta, having decided on resistance, endeavored to form a +league of the Greeks against the Persians. Few cities had the courage +to enter it, and these placed themselves under the command of the +Spartans. Four battles in one year settled the war. At Thermopylæ, +Leonidas, king of Sparta, who tried to bar the entrance to a defile +was outflanked and overwhelmed. At Salamis, the Persian fleet, crowded +into a narrow space where the ships embarrassed one another, was +defeated by the Greek navy (480). At Platæa the rest of the Persian +army left in Greece was annihilated by the Greek hoplites; of 300,000 +men but 40,000 escaped. The same day at Mycale, on the coast of Asia, +an army of the Greeks landed and routed the Persians (479). The Greeks +had conquered the Great King. + +=Reasons for the Greek Victory.=--The Median war was not a national +war between Greeks and barbarians. All the Greeks of Asia and half the +Greeks of Europe fought on the Persian side. Many of the other Greeks +gave no assistance. In reality it was a fight of the Great King and +his subjects against Sparta, Athens, and their allies. + +The conquest of this great horde by two small peoples appeared at that +time as a prodigy. The gods, said the Greeks, had fought for them. But +there is less wonder when we examine the two antagonists more closely: +the Persian army was innumerable, and Xerxes had thought that victory +was a matter of numbers. But this multitude was an embarrassment to +itself. It did not know where to secure food for itself, it advanced +but slowly, and it choked itself on the day of combat. Likewise the +ships arranged in too close order drove their prows into neighboring +ships and shattered their oars. Then in this immense crowd there were, +according to Herodotus, many men but few soldiers. Only the Persians +and Medes, the flower of the army, fought with energy; the rest +advanced only under the lash, they had come under pressure to a war +which had no interest for them, ill-armed and without discipline, +ready to desert as soon as no one was watching them. At Platæa the +Medes and Persians were the only ones to do any fighting; the subjects +kept aloof. + +The Persian soldiers were ill-equipped; they were embarrassed by their +long robes, the head was poorly protected by a felt hat, the body +ill-defended by a shield of wicker-work. For arms they had a bow, a +dagger, and a very short pike; they could fight only at a great +distance or hand-to-hand. The Spartans and their allies, on the +contrary, secure in the protection of great buckler, helmet and +greaves, marched in solid line and were irresistible; they broke the +enemy with their long pikes and at once the battle became a massacre. + +=Results of the Persian Wars.=--Sparta had commanded the troops, but +as Herodotus says,[77] it was Athens who had delivered Greece by +setting an example of resistance and constituting the fleet of +Salamis. It was Athens who profited by the victory. All the Ionian +cities of the Archipelago and of the coast of Asia revolted and formed +a league against the Persians. The Spartans, men of the mountains, +could not conduct a maritime war, and so withdrew; the Athenians +immediately became chiefs of the league. In 476[78] Aristides, +commanding the fleet, assembled the delegates of the confederate +cities. They decided to continue the war against the Great King, and +engaged to provide ships and warriors and to pay each year a +contribution of 460 talents ($350,000). The treasure was deposited at +Delos in the temple of Apollo, god of the Ionians. Athens was charged +with the leadership of the military force and with collecting the tax. +To make the agreement irrevocable Aristides had a mass of hot iron +cast into the sea, and all swore to maintain the oaths until the day +that the iron should mount to the surface. + +A day came, however, when the war ceased, and the Greeks, always the +victors, concluded a peace, or at least a truce,[79] with the Great +King. He surrendered his claim on the Asiatic Greeks (about 449). + +What was to become of the treaty of Aristides? Were the confederate +cities still to pay their contribution now that there was no more +fighting? Some refused it even before the war was done. Athens +asserted that the cities had made their engagements in perpetuity and +forced them to pay them. + +The war finished, the treasury at Delos had no further use; the +Athenians transferred the money to Athens and used it in building +their monuments. They maintained that the allies paid for deliverance +from the Persians; they, therefore, had no claim against Athens so +long as she defended them from the Great King. The allies had now +become the tributaries of Athens: they were now her subjects. Athens +increased the tax on them, and required their citizens to bring their +cases before the Athenian courts; she even sent colonists to seize a +part of their lands. Athens, mistress of the league, was sovereign +over more than three hundred cities spread over the islands and the +coasts of the Archipelago, and the tribute paid her amounted to six +hundred talents a year. + + +STRIFE AMONG THE GREEK STATES + +=The Peloponnesian War.=--After the foundation of the Athenian empire +in the Archipelago the Greeks found themselves divided between two +leagues--the maritime cities were subject to Athens; the cities of the +interior remained under the domination of Sparta. After much +preliminary friction war arose between Sparta and her continental +allies on the one side and Athens and her maritime subjects on the +other. This was the _Peloponnesian War_. It continued twenty-seven +years (431-404), and when it ceased, it was revived under other names +down to 360. + +These wars were complicated affairs. They were fought simultaneously +on land and sea, in Greece, Asia, Thrace, and Sicily, ordinarily at +several points at once. The Spartans had a better army and ravaged +Attica; the Athenians had a superior fleet and made descents on the +coasts of the Peloponnesus. Then Athens sent its army to Sicily where +it perished to the last man (413); Lysander, a Spartan general, +secured a fleet from the Persians and destroyed the Athenian fleet in +Asia (405). The Athenian allies who fought only under compulsion +abandoned her. Lysander took Athens, demolished its walls, and burnt +its ships. + +=Wars against Sparta.=--Sparta was for a time mistress on both land +and sea. "In those days," says Xenophon, "all cities obeyed when a +Spartan issued his orders." But soon the allies of Sparta, wearied of +her domination, formed a league against her. The Spartans, driven at +first from Asia, still maintained their power in Greece for some years +by virtue of their alliance with the king of the Persians (387). But +the Thebans, having developed a strong army under the command of +Epaminondas, fought them at Leuctra (371) and at Mantinea (362). The +allies of Sparta detached themselves from her, but the Thebans could +not secure from the rest of the Greeks the recognition of their +supremacy. From this time no Greek city was sovereign over the others. + +=Savage Character of These Wars.=--These wars between the Greek cities +were ferocious. A few incidents suffice to show their character. At +the opening of the war the allies of Sparta threw into the sea all the +merchants from cities hostile to them. The Athenians in return put to +death the ambassadors of Sparta without allowing them to speak a word. +The town of Platæa was taken by capitulation, and the Spartans had +promised that no one should be punished without a trial; but the +Spartan judges demanded of every prisoner if during the war he had +rendered any service to the Peloponnesians; when the prisoner replied +in the negative, he was condemned to death. The women were sold as +slaves. The city of Mitylene having revolted from Athens was retaken +by her. The Athenians in an assembly deliberated and decreed that all +the people of Mitylene should be put to death. It is true that the +next day the Athenians revised the decree and sent a second ship to +carry a more favorable commission, but still more than one thousand +Mityleneans were executed. + +After the Syracusan disaster all the Athenian army was taken captive. +The conquerors began by slaughtering all the generals and many of the +soldiers. The remainder were consigned to the quarries which served as +prison. They were left there crowded together for seventy days, +exposed without protection to the burning sun of summer, and then to +the chilly nights of autumn. Many died from sickness, from cold and +hunger--for they were hardly fed at all; their corpses remained on the +ground and infected the air. At last the Syracusans drew out the +survivors sold them into slavery. + +Ordinarily when an army invaded a hostile state it levelled the +houses, felled the trees, burned the crops and killed the laborers. +After battle it made short shrift of the wounded and killed prisoners +in cold blood. In a captured city everything belonged to the captor: +men, women, children were sold as slaves. Such was at this time the +right of war. Thucydides sums up the case as follows:[80] "Business is +regulated between men by the laws of justice when there is obligation +on both sides; but the stronger does whatever is in his power, and the +weaker yields. The gods rule by a necessity of their nature because +they are strongest; men do likewise." + +=Results of These Wars.=--These wars did not result in uniting the +Greeks into one body. No city, Sparta more than Athens, was able to +force the others to obey her. They only exhausted themselves by +fighting one another. It was the king of Persia who profited by the +strife. Not only did the Greek cities not unite against him, but all +in succession allied themselves with him against the other Greeks. In +the notorious Peace of Antalcidas (387) the Great King declared that +all the Greek cities of Asia belonged to him, and Sparta recognized +this claim. Athens and Thebes did as much some years later. An +Athenian orator said, "It is the king of Persia who governs Greece; he +needs only to establish governors in our cities. Is it not he who +directs everything among us? Do we not summon the Great King as if we +were his slaves?" The Greeks by their strife had lost the vantage that +the Median war had gained for them. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[71] Twelve Ionian colonies, twelve Æolian, four Dorian. + +[72] Herod., i., 153. + +[73] Herod., vii., 103, 104. + +[74] 1,000 Platæans came to the assistance of the Athenians.--ED. + +[75] Herodotus's statements of the numbers in Xerxes' army are +incredible.--ED. + +[76] Herod., vii., 61-80. + +[77] vii., 139. + +[78] The chronology of these events is uncertain.--ED. + +[79] Called the Peace of Cimon, but it is very doubtful whether Cimon +really concluded a treaty. [With more right may it be called the Peace +of Callias, who was probably principal ambassador.--ED.] + +[80] In his chapters on the Mityleneans. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ARTS IN GREECE + +ATHENS AT THE TIME OF PERICLES + + +=Pericles.=--In the middle of the fifth century Athens found herself +the most powerful city in Greece. Pericles, descended from one of the +noble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state. He +wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the +vanity of the people. But the Athenians respected him and acted only +in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of +all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and +so they permitted him to govern. For forty years Pericles was the soul +of the politics of Athens; as Thucydides his contemporary said, "The +democracy existed in name; in reality it was the government of the +first citizen." + +=Athens and Her Monuments.=--In Athens, as in the majority of Greek +cities, the houses of individuals were small, low, packed closely +together, forming narrow streets, tortuous and ill paved. The +Athenians reserved their display for their public monuments. Ever +after they levied heavy war taxes on their allies they had large sums +of money to expend, and these were employed in erecting beautiful +edifices. In the market-place they built a portico adorned with +paintings (the Poikile), in the city a theatre, a temple in honor of +Theseus, and the Odeon for the contests in music. But the most +beautiful monuments rose on the rock of the Acropolis as on a gigantic +pedestal. There were two temples of which the principal, the +Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena, protecting goddess of the city; a +colossal statue of bronze which represented Athena; and a staircase of +ornamental character leading up to the Propylæa. Athens was from this +time the most beautiful of the Greek cities.[81] + +=Importance of Athens.=--Athens became at the same time the city of +artists. Poets, orators, architects, painters, sculptors--some +Athenians by birth, others come from all corners of the Greek +world--met here and produced their masterpieces. There were without +doubt many Greek artists elsewhere than at Athens; there had been +before the fifth century, and there were a long time afterward; but +never were so many assembled at one time in the same city. Most of the +Greeks had fine sensibilities in matters of art; but the Athenians +more than all others had a refined taste, a cultivated spirit and love +of the beautiful. If the Greeks have gained renown in the history of +civilization, it is that they have been a people of artists; neither +their little states nor their small armies have played a great rôle in +the world. This is why the fifth century is the most beautiful moment +in the history of Greece; this is why Athens has remained renowned +above all the rest of the Greek cities. + + +LETTERS + +=The Orators.=--Athens is above all the city of eloquence. Speeches in +the assembly determine war, peace, taxes, all state business of +importance; speeches before the courts condemn or acquit citizens and +subjects. Power is in the hands of the orators; the people follow +their counsels and often commit to them important public functions: +Cleon is appointed general; Demosthenes directs the war against +Philip. + +The orators have influence; they employ their talents in eloquence to +accuse their political enemies. Often they possess riches, for they +are paid for supporting one party or the other: Æschines is retained +by the king of Macedon; Demosthenes accepts fees from the king of +Persia. + +Some of the orators, instead of delivering their own orations, wrote +speeches for others. When an Athenian citizen had a case at court, he +did not desire, as we do, that an advocate plead his case for him; the +law required that each speak in person. He therefore sought an orator +and had him compose a speech which he learned by heart and recited +before the tribunal. + +Other orators travelled through the cities of Greece speaking on +subjects which pleased their fancy. Sometimes they gave lectures, as +we should say. + +The oldest orators spoke simply, limiting themselves to an account of +the facts without oratorical flourishes; on the platform they were +almost rigid without loud speaking or gesticulation. Pericles +delivered his orations with a calm air, so quietly, indeed, that no +fold of his mantle was disturbed. When he appeared at the tribune, +his head, according to custom, crowned with leaves, he might have been +taken, said the people, "for a god of Olympus." But the orators who +followed wished to move the public. They assumed an animated style, +pacing the tribune in a declamatory and agitated manner. The people +became accustomed to this form of eloquence. The first time that +Demosthenes came to the tribune the assembly shouted with laughter; +the orator could not enunciate, he carried himself ill. He disciplined +himself in declamation and gesture and became the favorite of the +people. Later when he was asked what was the first quality of the +orator, he replied, "Action, and the second, action, and the third, +action." Action, that is delivery, was more to the Greeks than the +sense of the discourse. + +=The Sages.=--For some centuries there had been, especially among the +Greeks of Asia, men who observed and reflected on things. They were +called by a name which signifies at once wise men and scholars. They +busied themselves with physics, astronomy, natural history, for as yet +science was not separated from philosophy. Such were in the seventh +century the celebrated Seven Sages of Greece. + +=The Sophists.=--About the time of Pericles there came to Athens men +who professed to teach wisdom. They gathered many pupils and charged +fees for their lessons. Ordinarily they attacked the religion, +customs, and institutions of Greek cities, showing that they were not +founded on reason. They concluded that men could not know anything +with certainty (which was quite true for their time), that men can +know nothing at all, and that nothing is true or false: "Nothing +exists," said one of them, "and if it did exist, we could not know +it." These professors of scepticism were called sophists. Some of them +were at the same time orators. + +=Socrates and the Philosophers.=--Socrates, an old man of Athens, +undertook to combat the sophists. He was a poor man, ugly, and without +eloquence. He opened no school like the sophists but contented himself +with going about the city, conversing with those he met, and leading +them by the force of his questions to discover what he himself had in +mind. He sought especially the young men and gave them instruction and +counsel. Socrates made no pretensions as a scholar: "All my +knowledge," said he, "is to know that I know nothing." He would call +himself no longer a sage, like the others, but a philosopher, that is +to say, a lover of wisdom. He did not meditate on the nature of the +world nor on the sciences; man was his only interest. His motto was, +"Know thyself." He was before all a preacher of virtue. + +As he always spoke of morals and religion, the Athenians took him for +a sophist.[82] In 399 he was brought before the court, accused "of not +worshipping the gods of the city, of introducing new gods, and of +corrupting the youth." He made no attempt to defend himself, and was +condemned to death. He was then seventy years old. + +Xenophon, one of his disciples, wrote out his conversations and an +apology for him.[83] Another disciple, Plato, composed dialogues in +which Socrates is always the principal personage. Since this time +Socrates has been regarded as the "father of philosophy." Plato +himself was the head of a school (429-348); Aristotle (384-322), a +disciple of Plato, summarized in his books all the science of his +time. The philosophers that followed attached themselves to one or the +other of these two masters: the disciples of Plato called themselves +Academicians,[84] those of Aristotle, Peripatetics.[85] + +=The Chorus.=--It was an ancient custom of the Greeks to dance in +their religious ceremonies. Around the altar dedicated to the god a +group of young men passed and repassed, assuming noble and expressive +attitudes, for the ancients danced with the whole body. Their dance, +very different from ours, was a sort of animated procession, something +like a solemn pantomime. Almost always this religious dance was +accompanied by chants in honor of the god. The group singing and +dancing at the same time was called the Chorus. All the cities had +their festival choruses in which the children of the noblest families +participated after long time of preparation. The god required the +service of a troop worthy of him. + +=Tragedy and Comedy.=--In the level country about Athens the young men +celebrated in this manner each year religious dances in honor of +Dionysos, the god of the vintage. One of these dances was grave; it +represented the actions of the god. The leader of the chorus played +Dionysos, the chorus itself the satyrs, his companions. Little by +little they came to represent also the life of the other gods and the +ancient heroes. Then some one (the Greeks call him Thespis) conceived +the idea of setting up a stage on which the actor could play while the +chorus rested. The spectacle thus perfected was transferred to the +city near the black poplar tree in the market. Thus originated +Tragedy. + +The other dance was comic. The masked dancers chanted the praises of +Dionysos mingled with jeers addressed to the spectators or with +humorous reflections on the events of the day. The same was done for +the comic chorus as for the tragic chorus: actors were introduced, a +dialogue, all of a piece, and the spectacle was transferred to Athens. +This was the origin of Comedy. This is the reason that from this time +tragedy has been engaged with heroes, and comedy with every-day life. + +Tragedy and comedy preserved some traces of their origin. Even when +they were represented in the theatre, they continued to be played +before the altar of the god. Even after the actors mounted on the +platform had become the most important personages of the spectacle, +the choir continued to dance and to chant around the altar. In the +comedies, like the masques in other days, sarcastic remarks on the +government came to be made; this was the Parabasis. + +=The Theatre.=--That all the Athenians might be present at these +spectacles there was built on the side of the Acropolis the theatre of +Dionysos which could hold 30,000 spectators. Like all the Greek +theatres, it was open to heaven and was composed of tiers of rock +ranged in a half-circle about the orchestra where the chorus performed +and before the stage where the play was given. + +Plays were produced only at the time of the festivals of the god, but +then they continued for several days in succession. They began in the +morning at sunrise and occupied all the time till torch-light with the +production of a series of three tragedies (a trilogy) followed by a +satirical drama. Each trilogy was the work of one author. Other +trilogies were presented on succeeding days, so that the spectacle was +a competition between poets, the public determining the victor. The +most celebrated of these competitors were Æschylus, Sophocles, and +Euripides. There were also contests in comedy, but there remain to us +only the works of one comic poet, Aristophanes. + + +THE ARTS + +=Greek Temples.=--In Greece the most beautiful edifices were +constructed to the honor of the gods, and when we speak of Greek +architecture it is their temples that we have in mind. + +A Greek temple is not, like a Christian church, designed to receive +the faithful who come thither to pray. It is the palace[86] where the +god lives, represented by his idol, a palace which men feel under +compulsion to make splendid. The mass of the faithful do not enter the +interior of the temple; they remain without, surrounding the altar in +the open air. + +At the centre of the temple is the "chamber" of the god, a mysterious +sanctuary without windows, dimly lighted from above.[87] On the +pavement rises the idol of wood, of marble, or of ivory, clad in gold +and adorned with garments and jewels. The statue is often of colossal +size; in the temple of Olympia Zeus is represented sitting and his +head almost touches the summit of the temple. "If the god should +rise," they said, "his head would shatter the roof." This sanctuary, a +sort of reliquary for the idol, is concealed on every side from the +eyes. To enter, it is necessary to pass through a porch formed by a +row of columns. + +Behind the "chamber" is the "rear-chamber" in which are kept the +valuable property of the god--his riches,[88] and often the gold and +silver of the city. The temple is therefore storehouse, treasury, and +museum. + +Rows of columns surround the building on four sides, like a second +wall protecting the god and his treasures. There are three orders of +columns which differ in base and capital, each bearing the name of the +people that invented it or most frequently used it. They are, in the +order of age, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The temple is +named from the style of the columns supporting it. + +Above the columns, around the edifice are sculptured surfaces of +marble (the metopes) which alternate with plain blocks of marble (the +triglyphs). Metopes and triglyphs constitute the frieze. + +The temple is surmounted with a triangular pediment adorned with +statues. + +Greek temples were polychrome, that is to say, were painted in several +colors, yellow, blue, and red. For a long time the moderns refused to +believe this; it was thought that the Greeks possessed too sober taste +to add color to an edifice. But traces of painting have been +discovered on several temples, which cannot leave the matter in doubt. +It has at last been concluded, on reflection, that these bright colors +were to give a clearer setting to the lines. + +=Characteristics of Greek Architecture.=--A Greek temple appears at +first a simple, bare edifice; it is only a long box of stone set upon +a rock; the façade is a square surmounted by a triangle. At first +glance one sees only straight lines and cylinders. But on nearer +inspection "it is discovered[89] that not a single one of these lines +is truly straight." The columns swell at the middle, vertical lines +are slightly inclined to the centre, and horizontal lines bulge a +little at the middle. And all this is so fine that exact measurements +are necessary to detect the artifice. Greek architects discovered +that, to produce a harmonious whole, it is necessary to avoid +geometrical lines which would appear stiff, and take account of +illusions in perspective. "The aim of the architect," says a Greek +writer, "is to invent processes for deluding the sight." + +Greek artists wrought conscientiously for they worked for the gods. +And so their monuments are elaborated in all their parts, even in +those that are least in view, and are constructed so solidly that +they exist to this day if they have not been violently destroyed. The +Parthenon was still intact in the seventeenth century. An explosion of +gunpowder wrecked it. + +The architecture of the Greeks was at once solid and elegant, simple +and scientific. Their temples have almost all disappeared; here and +there are a very few,[90] wholly useless, in ruins, with roofs fallen +in, often nothing left but rows of columns. And yet, even in this +state, they enrapture those who behold them. + +=Sculpture.=--Among the Egyptians and the Assyrians sculpture was +hardly more than an accessory ornament of their edifices; the Greeks +made it the principal art. Their most renowned artists, Phidias, +Praxiteles, and Lysippus, were sculptors. + +They executed bas-reliefs to adorn the walls of a temple, its façade +or its pediment. Of this style of work is the famous frieze of the +Panathenaic procession which was carved around the Parthenon, +representing young Athenian women on the day of the great festival of +the goddess.[91] + +They sculptured statues for the most part, of which some represented +gods and served as idols; others represented athletes victorious in +the great games, and these were the recompense of his victory. + +The most ancient statues of the Greeks are stiff and rude, quite +similar to the Assyrian sculptures. They are often colored. Little by +little they become graceful and elegant. The greatest works are those +of Phidias in the fifth century and of Praxiteles in the fourth. The +statues of the following centuries are more graceful, but less noble +and less powerful. + +There were thousands of statues in Greece,[92] for every city had its +own, and the sculptors produced without cessation for five centuries. +Of all this multitude there remain to us hardly fifteen complete +statues. Not a single example of the masterpieces celebrated among the +Greeks has come down to us. Our most famous Greek statues are either +copies, like the Venus of Milo, or works of the period of the +decadence, like the Apollo of the Belvidere.[93] Still there remains +enough, uniting the fragments of statues and of bas-reliefs which are +continually being discovered,[94] to give us a general conception of +Greek sculpture. + +Greek sculptors sought above everything else to represent the most +beautiful bodies in a calm and noble attitude. They had a thousand +occasions for viewing beautiful bodies of men in beautiful poses, at +the gymnasium, in the army, in the sacred dances and choruses. They +studied them and learned to reproduce them; no one has ever better +executed the human body. + +Usually in a Greek statue the head is small, the face without emotion +and dull. The Greeks did not seek, as we do, the expression of the +face; they strove for beauty of line and did not sacrifice the limbs +for the head. In a Greek statue it is the whole body that is +beautiful. + +=Pottery.=--The Greeks came to make pottery a real art. They called it +Ceramics (the potter's art), and this name is still preserved. Pottery +had not the same esteem in Greece as the other arts, but for us it has +the great advantage of being better known than the others. While +temples and statues fell into ruin, the achievements of Greek potters +are preserved in the tombs. This is where they are found today. +Already more than 20,000 specimens have been collected in all the +museums of Europe. They are of two sorts: + + 1. Painted vases, with black or red figures, of all sizes and + every form; + + 2. Statuettes of baked earth; hardly known twenty years ago, they + have now attained almost to celebrity since the discovery of the + charming figurines of Tanagra in Boeotia. The most of them are + little idols, but some represent children or women. + +=Painting.=--There were illustrious painters in Greece--Zeuxis, +Parrhasius, and Apelles. We know little of them beyond some anecdotes, +often doubtful, and some descriptions of pictures. To obtain an +impression of Greek painting we are limited to the frescoes found in +the houses of Pompeii, an Italian city of the first century of our +era. This amounts to the same as saying we know nothing of it. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[81] The moderns have called this time the Age of Pericles, because +Pericles was then governing and was the friend of many of these artists; +but the ancients never employed the phrase. + +[82] See Aristophanes' "Clouds." + +[83] The "Memorabilia" and "Apologia." + +[84] Because Plato had lectured in the gardens of a certain Academus. + +[85] Because Aristotle had given instruction while moving about. [Or +rather from a favorite walk (Peripatus) in the Lyceum.--ED.] + +[86] The Greek word for temple signifies "dwelling." + +[87] But not by a square opening in the roof as formerly supposed.--ED. +See Gardner, "Ancient Athens," N.Y., 1902, p. 268. + +[88] The Parthenon contained vases of gold and silver, a crown of gold, +shields, helmets, swords, serpents of gold, an ivory table, eighteen +couches, and quivers of ivory. + +[89] Boutmy, "Philosophie de l'Architecture en Grèce." + +[90] The most noted are the Parthenon at Athens and the temple of +Poseidon at Pæstum, in south Italy. + +[91] Knights and other subjects were also shown.--ED. + +[92] Even in the second century after the Romans had pillaged Greece to +adorn their palaces, there were many thousands of statues in the Greek +cities. + +[93] It is not certain that the Apollo Belvidere was not a Roman copy. + +[94] In the ruins of Olympia has been found a statue of Hermes, the work +of Praxiteles. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT + +ASIA BEFORE ALEXANDER + + +=Decadence of the Persian Empire.=--The Greeks, engaged in strife, +ceased to attack the Great King; they even received their orders from +him. But the Persian empire still continued to become enfeebled. The +satraps no longer obeyed the government; each had his court, his +treasure, his army, made war according to his fancy, and in short, +became a little king in his province. When the Great King desired to +remove a satrap, he had scarcely any way of doing it except by +assassinating him. The Persians themselves were no longer that nation +before which all the Asiatic peoples were wont to tremble. Xenophon, a +Greek captain, who had been in their pay, describes them as follows: +"They recline on tapestries wearing gloves and furs. The nobles, for +the sake of the pay, transform their porters, their bakers, and cooks +into knights--even the valets who served them at table, dressed them +or perfumed them. And so, although their armies were large, they were +of no service, as is apparent from the fact that their enemies +traversed the empire more freely than their friends. They no longer +dared to fight. The infantry as formerly was equipped with buckler, +sword, and axe, but they had no courage to use them. The drivers of +chariots before facing the enemy basely allowed themselves to be +overthrown at once or leaped down from the cars, so that these being +no longer under control injured the Persians more than the enemy. For +the rest, the Persians do not disguise their military weakness, they +concede their inferiority and do not dare to take the field except +there are Greeks in their army. They have for their maxim 'never to +fight Greeks without Greek auxiliaries on their side.'" + +=Expedition of the Ten Thousand.=--This weakness was very apparent +when in 400 Cyrus, brother of the Great King Artaxerxes, marched +against him to secure his throne. There were then some thousands of +adventurers or Greek exiles who hired themselves as mercenaries. Cyrus +retained ten thousand of them. Xenophon, one of their number, has +written the story of their expedition. + +This army crossed the whole of Asia even to the Euphrates without +resistance from any one.[95] They at last came to battle near Babylon. +The Greeks according to their habit broke into a run, raising the +war-cry. The barbarians took flight before the Greeks had come even +within bow-shot. The Greeks followed in pursuit urging one another to +keep ranks. + +When the war-chariots attacked them, they opened their ranks and let +them through. Not a Greek received the least stroke with the exception +of one only who was wounded with an arrow. Cyrus was killed; his army +disbanded without fighting, and the Greeks remained alone in the heart +of a hostile country threatened by a large army. And yet the Persians +did not dare to attack them, but treacherously killed their five +generals, twenty captains, and two hundred soldiers who had come to +conclude a truce. + +The friendless mercenaries elected new chiefs, burned their tents and +their chariots, and began their retreat. They broke into the rugged +mountains of Armenia, and notwithstanding famine, snow, and the arrows +of the natives who did not wish to let them pass, they came to the +Black Sea and returned to Greece after traversing the whole Persian +empire. At their return (399) their number amounted still to 8,000. + +=Agesilaus.=--Three years after, Agesilaus, king of Sparta, with a +small army invaded the rich country of Asia Minor, Lydia, and Phrygia. +He fought the satraps and was about to invade Asia when the Spartans +ordered his return to fight the armies of Thebes and Athens. Agesilaus +was the first of the Greeks to dream of conquering Persia. He was +distressed to see the Greeks fighting among themselves. When they +announced to him the victory at Corinth where but eight Spartans had +perished and 10,000 of the enemy, instead of rejoicing he sighed and +said, "Alas, unhappy Greece, to have lost enough men to have +subjugated all the barbarians!" He refused one day to destroy a Greek +city. "If we exterminate all the Greeks who fail of their duty," said +he, "where shall we find the men to vanquish the barbarians?" This +feeling was rare at that time. In relating these words of Agesilaus +Xenophon, his biographer, exclaims, "Who else regarded it as a +misfortune to conquer when he was making war on peoples of his own +race?" + + +CONQUEST OF ASIA BY ALEXANDER + +=Macedon.=--Sparta and Athens, exhausted by a century of wars, had +abandoned the contest against the king of Persia. A new people resumed +it and brought it to an end; these were the Macedonians. They were a +very rude people, crude, similar to the ancient Dorians, a people of +shepherds and soldiers. They lived far to the north of Greece in two +great valleys that opened to the sea. The Greeks had little regard for +them, rating them as half barbarians; but since the kings of Macedon +called themselves sons of Herakles they had been permitted to run +their horses in the races of the Olympian games. This gave them +standing as Greeks. + +=Philip of Macedon.=--These kings ruling in the interior, remote from +the sea, had had but little part in the wars of the Greeks. But in 359 +B.C. Philip ascended the throne of Macedon, a man young, active, bold, +and ambitious. Philip had three aims: + + 1. To develop a strong army; + + 2. To conquer all the ports on the coast of Macedon; + + 3. To force all the other Greeks to unite under his command + against the Persians. + +He consumed twenty-four years in fulfilling these purposes and +succeeded in all. The Greeks let him alone, often even aided him; in +every city he bribed partisans who spoke in his favor. "No fortress is +impregnable," said he, "if only one can introduce within it a mule +laden with gold." And by these means he took one after another all the +cities of northern Greece. + +=Demosthenes.=--The most illustrious opponent of Philip was the orator +Demosthenes. The son of an armorer, he was left an orphan at the age +of seven, and his guardians had embezzled a part of his fortune. As +soon as he gained his majority he entered a case against them and +compelled them to restore the property. He studied the orations of +Isæus and the history of Thucydides which he knew by heart. But when +he spoke at the public tribune he was received with shouts of +laughter; his voice was too feeble and his breath too short. For +several years he labored to discipline his voice. It is said that he +shut himself up for months with head half shaved that he might not be +tempted to go out, that he declaimed with pebbles in his mouth, and on +the sea-shore, in order that his voice might rise above the uproar of +the crowd. When he reappeared on the tribune, he was master of his +voice, and, as he preserved the habit of carefully preparing all his +orations, he became the most finished and most potent orator of +Greece. + +The party that then governed Athens, whose chief was Phocion, wished +to maintain the peace: Athens had neither soldiers nor money enough to +withstand the king of Macedon. "I should counsel you to make war," +said Phocion, "when you are ready for it." Demosthenes, however, +misunderstood Philip, whom he regarded as a barbarian; he placed +himself at the service of the party that wished to make war on him and +employed all his eloquence to move the Athenians from their policy of +peace. For fifteen years he seized every occasion to incite them to +war; many of his speeches have no other object than an attack on +Philip. He himself called these Philippics, and there are three of +them. (The name Olynthiacs has been applied to the orations delivered +with the purpose of enlisting the Athenians in the aid of Olynthus +when it was besieged by Philip.) The first Philippic is in 352. "When, +then, O Athenians, will you be about your duty? Will you always roam +about the public places asking one of another: What is the news? Ah! +How can there be anything newer than the sight of a Macedonian +conquering Athens and dominating Greece? I say, then, that you ought +to equip fifty galleys and resolve, if necessary, to man them +yourselves. Do not talk to me of an army of 10,000 or of 20,000 aliens +that exists only on paper. I would have only citizen soldiers." + +In the third Philippic (341) Demosthenes calls to the minds of the +Athenians the progress made by Philip, thanks to their inaction. "When +the Greeks once abused their power to oppress others, all Greece rose +to prevent this injustice; and yet today we suffer an unworthy +Macedonian, a barbarian of a hated race, to destroy Greek cities, +celebrate the Pythian games, or have them celebrated by his slaves. +And the Greeks look on without doing anything, just as one sees hail +falling while he prays that it may not touch him. You let increase his +power without taking a step to stop it, each regarding it as so much +time gained when he is destroying another, instead of planning and +working for the safety of Greece, when everybody knows that the +disaster will end with the inclusion of the most remote." + +At last, when Philip had taken Elatea on the borders of Boeotia, the +Athenians, on the advice of Demosthenes, determined to make war and to +send envoys to Thebes. Demosthenes was at the head of the embassy; he +met at Thebes an envoy come from Philip; the Thebans hesitated. +Demosthenes besought them to bury the old enmities and to think only +of the safety of Greece, to defend its honor and its history. He +persuaded them to an alliance with Athens and to undertake the war. A +battle was fought at Chæronea in Boeotia, Demosthenes, then at the age +of forty-eight, serving as a private hostile. But the army of the +Athenians and Thebans, levied in haste, was not equal to the veterans +of Philip and was thrown into rout. + +=The Macedonian Supremacy.=--Philip, victorious at Chæronea, placed a +garrison in Thebes and offered peace to Athens. He then entered the +Peloponnesus and was received as a liberator among the peoples whom +Sparta had oppressed. From this time he met with no resistance. He +came to Corinth and assembled delegates from all the Greek states +(337)[96] except Sparta. + +Here Philip published his project of leading a Greek army to the +invasion of Persia. The delegates approved the proposition and made a +general confederation of all the Greek states. Each city was to govern +itself and to live at peace with its neighbors. A general council was +initiated to prevent wars, civil dissensions, proscriptions, and +confiscations. + +This confederacy made an alliance with the king of Macedon and +conferred on him the command of all the Greek troops and navies. Every +Greek was prohibited making war on Philip on pain of banishment. + +=Alexander.=--Philip of Macedon was assassinated in 336. His son +Alexander was then twenty years old. Like all the Greeks of good +family he was accustomed to athletic exercises, a vigorous fighter, an +excellent horseman (he alone had been able to master Bucephalus, his +war-horse). But at the same time he was informed in politics, in +eloquence, and in natural history, having had as teacher from his +thirteenth to his seventeenth year Aristotle, the greatest scholar of +Greece. He read the Iliad with avidity, called this the guide to the +military art, and desired to imitate its heroes. He was truly born to +conquer, for he loved to fight and was ambitious to distinguish +himself. His father said to him, "Macedon is too small to contain +you." + +=The Phalanx.=--Philip left a powerful instrument of conquest, the +Macedonian army, the best that Greece had seen. It comprised the +phalanx of infantry and a corps of cavalry. + +The phalanx of Macedonians was formed of 16,000 men ranged with 1,000 +in front and 16 men deep. Each had a sarissa, a spear about twenty +feet in length. On the field of battle the Macedonians, instead of +marching on the enemy facing all in the same direction, held +themselves in position and presented their pikes to the enemy on all +sides, those in the rear couching their spears above the heads of the +men of the forward ranks. The phalanx resembled "a monstrous beast +bristling with iron," against which the enemy was to throw itself. +While the phalanx guarded the field of battle, Alexander charged the +enemy at the head of his cavalry. This Macedonian cavalry was a +distinguished body formed of young nobles. + +=Departure of Alexander.=--Alexander started in the spring of 334 with +30,000 infantry (the greater part of these Macedonians) and 4,500 +knights; he carried only seventy talents (less than eighty thousand +dollars) and supplies for forty days. He had to combat not only the +crowd of ill-armed peoples such as Xerxes had brought together, but an +army of 50,000 Greeks enrolled in the service of the Great King under +a competent general, Memnon of Rhodes. These Greeks might have +withstood the invasion of Alexander, but Memnon died and his army +dispersed. Alexander, delivered from his only dangerous opponent, +conquered the Persian empire in two years. + +=Victories of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela.=--Three victories gave the +empire to Alexander. In Asia Minor he overthrew the Persian troops +stationed behind the river Granicus (May, 333). At Issus, in the +ravines of Cilicia, he routed King Darius and his army of 600,000 men +(November, 333). At Arbela, near the Tigris, he scattered and +massacred a still more numerous army (331). + +This was a repetition of the Median wars. The Persian army was ill +equipped and knew nothing of manoeuvring; it was embarrassed with its +mass of soldiers, valets, and baggage. The picked troops alone gave +battle, the rest were scattered and massacred. Between the battles the +conquest was only a triumphal progress. Nobody resisted (except the +city of Tyre, commercial rival of the Greeks); what cared the peoples +of the empire whether they were subject to Darius or Alexander? Each +victory gave Alexander the whole of the country: the Granicus opened +Asia Minor, Issus Syria and Egypt, Arbela the rest of the empire. + +=Death of Alexander.=--Master now of the Persian empire Alexander +regarded himself as the heir of the Great King. He assumed Persian +dress, adopted the ceremonies of the Persian court and compelled his +Greek generals to prostrate themselves before him according to Persian +usage. He married a woman of the land and united eighty of his +officers to daughters of the Persian nobles. He aimed to extend his +empire to the farthest limits of the ancient kings and advanced even +to India, warring with the combative natives. After his return with +his army to Babylon (324), he died at the age of thirty-three, +succumbing to a fever of brief duration (323). + +=Projects of Alexander.=--It is very difficult to know exactly what +Alexander's purposes were. Did he conquer for the mere pleasure of it? +Or did he have a plan? Did he wish to fuse into one all the peoples of +his empire? Was he following the example already set him by Persia? Or +did he, perhaps, imitate the Great King simply for vain-glory? And so +of his intentions we know nothing. But his acts had great results. He +founded seventy cities--many Alexandrias in Egypt, in Tartary, and +even in India. He distributed to his subjects the treasures that had +been uselessly hoarded in the chests of the Great King. He stimulated +Greek scholars to study the plants, the animals, and the geography of +Asia. But what is of special importance, he prepared the peoples of +the Orient to receive the language and customs of the Greeks. This is +why the title "Great" has been assigned to Alexander. + + +THE HELLENES IN THE ORIENT + +=Dissolution of the Empire of Alexander.=--Alexander had united under +one master all the ancient world from the Adriatic to the Indus, from +Egypt to the Caucasus. This vast empire endured only while he lived. +Soon after his death his generals disputed as to who should succeed +him; they made war on one another for twenty years, at first under the +pretext of supporting some one of the house of Alexander--his brother, +his son, his mother, his sisters or one of his wives, later openly in +their own names. + +Each had on his side a part of the Macedonian army or some of the +Greek mercenary soldiers. The Greeks were thus contending among +themselves who should possess Asia. The inhabitants were indifferent +in these wars as they had been in the strife between the Greeks and +the Persians. When the war ceased, there remained but three generals; +from the empire of Alexander each of them had carved for himself a +great kingdom: Ptolemy had Egypt, Seleucus Syria, Lysimachus +Macedonia. Other smaller kingdoms were already separated or detached +themselves later: in Europe Epirus; in Asia Minor, Pontus, Bithynia, +Galatia, Cappadocia, Pergamos; in Persia, Bactriana and Parthia. Thus +the empire of Alexander was dismembered. + +=The Hellenistic Kingdoms.=--In these new kingdoms the king was a +Greek; accustomed to speak Greek, to adore the Greek gods, and to live +in Greek fashion, he preserved his language, his religion, and his +customs. His subjects were Asiatics, that is to say, barbarians; but +he sought to maintain a Greek court about him; he recruited his army +with Greek mercenaries, his administrative officers were Greeks, he +invited to his court Greek poets, scholars, and artists. + +Already in the time of the Persian kings there were many Greeks in the +empire as colonists, merchants, and especially soldiers. The Greek +kings attracted still more of these. They came in such numbers that at +last the natives adopted the costume, the religion, the manners, and +even the language of the Greeks. The Orient ceased to be Asiatic, and +became Hellenic. The Romans found here in the first century B.C. only +peoples like the Greeks and who spoke Greek.[97] + +=Alexandria.=--The Greek kings of Egypt, descendants of Ptolemy,[98] +accepted the title of Pharaoh held by the ancient kings, wore the +diadem, and, like the earlier sovereigns, had themselves worshipped +as children of the Sun. But they surrounded themselves with Greeks +and founded their capital on the edge of the sea in a Greek city, +Alexandria, a new city established by the order of Alexander. + +Built on a simple plan, Alexandria was more regular than other Greek +cities. The streets intersected at right angles; a great highway 100 +feet broad and three and one-half miles in length traversed the whole +length of the city. It was bordered with great monuments--the Stadium +where the public games were presented, the Gymnasium, the Museum, and +the Arsineum. The harbor was enclosed with a dike nearly a mile long +which united the mainland to the island of Pharos. At the very +extremity of this island a tower of marble was erected, on the summit +of which was maintained a fire always burning to guide the mariners +who wished to enter the port. Alexandria superseded the Phoenician +cities and became the great port of the entire world. + +=The Museum.=--The Museum was an immense edifice of marble connected +with the royal palace. The kings of Egypt purposed to make of it a +great scientific institution. + +The Museum contained a great library.[99] The chief librarian had a +commission to buy all the books that he could find. Every book that +entered Egypt was brought to the library; copyists transcribed the +manuscript and a copy was rendered the owner to indemnify him. Thus +they collected 400,000 volumes, an unheard-of number before the +invention of printing. Until then the manuscripts of celebrated books +were scarce, always in danger of being lost; now it was known where to +find them. In the Museum were also a botanical and zoölogical garden, +an astronomical observatory, a dissecting room established +notwithstanding the prejudices of the Egyptians, and even a chemical +laboratory.[100] + +The Museum provided lodgings for scholars, mathematicians, +astronomers, physicians, and grammarians. They were supported at the +expense of the state; often to show his esteem for them the king dined +with them. These scholars held conferences and gave lectures. Auditors +came from all parts of the Greek world; it was to Alexandria that the +youth were sent for instruction. In the city were nearly 14,000 +students. + +The Museum was at once a library, an academy, and a school--something +like a university. This sort of institution, common enough among us, +was before that time completely unheard of. Alexandria, thanks to its +Museum, became the rendezvous for all the Orientals--Greeks, +Egyptians, Jews, and Syrians; each brought there his religion, his +philosophy, his science, and all were mingled together. Alexandria +became and remained for several centuries the scientific and +philosophical capital of the world. + +=Pergamum.=--The kingdom of Pergamum in Asia Minor was small and weak. +But Pergamum, its capital, was, like Alexandria, a city of artists and +of letters. The sculptors of Pergamum constituted a celebrated school +in the third century before our era.[101] Pergamum, like Alexandria, +possessed a great library where King Attalus had assembled all the +manuscripts of the ancient authors. + +It was at Pergamum that, to replace the papyrus on which down to that +time they used to write, they invented the art of preparing skins. +This new paper of Pergamum was the parchment on which the manuscripts +of antiquity have been preserved. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[95] An episode told by Xenophon shows what fear the Greeks inspired. +One day, to make a display before the queen of Cilicia, Cyrus had his +Greeks drawn up in battle array. "They all had their brazen helmets, +their tunics of purple, their gleaming shields and greaves. The trumpet +sounded, and the soldiers, with arms in action, began the charge; +hastening their steps and raising the war-cry, they broke into a run. +The barbarians were terrified; the Cilician queen fled from her chariot, +the merchants of the market abandoning their goods took to flight, and +the Greeks returned with laughter to their tents." + +[96] There were two assemblies in Corinth--the first in, 338, the second +in 337.--ED. + +[97] The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles composed in Asia Minor +were written in Greek. + +[98] They were called Lagidæ from the father of Ptolemy I. + +[99] The library of the Museum was burnt during the siege of Alexandria +by Cæsar. But it had a successor in the Serapeum which contained 300,000 +volumes. This is said to have been burnt in the seventh century by the +Arabs. [The tale of the destruction of the library under orders of Omar +is doubtful.--ED.] + +[100] King Ptolemy Philadelphus who had great fear of death passed many +years searching for an elixir of life. + +[101] There still remain to us some of the statues executed by the +orders of King Attalus to commemorate his victory over the Gauls of +Asia. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE LAST YEARS OF GREECE + +DECADENCE OF THE GREEK CITIES + + +=Rich and Poor.=--In almost all the Greek cities the domains, the +shops of trade, the merchant ships, in short, all the sources of +financial profit were in the hands of certain rich families. The other +families, that is to say, the majority of the citizens,[102] had +neither lands nor money. What, then, could a poor citizen do to gain a +livelihood? Hire himself as a farmer, an artisan, or a sailor? But the +proprietors already had their estates, their workshops, their +merchantmen manned by slaves who served them much more cheaply than +free laborers, for they fed them ill and did not pay them. Could he +work on his own account? But money was very scarce; he could not +borrow, since interest was at the rate of ten per cent. Then, too, +custom did not permit a citizen to become an artisan. "Trade," said +the philosophers, "injures the body, enfeebles the soul and leaves no +leisure to engage in public affairs." "And so," says Aristotle, "a +well-constituted city ought not to receive the artisan into +citizenship." The citizens in Greece constituted a noble class whose +only honorable functions, like the nobles of ancient France, were to +govern and go to war; working with the hands was degrading. Thus by +the competition of slaves and their exalted situation the greater part +of the citizens were reduced to extreme misery. + +=Social Strife.=--The poor governed the cities and had no means of +living. The idea occurred to them to despoil the rich, and the latter, +to resist them, organized associations. Then every Greek city was +divided into two parties: the rich, called the minority, and the poor, +called the majority or the people. Rich and poor hated one another and +fought one another. When the poor got the upper hand, they exiled the +rich and confiscated their goods; often they even adopted these two +radical measures: + + 1. The abolition of debts; + + 2. A new partition of lands. + +The rich, when they returned to power, exiled the poor. In many cities +they took this oath among themselves: "I swear always to be an enemy +to the people and to do them all the injury I can." + +No means were found of reconciling the two parties: the rich could not +persuade themselves to surrender their property; the poor were +unwilling to die of hunger. According to Aristotle all revolutions +have their origin in the distribution of wealth. "Every civil war," +says Polybius, "is initiated to subvert wealth." + +They fought savagely, as is always the case between neighbors. "At +Miletus the poor were at first predominant and forced the rich to flee +the city. But afterwards, regretting that they had not killed them +all, they took the children of the exiles, assembled them in barns +and had them trodden under the feet of cattle. The rich reëntered the +city and became masters of it. In their turn they seized the children +of the poor, coated them with pitch, and burned them alive." + +=Democracy and Oligarchy.=--Each of the two parties--rich and +poor--had its favorite form of government and set it in operation when +the party held the city. The party of the rich was the Oligarchy which +gave the government into the hands of a few people. That of the poor +was the Democracy which gave the power to an assembly of the people. +Each of the two parties maintained an understanding with the similar +party in the other cities. Thus were formed two leagues which divided +all the Greek cities: the league of the rich, or Oligarchy, the league +of the poor, or Democracy. This régime began during the Peloponnesian +War. Athens supported the democratic party, Sparta the oligarchic. The +cities in which the poor had the sovereignty allied themselves with +Athens; the cities where the rich governed, with Sparta. Thus at Samos +when the poor gained supremacy they slew two hundred of the rich, +exiled four hundred of them, and confiscated their lands and houses. +Samos then adopted a democratic government and allied itself with +Athens. The Spartan army came to besiege Samos, bringing with it the +rich exiles of Samos who wished to return to the city by force. The +city was captured, set up an oligarchy, and joined the league of +Sparta. + +=The Tyrants.=--At length, the poor perceived that the democratic form +of government did not give them strength enough to maintain the +contest. In most of the cities they consented to receive a chief. This +chief was called Tyrant. He governed as master without obeying any +law, condemning to death, and confiscating property at will. +Mercenaries defended him against his enemies. The following anecdote +represents the policy of the tyrants: "Periander, tyrant of Corinth, +sent one day to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, to ask what conduct he +ought to follow in order to govern with safety. Thrasybulus led the +envoy into the field end walked with him through the wheat, striking +off with his staff all heads that were higher than the others. He sent +off the envoy without further advice." The messenger took him for a +fool, but Periander understood: Thrasybulus was counselling him to +slay the principal citizens. + +Everywhere the rich were killed by the tyrant and their goods +confiscated; often the wealth was distributed among the poor. This is +why the populace always sustained the tyrant. + +There were tyrants in Greece from the sixth century; some, like +Pisistratus, Polycrates, and Pittacus, were respected for their +wisdom. At that time every man was called tyrant who exercised +absolute power outside the limits of the constitution; it was not a +title of reproach. + +But when the tyrants made incessant warfare on the rich they became +sanguinary and so were detested. Their situation is depicted in the +famous story of Damocles. This Damocles said to Dionysius, tyrant of +Syracuse, "You are the happiest of men." "I will show you the delight +of being a tyrant," replied Dionysius. He had Damocles served with a +sumptuous feast and ordered his servants to show the guest the same +honors as to himself. During the feast Damocles raised his eyes and +perceived a sword suspended to the ceiling held only by a horse hair, +and hanging directly over his head. The comparison was a striking +one--the tyrant's life hung only by a thread. The rich, his enemies, +watched for an opportunity to cut it, for it was regarded as +praiseworthy to assassinate a tyrant. This danger irritated him and +made him suspicious and cruel. He dared not trust anybody, believed +himself secure only after the massacre of all his enemies, and +condemned the citizens to death on the slightest suspicion. Thus the +name tyrant became a synonym of injustice. + +=Exhaustion of Greece.=--The civil wars between rich and poor +continued for nearly three centuries (430-150 B.C.). Many citizens +were massacred, a greater number exiled. These exiles wandered about +in poverty. Knowing no trade but that of a soldier, they entered as +mercenaries into the armies of Sparta, Athens, the Great King, the +Persian satraps--in short, of anybody who would hire them. There were +50,000 Greeks in the service of Darius against Alexander. It was +seldom that such men returned to their own country. + +Thus the cities lost their people. At the same time families became +smaller, many men preferring not to marry or raise children, others +having but one or two. "Is not this," says Polybius, "the root of the +evil, that of these two children war or sickness removes one, then the +home becomes deserted and the city enfeebled?" A time came when there +were no longer enough citizens in the towns to resist a conqueror. + + +THE ROMAN CONQUEST + +=The Greek Leagues.=--The most discerning of the Greeks commenced to +see the danger during the second war of Rome with Carthage. In an +assembly held at Naupactus in 207 B.C. a Greek orator said, "Turn your +eyes to the Occident; the Romans and Carthaginians are disputing +something else than the possession of Italy. A cloud is forming on +that coast, it increases, and impends over Greece."[103] + +The Greek cities at this time grouped themselves in two leagues +hostile to each other. Two little peoples, the Ætolians and Achæans, +had the direction of them; they commanded the armies and determined on +peace and war, just as Athens and Sparta once did. Each league +supported in the Greek states one of the two political parties--the +Ætolian League the democratic, the Achæan League[104] the +oligarchical. + +=The Roman Allies.=--Neither of the two leagues was strong enough to +unite all the Greek states. The Romans then appeared. Philip, the king +of Macedon (197), and later Antiochus,[105] the king of Syria +(193-169), made war on them. Both were beaten. Rome destroyed their +armies and made them surrender their fleets. + +Perseus, the new king of Macedon, was conquered, made prisoner, and +his kingdom overthrown (167).[106] The Greeks made no effort to unite +for the common defence; rich and poor persisted in their strife, and +each hated the other more than the foreigner. The democratic party +allied itself with Macedon, the oligarchical party called in the +Romans.[107] While the Theban democrats were fighting in the army of +Philip, the Theban oligarchs opened the town to the Roman general. At +Rhodes all were condemned to death who had acted or spoken against +Rome. Even among the Achæans, Callicrates, a partisan of the Romans, +prepared a list of a thousand citizens whom he accused of having been +favorable to Perseus; these suspects were sent to Rome where they were +held twenty years without trial. + +=The Last Fight.=--The Romans were not at first introduced as enemies. +In 197 the consul Flamininus, after conquering the king of Macedon, +betook himself to the Isthmus of Corinth and before the Greeks +assembled to celebrate the games, proclaimed that "all the Greek +peoples were free." The crowd in transports of joy approached +Flamininus to thank him; they wished to salute their liberator, see +his form, touch his hand; crowns and garlands were cast upon him. The +pressure upon him was so great that he was nearly suffocated. + +The Romans seeing themselves in control soon wished to command. The +rich freely recognized their sovereignty; Rome served them by +shattering the party of the poor. This endured for forty years. At +last in 147, Rome being engaged with Carthage, the democratic party +gained the mastery in Greece and declared war on the Romans. A part of +the Greeks were panic-stricken; many came before the Roman soldiers +denouncing their compatriots and themselves; others betook themselves +to a safe distance from the cities; some hurled themselves into wells +or over precipices. The leaders of the opposition confiscated the +property of the rich, abolished debts, and gave arms to the slaves. It +was a desperate contest. Once overcome, the Achæans reassembled an +army and marched to the combat with their wives and children. The +general Dioeus shut himself in his house with his whole family and set +fire to the building. Corinth had been the centre of the resistance; +the Romans entered it, massacred the men, and sold the women and +children as slaves. The city full of masterpieces of art was pillaged +and burnt; pictures of the great painters were thrown into the dust, +Roman soldiers lying on them and playing at dice. + + +THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT + +=Influence of Greece on Rome.=--The Romans at the time of their +conquest of the Greeks were still only soldiers, peasants, and +merchants; they had no statues, monuments, literature, science, or +philosophy. All this was found among the Greeks. Rome sought to +imitate these, as the Assyrian conquerors imitated the Chaldeans, as +the Persians did the Assyrians. The Romans kept their costume, tongue, +and religion, and never confused these with those of the Greeks. But +thousands of Greek scholars and artists came to establish themselves +in Rome and to open schools of literature and of eloquence. Later it +was the fashion for the youth of the great Roman families to go as +students to the schools of Athens and Alexandria. Thus the arts and +science of the Greeks were gradually introduced into Rome. "Vanquished +Greece overcame her savage conqueror," says Horace, the Roman poet; +"she brought the arts to uncultured Latium." + +=Architecture.=--The Romans had a national architecture. But they +borrowed the column from the Greeks and often imitated their +buildings. Many Roman temples resemble a Greek temple. + +A wealthy Roman's house is composed ordinarily of two parts: the +first, the ancient Roman house; the other is only a Greek house added +to the first. + +=Sculpture.=--The Greeks had thousands of statues, in temples, squares +of the city, gymnasia, and in their dwellings. The Romans regarded +themselves as the owners of everything that had belonged to the +vanquished people. Their generals, therefore, removed a great number +of statues, transporting them to the temples and the porticos of Rome. +In the triumph of Æmilius Paullus, victor over the king of Macedon +(Perseus), a notable spectacle was two hundred and fifty cars full of +statues and paintings. + +Soon the Romans became accustomed to adorn with statues their +theatres, council-halls, and private villas; every great noble wished +to have some of them and gave commissions for them to Greek artists. +Thus a Roman school of sculpture was developed which continued to +imitate ancient Greek models. And so it was Greek sculpture, a little +blunted and disfigured, which was spread over all the world subject to +the Romans. + +=Literature.=--The oldest Latin writer was a Greek, Livius Andronicus, +a freedman, a schoolmaster, and later an actor. The first works in +Latin were translations from the Greek. Livius Andronicus had +translated the Odyssey and several tragedies. The Roman people took +pleasure in Greek pieces and would have no others. Even the Roman +authors who wrote for the theatre did nothing but translate or arrange +Greek tragedies and comedies. Thus the celebrated works of Plautus and +of Terence are imitations of the comedies of Menander and of Diphilus, +now lost to us. + +The Romans imitated also the Greek historians. For a long time it was +the fashion to write history, even Roman history, in Greek. + +The only great Roman poets declare themselves pupils of the Greeks. +Lucretius writes only to expound the philosophy of Epicurus; Catullus +imitates the poets of Alexander; Vergil, Theocritus and Homer; Horace +translates the odes of the Greek lyrics. + +=Epicureans and Stoics.=--The Romans had a practical and literal +spirit, very indifferent to pure science and metaphysics. They took +interest in Greek philosophy only so far as they believed it had a +bearing on morals. + +Epicureans and Stoics were two sects of Greek philosophers. The +Epicureans maintained that pleasure is the supreme good, not sensual +pleasure, but the calm and reasonable pleasure of the temperate man; +happiness consists in the quiet enjoyment of a peaceful life, +surrounded with friends and without concern for imaginary goods. For +the Stoics the supreme good is virtue, which consists in conducting +one's self according to reason, with a view to the good of the whole +universe. Riches, honor, health, beauty, all the goods of earth are +nothing for the wise man; even if one torture him, he remains happy in +the possession of the true good. + +The Romans took sides for one or the other philosophy, usually without +thoroughly comprehending either. Those who passed for Epicureans spent +their lives in eating and drinking and even compared themselves to +swine. Those calling themselves Stoics, like Cato and Brutus, affected +a rude language, a solemn demeanor and emphasized the evils of life. +Nevertheless these doctrines, spreading gradually, aided in destroying +certain prejudices of the Romans. Epicureans and Stoics were in +harmony on two points: they disdained the ancient religion and taught +that all men are equal, slaves or citizens, Greeks or barbarians. +Their Roman disciples renounced in their school certain old +superstitions, and learned to show themselves less cruel to their +slaves, less insolent toward other peoples. + +The conquest of Greece by the Romans gave the arts, letters, and +morals of the Greeks currency in the west, just as the conquest of the +Persian empire by the Greeks had carried their language, customs, and +religion into the Orient. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[102] In almost all the Greek cities there was no middle class. In this +regard Athens with its thirteen thousand small proprietors is a +remarkable exception. + +[103] Polybius, v., 104. + +[104] The Achæan league had illustrious leaders. In the third century, +Aratus, who for twenty-seven years (251-224) traversed Greece, expelling +tyrants, recalling the rich and returning to them their property and the +government; in the second century Philopoemen, who fought the tyrants of +Sparta and died by poison. + +[105] There were two kings of Syria by the name of Antiochus, between +193 and 169.--ED. + +[106] The decisive battle (Pydna) was fought in 168. Perseus walked in +the triumph of Paullus the next year.--ED. + +[107] The party policies of the Greeks of this period were hardly so +clearly drawn as the above would seem to indicate. Thus the Achæan +League allied itself with Macedon against the Ætolians and against +Sparta. The Ætolians leagued with the Romans against Macedon.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ROME + +ANCIENT PEOPLES OF ITALY + + +THE ETRUSCANS + +=Etruria.=--The word Italy never signified for the ancients the same +as for us: the Po Valley (Piedmont and Lombardy) was a part of Gaul. +The frontier country at the north was Tuscany. The Etruscans who dwelt +there have left it their name (Tusci). + +Etruria was a country at once warm and humid; the atmosphere hung +heavily over the inhabitants. The region on the shore of the sea where +the Etruscans had most of their cities is the famous Maremma, a +wonderfully fertile area, covered with beautiful forests, but where +the water having no outlet forms marshes that poison the air. "In the +Maremma," says an Italian proverb, "one gets rich in a year, but dies +in six months." + +=The Etruscan People.=--The Etruscans were for the ancients, and are +still for us, a mysterious people. They had no resemblance to their +neighbor's, and doubtless they came from a distance--from Germany, +Asia, or from Egypt; all these opinions have been maintained, but no +one of them is demonstrated. + +We are ignorant even of the language that they spoke. Their alphabet +resembles that of the Greeks, but the Etruscan inscriptions present +only proper names, and these are too short to furnish a key to the +language. + +The Etruscans established twelve cities in Tuscany, united in a +confederation, each with its own fortress, its king, and its +government. They had colonies on both coasts, twelve in Campania in +the vicinity of Naples, and twelve more in the valley of the Po. + +=Etruscan Tombs.=--There remain to us from the Etruscans only city +walls and tombs. + +When an Etruscan tomb is opened, one perceives a porch supported by +columns and behind this chambers with couches, and bodies laid on +these. Round about are ornaments of gold, ivory, and amber; purple +cloths, utensils, and especially large painted vases. On the walls are +paintings of combats, games, banquets, and fantastic scenes. + +=Industry and Commerce.=--The Etruscans knew how to turn their fertile +soil to some account, but they were for the most part mariners and +traders. Like the Phoenicians they made long journeys to seek the ivory +of India, amber from the Baltic, tin, the Phoenician purple, Egyptian +jewels adorned with hieroglyphics, and even ostrich eggs. All these +objects are found in their tombs. Their navies sailed to the south as +far as Sicily. The Greeks hated them and called them "savage +Tyrrhenians" or "Etruscan pirates." At this time every mariner on +occasion was a pirate, and the Etruscans were especially interested to +exclude the Greeks so that they might keep for themselves the trade of +the west coast of Italy. + +The famous Etruscan vases, which have been taken from the tombs by +the thousand to enrich our museums, were imitations of Greek vases, +but manufactured by the Etruscans. They represent scenes from Greek +mythology, especially the combats about Troy; the human figures are in +red on a black ground. + +=Religion.=--The Etruscans were a sombre people. Their gods were +stern, often malevolent. The two most exalted gods were "the veiled +deities," of whom we know nothing. Below these were the gods who +hurled the lightning and these form a council of twelve gods. Under +the earth, in the abode of the dead, were gods of evil omen. These are +represented on the Etruscan vases. The king of the lower world, +Mantus, a winged genius, sits with crown on his head and torch in his +hand. Other demons armed with sword or club with serpents in their +hands receive the souls of the dead; the principal of these under the +name Charun (the Charon of the Greeks), an old man of hideous form, +bears a heavy mallet to strike his victims. The souls of the dead (the +Manes) issue from the lower world three days in the year, wandering +about the earth, terrifying the living and doing them evil. Human +victims are offered to appease their lust for blood. The famous +gladiatorial combats which the Romans adopted had their origin in +bloody sacrifices in honor of the dead. + +=The Augurs.=--The Etruscans used to say that a little evil spirit +named Tages issued one day from a furrow and revealed to the people +assembled the secrets of divination. The Etruscan priests who called +themselves haruspices or augurs had rules for predicting the future. +They observed the entrails of victims, the thunderbolt, but +especially the flight of birds (whence their name "augurs"). The augur +at first with face turned to the north, holding a crooked staff in his +hand, describes a line which cuts the heavens in two sections; the +part to the right is favorable, to the left unfavorable. A second line +cutting the first at right angles, and others parallel to these form +in the heavens a square which was called the Temple. The augur +regarded the birds that flew in this square: some like the eagle have +a lucky significance; others like the owl presage evil. + +The Etruscans predicted the future destiny of their own people. They +are the only people of antiquity who did not expect that they were to +persist forever. Etruria, they said, was to endure ten centuries. +These centuries were not of exactly one hundred years each, but +certain signs marked the end of each period. In the year 44, the year +of the death of Cæsar, a comet appeared; an Etruscan haruspex stated +to the Romans in an assembly of the people that this comet announced +the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, the last +of the Etruscan people. + +=Influence of the Etruscans.=--The Romans, a semi-barbarous people, +always imitated their more civilized neighbors, the Etruscans. They +drew from them especially the forms of their religion: the costume of +the priests and of the magistrates, the religious rites, and the art +of divining the future from birds (the auspices). When the Romans +found a city, they observe the Etruscan rites: the founder traces a +square enclosure with a plough with share of bronze, drawn by a white +bull and a white heifer. Men follow the founder and carefully cast +the clods of earth from the side of the furrow. The whole ditch left +by the plough is sacred and is not to be crossed. To allow entrance to +the enclosure, it is necessary that the founder break the ditch at +certain points, and he does this by lifting the plough and carrying it +an instant; the interval made in this manner remains profane and it +becomes the gate by which one enters. Rome itself was founded +according to these rites. It was called Roma Quadrata, and it was said +that the founder had killed his brother to punish him for crossing the +sacred furrow. Later the limits of Roman colonies and of camps, and +even the bounds of domains were always traced in conformity with +religious rules and with geometrical lines. + +The Roman religion was half Etruscan. The Fathers of the church were +right, therefore, in calling Etruria the "Mother of Superstitions." + + +THE ITALIAN PEOPLE + +=Umbrians and Oscans.=--In the rugged mountains of the Apennines, to +the east and south of the Roman plain, resided numerous tribes. These +peoples did not bear the same name and did not constitute a single +nation. They were Umbrians, Sabines, Volscians, Æquians, Hernicans, +Marsians, and Samnites. But all spoke almost the same language, +worshipped the same gods, and had similar customs. Like the Persians, +Hindoos, and Greeks, they were of Aryan race; secluded in their +mountains, remote from strangers, they remained like the Aryans of the +ancient period; they lived in groups with their herds scattered in the +plains; they had no villages nor cities. Fortresses erected on the +mountains defended them in time of war. They were brave martial +people, of simple and substantial manners. They later constituted the +strength of the Roman armies. A proverb ran: "Who could vanquish the +Marsians without the Marsians?" + +=The Sacred Spring.=--In the midst of a pressing danger, the Sabines, +according to a legend, believing their gods to be angry, decided to +appease their displeasure by sacrificing to the god of war and of +death everything that was born during a certain spring. This sacrifice +was called a "Sacred Spring." All the children born in this year +belonged to the god. Arrived at the age of manhood, they left the +country and journeyed abroad. These exiles formed several groups, each +taking for guide one of the sacred animals of Italy, a woodpecker, a +wolf, or a bull, and followed it as a messenger of the god. Where the +animal halted the band settled itself. Many peoples of Italy, it was +said, had originated in these colonies of emigrants and still +preserved the name of the animal which had led their ancestors. Such +were, the Hirpines (people of the wolf), the Picentines (people of the +woodpecker), and the Samnites whose capital was named Bovianum (city +of the ox). + +=The Samnites.=--The Samnites were the most powerful of all. Settled +in the Abruzzi, a paradise for brigands, they descended into the +fertile plains of Naples and of Apulia and put Etruscan and Greek +towns to ransom. + +The Samnites fought against the Romans for two centuries; although +always beaten because they had no central administration and no +discipline they yet reopened the war. Their last fight was heroic. An +old man brought to the chiefs of the army a sacred book written on +linen. They formed in the interior of the camp a wall of linen, raised +an altar in the midst of it, and around this stood soldiers with +unsheathed swords. One by one the bravest of the warriors entered the +precinct. They swore not to flee before the enemy and to kill the +fugitives. Those who took the oath, to the number of 16,000, donned +linen garments. This was the "linen legion"; it engaged in battle, and +was slaughtered to the last man. + +=The Greeks of Italy.=--All south Italy was covered with Greek +colonies, some, like Sybaris, Croton, and Tarentum, very populous and +powerful. But the Greeks did not venture on the Roman coast for fear +of the Etruscans. Except the city of Cumæ the Greek colonies down to +the third century had almost no relations with the Romans. + +=The Latins.=--The Latins dwelt in the country of hills and ravines to +the south of the Tiber, called today the Roman Campagna. They were a +small people, their territory comprising no more than one hundred +square miles. They were of the same race as the other Italians, +similar to them in language, religion, and manners, but slightly more +advanced in civilization. They cultivated the soil and built strong +cities. They separated themselves into little independent peoples. +Each people had its little territory, its city, and its government. +This miniature state was called a city. Thirty Latin cities had formed +among themselves a religious association analogous to the Greek +amphictyonies. Every year they celebrated a common festival, when +their delegates, assembled at Alba, sacrificed a bull in honor of +their common god, the Latin Jupiter. + +=Rome.=--On the frontier of Latium, on the borders of Etruria, in the +marshy plain studded with hills that followed the Tiber, rose the city +of Rome, the centre of the Roman people scattered in the plain. The +land was malarial and dreary; but the situation was good. The Tiber +served as a barrier against the enemy from Etruria, the hills were +fortresses. The sea was but six leagues away, far enough to escape +fear of pirates, and near enough to permit the transportation of +merchandise. The port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a suburb +of Rome, as Piræus was of Athens. The locality was therefore agreeable +to a people of soldiers and merchants. + +=Roma Quadrata and the Capitol.=--Of the first centuries of Rome we +know only some legends, and the Romans knew no more than we. Rome, +they said, was a little square town, limited to the Palatine Hill. The +founder whom they called Romulus had according to the Etruscan forms +traced the circuit with the plough. Every year, on the 21st of April, +the Romans celebrated the anniversary of these ceremonies: a +procession marched about the primitive enclosure and a priest fixed a +nail in a temple in commemoration of it. It was calculated that the +founding had occurred in the year 754[108] B.C. + +On the other hills facing the Palatine other small cities rose. A band +of Sabine mountaineers established themselves on the Capitoline, a +group of Etruscan adventurers[109] on Mount Coelius; perhaps there +were still other peoples. All these small settlements ended with +uniting with Rome on the Palatine. A new wall was built to include the +seven hills. The Capitol was then for Rome what the Acropolis was for +Athens: here rose the temples of the three protecting deities of the +city--Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and the citadel that contained the +treasure and the archives of the people. In laying the foundations, it +was said there was found a human head recently cleft from the body; +this head was a presage that Rome should become the head of the world. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[108] Rather 753 B.C.--ED. + +[109] There were three tribes in old Rome, the Ramnes on the Palatine, +the Tities or Sabines on the Capitoline, and the Luceres; but whether +the last were Etruscans or Ramnians or neither is uncertain.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +ROMAN RELIGION + + +=The Roman Gods.=--The Romans, like the Greeks, believed that +everything that occurs in the world was the work of a deity. But in +place of a God who directs the whole universe, they had a deity for +every phenomenon which they saw. There was a divinity to make the seed +sprout, another to protect the bounds of the fields, another to guard +the fruits. Each had its name, its sex, and its functions. + +The principal gods were Jupiter, god of the heaven; Janus, the +two-faced god (the deity who opens); Mars, god of war; Mercury, god of +trade; Vulcan, god of fire; Neptune, god of the sea; Ceres, goddess of +grains, the Earth, the Moon, Juno, and Minerva. + +Below these were secondary deities. Some personified a quality--for +example, Youth, Concord, Health, Peace. Others presided over a certain +act in life: when the infant came into the world there were a god to +teach him to speak, a goddess to teach him to drink, another charged +with knitting his bones, two to accompany him to school, two to take +him home again. In short, there was a veritable legion of minor +special deities. + +Other gods protected a city, a certain section of a mountain, a +forest; every river, every fountain, every tree had its little local +divinity. It is this that makes an old woman in a Latin romance +exclaim, "Our country is so full of gods that it is much easier to +find a god than a man." + +=Form of the Gods.=--The Romans, unlike the Greeks, did not give their +gods a precise form. For a long time there was no idol in Rome; they +worshipped Jupiter under the form of a rock, Mars under that of a +sword. It was later that they imitated the wooden statues of the +Etruscans and the marbles of the Greeks. Perhaps they did not at first +conceive of the gods as having human forms. + +Unlike the Greeks they did not imagine marriage and kinship among +their gods; they had no legends to tell of these relationships; they +knew of no Olympus where the gods met together. The Latin language had +a very significant word for designating the gods: they were called +Manifestations. They were the manifestations of a mysterious divine +power. This is why they were formless, without family relationship, +without legends. Everything that was known of the gods was that each +controlled a natural force and could benefit or injure men. + +=Principles of the Roman Religion.=--The Roman was no lover of these +pale and frigid abstractions; he even seemed to fear them. When he +invoked them, he covered his face, perhaps that he might not see them. +But he thought that they were potent and that they would render him +service, if he knew how to please them. "The man whom the gods favor," +says Plautus, "they cause to gain wealth." + +The Roman conceives of religion as an exchange of good offices; the +worshipper brings offerings and homage; the god in return confers some +advantage.[110] If after having made a present to the god the man +receives nothing, he considers himself cheated. During the illness of +Germanicus the people offered sacrifices for his restoration. When it +was announced that Germanicus was dead, the people in their anger +overturned the altars and cast the statues of the gods into the +streets, because they had not done what was expected of them. And so +in our day the Italian peasant abuses the saint who does not give him +what he asks. + +=Worship.=--Worship, therefore, consists in doing those things that +please the gods. They are presented with fruits, milk, wine, or animal +sacrifices. Sometimes the statues of the gods are brought from their +temples, laid on couches, and served with a feast. As in Greece, +magnificent homes (temples[111]) were built for them, and diversions +were arranged for them. + +=Formalism.=--But it is not enough that one make a costly offering to +the gods. The Roman gods are punctilious as to form; they require that +all the acts of worship, the sacrifices, games, dedications, shall +proceed according to the ancient rules (the rites). When one desires +to offer a victim to Jupiter, one must select a white beast, sprinkle +salted meal on its head, and strike it with an axe; one must stand +erect with hands raised to heaven, the abode of Jupiter, and +pronounce a sacred formula. If any part of the ceremonial fails, the +sacrifice is of no avail; the god, it is thought, will have no +pleasure in it. A magistrate may be celebrating games in honor of the +protecting deities of Rome; "if he alters a word in his formula, if a +flute-player rests, if the actor stops short, the games do not conform +to the rites; they must be recommenced."[112] + +And so the prudent man secures the assistance of two priests, one to +pronounce the formula, the other to follow the ritual accurately. + +Every year the Arval Brothers, a college of priests, assemble in a +temple in the environs of Rome where they perform a sacred dance and +recite a prayer; this is written in an archaic language which no one +any longer comprehends, so much so that at the beginning of the +ceremony a written formulary must be given to each of the priests. And +yet, ever since the time that they ceased to comprehend it, they +continued to chant it without change. This is because the Romans hold +before all to the letter of the law in dealing with their gods. This +exactness in performing the prescribed ritual is for them their +religion. And so they regarded themselves as "the most religious of +men." "On all other points we are the inferiors or only the equals of +other peoples, but we excel all in religion, that is, the worship we +pay the gods." + +=Prayer.=--When the Roman prays, it is not to lift his soul and feel +himself in communion with a god, but to ask of him a service. He is +concerned, then, first to find the god who can render it. "It is as +important," says Varro, "to know what god can aid us in a special case +as to know where the carpenter and baker live." Thus one must address +Ceres if one wants rich harvests, Mercury to make a fortune, Neptune +to have a happy voyage. Then the suppliant dons the proper garments, +for the gods love neatness; he brings an offering, for the gods love +not that one should come with empty hands. Then, erect, the head +veiled, the worshipper invokes the god. But he does not know the exact +name of the god, for, say the Romans, "no one knows the true names of +the gods." He says, then, for example, "Jupiter, greatest and best, or +whatever is the name that thou preferrest...." Then he proposes his +request, taking care to use always the clearest expressions so that +the god may make no mistake. If a libation is offered, one says, +"Receive the homage of this wine that I am pouring"; for the god might +think that one would present other wine and keep this back. The +prayers, too, are long, verbose, and full of repetitions. + +=Omens.=--The Romans, like the Greeks, believe in omens. The gods, +they think, know the future, and they send signs that permit men to +divine them. Before undertaking any act, the Roman consults the gods. +The general about to engage in battle examines the entrails of +victims; the magistrates before holding an assembly regards the +passing birds (called "taking the auspices"). If the signs are +favorable, the gods are thought to approve the enterprise; if not, +they are against it. The gods often send a sign that had not been +requested. Every unexpected phenomenon is the presage of an event. A +comet appeared before the death of Cæsar and was thought to have +announced it. + +When the assembly of the people deliberates and it thunders, it is +because Jupiter does not wish that anything shall be decided on that +day and the assembly must dissolve. The most insignificant fact may be +interpreted as a sign--a flash of lightning, a word overheard, a rat +crossing the road, a diviner met on the way. And so when Marcellus had +determined on an enterprise, he had himself carried in a closed litter +that he might be sure of not seeing anything which could impose itself +on him as a portent. + +These were not the superstitions of the populace; the republic +supported six augurs charged with predicting the future. It carefully +preserved a collection of prophecies, the Sibylline Books. It had +sacred chickens guarded by priests. No public act--assembly, election, +deliberation--could be done without the taking of the auspices, that +is to say, observation of the flight of birds. In the year 195 it was +learned that lightning had struck a temple of Jupiter and that it had +hit a hair on the head of the statue of Hercules; a governor wrote +that a chicken with three feet had been hatched; the senate assembled +to discuss these portents. + +=The Priests.=--The priest in Rome, as in Greece, is not charged with +the care of souls, he exists only for the service of the god. He +guards his temple, administers his property, and performs the +ceremonies in his honor. Thus the guild of the Salii (the leapers) +watches over a shield which fell from heaven, they said, and which +was adored as an idol; every year they perform a dance in arms, and +this is their sole function. + +The augurs predict the future. The pontiffs superintend the ceremonies +of worship; they regulate the calendar and fix the festivals to be +celebrated on the various days of the year. + +Neither the priests, the augurs, nor the pontiffs form a separate +class. They are chosen from among the great families and continue to +exercise all the functions of state--judging, presiding over +assemblies, and commanding armies. This is the reason that the Roman +priests, potent as they were, did not constitute, as in Egypt, a +sacerdotal caste. At Rome it was a state religion, but not a +government by the priests. + +=The Dead.=--The Romans, like the Hindoos and the Greeks, believed +that the soul survived the body. If care were taken to bury the body +according to the proper rites, the soul went to the lower world and +became a god; otherwise the soul could not enter the abode of the +dead, but returned to the earth terrifying the living and tormenting +them until suitable burial was performed. Pliny the Younger[113] +relates the story of a ghost which haunted a house and terrified to +death all the inhabitants of the dwelling; a philosopher who was brave +enough to follow it discovered at the place where the spectre stopped +some bones which had not been buried in the proper manner. The shade +of the Emperor Caligula wandered in the gardens of the palace; it was +necessary to disinter the body and bury it anew in regular form. + +=Cult of the Dead.=--It was of importance, therefore, to both the +living and the dead that the rites should be observed. The family of +the deceased erected a funeral pile, burned the body on it, and placed +the ashes in an urn which was deposited in the tomb, a little chapel +dedicated to the Manes,[114] _i.e._, the souls that had become gods. +On fixed days of the year the relatives came to the tomb to bring +food; doubtless they believed that the soul was in need of +nourishment, for wine and milk were poured on the earth, flesh of +victims was burned, and vessels of milk and cakes were left behind. +These funeral ceremonies were perpetuated for an indefinite period; a +family could not abandon the souls of its ancestors, but continued to +maintain their tomb and the funeral feasts. In return, these souls +which had become gods loved and protected their posterity. Each +family, therefore, had its guardian deities which they called Lares. + +=Cult of the Hearth.=--Each family had a hearth, also, that it adored. +For the Romans, as for the Hindoos, fire was a god and the hearth an +altar. The flame was to be maintained day and night, and offerings +made on the hearth of oil, fat, wine, and incense; the fire then +became brilliant and rose higher as if nourished by the offering. + +Before beginning his meal the Roman thanked the god of the hearth, +gave him a part of the food, and poured out for him a little wine +(this was the libation). Even the sceptical Horace supped with his +slaves before the hearth and offered libation and prayer. + +Every Roman family had in its house a sanctuary where were to be found +the Lares, the souls of the ancestors, and the altar of the hearth. +Rome also had its sacred hearth, called Vesta, an ancient word +signifying the hearth itself. Four virgins of the noblest families, +the Vestals, were charged with keeping the hearth, for it was +necessary that the flame should never be extinguished, and the care of +it could be confided only to pure beings. If a Vestal broke her vow, +she was buried alive in a cave, for she had committed sacrilege and +had endangered the whole Roman people. + + +THE FAMILY + +=Religion of the Family.=--All the members of a family render worship +to the same ancestors and unite about the same hearth. They have +therefore the same gods, and these are their peculiar possession. The +sanctuary where the Lares[115] were kept was concealed in the house +and no stranger was to approach it. Thus the Roman family was a little +church; it had its religion and its worship to which no others than +its members had access. The ancient family was very different from the +modern, having its basis in the principles of religion. + +=Marriage.=--The first rule of this religion is that one should be the +issue of a regular marriage if one is to have the right of adoring the +ancestors of the family. Roman marriage, therefore, is at the start a +religious ceremony. The father of the bride gives her away outside the +house when a procession conducts her to the house of the groom +chanting an ancient sacred refrain, "Hymen, O Hymen!" The bride is +then led before the altar of the husband where water and fire are +presented, and there in the presence of the gods of the family the +bride and groom divide between them a cake of meal. Marriage at this +period was called confarreatio (communion through the cake). Later +another form of marriage was invented. A relative of the bride in the +presence of witnesses sells her to the husband who declares that he +buys her for his wife. This is marriage by sale (coemptio). + +For the Romans as for the Greeks marriage is a religious duty; +religion ordains that the family should not become extinct. The Roman, +therefore, declares when he marries that he takes his wife to +perpetuate the family through their children. A noble Roman who +sincerely loved his wife repudiated her because she brought him no +children. + +=The Roman Woman.=--The Roman woman is never free. As a young girl, +she belongs to her father who chooses her husband for her; married, +she comes under the power of her husband--the jurisconsults say she is +under his "manus," _i.e._, she is in the same position as his +daughter. The woman always has a master who has the right of life and +death over her. And yet, she is never treated like a slave. She is the +equal in dignity of her husband; she is called the mother of the +family (materfamilias) just as her husband is called the father of the +family (paterfamilias). She is the mistress in the house, as he is the +master. She gives orders to the slaves whom she charges with all the +heavy tasks--the grinding of the grain, the making of bread, and the +cooking. She sits in the seat of honor (the atrium), spins and weaves, +apportions work to the slaves, watches the children, and directs the +house. She is not excluded from association with the men, like the +Greek woman; she eats at the table with her husband, receives +visitors, goes into town to dinner, appears at the public ceremonies, +at the theatre, and even at the courts. And still she is ordinarily +uncultured; the Romans do not care to instruct their daughters; the +quality which they most admire in woman is gravity, and on her tomb +they write by way of eulogy, "She kept the house and spun linen." + +=The Children.=--The Roman child belongs to the father like a piece of +property. The father has the right of exposing him in the street. If +he accepts the child, the latter is brought up at first in the house. +Girls remain here until marriage; they spin and weave under the +supervision of their mother. The boys walk to the fields with their +father and exercise themselves in arms. The Romans are not an artistic +people; they require no more of their children than that they know how +to read, write, and reckon; neither music nor poetry is taught them. +They are brought up to be sober, silent, modest in their demeanor, and +obedient. + +=The Father of the Family.=--The master of the house was called by the +Romans the father of the family. The paterfamilias is at once the +proprietor of the domain, the priest of the cult of the ancestors, and +the sovereign of the family. He reigns as master in his house. He has +the right of repudiating his wife, of rejecting his children, of +selling them, and marrying them at his pleasure. He can take for +himself all that belongs to them, everything that his wife brings to +him, and everything that his children gain; for neither the wife nor +the children may be proprietors. Finally he has over them all[116] the +"right of life and death," that is to say, he is their only judge. If +they commit crime, it is not the magistrate who punishes them, but the +father of the family who condemns them. One day (186 B.C.) the Roman +Senate decreed the penalty of death for all those who had participated +in the orgies of the cult of Bacchus. The men were executed, but for +all the women who were discovered among the guilty, it was necessary +that the Senate should address itself to the fathers of families, and +it was these who condemned to death their wives or their daughters. +"The husband," said the elder Cato, "is the judge of the wife, he can +do with her as he will; if she has committed any fault, he chastises +her; if she has drunk wine, he condemns her; if she has been +unfaithful to him, he kills her." When Catiline conspired against the +Senate, a senator perceived that his own son had taken part in the +conspiracy; he had him arrested, judged him, and condemned him to +death. + +The power of the father of the family endured as long as life; the son +was never freed from it. Even if he became consul, he remained subject +to the power of his father. When the father died, the sons became in +turn fathers of families. As for the wife, she could never attain +freedom; she fell under the power of the heir of her husband; she +could, then, become subject to her own son. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[110] A legend represents King Numa debating with Jupiter the terms of a +contract: "You will sacrifice a head to me?" says Jupiter. "Very well," +says Numa, "the head of an onion that I shall take in my garden." "No," +replies Jupiter, "but I want something that pertains to a man." "We will +give you then the tip of the hair." "But it must be alive." "Then we +will add to this a little fish." Jupiter laughed and consented to this. + +[111] In Rome, as in Greece, the temple was called a house. + +[112] The remark is Cicero's. + +[113] Pliny, Epistles, vii, 27. See another story in Plautus's +Mostellaria. + +[114] The letters D.M. found on Roman tombs are the initials of Dei +Manes. + +[115] They were called the Penates, that is to say, the gods of the +interior. + +[116] In the language of the Roman law the wife, children, and slaves +"are not their own masters." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROMAN CITY + +FORMATION OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE + + +=The Kings.=--Tradition relates that Rome for two centuries and a half +was governed by kings. They told not only the names of these kings and +the date of their death, but the life of each. + +They said there were seven kings. Romulus, the first king, came from +the Latin city of Alba, founded the hamlet on the Palatine, and killed +his brother who committed the sacrilege of leaping over the sacred +furrow encircling the settlement; he then allied himself with Tatius, +a Sabine king. (A legend of later origin added that he had founded at +the foot of the hill-city a quarter surrounded with a palisade where +he received all the adventurers who wished to come to him.) + +Numa Pompilius, the second king, was a Sabine. It was he who organized +the Roman religion, taking counsel with a goddess, the nymph Egeria +who dwelt in a wood. + +The third king, Tullus Hostilius, was a warrior. He made war on Alba, +the capital of the Latin confederation, took and destroyed it. + +Ancus Martius, the fourth king, was the grandson of Numa and built the +wooden bridge over the Tiber and founded the port of Ostia through +which commerce passed up the river to Rome. + +The last three kings were Etruscans. Tarquin the Elder enlarged the +territory of Rome and introduced religious ceremonies from Etruria. +Servius Tullius organized the Roman army, admitting all the citizens +without distinction of birth and separating them into centuries +(companies) according to wealth. The last king, Tarquinius Superbus, +oppressed the great families of Rome; some of the nobles conspired +against him and succeeded in expelling him. Since this time there were +no longer any kings. The Roman state, or as they said, the +commonwealth (res publica) was governed by the consuls, two +magistrates elected each year. + +It is impossible to know how much truth there is in this tradition, +for it took shape a long time after the Romans began to write their +history, and it includes so many legends that we cannot accept it in +its entirety. + +Attempt has been made to explain these names of kings as symbols of a +race or class. The early history of Rome has been reconstructed in a +variety of ways, but the greater the labor applied to it, the less the +agreement among students with regard to it. + +=The Roman People.=--About the fifth century before Christ there were +in Rome two classes of people, the patricians and the plebeians. The +patricians were the descendants of the old families who had lived from +remote antiquity on the little territory in the vicinity of the city; +they alone had the right to appear in the assembly of the people, to +assist in religious ceremonies, and to hold office. Their ancestors +had founded the Roman state, or as they called it, the Roman city +(Civitas), and these had bequeathed it to them. And so they were the +true people of Rome. + +=The Plebs.=--The plebeians were descended from the foreigners[117] +established in the city, and especially from the conquered peoples of +the neighboring cities; for Rome had gradually subjected all the Latin +cities and had forcibly annexed their inhabitants. Subjects and yet +aliens, they obeyed the government of Rome, but they could have no +part in it. They did not possess the Roman religion and could not +participate in its ceremonies. They had not even the right of +intermarrying with the patrician families. They were called the plebs +(the multitude) and were not considered a part of the Roman people. In +the old prayers we still find this formula: "For the welfare of the +people and the plebs of Rome." + +=Strife between Patricians and Plebeians.=--The people and the plebs +were like two distinct peoples, one of masters, the other of subjects. +And yet the plebeians were much like the patricians. Soldiers, like +them, they served in the army at their own cost and suffered death in +the service of the Roman people; peasants like them, they lived on +their domains. Many of the plebeians were rich and of ancient family. +The only difference was that they were descended from a great family +of some conquered Latin city, while the patricians were the scions of +an old family in the conquering city. + +=Tribunes of the Plebs.=--One day, says the legend, the plebeians, +finding themselves mistreated, withdrew under arms to a mountain, +determined to break with the Roman people. The patricians in +consternation sent to them Menenius Agrippa who told them the fable of +the members and the stomach. The plebs consented to return but they +made a treaty with the people. It was agreed that their chiefs (they +called them tribunes of the plebs) should have the right of protecting +the plebeians against the magistrates of the people and of prohibiting +any measure against them. All that was necessary was to pronounce the +word "Veto" (I forbid); this single word stopped everything; for +religion prevented attacks on a tribune under penalty of being devoted +to the infernal gods. + +=Triumph of the Plebs.=--The strife between the two orders beginning +at the end of the fifth century continued for two centuries (494 B.C. +to about 300 B.C.).[118] + +The plebeians, much more numerous and wealthy, ended by gaining the +victory. They first secured the adoption of laws common to the two +orders; afterward that marriage should be permitted between the +patricians and the plebeians. The hardest task was to obtain the high +magistracies, or, as it was said, "secure the honors." Religious +scruple ordained, indeed, that before one could be named as a +magistrate, the gods must be asked for their approval of the choice. +This was determined by inspecting the flight of birds ("taking the +auspices"). But the old Roman religion allowed the auspices to be +taken only on the name of a patrician; it was not believed that the +gods could accept a plebeian magistrate. But there were great plebeian +families who were bent on being the equals of the patrician families +in dignity, as they were in riches and in importance. They gradually +forced the patricians to open to them all the offices, beginning with +the consulship, and ending with the great pontifical office (Pontifex +Maximus). The first plebeian consul was named in 366 B.C., the first +plebeian pontifex maximus in 302 B.C.[119] Patricians and plebeians +then coalesced and henceforth formed but one people. + + +THE ROMAN PEOPLE + +=The Right of Citizenship.=--The _people_ in Rome, as in Greece, is +not the whole of the inhabitants, but the body of citizens. Not every +man who lives in the territory is a citizen, but only he who has the +right of citizenship. The citizen has numerous privileges: + + 1. He alone is a member of the body politic; he alone has the + right of voting in the assemblies of the Roman people, of serving + in the army, of being present at the religious ceremonials at + Rome, of being elected a Roman magistrate. These are what were + called public rights. + + 2. The citizen alone is protected by the Roman law; he only has + the right of marrying legally, of becoming the father of a family, + that is to say, of being master of his wife and his children, of + making his will, of buying or selling. These were the private + rights. + +Those who were not citizens were not only excluded from the army and +the assembly, but they could not marry, could not possess the absolute +power of the father, could not hold property legally, could not invoke +the Roman law, nor demand justice at a Roman tribunal. Thus the +citizens constituted an aristocracy amidst the other inhabitants of +the city. But they were not equal among themselves; there were class +differences, or, as the Romans said, ranks. + +=The Nobles.=--In the first rank are the nobles. A citizen is noble +when one of his ancestors has held a magistracy, for the magisterial +office in Rome is an honor, it ennobles the occupant and also his +posterity. + +When a citizen becomes ædile, prætor, or consul, he receives a +purple-bordered toga, a sort of throne (the curule chair), and the +right of having an image made of himself. These images are statuettes, +at first in wax, later in silver. They are placed in the atrium, the +sanctuary of the house, near the hearth and the gods of the family; +there they stand in niches like idols, venerated by posterity. When +any one of the family dies, the images are brought forth and carried +in the funeral procession, and a relative pronounces the oration for +the dead. It is these images that ennoble a family that preserves +them. The more images there are in a family, the nobler it is. The +Romans spoke of those who were "noble by one image" and those who were +"noble by many images." + +The noble families of Rome were very few (they would not amount to +300), for the magistracies which conferred nobility were usually given +to men who were already noble. + +=The Knights.=--Below the nobles were the knights. They were the rich +who were not noble. Their fortune as inscribed on the registers of the +treasury must amount to at least 400,000[120] sesterces. They were +merchants, bankers, and contractors; they did not govern, but they +grew rich. At the theatre they had places reserved for them behind the +nobles. + +If a knight were elected to a magistracy, the nobles called him a "new +man" and his son became noble. + +=The Plebs.=--Those who were neither nobles nor knights formed the +mass of the people, the plebs. The majority of them were peasants, +cultivating a little plat in Latium or in the Sabine country. They +were the descendants of the Latins or the Italians who were subjugated +by the Romans. Cato the Elder in his book on Agriculture gives us an +idea of their manners: "Our ancestors, when they wished to eulogize a +man, said 'a good workman,' 'a good farmer'; this encomium seemed the +greatest of all."[121] + +Hardened to work, eager for the harvest, steady and economical, these +laborers constituted the strength of the Roman armies. For a long time +they formed the assembly too, and dictated the elections. The nobles +who wished to be elected magistrates came to the parade-ground to +grasp the hand of these peasants ("prensare manus," was the common +expression). A candidate, finding the hand of a laborer callous, +ventured to ask him, "Is it because you walk on your hands?" He was a +noble of great family, but he was not elected. + +=The Freedmen.=--The last of all the citizens are the freedmen, once +slaves, or the sons of slaves. The taint of their origin remains on +them; they are not admitted to service in the Roman army and they vote +after all the rest. + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC + +=The Comitia.=--The government of Rome called itself a republic +(Respublica), that is to say, a thing of the people. The body of +citizens called the people was regarded as absolute master in the +state. It is this body that elects the magistrates, votes on peace and +war, and that makes the laws. "The law," say the jurisconsults, "is +what the Roman people ordains." At Rome, as in Greece, the people do +not appoint deputies, they pass on the business itself. Even after +more than 500,000 men scattered over all Italy were admitted into the +citizenship, the citizens had to go in person to Rome to exercise +their rights. The people, therefore, meet at but one place; the +assembly is called the Comitia. + +A magistrate convokes the people and presides over the body. Sometimes +the people are convoked by the blast of the trumpet and come to the +parade-ground (the Campus Martius), ranging themselves by companies +under their standards. This is the Comitia by centuries. Sometimes +they assemble in the market-place (the forum) and separate themselves +into thirty-five groups, called tribes. Each tribe in turn enters an +enclosed space where it does its voting. This is the Comitia by +tribes. The magistrate who convokes the assembly indicates the +business on which the suffrages are to be taken, and when the assembly +has voted, it dissolves. The people are sovereign, but accustomed to +obey their chiefs. + +=The Magistrates.=--Every year the people elect officials to govern +them and to them they delegate absolute power. These are called +magistrates (those who are masters). Lictors march before them bearing +a bundle of rods and an axe, emblems of the magisterial powers of +chastising and condemning to death. The magistrate has at once the +functions of presiding over the popular assembly and the senate, of +sitting in court, and of commanding the army; he is master everywhere. +He convokes and dissolves the assembly at will, he alone renders +judgment, he does with the soldiers as he pleases, putting them to +death without even taking counsel with his officers. In a war against +the Latins Manlius, the Roman general, had forbidden the soldiers +leaving camp: his son, provoked by one of the enemy, went forth and +killed him; Manlius had him arrested and executed him immediately. + +According to the Roman expression, the magistrate has the power of a +king; but this power is brief and divided. The magistrate is elected +for but one year and he has a colleague who has the same power as +himself. There are at once in Rome two consuls who govern the people +and command the armies, and several prætors to serve as subordinate +governors or commanders and to pronounce judgment. There are other +magistrates, besides--two censors, four ædiles to supervise the +public ways and the markets, ten tribunes of the plebs, and quæstors +to care for the state treasure. + +=The Censors.=--The highest of all the magistrates are the censors. +They are charged with taking the census every five years, that is to +say, the enumeration of the Roman people. All the citizens appear +before them to declare under oath their name, the number of their +children and their slaves, the amount of their fortune; all this is +inscribed on the registers. It is their duty, too, to draw up the list +of the senators, of the knights, and of the citizens, assigning to +each his proper rank in the city. They are charged as a result with +making the lustrum, a great ceremony of purification which occurs +every five years.[122] + +On that day all the citizens are assembled on the Campus Martius +arranged in order of battle; thrice there are led around the assembly +three expiatory victims, a bull, a ram, and a swine; these are killed +and their blood sprinkled on the people; the city is purified and +reconciled with the gods. + +The censors are the masters of the registration and they rank each as +they please; they may degrade a senator by striking him from the +senate-list, a knight by not registering him among the knights, and a +citizen by not placing his name on the registers of the tribes. It is +for them an easy means of punishing those whom they regard at fault +and of reaching those whom the law does not condemn. They have been +known to degrade citizens for poor tillage of the soil and for having +too costly an equipage, a senator because he possessed ten pounds of +silver, another for having repudiated his wife. It is this overweening +power that the Romans call the supervision of morals. It makes the +censors the masters of the city. + +=The Senate.=--The Senate is composed of about 300 persons appointed +by the censor. But the censor does not appoint at random; he chooses +only rich citizens respected and of high family, the majority of them +former magistrates. Almost always he appoints those who are already +members of the Senate, so that ordinarily one remains a senator for +life. The Senate is an assembly of the principal men of Rome, hence +its authority. As soon as business is presented, one of the +magistrates convokes the senators in a temple, lays the question +before them, and then asks "what they think concerning this matter." +The senators reply one by one, following the order of dignity. This is +what they call "consulting the Senate," and the judgment of the +majority is a senatus consultum (decree of the Senate). This +conclusion is only advisory as the Senate has no power to make laws; +but Rome obeys this advice as if it were a law. The people have +confidence in the senators, knowing that they have more experience +than themselves; the magistrates do not dare to resist an assembly +composed of nobles who are their peers. And so the Senate regulates +all public business: it declares war and determines the number of the +armies; it receives ambassadors and makes peace; it fixes the revenues +and the expenses. The people ratify these measures and the magistrates +execute them. In 200 B.C. the Senate decided on war with the king of +Macedon, but the people in terror refused to approve it: the Senate +then ordered a magistrate to convoke the comitia anew and to adopt a +more persuasive speech. This time the people voted for the war. In +Rome it was the people who reigned, just as is the case with the king +in England, but it was the Senate that governed. + +=The Offices.=--Being magistrate or senator in Rome is not a +profession. Magistrates or senators spend their time and their money +without receiving any salary. A magistracy in Rome is before all an +honor. Entrance to it is to nobles, at most to knights, but always to +the rich; but these come to the highest magistracies only after they +have occupied all the others. The man who aims one day to govern Rome +must serve in the army during ten campaigns. Then he may be elected +quæstor and he receives the administration of the state treasury. +After this he becomes ædile, charged with the policing of the city and +with the provision of the corn supply. Later he is elected prætor and +gives judgment in the courts. Later yet, elected consul, he commands +an army and presides over the assemblies. Then only may he aspire to +the censorship. This is the highest round of the ladder and may be +reached hardly before one's fiftieth year. The same man has therefore, +been financier, administrator, judge, general, and governor before +arriving at this original function of censor, the political +distribution of the Roman people. This series of offices is what is +called the "order of the honors." Each of these functions lasts but +one year, and to rise to the one next higher a new election is +necessary. In the year which precedes the voting one must show one's +self continually in the streets, "circulate" as the Romans say +(_ambire_: hence the word "ambition"), to solicit the suffrages of the +people. For all this time it is the custom to wear a white toga, the +very sense of the word "candidate" (white garment). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[117] Probably some of the plebeians originated in non-noble Roman +families.--ED. + +[118] We know the story of this contest only through Livy and Dionysius +of Halicarnassus; their very dramatic account has become celebrated, but +it is only a legend frequently altered by falsifiers. + +[119] The pontificate was opened to the plebeians by the Ogulnian Law of +300 B.C. The first plebeian pontifex maximus was in 254 B.C. Livy, +Epitome, xviii.--ED. + +[120] This qualification was set in the last century of the +republic.--ED. + +[121] He cites several of their old proverbs: "A bad farmer is one who +buys what his land can raise." "It is bad economy to do in the day what +can be done at night." + +[122] After the completion of the census.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ROMAN CONQUEST + +THE ROMAN ARMY + + +=Military Service.=--To be admitted to service in the Roman army one +must be a Roman citizen. It is necessary to have enough wealth to +equip one's self at one's own expense, for the state furnishes no arms +to its soldiers; down to 402 B.C. it did not even pay them. And so +only those citizens are enrolled who are provided with at least a +small fortune. The poor (called the proletariat) are exempt from +service, or rather, they have no right to serve. Every citizen who is +rich enough to be admitted to the army owes the state twenty +campaigns; until these are completed the man remains at the +disposition of the consul and this from the age of seventeen to +forty-six. In Rome, as in the Greek cities, every man is at once +citizen and soldier. The Romans are a people of small proprietors +disciplined in war. + +=The Levy.=--When there was need of soldiers, the consul ordered all +the citizens qualified for service to assemble at the Capitol. There +the officers elected by the people chose as many men as were necessary +to form the army. This was the enrolment (the Romans called it the +Choice); then came the military oath. The officers first took the +oath, and then the rank and file; they swore to obey their general, +to follow him wherever he led them and to remain under the standards +until he released them from their oath. One man pronounced the formula +and each in turn advanced and said, "I also." From this time the army +was bound to the general by the bonds of religion. + +=Legions and Allies.=--The Roman army was at first called the Legion +(levy). When the people increased in number, instead of one legion, +several were formed. + +The legion was a body of 4,200 to 5,000 men, all Roman citizens. The +smallest army had always at least one legion, every army commanded by +a consul had at least two. But the legions constituted hardly a half +of the Roman army. All the subject peoples in Italy were required to +send troops, and these soldiers, who were called allies, were placed +under the orders of Roman officers. In a Roman army the allies were +always a little more numerous than the citizens of the legions. +Ordinarily with four legions (16,800 men) there were enrolled 20,000 +archers and 40,000 horse from the allies. In the Second Punic War, in +218 B.C., 26,000 citizens and 45,000 allies were drawn for service. +Thus the Roman people, in making war, made use of its subjects as well +as of its citizens. + +=Military Exercises.=--Rome had no gymnasium; the future soldiers +exercised themselves on the parade-ground, the Campus Martius, on the +other side of the Tiber. There the young man marched, ran, leaped +under the weight of his arms, fenced with his sword, hurled the +javelin, wielded the mattock, and then, covered with dust and with +perspiration, swam across the Tiber. Often the older men, sometimes +even the generals, mingled with the young men, for the Roman never +ceased to exercise. Even in the campaign the rule was not to allow the +men to be unoccupied; once a day, at least, they were required to take +exercise, and when there was neither enemy to fight nor intrenchment +to erect, they were employed in building roads, bridges, and +aqueducts. + +=The Camp.=--The Roman soldier carried a heavy burden--his arms, his +utensils, rations for seventeen days, and a stake, in all sixty Roman +pounds. The army moved more rapidly as it was not encumbered with +baggage. Every time that a Roman army halted for camp, a surveyor +traced a square enclosure, and along its lines the soldiers dug a deep +ditch; the earth which was excavated, thrown inside, formed a bank +which they fortified with stakes. The camp was thus defended by a +ditch and a palisade. In this improvised fortress the soldiers erected +their tents, and in the middle was set the Prætorium, the tent of the +general. Sentinels mounted guard throughout the night, and so +prevented the army from being surprised. + +=The Order of Battle.=--In the presence of the enemy the soldiers did +not form in a solid mass, as did the Greeks. The legion was divided +into small bodies of 120 men, called maniples because they had for +standards bundles of hay.[123] The maniples were ranged in quincunx +form in three lines, each separated from the neighboring maniple in +such a way as to manoeuvre separately. The soldiers of the maniples of +the first line hurled their javelins, grasped their swords, and began +the battle. If they were repulsed, they withdrew to the rear through +the vacant spaces. The second line of the maniples then in turn +marched to the combat. If it was repulsed, it fell back on the third +line. The third line was composed of the best men of the legion and +was equipped with lances. They received the others into their ranks +and threw themselves on the enemy. The army was no longer a single +mass incapable of manoeuvring; the general could form his lines +according to the nature of the ground. At Cynoscephalæ, where for the +first time the two most renowned armies of antiquity met, the Roman +legion and the Macedonian phalanx, the ground was bristling with +hills; on this rugged ground the 16,000 Macedonion hoplites could not +remain in order, their ranks were opened, and the Roman platoons threw +themselves into the gaps and demolished the phalanx. + +=Discipline.=--The Roman army obeyed a rude discipline. The general +had the right of life and death over all his men. The soldier who +quitted his post or deserted in battle was condemned to death; the +lictors bound him to a post, beat him with rods, and cut off his head; +or the soldiers may have killed him with blows of their staves. When +an entire body of troops mutinied, the general separated the guilty +into groups of ten and drew by lot one from every group to be +executed. This was called decimation (from decimus, the tenth). The +others were placed on a diet of barley-bread and made to camp outside +the lines, always in danger of surprise from the enemy. The Romans +never admitted that their soldiers were conquered or taken prisoners: +after the battle of Cannæ the 3,000 soldiers who escaped the carnage +were sent by the senate to serve in Sicily without pay and without +honors until the enemy should be expelled from Italy; the 8,000 left +in the camp were taken by Hannibal who offered to return them for a +small ransom, but the senate refused to purchase them. + +=Colonies and Military Roads.=--In the countries that were still only +partially subject, Rome established a small garrison. This body of +soldiers founded a town which served as a fortress, and around about +it the lands were cut into small domains and distributed to the +soldiers. This is what they called a Colony. The colonists continued +to be Roman citizens and obeyed all commands from Rome. Quite +different from a Greek colony which emancipated itself even to the +point of making war on its mother city, the Roman colony remained a +docile daughter. It was only a Roman garrison posted in the midst of +the enemy. Almost all these military posts were in Italy, but there +were others besides; Narbonne and Lyons were once Roman colonies. + +To hold these places and to send their armies to a distance the Romans +built military roads. These were causeways constructed in a straight +line, of limestone, stone, and sand. The Romans covered their empire +with them. In a land like France there is no part where one does not +find traces of the Roman roads. + + +CHARACTER OF THE CONQUEST + +=War.=--There was at Rome a temple consecrated to the god Janus whose +gates remained open while the Roman people continued at war. For the +five hundred years of the republic this temple was closed but once +and that for only a few years. Rome, then, lived in a state of war. As +it had the strongest army of the time, it finished by conquering all +the other peoples and by overcoming the ancient world. + +=Conquest of Italy.=--Rome began by subjecting her neighbors, the +Latins, first, then the little peoples of the south, the Volscians, +the Æquians, the Hernicans, later the Etruscans and the Samnites, and +finally the Greek cities. This was the hardest and slowest of their +conquests: beginning with the time of the kings, it did not terminate +until 266, after four centuries of strife.[124] + +The Romans had to fight against peoples of the same race as +themselves, as vigorous and as brave as they. Some who were not +content to obey they exterminated. The rich plains of the Volscians +became a swampy wilderness, uninhabitable even to the present time, +the gloomy region of the Pontine marshes. + +In the land of the Samnites there were still recognizable, three +hundred years after the war, the forty-five camps of Decius and the +eighty-six of Fabius, less apparent by the traces of their +intrenchments than by the solitude of the neighborhood. + +=The Punic Wars.=--Come into Sicily, Rome antagonized Carthage. Then +began the Punic wars (that is to say, against the Phoenicians). There +were three of these wars. The first, from 264 to 241, was determined +by naval battles; Rome became mistress of Sicily. It was related that +Rome had never had any war-ships, that she took as a model a +Carthaginian galley cast ashore by accident on her coast and began by +exercising her oarsmen in rowing on the land. This legend is without +foundation for the Roman navy had long endured. This is the Roman +account of this war: the Roman consul Duillius had vanquished the +Carthaginian fleet at Mylæ (260); a Roman army had disembarked in +Africa under the lead of Regulus, had been attacked and destroyed +(255); Regulus was sent as a prisoner to Rome to conclude a peace, but +persuading the Senate to reject it, he returned to Carthage where he +perished by torture. The war was concentrated in Sicily where the +Carthaginian fleet, at first victorious at Drepana, was defeated at +the Ægates Islands; Hamilcar, besieged on Mount Eryx, signed the +peace. + +The second war (from 218 to 201) was the work of Hannibal. + +The third war was a war of extermination: the Romans took Carthage by +assault, razed it, and conquered Africa. + +These wars had long made Rome tremble. Carthage had the better navy, +but its warriors were armed adventurers fighting not for country but +for pay, lawless, terrible under a general like Hannibal. + +=Hannibal.=--Hannibal, who directed the whole of the second war and +almost captured Rome, was of the powerful family of the Barcas. His +father Hamilcar had commanded a Carthaginian army in the first Punic +war and had afterwards been charged with the conquest of Spain. +Hannibal was then but a child, but his father took him with him. The +departure of an army was always accompanied by sacrifices to the gods +of the country; it was said that Hamilcar after the sacrifice made his +infant son swear eternal enmity to Rome. + +Hannibal, brought up in the company of the soldiers, became the best +horseman and the best archer of the army. War was his only aim in +life; his only needs, therefore, were a horse and arms. He had made +himself so popular that at the death of Hasdrubal who was in the +command of the army, the soldiers elected him general without waiting +for orders from the Carthaginian senate. Thus Hannibal found himself +at the age of twenty-one at the head of an army which was obedient +only to himself. He began war, regardless of the senate at Carthage, +by advancing to the siege of Saguntum, a Greek colony allied with +Rome; he took this and destroyed it. + +The glory of Hannibal was that he did not wait for the Romans, but had +the audacity to march into Italy to attack them. As he had no fleet, +he resolved to advance by land, through the Pyrenees, crossing the +Rhone and the Alps. He made sure of the alliance of the Gallic peoples +and penetrated the Pyrenees with an army of 60,000 men, African and +Spanish mercenaries, and with 37 war-elephants. A Gallic people wished +to stop him at the Rhone, but he sent a detachment to pass the river +some leagues farther up the stream and to attack the Gauls in the +rear; the mass of the army crossed the river in boats, the elephants +on great rafts. + +He next ascended the valley of the Isère and arrived at the Alps at +the end of October; he crossed them regardless of the snow and the +attacks of the mountaineers; many men and horses rolled down the +precipices. But nine days were consumed in attaining the summits of +the Alps. The descent was very difficult; the pass by which he had to +go was covered with ice and he was compelled to cut a road out of the +rock. When he arrived in the plain, the army was reduced to half its +former number. + +Hannibal met three Roman armies in succession, first at the Ticinus, +next on the banks of the Trebia, and last near Lake Trasimenus in +Etruria. He routed all of them. As he advanced, his army increased in +number; the warriors of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) joined him +against the Romans. He took up position beyond Rome in Apulia, and it +was here that the Roman army came to attack him. Hannibal had an army +only half as large as theirs, but he had African cavalrymen mounted on +swift horses; he formed his lines in the plain of Cannæ so that the +Romans had the sun in their face and the dust driven by the wind +against them; the Roman army was surrounded and almost annihilated +(216). It was thought that Hannibal would march on Rome, but he did +not consider himself strong enough to do it. The Carthaginian senate +sent him no reënforcements. Hannibal endeavored to take Naples and to +have Rome attacked by the king of Macedon; he succeeded only in +gaining some towns which Rome besieged and destroyed. Hannibal +remained nine years in south Italy; at last his brother Hasdrubal +started with the army of Spain to assist him, and made his way almost +to central Italy. The two Carthaginian armies marched to unite their +forces, each opposed by a Roman army under the command of a consul. +Nero, facing Hannibal, had the audacity to traverse central Italy and +to unite with his colleague who was intrenched against Hasdrubal. One +morning Hasdrubal heard the trumpets sounding twice in the camp of the +Romans, a sign that there were two consuls in the camp. He believed +his brother was conquered and so retreated; the Romans pursued him, he +was killed and his entire army massacred. Then Nero rejoined the army +which he had left before Hannibal and threw the head of Hasdrubal into +the Carthaginian camp (207). Hannibal, reduced to his own troops, +remained in Calabria for five years longer. The descent of a Roman +army on Africa compelled him to leave Italy; he massacred the Italian +soldiers who refused to accompany him and embarked for Carthage (203). +The battle of Zama (202) terminated the war. Hannibal had counted as +usual on drawing the Romans within his lines and surrounding them; but +Scipio, the Roman general, kept his troops in order and on a second +attack threw the enemy's army into rout. Carthage was obliged to treat +for peace; she relinquished everything she possessed outside of +Africa, ceding Spain to the Romans. She bound herself further to +surrender her navy and the elephants, to pay over $10,000,000 and to +agree not to make war without the permission of Rome. + +Hannibal reorganized Carthage for a new war. The Romans, disturbed at +this, demanded that the Carthaginians put him to death. Hannibal fled +to Antiochus, king of Syria, and proposed to him to incite a revolt +in Italy against Rome; but Antiochus, following the counsel of his +courtiers, distrusted Hannibal and invaded Greece, where his army was +captured. Hannibal withdrew to the king of Bithynia. The Romans sent +Flamininus thither to take him, but Hannibal, seeing his house +surrounded, took the poison which he always had by him (183). + +=Conquests of the Orient.=--The Greek kings, successors of the +generals of Alexander, divided the Orient among themselves. The most +powerful of these took up war against Rome; but they were +defeated--Philip, the king of Macedon, in 197, his son Perseus in 168, +Antiochus, the king of Syria, in 190. The Romans, having from this +time a free field, conquered one by one all the lands which they found +of use to them: Macedon (148), the kingdom of Pergamum (129), the rest +of Asia (from 74 to 64) after the defeat of Mithradates, and Egypt +(30). + +With the exception of the Macedonians, the Orient opposed the Romans +with mercenaries only or with undisciplined barbarians who fled at the +first onset. In the great victory over Antiochus at Magnesia there +were only 350 Romans killed. At Chæronea, Sulla was victorious with +the loss of but twelve men. The other kings, now terrified, obeyed the +Senate without resistance. + +Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, having conquered a part of Egypt, +was bidden by Popilius acting under the command of the Senate to +abandon his conquest. Antiochus hesitated; but Popilius, taking a rod +in his hand, drew a circle about the king, and said, "Before you move +from this circle, give answer to the Senate." Antiochus submitted, and +surrendered Egypt. The king of Numidia desired of the Senate that it +should regard his kingdom as the property of the Roman people. +Prusias, the king of Bithynia, with shaved head and in the garb of a +freedman, prostrated himself before the Senate. Mithradates alone, +king of Pontus, endeavored to resist; but after thirty years of war he +was driven from his states and compelled to take his life by poison. + +=Conquest of the Barbarian Lands.=--The Romans found more difficult +the subjection of the barbarous and warlike peoples of the west. A +century was required to conquer Spain. The shepherd Viriathus made +guerilla warfare on them in the mountains of Portugal (149-139), +overwhelmed five armies, and compelled even a consul to treat for +peace; the Senate got rid of him by assassination. + +Against the single town of Numantia it was necessary to send Scipio, +the best general of Rome. + +The little and obscure peoples of Corsica, of Sardinia, and of the +mountains of Genoa (the Ligurians) were always reviving the war with +Rome. + +But the most indomitable of all were the Gauls. Occupying the whole of +the valley of the Po, they threw themselves on Italy to the south. One +of their bands had taken Rome in 390. Their big white bodies, their +long red mustaches, their blue eyes, their savage yells terrified the +Roman soldiers. As soon as their approach was learned, consternation +seized Rome, and the Senate proclaimed the levy of the whole army +(they called this the "Gallic tumult"). These wars were the bloodiest +but the shortest; the first (225-222) gave to the Romans all Cisalpine +Gaul (northern Italy); the second (120), the Rhone lands (Languedoc, +Provence, Dauphiné); the third (58-51), all the rest of Gaul. + + +ROMAN WARFARE + +=The Triumph.=--When a general has won a great victory, the Senate +permits him as a signal honor to celebrate the triumph. This is a +religious procession to the temple of Jupiter. The magistrates and +senators march at the head; then come the chariots filled with booty, +the captives chained by the feet, and, at last, on a golden car drawn +by four horses, the victorious general crowned with laurel. His +soldiers follow him singing songs with the solemn refrain "Io, +Triomphe."[125] The procession traverses the city in festal attire and +ascends to the Capitol: there the victor lays down his laurel on the +knees of Jupiter and thanks him for giving victory. After the ceremony +the captives are imprisoned, or, as in the case of Vercingetorix, +beheaded, or, like Jugurtha, cast into a dungeon to die of hunger. The +triumph of Æmilius Paullus, conqueror of Macedon, lasted for three +days. The first day witnessed a procession of 250 chariots bearing +pictures and statues, the second the trophies of weapons and 25 casks +of silver, the third the vases of gold and 120 sacrificial bulls. At +the rear walked King Perseus, clad in black, surrounded by his +followers in chains and his three young children who extended their +hands to the people to implore their pity. + +=Booty.=--In the wars of antiquity the victor took possession of +everything that had belonged to the vanquished, not only of the arms +and camp-baggage, but of the treasure, the movable property, beasts of +the hostile people, the men, women, and children. At Rome the booty +did not belong to the soldiers but to the people. The prisoners were +enslaved, the property was sold and the profits of the sale turned +into the public chest. And so every war was a lucrative enterprise. +The kings of Asia had accumulated enormous treasure and this the Roman +generals transported to Rome. The victor of Carthage deposited in the +treasury more than 100,000 pounds of silver; the conqueror of +Antiochus 140,000 pounds of silver and 1,000 pounds of gold without +counting the coined metals; the victor over Persia remitted +120,000,000 sesterces. + +=The Allies of Rome.=--The ancient world was divided among a great +number of kings, little peoples, and cities that hated one another. +They never united for resistance and so Rome absorbed them one by one. + +Those whom she did not attack remained neutral and indifferent; often +they even united with the Romans. In the majority of her wars Rome did +not fight alone, but had the assistance of allies: against Carthage, +the king of Numidia; against the king of Macedon, the Ætolians; +against the king of Syria, the Rhodians. In the east many kings +proudly assumed the title of "Ally of the Roman People." In the +countries divided into small states, some peoples called in the Romans +against their neighbors, receiving the Roman army, furnishing it with +provisions, and guiding it to the frontiers of the hostile country. +And so in Gaul it was Marseilles that introduced the Romans into the +valley of the Rhone; it was the people of Autun (the Ædui) who +permitted them to establish themselves in the heart of the land. + +=Motives of Conquest.=--The Romans did not from the first have the +purpose to conquer the world. Even after winning Italy and Carthage +they waited a century before subjecting the Orient which really laid +itself at their feet. They conquered, it appears, without +predetermined plan, and because they all had interest in conquest. The +magistrates who were leaders of the armies saw in conquest a means of +securing the honors of the triumph and the surest instrument for +making themselves popular. The most powerful statesmen in Rome, +Papirius, Fabius, the two Scipios, Cato, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Cæsar, +and Crassus, were victorious generals. The nobles who composed the +Senate gained by the increase of Roman subjects, and with these they +allied themselves as governors to receive their homage and their +presents. For the knights--that is to say, the bankers, the merchants, +and the contractors--every new conquest was a new land to exploit. The +people itself profited by the booty taken from the enemy. After the +treasure of the king of Macedon was deposited in the public chest, +taxes were finally abolished. As for the soldiers, as soon as war was +carried into rich lands, they received immense sums from their +general, to say nothing of what they took from the vanquished. The +Romans conquered the world less for glory than for the profits of +war. + + +EFFECTS OF ROMAN CONQUEST + +=The Empire of the Roman People.=--Rome subjected all the lands around +the Mediterranean from Spain to Asia Minor. These countries were not +annexed, their inhabitants did not become citizens of Rome, nor their +territory Roman territory. They remained aliens entering simply into +the Roman empire, that is, under the domination of the Roman people. +In just the same way today the Hindoos are not citizens but subjects +of England; India is a part, not of England, but of the British +Empire. + +=The Public Domain.=--When a conquered people asked peace, this is the +formula which its deputies were expected to pronounce: "We surrender +to you the people, the town, the fields, the waters, the gods of the +boundaries, and movable property; all things which belonged to the +gods and to men we deliver to the power of the Roman people." By this +act, the Roman people became the proprietor of everything that the +vanquished possessed, even of their persons. Sometimes it sold the +inhabitants into slavery: Æmilius Paullus sold 150,000 Epeirots who +surrendered to him. Ordinarily Rome left to the conquered their +liberty, but their territory was incorporated into the _domain of the +Roman people_. Of this land three equal parts were made: + + 1. A part of their lands was returned to the people, but on + condition that they pay a tribute in money or in grain, and Rome + reserved the right of recalling the land at will. + + 2. The fields and pastures were farmed out to publicans. + + 3. Some of the uncultivated land was resigned to the first + occupant, every Roman citizen having the right of settling there + and of cultivating it. + +=Agrarian Laws.=--The Agrarian Laws which deeply agitated Rome were +concerned with this public domain. No Roman had leave to expel the +possessors, for the boundaries of these domains were gods (Termini) +and religious scruple prevented them from being disturbed. By the +Agrarian Laws the people resumed the lands of the public domain which +they distributed to citizens as property. Legally the people had the +right to do this, since all the domain belonged to them. But for some +centuries certain subjects or citizens had been permitted to enjoy +these lands; at last they regarded them as their own property; they +bequeathed them, bought and sold them. To take these from the +occupants would suddenly ruin a multitude of people. In Italy +especially, if this were done, all the people of a city would be +expelled. Thus Augustus deprived the inhabitants of Mantua of the +whole of their territory; Vergil was among the victims, but, thanks to +his verse, he obtained the return of his domain, while the other +proprietors who were not poets remained in exile. These lands thus +recovered were sometimes distributed to poor citizens of Rome, but +most frequently to old soldiers. Sulla bestowed lands on 120,000 +veterans at the expense of the people of Etruria. The Agrarian Laws +were a menace to all the subjects of Rome, and it was one of the +benefits conferred by the emperors that they were abolished. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[123] Wisps or bundle of hay were twisted around poles.--ED. + +[124] Regarding all these Italian wars the Romans had only a number of +legends, most of them developed to glorify the heroism of some ancestor +of a noble family--a Valerius, a Fabius, a Decius, or a Manlius. + +[125] These songs were mingled with coarse ribaldry at the expense of +the general.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CONQUERED PEOPLES + +THE PROVINCIALS + + +=The Provinces.=--The inhabitants of conquered countries did not enter +into Roman citizenship, but remained strangers (peregrini), while yet +subjects of the Roman empire. They were to pay tribute--the tithe of +their crops, a tax in silver, a capitation tax. They must obey Romans +of every order. But as the Roman people could not itself administer +the province, it sent a magistrate in its place with the mission of +governing. The country subject to a governor was called _province_ +(which signifies mission). + +At the end of the republic (in 46), there were seventeen provinces: +ten in Europe, five in Asia, two in Africa--the majority of these very +large. Thus the entire territory of Gaul constituted but four +provinces, and Spain but two. "The provinces," said Cicero, "are the +domains of the Roman people"--if it made all these peoples subjects, +it was not for their advantage, but for its own. Its aim was not to +administer, but to exploit them. + +=The Proconsuls.=--For the administration of a province the Roman +people always appointed a magistrate, consul or prætor, who was just +finishing the term of his office, and whose prerogative it +prolonged.[126] The proconsul, like the consul, had absolute power +and he could exercise it to his fancy, for he was alone in his +province;[127] there were no other magistrates to dispute the power +with him, no tribunes of the people to veto his acts, no senate to +watch him. He alone commanded the troops, led them to battle, and +posted them where he wished. He sat in his tribunal (prætorium), +condemning to fine, imprisonment, or death. He promulgated decrees +which had the force of law. He was the sole authority over himself for +he was in himself the incarnation of the Roman people. + +=Tyranny and Oppression of the Proconsuls.=--This governor, whom no +one resisted, was a true despot. He made arrests, cast into prison, +beat with rods, or executed those who displeased him. The following is +one of a thousand of these caprices of the governor as a Roman orator +relates it: "At last the consul came to Termini, where his wife took a +fancy to bathe in the men's bath. All the men who were bathing there +were driven out The wife of the consul complained that it had not been +done quickly enough and that the baths were not well prepared. The +consul had a post set up in a public place, brought to it one of the +most eminent men of the city, stripped him of his garments, and had +him beaten with rods." + +The proconsul drew from the province as much money as he wanted; thus +he regarded it as his private property. Means were not wanting to +exploit it. He plundered the treasuries of the cities, removed the +statues and jewels stored in the temples, and made requisitions on +the rich inhabitants for money or grain. As he was able to lodge +troops where he pleased, the cities paid him money to be exempt from +the presence of the soldiers. As he could condemn to death at will, +individuals gave him security-money. If he demanded an object of art +or even a sum of money, who would dare to refuse him? The men of his +escort imitated his example, pillaging under his name, and even under +his protection. The governor was in haste to accumulate his wealth as +it was necessary that he make his fortune in one year. After he +returned to Rome, another came who recommenced the whole process. +There was, indeed, a law that prohibited every governor from accepting +a gift, and a tribunal (since 149) expressly for the crime of +extortion. But this tribunal was composed of nobles and Roman knights +who would not condemn their compatriot, and the principal result of +this system was, according to the remark of Cicero, to compel the +governor to take yet more plunder from the province in order to +purchase the judges of the tribunal. + +It cannot surprise one that the term "proconsul" came to be a synonym +for despot. Of these brigands by appointment the most notorious was +Verres, proprætor of Sicily, since Cicero from political motives +pronounced against him seven orations which have made him famous. But +it is probable that many others were as bad as he. + +=The Publicans.=--In every province the Roman people had considerable +revenues--the customs, the mines, the imposts, the grain-lands, and +the pastures. These were farmed out to companies of contractors who +were called publicans. These men bought from the state the right of +collecting the impost in a certain place, and the provincials had to +obey them as the representatives of the Roman people. And so in every +province there were many companies of publicans, each with a crowd of +clerks and collectors. These people carried themselves as masters, +extorted more than was due them, reduced the debtors to misery, +sometimes selling them as slaves. In Asia they even exiled the +inhabitants without any pretext. When Marius required the king of +Bithynia to furnish him with soldiers, the king replied that, thanks +to the publicans, he had remaining as citizens only women, children, +and old people. The Romans were well informed of these excesses. +Cicero wrote to his brother, then a governor, "If you find the means +of satisfying the publicans without letting the provincials be +destroyed, it is because you have the attributes of a god." But the +publicans were judged in the tribunals and the proconsuls themselves +obeyed them. Scaurus, the proconsul of Asia, a man of rigid +probity,[128] wished to prevent them from pillaging his province; on +his return to Rome they had him accused and condemned. + +The publicans drove to extremities even the peaceable and submissive +inhabitants of the Orient: in a single night, at the order of +Mithradates, 100,000 Romans were massacred. A century later, in the +time of Christ, the word "publican" was synonymous with thief. + +=The Bankers.=--The Romans had heaped up at home the silver of the +conquered countries. And so silver was very abundant in Rome and +scarce in the provinces. At Rome one could borrow at four or five per +cent.; in the provinces not less than twelve per cent. was charged. +The bankers borrowed money in Rome and loaned it in the provinces, +especially to kings or to cities. When the exhausted peoples could not +return the principal and the interest, the bankers imitated the +procedure of the publicans. In 84 the cities of Asia made a loan to +pay an enormous war-levy; fourteen years later, the interest alone had +made the debt amount to six times the original amount. The bankers +compelled the cities to sell even their objects of art; parents sold +even their children. Some years later one of the most highly esteemed +Romans of his time, Brutus, the Stoic, loaned to the city of Salamis +in Cyprus a sum of money at forty-eight per cent. interest (four per +cent. a month). Scaptius, his business manager, demanded the sum with +interest; the city could not pay; Scaptius then went in search of the +proconsul Appius, secured a squadron of cavalry and came to Salamis to +blockade the senate in its hall of assembly; five senators died of +famine. + +=Defencelessness of the Provincials.=--The provincials had no redress +against all these tyrants. The governor sustained the publicans, and +the Roman army and people sustained the governor. Admit that a Roman +citizen could enter suit against the plunderers of the provinces: a +governor was inviolable and could not be accused until he had given up +his office; while he held his office there was nothing to do but to +watch him plunder. If he were accused on his return to Rome, he +appeared before a tribunal of nobles and of publicans who were more +interested to support him than to render justice to the provincials. +If, perchance, the tribunal condemned him, exile exempted him from all +further penalty and he betook himself to a city of Italy to enjoy his +plunder. This punishment was nothing to him and was not even a loss to +him. And so the provincials preferred to appease their governor by +submission. They treated him like a king, flattered him, sent +presents, and raised statues to him. Often, indeed, in Asia they +raised altars to him,[129] built temples to him, and adored him as a +god. + + +SLAVERY + +=The Sale of Slaves.=--Every prisoner of war, every inhabitant of a +captured city belonged to the victor. If they were not killed, they +were enslaved. Such was the ancient custom and the Romans exercised +the right to the full. Captives were treated as a part of the booty +and were therefore either sold to slave-merchants who followed the +army or, if taken to Rome, were put up at auction.[130] After every +war thousands of captives, men and women, were sold as slaves. +Children born of slave mothers would themselves be slaves. Thus it was +the conquered peoples who furnished the slave-supply for the Romans. + +=Condition of the Slave.=--The slave belonged to a master, and so was +regarded not as a person but as a piece of property. He had, then, no +rights; he could not be a citizen or a proprietor; he could be neither +husband nor father. "Slave marriages!" says a character in a Roman +comedy;[131] "A slave takes a wife; it is contrary to the custom of +every people." The master has full right over his slave; he sends him +where he pleases, makes him work according to his will, even beyond +his strength, ill feeds him, beats him, tortures him, kills him +without accounting to anybody for it. The slave must submit to all the +whims of his master; the Romans declare, even, that he is to have no +conscience, his only duty is blind obedience. If he resists, if he +flees, the state assists the master to subdue or recover him; the man +who gives refuge to a fugitive slave renders himself liable to the +charge of theft, as if he had taken an ox or a horse belonging to +another. + +=Number of Slaves.=--Slaves were far more numerous than free men. Rich +citizens owned 10,000 to 20,000 of them,[132] some having enough of +them to constitute a real army. We read of Cæcilius Claudius Isidorius +who had once been a slave and came to possess more than 4,000 slaves. +Horace, who had seven slaves, speaks of his modest patrimony. Having +but three was in Rome a mark of poverty. + +=Urban Slaves.=--The Roman nobles, like the Orientals of our day, +delighted in surrounding themselves with a crowd of servants. In a +great Roman house lived hundreds of slaves, organized for different +services. There were slaves to care for the furniture, for the silver +plate, for the objects of art; slaves of the wardrobe, valets and +chambermaids, the troop of cooks, the slaves of the bath, the master +of the house and his aids, the slaves to escort the master and +mistress on the street, the litter-carriers, coachmen and grooms, +secretaries, readers, copyists, physicians, teachers, actors, +musicians, artisans of every kind, for in every great house grain was +ground, flax was spun, and garments were woven. Others, gathered in +workshops, manufactured objects which the master sold to his profit. +Others were hired out as masons or as sailors; Crassus had 500 +carpenter-slaves. These classes of slaves were called "slaves of the +city." + +=Rural Slaves.=--Every great domain was tilled by a band of slaves. +They were the laborers, the shepherds, the vine-dressers, the +gardeners, the fishermen, grouped together in squads of ten. An +overseer, himself a slave, superintended them. The proprietor made it +a matter to produce everything on his lands: "He buys nothing; +everything that he consumes he raises at home," this is the compliment +paid to the rich. The Roman, therefore, kept a great number of +country-slaves, as they were called. A Roman domain had a strong +resemblance to a village; indeed it was called a "villa." The name has +been preserved: what the French call "ville" since the Middle Ages is +only the old Roman domain increased in size. + +=Treatment of Slaves.=--The kind of treatment the slaves received +depended entirely on the character of the master. Some enlightened and +humane masters may be enumerated, such as Cicero, Seneca, and Pliny, +who fed their slaves well, talked with them, sometimes had them sit +at table with them, and permitted them to have families and small +fortunes (the peculium). + +But other masters are mentioned who treated their slaves as animals, +punished them cruelly, and even had them put to death for a whim. +Examples of these are not lacking. Vedius Pollio, a freedman of +Augustus, used to keep some lampreys in his fish-pond: when one of his +slaves carelessly broke a vase, he had him thrown into the fish-pond +as food for the lampreys. The philosopher Seneca paints in the +following words the violent cruelty of the masters: "If a slave coughs +or sneezes during a meal, if he pursues the flies too slowly, if he +lets a key fall noisily lo the floor, we fall into a great rage. If he +replies with too much spirit, if his countenance shows ill humor, have +we any right to have him flogged? Often we strike too hard and shatter +a limb or break a tooth." The philosopher Epictetus, who was a slave, +had had his ankle fractured in this way by his master. Women were no +more humane. Ovid, in a compliment paid to a woman, says, "Many times +she had her hair dressed in my presence, but never did she thrust her +needle into the arm of the serving-woman." + +Public opinion did not condemn these cruelties. Juvenal represents a +woman angry at one of her slaves. "Crucify him," says she. "By what +crime has the slave merited this punishment? Blockhead! Is a slave, +then, a man? It may be that he has done nothing. I wish it, I order +it, my will is reason enough." + +The law was no milder than custom. As late as the first century after +Christ, when a master was assassinated in his house, all the slaves +were put to death. When some wished to abolish this law, Thraseas, +one of the philosophers of high repute, rose to address the Senate to +demand that the law be maintained. + +=The Ergastulum.=--A subterranean prison, lighted by narrow windows so +high that they could not be reached by the hand, was called the +ergastulum. The slaves who had displeased their master spent the night +there; during the day they were sent to work loaded with heavy chains +of iron. Many were branded with a red-hot iron. + +=The Mill.=--The ancients had no mills run by machinery; they had the +grain ground by slaves with hand-mills. It was the most difficult kind +of work and was usually inflicted as a punishment. The mill of +antiquity was like a convict-prison. "There," says Plautus, "moan the +wicked slaves who are fed on polenta; there resound the noise of whips +and the clanking of chains." Three centuries later, in the second +century, Apuleius the novelist, depicts the interior of a mill as +follows: "Gods! what poor shrunken up men! with white skin striped +with blows of the whip, ... they wear only the shreds of a tunic; bent +forward, head shaved, the feet held in a chain, the body deformed by +the heat of the fire, the eyelids eaten away by the fumes, everything +covered with grain-dust." + +=Character of the Slaves.=--Subjected to crushing labor or to enforced +idleness, always under the threat of the whip or of torture, slaves +became, according to their nature, either melancholy and savage, or +lazy and subservient. The most energetic of them committed suicide; +the others led a life that was merely mechanical. "The slave," said +Cato the Elder, "ought always to work or to sleep." The majority of +them lost all sense of honor. And so they used to call a mean act +"servile," that is, like a slave. + +=Slave Revolts.=--The slaves did not write and so we do not know from +their own accounts what they thought of their masters. But the masters +felt themselves surrounded by hate. Pliny the Younger, learning that a +master was to be assassinated at the bath by his slaves, made this +reflection, "This is the peril under which we all live." "More +Romans," says another writer, "have fallen victims to the hate of +their slaves than to that of tyrants." + +At different times slave revolts flamed up (the servile wars), almost +always in Sicily and south Italy where slaves were armed to guard the +herds. The most noted of these wars was the one under Spartacus. A +band of seventy gladiators, escaping from Capua, plundered a chariot +loaded with arms, and set themselves to hold the country. The slaves +escaped to them in crowds to unite their fortunes with theirs, and +soon they became an army. + +The slaves defeated three Roman armies sent in succession against +them. + +Their chief Spartacus wished to traverse the whole peninsula of Italy +in order to return to Thrace, from which country he had been brought +as a prisoner of war to serve as a gladiator. But at last these +ill-disciplined bands were shattered by the army of Crassus. The +revolutionists were all put to death. Rome now prohibited the slaves +from carrying arms thereafter, and it is reported that a shepherd was +once executed for having killed a boar with a spear. + +=Admission to Citizenship.=--Rome treated its subjects and its slaves +brutally, but it did not drive them out, as the Greek cities did. + +The alien could become a Roman citizen by the will of the Roman +people, and the people often accorded this favor, sometimes they even +bestowed it upon a whole people at once. They created the Latins +citizens at one stroke; in 89 it was the turn of the Italians; in 46 +the people of Cisalpine Gaul entered the body of citizens. All the +inhabitants of Italy thus became the equals of the Romans. + +The slave could be manumitted by his master and soon became a citizen. + +This is the reason why the Roman people, gradually exhausting +themselves, were renewed by accessions from the subjects and the +slaves. The number of the citizens was increased at every census; it +rose from 250,000 to 700,000. The Roman city, far from emptying itself +as did Sparta, replenished itself little by little from all those whom +it had conquered. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[126] In the smallest provinces the title of the governor was +_proprætor_. + +[127] In the oriental countries Rome left certain little kings (like +King Herod in Judæa), but they paid tribute and obeyed the governor. + +[128] This estimate of the character of Scaurus is too favorable.--ED. + +[129] Cicero speaks of the temples which were raised to him by the +people of Cilicia, of which county he was governor. + +[130] Every important town had its market for slaves as for cattle and +horses. The slave to be sold was exhibited on a platform with a label +about his neck indicating his age, his better qualities and his defects. + +[131] In the Casina of Plautus. + +[132] Athenæus, who makes this statement, is probably guilty of +exaggeration.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE IN ROME + + +=Greek and Oriental Influence.=--Conquest gave the Romans a clearer +view of the Greeks and Orientals. Thousands of foreigners brought to +Rome as slaves, or coming thither to make their fortune, established +themselves in the city as physicians, professors, diviners, or actors. +Generals, officers and soldiers lived in the midst of Asia, and thus +the Romans came to know the customs and the new beliefs and gradually +adopted them. This transformation had its beginning with the first +Macedonian war (about 200 B.C.), and continued until the end of the +empire. + + +CHANGES IN RELIGION + +=The Greek Gods.=--The Roman gods bore but a slight resemblance to the +Greek gods, even in name; yet in the majority of the divinities of +Rome the Greeks recognized or believed they recognized their own. The +Roman gods up to that time had neither precise form nor history; this +rendered confusion all the easier. Every Roman god was represented +under the form of a Greek god and a history was made of the adventures +of this god. + +The Latin Jupiter was confounded with the Greek Zeus; Juno with Hera; +Minerva, the goddess of memory, with Pallas, goddess of wisdom; Diana, +female counterpart of Janus, unites with Artemis, the brilliant +huntress; Hercules, the god of the enclosure, was assimilated to +Herakles, the victor over monsters. Thus Greek mythology insinuated +itself under Latin names, and the gods of Rome found themselves +transformed into Greek gods. The fusion was so complete that we have +preserved the custom of designating the Greek gods by their Latin +names; we still call Artemis Diana, and Pallas Minerva. + +=The Bacchanals.=--The Greeks had adopted an oriental god, Bacchus, +the god of the vintage, and the Romans began to adore him also. The +worshippers of Bacchus celebrated his cult at night and in secret. +Only the initiated were admitted to the mysteries of the Bacchanals, +who swore not to reveal any of the ceremonies. A woman, however, dared +to denounce to the Senate the Bacchanalian ceremonies that occurred in +Rome in 186. The Senate made an inquiry, discovered 7,000 persons, men +and women, who had participated in the mysteries, and had them put to +death. + +=Oriental Superstitions.=--Already in 220 there was in Rome a temple +of the Egyptian god Serapis. The Senate ordered it to be demolished. +As no workman dared to touch it, the consul himself had to come and +beat down the doors with blows of an axe. + +Some years after, in 205, during the war with Hannibal, it was the +Senate itself that sent an ambassador to Asia Minor to seek the +goddess Cybele. The Great Mother (as she was called) was represented +by a black stone, and this the envoys of the Senate brought in great +pomp and installed in Rome. Her priests followed her and paced the +streets to the sound of fifes and cymbals, clad in oriental fashion, +and begging from door to door. + +Later, Italy was filled with Chaldean sorcerers. The mass of the +people were not the only ones to believe in these diviners. When the +Cimbri menaced Rome (104), Martha, a prophetess of Syria, came to the +Senate to offer it victory over the barbarians; the Senate drove her +out, but the Roman women brought her to the camp, and Marius, the +general in chief, kept her by him and consulted her to the end of the +war. Sulla, likewise, had seen in vision the goddess of Cappadocia and +it was on her advice that he took his way to Italy. + +=Sceptics.=--Not only priests and diviners came to Rome, but also +philosophers who scoffed at the old religion. The best known of these, +Carneades, the ambassador of the Athenians, spoke in Rome in public, +and the youth of Rome came in crowds to hear him. The Senate bade him +leave the city. But the philosophers continued to teach in the schools +of Athens and Rhodes, and it was the fashion to send the Roman youth +thither for instruction. About the third century before Christ +Euhemerus, a Greek, had written a book to prove that there were no +gods; the gods, he said, were only men of ancient times who had been +deified; Jupiter himself had been a king of Crete. This book had a +great success and was translated into Latin by the poet Ennius. The +nobles of Rome were accustomed to mock at their gods, maintaining only +the cult of the old religion. The higher Roman society was for a +century at once superstitious and sceptical. + + +CHANGES IN MANNERS + +=The Old Customs.=--The old Romans had for centuries been diligent and +rude husbandmen, engaged in cultivating their fields, in fighting, and +in fulfilling the ceremonies of their religion. Their ideal was the +_grave_ man. Cincinnatus, they said, was pushing his plough when the +deputies of the Senate came to offer him the dictatorship. Fabricius +had of plate only a cup and a salt-cellar of silver. Curius Dentatus, +the conqueror of the Samnites, was sitting on a bench eating some +beans in a wooden bowl when the envoys of the Samnites presented +themselves before him to offer him a bribe.[133] "Go and tell the +Samnites," said he, "that Curius prefers commanding those who have +gold to having it himself." These are some of the anecdotes that they +used to tell about the generals of the olden time. True or false, +these legends exhibit the ideas that were current in Rome at a later +time regarding the ancient Romans. + +=Cato the Elder.=--At the time when manners were changing, one man +made himself notable by his attachment to the "customs of the +fathers." This was Cato. He was born in 232[134] in the little village +of Tusculum and had spent his youth in manual labor. Entering the +army, according to the usage of the time, at the age of seventeen, he +fought in all the campaigns against Hannibal. He was not noble, but he +made himself popular by his energy, his probity, and his austerity. +He passed through the whole course of political honors--quæstor, +ædile, prætor, consul, and censor. He showed himself everywhere, like +the old Romans, rude, stern, and honest. As quæstor he remonstrated +with the consul about his expenses; but the consul, who was Scipio, +replied to him, "I have no need of so exact a quæstor." As prætor in +Sardinia, he refused the money that was offered him by the province +for the expenses of entertainment. As consul, he spoke with vigor for +the Oppian law which prohibited Roman women from wearing costly +attire; the women put it off, and the law was abrogated. Sent to +command the army of Spain, Cato took 400 towns, securing immense +treasure which he turned into the public chest; at the moment of +embarking, he sold his horse to save the expenses of transportation. +As censor, he erased from the senate-list many great persons on the +ground of their extravagance; he farmed the taxes at a very high price +and taxed at ten times their value the women's habits, jewels, and +conveyances. Having obtained the honor of a triumph, he withdrew to +the army in Macedonia as a simple officer. + +All his life he fought with the nobles of the new type, extravagant +and elegant. He "barked" especially at the Scipios, accusing them of +embezzling state moneys. In turn he was forty-four times made +defendant in court, but was always acquitted. + +On his farm Cato labored with his slaves, ate with them, and when he +had to correct them, beat them with his own hand. In his treatise on +Agriculture, written for his son, he has recorded all the old axioms +of the Roman peasantry.[135] He considered it to be a duty to become +rich. "A widow," he said, "can lessen her property; a man ought to +increase his. He is worthy of fame and inspired of the gods who gains +more than he inherits." Finding that agriculture was not profitable +enough, he invested in merchant ships; he united with fifty associates +and all together constructed fifty ships of commerce, that each might +have a part in the risks and the profits. A good laborer, a good +soldier, a foe to luxury, greedy of gain, Cato was the type of the +Roman of the old stock. + +=The New Manners.=--Many Romans on the contrary, especially the +nobles, admired and imitated the foreigners. At their head were the +generals who had had a nearer view of Greece and the Orient--Scipio, +conqueror of the king of Syria, Flamininus and Æmilius Paullus, +victors over the kings of Macedon, later Lucullus, conqueror of the +king of Armenia. They were disgusted with the mean and gross life of +their ancestors, and adopted a more luxurious and agreeable mode of +living. Little by little all the nobles, all the rich followed their +example; one hundred and fifty years later in Italy all the great were +living in Greek or oriental fashion. + +=Oriental Luxury.=--In the East the Romans found models in the royal +successors of Alexander, possessors of enormous wealth; for all the +treasure that was not employed in paying mercenaries was squandered by +the court. These oriental kings indulged their vanity by displaying +gleaming robes, precious stones, furniture of silver, golden plate; +by surrounding themselves with a multitude of useless servants, by +casting money to the people who were assembled to admire them.[136] + +The Romans, very vain and with artistic tastes but slightly developed, +had a relish for this species of luxury. They had but little regard +for beauty or for comfort, and had thought for nothing else than +display. They had houses built with immense gardens adorned with +statues, sumptuous villas projecting into the sea in the midst of +enormous gardens. They surrounded themselves with troops of slaves. +They and their wives substituted for linen garments those of gauze, +silk, and gold. At their banquets they spread embroidered carpets, +purple coverings, gold and silver plate. Sulla had one hundred and +fifty dishes of silver; the plate of Marcus Drusus weighed 10,000 +pounds. While the common people continued to sit at table in +accordance with old Italian custom, the rich adopted the oriental +usage of reclining on couches at their meals. At the same time was +introduced the affected and costly cookery of the East--exotic fishes, +brains of peacocks, and tongues of birds. + +From the second century the extravagance was such that a consul who +died in 152 could say in his will: "As true glory does not consist in +vain pomp but in the merits of the dead and of one's ancestors, I bid +my children not to spend on my funeral ceremonies more than a million +as" ($10,000). + +=Greek Humanity.=--In Greece the Romans saw the monuments, the +statues, and the pictures which had crowded their cities for +centuries; they came to know their learned people and the +philosophers. Some of the Romans acquired a taste for the beautiful +and for the life of the spirit. The Scipios surrounded themselves with +cultivated Greeks. Æmilius Paullus asked from all the booty taken by +him from Macedon only the library of King Perseus; he had his children +taught by Greek preceptors. It was then the fashion in Rome to speak, +and even to write in Greek.[137] The nobles desired to appear +connoisseurs in painting and in sculpture; they imported statues by +the thousand, the famous bronzes of Corinth, and they heaped these up +in their houses. Thus Verres possessed a whole gallery of objects of +art which he had stolen in Sicily. Gradually the Romans assumed a +gloss of Greek art and literature. This new culture was called +"humanity," as opposed to the "rusticity" of the old Roman peasants. + +It was little else than gloss; the Romans had realized but slightly +that beauty and truth were to be sought for their own sakes; art and +science always remained objects of luxury and parade. Even in the time +of Cicero the soldier, the peasant, the politician, the man of +affairs, the advocate were alone regarded as truly occupied. Writing, +composing, contributing to science, philosophy, or criticism--all this +was called "being at leisure."[138] Artists and scholars were never +regarded at Rome as the equals of the rich merchant. Lucian, a Greek +writer, said, "If you would be a Pheidias, if you would make a +thousand masterpieces, nobody will care to imitate you, for as skilful +as you are, you will always pass for an artisan, a man who lives by +the work of his hands." + +=Lucullus.=--Lucullus, the type of the new Roman, was born in 145 of a +noble and rich family; thus he entered without difficulty into the +course of political honors. From his first campaigns he was notable +for his magnanimity to the vanquished. Become consul, he was placed at +the head of the army against Mithradates. He found the inhabitants of +Asia exasperated by the brigandage and the cruelties of the publicans, +and gave himself to checking these excesses; he forbade, too, his +soldiers pillaging conquered towns. In this way he drew to him the +useless affection of the Asiatics and the dangerous hate of the +publicans and the soldiers. They intrigued to have him recalled; he +had then defeated Mithradates and was pursuing him with his ally, the +king of Armenia; he came with a small army of 20,000 men to put to +rout an immense multitude of barbarians. His command was taken from +him and given to Pompey, the favorite of the publicans. + +Lucullus then retired to enjoy the riches that he had accumulated in +Asia. He had in the neighborhood of Rome celebrated gardens, at Naples +a villa constructed in part in the sea, and at Tusculum a summer +palace with a whole museum of objects of art. He spent the beautiful +season at Tusculum surrounded by his friends, by scholars and men of +letters, reading Greek authors, and discussing literature and +philosophy. + +Many anecdotes are told of the luxury of Lucullus. One day, being +alone at dinner, he found his table simpler than ordinary and +reproached the cook, who excused himself by saying there was no guest +present. "Do you not know," replied his master, "that Lucullus dines +today with Lucullus?" Another day he invited Cæsar and Cicero to dine, +who accepted on condition that he would make no change from his +ordinary arrangements. Lucullus simply said to a slave to have dinner +prepared in the hall of Apollo. A magnificent feast was spread, the +guests were astonished. Lucullus replied he had given no order, that +the expense of his dinners was regulated by the hall where he gave +them; those of the hall of Apollo were to cost not less than $10,000. +A prætor who had to present a grand spectacle asked Lucullus if he +would lend him one hundred purple robes; he replied by tendering two +hundred. + +Lucullus remained the representative of the new manners, as Cato of +the old customs. For the ancients Cato was the virtuous Roman, +Lucullus the degenerate Roman. Lucullus, in effect, discarded the +manners of his ancestors, and so acquired a broader, more elevated, +and more refined spirit, more humanity toward his slaves and his +subjects. + +=The New Education.=--At the time when Polybius lived in Rome (before +150) the old Romans taught their children nothing else than to +read.[139] The new Romans provided Greek instructors for their +children. Some Greeks opened in Rome schools of poesy, rhetoric, and +music. The great families took sides between the old and new systems. +But there always remained a prejudice against music and the dance; +they were regarded as arts belonging to the stage, improper for a man +of good birth. Scipio Æmilianus, the protector of the Greeks, speaks +with indignation of a dancing-school to which children and young girls +of free birth resorted: "When it was told me, I could not conceive +that nobles would teach such things to their children. But when some +one took me to the dancing-school, I saw there more than 500 boys and +girls and, among the number a twelve-year-old child, a candidate's +son, who danced to the sound of castanets." Sallust, speaking of a +Roman woman of little reputation, says, "She played on the lyre and +danced better than is proper for an honest woman." + +=The New Status of Women.=--The Roman women gave themselves with +energy to the religions and the luxury of the East. They flocked in +crowds to the Bacchanals and the mysteries of Isis. Sumptuary laws +were made against their fine garments, their litters, and their +jewels, but these laws had to be abrogated and the women allowed to +follow the example of the men. Noble women ceased to walk or to remain +in their homes; they set out with great equipages, frequented the +theatre, the circus, the baths, and the places of assembly. Idle and +exceedingly ignorant, they quickly became corrupt. In the nobility, +women of fine character became the exception. The old discipline of +the family fell to the ground. The Roman law made the husband the +master of his wife; but a new form of marriage was invented which left +the woman under the authority of her father and gave no power to her +husband. To make their daughter still more independent, her parents +gave her a dower. + +=Divorce.=--Sometimes the husband alone had the right to repudiate his +wife, but the custom was that this right should be exercised only in +the gravest circumstances. The woman gained the right of leaving her +husband, and so it became very easy to break a marriage. There was no +need of a judgment, or even of a motive. It was enough for the +discontented husband or wife to say to the other, "Take what belongs +to you, and return what is mine." After the divorce either could marry +again. + +In the aristocracy, marriage came to be regarded as a passing union; +Sulla had five wives, Cæsar four, Pompey five, and Antony four. The +daughter of Cicero had three husbands. Hortensius divorced his wife to +give her to a friend. "There are noble women," says Seneca, "who count +their age not by the years of the consuls, but by the husbands they +have had; they divorce to marry again, they marry to divorce again." + +But this corruption affected hardly more than the nobles of Rome and +the upstarts. In the families of Italy and the provinces the more +serious manners of the old time still prevailed; but the discipline of +the family gradually slackened and the woman slowly freed herself from +the despotism of her husband. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[133] Another version is that he was sitting at the hearth roasting +turnips.--ED. + +[134] 232 and 234 are both given as the date of Cato's birth. The latter +is the more probable.--ED. + +[135] Nearly all Romans of Cato's time were husbandmen, tilling the soil +with their own hands.--ED. + +[136] This taste for useless magnificence is exhibited in the stories of +the Thousand and One Nights. + +[137] Cato the Elder had a horror of the Greeks. He said to his son: "I +will tell what I have seen in Athens. This race is the most perverse and +intractable. Listen to me as to an oracle: whenever this people teaches +us its arts it will corrupt everything." + +[138] "Schola," from which we derive "school," signified leisure. + +[139] Also to write and reckon, as previously stated.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +FALL OF THE REPUBLIC + +DECADENCE OF REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS + + +=Destruction of the Peasantry.=--The old Roman people consisted of +small proprietors who cultivated their own land. These honest and +robust peasants constituted at once the army and the assembly of the +people. Though still numerous in 221 and during the Second Punic War, +in 133 there were no more of them. Many without doubt had perished in +the foreign wars; but the special reason for their disappearance was +that it had become impossible for them to subsist. + +The peasants lived by the culture of grain. When Rome received the +grain of Sicily and Africa, the grain of Italy fell to so low a price +that laborers could not raise enough to support their families and pay +the military tax. They were compelled to sell their land and this was +bought by a rich neighbor. Of many small fields he made a great +domain; he laid the land down to grazing, and to protect his herds or +to cultivate it he sent shepherds and slave laborers. On the soil of +Italy at that time there were only great proprietors and troops of +slaves. "Great domains," said Pliny the Elder, "are the ruin of +Italy." + +It was, in fact, the great domains that drove the free peasants from +the country districts. The old proprietor who sold his land could no +longer remain a farmer; he had to yield the place to slaves, and he +himself wandered forth without work. "The majority of these heads of +families," says Varro in his treatise on agriculture, "have slipped +within our walls, leaving the scythe and the plough; they prefer +clapping their hands at the circus to working in their fields and +their vineyards." Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the plebs, exclaimed +in a moment of indignation, "The wild beasts of Italy have at least +their lairs, but the men who offer their blood for Italy have only the +light and the air that they breathe; they wander about without +shelter, without a dwelling, with their wives and their children. +Those generals do but mock them who exhort them to fight for their +tombs and their temples. Is there one of them who still possesses the +sacred altar of his house and the tomb of his ancestors? They are +called the masters of the world while they have not for themselves a +single foot of earth." + +=The City Plebs.=--While the farms were being drained, the city of +Rome was being filled with a new population. They were the descendants +of the ruined peasants whom misery had driven to the city; besides +these, there were the freedmen and their children. They came from all +the corners of the world--Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Asiatics, +Africans, Spaniards, Gauls--torn from their homes, and sold as slaves; +later freed by their masters and made citizens, they massed themselves +in the city. It was an entirely new people that bore the name Roman. +One day Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage and of Numantia, haranguing +the people in the forum, was interrupted by the cries of the mob. +"Silence! false sons of Italy," he cried; "do as you like; those whom +I brought to Rome in chains will never frighten me even if they are no +longer slaves." The populace preserved quiet, but these "false sons of +Italy," the sons of the vanquished, had already taken the place of the +old Romans. + +This new plebeian order could not make a livelihood for itself, and so +the state had to provide food for it. A beginning was made in 123 with +furnishing corn at half price to all citizens, and this grain was +imported from Sicily and Africa. Since the year 63[140] corn was +distributed gratuitously and oil was also provided. There were +registers and an administration expressly for these distributions, a +special service for furnishing provisions (the Annona). In 46 Cæsar +found 320,000 citizens enrolled for these distributions. + +=Electoral Corruption.=--This miserable and lazy populace filled the +forum on election days and made the laws and the magistrates. The +candidates sought to win its favors by giving shows and public feasts, +and by dispensing provisions. They even bought votes. This sale took +place on a large scale and in broad day; money was given to +distributers who divided it among the voters. Once the Senate +endeavored to stop this trade; but when Piso, the consul, proposed a +law to prohibit the sale of suffrages, the distributers excited a riot +and drove the consul from the forum. In the time of Cicero no +magistrate could be elected without enormous expenditures. + +=Corruption of the Senate.=--Poverty corrupted the populace who formed +the assemblies; luxury tainted the men of the old families who +composed the Senate. The nobles regarded the state as their property +and so divided among themselves the functions of the state and +intrigued to exclude the rest of the citizens from them. When Cicero +was elected magistrate, he was for thirty years the first "new man" to +enter the succession of offices. + +Accustomed to exercise power, some of the senators believed themselves +to be above the law. When Scipio was accused of embezzlement, he +refused even to exonerate himself and said at the tribune, "Romans, it +was on this day that I conquered Hannibal and the Carthaginians. +Follow me to the Capitol to render thanks to the gods and to beseech +them always to provide generals like myself." + +To support their pretensions at home, the majority of the nobles +required a large amount of money. Many used their power to get it for +themselves: some sent as governors plundered the subjects of Rome; +others compelled foreign or hostile kings to pay for the peace granted +them, or even for letting their army be beaten. It was in this way +that Jugurtha bribed a Roman general. Cited to Rome to answer for a +murder, he escaped trial by buying up a tribune who forbade him to +speak. It was related that in leaving Rome he had said, "O city for +sale, if thou only couldst find a purchaser!" + +=Corruption of the Army.=--The Roman army was composed of small +proprietors who, when a war was finished, returned to the cultivation +of their fields. In becoming soldiers they remained citizens and +fought only for their country. Marius began to admit to the legions +poor citizens who enrolled themselves for the purpose of making +capital from their campaigns. Soon the whole army was full of +adventurers who went to war, not to perform their service, but to +enrich themselves from the vanquished. One was no longer a soldier +from a sense of duty, but as a profession. + +The soldiers enrolled themselves for twenty years; their time +completed, they reëngaged themselves at higher pay and became +veterans. These people knew neither the Senate nor the laws; their +obedience was only to their general. To attach them to himself, the +general distributed to them the money taken from the vanquished. +During the war against Mithradates Sulla lodged his men with the rich +inhabitants of Asia; they lived as they chose, they and their friends, +receiving each sixteen drachmas a day. These first generals, Marius +and Sulla, were still Roman magistrates. But soon rich individuals +like Pompey and Crassus drew the soldiers to their pay. In 78 at the +death of Sulla there were four armies, levied entirely and commanded +by simple citizens. From that time there was no further question of +the legions of Rome, there were left only the legions of Pompey or +Cæsar. + + +THE REVOLUTION + +=Necessity of the Revolution.=--The Roman people was no longer +anything but an indigent and lazy multitude, the army only an +aggregation of adventurers. Neither the assembly nor the legions +obeyed the Senate, for the corrupt nobles had lost all moral +authority, so that there was left but one real power--the army; there +were no men of influence beside the generals, and the generals had no +longer any desire to obey. The government by the Senate, now no longer +practicable, gave place to the government of the general. + +=The Civil Wars.=--The revolution was inevitable, but it did not come +at one stroke; it required more than a hundred years to accomplish it. +The Senate resisted, but too weak itself to govern, it was strong +enough to prevent domination by another power. The generals fought +among themselves to see who should remain master. For a century the +Romans and their subjects lived in the midst of riot and civil war. + +=The Gracchi.=--The first civil discord that blazed up in Rome was the +contest of the Gracchi against the Senate. The two brothers, Tiberius +and Gaius Gracchus, were of one of the noblest families of Rome, but +both endeavored to take the government from the nobles who formed the +Senate by making themselves tribunes of the plebs. There was at that +time, either in Rome or in Italy, a crowd of citizens without means +who desired a revolution; even among the rich the majority were of the +class of the knights, who complained that they had no part in the +government. Tiberius Gracchus had himself named tribune of the plebs +and sought to gain control of the government. He proposed to the +people an agrarian law. All the lands of the public domain occupied by +individuals were to be resumed by the state (with the exception of 500 +acres for each one); these lands taken by the state were to be +distributed in small lots to poor citizens. The law was voted. It +caused general confusion regarding property, for almost all of the +lands of the empire constituted a part of the public domain, but they +had been occupied for a long time and the possessors were accustomed +to regard themselves as proprietors. Further, as the Romans had no +registry of the lands, it was often very difficult to ascertain +whether a domain were private or public property. To direct these +operations, Tiberius had three commissioners named on whom the people +conferred absolute authority; they were Tiberius, his brother, and his +father-in-law, and it was uncertain whether Tiberius had acted in the +interest of the people, or simply to have a pretext for having power +placed in his hands. For a year he was master of Rome; but when he +wished to be elected tribune of the plebs for the succeeding year, his +enemies protested, as this was contrary to custom. A riot followed. +Tiberius and his friends seized the Capitol; the partisans of the +Senate and their slaves, armed with clubs and fragments of benches, +pursued them and despatched them (133). + +Ten years later Gaius, the younger of the Gracchi, elected tribune of +the plebs (123), had the agrarian law voted anew, and established +distributions[141] of corn to the poor citizens. Then, to destroy the +power of the nobles, he secured a decree that the judges should be +taken from among the knights. For two years Gaius dominated the +government, but while he was absent from the city conducting a colony +of Roman citizens to Carthage the people abandoned him. On his return +he could not be reëlected. The consul armed the partisans of the +Senate and marched against Gaius and his friends who had fled to the +Aventine Hill. Gaius had himself killed by a slave; his followers were +massacred or executed in prison; their houses were razed and their +property confiscated. + +=Marius and Sulla.=--The contests of the Gracchi and the Senate had +been no more than riots in the streets of Rome, terminating in a +combat between bands hastily armed. The strife that followed was a +succession of real wars between regular armies, wars in Italy, wars in +all the provinces. From this time the party chiefs were no other than +the generals. + +The first to use his army to secure obedience in Rome was Marius. He +was born in Arpinum, a little town in the mountains, and was not of +noble descent. He had attained reputation as an officer in the army, +and had been elected tribune of the plebs, then prætor, with the help +of the nobles. He turned against them and was elected consul and +commissioned with the war against Jugurtha, king of Numidia, who had +already fought several Roman armies. It was then that Marius enrolled +poor citizens for whom military service became a profession. With his +army Marius conquered Jugurtha and the barbarians, the Cimbri and +Teutones, who had invaded the empire. He then returned to Rome where +he had himself elected consul for the sixth time and now exercised +absolute power. Two parties now took form in Rome who called +themselves the party of the people (the party of Marius), and the +party of the nobles (that of the Senate). + +The partisans of Marius committed so many acts of violence that they +ended by making him unpopular. Sulla, a noble, of the great family of +the Cornelii, profited by this circumstance to dispute the power of +Marius; Sulla was also a general. When the Italians rose against Rome +to secure the right of citizenship and levied great armies which +marched almost to the gates of the city, it was Sulla who saved Rome +by fighting the Italians. + +He became consul and was charged with the war against Mithradates, +king of Pontus, who had invaded Asia Minor and massacred all the +Romans (88). Marius in jealousy excited a riot in the city; Sulla +departed, joined his army which awaited him in south Italy, then +returned to Rome. Roman religion prohibited soldiers entering the city +under arms; the consul even before passing the gates had to lay aside +his mantle of war and assume the toga. Sulla was the first general who +dared to violate this restriction. Marius took flight. + +But when Sulla had left for Asia, Marius came with an army of +adventurers and entered Rome by force (87). Then commenced the +proscriptions. + +The principal partisans of Sulla were outlawed, and command was given +to kill them anywhere they were met and to confiscate their goods. +Marius died some months later; but his principal partisan, Cinna, +continued to govern Rome and to put to death whomever he pleased. + +During this time Sulla had conquered Mithradates and had assured the +loyalty of his soldiers by giving them the free pillage of Asia. He +returned with his army (83) to Italy. His enemies opposed him with +five armies, but these were defeated or they deserted. Sulla entered +Rome, massacred his prisoners and overthrew the partisans of Marius. +After some days of slaughter he set himself to proceed regularly: he +posted three lists of those whom he wished killed. "I have posted now +all those whom I can recall; I have forgotten many, but their names +will be posted as the names occur to me." Every proscribed man--that +is to say, every man whose name was on the list, was marked for death; +the murderer who brought his head was rewarded. The property of the +proscribed was confiscated. Proscription was not the result of any +trial but of the caprice of the general, and that too without any +warning. Sulla thus massacred not only his enemies but the rich whose +property he coveted. It is related that a citizen who was unaccustomed +to politics glanced in passing at the list of proscriptions and saw +his own name inscribed at the top of the list. "Alas!" he cried, "my +Alban house has been the death of me!" Sulla is said to have +proscribed 1800[142] knights. + +After having removed his enemies, he endeavored to organize a +government in which all power should be in the hands of the Senate. He +had himself named Dictator, an old title once given to generals in +moments of danger and which conferred absolute power. Sulla used the +office to make laws which changed the entire constitution. From that +time all the judges were to be taken from the Senate, no law could be +discussed before it had been accepted by the Senate, the right of +proposing laws was taken from the tribunes of the plebs. + +After these reforms Sulla abdicated his functions and retired to +private life (79). He knew he had nothing to fear, for he had +established 100,000 of his soldiers in Italy. + +=Pompey and Cæsar.=--The Senate had recovered its power because Sulla +saw fit to give it this, but it had not the strength to retain it if a +general wished again to seize it. The government of the Senate +endured, however, in appearance for more than thirty years; this was +because there were several generals and each prevented a rival from +gaining all power. + +At the death of Sulla four armies took the field: two obeyed the +generals who were partisans of the Senate, Crassus and Pompey; two +followed generals who were adversaries of the Senate, Lepidus in +Italy, and Sertorius in Spain. It is very remarkable that no one of +these armies was regular, no one of the generals was a magistrate and +therefore had the right to command troops; down to this time the +generals had been consuls, but now they were individuals--private +persons; their soldiers came to them not to serve the interests of the +state, but to profit at the expense of the inhabitants. + +The armies of the enemies of the Senate were destroyed, and Crassus +and Pompey, left alone, joined issues to control affairs. They had +themselves elected consuls and Pompey received the conduct of two +wars. He went to Asia with a devoted army and was for several years +the master of Rome; but as he was more the possessor of offices than +of power, he changed nothing in the government. It was during this +time that Cæsar, a young noble, made himself popular. Pompey, +Crassus, and Cæsar united to divide the power between themselves. +Crassus received the command of the army sent to Asia against the +Parthians and was killed (53). Pompey remained at Rome. Cæsar went to +Gaul where he stayed eight years subjecting the country and making an +army for himself. + +Pompey and Cæsar were now the only persons on the stage. Each wished +to be master. Pompey had the advantage of being at Rome and of +dominating the Senate; Cæsar had on his side his army, disciplined by +eight years of expeditions. Pompey secured a decree of the Senate that +Cæsar should abandon his army and return to Rome. Cæsar decided then +to cross the boundary of his province (the river Rubicon), and to +march on Rome. Pompey had no army in Italy to defend himself, and so +with the majority of the senators took flight to the other side of the +Adriatic. He had several armies in Spain, in Greece, and in Africa. +Cæsar defeated them, one after another--that of Spain first (49), then +that of Greece at Pharsalus (48), at last, that of Africa (46). +Pompey, vanquished at Pharsalus, fled to Egypt where the king had him +assassinated. + +On his return to Rome Cæsar was appointed dictator for ten years and +exercised absolute power. The Senate paid him divine honors, and it is +possible that Cæsar desired the title of king. He was assassinated by +certain of his favorites who aimed to reëstablish the sovereignty of +the Senate (44). + +=End of the Republic.=--The people of Rome, who loved Cæsar, compelled +Brutus and Cassius, the chiefs of the assassins, to flee. They +withdrew to the East where they raised a large army. The West remained +in the hand of Antony, who with the support of the army of Cæsar, +governed Rome despotically. + +Cæsar in his will had adopted a young man of eighteen years, his +sister's son,[143] Octavian, who according to Roman usage assumed the +name of his adoptive father and called himself from that time Julius +Cæsar Octavianus. Octavian rallied to his side the soldiers of Cæsar +and was charged by the Senate with the war against Antony. But after +conquering him he preferred to unite with him for a division of power; +they associated Lepidus with them, and all three returned to Rome +where they secured absolute power for five years under the title of +triumvirs for organizing public affairs. They began by proscribing +their adversaries and their personal enemies. Antony secured the death +of Cicero (43). Then they left for the East to destroy the army of the +conspirators. After they had divided the empire among themselves it +was impossible to preserve harmony and war was undertaken in Italy. It +was the soldiers who compelled them to make terms of peace. A new +partition was made; Antony took the East and Octavian the West (39). +For some years peace was preserved; Antony resigned himself to the +life of an oriental sovereign in company with Cleopatra, queen of +Egypt; Octavian found it necessary to fight a campaign against the +sons of Pompey. The two leaders came at last to an open breach, and +then flamed up the last of the civil wars. This was a war between the +East and West. It was decided by the naval battle of Actium; Antony, +abandoned by the fleet of Cleopatra, fled to Egypt and took his own +life. Octavian, left alone, was absolute master of the empire. The +government of the Senate was at an end. + +=Need of Peace.=--Everybody had suffered by these wars. The +inhabitants of the provinces were plundered, harassed, and massacred +by the soldiers; each of the hostile generals forced them to take +sides with him, and the victor punished them for supporting the +vanquished. To reward the old soldiers the generals promised them +lands, and then expelled all the inhabitants of a city to make room +for the veterans. + +Rich Romans risked their property and their life; when their party was +overthrown, they found themselves at the mercy of the victor. Sulla +had set the example for organized massacres (81). Forty years later +(in 43) Octavian and Antony again drew up lists of proscription. + +The populace suffered. The grain on which they lived came no longer to +Rome with the former regularity, being intercepted either by pirates +or by the fleet of an enemy. + +After a century of this régime all the Romans and provincials, rich +and poor, had but one desire--peace. + +=The Power of the Individual.=--It was then that the heir of Cæsar, +his nephew[144] Octavian, one of the triumvirs, after having conquered +his two colleagues presented himself to the people now wearied with +civil discord. "He drew to himself all the powers of the people, of +the Senate, and of the magistrates;" for twelve years he was emperor +without having the title. No one dreamed of resisting him; he had +closed the temple of Janus and given peace to the world, and this was +what everybody wished. The government of the republic by the Senate +represented only pillage and civil war. A master was needed strong +enough to stop the wars and revolutions. Thus the Roman empire was +founded. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[140] The Lex Clodia of 58 B.C. made these distributions legal.--ED. + +[141] At a very low price.--ED. + +[142] 1600, according to Mommsen, "History of Rome," Bk. IV, ch. x.--ED. + +[143] Grandson.--ED. + +[144] Grand-nephew.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT + +THE TWELVE CÆSARS + + +=The Emperor.=--In the new régime absolute authority was lodged in a +single man; he was called the emperor (imperator--the commander). In +himself alone he exercised all those functions which the ancient +magistrates distributed among themselves: he presided over the Senate; +he levied and commanded all the armies; he drew up the lists of +senators, knights, and people; he levied taxes; he was supreme judge; +he was pontifex maximus; he had the power of the tribunes. And to +indicate that this authority made him a superhuman being, it was +decreed that he should bear a religious surname: Augustus (the +venerable). + +The empire was not established by a radical revolution. The name of +the republic was not suppressed and for more than three centuries the +standards of the soldiers continued to bear the initials S.P.Q.R. +(senate and people of Rome). The emperor's power was granted to him +for life instead of for one year, as with the old magistrates. The +emperor was the only and lifelong magistrate of the republic. In him +the Roman people was incarnate; this is why he was absolute. + +=Apotheosis of the Emperor.=--As long as the emperor lived he was sole +master of the empire, since the Roman people had conveyed all its +power to him. But at his death the Senate in the name of the people +reviewed his life and passed judgment upon it. If he were condemned, +all the acts which he had made were nullified, his statues thrown +down, and his name effaced from the monuments.[145] If, on the +contrary, his acts were ratified (which almost always occurred), the +Senate at the same time decreed that the deceased emperor should be +elevated to the rank of the gods. The majority of the emperors, +therefore, became gods after their death. Temples were raised to them +and priests appointed to render them worship. Throughout the empire +there were temples dedicated to the god Augustus and to the goddess +Roma, and persons are known who performed the functions of flamen +(priest) of the divine Claudius, or of the divine Vespasian. This +practice of deifying the dead emperor was called Apotheosis. The word +is Greek; the custom probably came from the Greeks of the Orient. + +=The Senate and the People.=--The Roman Senate remained what it had +always been--the assembly of the richest and most eminent personages +of the empire. To be a senator was still an eagerly desired honor; in +speaking of a great family one would say, "a senatorial family." But +the Senate, respected as it was, was now powerless, because the +emperor could dispense with it. It was still the most distinguished +body in the state, but it was no longer the master of the government. +The emperor often pretended to consult it, but he was not bound by its +advice. + +The people had lost all its power since the assemblies (the Comitia) +were suppressed in the reign of Tiberius. The population of 2,000,000 +souls crowded into Rome was composed only of some thousands of great +lords with their slaves and a mob of paupers. Already the state had +assumed the burden of feeding the latter; the emperors continued to +distribute grain to them, and supplemented this with donations of +money (the congiarium). Augustus thus donated $140 apiece in nine +different distributions, and Nero $50 in three. At the same time to +amuse this populace shows were presented. The number of days regularly +appointed for the shows under the republic had already amounted to 66 +in the year; it had increased in a century and a half, under Marcus +Aurelius, to 135, and in the fourth century to 175 (without counting +supplementary days). These spectacles continued each day from sunrise +to sunset; the spectators ate their lunch in their places. This was a +means used by the emperors for the occupation of the crowd. "It is for +your advantage, Cæsar," said an actor to Augustus, "that the people +engage itself with us." It was also a means for securing popularity. +The worst emperors were among the most popular; Nero was adored for +his magnificent spectacles; the people refused to believe that he was +dead, and for thirty years they awaited his return.[146] + +The multitude of Rome no longer sought to govern; it required only to +be amused and fed: in the forceful expression of Juvenal--to be +provided with bread and the games of the circus (panem et circenses). + +=The Prætorians.=--Under the republic a general was prohibited from +leading his army into the city of Rome. The emperor, chief of all the +armies, had at Rome his military escort (prætorium), a body of about +10,000 men quartered in the interior of the city. The prætorians, +recruited among the veterans, received high pay and frequent +donatives. Relying on these soldiers, the emperor had nothing to fear +from malcontents in Rome. But the danger came from the prætorians +themselves; as they had the power they believed they had free rein, +and their chief, the prætorian prefect, was sometimes stronger than +the emperor. + +=The Freedmen of the Emperor.=--Ever since the monarchy had superseded +the republic, there was no other magistrate than the emperor. All the +business of the empire of 80,000,000 people originated with him. For +this crushing task he required assistants. He found them, not among +the men of great family whom he mistrusted, but among the slaves of +whom he felt sure. The secretaries, the men of trust, the ministers of +the emperor were his freedmen, the majority of them foreigners from +Greece or the Orient, pliant people, adepts in flattery, +inventiveness, and loquacity. Often the emperor, wearied with serious +matters, gave the government into their hands, and, as occurs in +absolute monarchies, instead of aiding their master, they supplemented +him. Pallas and Narcissus, the freedmen of Claudius, distributed +offices and pronounced judgments; Helius, Nero's freedman, had +knights and senators executed without even consulting his master. Of +all the freedmen Pallas was the most powerful, the richest, and the +most insolent; he gave his orders to his underlings only by signs or +in writing. Nothing so outraged the old noble families of Rome as +this. "The princes," said a Roman writer, "are the masters of citizens +and the slaves of their freedmen." Among the scandals with which the +emperors were reproached, one of the gravest was governing Roman +citizens by former slaves. + +=Despotism and Disorder.=--This régime had two great vices: + +1. _Despotism._--The emperor was invested for life with a power +unlimited, extravagant, and hardly conceivable; according to his fancy +he disposed of persons and their property, condemned, confiscated, and +executed without restraint. No institution, no law fettered his will. +"The decree of the emperor has the force of law," say the +jurisconsults themselves. Rome recognized then the unlimited despotism +that the tyrants had exercised in the Greek cities, no longer +circumscribed within the borders of a single city, but gigantic as the +empire itself. As in Greece some honorable tyrants had presented +themselves, one sees in Rome some wise and honest monarchs (Augustus, +Vespasian, Titus). But few men had a head strong enough to resist +vertigo when they saw themselves so elevated above other men. The +majority of the emperors profited by their tremendous power only to +make their names proverbial: Tiberius, Nero, Domitian by their +cruelty, Vitellius by his gluttony, Claudius by his imbecility. One +of them, Caligula, was a veritable fool; he had his horse made consul +and himself worshipped as a god. The emperors persecuted the nobles +especially to keep them from conspiring against them, and the rich to +confiscate their goods. + +2. _Disorder._--This overweening authority was, moreover, very ill +regulated; it resided entirely in the person of the emperor. When he +was dead, everything was in question. It was well known that the world +could not continue without a master, but no law nor usage determined +who was to be this master. The Senate alone had the right of +nominating the emperor, but almost always it would elect under +pressure the one whom the preceding emperor had designated or the man +who was pleasing to the soldiers. + +After the death of Caligula, some prætorians who were sacking the +palace discovered, concealed behind the tapestry, a poor man trembling +with fear. This was a relative of Caligula; the prætorians made him +emperor (it was the emperor Claudius). After the death of Nero, the +Senate had elected Galba; the prætorians did not find him liberal +enough and so they massacred him to set up in his place Otho, a +favorite of Nero. In their turn the soldiers on the frontier wished to +make an emperor: the legions of the Rhine entered Italy, met the +prætorians at Bedriac near Cremona, and overthrew them in so furious a +battle that it lasted all night; then they compelled the Senate to +elect Vitellius, their general, as emperor. During this time the army +of Syria had elected its chief Vespasian, who in turn defeated +Vitellius and was named in his place; thus in two years three emperors +had been created and three overthrown by the soldiers. The new +emperor often undid what his predecessor had done; imperial despotism +had not even the advantage of being stable. + +=The Twelve Cæsars.=--This regime of oppression interrupted by +violence endured for more than a century (31 B.C. to 96 A.D.). + +The twelve emperors who came to the throne during this time are called +the Twelve Cæsars, although only the first six were of the family of +Augustus. It is difficult to judge them equitably. Almost all of them +persecuted the noble families of Rome of whom they were afraid, and it +is the writers of these families that have made their reputation. But +it is quite possible that in the provinces their government was mild +and just, superior to that of the senators of the republic. + + +THE CENTURY OF THE ANTONINES + +=The Antonines.=--The five emperors succeeding the twelve Cæsars, +Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius (96-180), have +left a reputation for justice and wisdom. They were called the +Antonines, though this name properly belongs only to the last two. +They were not descended from the old families of Rome; Trajan and +Hadrian were Spaniards, Antoninus was born at Nîmes in Gaul. They were +not princes of imperial family, destined from their birth to rule. +Four emperors came to the throne without sons and so the empire could +not be transmitted by inheritance. On each occasion the prince chose +among his generals and his governors the man most capable of +succeeding him; he adopted him as his son and sought his confirmation +by the Senate. Thus there came to the empire only experienced men, who +without confusion assumed the throne of their adoptive fathers. + +=Government of the Antonines.=--This century of the Antonines was the +calmest that the ancient world had ever known. Wars were relegated to +the frontier of the empire. In the interior there were still military +seditions, tyranny, and arbitrary condemnations. The Antonines held +the army in check, organized a council of state of jurisconsults, +established tribunals, and replaced the freedmen who had so long +irritated the Romans under the twelve Cæsars by regular functionaries +taken from among the men of the second class--that is, the knights. +The emperor was no longer a tyrant served by the soldiers; he was +truly the first magistrate of the republic, using his authority only +for the good of the citizens. The last two Antonines especially, +Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, honored the empire by their integrity. +Both lived simply, like ordinary men, although they were very rich, +without anything that resembled a court or a palace, never giving the +impression that they were masters. Marcus Aurelius consulted the +Senate on all state business and regularly attended its sessions. + +=Marcus Aurelius.=--Marcus Aurelius has been termed the Philosopher on +the Throne. He governed from a sense of duty, against his disposition, +for he loved solitude; and yet he spent his life in administration and +the command of armies. His private journal (his "Thoughts") exhibits +the character of the Stoic--virtuous, austere, separated from the +world, and yet mild and good. "The best form of vengeance on the +wicked is not to imitate them; the gods themselves do good to evil +men; it is your privilege to act like the gods." + +=Conquests of the Antonines.=--The emperors of the first century had +continued the course of conquest; they had subjected the Britons of +England, the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine, and in the +provinces had reduced several countries which till then had retained +their kings--Mauretania, Thrace, Cappadocia. The Rhine, the Danube, +and the Euphrates were the limits of the empire. + +The emperors of the second century were almost all generals; they had +the opportunity of waging numerous wars to repel the hostile peoples +who sought to invade the empire. The enemies were in two quarters +especially: + + 1. On the Danube were the Dacians, barbarous people, who occupied + the country of mountains and forests now called Transylvania. + + 2. On the Euphrates was the great military monarchy of the + Parthians which had its capital at Ctesiphon, near the ruins of + Babylon, and which extended over all Persia. + +Trajan made several expeditions against the Dacians, crossed the +Danube, won three great battles, and took the capital of the Dacians +(101-102). He offered them peace, but when they reopened the war he +resolved to end matters with them: he had a stone bridge built over +the Danube, invaded Dacia and reduced it to a Roman province (106). +Colonies were transferred thither, cities were built, and Dacia became +a Roman province where Latin was spoken and Roman customs were +assimilated. When the Roman armies withdrew at the end of the third +century, the Latin language remained and continued throughout the +Middle Ages, notwithstanding the invasions of the barbarian Slavs. It +is from Transylvania (ancient Dacia) that the peoples came from the +twelfth to the fourteenth century who now inhabit the plains to the +north of the Danube. It has preserved the name of Rome (Roumania) and +speaks a language derived from the Latin, like the French or Spanish. +Trajan made war on the Parthians also. He crossed the Euphrates, took +Ctesiphon, the capital, and advanced into Persia, even to Susa, whence +he took away the massive gold throne of the kings of Persia. He +constructed a fleet on the Tigris, descended the stream to its mouth +and sailed into the Persian Gulf; he would have delighted, like +Alexander, in the conquest of India. He took from the Parthians the +country between the Euphrates and the Tigris--Assyria and +Mesopotamia--and erected there two Roman provinces. + +To commemorate his conquests Trajan erected monuments which still +remain. The Column of Trajan on the Roman Forum is a shaft whose +bas-reliefs represent the war against the Dacians. The arch of triumph +of Benevento recalls the victories over the Parthians. + +Of these two conquests one alone was permanent, that of Dacia. The +provinces conquered from the Parthians revolted after the departure of +the Roman army. The emperor Hadrian retained Dacia, but returned their +provinces to the Parthians, and the Roman empire again made the +Euphrates its eastern frontier. To escape further warfare with the +highlanders of Scotland, Hadrian built a wall in the north of England +(the Wall of Hadrian) extending across the whole island. There was no +need of other wars save against the revolting Jews; these people were +overthrown and expelled from Jerusalem, the name of which was changed +to obliterate the memory of the old Jewish kingdom. + +Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Antonines, had to resist the invasion +of several barbarous peoples of Germany who had crossed the Danube on +the ice and had penetrated even to Aquileia, in the north of Italy. In +order to enroll a sufficient army he had to enlist slaves and +barbarians (172). The Germans retreated, but while Marcus was occupied +with a general uprising in Syria, they renewed their attacks on the +empire, and the emperor died on the banks of the Danube (180). This +was the end of conquest. + + +IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION + +=Extent of the Empire in the Second Century.=--The Roman emperors were +but little bent on conquest. But to occupy their army and to secure +frontiers which might be easily defended, they continued to conquer +barbarian peoples for more than a century. When the course of conquest +was finally arrested after Trajan, the empire extended over all the +south of Europe, all the north of Africa and the west of Asia; it was +limited only by natural frontiers--the ocean to the west; the +mountains of Scotland, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Caucasus to the +north; the deserts of the Euphrates and of Arabia to the east; the +cataracts of the Nile and the great desert to the south. The empire, +therefore, embraced the countries which now constitute England, Spain, +Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, +European Turkey, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and +Asiatic Turkey. It was more than double the extent of the empire of +Alexander. + +This immense territory was subdivided into forty-eight provinces,[147] +unequal in size, but the majority of them very large. Thus Gaul from +the Pyrenees to the Rhine formed but seven provinces. + +=The Permanent Army.=--In the provinces of the interior there was no +Roman army, for the peoples of the empire had no desire to revolt. It +was on the frontier that the empire had its enemies, foreigners always +ready to invade: behind the Rhine and the Danube the barbarian +Germans; behind the sands of Africa the nomads of the desert; behind +the Euphrates the Persian army. On this frontier which was constantly +threatened it was necessary to have soldiers always in readiness. +Augustus had understood this, and so created a permanent army. The +soldiers of the empire were no longer proprietors transferred from +their fields to serve during a few campaigns, but poor men who made +war a profession. They enlisted for sixteen or twenty years and often +reënlisted. There were, then, thirty legions of citizens--that is, +180,000 legionaries, and, according to Roman usage, a slightly larger +number of auxiliaries--in all about 400,000 men. This number was small +for so large a territory. + +Each frontier province had its little army, garrisoned in a permanent +camp similar to a fortress. Merchants came to establish themselves in +the vicinity, and the camp was transformed into a city; but still the +soldiers, encamped in the face of the enemy, preserved their valor and +their discipline. There were for three centuries severe wars, +especially on the banks of the Rhine and of the Danube, where Romans +fought fierce barbarians in a swampy country, uncultivated, covered +with forests and bogs. The imperial army exhibited, perhaps, as much +bravery and energy in these obscure wars as the ancient Romans in the +conquest of the world. + +=Deputies and Agents of the Emperor.=--All the provinces belonged to +the emperor[148] as the representative of the Roman people. He is +there the general of all the soldiers, master of all persons, and +proprietor of all lands.[149] But as the emperor could not be +everywhere at once, he sent deputies appointed by himself. To each +province went a lieutenant (called a deputy of Augustus with the +function of prætor); this official governed the country, commanded the +army, and went on circuit through his province to judge important +cases, for he, like the emperor, had the right of life and death. + +The emperor sent also a financial agent to levy the taxes and return +the money to the imperial chest. This official was called the +"procurator of Augustus." These two men represented the emperor, +governing his subjects, commanding his soldiers, and exploiting his +domain. The emperor always chose them among the two nobilities of +Rome, the prætors from the senators, the procurators from the knights. +For them, as for the magistrates of old Rome, there was a succession +of offices: they passed from one province to another, from one end of +the empire to the other,[150] from Syria to Spain, from Britain to +Africa. In the epitaphs of officials of this time we always find +carefully inscribed all the posts which they have occupied; +inscriptions on their tombs are sufficient to construct their +biographies. + +=Municipal life.=--Under these omnipotent representatives of the +emperor the smaller subject peoples continued to administer their own +government. The emperor had the right of interfering in their local +affairs, but ordinarily he did not exercise this right. He only +demanded of them that they keep the peace, pay their taxes regularly, +and appear before the tribunal of the governor. There were in every +province several of these little subordinate governments; they were +called, just as at other times the Roman state was called, "cities," +and sometimes municipalities. A city in the empire was copied after +the Roman city: it also had its assembly of the people, its +magistrates elected for a year and grouped into colleges of two +members, its senate called a curia, formed of the great proprietors, +people rich and of old family. There, as at Rome, the assembly of the +people was hardly more than a form; it is the senate--that is to say, +the nobility, that governs. + +The centre of the provincial city was always a town, a Rome in +miniature, with its temples, its triumphal arches, its public baths, +its fountains, its theatres, and its arenas for the combats. The life +led there was that of Rome on a small scale: distributions of grain +and money, public banquets, grand religious ceremonies, and bloody +spectacles. Only, in Rome, it was the money of the provinces that paid +the expenses; in the municipalities the nobility itself defrayed the +costs of government and fêtes. The tax levied for the treasury of the +emperor went entirely to the imperial chest; it was necessary, then, +that the rich of the city should at their own charges celebrate the +games, heat the baths, pave the streets, construct the bridges, +aqueducts, and circuses. They did this for more than two centuries, +and did it generously; monuments scattered over the whole of the +empire and thousands of inscriptions are a witness to this. + +=The Imperial Régime.=--After the conquest three or four hundred +families of the nobility of Rome governed and exploited the rest of +the world. The emperor deprived them of the government and subjected +them to his tyranny. The Roman writers could groan over their lost +liberty. The inhabitants of the provinces had nothing to regret; they +remained subject, but in place of several hundreds of masters, +ceaselessly renewed and determined to enrich themselves, they had now +a single sovereign, the emperor, interested to spare them. Tiberius +stated the imperial policy in the following words: "A good shepherd +shears his sheep, but does not flay them." For more than two centuries +the emperors contented themselves with shearing the people of the +empire; they took much of their money, but they protected them from +the enemy without, and even against their own agents. When the +provincials had grounds of complaint on account of the violence or the +robbery of their governor, they could appeal to the emperor and secure +justice. It was known that the emperor received complaints against his +subordinates; this was sufficient to frighten bad governors and +reassure subjects. Some emperors, like Marcus Aurelius, came to +recognize that they had duties to their subjects. The other emperors +at least left their subjects to govern themselves when they had no +interest to prevent this. + +The imperial régime was a loss for the Romans, but a deliverance for +their subjects: it abased the conquerors and raised the vanquished, +reconciling them and preparing them for assimilation in the empire. + + +SOCIAL LIFE UNDER THE EMPIRE + +=Moral Decay Continues at Rome.=--Seneca in his Letters and Juvenal in +his Satires have presented portraits of the men and women of their +time so striking that the corruption of the Rome of the Cæsars has +remained proverbial. They were not only the disorders left over from +the republic--the gross extravagance of the rich, the ferocity of +masters against their slaves, the unbridled frivolity of women. The +evil did not arise with the imperial régime, but resulted from the +excessive accumulation of the riches of the world in the hands of some +thousands of nobles or upstarts, under whom lived some hundreds of +free men in poverty, and slaves by millions subjected to an +unrestrained oppression. Each of these great proprietors lived in the +midst of his slaves like a petty prince, indolent and capricious. His +house at Rome was like a palace; every morning the hall of honor (the +atrium) was filled with clients, citizens who came for a meagre salary +to salute the master[151] and escort him in the street. For fashion +required that a rich man should never appear in public unless +surrounded by a crowd; Horace ridicules a prætor who traversed the +streets of Tibur with only five slaves in his following. Outside Rome +the great possessed magnificent villas at the sea-shore or in the +mountains; they went from one to the other, idle and bored. + +These great families were rapidly extinguished. Alarmed at the +diminishing number of free men, Augustus had made laws to encourage +marriage and to punish celibacy. As one might expect, his laws did not +remedy the evil. There were so many rich men who had not married that +it had become a lucrative trade to flatter them in order to be +mentioned in their will; by having no children one could surround +himself with a crowd of flatterers. "In the city," says a Roman +story-teller, "all men divide themselves into two classes, those who +fish, and those who are angled for." "Losing his children augments the +influence of a man." + +=The Shows.=--In the life of this idle people of Rome the spectacles +held a place that we are now hardly able to conceive. They were, as +in Greece, games, that is to say, religious ceremonies. The games +proceeded throughout the day and again on the following day, and this +for a week at least. The amphitheatre was, as it were, the rendezvous +of the whole free population; it was there that they manifested +themselves. Thus in 196, during the civil wars, all the spectators +cried with one voice, "Peace!" The spectacle was the passion of the +time. Three emperors appeared in public, Caligula as a driver, Nero as +an actor, Commodus as a gladiator. + +=The Theatre.=--There were three sorts of spectacles: the theatre, the +circus, and the amphitheatre. + +The theatre was organized on Greek models. The actors were masked and +presented plays imitated from the Greek. The Romans had little taste +for this recreation which was too delicate for them. They preferred +the mimes, comedies of gross character, and especially the pantomimes +in which the actor without speaking expressed by his attitudes the +sentiments of the character. + +=The Circus.=--Between the two hills of the Aventine and the Palatine +extended a field filled with race courses surrounded by arcades and +tiers of seats rising above them. This was the Circus Maximus. After +Nero enlarged it it could accommodate 250,000 spectators; in the +fourth century its size was increased to provide sittings for 385,000 +people. + +Here was presented the favorite spectacle of the Roman people, the +four-horse chariot race (quadrigæ); in each race the chariot made a +triple circuit of the circus and there were twenty-five races in a +single day. The drivers belonged to rival companies whose colors they +wore; there were at first four of these colors, but they were later +reduced to two--the Blue and the Green, notorious in the history of +riots. At Rome there was the same passion for chariot-races that there +is now for horse-races; women and even children talked of them. Often +the emperor participated and the quarrel between the Blues and the +Greens became an affair of state. + +=The Amphitheatre.=--At the gates of Rome the emperor Vespasian had +built the Colosseum, an enormous structure of two stories, +accommodating 87,000 spectators. It was a circus surrounding an arena +where hunts and combats were represented. + +For the hunts the arena was transformed into a forest where wild +beasts were released and men armed with spears came into combat with +them. Variety was sought in this spectacle by employing the rarest +animals--lions, panthers, elephants, bears, buffaloes, rhinoceroses, +giraffes, tigers, and crocodiles. In the games presented by Pompey had +already appeared seventeen elephants and five hundred lions; some of +the emperors maintained a large menagerie. + +Sometimes instead of placing armed men before the beasts, it was found +more dramatic to let loose the animals on men who were naked and +bound. The custom spread into all cities of the empire of compelling +those condemned to death to furnish this form of entertainment for the +people. Thousands of persons of both sexes and of every age, and among +them Christian martyrs, were thus devoured by beasts under the eyes of +the multitude. + +=The Gladiators.=--But the national spectacle of the Romans was the +fight of gladiators (men armed with swords). Armed men descended into +the arena and fought a duel to the death. From the time of Cæsar[152] +as many as 320 pairs of gladiators were fought at once; Augustus in +his whole life fought 10,000 of them, Trajan the same number in four +months. The vanquished was slain on the field unless the people wished +to show him grace. + +Sometimes the condemned were compelled to fight, but more often slaves +and prisoners of war. Each victory thus brought to the amphitheatre +bands of barbarians who exterminated one another for the delight of the +spectators.[153] Gladiators were furnished by all countries--Gauls, +Germans, Thracians, and sometimes negroes. These peoples fought with +various weapons, usually with their national arms. The Romans loved to +behold these battles in miniature. + +There were also, among these contestants in the circus, some who +fought from their own choice, free men who from a taste for danger +submitted to the terrible discipline of the gladiator, and swore to +their chief "to allow themselves to be beaten with rods, be burned +with hot iron, and even be killed." Many senators enrolled themselves +in these bands of slaves and adventurers, and even an emperor, +Commodus, descended into the arena. + +These bloody games were practised not only at Rome, but in all the +cities of Italy, Gaul, and Africa. The Greeks always opposed their +adoption. An inscription on a statue raised to one of the notables in +the little city of Minturnæ runs as follows: "He presented in four +days eleven pairs of gladiators who ceased to fight only when half of +them had fallen in the arena. He gave a hunt of ten terrible bears. +Treasure this in memory, noble fellow-citizens." The people, +therefore, had the passion for blood,[154] which still manifests +itself in Spain in bull-fights. The emperor, like the modern king of +Spain, must be present at these butcheries. Marcus Aurelius became +unpopular in Rome because he exhibited his weariness at the spectacles +of the amphitheatre by reading, speaking, or giving audiences instead +of regarding the games. When he enlisted gladiators to serve against +the barbarians who invaded Italy, the populace was about to revolt. +"He would deprive us of our amusements," cried one, "to compel us to +become philosophers." + +=The Roman Peace.=--But there was in the empire something else than +the populace of Rome. To be just to the empire as a whole one must +consider events in the provinces. By subjecting all peoples, the +Romans had suppressed war in the interior of their empire. Thus was +established the Roman Peace which a Greek author describes in the +following language: "Every man can go where he will; the harbors are +full of ships, the mountains are safe for travellers just as the towns +for their inhabitants. Fear has everywhere ceased. The land has put +off its old armor of iron and put on festal garments. You have +realized the word of Homer, 'the earth is common to all.'" For the +first time, indeed, men of the Occident could build their houses, +cultivate their fields, enjoy their property and their leisure without +fearing at every moment being robbed, massacred, or thrown into +slavery--a security which we can hardly appreciate since we have +enjoyed it from infancy, but which seemed very sweet to the men of +antiquity. + +=The Fusion of Peoples.=--In this empire now at peace travel became +easy. The Romans had built roads in every direction with stations and +relays; they had also made road-maps of the empire. Many people, +artisans, traders, journeyed from one end of the empire to the +other.[155] Rhetors and philosophers penetrated all Europe, going from +one city to another giving lectures. In every province could be found +men from the most remote provinces. Inscriptions show us in Spain +professors, painters, Greek sculptors; in Gaul, goldsmiths and Asiatic +workmen. Everybody transported and mingled customs, arts, and +religion. Little by little they accustomed themselves to speak the +language of the Romans. From the third century the Latin had become +the common language of the West, as the Greek since the successors of +Alexander had been the language of the Orient. Thus, as in Alexandria, +a common civilization was developed. This has been called by the name +Roman, though it was this hardly more than in name and in language. In +reality, it was the civilization of the ancient world united under +the emperor's authority. + +=Superstitions.=--Religious beliefs were everywhere blended. As the +ancients did not believe in a single God, it was easy for them to +adopt new gods. All peoples, each of whom had its own religion, far +from rejecting the religions of others, adopted the gods of their +neighbors and fused them with their own. The Romans set the example by +raising the Pantheon, a temple to "all the gods," where each deity had +his sanctuary. + +Everywhere there was much credulity. Men believed in the divinity of +the dead emperors; it was believed that Vespasian had in Egypt healed +a blind man and a paralytic. During the war with the Dacians the Roman +army was perishing of thirst; all at once it began to rain, and the +sudden storm appeared to all as a miracle; some said that an Egyptian +magician had conjured Hermes, others believed that Jupiter had taken +pity on the soldiers; and on the column of Marcus Aurelius Jupiter was +represented, thunderbolt in hand, sending the rain which the soldiers +caught in their bucklers. + +When the apostles Barnabas and Paul came to the city of Lystra in Asia +Minor, the inhabitants invoked Barnabas as Jupiter and Paul as +Mercury; they were met by a procession, with priests at the head +leading a bull which they were about to sacrifice. + +Cultured people were none the less credulous.[156] The Stoic +philosophers admitted omens. The emperor Augustus regarded it as a +bad sign when he put on the wrong shoe. Suetonius wrote to Pliny the +Younger, begging him to transfer his case to another day on account of +a dream which he had had. Pliny the Younger believed in ghosts. + +Among peoples ready to admit everything, different religions, instead +of going to pieces, fused into a common religion. This religion, at +once Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Asiatic, dominated the world at the +second century of our era; and so the Christians called it the +religion of the nations; down to the fourth century they gave the +pagans the name of "gentiles" (men of the nations); at the same time +the common law was called the Law of Nations. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[145] Inscriptions have been found where the name of Domitian has thus +been cut away. + +[146] Suetonius ("Lives of the Twelve Cæsars," Nero, ch. lvii.) relates, +that the king of the Parthians, when he sent ambassadors to the Senate +to renew his alliance with the Roman people, earnestly requested that +due honor should be paid to the memory of Nero. The historian continues, +"When, twenty years afterwards, at which time I was a young man, some +person of obscure birth gave himself out for Nero, that name secured him +so favorable a reception from the Parthians that he was very zealously +supported, and it was with much difficulty that they were persuaded to +give him up."--ED. + +[147] Italy was not included among the provinces. + +[148] A few provinces, the less important, remained to the Senate, but +the emperor was almost always master in these as well. + +[149] The jurisconsult Gaius says, "On provincial soil we can have +possession only; the emperor owns the property." + +[150] "Great personages," says Epictetus, "cannot root themselves like +plants; they must be much on the move in obedience to the commands of +the emperor." + +[151] A client's task was a hard one; the poet Martial, who had served +thus, groans about it. He had to rise before day, put on his toga which +was an inconvenient and cumbersome garment, and wait a long time in the +ante-room. + +[152] Cæsar gave also a combat between two troops, each composed of 500 +archers, 300 knights (30 knights according to Suetonius; Julius, ch. +39), and 20 elephants. + +[153] In an official discourse an orator thanks the emperor Constantine +who had given to the amphitheatre an entire army of barbarian captives, +"to bring about the destruction of these men for the amusement of the +people. What triumph," he cried, "could have been more glorious?" + +[154] St. Augustine in his "Confessions" describes the irresistible +attraction of these sanguinary spectacles. + +[155] A Phrygian relates in an inscription that he had made seventy-two +voyages from Asia to Italy. + +[156] There were some sceptical writers, like Lucian, but they were +isolated. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ARTS AND SCIENCES IN ROME + +LETTERS + + +=Imitation of the Greeks.=--The Romans were not artists naturally. +They became so very late and by imitating the Greeks. From Greece they +took their models of tragedy, comedy, the epic, the ode, the didactic +poem, pastoral poetry, and history. Some writers limited themselves to +the free translation of a Greek original (as Horace in his Odes). All +borrowed from the Greeks at least their ideas and their forms. But +they carried into this work of adaptation their qualities of patience +and vigor, and many came to a true originality. + +=The Age of Augustus.=--There is common agreement in regarding the +fifty years of the government of Augustus as the most brilliant period +in Latin literature. It is the time of Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, +Propertius, and Livy. The emperor, or rather his friend Mæcenas, +personally patronized some of these poets, especially Horace and +Vergil, who sang the glory of Augustus and of his time. But this +Augustan Age was preceded and followed by two centuries that perhaps +equalled it. It was in the preceding century,[157] the first before +Christ, that the most original Roman poet[158] appeared, Cæsar the +most elegant prose-writer, and Cicero the greatest orator. It was in +the following age that Seneca, Lucan, Tacitus, Pliny, and Juvenal +wrote. Between Lucretius and Tacitus there were for three centuries +many great writers in Rome. One might also add another century by +recurring to the time of Plautus, the second century before Christ. + +Of these great authors a few had their origin in Roman families; but +the majority of them were Italians. Many came from the provinces, +Vergil from Mantua, Livy from Padua (in Cisalpine Gaul), while Seneca +was a Spaniard. + +=Orators and Rhetors.=--The true national art at Rome was eloquence. +Like the Italians of our day, the Romans loved to speak in public. In +the forum where they held the assemblies of the people was the +rostrum, the platform for addressing the people, so named from the +prows of captured ships that ornamented it like trophies of war. +Thither the orators came in the last epoch of the republic to declaim +and to gesticulate before a tumultuous crowd. + +The tribunals, often composed of a hundred judges, furnished another +occasion for eloquent advocates. The Roman law permitted the accused +to have an advocate speak in his place. + +There were orators in Rome from the second century. Here, as in +Athens, the older orators, such as Cato and the Gracchi, spoke simply, +too simply for the taste of Cicero. Those who followed them in the +first century learned in the schools of the Greek rhetors the long +oratorical periods and pompous style. The greatest of all was Cicero, +the only one whose works have come down to us in anything but +fragments; and yet we have his speeches as they were left by him and +not as they were delivered.[159] + +With the fall of the republic the assemblies and the great political +trials ceased. Eloquence perished for the want of matter, and the +Roman writers remarked this with bitterness.[160] Then the rhetors +commenced to multiply, who taught the art of speaking well.[161] Some +of these teachers had their pupils compose as exercises pleas on +imaginary rhetorical subjects. The rhetor Seneca has left us many of +these oratorical themes; they discuss stolen children, brigands, and +romantic adventures. + +Then came the mania for public lectures. Pollio, a favorite of +Augustus, had set the example. For a century it was the fashion to +read poems, panegyrics, even tragedies before an audience of friends +assembled to applaud them. The taste for eloquence that had once +produced great orators exhibited in the later centuries only finished +declaimers. + +=Importance of the Latin Literature and Language.=--Latin literature +profited by the conquests of Rome; the Romans carried it with their +language to their barbarian subjects of the West. All the peoples of +Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, and the Danubian lands discarded their +language and took the Latin. Having no national literature, they +adopted that of their masters. The empire was thus divided between the +two languages of the two great peoples of antiquity: the Orient +continued to speak Greek; almost the entire Occident acquired the +Latin. Latin was not only the official language of the state +functionaries and of great men, like the English of our day in India; +the people themselves spoke it with greater or less correctness--in +fact, so well that today eighteen centuries after the conquest five +languages of Europe are derived from the Latin--the Italian, Spanish, +Portuguese, French, and Roumanian. + +With the Latin language the Latin literature extended itself over all +the West. In the schools of Bordeaux and Autun in the fifth century +only Latin poets and orators were studied. After the coming of the +barbarians, bishops and monks continued to write in Latin and they +carried this practice among the peoples of England and Germany who +were still speaking their native languages. Throughout almost the +whole mediæval period, acts, laws, histories, and books of science +were written in Latin. In the convents and the schools they read, +copied, and appreciated only works written in Latin; beside books of +piety only the Latin authors were known--Vergil, Horace, Cicero, and +Pliny the Younger. The renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries consisted partly in reviving the forgotten Latin writers. +More than ever it was the fashion to know and to imitate them. + +As the Romans constructed a literature in imitation of the Greeks, the +moderns have taken the Latin writers for their models. Was this good +or bad? Who would venture to say? But the fact is indisputable. Our +romance languages are daughters of the Latin, our literatures are full +of the ideas and of the literary methods of the Romans. The whole +western world is impregnated with the Latin literature. + + +THE ARTS + +=Sculpture and Painting.=--Great numbers of Roman statues and +bas-reliefs of the time of the empire have come to light. Some are +reproductions and almost all are imitations of Greek works, but less +elegant and less delicate than the models. The most original +productions of this form of art are the bas-reliefs and the busts. + +Bas-reliefs adorned the monuments (temples, columns, and triumphal +arches), tombs, and sarcophagi. They represent with scrupulous +fidelity real scenes, such as processions, sacrifices, combats, and +funeral ceremonies and so give us information about ancient life. The +bas-reliefs which surround the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius +bring us into the presence of the great scenes of their wars. One may +see the soldiers fighting against the barbarians, besieging their +fortresses, leading away the captives; the solemn sacrifices, and the +emperor haranguing the troops. + +The busts are especially those of the emperors, of their wives and +their children. As they were scattered in profusion throughout the +empire, so many have been found that today all the great museums of +Europe have collections of imperial busts. They are real portraits, +probably very close resemblances, for each emperor had a well-marked +physiognomy, often of a striking ugliness that no one attempted to +disguise. + +In general, Roman sculpture holds itself much more close to reality +than does the Greek; it may be said that the artist is less concerned +with representing things beautifully than exactly. + +Of Roman painting we know only the frescoes painted on the walls of +the rich houses of Pompeii and of the house of Livy at Rome. We do not +know but these were the work of Greek painters; they bear a close +resemblance to the paintings on Greek vases, having the same simple +and elegant grace. + +=Architecture.=--The true Roman art, because it operated to satisfy a +practical need, is architecture. In this too the Romans imitated the +Greeks, borrowing the column from them. But they had a form that the +Greeks never employed--the arch, that is to say, the art of arranging +cut stones in the arc of a circle so that they supported one another. +The arch allowed them to erect buildings much larger and more varied +than those of the Greeks. The following are the principal varieties of +Roman monuments: + + 1. The _Temple_ was sometimes similar to a Greek temple with a + broad vestibule, sometimes vaster and surmounted with a dome. Of + this sort is the Pantheon built in Rome under Augustus. + + 2. The _Basilica_ was a long low edifice, covered with a roof and + surrounded with porticos. There sat the judge with his assistants + about him; traders discussed the price of goods; the place was at + once a bourse and a tribunal. It was in the basilicas that the + assemblies of the Christians were later held, and for several + centuries the Christian churches preserved the name and form of + basilicas. + + 3. The _Amphitheatre_ and the _Circus_ were constructed of several + stories of arcades surrounding an arena; each range of arcades + supported many rows of seats. Such were the Colosseum at Rome and + the arenas at Arles and Nîmes. + + 4. The _Arch of Triumph_ was a gate of honor wide enough for the + passage of a chariot, adorned with columns and surmounted with a + group of sculpture. The Arch of Titus is an example. + + 5. The _Sepulchral Vault_ was an arched edifice provided with many + rows of niches, in each of which were laid the ashes of a corpse. + It was called a Columbarium (pigeon-house) from its shape. + + 6. The _Thermæ_ were composed of bathing-halls furnished with + basins. The heat was provided by a furnace placed in an + underground chamber. The Thermæ in a Roman city were what the + gymnasium was in a Greek city--a rendezvous for the idle. Much + more than the gymnasium it was a labyrinth of halls of every sort: + there were a cool hall, warm apartments, a robing-room, a hall + where the body was anointed with oil, parlors, halls for exercise, + gardens, and the whole surrounded by an enormous wall. Thus the + Thermæ of Caracalla covered an immense area. + + 7. The _Bridge_ and the _Aqueduct_ were supported by a range of + arches thrown over a river or over a valley. Examples are the + bridge of Alcantara and the Pont du Gard. + + 8. The _House_ of a rich Roman was a work of art. Unlike our + modern houses, the ancient house had no façade; the house was + turned entirely toward the interior; on the outside it showed only + bare walls. + + The rooms were small, ill furnished, and dark; they were lighted + only through the atrium. In the centre was the great hall of honor + (the atrium) where the statues of the ancestors were erected and + where visitors were received. It was illuminated by an opening in + the roof. + + Behind the atrium was the peristyle, a garden surrounded by + colonnades, in which were the dining halls, richly ornamented and + provided with couches, for among the rich Romans, as among the + Asiatic Greeks, guests reclined on couches at the banquets. The + pavement was often made of mosaic. + +=Character of the Roman Architecture.=--The Romans,[162] unlike the +Greeks, did not always build in marble. Ordinarily they used the stone +that they found in the country, binding this together with an +indestructible mortar which has resisted even dampness for eighteen +hundred years. Their monuments have not the wonderful grace of the +Greek monuments, but they are large, strong, and solid--like the Roman +power. The soil of the empire is still covered with their débris. We +are astonished to find monuments almost intact as remote as the +deserts of Africa. When it was planned to furnish a water-system for +the city of Tunis, all that had to be done was to repair a Roman +aqueduct. + +=Rome and Its Monuments.=--Rome at the time of the emperors was a +city of 2,000,000 inhabitants.[163] This population was herded in +houses of five and six stories, poorly built and crowded together. The +populous quarters were a labyrinth of tortuous paths, steep, and ill +paved. Juvenal who frequented them leaves us a picture of them which +has little attractiveness. At Pompeii, a city of luxury, it may be +seen how narrow were the streets of a Roman city. In the midst of +hovels monuments by the hundred would be erected. The emperor Augustus +boasted of having restored more than eighty temples. "I found a city +of bricks," said he; "I leave a city of marble." His successors all +worked to embellish Rome. It was especially about the Forum that the +monuments accumulated. The Capitol with its temple of Jupiter became +almost like the Acropolis at Athens. In the same quarter many +monumental areas were constructed--the forum of Cæsar, the forum of +Augustus, the forum of Nerva, and, most brilliant of all, the forum of +Trajan. Two villas surrounded by a park were situated in the midst of +the city; the most noted was the Golden House, built for Nero. + + +THE LAW + +=The Twelve Tables.=--The Romans, like all other ancient peoples, had +at first no written laws. They followed the customs of the +ancestors--that is to say, each generation did in everything just as +the preceding generation did. + +In 450 ten specially elected magistrates, the decemvirs, made a +series of laws that they wrote on twelve tables of stone. This was the +Law of the Twelve Tables, codified in short, rude, and trenchant +sentences--a legislation severe and rude like the semi-barbarous +people for whom it was made. It punished the sorcerer who by magical +words blasted the crop of his neighbor. It pronounced against the +insolvent debtor, "If he does not pay, he shall be cited before the +court; if sickness or age deter him, a horse shall be furnished him, +but no litter; he may have thirty days' delay, but if he does not +satisfy the debt in this time, the creditor may bind him with straps +or chains of fifteen pounds weight; at the end of sixty days he may be +sold beyond the Tiber; if there are many creditors, they may cut him +in parts, and if they cut more or less, there is no wrong in the act." +According to the word of Cicero, the Law of the Twelve Tables was "the +source of all the Roman law." Four centuries after it was written down +the children had to learn it in the schools. + +=The Symbolic Process.=--In the ancient Roman law it was not enough in +buying, selling, or inheriting that this was the intention of the +actor; to obtain justice in the Roman tribunal it was not sufficient +to present the case; one had to pronounce certain words and use +certain gestures. Consider, for example, the manner of purchasing. In +the presence of five citizens who represent an assembly and of a sixth +who holds a balance in his hand, the buyer places in the balance a +piece of brass which represents the price of the thing sold. If it be +an animal or a slave that is sold, the purchaser touches it with his +hand saying, "This is mine by the law of the Romans, I have bought it +with this brass duly weighed." Before the tribunal every process is a +pantomime: to reclaim an object one seizes it with the hand; to +protest against a neighbor who has erected a wall, a stone is thrown +against the wall. When two men claim proprietorship in a field, the +following takes place at the tribunal: the two adversaries grasp hands +and appear to fight; then they separate and each says, "I declare this +field is mine by the law of the Romans; I cite you before the tribunal +of the prætor to debate our right at the place in question." The judge +orders them to go to the place. "Before these witnesses here present, +this is your road to the place; go!" The litigants take a few steps as +if to go thither, and this is the symbol of the journey. A witness +says to them, "Return," and the journey is regarded as completed. Each +of the two presents a clod of earth, the symbol of the field. Thus the +trial commences;[164] then the judge alone hears the case. Like all +primitive peoples, the Romans comprehended well only what they +actually saw; the material acts served to represent to them the right +that could not be seen. + +=The Formalism of Roman Law.=--The Romans scrupulously respected their +ancient forms. In justice, as in religion, they obeyed the letter of +the law, caring nothing for its sense. For them every form was sacred +and ought to be strictly applied. In cases before the courts their +maxim was: "What has already been pronounced ought to be the law." If +an advocate made a mistake in one word in reciting the formula, his +case was lost. A man entered a case against his neighbor for having +cut down his vines: the formula that he ought to use contained the +word "arbor," he replaced it with the word "vinea," and could not win +his case. + +This absolute reverence for the form allowed the Romans some strange +accommodations. The law said that if a father sold his son three +times, the son should be freed from the power of the father; when, +therefore, a Roman wished to emancipate his son, he sold him three +times in succession, and this comedy of sale sufficed to emancipate +him. + +The law required that before beginning war a herald should be sent to +declare it at the frontier of the enemy. When Rome wished to make war +on Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had his kingdom on the other side of +the Adriatic, they were much embarrassed to execute this formality. +They hit on the following: a subject of Pyrrhus, perhaps a deserter, +bought a field in Rome; they then assumed that this territory had +become territory of Epirus, and the herald threw his javelin on this +land and made his solemn declaration. Like all other immature peoples, +the Romans believed that consecrated formulas had a magical virtue. + +=Jurisprudence.=--The Law of the Twelve Tables and the laws made after +them were brief and incomplete. But many questions presented +themselves that had no law for their solution. In these embarrassing +cases it was the custom at Rome to consult certain persons who were of +high reputation for their knowledge of questions of law. These were +men of eminence, often old consuls or pontiffs; they gave their advice +in writing, and their replies were called the Responses of the Wise. +Usually these responses were authoritative according to the respect +had for the sages. The emperor Augustus went further: he named some of +them whose responses should have the force of law. Thus Law began to +be a science and the men versed in law formulated new rules which +became obligatory. This was Jurisprudence. + +=The Prætor's Edict.=--To apply the sacred rules of law a supreme +magistrate was needed at Rome. Only a consul or a prætor could direct +a tribunal and, according to the Roman expression, "say the law." The +consuls engaged especially with the army ordinarily left this care to +the prætors. + +There were always at Rome at least two prætors as judges: one +adjudicated matters between citizens and was called the prætor of the +city (prætor urbanus); the other judged cases between citizens and +aliens and was called prætor of the aliens (prætor peregrinus), or, +more exactly, prætor between aliens and citizens. There was need of at +least two tribunals, since an alien could not be admitted to the +tribunal of the citizens. These prætors, thanks to their absolute +power, adjusted cases according to their sense of equity; the prætor +of the aliens was bound by no law, for the Roman laws were made only +for Roman citizens. And yet, since each prætor was to sit and judge +for a year, on entering upon his office he promulgated a decree in +which he indicated the rules that he expected to follow in his +tribunal; this was the Prætor's Edict. At the end of the year, when +the præter left his office, his ordinance was no longer in force, and +his successor had the right to make an entirely different one. But it +came to be the custom for each prætor to preserve the edicts of his +predecessors, making a few changes and some additions. Thus +accumulated for centuries the ordinances of the magistrates. At last +the emperor Hadrian in the second century had the Prætorian Edict +codified and gave it the force of law. + +=Civil Law and the Law of Nations.=--As there were two separate +tribunals, there developed two systems of rules, two different laws. +The rules applied to the affairs of citizens by the prætor of the city +formed the Civil Law--that is to say, the law of the city. The rules +followed by the prætor of aliens constituted the Law of Nations--that +is to say, of the peoples (alien to Rome). It was then perceived that +of these two laws the more human, the more sensible, the simpler--in a +word, the better, was the law of aliens. The law of citizens, derived +from the superstitious and strict rules of the old Romans, had +preserved from this rude origin troublesome formulas and barbarous +regulations. The Law of Nations, on the contrary, had for its +foundation the dealings of merchants and of men established in Rome, +dealings that were free from every formula, from every national +prejudice, and were slowly developed and tried by the experience of +several centuries. And so it may be seen how contrary to reason the +ancient law was. "Strict law is the highest injustice," is a Roman +proverb. The prætors of the city set themselves to correct the ancient +law and to judge according to equity or justice. They came gradually +to apply to citizens the same rules that the prætor of the aliens +followed in his tribunal. For example, the Roman law ordained that +only relatives on the male side should be heirs; the prætor summoned +the relatives on the female side also to participate in the +succession. + +The old law required that a man to become a proprietor must perform a +complicated ceremony of sale; the prætor recognized that it was +sufficient to have paid the price of the sale and to be in possession +of the property. Thus the Law of Nations invaded and gradually +superseded the Civil Law. + +="Written Reason."=--It was especially under the emperors that the new +Roman law took its form. The Antonines issued many ordinances (edicts) +and re-scripts (letters in which the emperor replied to those who +consulted him). Jurisconsults who surrounded them assisted them in +their reforms. Later, at the beginning of the third century, under the +bad emperors as under the good, others continued to state new rules +and to rectify the old. Papinian, Ulpian, Modestinus, and Paullus were +the most noted of these lawyers; their works definitively fixed the +Roman law. + +This law of the third century has little resemblance to the old Roman +law, so severe on the weak. The jurisconsults adopt the ideas of the +Greek philosophers, especially of the Stoics. They consider that all +men have the right of liberty: "By the law of nature all men are born +free," which is to say that slavery is contrary to nature. They also +admit that a slave could claim redress even against his master, and +that the master, if he killed his slave, should be punished as a +murderer. Likewise they protect the child against the tyranny of the +father. + +It is this new law that was in later times called Written Reason. In +fact, it is a philosophical law such as reason can conceive for all +men. And so there remains no longer an atom of the strict and gross +law of the Twelve Tables. The Roman law which has for a long time +governed all Europe, and which today is preserved in part in the laws +of several European states is not the law of the old Romans. It is +constructed, on the contrary, of the customs of all the peoples of +antiquity and the maxims of Greek philosophers fused together and +codified in the course of centuries by Roman magistrates and +jurisconsults. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[157] Sometimes called the Age of Cicero. + +[158] Lucretius.--ED. + +[159] One of the most noted, the plea for Milo, was written much later. +Cicero at the time of the delivery was distracted and said almost +nothing. + +[160] See the "Dialogue of the Orators," attributed to Tacitus. + +[161] The word "rhetor" signified in Greek simply orator; the Romans +used the word in a mistaken sense to designate the men who made a +profession of speaking. + +[162] The same reserve must be maintained with regard to the arts as to +the literature. The builders of the Roman monuments were not Romans, but +provincials, often slaves; the only Roman would be the master for whom +the slaves worked. + +[163] This estimate is too liberal. 1,500,00 is probably nearer the +truth. See Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms, i. 25.--ED. + +[164] Cicero describes this juridical comedy which was still in force in +his time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION + +ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY + + +=The Christ.=--He whom the Jews were expecting as their liberator and +king, the Messiah, appeared in Galilee, a small province of the North, +hardly regarded as Jewish, and in a humble family of carpenters. He +was called Jesus, but his Greek disciples called him the Christ (the +anointed), that is to say, the king consecrated by the holy oil. He +was also called the Master, the Lord, and the Saviour. The religion +that he came to found is that we now possess. We all know his life: it +is the model of every Christian. We know his instructions by heart; +they form our moral law. It is sufficient, then, to indicate what new +doctrines he disseminated in the world. + +=Charity.=--Before all, Christ commended love. "Thou shalt love the +Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and thy neighbor +as thyself.... On these two commandments hang all the law and the +prophets." The first duty is to love others and to benefit them. When +God will judge men, he will set on his right hand those who have fed +the hungry, given drink to those who were thirsty, and have clad those +that were naked. To those who would follow him the Christ said at the +beginning: "Go, ... sell all that ye have and give to the poor." + +For the ancients the good man was the noble, the rich, the brave. +Since the time of Christ the word has changed its sense: the good man +is he who loves others. Doing good is loving others and seeking to be +of service to them. Charity (the Latin name of love) from that time +has been the cardinal virtue. Charitable becomes synonymous with +beneficent. To the old doctrine of vengeance the Christ formally +opposes his doctrine of charity. "Ye have heard that it was said, An +eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you ... +whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other +also.... Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy +neighbor and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you love your enemies, +do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute you, +... that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who +maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on +the just and the unjust." He himself on the cross prayed for his +executioners, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." + +=Equality.=--The Christ loved all men; he died not for one people +only, but for all humanity. He never made a difference between men; +all are equal before God. The ancient religions, even the Jewish, were +religions of peoples who kept them with jealous care, as a treasure, +without wishing to communicate them to other peoples. Christ said to +his disciples, "Go, and teach all nations." And the apostle Paul thus +formulated the doctrine of Christian equality: "There is neither Greek +nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, bond nor free." +Two centuries later Tertullian, a Christian writer, said, "The world +is a republic, the common land of the human race." + +=Poverty and Humility.=--The ancients thought that riches ennobled a +man and they regarded pride as a worthy sentiment. "Blessed are the +poor," said Christ, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." He that +would not renounce all that he had could not be his disciple. He +himself went from city to city, possessing nothing, and when his +disciples were preoccupied with the future, he said, "Be not anxious +for what ye shall eat, nor for what ye shall put on. Behold the birds +of the heaven, they sow not neither do they reap, yet your heavenly +Father feedeth them." + +The Christian was to disdain riches, and more yet, worldly honors. One +day when his disciples were disputing who should have the highest rank +in heaven, he said, "He that is greatest among you shall be your +servant." "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that +humbleth himself shall be exalted." Till our day the successor of +Saint Peter calls himself "Servant of the servants of God." Christ +drew to himself by preference the poor, the sick, women, children,--in +a word, the weak and the helpless. He took all his disciples from +among the populace and bade them be "meek and lowly of heart." + +=The Kingdom of God.=--Christ said that he had come to the earth to +found the kingdom of God. His enemies believed that he wished to be a +king, and when he was crucified, they placed this inscription on his +cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews." This was a gross +mistake. Christ himself had declared, "My kingdom is not of this +world." He did not come to overturn governments nor to reform +society. To him who asked if he should pay the Roman tax, he replied, +"Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things +that are God's." And so the Christian accepted what he found +established and himself worked to perfect it, not to remodel society. +To make himself pleasing to God and worthy of his kingdom it was not +necessary to offer him sacrifices or to observe minute formulas as the +pagans did: "True worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and +truth." Their moral law is contained in this word of Christ: "Be ye +therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." + + +THE FIRST CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH + +=Disciples and Apostles.=--The twelve disciples who associated with +Christ received from him the mission to preach his doctrine to all +peoples. From that time they were called Apostles. The majority of +them lived in Jerusalem and preached in Judæa; the first Christians +were still Jews. It was Saul, a new convert, who carried Christianity +to the other peoples of the Orient. Paul (for he took this name) spent +his life visiting the Greek cities of Asia, Greece, and Macedonia, +inviting to the new religion not only the Jews, but also and +especially the Gentiles: "You were once without Christ," said he to +them, "strangers to the covenant and to the promises; but you have +been brought nigh by the blood of Christ, for it is he who of two +peoples hath made both one." From this time it was no longer necessary +to be a Jew if one would become a Christian. The other nations, +disregarded by the law of Moses, are brought near by the law of +Christ. This fusion was the work of St. Paul, also called the Apostle +to the Gentiles. + +The religion of Christ spread very slowly, as he himself had +announced: "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed ... +which is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the +greatest among herbs ... and the birds of the air lodge under its +branches." + +=The Church.=--In every city where Christians were found they +assembled to pray together, to sing the praises of God, and to +celebrate the mystery of the Lord's Supper. Their meeting was called +Ecclesia (assembly). Usually the Christians of the same assembly +regarded themselves as brothers; they contributed of their property to +support the widows, the poor, and the sick. The most eminent directed +the community and celebrated the religious ceremonies. These were the +Priests (their name signifies "elders"). Others were charged with the +administration of the goods of the community, and were called Deacons +(servants). Besides these officers, there was in each city a supreme +head--the Bishop (overseer). + +Later the functions of the church became so exacting that the body of +Christians was divided into two classes of people: the clergy, who +were the officials of the community; the rest, the faithful, who were +termed the laity. + +Each city had its independent church; thus they spoke of the church of +Antioch, of Corinth, of Rome; and yet they all formed but one church, +the church of Christ, in which all were united in one faith. The +universal or Catholic faith was regarded as the only correct body of +belief; all conflicting opinions (the heresies) were condemned as +errors. + +=The Sacred Books.=--The sacred scripture of the Jews, the Old +Testament, remained sacred for the Christians, but they had other +sacred books which the church had brought into one structure (the New +Testament). The four Gospels recount the life of Christ and the "good +news" of salvation which he brought. The Acts of the Apostles +describes how the gospel was disseminated in the world. The Epistles +are the letters addressed by the apostles to the Christians of the +first century. The Apocalypse (Revelation) is the revelation made +through St. John to the seven churches of Asia. Many other +pseudo-sacred books were current among the Christians, but the church +has rejected all of these, and has termed them apocryphal. + +=The Persecutions.=--The Christian religion was persecuted from its +birth. Its first enemies were the Jews, who forced the Roman governor +of Judæa to crucify Christ; who stoned St. Stephen, the first martyr, +and so set themselves against St. Paul that they almost compassed his +death. + +Then came the persecution by the Pagans. The Romans tolerated all the +religions of the East because the devotees of Osiris, of Mithra, and +of the Good Goddess recognized at the same time the Roman gods. But +the Christians, worshippers of the living God, scorned the petty +divinities of antiquity. More serious still in the eyes of the Romans, +they refused to adore the emperor as a god and to burn incense on the +altar of the goddess Roma. Several emperors promulgated edicts +against the Christians, bidding the governors arrest them and put them +to death. A letter of Pliny the Younger, then governor in Asia, to the +emperor Trajan, shows the procedure against them. "Up to this time, +regarding the people who have been denounced as Christians, I have +always operated as follows: I asked them if they were Christians; if +they confessed it, I put the question to them a second time, and then +a third time, threatening them with the penalty of death. When they +persisted, I had them put to death, convinced that, whatever their +fault that they avowed, their disobedience and their resolute +obstinacy merited punishment. Many who have been denounced in +anonymous writings have denied that they were Christians, have +repeated a prayer that I pronounced before them, have offered wine and +incense to your statue, which I had set forth for this purpose +together with the statues of the gods, and have even reviled the name +of Christ. All these are things which it is not possible to compel any +true Christians to do. Others have confessed that they were +Christians, but they affirm that their crime and their error consisted +only in assembling on certain days before sunrise to adore Christ as +God, to sing together in his honor, and to bind themselves by oath to +commit no crime, to perpetrate no theft, murder, adultery, nor to +violate their word. I have believed it necessary in order to secure +the truth to put to the torture two female slaves whom they called +deaconesses; but I have discovered only an absurd and exaggerated +superstition." + +The Roman government was a persecutor,[165] but the populace were +severer yet. They could not endure these people who worshipped another +god than theirs and contemned their deities. Whenever famine or +epidemic occurred, the well-known cry was heard, "To the lions with +the Christians!" The people forced the magistrates to hunt and +persecute the Christians. + +=The Martyrs.=--For the two centuries and a half that the Christians +were persecuted, throughout the empire there were thousands of +victims, of every age, sex, and condition. Roman citizens, like St. +Paul, were beheaded; the others were crucified, burned, most often +sent to the beasts in the amphitheatre. If they were allowed to escape +with their lives, they were set at forced labor in the mines. +Sometimes torture was aggravated by every sort of invention. In the +great execution at Lyons, in 177, the Christians, after being tortured +and confined in narrow prison quarters, were brought to the arena. The +beasts mutilated without killing them. They were then seated in iron +chairs heated red by fire. Blandina, a young slave, who survived all +these torments was bound with cords and exposed to the fury of a bull. +The Christians joyfully suffered these persecutions which gave them +entrance to heaven. The occasion presented an opportunity for +rendering public testimony to Christ. And so they did not call +themselves victims, but martyrs (witnesses); their torture was a +testimony. They compared it to the combat of the Olympian games; like +the victor in the athletic contests, they spoke of the palm or the +crown. Even now the festal day of a martyr is the day of his death. + +Frequently a Christian who was present at the persecution would draft +a written account of the martyrdom--he related the arrest, the +examination, the tortures, and the death. These brief accounts, filled +with edifying details, were called The Acts of the Martyrs. They were +circulated in the remotest communities; from one end of the empire to +the other they published the glory of the martyrs and excited a desire +to imitate them. Thousands of the faithful, seized by a thirst for +martyrdom, pressed forward to incriminate themselves and to demand +condemnation. One day a governor of Asia had decreed persecutions +against some Christians: all the Christians of the city presented +themselves in his tribunal and demanded to be persecuted. The +governor, exasperated, had some of them executed and sent away the +others. "Begone, you wretches! If you are so bent on death, you have +precipices and ropes." Some of the faithful, to be surer of torture, +entered the temples and threw down the idols of the gods. It was +several times necessary for even the church to prohibit the +solicitation of martyrdom. + +=The Catacombs.=--The ancient custom of burning the dead was repugnant +to the Christians. Like the Jews, they interred their dead wrapped +with a shroud in a sarcophagus. Cemeteries[166] were therefore +required. At Rome where land was very high in price the Christians +went below ground, and in the brittle tufa on which Rome was built may +be seen long galleries and subterranean chambers. There, in niches +excavated along the passages, they laid the bodies of their dead. As +each generation excavated new galleries, there was formed at length a +subterranean city, called the Catacombs ("to the tombs"). There were +similar catacombs in several cities--Naples, Milan, Alexandria, but +the most celebrated were those in Rome. These have been investigated +in our day and thousands of Christian tombs and inscriptions +recovered. The discovery of this subterranean world gave birth to a +new department of historical science--Christian Epigraphy and +Archæology. + +The sepulchral halls of the catacombs do not resemble those of the +Egyptians or those of the Etruscans; they are bare and severe. The +Christians knew that a corpse had no bodily wants and so they did not +adorn the tombs. The most important halls are decorated with very +simple ornaments and paintings which almost always represent the same +scenes. The most common subjects are the faithful in prayer, and the +Good Shepherd, symbolical of Christ. Some of these halls were like +chapels. In them were interred the bodies of the holy martyrs and the +faithful who wished to lie near them; every year Christians came here +to celebrate the mysteries. During the persecutions of the third +century the Christians of Rome often took refuge in these subterranean +chapels to hold their services of worship, or to escape from pursuit. +The Christians could feel safe in this bewildering labyrinth of +galleries whose entrance was usually marked by a pagan tomb. + + +THE MONKS OF THE THIRD CENTURY + +=The Solitaries.=--It was an idea current among Christians, especially +in the East, that one could not become a perfect Christian by +remaining in the midst of other men. Christ himself had said, "If any +man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and +children, and brethren, and sisters ... he cannot be my disciple." The +faithful man or woman who thus withdrew from the world to work out his +salvation the more surely, was termed an Anchorite (the man who is set +apart), or a Monk (solitary). This custom began in the East in the +middle of the third century. The first anchorites established +themselves in the deserts and the ruins of the district of Thebes in +Upper Egypt, which remained the holy land of the solitaries. + +Paul (235-340), the oldest of the monks, lived to his ninetieth year +in a grotto near a spring and a palm-tree which furnished him with +food and clothing. The model of the monks was St Anthony.[167] At the +age of twenty he heard read one day the text of the gospel, "If thou +wilt be perfect, sell all thy goods and give to the poor." He was fine +looking, noble, and rich, having received an inheritance from his +parents. He sold all his property, distributed it in alms and buried +himself in the desert of Egypt. He first betook himself to an empty +tomb, then to the ruins of a fortress; he was clad in a hair-shirt, +had for food only the bread that was brought to him every six months, +fasted, starved himself, prayed day and night. Often sunrise found +him still in prayer. "O sun," cried he, "why hast thou risen and +prevented my contemplating the true light?" He felt himself surrounded +by demons, who, under every form, sought to distract him from his +religious thoughts. When he became old and revered by all Egypt, he +returned to Alexandria for a day to preach against the Arian heretics, +but soon repaired to the desert again. They besought him to remain: he +replied, "The fishes die on land, the monks waste away in the city; we +return to our mountains like the fish to the water." + +Women also became solitaries. Alexandra, one of these, shut herself in +an empty tomb and lived there for ten years without leaving it to see +anybody. + +=Asceticism.=--These men who had withdrawn to the desert to escape the +world thought that everything that came from the world turned the soul +from God and placed it in the peril of losing salvation. The Christian +ought to belong entirely to God; he should forget everything behind +him. "Do you not know," said St. Nilus later, "that it is a trap of +Satan to be too much attached to one's family?" The monk Poemen had +withdrawn to the desert with his brothers, and their mother came to +visit them. As they refused to appear, she waited a little until they +were going to the church; but on seeing her, they fled and would not +consent to speak to her unless they were concealed. She asked to see +them, but they consoled her by saying, "You will see us in the other +world." + +But the world is not the only danger for the monk. Every man carried +about with himself an enemy from whom he could not deliver himself as +he had delivered himself from the world--that is, his own body. The +body prevented the soul from rising to God and drew it to worldly +pleasures that came from the devil. And so the solitaries applied +themselves to overcoming the body by refusing to it everything that it +loved. They subsisted only on bread and water; many ate but twice a +week, some went to the mountains to cut herbs which they ate raw. They +dwelt in grottoes, ruins, and tombs, lying on the earth or on a mat of +rushes. The most zealous of them added other tortures to mortify, or +kill, the body. St. Pachomius for fifteen years slept only in an erect +position, leaning against a wall. Macarius remained six months in a +morass, the prey of mosquitoes "whose stings would have penetrated the +hide of a wild boar." The most noted of these monks was St. Simeon, +surnamed Stylites (the man of the column). For forty years he lived in +the desert of Arabia on the summit of a column, exposed to the sun and +the rain, compelling himself to stay in one position for a whole day; +the faithful flocked from afar to behold him; he gave them audience +from the top of his column, bidding creditors free their debtors, and +masters liberate their slaves; he even sent reproaches to ministers +and counsellors of the emperor. This form of life was called +Asceticism (exercise). + +=The Cenobites.=--The solitaries who lived in the same desert drew +together and adopted a common life for the practice of their +austerities. About St. Anthony were already assembled many anchorites +who gave him their obedience. St. Pachomius (272-348) in this way +assembled 3,000. Their establishment was at Tabenna, near the first +cataract of the Nile. He founded many other similar communities, +either of men or women. In 256 a traveller said he had seen in a +single city of Egypt 10,000 monks and 20,000 vowed to a religious +life. There were more of them in Syria, in Palestine, in all the +Orient. The monks thus united in communities became Cenobites (people +who live in common). They chose a chief, the abbot (the word signifies +in Syriac "father"), and they implicitly obeyed him. Cassian relates +that in one community in Egypt he had seen the abbot before the whole +refectory give a cenobite a violent blow on the head to try his +obedience. + +The primitive monks renounced all property and family relations; the +cenobites surrendered also their will. On entering the community they +engaged to possess nothing, not to marry, and to obey. "The monks," +says St. Basil, "live a spiritual life like the angels." The first +union among the cenobites was the construction of houses in close +proximity. Later each community built a monastery, a great edifice, +where each monk had his cell. A Christian compares these cells "to a +hive of bees where each has in his hands the wax of work, in his mouth +the honey of psalms and prayers." These great houses needed a written +constitution; this was the Monastic Rule. St. Pachomius was the first +to prepare one. St. Basil wrote another that was adopted by almost all +the monasteries of the Orient. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[165] The church counted ten persecutions, the first under Nero, the +last under Diocletian. + +[166] The word is Greek and signifies place of repose. + +[167] See his biography in the "Lives of the Fathers of the Desert," by +Rufinus. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE LATER EMPIRE + +THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE THIRD CENTURY + + +=Military Anarchy.=--After the reigns of the Antonines the civil wars +commenced. There were in the empire, beside the prætorian guard in +Rome, several great armies on the Rhine, on the Danube, in the East, +and in England. Each aimed to make its general emperor. Ordinarily the +rivals fought it out until there was but one left; this one then +governed for a few years, after which he was assassinated,[168] or if, +by chance, he could transmit his power to his son, the soldiers +revolted against the son and the war recommenced. The following, for +example, is what occurred in 193. The prætorians had massacred the +emperor Pertinax, and the army conceived the notion of putting up the +empire at auction; two purchasers presented themselves, Sulpicius +offering each soldier $1,000 and Didius more than $1,200. The +prætorians brought the latter to the Senate and had him named emperor; +later, when he did not pay them, they murdered him. At the same time +the great armies of Britain, Illyricum, and Syria proclaimed each its +own general as emperor and the three rivals marched on Rome. The +Illyrian legions arrived first, and their general Septimius Severus +was named emperor by the Senate. Then commenced two sanguinary wars, +the one against the legions of Syria, and the other against the +legions of Britain. At the end of two years the emperor was +victorious. It is he who states his policy as follows, "My son, +content the soldiers and you may despise the rest." For a century +there was no other form of government than the will of the soldiers. +They killed the emperors who displeased them and replaced them by +their favorites. + +Strange emperors, therefore, occupied the throne: Elagabalus, a Syrian +priest, who garbed himself as a woman and had his mother assemble a +senate of women; Maximin, a soldier of fortune, a rough and +bloodthirsty giant, who ate, it was said, thirty pounds of food and +drank twenty-one quarts of wine a day. Once there were twenty emperors +at the same time, each in a corner of the empire (260-278). These have +been called the Thirty Tyrants. + +The Cult of Mithra.--This century of wars is also a century of +superstitions. The deities of the Orient, Isis, Osiris, the Great +Mother, have their devotees everywhere. But, more than all the others, +Mithra, a Persian god, becomes the universal god of the empire. Mithra +is no other than the sun. The monuments in his honor that are found in +all parts of the empire represent him slaughtering a bull, with this +inscription: "To the unconquerable sun, to the god Mithra." His cult +is complicated, sometimes similar to the Christian worship; there are +a baptism, sacred feasts, an anointing, penances, and chapels. To be +admitted to this one must pass through an initiatory ceremony, through +fasting and certain fearful tests. + +At the end of the third century the religion of Mithra was the +official religion of the empire. The Invincible God was the god of the +emperors; he had his chapels everywhere in the form of grottoes with +altars and bas-reliefs; in Rome, even, he had a magnificent temple +erected by the emperor Aurelian. + +=The Taurobolia.=--One of the most urgent needs of this time was +reconciliation with the deity; and so ceremonies of purification were +invented. + +The most striking of these was the Taurobolia. The devotee, clad in a +white robe with ornaments of gold, takes his place in the bottom of a +ditch which is covered by a platform pierced with holes. A bull is led +over this platform, the priest kills him and his blood runs through +the holes of the platform upon the garments, the face, and the hair of +the worshipper. It was believed that this "baptism of blood" purified +one of all sins. He who had received it was born to a new life; he +came forth from the ditch hideous to look upon, but happy and envied. + +=Confusion of Religions.=--In the century that preceded the victory of +Christianity, all religions fell into confusion. The sun was adored at +once under many names (Sol, Helios, Baal, Elagabal, and Mithra). All +the cults imitated one another and sometimes copied Christian forms. +Even the life of Christ was copied. The Asiatic philosopher, +Apollonius of Tyana, who lived in the first century (3-96), became in +legend a kind of prophet, son of a god, who went about surrounded by +his disciples, expelling demons, curing sicknesses, raising the dead. +He had come, it was said, to reform the doctrine of Pythagoras and +Plato. In the third century an empress had the life of Apollonius of +Tyana written, to be, as it were, a Pythagorean gospel opposed to the +gospel of Christ. The most remarkable example of this confusion in +religion was given by Alexander Severus, a devout emperor, mild and +conscientious: he had in his palace a chapel where he adored the +benefactors of humanity--Abraham, Orpheus, Jesus, and Apollonius of +Tyana. + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF THE LATER EMPIRE + +=Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.=--After a century of civil +wars emperors were found who were able to stop the anarchy. They were +men of the people, rude and active, soldiers of fortune rising from +one grade to another to become generals-in-chief, and then emperors. +Almost all arose in the semi-barbarous provinces of the Danube and of +Illyria; some in their infancy had been shepherds or peasants. They +had the simple manners of the old Roman generals. When the envoys of +the king of Persia asked to see the emperor Probus, they found a bald +old man clad in a linen cassock, lying on the ground, who ate peas and +bacon. It was the story of Curius Dentatus repeated after five +centuries. + +Severe with their soldiers, these emperors reëstablished discipline in +the army, and then order in the empire. But a change had become +necessary. A single man was no longer adequate to the government and +defence of this immense territory; and so from this time each emperor +took from among his relatives or his friends two or three +collaborators, each charged with a part of the empire. Usually their +title was that of Cæsar, but sometimes there were two equal emperors, +and both had the title of Augustus. When the emperor died, one of the +Cæsars succeeded him; it was no longer possible for the army to create +emperors. The provinces were too great, and Diocletian divided them. +The prætorians of Rome being dangerous, Diocletian replaced them with +two legions. The Occident was in ruins and depopulated and hence the +Orient had become the important part of the empire; Diocletian, +therefore, abandoned Rome and established his capital at Nicomedia in +Asia Minor.[169] Constantine did more and founded a new Rome in the +East--Constantinople. + +=Constantinople.=--On a promontory where Europe is separated from Asia +only by the narrow channel of the Bosporus, in a country of vineyards +and rich harvests, under a beautiful sky, Greek colonists had founded +the town of Byzantium. The hills of the vicinity made the place easily +defensible; its port, the Golden Horn, one of the best in the world, +could shelter 1,200 ships, and a chain of 820 feet in length was all +that was necessary to exclude a hostile fleet. This was the site of +Constantine's new city, Constantinople (the city of Constantine). + +Around the city were strong walls; two public squares surrounded with +porticos were constructed; a palace was erected, a circus, theatres, +aqueducts, baths, temples, and a Christian church. To ornament his +city Constantine transferred from other cities the most celebrated +statues and bas-reliefs. To furnish it with population he forced the +people of the neighboring towns to remove to it, and offered rewards +and honors to the great families who would come hither to make their +home. He established, as in Rome, distributions of grain, of wine, of +oil, and provided a continuous round of shows. This was one of those +rapid transformations, almost fantastic, in which the Orient delights. +The task began the 4th of November, 326; on the 11th of May, 330, the +city was dedicated. But it was a permanent creation. For ten centuries +Constantinople resisted invasions, preserving always in the ruins of +the empire its rank of capital. Today it is still the first city of +the East. + +=The Palace.=--The emperors who dwelt in the East[170] adopted the +customs of the Orient, wearing delicate garments of silk and gold and +for a head-dress a diadem of pearls. They secluded themselves in the +depths of their palace where they sat on a throne of gold, surrounded +by their ministers, separated from the world by a crowd of courtiers, +servants, functionaries and military guards. One must prostrate one's +self before them with face to the earth in token of adoration; they +were called Lord and Majesty; they were treated as gods. Everything +that touched their person was sacred, and so men spoke of the sacred +palace, the sacred bed-chamber, the sacred Council of State, even the +sacred treasury. + +The régime of this period has been termed that of the Later Empire as +distinguished from that of the three preceding centuries, which we +call the Early Empire. + +The life of an emperor of the Early Empire (from the first to the +third century) was still that of a magistrate and a general; the +palace of an emperor of the Later Empire became similar to the court +of the Persian king. + +=The Officials.=--The officials often became very numerous. Diocletian +found the provinces too large and so made several divisions of them. +In Gaul, for example, Lugdunensis (the province about Lyons) was +partitioned into four, Aquitaine into three. In place of forty-six +governors there were from this time 117.[171] + +At the same time the duties of the officials were divided. Besides the +governors and the deputies in the provinces there were in the border +provinces military commanders--the dukes and the counts. The emperor +had about him a small picked force to guard the palace, body-guards, +chamberlains, assistants, domestics, a council of state, bailiffs, +messengers, and a whole body of secretaries organized in four bureaus. + +All these officials did not now receive their orders directly from +the emperor; they communicated with him only through their superior +officers. The governors were subordinate to the two prætorian +prefects, the officials of public works to the two prefects of the +city, the collectors of taxes to the Count of the Sacred Largesses, +the deputies to the Count of the Domains, all the officers of the +palace to the Master of the Offices, the domestics of the court to the +Chamberlain. These heads of departments had the character of +ministers. + +This system is not very difficult for us to comprehend. We are +accustomed to see officials, judges, generals, collectors, and +engineers, organized in distinct departments, each with his special +duty, and subordinated to the commands of a chief of the service. We +even have more ministers than there were in Constantinople; but this +administrative machine which has become so familiar to us because we +have been acquainted with it from our infancy, is none the less +complicated and unnatural. It is the Later Empire that gave us the +first model of this; the Byzantine empire preserved it and since that +time all absolute governments have been forced to imitate it because +it has made the work of government easier for those who have it to do. + +=Society in the Later Empire.=--The Later Empire is a decisive moment +in the history of civilization. The absolute power of the Roman +magistrate is united to the pompous ceremonial of the eastern kings to +create a power unknown before in history. This new imperial majesty +crushes everything beneath it; the inhabitants of the empire cease to +be citizens and from the fourth century are called in Latin "subjects" +and in Greek "slaves." In reality all are slaves of the emperor, but +there are different grades of servitude. There are various degrees of +nobility which the master confers on them and which they transmit to +their posterity. The following is the series:[172] + + 1. The _Nobilissimi_ (the very noble); these are the imperial + family; + + 2. The _Illustres_ (the notable)--the chief ministers of + departments; + + 3. The _Spectabiles_ (the eminent)--the high dignitaries; + + 4. The _Clarissimi_ (most renowned)--the great officials, also + sometimes called senators; + + 5. The _Perfectissimi_ (very perfect).[173] + +Every important man has his rank, his title, and his functions.[174] +The only men who are of consequence are the courtiers and officials; +it is the régime of titles and of etiquette. A clearer instance has +never been given of the issue of absolute power united with the mania +for titles and with the purpose to regulate everything. The Later +Empire exhibits the completed type of a society reduced to a machine +and of a government absorbed by a court. It realized the ideal that is +proposed today by the partisans of absolute power; and for a long time +the friends of liberty must fight against the traditions which the +Later Empire has left to us. + + +THE CHURCH AND THE STATE + +=Triumph of Christianity.=--During the first two centuries of our era +the Christians occupied but a small place in the empire. Almost all of +them were of the lower classes, workmen, freedmen, slaves, who lived +obscure lives in the multitude of the great cities. For a long time +the aristocracy ignored the Christians; even in the second century +Suetonius in his "Lives of the Twelve Cæsars" speaks of a certain +Chrestus who agitated the populace of Rome. When the religion first +concerned the world of the rich and cultivated people, they were +interested simply to deride it as one only for the poor and ignorant. +It was precisely because it addressed the poor of this world in +providing a compensation in the life to come that Christianity made so +many proselytes. Persecution, far from suppressing it, gave it more +force. "The blood of the martyrs," said the faithful, "is the seed of +the church." During the whole of the third century conversions +continued, not only among the poor, but among the aristocracy as well. +At the first of the fourth century all the East had become Christian. +Helena, the mother of Constantine, was a Christian and has been +canonized by the church. When Constantine marched against his rival, +he took for his ensign a standard (the labarum), which bore the cross +and the monogram of Christ. His victory was the victory of the +Christians. He allowed them now to perform their religious rites +freely (by the edict of 313), and later he favored them openly. Yet +he did not break with the ancient religion: while he presided at the +great assembly of the Christian bishops, he continued to hold the +title of Pontifex Maximus; he carried in his helmet a nail of the true +cross and on his coins he still had the sun-god represented. In his +city of Constantinople he had a Christian church built, but also a +temple to Victory. For a half-century it was difficult to know what +was the official religion of the empire. + +=Organization of the Church.=--The Christians even under persecution +had never dreamed of overthrowing the empire. As soon as persecution +ceased, the bishops became the allies of the emperors. Then the +Christian church was organized definitively, and it was organized on +the model of the Later Empire, in the form that it preserves to this +day. Each city had a bishop who resided in the city proper and +governed the people of the territory; this territory subject to the +bishop was termed a Diocese. In any country in the Later Empire, there +were as many bishops and dioceses as there were cities. This is why +the bishops were so numerous and dioceses so many in the East and in +Italy where the country was covered with cities. In Gaul, on the +contrary, there were but 120 dioceses between the Rhine and the +Pyrenees, and the most of these, save in the south, were of the size +of a modern French department. Each province became an ecclesiastical +province; the bishop of the capital (metropolis) became the +metropolitan, or as he was later termed, the archbishop. + +=The Councils.=--In this century began the councils, the great +assemblies of the church. There had already been some local councils +at which the bishops and priests of a single province had been +present. For the first time, in 324,[175] Constantine convoked a +General Assembly of the World (an ecumenical council) at Nicæa, in +Asia Minor; 318 ecclesiastics were in attendance. They discussed +questions of theology and drew up the Nicene Creed, the Catholic +confession of faith. Then the emperor wrote to all the churches, +bidding them "conform to the will of God as expressed by the council." +This was the first ecumenical council, and there were three +others[176] of these before the arrival of the barbarians made an +assembly of the whole church impossible. The decisions reached by +these councils had the force of law for all Christians: the decisions +are called Canons[177] (rules). The collection of these regulations +constitutes the Canon Law. + +=The Heretics.=--From the second century there were among the +Christians heretics who professed opinions contrary to those of the +majority of the church. Often the bishops of a country assembled to +pronounce the new teaching as false, to compel the author to abjure, +and, if he refused, to separate him from the communion of Christians. +But frequently the author of the heresy had partisans convinced of the +truth of his teaching who would not submit and continued to profess +the condemned opinions. This was the cause of hatred and violent +strife between them and the faithful who were attached to the creed of +the church (the orthodox). As long as the Christians were weak and +persecuted by the state, they fought among themselves only with words +and with books; but when all society was Christian, the contests +against the heretics turned into persecutions, and sometimes into +civil wars. + +Almost all of the heresies of this time arose among the Greeks of Asia +or Egypt, peoples who were subtle, sophistical, and disputatious. The +heresies were usually attempts to explain the mysteries of the Trinity +and of the Incarnation. The most significant of these heresies was +that of Arius; he taught that Christ was created by God the Father and +was not equal to him. The Council of Nicæa condemned this view, but +his doctrine, called Arianism, spread throughout the East. From that +time for two centuries Catholics and Arians fought to see who should +have the supremacy in the church; the stronger party anathematized, +exiled, imprisoned, and sometimes killed the chiefs of the opposition. +For a long time the Arians had the advantage; several emperors took +sides with them; then, too, as the barbarians entered the empire, they +were converted to Arianism and received Arian bishops. More than two +centuries had passed before the Catholics had overcome this heresy. + +=Paganism.=--The ancient religion of the Gentiles did not disappear at +a single stroke. The Orient was quickly converted; but in the Occident +there were few Christians outside the cities, and even there many +continued to worship idols. The first Christian emperors did not wish +to break with the ancient imperial religion; they simultaneously +protected the bishops of the Christians and the priests of the gods; +they presided over councils and yet remained pontifex maximus. One of +them, Julian (surnamed the Apostate), openly returned to the ancient +religion. The emperor Gratian in 384[178] was the first to refuse the +insignia of the pontifex maximus. But as intolerance was general in +this century, as soon as the Roman religion ceased to be official, men +began to persecute it. The sacred fire of Rome that had burned for +eleven centuries was extinguished, the Vestals were removed, the +Olympian games were celebrated for the last time in 394. Then the +monks of Egypt issued from their deserts to destroy the altars of the +false gods and to establish relics in the temples of Anubis and +Serapis. Marcellus, a bishop of Syria, at the head of a band of +soldiers and gladiators sacked the temple of Jupiter at Aparnæa and +set himself to scour the country for the destruction of the +sanctuaries; he was killed by the peasants and raised by the church to +the honor of a saint. + +Soon idolatry persisted only in the rural districts where it escaped +detection; the idolaters were peasants who continued to adore sacred +trees and fountains and to assemble in proscribed sanctuaries.[179] +The Christians commenced to call "pagans" (the peasants) those whom up +to this time they had called Gentiles. And this name has still clung +to them. Paganism thus led an obscure existence in Italy, in Gaul, and +in Spain down to the end of the sixth century. + +=Theodosius.=--The incursions of the Germanic peoples into the empire +continued for two centuries until the Huns, a people of Tartar +horsemen, came from the steppes of Asia, and threw themselves on the +Germans, who occupied the country to the north of the Danube. In that +country there was already a great German kingdom, that of the Goths, +who had been converted to Christianity by Ulfilas, an Arian. To escape +the Huns, a part of this people, the West Goths (Visigoths), fled into +Roman territory, defeated the Roman armies, and overspread the country +even to Greece. Valens, the emperor of the East, had perished in the +defeat of Adrianople (378); Gratian, the emperor of the West, took as +colleague a noble Spaniard, Theodosius by name, and gave him the title +of Augustus of the East (379). Theodosius was able to rehabilitate his +army by avoiding a great battle with the Visigoths and by making a war +of skirmishes against them; this decided them to conclude a treaty. +They accepted service under the empire, land was given them in the +country to the south of the Danube, and they were charged with +preventing the enemies of the empire from crossing the river. + +Theodosius, having reëstablished peace in the East, came to the West +where Gratian had been killed by order of the usurper Maximus (383). +This Maximus was the commander of the Roman army of Britain; he had +crossed into Gaul with his army, abandoning the Roman provinces of +Britain to the ravages of the highland Scotch, had defeated Gratian, +and invaded Italy. He was master of the West, Theodosius of the East. +The contest between them was not only one between persons; it was a +battle between two religions: Theodosius was Catholic and had +assembled a council at Constantinople to condemn the heresy of Arius +(381); Maximus was ill-disposed toward the church. The engagement +occurred on the banks of the Save; Maximus was defeated, taken, and +executed. + +Theodosius established Valentinian II, the son of Gratian, in the West +and then returned to the East. But Arbogast, a barbarian Frank, the +general of the troops of Valentinian, had the latter killed, and +without venturing to proclaim himself emperor since he was not a +Roman, had his Roman secretary Eugenius made emperor. This was a +religious war: Arbogast had taken the side of the pagans; Theodosius, +the victor, had Eugenius executed and himself remained the sole +emperor. His victory was that of the Catholic church. + +In 391 the emperor Theodosius promulgated the Edict of Milan. It +prohibited the practice of the ancient religion; whoever offered a +sacrifice, adored an idol, or entered a temple should be condemned to +death as a state criminal, and his goods should be confiscated to the +profit of the informer. All the pagan temples were razed to the ground +or converted into Christian churches. And so Theodosius was extolled +by ecclesiastical writers as the model for emperors. + +Theodosius gave a rare example of submission to the church. The +inhabitants of Thessalonica had risen in riot, had killed their +governor, and overthrown the statues of the emperor. Theodosius in +irritation ordered the people to be massacred; 7,000 persons suffered +death. When the emperor presented himself some time after to enter the +cathedral of Milan, Ambrose, the bishop, charged him with his crime +before all the people, and declared that he could not give entrance +to the church to a man defiled with so many murders. Theodosius +confessed his sin, accepted the public penance which the bishop +imposed upon him, and for eight months remained at the door of the +church. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[168] Of the forty-five emperors from the first to the third century, +twenty-nine died by assassination. + +[169] Other considerations also led to the change of capital--ED. + +[170] There were often two emperors, one in the East, the other in the +West, but there was but one empire. The two emperors, though they may +have resided, one in Constantinople and the other in Italy, were +considered as being but one person. In addressing one of them the word +"you" (in the plural) was used, as if both were addressed at the same +time. This was the first use of the pronoun of the second person in the +plural for such a purpose; for throughout antiquity even kings and +emperors were addressed in the singular. + +[171] The number under Diocletian was 101; under Constantine (Bury's +Gibbon, ii., 170), 116.--ED. + +[172] Without counting the ancient titles of consul and præter, which +were still preserved, and the new title of patrician which was given by +special favor. + +[173] Of inferior rank. + +[174] We know the whole system by an official almanac of about the year +419, entitled Notitia Dignitatum, a list of all the civil and military +dignities and powers in the East and West. Each dignitary has a special +section preceded by an emblem which represents his honors. + +[175] It met in 325.--ED. + +[176] It is to be noted that the author is speaking of ecumenical or +world councils. The three referred to are Constantinople (381), Ephesus +(431), and Chalcedon (451).--ED. + +[177] Today, even, the word "canonical" signifies "in accordance with +rule." + +[178] Probably 375; Gratian died in 383.--ED. + +[179] Several saints, like St. Marcellus, found martyrdom at the hands +of peasants exasperated at the destruction of their idols. + + + + +APPENDIX + +REFERENCES FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING + + +PREHISTORIC TIMES + +Lubbock: Prehistoric Times. 1878. +Lubbock: Origin of Civilisation. 1881. +Hoernes: Primitive Man. Temple Primers. 1901. +Lyell: Antiquity of Man. London: 1863. +Keary: Dawn of History. +Tylor: Anthropology. 1881. +McLennan: Studies in Ancient History. 1886. +Ripley: Races of Europe. 1899. +Sergi: The Mediterranean Race. 1901. +Maine: Ancient Law. 1883. +Mason: Woman's Share in Primitive Culture. 1894. + +GENERAL WORKS OF REFERENCE-- + Ploetz: Epitome of Universal History. 1883. + Ranke: Universal History, edited by Prothero. 1885. + Andrews: Institutes of General History. 1887. + Haydn: Dictionary of Dates. 1889. + Lamed: History for Ready Reference. + +ATLASES-- + Spruner-Sieglin: Atlas Antiquus. + Kiepert: Atlas Antiquus. Leach. + Putzger: Historischer Schul-atlas. 1902. + Droysen: Allgemeiner Historischer Hand-atlas. Leipsic, 1885. + Freeman: Historical Geography of Europe. Edited by Bury. 1903. + Schrader: Atlas de Géographique Historique. + +GENERAL HISTORIES OF THE EAST-- + Sayce: Ancient Empires of the East. 1885. + Lenormant and Chevallier: Ancient History of the East. 1875. + Duncker: History of Antiquity. 1877-82 + Rawlinson: Manual of Ancient History. 1871. + Clarke: Ten Great Religions. 1894. + Cunningham: Western Civilisation in Its Economic Aspects. 1898. + +EGYPT + +SOURCES-- + Records of the Past, 1888-92. Old Series, 1875-8. + Herodotus: Book II. Rawlinson's edition. 1897. + +LITERATURE-- + Rawlinson: Ancient Egypt. 1887. + Flinders-Petrie: History of Egypt. 1899. + Breasted: History of Egypt. 1905. + Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt. 1894. + Maspero: Dawn of Civilisation. 1896. + Maspero: Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria. 1892. + Wilkinson: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Ancient Egypt. 1882. + Flinders-Petrie: Egyptian Decorative Art. 1895. + + +BABYLON AND ASSYRIA + +SOURCES-- + Records of the Past. + +LITERATURE-- + Ragozin: Chaldea. 1886. + Ragozin: Assyria. 1887. + Sayce: Assyria: Its Princes, Priests, and People. 1890. + Sayce: Social Life among the Assyrians and Babylonians. 1893. + Sayce: Fresh Light from Ancient Monuments. 1883. + Sayce: Babylonians and Assyrians. 1889. + Goodspeed: History of the Babylonians and Assyrians. 1902. + Layard: Discoveries among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. 1875. + Maspero: Dawn of Civilisation. 1896. + Maspero: Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria. 1892. + Maspero: Struggle of the Nations. 1897. + Maspero: Passing of the Empires. 1899. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Chaldea and Assyria. 1884. + + +INDIA + +SOURCES-- + Sacred Books of the East. + +LITERATURE-- + Wheeler: Primer of Indian History. 1890. + Smith, V.A.: Early History of India. 1904. + Ragozin: Vedic India. 1895. + Davids: Buddhist India. 1903. + Rhys-Davids: Buddhism. 1899. + Lane-Poole: Mediæval India under Mohammedan Rule. 1903. + Monier-Williams: Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism. 1889. + Monier-Williams: Indian Wisdom. London: 1875-6. + Frazer: Literary History of India. 1898. + Maine: Early History of Institutions. 1875. + + +PERSIA + +SOURCES-- + Records of the Past. + Herodotus. + Church: Stories of the East (from Herodotus). 1883. + +LITERATURE-- + Benjamin: Persia. 1887. + Markham: General Sketch of the History of Persia. 1874. + Vaux: Persia from the Monuments. 1878. + Jackson: Zoroaster, Prophet of Ancient Iran. 1899. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Persia, Phrygia, etc. 1895. + + +THE PHOENICIANS + +SOURCES-- + The Old Testament. + Voyage of Hanno, translated by Falconer. + +LITERATURE-- + Rawlinson: Phoenicia. 1889. + Maspero: Struggle of the Nations. 1897. + Paton: Early History of Syria and Palestine. 1901. + Taylor: The Alphabet. 1899. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Phoenicia and Cyprus. 1885. + + +THE HEBREWS + +SOURCES-- + The Old Testament. + The Talmud. + Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews; Wars of the Jews; Whiston's + translation. 1825. New edition of Whiston by Shilleto. 1889-90 + +LITERATURE-- + Hosmer: The Jews. 1885. + Sayce: Early History of the Hebrews. 1897. + Kent: History of the Hebrew People. 1899. + Kent: History of the Jewish People. 1899. + Milman: History of the Jews. 1870. + Stanley: History of the Jewish Church. 1884. + McCurdy: History, Prophecy, and the Monuments. 1901. 3 V. + Graetz: History of the Jews. 1891-98. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Sardinia, Judea, Syria, and + Asia Minor. 1890. + Day: Social Life of the Hebrews. 1901. + Rosenau: Jewish Ceremonial Institutions and Customs. Baltimore. 1903. + Leroy-Boileau: Israel among the Nations; translated by Hellman. 1900. + Cheyne: Jewish Religious Life after the Exile. 1898. + + +GREECE + +GENERAL HISTORIES-- + Grote: History of Greece. 1851-6. + Holm: History of Greece. 1894-8. + Duruy: History of Greece. 1890-2. + Abbott: History of Greece. 1888-99. + One volume histories of Greece are: Bury. 1903; Oman 1901; Botsford. + 1899; Myers. 1895; Cox, 1883. + +GREEK ANTIQUITIES-- + Smith: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. 1890-1 2 v. + Gardner and Jevons: Manual of Greek Antiquities. 1895. + Schömann: The Antiquities of Greece. London, 1880. A new and improved + edition in the German. + Harpers' Classical Literature and Antiquities. 1896. + +GREEK HISTORICAL SOURCES (translated into English)-- + Homer: Iliad. Translated by Lang, Leaf, and Myers. + Homer: Odyssey. Translated by Butcher and Lang. + Herodotus: Translated by Rawlinson. + Text of same with abridged notes. 1897. + Herodotus: Translated by Macaulay. + Thucydides: Translated by Jowett. + Xenophon: Dakyns' edition. 1890-7. + Demosthenes: Works translated by Kennedy. + Arrian: Translated in Bonn Library. + Pausanias: Description of Greece. Frazer's edition. + Polybius: Shuckburgh's edition. 1889. + Plutarch: Lives. Translated by Stewart and Long. 4 v., 1880. + Plutarch: Lives. North's translation. + +PERIODS OF GREEK HISTORY-- + Tsountas-Manatt: Mycenæan Age. 1896. + Ridgeway: The Early Age in Greece. 1901. + Freeman: Studies of Travel: Greece. 1893. + Clerke: Familiar Studies in Homer. 1892. + Jebb: Introduction to Homer. 1887. + Allcroft and Mason: Early Grecian History. 1898. + Benjamin: Troy. 1880. + Allcroft and Mason: Making of Athens. 1898. + Cox: Greeks and Persians. 1876. + Grundy: The Great Persian War. 1901. + Cox: Athenian Empire. 1877. + Lloyd: Age of Pericles. 1875. + Abbott: Pericles. 1895. + Grant: Greece in the Age of Pericles. 1893. + Allcroft and Mason: Peloponnesian War. 1898. + Freeman: Sicily. 1892. + Allcroft and Mason: Sparta and Thebes. 1898. + Sankey: Spartan and Theban Supremacies. 1877. + Allcroft and Mason: Decline of Hellas. 1898. + Curteis: Rise of the Macedonian Empire. 1878. + Hogarth: Philip and Alexander. 1897. + Wheeler: Alexander the Great. 1900. + Mahaffy: Alexander's Empire. 1887. + Mahaffy: Problems in Greek History. 1892. + Bevan: House of Seleucus. 1902. + Mahaffy: Empire of Egypt under the Ptolemies. 1899. + Mahaffy: Greek Life and Thought. 1887. + +GREEK POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT-- + Fowler: City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 1893. + Greenidge: Greek Constitutional History. 1896. + Schömann: Antiquities of Greece. 1886. + Cox: Lives of Greek Statesmen. 1886. + Gilbert: Constitutional Antiquities of Athens and Sparta. 1895. + Botsford: Athenian Constitution. 1893 + Whibley: Greek Oligarchies. 1896. + Whibley: Political Parties in Athens in the Pelopponnesian War. 1889. + Freeman: History of Federal Government. 1863. + +SOCIAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS-- + Blümner: Home Life of the Ancient Greeks. 1893. + Mahaffy: Social Life in Greece. 1887. + Mahaffy: A Survey of Greek Civilisation. 1899. + Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans. 1877. + Becker: Charicles. + Cunningham: Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects 1898. + Davidson: Education of the Greek People. 1894. + Mahaffy: Old Greek Education. 1882. + +HISTORIES OF GREEK LITERATURE-- + Mahaffy: History of Classical Greek Literature. 1880. + Murray: Ancient Greek Literature. 1897. + Jevons: History of Greek Literature. 1886. + Jebb: Primer of Greek Literature. 1878. + Jebb: Classical Greek Poetry. + Symonds: The Greek Poets. + Jebb: The Attic Orators. 1876. + Pater: Greek Studies. 1895. + +HISTORIES OF ART-- + Reber: History of Ancient Art. 1882. + Lübke: Outlines of the History of Art. 1881. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Primitive Greece. 1895. + Tarbell: History of Greek Art. 1896. + Fergusson: History of Architecture. 1875. + Gardner: Handbook of Greek Sculpture. 1896-7. + Harrison and Verall: Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens. 1894. + Harrison: Introductory Studies in Greek Art. 1892. + Gardner: Ancient Athens. 1902. + +GREEK ARCHÆOLOGY-- + Collignon: Manual of Greek Archæology. 1886. + Murray: Handbook of Greek Archæology. 1892. + Schuckardt: Schliemann's Excavations. 1891. + Diehl: Excursions in Greece. 1893. + Gardner: New Chapters in Greek History. 1892. + +GREEK PHILOSOPHY-- + Mayor: Sketch of Ancient Philosophy. 1881. + Marshall: Short History of Greek Philosophy. 1891. + Plato: Translated by Jowett. + Aristotle: Translated in Bohn's Library. + Zeller: Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. 1890. + +GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY-- + Gayley: Classic Myths. 1893. + Guerber: Myths of Greece and Rome. 1893. + + +ROME + +GENERAL HISTORIES-- + Mommsen: History of Rome. + Ihne: History of Rome. 1871-82. + Duruy: History of Rome. 1884-5. + Long: Decline of the Roman Republic. 1864-74. + Greenidge: History of Rome during the Latin Republic. 1904. + Shuckburgh: History of Rome. 1894. + How and Leigh: History of Rome. 1896. + Pelham: Outlines of Roman History. 1893. + Botsford: History of Rome. 1903. + Merivale: History of the Romans under the Empire. 1875. + Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Bury's edition. + +SOURCES OF ROMAN HISTORY (translated into English)-- + Livy: History and Epitome, translated by Spillan. 1887-90. + Polybius: Histories, translated by Shuckburgh. 1889. + Plutarch: Lives, translated by Stewart and Long. 1880. + Appian: Roman History, translated by White. 1899. + Sallust, Florus, and Velleius Paterculus, translated by Watson. 1887. + Cicero: Orations, translated by Yonge. 1851-2. + Cicero: Letters, translated by Shuckburgh. 1899. + Cæsar: Gallic War and Civil War. + Justin, Nepos, and Eutropius, translated by Watson. + Suetonius: Lives of the Twelve Cæsars, translated by Thomas Forester. + 1898. + Tacitus: Annals, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1895. + Tacitus: History, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1894. + Tacitus: Germania, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1893. + Josephus: Antiquities and Wars of the Jews, translated by + Whiston-Shilleto. 1889-90. + Pliny the Younger: Letters, translated by Melmoth. + Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, translated by Long. + Ammianus Marcellinus: Roman History, translated by Yonge. 1894. + Julian the Emperor: Works, translated by King. 1888. + Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History and Life of Constantine translated + by McGiffert. 1890. + Jerome: Works. + Augustine: Works. + Munro: Source Book of Roman History. 1904. + Greenidge and Clay: Sources for Roman History B.C. 133-70. 1903. + Gwatkin: Selections from Early Christian Writers. 1893. + +PERIODS OF ROMAN HISTORY-- + Ihne: Early Rome. 1893. + Allcroft and Mason: Struggle for Empire. 1893 + Church: Carthage. 1886. + Smith: Carthage and the Carthaginians. 1890. + Smith: Rome and Carthage. 1891. + Arnold: Second Punic War. 1849. + Dodge: Life of Hannibal. 1891. + Morris: Hannibal. 1897. + How: Hannibal and the Great War between Rome and Carthage. 1899. + Allcroft and Mason: Rome under the Oligarchs. 1893. + Beesly: Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla. 1893. + Allcroft and Mason: Decline of the Oligarchy. 1893. + Oman: Seven Roman Statesmen. 1902. + Beesly: Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius. 1898. + Strachan-Davidson: Cicero. 1894. + Forsyth: Life of Cicero. 1877. + Boissier: Cicero and His Friends. 1897. + Froude: Cæsar. 1879. + Dodge: Cæsar. 1892. + Fowler: Cæsar. 1892. + Merivale: The Roman Triumvirates. 1877. + Holmes: Cæsar's Conquest of Gaul. 1899. + Mahaffy: Greek World under Roman Sway. 1890. + Bossier: Roman Africa. 1899. + Bossier: Rome and Pompeii. 1896. + Hall: The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhone. 1898. + Bury: (Students') Roman Empire. 1893. + Capes: Early Roman Empire. 1886. + Mommsen: Provinces of the Roman Empire. 1887. + Firth: Augustus Cæsar. 1903. + Shuckburgh: Augustus. 1903. + Tarver: Tiberius the Tyrant. 1902. + Dill: Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. 1904. + Gregorovius: The Emperor Hadrian. 1898. + Bryant: Reign of Antoninus. 1896. + Capes: Age of the Antonines. 1887. + Watson: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 1884. + Firth: Constantine the Great. 1905. + Negri: Julian the Apostate. 1905. + Gardner: Julian. 1895. + Glover: Life and Letters in the Fourth Century. 1901. + Dill: Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. 1899. + Kingsley: Roman and Teuton. 1889. + Hodgkin: Dynasty of Theodosius. 1889. + Villari: Barbarian Invasions of Italy. 1902. + Hodgkin: Italy and Her Invaders, 1892-9. + Sheppard: Fall of Rome. 1861. + Bury: Later Roman Empire. 1889. + Oman: Byzantine Empire. 1892. + +ROMAN ANTIQUITIES-- + Ramsay-Lanciani: Manual of Roman Antiquities. 1895. + Smith: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Murray. 1890-1. + Sayffert: Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, edited by Nettleship + and Sandys. 1895. + Schreiber: Atlas of Classical Antiquities. 1895. + +ROMAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT-- + Fowler: City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 1895. + Taylor: Constitutional and Political History of Rome. 1899. + Greenidge: Roman Public Life. 1901. + Abbott: Roman Political Institutions. 1901. + Arnold: Roman Provincial Administration. 1879. + Mommsen: Provinces of the Roman Empire. 1887. + Seely: Roman Imperialism. 1871. + +SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMANS-- + Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans. 1889. + Church: Roman Life in the Days of Cicero. 1883. + Fowler: Roman Festivals. 1899. + Ingram: History of Slavery. 1895. + Rydberg: Roman Days. 1879. + Thomas: Roman Life under the Cæsars. 1899. + Johnston: Private Life of the Romans. 1903. + Inge: Society in Rome under the Cæsars. 1888. + Pellison: Roman Life in Pliny's Time. 1896. + Lecky: History of European Morals. 1869. + +ROMAN LITERATURE-- + Mackail: Latin Literature. 1898. + Cruttwell: History of Roman Literature. 1878. + Simcox: History of Latin Literature. 1883. + Teuffel-Schwabe: History of Roman Literature. 1891. + Tyrrell: Latin Poetry. 1895. + Sellar: Roman Poets of the Republic. 1881. + Sellar: Roman Poets of the Augustan Age. 1877. + +ROMAN ART-- + Reber: History of Ancient Art. 1882. + Burn: Roman Literature in Relation to Roman Art. 1890. + Wickoff: Roman Art. 1900. + Falke: Greece and Rome: Their Life and Art. 1885. + See under Greece for other histories of art. + +ROMAN LAW-- + Hadley: Introduction to Roman Law. 1876. + Morey: Outlines of Roman Law. 1893. + Muirhead: Historical Introduction to the Private Law of Rome. 1899. + Howe: Studies in the Civil Law. 1896. + +ROMAN ARCHÆOLOGY-- + Lanciani: Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries. 1888. + Lanciani: Pagan and Christian Rome. 1896. + Lanciani: Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, 1897. + Lanciani: Destruction of Ancient Rome. 1899. + Mau: Pompeii, translated by Kelsey. 1899. + Plainer: Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome. 1904. + Lovell: Stories in Stone upon the Roman Forum. 1902. + Burton-Brown: Recent Excavations in the Roman Forum. 1905. + +CHRISTIANITY-- + General Church Histories: + Moeller: History of the Christian Church. 1898-1900. + Gieseler: Church History. 1857-79. + Neander: History of the Christian Religion and Church. 1853-4. + Schaff: History of the Christian Church. 1884-92. + Alzog: Manual of Universal Church History. 1874-8. + Kurtz: Church History. 1860. + Milman: History of Christianity. + Milman: Latin Christianity. 1881. + Allen: Outline of Christian History. 1886. + Allen: Christian Institutions. 1897. + Fisher: History of the Christian Church. 1887. + + The Early Church: + Pressensé: Early Years of Christianity. 1873. + Fisher: Beginnings of Christianity. 1877. + Carr: Church and the Roman Empire. 1902. + Spence: Early Christianity and Paganism. 1902. + Ramsay: Church in the Roman Empire before 170. 1893. + Gregg: Decian Persecution. 1898. + Healy: The Valerian Persecution. 1905. + Mason: Persecution of Diocletian. 1876. + Renan: Influence of the Institutions, Thought, and Culture of Rome + on Christianity. 1898. + Hardy: Studies in Roman History. 1906. + Uhlhorn: Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism. 1879. + Newman: Arians of the Fourth Century. 1888. + Gwatkin: Arian Controversy 1889. + Cutts: St. Augustine. 1881. + Stanley: Eastern Church. 1884. + Smith-Wace: Dictionary of Christian Biography. 1877-87. + +COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + + +Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History Of Ancient Civilization + +Author: Charles Seignobos + +Release Date: February 9, 2006 [EBook #17720] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h1>HISTORY OF<br /> +ANCIENT CIVILIZATION</h1> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h3>BY</h3> +<br /> +<h2>CHARLES SEIGNOBOS</h2> +<h6>DOCTOR OF LETTERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS</h6> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h5>LONDON<br /> +T. FISHER UNWIN<br /> +ADELPHI TERRACE<br /> +MCMVII</h5> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h4>(<i>All rights reserved</i>)</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span><br /> +<h3>EDITOR'S NOTE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>In preparing this volume, the Editor has used both the three-volume +edition and the two-volume edition of the "Histoire de la +Civilisation." He has usually preferred the order of topics of the +two-volume edition, but has supplemented the material therein with +other matter drawn from the three-volume edition.</p> + +<p>A few corrections to the text have been given in foot-notes. These +notes are always clearly distinguished from the elucidations of the +author.</p> + +<p class="right">A.H.W.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + + + + +<div style="margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%;"> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Prehistoric Times.</span> Prehistoric archæology — Prehistoric + remains; their antiquity — Prehistoric science — The four ages.</p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">The Rough Stone Age.</span> Remains found in the gravels — The +cave-men.</p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">The Polished Stone Age</span>. Lake-villages — Megalithic +monuments.</p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">The Bronze Age</span>. Bronze — Bronze objects.</p> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">The Iron Age</span>. Iron — Iron weapons — Epochs of the Iron Age.</p> + +<p class="noin">Conclusions: How the four ages are to be conceived; uncertainties; +solved questions.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">History and the Documents</span>. History — Legends — History in +general — Great divisions of history — Ancient history — Modern +history — The Middle Ages.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Sources for the History of Ancient Civilizations.</span> +Books — Monuments — Inscriptions — Languages — Lacunæ.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Races and Peoples</span>. Anthropology — The races — Civilized +peoples — Aryans and Semites.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Egyptians</span>. Egypt — The country — The Nile — Fertility of the +soil — The accounts of Herodotus — Champollion — Egyptologists — Discoveries.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Egyptian Empire</span>. Antiquity of the Egyptian people — Memphis +and the pyramids — Egyptian civilization — Thebes — The +Pharaoh — The subjects — Despotism — Isolation of the Egyptians.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Religion of the Egyptians</span>. The gods — Osiris — Ammon-râ — Gods +with animal heads — Sacred animals — The bull Apis — Worship of the +dead — Judgment of the soul — Mummies — Book of the Dead — The +arts — Industry — Architecture— Tombs— Temples— Sculpture— Painting— +Literature — Destinies of the Egyptian civilization.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Assyrians and Babylonians</span>. Chaldea — The land — The +people — The cities.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Assyrians</span> — Assyria — Origins — Ancient accounts — Modern +discoveries — Inscriptions on bricks — Cuneiform writing — The +Assyrian people — The king — Fall of the Assyrian Empire.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Babylonians</span>. The second Chaldean empire — Babylon — The +Tower of Babylon.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Customs and Religion</span>. Customs — Religion — The gods — Astrology — +Sorcery — The sciences.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Arts</span>. Architecture — Palaces — Sculpture.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Aryans of India</span>. The Aryans — Aryan languages — The Aryan +people.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Primitive Religion of the Hindoos</span>. The Aryans on the +Indus — The Vedas — The gods — Indra — Agni — The cult — Worship +of ancestors.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Brahmanic Society</span>. The Hindoos on the Ganges — Castes — The +Impure — The Brahmans — The new religion of Brahma — Transmigration +of souls — Character of this religion — The rites — Purity — Penances — +The monks.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Buddhism</span>. Buddha — Nirvana — Charity — Fraternity — Tolerance — +Later history of Buddhism — Changes in Buddhism — Buddha transformed +into a god — Mechanical prayer — Amelioration of manners.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Persians</span>. The religion of Zoroaster — Iran — The Iranians — +Zoroaster — The Zend-Avesta — Ormuzd and Ahriman — Angels and demons — +Creatures of Ormuzd and Ahriman — The cult — Morality — Funerals — +Destiny of the soul — Character of Mazdeism.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Persian Empire</span>. The Medes — The Persians — Cyrus — The +inscription of Behistun — The Persian empire — The satrapies — +Revenues of the empire — The Great King — Services rendered by the +Persians — Susa and Persepolis — Persian architecture.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Phœnicians</span>. The Phœnician people — The land — The cities — +Phœnician ruins — Organization of the Phœnician — Tyre — Carthage — +Carthaginian army — The Carthaginians — The Phœnician religion.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Phœnician Commerce</span>. Occupations of the +Phœnicians — Caravans — Marine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> +commerce — Commodities — Secret kept by the Phœnicians — Colonies — +Influence of the Phœnicians — The alphabet.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Hebrews</span>. Origin of the Hebrew people — The Bible — The +Hebrews — The patriarchs — The Israelites — The call of +Moses — Israel in the desert — The Promised Land.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Religion of Israel</span>. One God — The people of God — The +covenant — The Ten Commandments — The Law — Religion +constituted the Jewish people.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Empire of Israel</span>. The Judges — The Hangs — Jerusalem — The +tabernacle — The temple.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Prophets</span>. Disasters of Israel — Sentiments of the +Israelites — The prophets — The new teaching — The Messiah.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Jewish People</span>. Return to Jerusalem — The Jews — The +synagogues — Destruction of the temple — The Jews after the dispersion.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Greece and the Greeks</span>. The country — The sea — The +climate — Simplicity of Greek life — The people — Origin of the +Greeks — Legends — The Trojan War — The Homeric Poems — The +Greeks at the time of Homer — The Dorians — The Ionians — The +Hellenes — The cities.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Hellenes Beyond the Sea</span>. Colonization — Character of +the colonies — Traditions touching the colonies — Importance +of the Greek colonies.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Greek Religion</span>. The gods — Polytheism — Anthropomorphism — Mythology — Local +gods — The great gods — Attributes of the gods — Olympus and Zeus — Morality of the Greek +mythology.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Heroes</span>. Various sorts of heroes — Presence of the +heroes — Intervention of the heroes.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Worship</span>. Principle of the cult of the gods — The great Feasts — the +sacred games — Omens — Oracles — Amphictyonies.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Sparta</span>. The People — Laconia — The Helots — The +Periœci — Condition of the Spartiates.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Education</span>. The children — The girls — The +discipline — Laconism — Music — The dance — Heroism of the women.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> +<span class="sc">Institutions</span>. The kings and the council — The ephors — The +army — The hoplites — The phalanx — Gymnastics — Athletes — Rôle +of the Spartiates.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Athens</span>. Origins of the Athenian people — Attica — Athens — The +revolutions in Athens — Reforms of Cleisthenes.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Athenian People</span>. The slaves — The foreigners — The +citizens.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Government</span>. The assembly — The courts — The magistrates — Character +of the government — The demagogues.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Private Life</span>. Children — Marriage — Women.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Wars</span>. The Persian wars — Origin of these wars — Comparison +of the two adversaries — First Persian war — Second Persian +war — Reasons for the victory of the Greeks — Results of the wars.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Wars of the Greeks among Themselves</span>. The Peloponnesian +war — War with Sparta — Savage character of the wars — Effects of these wars.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Arts in Greece</span>. Athens in the time of Pericles — Pericles — Athens +and her monuments — Importance of Athens.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Letters</span>. Orators — Sages — Sophists — Socrates and the +philosophers — The chorus — Tragedy and comedy — Theatre.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Arts</span>. The Grecian temples — Characteristics of Grecian +architecture — Sculpture — Pottery — Painting.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Greeks in the Orient</span>. Asia before Alexander — Decadence +of the Persian empire — Expedition of the Ten Thousand — Agesilaus.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Conquest of Asia by Alexander</span>. Macedon — Philip — Demosthenes — The +Macedonian supremacy — Alexander — The phalanx — Departure of Alexander — Victories of Granicus, Issus, +and Arbela — Death of Alexander — Projects of Alexander.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Hellenes In The Orient</span>. Dismemberment of the empire +of Alexander — The Hellenistic kingdoms — Alexandria — Museum — Pergamum.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Later Period of Greek History</span>. Decadence of the cities — Rich +and poor — Strife between rich and poor — Democracy and oligarchy — The tyrants — Exhaustion of Greece.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Roman Conquest</span>. The leagues — The allies of the Romans — The +last struggles.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Hellenes in the Occident</span>. Influence of Greece on +Rome — Architecture — Sculpture — Literature — Epicureans +and Stoics.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Ancient Peoples of Italy</span>. The Etruscans — Etruria — The +Etruscan people — The Etruscan tombs — Industry and +commerce — Religion — The augurs — Influence of the Etruscans.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Italian People</span>. Umbrians and Oscans — The Sacred +Spring — The Samnites — The Greeks of Italy.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Latins And Romans</span>. The Latins — Rome — Roma Quadrata +and the Capitol.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Religion and the Family</span>. Religion — The Roman gods — Form +of the gods — Principle of the Roman religion — Worship — Formalism — Prayer — Omens — The priests.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Worship of Ancestors</span>. The dead — Worship of the dead — Cult +of the hearth.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Family</span>. Religion of the family — Marriage — Women — Children — Father +of the family.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Roman City</span>. Formation of the Roman people — The +kings — The Roman people — The plebeians — Strife between patricians and plebeians — The +tribunes of the plebs — Triumph of the plebs.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Roman People</span>. Right of citizenship — The nobles — The +knights — The plebs — Freedmen.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Government of the Republic</span>. The +comitia — Magistrates — Censors — Senate — The course of offices.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Roman Conquest</span>. The Roman army — Military service — The +levy — Legions and allies — Military exercises — Camp — Order +of battle — Discipline — Colonies and military roads.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span> +<span class="sc">Character of the Conquests</span>. War — Conquest of Italy — Punic +wars — Hannibal — Conquest of the Orient — Conquest of barbarian lands — The +triumph — Booty — Allies of Rome — Motives of conquest.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Results of the Conquests</span>. Empire of the Roman people — The +public domain — Agrarian laws.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Conquered Peoples</span>. The provincials — Provinces — The +proconsuls — Tyranny and oppression of the proconsuls — The +publicans — Bankers — Defencelessness of the provincials.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Slavery</span>. Sale of slaves — Condition of slaves — Number of +slaves — Urban slaves — Rural slaves — Treatment of slaves — Ergastulum +and mill — Character of the slaves — Revolts — Admission to citizenship.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Transformation of Life in Rome</span>. Influence of Greece and +the Orient.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Changes in Religion</span>. Greek gods — The Bacchanals — Superstitions +of the Orient — Sceptics.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Changes in Manners</span>. The old customs — Cato the Elder — The +new manners — Oriental luxury — Greek humanity — Lucullus — The new education — New +status of women — Divorce.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Fall of the Republic</span>. Causes of the decadence — Destruction +of the peasant class — The city plebs — Electoral corruption — Corruption of the Senate — Corruption +of the army.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Revolution</span>. Necessity of the revolution — Civil wars — The +Gracchi — Marius and Sulla — Pompey and Cæsar — End of the Republic — Need of +peace — Power of the individual.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Empire at its Height</span>. The twelve Cæsars — The +emperor — Apotheosis — Senate and people — The +prætorians — Freedmen of the emperors — Despotism and disorder.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Century of the Antonines</span>. Marcus Aurelius — Conquests +of the Antonines.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Imperial Institutions</span>. Extent of the empire in the second +century — Permanent army — Deputies and agents of the emperor — Municipal +life — Imperial regime.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span><span class="sc">Social Life Under the Empire</span>. The continued decadence at +Rome — The shows — Theatre — Circus — Amphitheatre — Gladiators — The +Roman peace — Fusion of the peoples — Superstitions.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Arts and Sciences in Rome</span>. Letters — Imitation of the +Greeks — The Augustan Age — Orators and rhetoricians — Importance of the Latin literature and +language — Arts — Sculpture and painting — Architecture — Characteristics of Roman +architecture — Rome and its monuments.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Roman Law</span>. The Twelve Tables — Symbolic +process — Formalism — Jurisprudence — The prætor's edict — Civil law +and the law of nations — Written reason.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Christian Religion</span>. Origin of +Christianity — Christ — Charity — Equality — Poverty and humility — The kingdom of God.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">First Centuries of the Church</span>. Disciples and +apostles — The church — Sacred books — Persecutions — Martyrs — Catacombs.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Monks of the Third Century</span>. Solitaries — Asceticism — Cenobites.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="cen"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</a></p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">The Later Empire</span>. The revolutions of the third +century — Military anarchy — Worship of Mithra — Taurobolia — Confusion of religions.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Regime of the Later Empire</span>. Reforms of Diocletian and +Constantine — Constantinople — The palace — The officials — Society of the later empire.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="sc">Church and State</span>. Triumph of Christianity — Organization of +the church — Councils — Heretics — Paganism — Theodosius.</p> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>PREHISTORIC ARCHÆOLOGY</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Prehistoric Remains.</b>—One often finds buried in the earth, weapons, +implements, human skeletons, débris of every kind left by men of whom +we have no direct knowledge. These are dug up by the thousand in all +the provinces of France, in Switzerland, in England, in all Europe; +they are found even in Asia and Africa. It is probable that they exist +in all parts of the world.</p> + +<p>These remains are called prehistoric because they are more ancient +than written history. For about fifty years men have been engaged in +recovering and studying them. Today most museums have a hall, or at +least, some cases filled with these relics. A museum at +Saint-German-en-Laye, near Paris, is entirely given up to prehistoric +remains. In Denmark is a collection of more than 30,000 objects. Every +day adds to the discoveries as excavations are made, houses built, and +cuts made for railroads.</p> + +<p>These objects are not found on the surface of the ground, but +ordinarily buried deeply where the earth has not been disturbed. They +are recovered from a stratum of gravel or clay which has been +deposited gradually and has fixed them in place safe from the air, a +sure proof that they have been there for a long time.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +<b>Prehistoric Science.</b>—Scholars have examined the débris and have +asked themselves what men have left them. From their skeletons, they +have tried to construct their physical appearance; from their tools, +the kind of life they led. They have determined that these instruments +resemble those used by certain savages today. The study of all these +objects constitutes a new science, Prehistoric +Archæology.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p><b>The Four Ages.</b>—Prehistoric remains come down to us from very +diverse races of men; they have been deposited in the soil at widely +different epochs since the time when the mammoth lived in western +Europe, a sort of gigantic elephant with woolly hide and curved tusks. +This long lapse of time may be divided into four periods, called Ages:</p> + +<div class="block"><p class="noin">1. The Rough Stone Age.<br /> +2. The Polished Stone Age.<br /> +3. The Bronze Age.<br /> +4. The Iron Age.</p> +</div> + +<p>The periods take their names from the materials used in the +manufacture of the tools,—stone, bronze, iron. These epochs, however, +are of very unequal length. It may be that the Rough Stone Age was ten +times as long as the Age of Iron.</p> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE ROUGH STONE AGE</h4> + +<p><b>Gravel Débris.</b>—The oldest remains of the Stone Age have been found +in the gravels. A French scholar found between 1841 and 1853, in the +valley of the Somme, certain sharp instruments made of flint. They +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>were buried to a depth of six metres in gravel under three layers of +clay, gravel, and marl which had never been broken up. In the same +place they discovered bones of cattle, deer, and elephants. For a long +time people made light of this discovery. They said that the chipping +of the flints was due to chance. At last, in 1860, several scholars +came to study the remains in the valley of the Somme and recognized +that the flints had certainly been cut by men. Since then there have +been found more than 5,000 similar flints in strata of the same order +either in the valley of the Seine or in England, and some of them by +the side of human bones. There is no longer any doubt that men were +living at the epoch when the gravel strata were in process of +formation. If the strata that cover these remains have always been +deposited as slowly as they are today, these men whose bones and tools +we unearth must have lived more than 200,000 years ago.</p> + +<p><b>The Cave Men.</b>—Remains are also found in caverns cut in rock, often +above a river. The most noted are those on the banks of the Vézère, +but they exist in many other places. Sometimes they have been used as +habitations and even as graves for men. Skeletons, weapons, and tools +are found here together. There are axes, knives, scrapers, +lance-points of flint; arrows, harpoon-points, needles of bone like +those used by certain savages to this day. The soil is strewn with the +bones of animals which these men, untidy like all savages, threw into +a corner after they had eaten the meat; they even split the bones to +extract the marrow just as savages do now. Among the animals are found +not only the hare, the deer, the ox, the horse, the salmon, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>but also +the rhinoceros, the cave-bear, the mammoth, the elk, the bison, the +reindeer, which are all extinct or have long disappeared from France. +Some designs have been discovered engraved on the bone of a reindeer +or on the tusk of a mammoth. One of these represents a combat of +reindeer; another a mammoth with woolly hide and curved tusks. +Doubtless these men were the contemporaries of the mammoth and the +reindeer. They were, like the Esquimaux of our day, a race of hunters +and fishermen, knowing how to work in flint and to kindle fires.</p> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>POLISHED STONE AGE</h4> + +<p><b>Lake Dwellings.</b>—In 1854, Lake Zurich being very low on account of +the unusual dryness of the summer, dwellers on the shore of the lake +found, in the mud, wooden piles which had been much eaten away, also +some rude utensils. These were the remains of an ancient village built +over the water. Since this time more than 200 similar villages have +been found in the lakes of Switzerland. They have been called Lake +Villages. The piles on which they rest are trunks of trees, pointed +and driven into the lake-bottom to a depth of several yards. Every +village required 30,000 to 40,000 of these.</p> + +<p>A wooden platform was supported by the pile work and on this were +built wooden houses covered with turf. Objects found by the hundred +among the piles reveal the character of the life of the former +inhabitants. They ate animals killed in the chase—the deer, the boar, +and the elk. But they were already acquainted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>with such domestic +animals as the ox, the goat, the sheep, and the dog. They knew how to +till the ground, to reap, and to grind their grain; for in the ruins +of their villages are to be found grains of wheat and even fragments +of bread, or rather unleavend cakes. They wore coarse cloths of hemp +and sewed them into garments with needles of bone. They made pottery +but were very awkward in its manufacture. Their vases were poorly +burned, turned by hand, and adorned with but few lines. Like the +cave-men, they used knives and arrows of flint; but they made their +axes of a very hard stone which they had learned to polish. This is +why we call their epoch the Polished Stone Age. They are much later +than the cave-men, for they know neither the mammoth nor the +rhinoceros, but still are acquainted with the elk and the reindeer.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p><b>Megalithic Monuments.</b>—Megalith is the name given to a monument +formed of enormous blocks of rough stone. Sometimes the rock is bare, +sometimes covered with a mass of earth. The buried monument is called +a <i>Tumulus</i> on account of its resemblance to a hill. When it is +opened, one finds within a chamber of rock, sometimes paved with +flag-stones. The monuments whose stone is above ground are of various +sorts. The <i>Dolmen</i>, or table of rock, is formed of a long stone laid +flat over other stones set in the ground. The <i>Cromlech</i>, or +stone-circle, consists of massive rocks arranged in a circle. The +<i>Menhir</i> is a block of stone standing on its end. Frequently several +menhirs are ranged in line. At Carnac in Brittany four thousand +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>menhirs in eleven rows are still standing. Probably there were once +ten thousand of these in this locality. Megalithic monuments appear by +hundreds in western France, especially in Brittany; almost every hill +in England has them; the Orkney Islands alone contain more than two +thousand. Denmark and North Germany are studded with them; the people +of the country call the tumuli the tombs of the giants.</p> + +<p>Megalithic monuments are encountered outside of Europe—in India, and +on the African coast. No one knows what people possessed the power to +quarry such masses and then transport and erect them. For a long time +it was believed that the people were the ancient Gauls, or Celts, +whence the name Celtic Monuments. But why are like remains found in +Africa and in India?</p> + +<p>When one of these tumuli still intact is opened, one always sees a +skeleton, often several, either sitting or reclining; these monuments, +therefore, were used as tombs. Arms, vases, and ornaments are placed +at the side of the dead. In the oldest of these tombs the weapons are +axes of polished stone; the ornaments are shells, pearls, necklaces of +bone or ivory; the vases are very simple, without handle or neck, +decorated only with lines or with points. Calcined bones of animals +lie about on the ground, the relics of a funeral repast laid in the +tomb by the friends of the dead. Amidst these bones we no longer find +those of the reindeer, a fact which proves that these monuments were +constructed after the disappearance of this animal from western +Europe, and therefore at a time subsequent to that of the lake +villages.</p> +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span><br /> +<h4>THE AGE OF BRONZE</h4> + +<p><b>Bronze Age.</b>—As soon as men learned to smelt metals, they preferred +these to stone in the manufacture of weapons. The metal first to be +used was copper, easier to extract because found free, and easier to +manipulate since it is malleable without the application of heat. Pure +copper, however, was not employed, as weapons made of it were too +fragile; but a little tin was mixed with it to give it more +resistance. It is this alloy of copper and tin that we call bronze.</p> + +<p><b>Bronze Utensils.</b>—Bronze was used in the manufacture of ordinary +tools—knives, hammers, saws, needles, fish-hooks; in the fabrication +of ornaments—bracelets, brooches, ear-rings; and especially in the +making of arms—daggers, lance-points, axes, and swords. These objects +are found by thousands throughout Europe in the mounds, under the more +recent dolmens, in the turf-pits of Denmark, and in rock-tombs. Near +these objects of bronze, ornaments of gold are often seen and, now and +then, the remains of a woollen garment. It cannot be due to chance +that all implements of bronze are similar and all are made according +to the same alloy. Doubtless they revert to the same period of time +and are anterior to the coming of the Romans into Gaul, for they are +never discovered in the midst of débris of the Roman period. But what +men used them? What people invented bronze? Nobody knows.</p> +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +<h4>THE IRON AGE</h4> + +<p><b>Iron.</b>—As iron was harder to smelt and work than bronze, it was +later that men learned how to use it. As soon as it was appreciated +that iron was harder and cut better than bronze, men preferred it in +the manufacture of arms. In Homer's time iron is still a precious +metal reserved for swords, bronze being retained for other purposes. +It is for this reason that many tombs contain confused remains of +utensils of bronze and weapons of iron.</p> + +<p><b>Iron Weapons.</b>—These arms are axes, swords, daggers, and bucklers. +They are ordinarily found by the side of a skeleton in a coffin of +stone or wood, for warriors had their arms buried with them. But they +are found also scattered on ancient battle-fields or lost at the +bottom of a marsh which later became a turf-pit. There were found in a +turf-pit in Schleswig in one day 100 swords, 500 lances, 30 axes, 460 +daggers, 80 knives, 40 stilettos—and all of iron. Not far from there +in the bed of an ancient lake was discovered a great boat 66 feet +long, fully equipped with axes, swords, lances, and knives.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to enumerate the iron implements thus found. They +have not been so well preserved as the bronze, as iron is rapidly +eaten away by rust. At the first glance, therefore, they appear the +older, but in reality are more recent.</p> + +<p><b>Epoch of the Iron Age.</b>—The inhabitants of northern Europe knew iron +before the coming of the Romans, the first century before Christ. In +an old cemetery <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>near the salt mines of Hallstadt in Austria they have +opened 980 tombs filled with instruments of iron and bronze without +finding a single piece of Roman money. But the Iron Age continued +under the Romans. Almost always iron objects are found accompanied by +ornaments of gold and silver, by Roman pottery, funeral urns, +inscriptions, and Roman coins bearing the effigy of the emperor. The +warriors whom we find lying near their sword and their buckler lived +for the most part in a period quite close to ours, many under the +Merovingians, some even at the time of Charlemagne. The Iron Age is no +longer a prehistoric age.</p> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>CONCLUSIONS</h4> + +<p><b>How the Four Ages are to be Conceived.</b>—The inhabitants of one and +the same country have successively made use of rough stone, polished +stone, bronze, and iron. But all countries have not lived in the same +age at the same time. Iron was employed by the Egyptians while yet the +Greeks were in their bronze age and the barbarians of Denmark were +using stone. The conclusion of the polished stone age in America came +only with the arrival of Europeans. In our own time the savages of +Australia are still in the rough stone age. In their settlements may +be found only implements of bone and stone similar to those used by +the cave-men. The four ages, therefore, do not mark periods in the +life of humanity, but only epochs in the civilization of each country.</p> + +<p><b>Uncertainties.</b>—Prehistoric archæology is yet a very young science. +We have learned something of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>primitive +men through certain remains +preserved and discovered by chance. A recent accident, a trench, a +landslip, a drought may effect a new discovery any day. Who knows what +is still under ground? The finds are already innumerable. But these +rarely tell us what we wish to know. How long was each of the four +ages? When did each begin and end in the various parts of the world? +Who planned the caverns, the lake villages, the mounds, the dolmens? +When a country passes from polished stone to bronze, is it the same +people changing implements, or is it a new people come on the scene? +When one thinks one has found the solution, a new discovery often +confounds the archæologists. It was thought that the Celts originated +the dolmens, but these have been found in sections which could never +have been traversed by Celts.</p> + +<p><b>What has been determined.</b>—Three conclusions, however, seem certain:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1.—Man has lived long on the earth, familiar as he was with the +mammoth and the cave-bear; he lived at least as early as the +geological period known as the Quaternary.</p> + +<p>2.—Man has emerged from the savage state to civilized life; he +has gradually perfected his tools and his ornaments from the +awkward axe of flint and the necklace of bears' teeth to iron +swords and jewels of gold. The roughest instruments are the +oldest.</p> + +<p>3.—Man has made more and more rapid progress. Each age has been +shorter than its predecessor.</p></div> +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"> [1]</a> It originated especially with French, Swiss, and +scholars.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"> [2]</a> According to Lubbock (Prehistoric Times, N.Y., 1890, p. +212) the reindeer was not known to the Second Stone Age.—ED.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>HISTORY AND THE RECORDS</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>HISTORY</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Legends.</b>—The most ancient records of people and their doings are +transmitted by oral tradition. They are recited long before they are +written down and are much mixed with fable. The Greeks told how their +heroes of the oldest times had exterminated monsters, fought with +giants, and battled against the gods. The Romans had Romulus nourished +by a wolf and raised to heaven. Almost all peoples relate such stories +of their infancy. But no confidence is to be placed in these legends.</p> + +<p><b>History.</b>—History has its true beginning only with authentic +accounts, that is to say, accounts written by men who were well +informed. This moment is not the same with all peoples. The history of +Egypt commences more than 3,000 years before Christ; that of the +Greeks ascends scarcely to 800 years before Christ; Germany has had a +history only since the first century of our era; Russia dates back +only to the ninth century; certain savage tribes even yet have no +history.</p> + +<p><b>Great Divisions of History.</b>—The history of civilization begins with +the oldest civilized people and continues to the present time. +Antiquity is the most remote period, Modern Times the era in which we +live.</p> + +<p><b>Ancient History.</b>—Ancient History begins with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>oldest known +nations, the Egyptians and Chaldeans (about 3,000 years before our +era), and surveys the peoples of the Orient, the Hindoos, Persians, +Phœnicians, Jews, Greeks, and last of all the Romans. It terminates +about the fifth century A.D., when the Roman empire of the west is +extinguished.</p> + +<p><b>Modern History.</b>—Modern History starts with the end of the fifteenth +century, with the invention of printing, the discovery of America and +of the Indies, the Renaissance of the sciences and arts. It concerns +itself especially with peoples of the West, of Spain, Italy, France, +Germany, Russia, and America.</p> + +<p><b>The Middle Age.</b>—Between Antiquity and Modern Times about ten +centuries elapse which belong neither to ancient times (for the +civilization of Antiquity has perished) nor to modern (since modern +civilization does not yet exist). This period we call the Middle Age.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PEOPLES</h4> + +<p><b>The Sources.</b>—The Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans are no longer with +us; all the peoples of antiquity have passed away. To know their +religion, their customs, and arts we have to seek for instruction in +the remains they have left us. These are books, monuments, +inscriptions, and languages, and these are our means for the study of +ancient civilizations. We term these <i>sources</i> because we draw our +knowledge from them. Ancient History flows from these sources.</p> + +<p><b>Books.</b>—Ancient peoples have left written records <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>behind them. Some +of these peoples had sacred books—for example, the Hindoos, the +Persians, and the Jews; the Greeks and Romans have handed down to us +histories, poems, speeches, philosophical treatises. But books are +very far from furnishing all the information that we require. We do +not possess a single Assyrian or Phœnician book. Other peoples have +transmitted very few books to us. The ancients wrote less than we, and +so they had a smaller literature to leave behind them; and as it was +necessary to transcribe all of this by hand, there was but a small +number of copies of books. Further, most of these manuscripts have +been destroyed or have been lost, and those which remain to us are +difficult to read. The art of deciphering them is called Palæography.</p> + +<p><b>The Monuments.</b>—Ancient peoples, like ourselves, built monuments of +different sorts: palaces for their kings, tombs for the dead, +fortresses, bridges, aqueducts, triumphal arches. Of these monuments +many have fallen into ruin, have been razed, shattered by the enemy or +by the people themselves. But some of them survive, either because +there was no desire to destroy them, or because men could not. They +still stand in ruins like the old castles, for repairs are no longer +made; but enough is preserved to enable us to comprehend their former +condition. Some of them are still above ground, like the pyramids, the +temples of Thebes and of the island of Philæ, the palace of Persepolis +in Persia, the Parthenon in Greece, the Colosseum in Rome, and the +Maison Carrée and Pont du Gard in France. Like any modern monument, +these are visible to the traveller. But the majority of these +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>monuments have been recovered from the earth, from sand, from river +deposits, and from débris. One must disengage them from this thick +covering, and excavate the soil, often to a great depth. Assyrian +palaces may be reached only by cutting into the hills. A trench of +forty feet is necessary to penetrate to the tombs of the kings of +Mycenæ. Time is not the only agency for covering these ruins; men have +aided it. When the ancients wished to build, they did not, as we do, +take the trouble to level off the space, nor to clear the site. +Instead of removing the débris, they heaped it together and built +above it. The new edifice in turn fell into ruins and its débris was +added to that of more remote time; thus there were formed several +strata of remains. When Schliemann excavated the site of Troy, he had +passed through five beds of débris; these were five ruined villages +one above another, the oldest at a depth of fifty feet.</p> + +<p>By accident one town has been preserved to us in its entirety. In 79 +A.D. the volcano of Vesuvius belched forth a torrent of liquid lava +and a rain of ashes, and two Roman cities were suddenly buried, +Herculaneum by lava, and Pompeii by ashes; the lava burnt the objects +it touched, while the ashes enveloped them, preserving them from the +air and keeping them intact. As we remove the ashes, Pompeii reappears +to us just as it was eighteen centuries ago. One still sees the +wheel-ruts in the pavement, the designs traced on the walls with +charcoal; in the houses, the pictures, the utensils, the furniture, +even the bread, the nuts, and olives, and here and there the skeleton +of an inhabitant surprised by the catastrophe. Monuments teach us +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>much about the ancient peoples. The science of monuments is called +Archæology.</p> + +<p><b>Inscriptions.</b>—By inscriptions one means all writings other than +books. Inscriptions are for the most part cut in stone, but some are +on plates of bronze. At Pompeii they have been found traced on the +walls in colors or with charcoal. Some have the character of +commemorative inscriptions just as these are now attached to our +statues and edifices; thus in the monument of Ancyra the emperor +Augustus publishes the story of his life.</p> + +<p>The greatest number of inscriptions are epitaphs graven on tombs. +Certain others fill the function of our placards, containing, as they +do, a law or a regulation that was to be made public. The science of +inscriptions is called Epigraphy.</p> + +<p><b>Languages.</b>—The languages also which ancient peoples spoke throw +light on their history. Comparing the words of two different +languages, we perceive that the two have a common origin—an evidence +that the peoples who spoke them were descended from the same stock. +The science of languages is called Linguistics.</p> + +<p><b>Lacunæ.</b>—It is not to be supposed that books, monuments, +inscriptions, and languages are sufficient to give complete knowledge +of the history of antiquity. They present many details which we could +well afford to lose, but often what we care most to know escapes us. +Scholars continue to dig and to decipher; each year new discoveries of +inscriptions and monuments are made; but there remain still many gaps +in our knowledge and probably some of these will always exist.</p> +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +<h4>RACES AND PEOPLES</h4> + +<p><b>Anthropology.</b>—The men who people the earth do not possess exact +resemblances, some differing from others in stature, the form of the +limbs and the head, the features of the face, the color of the hair and +eyes. Other differences are found in language, intelligence, and +sentiments. These variations permit us to separate the inhabitants of +the earth into several groups which we call races. A <i>race</i> is the +aggregate of those men who resemble one another and are distinguished from +all others. The common traits of a race—its characteristics—constitute +the type of the race. For example, the type of the negro race is marked +by black skin, frizzly hair, white teeth, flat nose, projecting lips, and +prominent jaw. That part of Anthropology which concerns itself with races +and their sub-divisions is called Ethnology.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> This science is yet in +its early development on account of its complete novelty, and is very +complex since types of men are very numerous and often very difficult to +differentiate.</p> + +<p><b>The Races.</b>—The principal races are:</p> + +<div class="block"><p class="noin">1.—The White race, which inhabits Europe, the north of Africa, +and western Asia.</p> + +<p class="noin">2.—The Yellow race in eastern Asia to which belong the Chinese, +the Mongols, Turks, and Hungarians, who invaded Europe as +conquerors. They have yellow skin, small regular eyes, prominent +cheek-bones, and thin beard.</p> + +<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>3.—The Black race, in central Africa. These are the Negroes, of +black skin, flat nose, woolly hair.</p> + +<p class="noin">4.—The Red race, in America. These are the Indians, with +copper-colored skin and flat heads.</p></div> + +<p><b>Civilized Peoples.</b>—Almost all civilized peoples belong to the white +race. The peoples of the other races have remained savage or +barbarian, like the men of prehistoric times.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p>It is within the limits of Asia and Africa that the first civilized +peoples had their development—the Egyptians in the Nile valley, the +Chaldeans in the plain of the Euphrates. They were peoples of +sedentary and peaceful pursuits. Their skin was dark, the hair short +and thick, the lips strong. Nobody knows their origin with exactness +and scholars are not agreed on the name to give them (some terming +them Cushites, others Hamites). Later, between the twentieth and +twenty-fifth centuries B.C. came bands of martial shepherds who had +spread over all Europe and the west of Asia—the Aryans and the +Semites.</p> + +<p><b>The Aryans and the Semites.</b>—There is no clearly marked external +difference between the Aryans and the Semites. Both are of the white +race, having the oval face, regular features, clear skin, abundant +hair, large eyes, thin lips, and straight nose. Both peoples were +originally nomad shepherds, fond of war. We do not know whence they +came, nor is there agreement whether the Aryans came from the mountain +region <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>in the northwest of the Himalayas or from the plains of +Russia. What distinguishes them is their spiritual bent and especially +their language, sometimes also their religion. Scholars by common +consent call those peoples Aryan who speak an Aryan language: in Asia, +the Hindoos and Persians; in Europe, the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, +Germans, Scandinavians, Slavs (Russians, Poles, Serfs), and Celts.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>Similarly, we call Semites those peoples who speak a Semitic language: +Arabs, Jews and Syrians. But a people may speak an Aryan or a Semitic +language and yet not be of Aryan or Semitic race; a negro may speak +English without being of English stock. Many of the Europeans whom we +classify among the Aryans are perhaps the descendants of an ancient +race conquered by the Aryans and who have adopted their language, just +as the Egyptians received the language of the Arabs, their conquerors.</p> + +<p>These two names (Aryan and Semite), then, signify today rather two +groups of peoples than two distinct races. But even if we use the +terms in this sense, one may say that all the greater peoples of the +world have been Semites or Aryans. The Semitic family included the +Phœnicians, the people of commerce; the Jews, the people of religion; +the Arabs, the people of war. The Aryans, some finding their homes in +India, others in Europe, have produced the nations which have been, +and still are, foremost in the world—in antiquity, the Hindoos, a +people of great philosophical and religious ideas; the Greeks, +creators of art and of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>science; the Persians and Romans, the +founders, the former in the East, the latter in the West, of the +greatest empires of antiquity; in modern times, the Italians, French, +Germans, Dutch, Russians, English and Americans.</p> + +<p>The history of civilization begins with the Egyptians and the +Chaldeans; but from the fifteenth century before our era, history +concerns itself only with the Aryan and Semitic peoples.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a> +<a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"> [3]</a> Ethnography is the study of races from the point of view +of their objects and customs.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"> [4]</a> The Chinese only of the yellow race have elaborated among +themselves an industry, a regular government, a polite society. But +placed at the extremity of Asia they have had no influence on other +civilized peoples. [The Japanese should be included.—ED.]</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"> [5]</a> The English and French are mixtures of Celtic and German +blood.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE EGYPTIANS</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Land of Egypt.</b>—Egypt is only the valley of the Nile, a narrow +strip of fertile soil stretching along both banks of the stream and +shut in by mountains on either side, somewhat over 700<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> miles in +length and 15 in width. Where the hills fall away, the Delta begins, a +vast plain cut by the arms of the Nile and by canals. As Herodotus +says, Egypt is wholly the gift of the Nile.</p> + +<p><b>The Nile.</b>—Every year at the summer solstice the Nile, swollen by +the melted snows of Abyssinia, overflows the parched soil of Egypt. It +rises to a height of twenty-six or twenty-seven feet, sometimes even +to thirty-three feet.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The whole country becomes a lake from which +the villages, built on eminences, emerge like little islands. The +water recedes in September; by December it has returned to its proper +channel. Everywhere has been left a fertile, alluvial bed which serves +the purpose of fertilization. On the softened earth the peasant sows +his crop with almost no labor. The Nile, then, brings both water and +soil to Egypt; if the river should fail, Egypt would revert, like the +land <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>on either side of it, to a desert of sterile sand where the rain +never falls. The Egyptians are conscious of their debt to their +stream. A song in its honor runs as follows: "Greeting to thee, O +Nile, who hast revealed thyself throughout the land, who comest in +peace to give life to Egypt. Does it rise? The land is filled with +joy, every heart exults, every being receives its food, every mouth is +full. It brings bounties that are full of delight, it creates all good +things, it makes the grass to spring up for the beasts."</p> + +<p><b>Fertility of the Country.</b>—Egypt is truly an oasis in the midst of +the desert of Africa. It produces in abundance wheat, beans, lentils, +and all leguminous foods; palms rear themselves in forests. On the +pastures irrigated by the Nile graze herds of cattle and goats, and +flocks of geese. With a territory hardly equal to that of Belgium, +Egypt still supports 5,500,000 inhabitants. No country in Europe is so +thickly populated, and Egypt in antiquity was more densely thronged +than it is today.</p> + +<p><b>The Accounts of Herodotus.</b>—Egypt was better known to the Greeks +than the rest of the Orient. Herodotus had visited it in the fifth +century B.C. He describes in his History the inundations of the Nile, +the manners, costume, and religion of the people; he recounts events +of their history and tales which his guides had told him. Diodorus and +Strabo also speak of Egypt. But all had seen the country in its +decadence and had no knowledge of the ancient Egyptians.</p> + +<p><b>Champollion.</b>—The French expedition to Egypt (1798-1801) opened the +country to scholars. They <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>made a close examination of the Pyramids +and ruins of Thebes, and collected drawings and inscriptions. But no +one could decipher the hieroglyphs, the Egyptian writing. It was an +erroneous impression that every sign in this writing must each +represent a word. In 1821 a French scholar, Champollion, experimented +with another system. An official had reported that there was an +inscription at Rosetta in three forms of writing—parallel with the +hieroglyphs was a translation in Greek. The name of King Ptolemy, was +surrounded with a cartouche.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Champollion succeeded in finding in +this name the letters P, T, O, L, M, I, S. Comparing these with other +names of kings similarly enclosed, he found the whole alphabet. He +then read the hieroglyphs and found that they were written in a +language like the Coptic, the language spoken in Egypt at the time of +the Romans, and which was already known to scholars.</p> + +<p><b>Egyptologists.</b>—Since Champollion, many scholars have travelled over +Egypt and have ransacked it thoroughly. We call these students +Egyptologists, and they are to be found in every country of Europe. A +French Egyptologist, Mariette (1821-1881), made some excavations for +the Viceroy of Egypt and created the museum of Boulak. France has +established in Cairo a school of Egyptology, directed by Maspero.</p> + +<p><b>Discoveries.</b>—Not every country yields such rich discoveries as does +Egypt. The Egyptians constructed their tombs like houses, and laid in +them objects of every kind for the use of the dead—furniture, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>garments, arms, and edibles. The whole country was filled with tombs +similarly furnished. Under this extraordinarily dry climate everything +has been preserved; objects come to light intact after a burial of +4,000 or 5,000 years. No people of antiquity have left so many traces +of themselves as the Egyptians; none is better known to us.</p> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE</h4> + +<p><b>Antiquity of the Egyptian People.</b>—An Egyptian priest said to +Herodotus, "You Greeks are only children." The Egyptians considered +themselves the oldest people of the world. Down to the Persian +conquest (520<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> B.C.) there were twenty-six dynasties of kings. The +first ran back 4,000 years,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and during these forty centuries Egypt +had been an empire. The capital down to the tenth dynasty (the period +of the Old Empire) was at Memphis in Lower Egypt, later, in the New +Empire, at Thebes in Upper Egypt.</p> + +<p><b>Memphis and the Pyramids.</b>—Memphis, built by the first king of +Egypt, was protected by an enormous dike. The village has existed for +more than five thousand years; but since the thirteenth century the +inhabitants have taken the stones of its ruins to build the houses of +Cairo; what these people left the Nile recaptured. The Pyramids, not +far from Memphis, are contemporaneous with the old empire; they are +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>the tombs of three kings of the fourth dynasty. The greatest of the +pyramids, 480 feet high, required the labor of 100,000 men for thirty +years.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> To raise the stones for it they built gradually ascending +platforms which were removed when the structure was completed.</p> + +<p><b>Egyptian Civilization.</b>—The statues, paintings, and instruments +which are taken from the tombs of this epoch give evidence of an +already civilized people. When all the other eminent nations of +antiquity—the Hindoos, Persians, Jews, Greeks, Romans—were still in +a savage state, 3,500 years before our era, the Egyptians had known +for a long time how to cultivate the soil, to weave cloths, to work +metals, to paint, sculpture, and to write; they had an organized +religion, a king, and an administration.</p> + +<p><b>Thebes.</b>—At the eleventh dynasty Thebes succeeds Memphis as capital. +The ruins of Thebes are still standing. They are marvellous, extending +as they do on both banks of the Nile, with a circuit of about seven +miles. On the left bank there is a series of palaces and temples which +lead to vast cemeteries. On the right bank two villages, Luxor and +Karnak, distant a half-hour one from the other, are built in the midst +of the ruins. They are united by a double row of sphinxes, which must +have once included more than 1,000 of these monuments. Among these +temples in ruins the greatest was the temple of Ammon at Karnak. It +was surrounded by a wall of over one and one-third miles in length; +the famous Hall of Columns, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>greatest in the world, had a length +of 334 feet, a width of 174 feet,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> and was supported by 134 +columns; twelve of these are over 65 feet high. Thebes was for 1,500 +years the capital and sacred city, the residence of kings and the +dwelling-place of the priests.</p> + +<p><b>The Pharaoh.</b>—The king of Egypt, called Pharaoh, was esteemed as the +son of the Sun-god and his incarnation on earth; divinity was ascribed +to him also. We may see in a picture King Rameses II standing in +adoration before the divine Rameses who is sitting between two gods. +The king as man adores himself as god. Being god, the Pharaoh has +absolute power over men; as master, he gives his orders to his great +nobles at court, to his warriors, to all his subjects. But the +priests, though adoring him, surround and watch him; their head, the +high priest of the god Ammon, at last becomes more powerful than the +king; he often governs under the name of the king and in his stead.</p> + +<p><b>The Subjects of Pharaoh.</b>—The king, the priests, the warriors, the +nobles, are proprietors of all Egypt; all the other people are simply +their peasants who cultivate the land for them. Scribes in the service +of the king watch them and collect the farm-dues, often with blows of +the staff. One of these functionaries writes as follows to a friend, +"Have you ever pictured to yourself the existence of the peasant who +tills the soil. The tax-collector is on the platform busily seizing +the tithe of the harvest. He has his men with him armed with staves, +his negroes provided with strips of palm. All cry, 'Come, give us +grain,' If the peasant hasn't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>it, they throw him full length on the +earth, bind him, draw him to the canal, and hurl him in head +foremost."</p> + +<p><b>Despotism.</b>—The Egyptian people has always been, and still is, gay, +careless, gentle, docile as an infant, always ready to submit to +tyranny. In this country the cudgel was the instrument of education +and of government. "The young man," said the scribes, "has a back to +be beaten; he hears when he is struck." "One day," says a French +traveller, "finding myself before the ruins of Thebes, I exclaimed, +'But how did they do all this?' My guide burst out laughing, touched +me on the arm and, showing me a palm, said to me, 'Here is what they +used to accomplish all this. You know, sir, with 100,000 branches of +palms split on the backs of those who always have their shoulders +bare, you can build many a palace and some temples to boot.'"</p> + +<p><b>Isolation of the Egyptians.</b>—The Egyptians moved but little beyond +their borders. As the sea inspired them with terror, they had no +commerce and did not trade with other peoples. They were not at all a +military nation. Their kings, it is true, often went on expeditions at +the head of mercenaries either against the negroes of Ethiopia or +against the tribes of Syria. They gained victories which they had +painted on the walls of their palaces, they brought back troops of +captives whom they used in building monuments; but they never made +great conquests. Foreigners came more to Egypt than Egyptians went +abroad.</p> + +<p><b>Religion of the Egyptians.</b>—"The Egyptians," said Herodotus, "are +the most religious of all men." We do not know any people so devout; +almost all their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>paintings represent men in prayer before a god; +almost all their manuscripts are religious books.</p> + +<p><b>Egyptian Gods.</b>—The principal deity is a Sun-god, creator, +beneficent, "who knows all things, who exists from the beginning." +This god has a divine wife and son. All the Egyptians adored this +trinity; but not all gave it the same name. Each region gave a +different name to these three gods. At Memphis they called the father +Phtah, the mother Sekhet, the son Imouthes; at Abydos they called them +Osiris, Isis, and Horus; at Thebes, Ammon, Mouth, and Chons. Then, +too, the people of one province adopted the gods of other provinces. +Further, they made other gods emanate from each god of the trinity. +Thus the number of gods was increased and religion was complicated.</p> + +<p><b>Osiris.</b>—These gods have their history; it is that of the sun; for +the sun appeared to the Egyptians, as to most of the primitive +peoples, the mightiest of beings, and consequently a god. Osiris, the +sun, is slain by Set, god of the night; Isis, the moon, his wife, +bewails and buries him; Horus, his son, the rising sun, avenges him by +killing his murderer.</p> + +<p><b>Ammon-râ.</b>—Ammon-râ, god of Thebes, is represented as traversing +heaven each day in a bark ("the good bark of millions of years"); the +shades of the dead propel it with long oars; the god stands at the +prow to strike the enemy with his lance. The hymn which they chanted +in his honor is as follows: "Homage to thee; thou watchest favoringly, +thou watchest truly, O master of the two horizons.... Thou treadest +the heavens on high, thine enemies are laid low. The heaven is glad, +the earth is joyful, the gods <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>unite in festal cheer to render glory +to Râ when they see him rising in his bark after he has overwhelmed +his enemies. O Râ, give abounding life to Pharaoh, bestow bread for +his hunger (belly), water for his throat, perfumes for his hair."</p> + +<p><b>Animal-Headed Gods.</b>—The Egyptians often represented their gods with +human form, but more frequently under the form of a beast. Each god +has his animal: Phtah incarnates himself in the beetle, Horus in the +hawk, Osiris in the bull. The two figures often unite in a man with +the head of an animal or an animal with the head of a man. Every god +may be figured in four forms: Horus, for example, as a man, a hawk, as +man with the head of a hawk, as a hawk with the head of a man.</p> + +<p><b>Sacred Animals.</b>—What did the Egyptians wish to designate by this +symbol? One hardly knows. They, themselves, came to regard as sacred +the animals which served to represent the gods to them: the bull, the +beetle, the ibis, the hawk, the cat, the crocodile. They cared for +them and protected them. A century before the Christian era a Roman +citizen killed a cat at Alexandria; the people rose in riot, seized +him, and, notwithstanding the entreaties of the king, murdered him, +although at the same time they had great fear of the Romans. There was +in each temple a sacred animal which was adored. The traveller Strabo +records a visit to a sacred crocodile of Thebes: "The beast," said he, +"lay on the edge of a pond, the priests drew near, two of them opened +his mouth, a third thrust in cakes, grilled fish, and a drink made +with meal."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span><b>The Bull Apis.</b>—Of these animal gods the most venerated was the bull +Apis. It represented at once Osiris and Phtah and lived at Memphis in +a chapel served by the priests. After its death it became an Osiris +(Osar-hapi), it was embalmed, and its mummy deposited in a vault. The +sepulchres of the "Osar-hapi" constituted a gigantic monument, the +Serapeum, discovered in 1851 by Marietta.</p> + +<p><b>Cult of the Dead.</b>—The Egyptians adored also the spirits of the +dead. They seem to have believed at first that every man had a +"double" (Kâ), and that when the man was dead his double still +survived. Many savage peoples believe this to this day. The Egyptian +tomb in the time of the Old Empire was termed "House of the Double." +It was a low room arranged like a chamber, where for the service of +the double there were placed all that he required, chairs, tables, +beds, chests, linen, closets, garments, toilet utensils, weapons, +sometimes a war-chariot; for the entertainment of the double, statues, +paintings, books; for his sustenance, grain and foods. And then they +set there a double of the dead in the form of a statue in wood or +stone carved in his likeness. At last the opening to the vault was +sealed; the double was enclosed, but the living still provided for +him. They brought him foods or they might beseech a god that he supply +them to the spirit, as in this inscription, "An offering to Osiris +that he may confer on the Kâ of the deceased N. bread, drink, meat, +geese, milk, wine, beer, clothing, perfumes—all good things and pure +on which the god (<i>i.e.</i> the Kâ) subsists."</p> + +<p><b>Judgment of the Soul.</b>—Later, originating with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>eleventh +dynasty, the Egyptians believed that the soul flew away from the body +and sought Osiris under the earth, the realm into which the sun seemed +every day to sink. There Osiris sits on his tribunal, surrounded by +forty-two judges; the soul appears before these to give account of his +past life. His actions are weighed in the balance of truth, his +"heart" is called to witness. "O heart," cries the dead, "O heart, the +issue of my mother, my heart when I was on earth, offer not thyself as +witness, charge me not before the great god." The soul found on +examination to be bad is tormented for centuries and at last +annihilated. The good soul springs up across the firmament; after many +tests it rejoins the company of the gods and is absorbed into them.</p> + +<p><b>Mummies.</b>—During this pilgrimage the soul may wish to re-enter the +body to rest there. The body must therefore be kept intact, and so the +Egyptians learned to embalm it. The corpse was filled with spices, +drenched in a bath of natron, wound with bandages and thus transformed +into a mummy. The mummy encased in a coffin of wood or plaster was +laid in the tomb with every provision necessary to its life.</p> + +<p><b>Book of the Dead.</b>—A book was deposited with the mummy, the Book of +the Dead, which explains what the soul ought to say in the other world +when it makes its defence before the tribunal of Osiris: "I have never +committed fraud; ... I have never vexed the widow; ... I have never +committed any forbidden act; ... I have never been an idler; ... I +have never taken the slave from his master; ... I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>never stole the +bread from the temples; ... I never removed the provisions or the +bandages of the dead; I never altered the grain measure; ... I never +hunted sacred beasts; I never caught sacred fish; ... I am pure; ... I +have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the +naked; I have sacrificed to the gods, and offered funeral feasts to +dead." Here we see Egyptian morality: observance of ceremonies, +respect for everything pertaining to the gods, sincerity, honesty, and +beneficence.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE ARTS</h4> + +<p><b>Industry.</b>—The Egyptians were the first to practice the arts +necessary to a civilized people. From the first dynasty, 3,000<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> +years B.C., paintings on the tomb exhibit men working, sowing, +harvesting, beating and winnowing grain; we have representations of +herds of cattle, sheep, geese, swine; of persons richly clothed, +processions, feasts where the harp is played—almost the same life +that we behold 3,000 years later. As early as this time the Egyptians +knew how to manipulate gold, silver, bronze; to manufacture arms and +jewels, glass, pottery, and enamel; they wove garments of linen and +wool, and cloths, transparent or embroidered with gold.</p> + +<p><b>Architecture.</b>—They were the oldest artists of the world. They +constructed enormous monuments which appear to be eternal, for down to +the present, time has not been able to destroy them. They never built, +as we do, for the living, but for the gods and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>for the dead, <i>i.e.</i>, +temples and tombs. Only a slight amount of débris is left of their +houses, and even the palaces of their kings in comparison with the +tombs appear, in the language of the Greeks, to be only inns. The +house was to serve only for a lifetime, the tomb for eternity.</p> + +<p><b>Tombs.</b>—The Great Pyramid is a royal tomb. Ancient tombs ordinarily +had this form. In Lower Egypt there still remain pyramids arranged in +rows or scattered about, some larger, others smaller. These are the +tombs of kings and nobles. Later the tombs are constructed +underground, some under earth, others cut into the granite of the +hills. Each generation needs new ones, and therefore near the town of +living people is built the richer and greater city of the dead +(necropolis).</p> + +<p><b>Temples.</b>—The gods also required eternal and splendid habitations. +Their temples include a magnificent sanctuary, the dwelling of the +god, surrounded with courts, gardens, chambers where the priests +lodge, wardrobes for his jewels, utensils, and vestments. This +combination of edifices, the work of many generations, is encircled +with a wall. The temple of Ammon at Thebes had the labors of the kings +of all the dynasties from the twelfth to the last. Ordinarily in front +of the temple a great gate-way is erected, with inclined faces—the +pylone. On either side of the entrance is an obelisk, a needle of rock +with gilded point, or perhaps a colossus in stone representing a +sitting giant. Often the approach to the temple is by a long avenue +rimmed with sphinxes.</p> + +<p>Pyramids, pylones, colossi, sphinxes, and obelisks <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>characterize this +architecture. Everything is massive, compact, and, above all, immense. +Hence these monuments appear clumsy but indestructible.</p> + +<p><b>Sculpture.</b>—Egyptian sculptors began with imitating nature. The +oldest statues are impressive for their life and freshness, and are +doubtless portraits of the dead. Of this sort is the famous squatting +scribe of the Louvre.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> But beginning with the eleventh dynasty the +sculptor is no longer free to represent the human body as he sees it, +but must follow conventional rules fixed by religion. And so all the +statues resemble one another—parallel legs, the feet joined, arms +crossed on the breast, the figure motionless; the statues are often +majestic, but always stiff and monotonous. Art has ceased to reproduce +nature and is become a conventional symbol.</p> + +<p><b>Painting.</b>—The Egyptians used very solid colors; after 5,000 years +they are still fresh and bright. But they were ignorant of coloring +designs; they knew neither tints, shadows, nor perspective. Painting, +like sculpture, was subject to religious rules and was therefore +monotonous. If fifty persons were to be represented, the artist made +them all alike.</p> + +<p><b>Literature.</b>—The literature of the Egyptians is found in the +tombs—not only books of medicine, of magic and of piety, but also +poems, letters, accounts of travels, and even romances.</p> + +<p><b>Destiny of the Egyptian Civilization.</b>—The Egyptians conserved their +customs, religion, and arts even after the fall of their empire. +Subjects of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>Persians, then the Greeks, and at last of the Romans, +they kept their old usages, their hieroglyphics, their mummies and +sacred animals. At last between the third and second centuries A.D., +Egyptian civilization was slowly extinguished.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a> +<a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a> +<a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a> +<a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a> +<a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"> [6]</a> Following the curves of the stream.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"> [7]</a> In some localities, <i>e.g.</i> Thebes, the flood is even +higher.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"> [8]</a> An enclosing case.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"> [9]</a> 525 B.C.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_10_10">[10]</a> The chronology of early Egyptian history is uncertain. +Civilization existed in this land much earlier than was formerly +supposed.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_11_11">[11]</a> According to Petrie ("History of Egypt," New York, 1895, +i., 40) <i>twenty years</i> were consumed.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_12_12">[12]</a> Perrot and Chipiez ("History of Ancient Egyptian Art," +London. 1883, i., 365) give 340 feet by 170.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_13_13">[13]</a> Probably much earlier than this.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_14_14">[14]</a> The Louvre Museum in Paris has an excellent collection +of Egyptian subjects.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>CHALDEA</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Land.</b>—From the high and snowy mountains of Armenia flow two +deep and rapid rivers, the Tigris to the east, the Euphrates to the +west. At first in close proximity, they separate as they reach the +plain. The Tigris makes a straight course, the Euphrates a great +détour towards the sandy deserts; then they unite before emptying into +the sea. The country which they embrace is Chaldea. It is an immense +plain of extraordinarily fertile soil; rain is rare and the heat is +overwhelming. But the streams furnish water and this clayey soil when +irrigated by canals becomes the most fertile in the world. Wheat and +barley produce 200-fold; in good years the returns are 300-fold. Palms +constitute the forests and from these the people make their wine, meal +and flour.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p><b>The People.</b>—For many centuries, perhaps as long as Egypt, Chaldea +has been the abode of civilized peoples. Many races from various lands +have met and mingled in these great plains. There were Turanians of +the yellow race, similar to the Chinese, who came from the north-east; +Cushites, deep brown in color, related to the Egyptians, came from the +east; Semites, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>of the white race, of the same stock as the Arabs, +descended from the north.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> The Chaldean people had its origin in +this mixture of races.</p> + +<p><b>The Cities.</b>—Chaldean priests related that their kings had ruled for +150,000 years. While this is a fable, they were right in ascribing +great antiquity to the Chaldean empire. The soil of Chaldea is +everywhere studded with hills and each of these is a mass of débris, +the residue of a ruined city. Many of these have been excavated and +many cities brought to view, (Our, Larsam, Bal-ilou), and some +inscriptions recovered. De Sarsec, a Frenchman, has discovered the +ruins of an entire city, overwhelmed by the invader and its palace +destroyed by fire. These ancient peoples are still little known to us; +many sites remain to be excavated when it is hoped new inscriptions +will be found. Their empire was destroyed about 2,300 B.C.; it may +then have been very old.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE ASSYRIANS</h4> + +<p><b>Assyria.</b>—The country back of Chaldea on the Tigris is Assyria. It +also is fertile, but cut with hills and rocks. Situated near the +mountains, it experiences snow in winter and severe storms in summer.</p> + +<p><b>Origins.</b>—Chaldea had for a long time been covered with towns while +yet the Assyrians lived an obscure life in their mountains. About the +thirteenth century B.C. their kings leading great armies began to +invade the plains and founded a mighty empire whose capital was +Nineveh.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span><b>Ancient Accounts.</b>—Until about forty years ago we knew almost +nothing of the Assyrians—only a legend recounted by the Greek +Diodorus Siculus. Ninus, according to the story, had founded Nineveh +and conquered all Asia Minor; his wife, Semiramis, daughter of a +goddess, had subjected Egypt, after which she was changed into the +form of a dove. Incapable kings had succeeded this royal pair for the +space of 1,300 years; the last, Sardanapalus, besieged in his capital, +was burnt with his wives. This romance has not a word of truth in it.</p> + +<p><b>Modern Discoveries.</b>—In 1843, Botta, the French consul at Mossoul, +discovered under a hillock near the Tigris, at Khorsabad, the palace +of an Assyrian king. Here for the first time one could view the +productions of Assyrian art; the winged bulls cut in stone, placed at +the gate of the palace were found intact and removed to the Louvre +Museum in Paris. The excavations of Botta drew the attention of +Europe, so that many expeditions were sent out, especially by the +English; Place and Layard investigated other mounds and discovered +other palaces. These ruins had been well preserved, protected by the +dryness of the climate and by a covering of earth. They found walls +adorned with bas-reliefs and paintings; statues and inscriptions were +discovered in great number. It was now possible to study on the ground +the plan of the structures and to publish reproductions of the +monuments and inscriptions.</p> + +<p>The palace first discovered, that of Khorsabad, had been built by King +Sargon at Nineveh, the site of the capital of the Assyrian kings. The +city was built on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>several eminences, and was encircled by a wall 25 +to 30 miles<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> in length, in the form of a quadrilateral. The wall +was composed of bricks on the exterior and of earth within. The +dwellings of the city have disappeared leaving no traces, but we have +recovered many palaces constructed by various kings of Assyria. +Nineveh remained the residence of the kings down to the time that the +Assyrian empire was destroyed by the Medes and Chaldeans.</p> + +<p><b>Inscriptions on the Bricks.</b>—In these inscriptions every character +is formed of a combination of signs shaped like an arrow or wedge, and +this is the reason that this style of writing is termed cuneiform +(Latin <i>cuneus</i> and <i>forma</i>). To trace these signs the writer used a +stylus with a triangular point; he pressed it into a tablet of soft +clay which was afterwards baked to harden it and to make the +impression permanent. In the palace of Assurbanipal a complete library +of brick tablets has been found in which brick serves the purpose of +paper.</p> + +<p><b>Cuneiform Writing.</b>—For many years the cuneiform writing has +occupied the labors of many scholars impatient to decipher it. It has +been exceedingly difficult to read, for, in the first place, it served +as the writing medium of five different languages—Assyrian, Susian, +Mede, Chaldean, and Armenian, without counting the Old Persian—and +there was no knowledge of these five languages. Then, too, it is very +complicated, for several reasons:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. It is composed at the same time of symbolic signs, each of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +which represents a word (sun, god, fish), and of syllabic signs, +each of which represents a syllable.</p> + +<p>2. There are nearly two hundred syllabic signs, much alike and +easy to confuse.</p> + +<p>3. The same sign is often the representation of a word and a +syllable.</p> + +<p>4. Often (and this is the hardest condition) the same sign is used +to represent different syllables. Thus the same sign is sometimes +read "ilou," and sometimes "an." This writing was difficult even +for those who executed it. "A good half of the cuneiform monuments +which we possess comprises guides (grammars, dictionaries, +pictures), which enable us to decipher the other half, and which +we consult just as Assyrian scholars did 2,500 years ago."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p></div> + +<p>Cuneiform inscriptions have been solved in the same manner as the +Egyptian hieroglyphics—there was an inscription in three +languages—Assyrian, Mede, and Persian. The last gave the key to the +other two.</p> + +<p><b>The Assyrian People.</b>—The Assyrians were a race of hunters and +soldiers. Their bas-reliefs ordinarily represent them armed with bow +and lance, often on horseback. They were good knights—alert, brave, +clever in skirmish and battle; also bombastic, deceitful, and +sanguinary. For six centuries they harassed Asia, issuing from their +mountains to hurl themselves on their neighbors, and returning with +entire peoples reduced to slavery. They apparently made war for the +mere pleasure of slaying, ravaging, and pillaging. No people ever +exhibited greater ferocity.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span><b>The King.</b>—Following Asiatic usage they regarded their king as the +representative of God on earth and gave him blind obedience. He was +absolute master of all his subjects, he led them in battle, and at +their head fought against other peoples of Asia. On his return he +recorded his exploits on the walls of his palace in a long inscription +in which he told of his victories, the booty which he had taken, the +cities burned, the captives beheaded or flayed alive. We present some +passages from these stories of campaigns:</p> + +<p>Assurnazir-hapal in 882 says, "I built a wall before the great gates +of the city; I flayed the chiefs of the revolt and with their skins I +covered this wall. Some were immured alive in the masonry, others were +crucified or impaled along the wall. I had some of them flayed in my +presence and had the wall hung with their skins. I arranged their +heads like crowns and their transfixed bodies in the form of +garlands."</p> + +<p>In 745 Tiglath-Pilezer II writes, "I shut up the king in his royal +city. I raised mountains of bodies before his gates. All his villages +I destroyed, desolated, burnt. I made the country desert, I changed it +into hills and mounds of débris."</p> + +<p>In the seventh century Sennacherib wrote: "I passed like a hurricane +of desolation. On the drenched earth the armor and arms swam in the +blood of the enemy as in a river. I heaped up the bodies of their +soldiers like trophies and I cut off their extremities. I mutilated +those whom I took alive like blades of straw; as punishment I cut off +their hands." In a bas-relief which shows the town of Susa +surrendering to Assurbanipal one sees the chiefs of the conquered +tortured <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>by the Assyrians; some have their ears cut off, the eyes of +others are put out, the beard torn out, while some are flayed alive. +Evidently these kings took delight in burnings, massacres, and +tortures.</p> + +<p><b>Ruin of the Assyrian Empire.</b>—The Assyrian régime began with the +capture of Babylon (about 1270). From the ninth century the Assyrians, +always at war, subjected or ravaged Babylonia, Syria, Palestine, and +even Egypt. The conquered always revolted, and the massacres were +repeated. At last the Assyrians were exhausted. The Babylonians and +Medes made an alliance and destroyed their empire. In 625 their +capital, Nineveh, "the lair of lions, the bloody city, the city gorged +with prey," as the Jewish prophets call it, was taken and destroyed +forever. "Nineveh is laid waste," says the prophet Nahum, "who will +bemoan her?"</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE BABYLONIANS</h4> + +<p><b>The Second Chaldean Empire.</b>—In the place of the fallen Assyrian +empire there arose a new power—in ancient Chaldea. This has received +the name Babylonian Empire or the Second Chaldean Empire. A Jewish +prophet makes one say to Jehovah, "I raise up the Chaldeans, that +bitter and hasty nation which shall march through the breadth of the +land to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. Their horses are +swifter than leopards. Their horsemen spread themselves; (their +horsemen) shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat." They were a +people of knights, martial and victorious, like the Assyrians. They +subjected Susiana, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Jordan. But their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>régime +was short: founded in 625, the Babylonian Empire was overthrown by the +Persians in 538 B.C.</p> + +<p><b>Babylon.</b>—The mightiest of its kings, Nebuchadrezzar (or +Nebuchadnezzar), 604-561, who destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Jews +into captivity, built many temples and places in Babylon, his capital. +These monuments were in crude brick as the plain of the Euphrates has +no supply of stone; in the process of decay they have left only +enormous masses of earth and débris. And yet it has been possible on +the site of Babylon to recover some inscriptions and to restore the +plan of the city. The Greek Herodotus who had visited Babylon in the +fifth century B.C., describes it in detail. The city was surrounded by +a square wall cut by the Euphrates; it covered about 185 square miles, +or seven times the extent of Paris. This immense space was not filled +with houses; much of it was occupied with fields to be cultivated for +the maintenance of the people in the event of a siege. Babylon was +less a city than a fortified camp. The walls equipped with towers and +pierced by a hundred gates of brass were so thick that a chariot might +be driven on them. All around the wall was a large, deep ditch full of +water, with its sides lined with brick. The houses of the city were +constructed of three or four stories. The streets intersected at right +angles. The bridge and docks of the Euphrates excited admiration; the +fortified palace also, and the hanging gardens, one of the seven +wonders of the world. These gardens were terraces planted with trees, +supported by pillars and rows of arches.</p> + +<p><b>Tower of Babylon.</b>—Hard by the city <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>Nebuchadnezzar had aimed to +rebuild the town of Babel. "For the admiration of men," he says in an +inscription: "I rebuilt and renovated the wonder of Borsippa, the +temple of the seven spheres of the world. I laid the foundations and +built it according to its ancient plan." This temple, in the form of a +square, comprised seven square towers raised one above another, each +tower being dedicated to one of the seven planets and painted with the +color attributed by religion to this planet. They were, beginning with +the lowest: Saturn (black), Venus (white), Jupiter (purple), Mercury +(blue), Mars (vermilion), the moon (silver), the sun (gold). The +highest tower contained a chapel with a table of gold and magnificent +couch whereon a priestess kept watch continually.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>CUSTOMS AND RELIGION</h4> + +<p><b>Customs.</b>—We know almost nothing of these peoples apart from the +testimony of their monuments, and nearly all of these refer to the +achievements of their kings. The Assyrians are always represented at +war, hunting, or in the performance of ceremonies; their women never +appear on the bas-reliefs; they were confined in a harem and never +went into public life. The Chaldeans on the contrary, were a race of +laborers and merchants, but of their life we know nothing. Herodotus +relates that once a year in their towns they assembled all the girls +to give them in marriage; they sold the prettiest, and the profits of +the sale of these became a dower for the marriage of the plainest. +"According to my view," he adds, "this is the wisest of all their +laws."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span><b>Religion.</b>—The religion of the Assyrians and Chaldeans was the same, +for the former had adopted that of the latter. It is very obscure to +us, since it originated, like that of the Chaldean people, in a +confusion of religions very differently mingled. The Turanians, like +the present yellow race of Siberia, imagined the world full of demons +(plague, fever, phantoms, vampires), engaged in prowling around men to +do them harm; sorcerers were invoked to banish these demons by magical +formulas. The Cushites adored a pair of gods, the male deity of force +and the female of matter. The Chaldean priests, united in a powerful +guild, confused the two religions into a single one.</p> + +<p><b>The Gods.</b>—The supreme god at Babylon is Ilou; in Assyria, Assur. No +temple was raised to him. Three gods proceed from him: Anou, the "lord +of darkness," under the figure of a man with the head of a fish and +the tail of an eagle; Bel, the "sovereign of spirits," represented as +a king on the throne; Nouah, the "master of the visible world," under +the form of a genius with four extended wings. Each has a feminine +counterpart who symbolizes fruitfulness. Below these gods are the Sun, +the Moon, and the five planets, for in the transparent atmosphere of +Chaldea the stars shine with a brilliancy which is strange to us; they +gleam like deities. To these the Chaldeans raised temples, veritable +observatories in which men who adored them could follow all their +motions.</p> + +<p><b>Astrology.</b>—The priests believed that these stars, being powerful +deities, had determining influence on the lives of men. Every man +comes into the world under the influence of a planet and this moment +decides his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>destiny; one may foretell one's fortune if the star under +which one is born is known. This is the origin of the horoscope. What +occurs in heaven is indicative of what will come to pass on earth; a +comet, for example, announces a revolution. By observing the heavens +the Chaldean priests believed they could predict events. This is the +origin of Astrology.</p> + +<p><b>Sorcery.</b>—The Chaldeans had also magical words; these were uttered +to banish spirits or to cause their appearance. This custom, a relic +of the Turanian religion, is the origin of sorcery. From Chaldea +astrology and sorcery were diffused over the Roman empire, and later +over all Europe. In the formulas of sorcery of the sixteenth century +corrupted Assyrian words may still be detected.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p><b>Sciences.</b>—On the other hand it is in Chaldea that we have the +beginning of astronomy. From this land have come down to us the +zodiac, the week of seven days in honor of the seven planets; the +division of the year into twelve months, of the day into twenty-four +hours, of the hour into sixty minutes, of the minute into sixty +seconds. Here originated, too, the system of weights and measures +reckoned on the unit of length, a system adopted by all the ancient +peoples.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>ARTS</h4> + +<p><b>Architecture.</b>—We do not have direct knowledge of the art of the +Chaldeans, since their monuments have fallen to ruin. But the Assyrian +artists whose works we possess imitated those of Chaldea, and so we +may <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>form a judgment at the same time of the two countries. The +Assyrians like the Chaldeans built with crude, sun-dried brick, but +they faced the exterior of the wall with stone.</p> + +<p><b>Palaces.</b>—They constructed their palaces<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> on artificial mounds, +making these low and flat like great terraces. The crude brick was not +adapted to broad and high arches. Halls must therefore be straight and +low, but in compensation they were very long. An Assyrian palace, +then, resembled a succession of galleries; the roofs were flat +terraces provided with battlements. At the gate stood gigantic winged +bulls. Within, the walls were covered now with panelling in precious +woods, now with enamelled bricks, now with plates of sculptural +alabaster. Sometimes the chambers were painted, and even richly +encrusted marbles were used.</p> + +<p><b>Sculpture.</b>—The sculpture of the Assyrian palaces is especially +admirable. Statues, truly, are rare and coarse; sculptors preferred to +execute bas-reliefs similar to pictures on great slabs of alabaster. +They represented scenes which were often very complicated—battles, +chases, sieges of towns, ceremonies in which the king appeared with a +great retinue. Every detail is scrupulously done; one sees the files +of servants in charge of the feast of the king, the troops of workmen +who built his palace, the gardens, the fields, the ponds, the fish in +the water, the birds perched over their nests or flitting from tree to +tree. Persons are exhibited in profile, doubtless because the artist +could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>not depict the face; but they possess dignity and life. Animals +often appeared, especially in hunting scenes; they are ordinarily made +with a startling fidelity. The Assyrians observed nature and +faithfully reproduced it; hence the merit of their art.</p> + +<p>The Greeks themselves learned in this school, by imitating the +Assyrian bas-reliefs. They have excelled them, but no people, not even +the Greeks, has better known how to represent animals.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a> +<a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a> +<a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a> +<a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_15_15">[15]</a> A Persian song enumerates 300 different uses of the +palm.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_16_16">[16]</a> Or perhaps from the east (Arabia).—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_17_17">[17]</a> Recent discoveries confirm the view of a very ancient +civilization—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_18_18">[18]</a> Somewhat exaggerated. See Perrot and Chipiez, "History +of Art in Assyria and Chaldea," ii., 60; and Maspero, "Passing of the +Empires," p. 468.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_19_19">[19]</a> Lenormant, "Ancient History."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_20_20">[20]</a> For example, hilka, hilka, bescha, bescha (begone! +begone! bad! bad!)</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_21_21">[21]</a> The temples were pyramidal, of stones or terraces +similar to the tower of Borsippa.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE ARYANS OF INDIA</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE ARYANS</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Aryan Languages.</b>—The races which in our day inhabit Europe—Greeks +and Italians to the south, Slavs in Russia, Teutons in Germany, Celts +in Ireland—speak very different languages. When, however, one studies +these languages closely, it is perceived that all possess a stock of +common words, or at least certain roots. The same roots occur in +Sanscrit, the ancient language of the Hindoos, and also in Zend, the +ancient tongue of the Persians. Thus,</p> + +<p>Father—père (French), pitar (Sanscrit), pater (Greek and Latin). It +is the same word pronounced in various ways. From this (and other such +examples) it has been concluded that all—Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, +Latins, Celts, Germans, Slavs—once spoke the same language, and +consequently were one people.</p> + +<p><b>The Aryan People.</b>—These peoples then called themselves Aryans and +lived to the north-west of India, either in the mountains of Pamir, or +in the steppes of Turkestan or Russia; from this centre they dispersed +in all directions. The majority of the people—Greeks, Latins, +Germans, Slavs—forgot their origin; but the sacred books of the +Hindoos and the Persians <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>preserve the tradition. Effort has been +made<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> to reconstruct the life of our Aryan ancestors in their +mountain home before the dispersion. It was a race of shepherds; they +did not till the soil, but subsisted from their herds of cattle and +sheep, though they already had houses and even villages.</p> + +<p>It was a fighting race; they knew the lance, the javelin, and shield. +Government was patriarchal; a man had but one wife; as head of the +family he was for his wife, his children, and his servants at once +priest, judge, and king. In all the countries settled by the Aryans +they have followed this type of life—patriarchal, martial, and +pastoral.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS</h4> + +<p><b>The Aryans on the Indus.</b>—About 2,000 years before our era some +Aryan tribes traversed the passes of the Hindu-Kush and swarmed into +India. They found the fertile plains of the Indus inhabited by a +people of dark skin, with flat heads, industrious and wealthy; they +called these aborigines Dasyous (the enemy). They made war on them for +centuries and ended by exterminating or subjecting them; they then +gradually took possession of all the Indus valley (the region of the +five rivers).<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> They then called themselves Hindoos.</p> + +<p><b>The Vedas.</b>—These people were accustomed in their ceremonies to +chant hymns (vedas) in honor of their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>gods. These chants constituted +a vast compilation which has been preserved to the present time. They +were collected, perhaps, about the fourteenth century B.C. when the +Aryans had not yet passed the Indus. The hymns present to us the +oldest religion of the Hindoos.</p> + +<p><b>The Gods.</b>—The Hindoo calls his gods devas (the resplendent). +Everything that shines is a divinity—the heavens, the dawn, the +clouds, the stars—but especially the sun (Indra) and fire (Agni).</p> + +<p><b>Indra.</b>—The sun, Indra, the mighty one, "king of the world and +master of creatures," bright and warm, traverses the heavens on a car +drawn by azure steeds; he it is who hurls the thunderbolt, sends the +rain, and banishes the clouds. India is a country of violent tempests; +the Hindoo struck with this phenomenon explained it in his own +fashion. He conceived the black cloud as an envelope in which were +contained the waters of heaven; these beneficent waters he called the +gleaming cows of Indra. When the storm is gathering, an evil genius, +Vritra, a three-headed serpent, has driven away the cows and enclosed +them in the black cavern whence their bellowings are heard (the +far-away rumblings of thunder). Indra applies himself to the task of +finding them; he strikes the cavern with his club, the strokes of +which are heard (the thunderbolt), and the forked tongue of the +serpent (the lightning) darts forth. At last the serpent is +vanquished, the cave is opened, the waters released fall on the earth, +Indra the victor appears in glory.</p> + +<p><b>Agni.</b>—Fire (Agni, the tireless) is regarded as another form of the +sun. The Hindoo, who produces <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>it by rapidly rubbing two pieces of +wood together, imagines that the fire comes from the wood and that the +rain has placed it there. He conceives it then as the fire of heaven +descended to earth; in fact, when one places it on the hearth, it +springs up as if it would ascend toward heaven. Agni dissipates +darkness, warms mankind, and cooks his food; it is the benefactor and +the protector of the house. It is also "the internal fire," the soul +of the world; even the ancestor of the human race is the "son of +lightning." Thus, heat and light, sources of all life, are the deities +of the Hindoo.</p> + +<p><b>Worship.</b>—To adore his gods he strives to reproduce what he sees in +heaven. He ignites a terrestrial fire by rubbing sticks, he nourishes +it by depositing on the hearth, butter, milk, and soma, a fermented +drink. To delight the gods he makes offerings to them of fruits and +cakes; he even sacrifices to them cattle, rams and horses; he then +invokes them, chanting hymns to their praise. "When thou art bidden by +us to quaff the soma, come with thy sombre steeds, thou deity whose +darts are stones. Our celebrant is seated according to prescription, +the sacred green is spread, in the morning stones have been gathered +together. Take thy seat on the holy sward; taste, O hero, our offering +to thee. Delight thyself in our libations and our chants, vanquisher +of Vritra, thou who art honored in these ceremonies of ours, O Indra."</p> + +<p>The Hindoo thinks that the gods, felicitated by his offerings and +homage, will in their turn make him happy. He says naïvely, "Give +sacrifice to the gods for their profit, and they will requite you. +Just as men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>traffic by the discussion of prices, let us exchange +force and vigor, O Indra. Give to me and I will give to you; bring to +me and I will bring to you."</p> + +<p><b>Ancestor Worship.</b>—At the same time the Hindoo adores his ancestors +who have become gods, and perhaps this cult is the oldest of all. It +is the basis of the family. The father who has transmitted the "fire +of life" to his children makes offering every day at his hearth-fire, +which must never be extinguished, the sacrifice to gods and ancestors, +and utters the prayers. Here it is seen that among Hindoos, as among +other Aryans, the father is at once a priest and a sovereign.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE BRAHMANIC SOCIETY</h4> + +<p><b>The Hindoos on the Ganges.</b>—The Hindoos passing beyond the region of +the Indus, between the fourteenth and tenth century B.C. conquered all +the immense plains of the Ganges. Once settled in this fertile +country, under a burning climate, in the midst of a people of slaves, +they gradually changed customs and religion. And so the Brahmanic +society was established. Many works in Sanscrit are preserved from +this time, which, with the Vedas, form the sacred literature of the +Hindoos. The principal are the great epic poems, the Mahabarata, which +has more than 200,000 verses; the Ramayana with 50,000, and the laws +of Manou, the sacred code of India.</p> + +<p><b>Caste.</b>—In this new society there were no longer, as in the time of +the Vedas, poets who chanted hymns to the gods. The men who know the +prayers and the ceremonies are become theologians by profession; the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>people revere and obey them. The following is their conception of the +structure of society: the supreme god, Brahma, has produced four kinds +of men to each of whom he has assigned a mission. From his mouth he +drew the Brahmans, who are, of course, the theologians; their mission +is to study, to teach the hymns, to perform the sacrifices. The +Kchatrias have come from his arms; these are the warriors who are +charged with the protection of the people. The Vaïcyas proceed from +the thigh; they must raise cattle, till the earth, loan money at +interest, and engage in commerce. The Soudras issue from his foot; +their only mission is to serve all the others.</p> + +<p>There were already in the Aryan people theologians, warriors, +artisans, and below them aborigines reduced to slavery. These were +classes which one could enter and from which one could withdraw. But +the Brahmans determined that every man should be attached to the +condition in which he was born, he and his descendants for all time. +The son of a workman could never become a warrior, nor the son of a +warrior a theologian. Thus each is chained to his own state. Society +is divided into four hereditary and closed castes.</p> + +<p><b>The Unclean.</b>—Whoever is not included in one of the four castes is +unclean, excluded from society and religion. The Brahmans reckoned +forty-four grades of outcasts; the last and the lowest is that of the +pariahs; their very name is an insult. The outcasts may not practise +any honorable trade nor approach other men. They may possess only dogs +and asses, for these are unclean beasts. "They must have for their +clothing the garments of the dead; for plates, broken pots; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>ornaments +of iron; they must be ceaselessly on the move from one place to +another."</p> + +<p><b>The Brahmans.</b>—In the organization of society the Brahmans were +assigned the first place. "Men are the first among intelligent beings; +the Brahmans are the first among men. They are higher than warriors, +than kings, even. As between a Brahman of ten years of age and a +Kchatria of one hundred years, the Brahman is to be regarded as the +father." These are not priests as in Egypt and Chaldea, but only men +who know religion, and pass their time in reading and meditating on +the sacred books; they live from presents made to them by other men. +To this day they are the dominating class of India. As they marry only +among themselves, better than the other Hindoos they have preserved +the Aryan type and have a clearer resemblance to Europeans.</p> + +<p><b>The New Religion of Brahma.</b>—The Brahmans did not discard the +ancient gods of the Vedas, they continued to adore them. But by sheer +ingenuity they invented a new god. When prayers are addressed to the +gods, the deities are made to comply with the demands made on them, as +if they thought that prayer was more powerful than the gods. And so +prayer (Brahma) has become the highest of all deities. He is invoked +with awe:<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> "O god, I behold in thy body all the gods and the +multitudes of living beings. I am powerless to regard thee in thine +entirety, for thou shinest like the fire and the sun in thine +immensity. Thou art the Invisible, thou art the supreme Intelligence, +thou art the sovereign treasure of the universe, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>without beginning, +middle, or end; equipped with infinite might. Thine arms are without +limit, thine eyes are like the moon and the sun, thy mouth hath the +brightness of the sacred fire. With thyself alone thou fillest all the +space between heaven and earth, and thou permeatest all the universe." +Brahma is not only supreme god; he is the soul of the universe. All +beings are born from Brahma, all issue naturally from him, not as a +product comes from the hands of an artisan, but "as the tree from the +seed, as the web from the spider." Brahma is not a deity who has +created the world; he is the very substance of the world.</p> + +<p><b>Transmigration of Souls.</b>—There is, then, a soul, a part of the soul +of Brahma, in every being, in gods, in men, in animals, in the very +plants and stones. But these souls pass from one body into another; +this is the transmigration of souls. When a man dies, his soul is +tested; if it is good, it passes into the heaven of Indra there to +enjoy felicity; if it is bad, it falls into one of the twenty-eight +hells, where it is devoured by ravens, compelled to swallow burning +cakes, and is tormented by demons. But souls do not remain forever in +heaven or in the hells; they part from these to begin a new life in +another body. The good soul rises, entering the body of a saint, +perhaps that of a god; the evil soul descends, taking its abode in +some impure animal—in a dog, an ass, even in a plant. In this new +state it may rise or fall. And this journey from one body to another +continues until the soul by degrees comes to the highest sphere. From +lowest to highest in the scale, say the Brahmans, twenty-four millions +of years <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>elapse. At last perfect, the soul returns to the level of +Brahma from which it descends and is absorbed into it.</p> + +<p><b>Character of this Religion.</b>—The religion of the Aryans, simple and +happy, was that of a young and vigorous people. This is complicated +and barren; it takes shape among men who are not engaged in practical +life; it is enervated by the heat and vexatious of life.</p> + +<p><b>Rites.</b>—The practice of the religion is much more complicated. Hymns +and sacrifices are still offered to the gods, but the Brahmans have +gradually invented thousands of minute customs so that one's life is +completely engaged with them. For all the ceremonies of the religious +life there are prayers, offerings, vows, libations, ablutions. Some of +the religious requirements attach themselves to dress, ornaments, +etiquette, drinking, eating, mode of walking, of lying down, of +sleeping, of dressing, of undressing, of bathing. It is ordered: "That +a Brahman shall not step over a rope to which a calf is attached; that +he shall not run when it rains; that he shall not drink water in the +hollow of his hand; that he shall not scratch his head with both his +hands. The man who breaks clods of earth, who cuts grass with his +nails or who bites his nails is, like the outcast, speedily hurried to +his doom." An animal must not be killed, for a human soul may perhaps +be dwelling in the body; one must not eat it on penalty of being +devoured in another life by the animals which one has eaten.</p> + +<p>All these rites have a magical virtue; he who observes them all is a +saint; he who neglects any of them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>is impious and destined to pass +into the body of an animal.</p> + +<p><b>Purity.</b>—The principal duty is keeping one's self pure; for every +stain is a sin and opens one to the attack of evil spirits. But the +Brahmans are very scrupulous concerning purity: men outside of the +castes, many animals, the soil, even the utensils which one uses are +so many impure things; whoever touches these is polluted and must at +once purify himself. Life is consumed in purifications.</p> + +<p><b>Penances.</b>—For every defect in the rites, a penance is necessary, +often a terrible one. He who involuntarily kills a cow must clothe +himself in its skin, and for three months, day and night, follow and +tend a herd of cows. Whoever has drunk of arrack<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> must swallow a +boiling liquid which burns the internal organs until death results.</p> + +<p><b>The Monks.</b>—To escape so many dangers and maintain purity, it is +better to leave the world. Often a Brahman when he has attained to a +considerable age withdraws to the desert, fasts, watches, refrains +from speech, exposes himself naked to the rain, holds himself erect +between four fires under the burning sun. After some years, the +solitary becomes "penitent"; then his only subsistence is from +almsgiving; for whole days he lifts an arm in the air uttering not a +word, holding his breath; or perchance, he gashes himself with +razor-blades; or he may even keep his thumbs closed until the nails +pierce the hands. By these mortifications he destroys passion, +releases himself from this life, and by contemplation rises to Brahma. +And yet, this way of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>salvation is open only to the Brahman; and even +he has the right to withdraw to the desert only in old age, after +having studied the Vedas all his life, practised all the rites, and +established a family.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>BUDDHISM</h4> + +<p><b>Buddha.</b>—Millions of men who were not Brahmans, suffered by this +life of minutiæ and anguish. A man then appeared who brought a +doctrine of deliverance. He was not a Brahman, but of the caste of the +Kchatrias, son of a king of the north. To the age of twenty-nine he +had lived in the palace of his father. One day he met an old man with +bald head, of wrinkled features, and trembling limbs; a second time he +met an incurable invalid, covered with ulcers, without a home; again +he fell in with a decaying corpse devoured by worms. And so, thought +he, youth, health, and life are nothing for they offer no resistance +to old age, to sickness, and to death. He had compassion on men and +sought a remedy. Then he met a religious mendicant with grave and +dignified air; following his example he decided to renounce the world. +These four meetings had determined his calling.</p> + +<p>Buddha fled to the desert, lived seven years in penitence, undergoing +hunger, thirst, and rain. These mortifications gave him no repose. He +ate, became strong, and found the truth. Then he reëntered the world +to preach it; he made disciples in crowds who called him Buddha (the +scholar); and when he died after forty-five years of preaching, +Buddhism was established.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span><b>Nirvana.</b>—To live is to be unhappy, taught Buddha. Every man suffers +because he desires the goods of this world, youth, health, life, and +cannot keep them. All life is a suffering; all suffering is born of +desire. To suppress suffering, it is necessary to root out desire; to +destroy it one must cease from wishing to live, "emancipate one's self +from the thirst of being." The wise man is he who casts aside +everything that attaches to this life and makes it unhappy. One must +cease successively from feeling, wishing, thinking. Then, freed from +passion, volition, even from reflection, he no longer suffers, and +can, after his death, come to the supreme good, which consists in +being delivered from all life and from all suffering. The aim of the +wise man is the annihilation of personality: the Buddhists call it +Nirvana.</p> + +<p><b>Charity.</b>—The Brahmans also considered life as a place of suffering +and annihilation as felicity. Buddha came not with a new doctrine, but +with new sentiments.</p> + +<p>The religion of the Brahmans was egoistic. Buddha had compassion on +men, he loved them, and preached love to his disciples. It was just +this word of sympathy of which despairing souls were in need. He bade +to love even those who do us ill. Purna, one of his disciples, went +forth to preach to the barbarians. Buddha said to him to try him, +"There are cruel, passionate, furious men; if they address angry words +to you, what would you think?" "If they addressed angry words to me," +said Purna, "I should think these are good men, these are gentle men, +these men who attack me with wicked words but who strike me neither +with the hand nor with stones." "But if they strike <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>you, what would +you think?" "I should think that those were good men who did not +strike me with their staves or with their swords." "But if they did +strike you with staff and sword, what would you think then?" "That +those are good men who strike me with staff and sword, but do not take +my life." "But if they should take your life?" "I should think them +good men who delivered me with so little pain from this body filled as +it is with pollution." "Well, well, Purna! You may dwell in the +country of the barbarians. Go, proceed on the way to complete Nirvana +and bring others to the same goal."</p> + +<p><b>Fraternity.</b>—The Brahmans, proud of their caste, assert that they +are purer than the others. Buddha loves all men equally, he calls all +to salvation even the pariahs, even the barbarians—all he declares +are equal. "The Brahman," said he, "just like the pariah, is born of +woman; why should he be noble and the other vile?" He receives as +disciples street-sweepers, beggars, cripples, girls who sleep on +dung-hills, even murderers and thieves; he fears no contamination in +touching them. He preaches to them in the street in language simple +with parables.</p> + +<p><b>Tolerance.</b>—The Brahmans passed their lives in the practice of +minute rites, regarding as criminal whoever did not observe them. +Buddha demanded neither rites nor exertions. To secure salvation it +was enough to be charitable, chaste, and beneficent. "Benevolence," +says he, "is the first of virtues. Doing a little good avails more +than the fulfilment of the most arduous religious tasks. The perfect +man is nothing unless he diffuses himself in benefits over creatures, +unless he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>comforts the afflicted. My doctrine is a doctrine of mercy; +this is why the fortunate in the world find it difficult."</p> + +<p><b>Later History of Buddhism.</b>—Thus was established about 500 years +before Christ a religion of an entirely new sort. It is a religion +without a god and without rites; it ordains only that one shall love +his neighbor and become better; annihilation is offered as supreme +recompense. But, for the first time in the history of the world, it +preaches self-renunciation, the love of others, equality of mankind, +charity and tolerance. The Brahmans made bitter war upon it and +extirpated it in India. Missionaries carried it to the barbarians in +Ceylon, in Indo-China, Thibet, China, and Japan. It is today the +religion of about 500,000,000<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> people.</p> + +<p><b>Changes in Buddhism.</b>—During these twenty centuries Buddhism has +undergone change. Buddha had himself formed communities of monks. +Those who entered these renounced their family, took the vow of +poverty and chastity; they had to wear filthy rags and beg their +living. These religious rapidly multiplied; they founded convents in +all Eastern Asia, gathered in councils to fix the doctrine, proclaimed +dogmas and rules. As they became powerful they, like the Brahmans, +came to esteem themselves as above the rest of the faithful. "The +layman," they said, "plight to support the religious and consider +himself much honored that the holy man accepts his offering. It is +more commendable to feed one religious than many thousands of laymen." +In Thibet the religious, men and women together, constitute a fifth of +the entire population, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>their head, the Grand Lama, is venerated +as an incarnation of God.</p> + +<p>At the same time that they transformed themselves into masters, the +Buddhist religious constructed a complicated theology, full of +fantastic figures. They say there is an infinite number of worlds. If +one surrounded with a wall a space capable of holding 100,000 times +ten millions of those worlds, if this wall were raised to heaven, and +if the whole space were filled with grains of mustard, the number of +the grains would not even then equal one-half the number of worlds +which occupy but one division of heaven. All these worlds are full of +creatures, gods, men, beasts, demons, who are born and who die. The +universe itself is annihilated and another takes its place. The +duration of each universe is called <i>kalpa</i>; and this is the way we +obtain an impression of a kalpa: if there were a rock twelve miles in +height, breadth, and length, and if once in a century it were only +touched with a piece of the finest linen, this rock would be worn and +reduced to the size of a kernel of mango before a quarter of a kalpa +had elapsed.</p> + +<p><b>Buddha Transformed into a God.</b>—It no longer satisfied the Buddhists +to honor their founder as a perfect man; they made him a god, erecting +idols to him, and offering him worship. They adored also the saints, +his disciples; pyramids and shrines were built to preserve their +bones, their teeth, their cloaks. From every quarter the faithful came +to venerate the impression of the foot of Buddha.</p> + +<p><b>Mechanical Prayer.</b>—Modern Buddhists regard prayer as a magical +formula which acts of itself. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>They spend the day reciting prayers as +they walk or eat, often in a language which they do not understand. +They have invented prayer-machines; these are revolving cylinders and +around these are pasted papers on which the prayer is written; every +turn of the cylinder counts for the utterance of the prayer as many +times as it is written on the papers.</p> + +<p><b>Amelioration of Manners.</b>—And yet Buddhism remains a religion of +peace and charity. Wherever it reigns, kings refrain from war, and +even from the chase; they establish hospitals, caravansaries, even +asylums for animals. Strangers, even Christian missionaries, are +hospitably received; they permit the women to go out, and to walk +without veiling themselves; they neither fight nor quarrel. At +Bangkok, a city of 400,000 souls, hardly more than one murder a year +is known.</p> + +<p>Buddhism has enfeebled the intelligence and sweetened the +character.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a> +<a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a> +<a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_22_22">[22]</a> The process is as follows: when a word (or rather a +root) is found in several Aryan languages at once, it is admitted that +this was in use before the dispersion occurred, and therefore the +people knew the object designated by the word.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_23_23">[23]</a> The Punjab.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_24_24">[24]</a> Prayer of the Mahabarata cited by Lenormant.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_25_25">[25]</a> A spirituous liquor made by the natives.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_26_26">[26]</a> A high estimate.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_27_27">[27]</a> India is for us the country of the Vedas, the Brahmans, +and Buddha. We know the religion of the Hindoos, but of their +political history we are ignorant.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE PERSIANS</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Iran.</b>—Between the Tigris and the Indus, the Caspian Sea and the +Persian Gulf rises the land of Iran, five times as great as +France,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> but partly sterile. It is composed of deserts of burning +sand and of icy plateaux cut by deep and wooded valleys. Mountains +surround it preventing the escape of the rivers which must lose +themselves in the sands or in the salt lakes. The climate is harsh, +very uneven, torrid in summer, frigid in winter; in certain quarters +one passes from 104° above zero to 40° below, from the cold of Siberia +to the heat of Senegal. Violent winds blow which "cut like a sword." +But in the valleys along the rivers the soil is fertile. Here the +peach and cherry are indigenous; the country is a land of fruits and +pastures.</p> + +<p><b>The Iranians.</b>—Aryan tribes inhabited Iran. Like all the Aryans, +they were a race of shepherds, but well armed and warlike. The +Iranians fought on horseback, drew the bow, and, to protect themselves +from the biting wind of their country, wore garments of skin sewed on +the body.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span><b>Zoroaster.</b>—Like the ancient Aryans, they first adored the forces of +nature, especially the sun (Mithra). Between the tenth and seventh<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +centuries before our era their religion was reformed by a sage, +Zarathustra (Zoroaster). We know nothing certainly about him except +his name.</p> + +<p><b>The Zend-Avesta.</b>—No writing from the hand of Zoroaster is preserved +to us; but his doctrine, reduced to writing long after his death, is +conserved in the Zend-Avesta (law and reform), the sacred books of the +Persians. It was a compilation written in an ancient language (the +Zend) which the faithful themselves no longer understood. It was +divided into twenty-one books, inscribed on 12,000 cow skins, bound by +golden cords. The Mohammedans destroyed it when they invaded Persia. +But some Persian families, faithful to the teaching of Zoroaster, fled +into India. Their posterity, whom we call Parsees, have there +maintained the old religion. An entire book of the Zend-Avesta and +fragments of two others have been found among them.</p> + +<p><b>Ormuzd and Ahriman.</b>—The Zend-Avesta is the sacred book of the +religion of Zoroaster. According to these writings Ahura Mazda +(Ormuzd), "the omniscient sovereign," created the world. He is +addressed in prayer in the following language: "I invoke and celebrate +the creator, Ahura Mazda, luminous, glorious, most intelligent and +beautiful, eminent in purity, who possessest the good knowledge, +source of joy, who hast treated us, hast fashioned us, and hast +nourished us." Since he is perfect in his goodness, he can create +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>only that which is good. Everything bad in the world has been created +by an evil deity, Angra Manyou, (Ahriman), the "spirit of anguish."</p> + +<p><b>Angels and Demons.</b>—Over against Ormuzd, the god and the creator, is +Ahriman, wicked and destructive. Each has in his service a legion of +spirits. The soldiers of Ormuzd are the good angels (yazatas), those +of Ahriman the evil demons (devs). The angels dwell in the East in the +light of the rising sun; the demons in the West in the shadows of the +darkness. The two armies wage incessant warfare; the world is their +battleground, for both troops are omnipresent. Ormuzd and his angels +seek to benefit men, to make them good and happy; Ahriman and his +demons gnaw around them to destroy them, to make them unhappy and +wicked.</p> + +<p><b>Creatures of Ormuzd and Ahriman.</b>—Everything good on the earth is +the work of Ormuzd and works for good; the sun and fire that dispel +the night, the stars, fermented drinks that seem to be liquid fire, +the water that satisfies the thirst of man, the cultivated fields that +feed him, the trees that shade him, domestic animals—especially the +dog,<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> the birds (because they live in the air), among all these the +cock since he announces the day. On the other hand everything that is +baneful comes from Ahriman and tends to evil: the night, drought, +cold, the desert, poisonous plants, thorns, beasts of prey, serpents, +parasites (mosquitoes, fleas, bugs) and animals that live in dark +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>holes—lizards, scorpions, toads, rats, ants. Likewise in the moral +world life, purity, truth, work are good things and come from Ormuzd; +death, filth, falsehood, idleness are bad, and issue from Ahriman.</p> + +<p><b>Worship.</b>—From these notions proceed worship and morality. Man ought +to adore the good god<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> and fight for him. According to Herodotus, +"The Persians are not accustomed to erect statues, temples, or altars +to their gods; they esteem those who do this as lacking in sense for +they do not believe, as the Greeks do, that the gods have human +forms."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Ormuzd manifests himself only under the form of fire or +the sun. This is why the Persians perform their worship in the open +air on the mountains, before a lighted fire. To worship Ormuzd they +sing hymns to his praise and sacrifice animals in his honor.</p> + +<p><b>Morality.</b>—Man fights for Ormuzd in aiding his efforts and in +overcoming Ahriman's. He wars against darkness in supplying the fire +with dry wood and perfumes; against the desert in tilling the soil and +in building houses; against the animals of Ahriman in killing +serpents, lizards, parasites, and beasts of prey. He battles against +impurity in keeping himself clean, in banishing from himself +everything that is dead, especially the nails and hair, for "where +hairs and clipped nails are, demons and unclean animals assemble." He +fights against falsehood by always being truthful. "The Persians," +says Herodotus,<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> "consider nothing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>so shameful as lying, and after +falsehood nothing so shameful as contracting debts, for he who has +debts necessarily lies." He wars against death by marrying and having +many children. "Terrible," says the Zend-Avesta, "are the houses void +of posterity."</p> + +<p><b>Funerals.</b>—As soon as a man is dead his body belongs to the evil +spirit. It is necessary, then, to remove it from the house. But it +ought not to be burned, for in this way the fire would be polluted; it +should not be buried, for so is the soil defiled; nor is it to be +drowned, and thus contaminate the water. These dispositions of the +corpse would bring permanent pollution. The Persians resorted to a +different method. The body with face toward the sun was exposed in an +elevated place and left uncovered, securely fixed with stones; the +bearers then withdrew to escape the demons, for they assemble "in the +places of sepulture, where reside sickness, fever, filth, cold, and +gray hairs." Dogs and birds, pure animals, then come to purify the +body by devouring it.</p> + +<p><b>Destiny of the Soul.</b>—The soul of the dead separates itself from the +body. In the third night after death it is conducted over the "Bridge +of Assembling" (Schinvat) which leads to the paradise above the gulf +of inferno. There Ormuzd questions it on its past life. If it has +practised the good, the pure spirits and the spirits of dogs support +it and aid it in crossing the bridge and give it entrance into the +abode of the blest; the demons flee, for they cannot bear the odor of +virtuous spirits. The soul of the wicked, on the other hand, comes to +the dread bridge, and reeling, with no one to support it, is dragged +by demons to hell, is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>seized by the evil spirit and chained in the +abyss of darkness.</p> + +<p><b>Character of Mazdeism.</b>—This religion originated in a country of +violent contrasts, luxuriant valleys side by side with barren steppes, +cool oases with burning deserts, cultivated fields and stretches of +sand, where the forces of nature seem engaged in an eternal warfare. +This combat which the Iranian saw around him he assumed to be the law +of the universe. Thus a religion of great purity was developed, which +urged man to work and to virtue; but at the same time issued a belief +in the devil and in demons which was to propagate itself in the west +and torment all the peoples of Europe.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE PERSIAN EMPIRE</h4> + +<p><b>The Medes.</b>—Many were the tribes dwelling in Iran; two of these have +become noted in history—the Medes and the Persians. The Medes at the +west, nearer the Assyrians, destroyed Nineveh and its empire (625). +But soon they softened their manners, taking the flowing robes, the +indolent life, the superstitious religion of the degenerate Assyrians. +They at last were confused with them.</p> + +<p><b>The Persians.</b>—The Persians to the east preserved their manners, +their religion, and their vigor. "For twenty years," says Herodotus, +"the Persians teach their children but three things—to mount a horse, +to draw the bow, and to tell the truth."</p> + +<p><b>Cyrus.</b>—About 550 Cyrus, their chief, overthrew the king of the +Medes, reunited all the peoples of Iran, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>then conquered Lydia, +Babylon, and all Asia Minor. Herodotus recounts in detail a legend +which became attached to this prince. Cyrus himself in an inscription +says of himself, "I am Cyrus, king of the legions, great king, mighty +king, king of Babylon, king of Sumir and Akkad, king of the four +regions, son of Cambyses, great king of Susiana, grand-son of Cyrus, +king of Susiana."</p> + +<p><b>The Inscription of Behistun.</b>—The eldest son of Cyrus, Cambyses, put +to death his brother Smerdis and conquered Egypt. What occurred +afterward is known to us from an inscription. Today one may see on the +frontier of Persia, in the midst of a plain, an enormous rock, cut +perpendicularly, about 1,500 feet high, the rock of Behistun. A +bas-relief carved on the rock represents a crowned king, with left +hand on a bow; he tramples on one captive while nine other prisoners +are presented before him in chains. An inscription in three languages +relates the life of the king: "Darius the king declares, This is what +I did before I became king. Cambyses, son of Cyrus, of our race, +reigned here before me. This Cambyses had a brother Smerdis, of the +same father and the same mother. One day Cambyses killed Smerdis. When +Cambyses had killed Smerdis the people were ignorant that Smerdis was +dead. After this Cambyses made an expedition to Egypt and while he was +there the people became rebellious; falsehood was then rife in the +country, in Persia, in Media and the other provinces. There was at +that time a magus named Gaumata; he deceived the people by saying that +he was Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. Then the whole people <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>rose in +revolt, forsook Cambyses and went over to the pretender. After this +Cambyses died from a wound inflicted by himself.</p> + +<p>"After Gaumata had drawn away Persia, Media, and the other countries +from Cambyses, he followed out his purpose: he became king. The people +feared him on account of his cruelty: he would have killed the people +so that no one might learn that he was not Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. +Darius the king declares there was not a man in all Persia or in Media +who dared to snatch the crown from this Gaumata, the magus. Then I +presented myself, I prayed Ormuzd. Ormuzd accorded me his +protection.... Accompanied by faithful men I killed this Gaumata and +his principal accomplices. By the will of Ormuzd I became king. The +empire which had been stolen from our race I restored to it. The +altars that Gaumata, the magus, had thrown down I rebuilt to the +deliverance of the people; I received the chants and the sacred +ceremonials." Having overturned the usurper, Darius had to make war on +many of the revolting princes, "I have," said he, "won nineteen +battles and overcome nine kings."</p> + +<p><b>The Persian Empire.</b>—Darius then subjected the peoples in revolt and +reëstablished the empire of the Persians. He enlarged it also by +conquering Thrace and a province of India. This empire reunited all +the peoples of the Orient: Medes and Persians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, +Jews, Phœnicians, Syrians, Lydians, Egyptians, Indians; it covered +all the lands from the Danube on the west to the Indus on the east, +from the Caspian Sea on the north to the cataracts of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>Nile on the +south. It was the greatest empire up to this time. One tribe of +mountaineers, the last to come, thus received the heritage of all the +empires of Asia.</p> + +<p><b>The Satrapies.</b>—Oriental kings seldom concerned themselves with +their subjects more than to draw money from them, levy soldiers, and +collect presents; they never interfered in their local affairs. +Darius, like the rest, left each of the peoples of his empire to +administer itself according to its own taste, to keep its language, +its religion, its laws, often its ancient princes. But he took care to +regulate the taxes which his subjects paid him. He divided all the +empire into twenty<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> districts called satrapies. There were in the +same satrapy peoples who differed much in language, customs, and +beliefs; but each satrapy was to pay a fixed annual tribute, partly in +gold and silver, partly in natural products (wheat, horses, ivory). +The satrap, or governor, had the tribute collected and sent it to the +king.</p> + +<p><b>Revenues of the Empire.</b>—The total revenue of the king amounted to +sixteen millions of dollars and this money was paid by weight. This +sum was in addition to the tributes in kind. These sixteen millions of +dollars, if we estimate them by the value of the metals at this time, +would be equivalent to one hundred and twenty millions in our day. +With this sum the king supported his satraps, his army, his domestic +servants and an extravagant court; there still remained to him every +year enormous ingots of metal which accumulated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>in his treasuries. +The king of Persia, like all the Orientals, exercised his vanity in +possessing an immense treasure.</p> + +<p><b>The Great King.</b>—No king had ever been so powerful and rich. The +Greeks called the Persian king The Great King. Like all the monarchs +of the East, the king had absolute sway over all his subjects, over +the Persians as well as over tributary peoples. From Herodotus one can +see how Cambyses treated the great lords at his court. "What do the +Persians think of me?" said he one day to Prexaspes, whose son was his +cupbearer. "Master, they load you with praises, but they believe that +you have a little too strong desire for wine." "Learn," said Cambyses +in anger, "whether the Persians speak the truth. If I strike in the +middle of the heart of your son who is standing in the vestibule, that +will show that the Persians do not know what they say." He drew his +bow and struck the son of Prexaspes. The youth fell; Cambyses had the +body opened to see where the shot had taken effect The arrow was found +in the middle of the heart. The prince, full of joy said in derision +to the father of the young man, "You see that it is the Persians who +are out of their senses; tell me if you have seen anybody strike the +mark with so great accuracy." "Master," replied Prexaspes, "I do not +believe that even a god could shoot so surely."<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p><b>Services Rendered by the Persians.</b>—The peoples of Asia have always +paid tribute to conquerors and given allegiance to despots. The +Persians, at least, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>rendered them a great service: in subjecting all +these peoples to one master they prevented them from fighting among +themselves. Under their domination we do not see a ceaseless burning +of cities, devastation of fields, massacre or wholesale enslavement of +inhabitants. It was a period of peace.</p> + +<p><b>Susa and Persepolis.</b>—The kings of the Medes and Persians, following +the example of the lords of Assyria, had palaces built for them. Those +best known to us are the palaces at Susa and Persepolis. The ruins of +Susa have been excavated by a French engineer,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> who has discovered +sculptures, capitals, and friezes in enameled bricks which give +evidence of an advanced stage of art. The palace of Persepolis has +left ruins of considerable mass. The rock of the hill had been +fashioned into an enormous platform on which the palace was built. The +approach to it was by a gently rising staircase so broad that ten +horsemen could ascend riding side by side.</p> + +<p><b>Persian Architecture.</b>—Persian architects had copied the palaces of +the Assyrians. At Persepolis and Susa, as in Assyria, are flat-roofed +edifices with terraces, gates guarded by monsters carved in stone, +bas-reliefs and enameled bricks, representing hunting-scenes and +ceremonies. At three points, however, the Persians improved on their +models:</p> + +<p>(1) They used marble instead of brick; (2) they made in the halls +painted floors of wood; (3) they erected eight columns in the form of +trunks of trees, the slenderest that we know, twelve times as high as +they were thick.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>Thus their architecture is more elegant and lighter than that of +Assyria.</p> + +<p>The Persians had made little progress in the arts. But they seem to +have been the most honest, the sanest, and the bravest people of the +time. For two centuries they exercised in Asia a sovereignty the least +cruel and the least unjust that it had ever known.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a> +<a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a> +<a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a> +<a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a> +<a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_28_28">[28]</a> That is, of about the same area as that part of the +United States east of the Mississippi, with Minnesota and Iowa. Modern +Persia is not two-thirds of this area.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_29_29">[29]</a> Most historians place Zoroaster before 1000 B.C.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_30_30">[30]</a> "I created the dog," said Ormuzd, "with a delicate scent +and strong teeth, attached to man, biting the enemy to protect the +herds. Thieves and wolves come not near the sheep-fold when the dog is +on guard, strong in voice and defending the flocks."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_31_31">[31]</a> Certain Persian heretics of our day, on the contrary, +adore only the evil god, for, they say, the principle of the good +being in itself good and indulgent does not require appeasing. They +are called Yezidis (worshippers of the devil).</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_32_32">[32]</a> Herod., i., 131.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_33_33">[33]</a> i., 138.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_34_34">[34]</a> Herodotus mentions 20, but we find as many as 31 +enumerated in the inscriptions.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_35_35">[35]</a> Herod., iii., 34, 35. Compare also iii., 78, 79; and the +book of Esther.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_36_36">[36]</a> M. Dieulafoi.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE PHŒNICIANS</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE PHŒNICIAN PEOPLE</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Land.</b>—Phœnicia is the narrow strip of country one hundred and +fifty miles long by twenty-four to thirty wide, shut in between the +sea of Syria and the high range of Lebanon. It is a succession of +narrow valleys and ravines confined by abrupt hills which descend +towards the sea; little torrents formed by the snows or rain-storms +course through these in the early spring; in summer no water remains +except in wells and cisterns. The mountains in this quarter were +always covered with trees; at the summit were the renowned cedars of +Lebanon, on the ridges, pines and cypresses; while lower yet palms +grew even to the sea-shore. In the valleys flourished the olive, the +vine, the fig, and the pomegranate.</p> + +<p><b>The Cities.</b>—At intervals along the rocky coast promontories or +islands formed natural harbors. On these the Phœnicians had founded +their cities; Tyre and Arad were each built on a small island. The +people housed themselves in dwellings six to eight stories in height. +Fresh water was ferried over in ships. The other cities, Gebel, +Beirut, and Sidon arose on the mainland. The soil was inadequate to +support these swarms of men, and so the Phœnicians were before all +else seamen and traders.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span><b>Phœnician Ruins.</b>—Not a book of the Phœnicians has come down to us, +not even their sacred book. The sites of their cities have been +excavated. But, in the words of the scholar sent to do this work, +"Ruins are not preserved, especially in countries where people are not +occupied with them," and the Syrians are not much occupied with ruins. +They have violated the tombs to remove the jewels of the dead, have +demolished edifices to secure stone for building purposes, and +Mussulman hatred of chiseled figures has shattered the sculptures.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> +Very little is found beyond broken marble, cisterns, wine-presses cut +in the rock and some sarcophagi hewn in rock. All this débris gives us +little information and we know very little more of the Phœnicians than +Greek writers and Jewish prophets have taught us.</p> + +<p><b>Political Organization of the Phœnicians.</b>—The Phœnicians never +built an empire. Each city had its little independent territory, its +assemblies, its king, and its government. For general state business +each city sent delegates to Tyre, which from the thirteenth century +B.C. was the principal city of Phœnicia. The Phœnicians were not a +military people, and so submitted themselves to all the +conquerors—Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians. They +fulfilled all their obligations to them in paying tribute.</p> + +<p><b>Tyre.</b>—From the thirteenth century Tyre was the most notable of the +cities. Its island becoming too small to contain it, a new city was +built on the coast <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>opposite. Tyrian merchants had founded colonies in +every part of the Mediterranean, receiving silver from the mines of +Spain and commodities from the entire ancient world. The prophet +Isaiah<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> calls these traders princes; Ezekiel<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> describes the +caravans which came to them from all quarters. It is Hiram, a king of +Tyre, from whom Solomon asked workmen to build his palace and temple +at Jerusalem.</p> + +<p><b>Carthage.</b>—A colony of Tyre surpassed even her in power. In the +ninth century some Tyrians, exiled by a revolution, founded on the +shore of Africa near Tunis the city of Carthage. A woman led them, +Elissar, whom we call Dido (the fugitive). The inhabitants of the +country, says the legend, were willing to sell her only as much land +as could be covered by a bull's hide; but she cut the hide in strips +so narrow that it enclosed a wide territory; and there she constructed +a citadel. Situated at the centre of the Mediterranean, provided with +two harbors, Carthage flourished, sent out colonies in turn, made +conquests, and at last came to reign over all the coasts of Africa, +Spain, and Sardinia. Everywhere she had agencies for her commerce and +subjects who paid her tribute.</p> + +<p><b>The Carthaginian Army.</b>—To protect her colonies from the natives, to +hold her subjects in check who were always ready to revolt, a strong +army was necessary. But the life of a Carthaginian was too valuable to +risk it without necessity. Carthage preferred to pay mercenary +soldiers, recruiting them among the barbarians of her empire and among +the adventurers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>of all countries. Her army was a bizarre aggregation +in which all languages were spoken, all religions practised, and in +which every soldier wore different arms and costume. There were seen +Numidians clothed in lion skins which served them as couch, mounted +bareback on small fleet horses, and drawing the bow with horse at full +gallop; Libyans with black skins, armed with pikes; Iberians from +Spain in white garments adorned with red, armed with a long pointed +sword; Gauls, naked to the girdle, bearing enormous shields and a +rounded sword which they held in both hands; natives of the Balearic +Islands, trained from infancy to sling with stones or balls of lead. +The generals were Carthaginians; the government distrusted them, +watched them closely, and when they were defeated, had them crucified.</p> + +<p><b>The Carthaginians.</b>—Carthage had two kings, but the senate was the +real power, being composed of the richest merchants of the city. And +so every state question for this government became a matter of +commerce. The Carthaginians were hated by all other peoples, who found +them cruel, greedy, and faithless. And yet, since they had a good +fleet, had money to purchase soldiers, and possessed an energetic +government, they succeeded in the midst of barbarous and divided +peoples in maintaining their empire over the western Mediterranean for +300 years (from the sixth to the third century B.C.).</p> + +<p><b>The Phœnician Religion.</b>—The Phœnicians and the Carthaginians had a +religion similar to that of the Chaldeans. The male god, Baal, is a +sun-god; for the sun and the moon are in the eyes of the Phœnicians +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>the great forces which create and which destroy. Each of the cities of +Phœnicia has therefore its divine pair: at Sidon it is Baal Sidon (the +sun) and Astoreth (the moon); at Gebel, Baal Tammouz and Baaleth; at +Carthage, Baal-Hamon, and Tanith. But the same god changes his name +according as he is conceived as creator or destroyer; thus Baal as +destroyer is worshipped at Carthage under the name of Moloch. These +gods, represented by idols, have their temples, altars, and priests. +As creators they are honored with orgies, with tumultuous feasts; as +destroyers, by human victims. Astoreth, the great goddess of Sidon, +whom they represented by the crescent of the moon and the dove, had +her cult in the sacred woods. Baal Moloch is figured at Carthage as a +bronze colossus with arms extended and lowered. When they wished to +appease him they laid children in his hands who fell at once into a +pit of fire. During the siege of Carthage by Agathocles the principal +men of the city sacrificed to Moloch as many as two hundred of their +children.</p> + +<p>This sensual and sanguinary religion inspired other peoples with +horror, but they imitated it. The Jews sacrificed to Baal on the +mountains; the Greeks adored Astarte of Sidon under the name of +Aphrodite, and Baal Melkhart of Tyre under the name of Herakles.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>PHŒNICIAN COMMERCE</h4> + +<p><b>Phœnicians Occupations.</b>—Crowded into a small territory, the +Phœnicians gained their livelihood mainly from commerce. None of the +other peoples of the East—the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the +Assyrians, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>nor the barbarian tribes of the West (Spaniards, Gauls, +Italians) had a navy. The Phœnicians alone in this time dared to +navigate. They were the commission merchants of the old world; they +went to every people to buy their merchandise and sold them in +exchange the commodities of other countries. This traffic was by +caravan with the East, by sea with the West.</p> + +<p><b>Caravans.</b>—On land the Phœnicians sent caravans in three directions:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1.—Towards Arabia, from which they brought gold, agate, and onyx, +incense and myrrh, and the perfumes of Arabia; pearls, spices, +ivory, ebony, ostrich plumes and apes from India.</p> + +<p>2.—Towards Assyria, whence came cotton and linen cloths, asphalt, +precious stones, perfumery, and silk from China.</p> + +<p>3.—Towards the Black Sea, where they went to receive horses, +slaves, and copper vases made by the mountaineers of the Caucasus.</p></div> + +<p><b>Marine Commerce.</b>—For their sea commerce they built ships from the +cedars of Lebanon to be propelled by oars and sails. In their sailing +it was not necessary to remain always in sight of the coast, for they +knew how to direct their course by the polar star. Bold mariners, they +pushed in their little boats to the mouth of the Mediterranean; they +ventured even to pass through the strait of Gibraltar or, as the +ancients called it, the Pillars of Hercules, and took the ocean course +to the shores of England, and perhaps to Norway, Phœnicians in the +service of a king of Egypt started in the seventh century B.C. to +circumnavigate Africa, and returned, it is said, at the end of three +years by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>Red Sea. An expedition issuing from Carthage skirted the +coast of Africa to the Gulf of Guinea; the commander Hanno wrote an +account of the voyage which is still preserved.</p> + +<p><b>Commodities.</b>—To civilized peoples the Phœnicians sold the products +of their industry. In barbarous countries they went to search for what +they could not find in the Orient. On the coast of Greece they +gathered shell-fish from which they extracted a red tint, the purple; +cloths colored with purple were used among all the peoples of ancient +times for garments of kings and great lords.</p> + +<p>From Spain and Sardinia they brought the silver which the inhabitants +took from the mines. Tin was necessary to make bronze, an alloy of +copper and tin, but the Orient did not furnish this, and so they +sought it even on the coasts of England, in the Isles of Tin (the +Cassiterides). In every country they procured slaves. Sometimes they +bought them, as lately the slavers bought negroes on the coast of +Africa, for all the peoples of this time made commerce in slaves; +sometimes they swooped down on a coast, threw themselves on the women +and children and carried them off to be retained in their own cities +or to be sold abroad; for on occasion they were pirates and did not +scruple to plunder strangers.</p> + +<p><b>The Secrets Kept by the Phœnicians.</b>—The Phœnicians did not care to +have mariners of other peoples come into competition with them. On the +return from these far countries they concealed the road which they had +travelled. No one in antiquity knew where were the famous Isles of the +Cassiterides from which they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>got their tin. It was by chance that a +Greek ship discovered Spain, with which the Phœnicians had traded for +centuries. Carthage drowned the foreign merchants whom they found in +Sardinia or on the shore of Gibraltar. Once a Carthaginian +merchantman, seeing a strange ship following it, was run aground by +the pilot that the foreigner might not see where he was going.</p> + +<p><b>Colonies.</b>—In the countries where they traded, the Phœnicians +founded factories, or branch-houses. They were fortified posts on a +natural harbor. There they landed their merchandise, ordinarily +cloths, pottery, ornaments, and idols.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> The natives brought down +their commodities and an exchange was made, just as now European +merchants do with the negroes of Africa. There were Phœnician markets +in Cyprus, in Egypt, and in all the then barbarous countries of the +Mediterranean—in Crete, Greece, Sicily, Africa, Malta, Sardinia, on +the coasts of Spain at Malaga and Cadiz, and perhaps in Gaul at +Monaco. Often around these Phœnician buildings the natives set up +their cabins and the mart became a city. The inhabitants adopted the +Phœnician gods, and even after the city had become Greek, the cult of +the dove-goddess was found there (as in Cythera), that of the god +Melkhart (as at Corinth), or of the god with the bull-face that +devours human victims (as in Crete).</p> + +<p><b>Influence of the Phœnicians.</b>—It is certain that the Phœnicians in +founding their trading stations cared only for their own interest. But +it came to pass that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>their colonies contributed to civilization. The +barbarians of the West received the cloths, the jewels, the utensils +of the peoples of the East who were more civilized, and, receiving +them, learned to imitate them. For a long time the Greeks had only +vases, jewels, and idols brought by the Phœnicians, and these served +them as models. The Phœnicians brought simultaneously from Egypt and +from Assyria industry and commodities.</p> + +<p><b>The Alphabet.</b>—At the same time they exported their alphabet. The +Phœnicians did not invent writing. The Egyptians knew how to write many +centuries before them, they even made use of letters each of which +expressed its own sound, as in our alphabet. But their alphabet was +still encumbered with ancient signs which represented, some a syllable, +others an entire word. Doubtless the Phœnicians had need of a simpler +system for their books of commerce. They rejected all the syllabic signs +and ideographs, preserving only twenty-two letters, each of which marks +a sound (or rather an articulation of the language). The other peoples +imitated this alphabet of twenty-two letters. Some, like the Jews, wrote +from right to left just as the Phœnicians themselves did; others, like +the Greeks, from left to right. All have slightly changed the form of +the letters, but the Phœnician alphabet is found at the basis of all +the alphabets—Hebrew, Lycian, Greek, Italian, Etruscan, Iberian, +perhaps even in the runes of the Norse. It is the Phœnicians that taught +the world how to write.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a> +<a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_37_37">[37]</a> Renan ("Mission de Phénicio," p. 818) says, "I noticed +at Tripolis a sarcophagus serving as a public fountain and the +sculptured face of it was turned to the wall. I was told that a +governor had placed it thus so as not to provide distractions for the +inhabitants."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_38_38">[38]</a> See ch. xxiii.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_39_39">[39]</a> See chs. xxvi., xxvii., xxviii.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_40_40">[40]</a> These idols, one of their principal exports, are found +wherever the Phœnicians traded.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE HEBREWS</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Bible.</b>—The Jews united all their sacred books into a single +aggregation which we call by a Greek name the Bible, that is to say, +the Book. It is the Book par excellence. The sacred book of the Jews +became also the sacred book of the Christians. The Bible is at the +same time the history of the Jewish nation, and all that we know of +the sacred people we owe to the sacred books.</p> + +<p><b>The Hebrews.</b>—When the Semites had descended from the mountains of +Armenia into the plains of the Euphrates, one of their tribes, at the +time of the first Chaldean empire, withdrew to the west, crossed the +Euphrates, the desert, and Syria and came to the country of the Jordan +beyond Phœnicia. This tribe was called the Hebrews, that is to say, +the people from beyond the river. Like the majority of the Semites +they were a race of nomadic shepherds. They did not till the soil and +had no houses; they moved from place to place with their herds of +cattle, sheep, and camels, seeking pasturage and living in tents as +the Arabs of the desert do to this day. In the book of Genesis one has +a glimpse of this nomad life.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span><b>The Patriarchs.</b>—The tribe was like a great family; it was composed +of the chief, his wives, his children, and his servants. The chief had +absolute authority over all; for the tribe he was father, priest, +judge, and king. We call these tribal chiefs patriarchs. The principal +ones were Abraham and Jacob; the former the father of the Hebrews, the +latter of the Israelites. The Bible represents both of them as +designed by God to be the scions of a sacred people. Abraham made a +covenant with God that he and his descendants would obey him; God +promised to Abraham a posterity more numerous than the stars of +heaven. Jacob received from God the assurance that a great nation +should issue from himself.</p> + +<p><b>The Israelites.</b>—Moved by a vision Jacob took the name of Israel +(contender with God). His tribe was called Beni-Israel (sons of +Israel) or Israelites. The Bible records that, driven by famine, Jacob +abandoned the Jordan country to settle with all his house on the +eastern frontier of Egypt, to which Joseph, one of his sons who had +become minister of a Pharaoh, invited him. There the sons of Israel +abode for several centuries. Coming hither but seventy in number, they +multiplied, according to the Bible, until they became six hundred +thousand men, without counting women and children.</p> + +<p><b>The Call of Moses.</b>—The king of Egypt began to oppress them, +compelling them to make mortar and bricks for the construction of his +strong cities. It was then that one of them, Moses, received from God +the mission to deliver them. One day while he was keeping his herds on +the mountain, an angel appeared to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>him in the midst of a burning +bush, and he heard these words: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of +Isaac, the God of Jacob. I have seen the affliction of my people which +is in Egypt, I have heard their cry against their oppressors, I know +their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of +the Egyptians and to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey, +to the place of the Canaanites.... Come now therefore and I will send +thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children +of Israel, out of Egypt."<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> The Israelites under the guidance of +Moses fled from Egypt (the Exodus); they journeyed to the foot of +Mount Sinai, where they received the law of God, and for an entire +generation wandered in the deserts to the south of Syria.</p> + +<p><b>Israel in the Desert.</b>—Often the Israelites wished to turn back. "We +remember," said they, "the fish which we ate in Egypt, the cucumbers, +melons, leeks, and onions. Let us appoint a chief who will lead us +back to Egypt." Moses, however, held them to obedience. At last they +reached the land promised by God to their race.</p> + +<p><b>The Promised Land.</b>—It was called the land of Canaan or Palestine; +the Jews named it the land of Israel, later Judea. Christians have +termed it <b>the</b> Holy Land. It is an arid country, burning with heat in +the summer, but a country of mountains. The Bible describes it thus: +"Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of +water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a +land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>fig-trees, and +pomegranates; a land of oil olive and honey, wherein thou shalt eat +bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it." The +Israelites according to their estimate were then 601,700 men capable +of bearing arms, divided among twelve tribes, ten descended from +Jacob, two from Joseph; this enumeration does not include the Levites +or priests to the number of 23,000. The land was occupied by several +small peoples who were called Canaanites. The Israelites exterminated +them and at last occupied their territory.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL</h4> + +<p><b>One God.</b>—The other ancient peoples adored many gods; the Israelites +believed in but one God, immaterial, who made the world and governs +it. "In the beginning," says the book of Genesis, "God created the +heavens and the earth." He created plants and animals, he "created man +in his own image." All men are the handiwork of God.</p> + +<p><b>The People of God.</b>—But among all mankind God has chosen the +children of Israel to make of them "his people." He called Abraham and +said to him, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy +seed after me ... to be a God unto thee and to thy seed." He appeared +to Jacob: "I am God," said he to him, "the God of thy father; fear not +to go down into Egypt, for I will make of thee there a great nation." +When Moses asks his name, he replies, "Thou shalt say to the children +of Israel, The Lord, the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>the +God of Isaac, the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you. This is my name +forever."</p> + +<p><b>The Covenant.</b>—There is, then, a covenant between the Israelites and +God. Jehovah (the Eternal) loves and protects the Israelites, they are +"a holy nation," "his most precious jewel among all the nations." He +promises to make them mighty and happy. In return, the Israelites +swear to worship him, to serve him, to obey him in everything as a +lawgiver, a judge, and a sovereign.</p> + +<p><b>The Ten Commandments.</b>—Jehovah, lawgiver of the Israelites, dictated +his precepts to Moses on Mount Sinai amidst lightnings and +thunderings. They were inscribed on two tables, the Tables of the Law, +in these terms:</p> + +<p>"Hear, O Israel, I am Jehovah, thy God, who brought you out of the +land of Egypt, from the land of bondage." (Then follow the ten +commandments to be found in the twentieth chapter of the book of +Exodus.)</p> + +<p><b>The Law.</b>—Beside the ten commandments, the Israelites are required +to obey many other divine ordinances. These are all delivered to them +in the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and constitute +the Law of Israel. The Law regulates the ceremonies of religion, +establishes the feasts—including the Sabbath every seven days, the +Passover in memory of the escape from Egypt, the week of harvest, the +feast of Tabernacles during the vintage; it organizes marriage, the +family, property, government, fixes the penalty of crimes, indicates +even foods and remedies. It is a code at once religious, political, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>civil and penal. God the ruler of the Israelites has the right to +regulate all the details of their lives.</p> + +<p><b>Religion has made the Jewish People.</b>—The Israelites did not receive +with docility the government of God. Moses on his death-bed could say +to the Levites in delivering to them the book of the law, "Take this +book that it may be a witness against you, Israel, for I know thy +rebellion and thy stiff neck" (Deut. xxxi. 27). "During my life you +have been rebellious against the Lord, and how much more after my +death." During these centuries some of the Israelites, often the +majority of the nation, had been idolaters. They became similar to the +other Semites of Syria. Only the Israelites who remained faithful to +God formed the Jewish people. It is the religion of Jehovah which has +transformed an obscure tribe into the holy nation, a small nation, but +one of the most significant in the history of the world.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL</h4> + +<p><b>The Judges.</b>—Once established in Palestine the Hebrews remained +divided for several centuries. "In those days," says the Bible, "there +was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own +eyes." Often the Israelites forgot Jehovah and served the gods of +neighboring tribes. Then "the anger of the Lord was kindled against +the Israelites, and he delivered them into the hands of their +enemies." When they had repented and had humbled themselves, "the Lord +raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those that +spoiled them." "But it came to pass that at the death of the judge +they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>corrupted themselves anew ... bowing themselves to other gods." +These judges—Gideon, Jephthah, Samson—were warriors who came in the +name of Jehovah to free the people. Then they fell at once into +idolatry again and their servitude was repeated.</p> + +<p><b>The Kings.</b>—At last the Israelites were wearied and asked of Samuel, +the high-priest, that he would give them a king. Samuel unwillingly +placed Saul at their head. This king should have been the ready +servant of the will of God; he dared to disobey him, upon which the +high-priest said to him, "Thou hast rejected the word of the Lord and +the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel." A war-chief, +David, was set in his place. He defeated all the enemies of Israel, +captured from them Mount Zion, and transferred his capital thither. +This was Jerusalem.</p> + +<p><b>Jerusalem.</b>—Compared with Babylon or Thebes, Jerusalem was a poor +capital. The Hebrews were not builders; their religion prevented them +from raising temples; the houses of individuals were shaped like cubes +of rock which may be seen today on the sides of Lebanon in the midst +of vines and fig-trees. But Jerusalem was the holy city of the +Hebrews. The king had his palace there—the palace of Solomon, who +astonished the Hebrews with his throne of ivory; Jehovah had his +temple there, the first Hebrew temple.</p> + +<p><b>The Tabernacle.</b>—The emblem of the covenant between God and Israel +was a great chest of cedar-wood furnished with rings of gold, which +contained the tables of the Law. This was borne before the people on +high feast-days; it was the Ark of the Covenant. To preserve this ark +and necessary objects of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>worship, Moses is said to have made the +Tabernacle—a pavilion of wood covered with skins and hangings. It was +a portable temple which the Hebrews carried with them until they could +erect a true temple in the promised land.</p> + +<p><b>The Temple.</b>—The Temple of Jerusalem, built at last under Solomon, +was divided into three parts:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1.—To the rear, the Holy of Holies, in which rested the ark of +the covenant; the high-priest only had the right to enter here, +and that but once a year.</p> + +<p>2.—In the middle, the Holy Place, in which were kept the altar of +incense, the candle-stick with the seven arms, the table of +shew-bread; the priests entered to burn incense and to present the +offerings.</p> + +<p>3.—At the front, the Court open to the people, where the victims +were sacrificed on the great altar.</p></div> + +<p>The Temple of Jerusalem was from the first the centre of the nation; +from all Palestine the people came to be present at the ceremonies. +The high-priest who directed the worship was a person sometimes of +greater power than the king.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE PROPHETS</h4> + +<p><b>Disasters of Israel.</b>—Solomon was the last king who enjoyed great +power. After him ten tribes separated themselves and constituted the +kingdom of Israel, whose inhabitants worshipped the golden calves and +the gods of the Phœnicians. Two tribes only remained faithful to +Jehovah and to the king at Jerusalem; these formed the kingdom of +Judah (977).<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>The two kingdoms exhausted their energies in making +war on each other. Then came the armies of the Eastern conquerors; +Israel was destroyed by Sargon, king of Assyria (722); Judah, by +Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadrezzar), king of Chaldea (586).</p> + +<p><b>Sentiments of the Israelites.</b>—Faithful Israelites regarded these +woes as a chastisement: God was punishing his people for their +disobedience; as before, he delivered them from their conquerors. "The +children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah, their God, they had +built them high places in every city, they imitated the nations around +them, although the Lord had forbidden them to do like them; they made +them idols of brass; they bowed themselves before all the host of +heaven [the stars], they worshipped Baal. It is for this that Jehovah +rejected all the race of Israel, he afflicted them and delivered them +into the hands of those that plundered them."</p> + +<p><b>The Prophets.</b>—Then appeared the prophets, or as they were called, +the Seers: Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. Usually they came from +the desert where they had fasted, prayed, and given themselves to +meditation. They came in the name of Jehovah, not as warriors in +judgment, but as preachers. They called the Israelites to repent, to +overthrow their idols, to return to Jehovah; they foretold all the +woes that would come upon them if they did not reconcile themselves to +him. They preached and uttered prophecies at the same time.</p> + +<p><b>The New Teaching.</b>—These men on fire with the divine spirit found +the official religion at Jerusalem mean and cold. Why should they, +like the idolaters, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>slaughter cattle and burn incense to the honor of +God? "Hear the word of Jehovah," says Isaiah: "To what purpose is the +multitude of your sacrifices? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams +and of the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of +bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.... Bring no more vain +oblations, your incense is an abomination to me.... When ye spread +forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you ... for your hands +are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean ... cease to do evil, +learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the +fatherless, plead for the widow.... Though your sins be as scarlet, +they shall be as white as snow." In place of sacrifices, the prophets +would set justice and good works.</p> + +<p><b>The Messiah.</b>—Israel deserved its afflictions, but there would be a +limit to the chastisement. "O my people," says Isaiah in the name of +Jehovah, "be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a +rod ... after the manner of Egypt ... for yet a very little while and +the indignation shall cease ... and the burden shall be taken away +from off thy shoulder." The prophets taught the people to look for the +coming of Him who should deliver them; they prepared the way for the +Messiah.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE JEWISH PEOPLE</h4> + +<p><b>Return to Jerusalem.</b>—The children of Judah, removed to the plain of +the Euphrates, did not forget their country, but sang of it in their +chants: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the +midst thereof, for there they that carried us away required a song ... +saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' How shall we sing the +Lord's song in a strange land?" After seventy years of captivity, +Cyrus, victor over Babylon, allowed the Israelites to return to +Palestine. They rebuilt Jerusalem, reconstructed the temple, restored +the feasts, and recovered the sacred books. As a sign that they were +again the people of Jehovah they renewed the covenant with him; it was +a formal treaty, written and signed by the chiefs of the people.</p> + +<p><b>The Jews.</b>—The little kingdom of Jerusalem maintained itself for +seven centuries, governed now by a king, now by the high-priest, but +always paying tribute to the masters of Syria—to the Persians first, +later to the Macedonians and the Syrians, and last of all to the +Romans. Faithful to the end to Jehovah, the Jews (their proper name +since the return) continued to live the law of Moses, to celebrate at +Jerusalem the feasts and the sacrifices. The high-priest, assisted by +a council of the elders, preserved the law; scribes copied it and +doctors expounded it to the people. The faithful obliged themselves to +observe it in the smallest details. The Pharisees were eminent among +them for their zeal in fulfilling all its requirements.</p> + +<p><b>The Synagogues.</b>—Meanwhile the Jews for the sake of trade were +pushing beyond the borders of Judæa into Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and +even to Italy. Some of them were to be found in all the great +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>cities—Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome. +Dispersed among the Gentiles, the Jews were strenuous to preserve +their religion. They raised no temples, for the law prevented this; +there could be but one Jewish temple, that at Jerusalem, where they +celebrated the solemn feasts. But they joined themselves together to +read and comment on the word of God. These places of assembling were +called Synagogues, from a Greek word signifying meetings.</p> + +<p><b>Destruction of the Temple.</b>—The Christ appeared at this moment. The +Jews crucified him and persecuted his disciples not only in Judæa but +in every city where they found them in any number. In the year 70 A.D. +Jerusalem, in revolt against the Romans, was taken by assault, and all +the inhabitants were massacred or sold into slavery. The Romans burnt +the temple and carried away the sacred utensils. From that time there +was no longer a centre of the Jewish religion.</p> + +<p><b>Fortunes of the Jews after the Dispersion.</b>—The Jewish nation +survived the ruin of its capital. The Jews, scattered throughout the +world, learned to dispense with the temple. They preserved their +sacred books in the Hebrew tongue. Hebrew is the primitive language of +Israel; the Jews since the return from Babylon no longer spoke it, but +adopted the languages of the neighboring peoples—the Syriac, the +Chaldean, and especially the Greek. The Rabbis, however, instructed in +the religion, still learned the Hebrew, explained it, and commented on +the Scripture.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> Thus <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>the Jewish religion was preserved, and, +thanks to it, the Jewish people. It made converts even among the +Gentiles; there were in the empire proselytes, that is, people who +practised the religion of Jehovah without being of the Jewish race.</p> + +<p>The Christian Church, powerful since the fourth century, commenced to +persecute the Jews. This persecution has endured to this day in all +Christian countries. Usually the Jews were tolerated on account of +their wealth and because they transacted all banking operations; but +they were kept apart, not being permitted to hold any office. In the +majority of cities they were compelled to wear a special costume, to +live in a special quarter,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> gloomy, filthy, unhealthy, and +sometimes at Easter time to send one of their number to suffer insult. +The people suspected them of poisoning fountains, of killing children, +of profaning the consecrated host; often the people rose against them, +massacred them, and pillaged their houses. Judges under the least +pretext had them imprisoned, tortured, and burned. Sometimes the +church tried to convert them by force; sometimes the government exiled +them <i>en masse</i> from the country and confiscated their goods. The Jews +at last disappeared from France,<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> from Spain, England, and Italy. +In Portugal, Germany, and Poland, and in the Mohammedan lands they +maintained themselves. From these countries after the cessation of +persecution they returned to the rest of Europe.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a> +<a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a> +<a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_41_41">[41]</a> Exodus iii, 1-10.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_42_42">[42]</a> There is much uncertainty regarding the chronology of +this period.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_43_43">[43]</a> The Talmud is the accumulation of these commentaries.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_44_44">[44]</a> The Jewish Quarter at Rome was called the Ghetto. This +name has since been applied to all Jewish quarters.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_45_45">[45]</a> Except at Avignon, on the domains of the Pope, and in +Alsace-Lorraine.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> +<br /> + +<h3>GREECE AND THE GREEKS</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Country.</b>—Greece is a very little country (about 20,000 square +miles), hardly larger than Switzerland; but it is a country of great +variety, bristling with mountains, indented with gulfs—a country +originally constituted to influence mightily the character of the men +who inhabited it.</p> + +<p>A central chain, the Pindus, traverses Greece through the centre and +covers it with its rocky system. Toward the isthmus of Corinth it +becomes lower; but the Peloponnesus, on the other side of the isthmus, +is elevated about 2,000 feet above the sea level, like a citadel +crowned with lofty chains, abrupt and snowy, which fall +perpendicularly into the sea. The islands themselves scattered along +the coast are only submerged mountains whose summits rise above the +surface of the sea. In this diverse land there is little tillable +ground, but almost everywhere bare rock. The streams, like brooks, +leave between their half-dried channel and the sterile rock of the +mountain only a narrow strip of fertile soil. In this beautiful +country are found some forests, cypresses, laurels, palms, here and +there vines scattered on the rocky hillsides; but there are no rich +harvests and no green pasturages. Such a country produces wiry +mountaineers, active and sober.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span><b>The Sea.</b>—Greece is a land of shores: smaller than Portugal, it has +as great a coast-line as Spain. The sea penetrates it to a great +number of gulfs, coves, and indentations; it is ordinarily surrounded +with projecting rocks, or with approaching islands that form a natural +port. This sea is like a lake; it has not, like the ocean, a pale and +sombre color; usually it is calm, lustrous, and, as Homer says, "of +the color of violets."</p> + +<p>No sea lends itself better to navigation with small ships. Every +morning the north wind rises to conduct the barques of Athens to Asia; +in the evening the south wind brings them back to port. From Greece to +Asia Minor the islands are placed like stepping-stones; on a clear day +the mariner always has land in view. Such a sea beckons people to +cross it.</p> + +<p>And so the Greeks have been sailors, traders, travellers, pirates, and +adventurers; like the Phœnicians, they have spread over all the +ancient world, carrying with them the merchandise and the inventions +of Egypt, of Chaldea, and of Asia.</p> + +<p><b>The Climate.</b>—The climate of Greece is mild. In Athens it freezes +hardly once in twenty years; in summer the heat is moderated by the +breeze from the sea.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> Today the people still lie in the streets +from the month of May to September. The air is cool and transparent; +for many leagues could once be seen the crest of the statue of Pallas. +The contours of distant mountains are not, as with us, enveloped in +haze, but show a clear line against the clear sky. It is a beautiful +country which urges man to take life as a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>feast, for everything is +happy about him. "Walking at night in the gardens, listening to the +grasshoppers, playing the lute in the clear of the moon, going to +drink at the spring at the mountain, carrying with him some wine that +he may drink while he sings, spending the days in dancing—these are +Greek pleasures, the joys of a race poor, economical, and eternally +young."</p> + +<p><b>Simplicity of Greek Life.</b>—In this country men are not melted with +the heat nor stiffened with cold; they live in the open air gay and at +slight expense. Food in great quantity is not required, nor warm +clothing, nor a comfortable house. The Greek could live on a handful +of olives and a sardine. His entire clothing consisted of sandals, a +tunic, a large mantle; very often he went bare-footed and bare-headed. +His house was a meagre and unsubstantial building; the air easily +entered through the walls. A couch with some coverings, a coffer, some +beautiful vases, a lamp,—this was his furniture. The walls were bare +and whitened with lime. This house was only a sleeping place.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE PEOPLE</h4> + +<p><b>Origin of the Greeks.</b>—The people who inhabited this charming little +land were an Aryan people, related to the Hindoos and the Persians, +and like them come from the mountains of Asia or the steppes beyond +the Caspian Sea. The Greeks had forgotten the long journey made by +their ancestors; they said that they, like the grasshoppers, were the +children of the soil.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> But their language and the names of their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>gods leave no doubt of their origin.... Like all the Aryans, the +primitive Greeks nourished themselves with milk and with the flesh of +their herds; they moved about under arms, always ready to fight, and +grouped themselves in tribes governed by patriarchs.</p> + +<p><b>The Legends.</b>—The Greeks like all the other ancient peoples were +ignorant of their origin. They neither knew whence their ancestors had +come nor when they had established themselves in Greece, nor what they +had done there. To preserve the exact memory of things as they occur, +there is need of some means of fixing them; but the Greeks did not +know how to write; they did not employ writing until about the eighth +century B.C. They had no way of calculating the number of years. Later +they adopted the usage of counting the years according to the great +feast which was celebrated every four years at Olympia; a period of +four years was called an olympiad. But the first olympiad was placed +in 776 B.C., and the chronology of the Greeks does not rise beyond +this date.</p> + +<p>And yet they used to tell in Greece a great number of legends about +this primitive period. These were especially the exploits of ancient +kings and of heroes who were adored as demi-gods. These stories were +so mingled with fable that it is impossible to know how much truth +they may contain. They said at Athens that the first king, Cecrops, +was half man and half serpent; at Thebes, that Cadmus, founder of the +city, had come from Phœnicia to seek his sister Europa who had been +stolen by a bull; that he had killed a dragon and had sowed his teeth, +from which was sprung a race of warriors, and that the noble <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>families +of Thebes descended from these warriors. At Argos it was said that the +royal family was the issue of Pelops to whom Zeus had given a shoulder +of ivory to replace the one devoured by a goddess. Thus each country +had its legends and the Greeks continued to the end to relate them and +to offer worship to their ancient heroes—Perseus, Bellerophon, +Herakles, Theseus, Minos, Castor and Pollux, Meleager, Œdipus. The +majority of the Greeks, even among the better educated, admitted, at +least in part, the truth of these traditions. They accepted as +historical facts the war between the two sons of Œdipus, king of +Thebes, and the expedition of the Argonauts, sailing forth in quest of +the Golden Fleece, which was guarded by two brazen-footed bulls +vomiting flames.</p> + +<p><b>The Trojan War.</b>—Of all these legends the most fully developed and +the most celebrated was the legend of the Trojan War. It recounted +that about the twelfth century, Troy, a rich and powerful city, held +sway over the coast of Asia. Paris, a Trojan prince, having come to +Greece, had abducted Helen, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. +Agamemnon, king of Argos, made a league of the kings of Greece; a +Greek army went in a fleet of two hundred galleys to besiege Troy. The +siege endured ten years because the supreme god, Zeus, had taken the +side of the Trojans. All the Greek chiefs participated in this +adventure. Achilles, the bravest and the most beautiful of these, +killed Hector, the principal defender of Troy, and dragged his corpse +around the city; he fought clad in divine armor which had been +presented him by his mother, a goddess of the sea; in turn he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>died, +shot by an arrow in the heel. The Greeks, despairing of taking the +city by force, employed a trick: they pretended to depart, and left an +immense horse of wood in which were concealed the chiefs of the army. +The Trojans drew this horse into the city; during the night the chiefs +came forth and opened the city to the Greeks. Troy was burnt, the men +slaughtered, the women led away as slaves. But the chiefs of the +Greeks on their return were beset by tempest. Some perished in the +sea, others were cast on foreign shores. Odysseus, the most crafty of +the chiefs, was for ten years buffeted from one land to another, +losing successively all his ships, himself the sole survivor of the +disasters.</p> + +<p>All antiquity had steadfast faith in the Trojan War. 1184 B.C. was set +as the date of the ending of the siege, and men pointed out the site +of the city. In 1874 Schliemann purposed to excavate this site; it was +necessary to traverse the débris of many cities which lay over it; at +last at a depth of about fifty feet he found in the deepest bed of +débris the traces of a mighty city reduced to ashes, and in the ruins +of the principal edifice a casket filled with gems of gold which he +called the Treasury of Priam. There was no inscription, and the city, +the whole wall of which we have been able to bring to light, was a +very small one. A large number of small, very rude idols have been +found, which represent an owl-headed goddess (the Greeks thus +represented the goddess Pallas). Beyond this no proof has been found +that this city was called Troy.</p> + +<p><b>The Homeric Poems.</b>—It is the two poems attributed to Homer which +have made the taking of Troy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>renowned throughout the world—the +Iliad, which related the combats of the Greeks and the exploits of +Achilles before Troy; and the Odyssey, which recounts the adventures +of Odysseus (Ulysses) after the capture of Troy.</p> + +<p>These two poems were handed down for centuries without being committed +to writing; the rhapsodists, wandering singers, knew long passages +from them by heart and recited them at feasts. It is not till the +sixth century that Pisistratus, a prince of Athens, had them collected +and edited.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> The two poems became from that time and always +remained the most admired works of Greek literature.</p> + +<p>The Greeks said that the author of these poems was Homer, a Greek of +Ionia, who lived about the tenth or the ninth century B.C. They +represented him as a blind old man, poor and a wanderer. Seven towns +disputed the honor of being his birth-place. This tradition was +received without hesitation. But at the end of the eighteenth century +a German scholar, Wolf, noticed certain contradictions in these poems, +and at last asserted that they were not the work of a single poet, but +a collection of fragments from several different poets. This theory +has been attacked and supported with great energy: for a half century +men have flown into a passion for or against the existence of Homer. +Today we begin to think the problem insoluble. What is certain is that +these poems are very old, probably of the ninth century. The Iliad was +composed in Asia Minor and is perhaps the result of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>the union of two +poems—one dedicated to the combats of the Trojans, and the other to +the adventures of Achilles. The Odyssey appears to be the work of one +author; but it cannot be affirmed that it is of the same author as the +Iliad.</p> + +<p><b>The Greeks at the Time of Homer.</b>—We are not able to go back very +far in the history of the Greeks; the Homeric poems are their oldest +historical document. When these were composed, about the ninth century +B.C., there was not yet any general name to designate all the +inhabitants of Greece: Homer mentions them under the names of their +principal tribes. From his description it appears that they have made +some progress since their departure from Asia. They know how to till +the ground, how to construct strong cities and to organize themselves +into little peoples. They obey kings; they have a council of old men +and an assembly of the people. They are proud of their institutions, +they despise their less advanced neighbors, the Barbarians, as they +call them. Odysseus, to show how rude the Cyclops were, says, "They +have no rules of justice nor places where they deliberate; each one +governs himself, his wife, and children, and has no association with +others." But these Greeks themselves are half barbarians; they do not +know how to write, to coin money, nor the art of working in iron. They +hardly dare to trust themselves on the sea and they imagine that +Sicily is peopled with monsters.</p> + +<p><b>The Dorians.</b>—Dorians was the name given to those sons of the +mountaineers who had come from the north and had expelled or subjected +those dwelling in the plains and on the shore of the Peloponnesus; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>the latter, crowded into too narrow limits, sent colonies into Asia. +Of these mountain bands the most renowned came from a little canton +called Doris and preserved the name Dorians. These invaders told how +certain kings of Sparta, the posterity of Herakles, having been thrust +out by their subjects, had come to seek the Dorians in their +mountains. These people of the mountains, moved by their love for +Herakles, had followed his descendants and had replaced them on their +throne. By the same stroke they dispossessed the inhabitants and took +their place. They were a martial, robust, and healthy race, accustomed +to cold, to meagre food, to a scant existence. Men and women wore a +short tunic which did not reach to the knee. They spoke a rude and +primitive dialect. The Dorians were a race of soldiers, always obliged +to keep themselves under arms; they were the least cultivated in +Greece, since, situated far from the sea, they preserved the customs +of the barbarous age; they were the most Greek because, being +isolated, they could neither mingle with strangers nor imitate their +manners.</p> + +<p><b>The Ionians.</b>—The peoples of Attica, the isles, and the coast of +Asia were called Ionians; no one knows the origin of the name. Unlike +the Dorians, they were a race of sailors or traders, the most cultured +of Greece, gaining instruction from contact with the most civilized +peoples of the Orient; the least Greek, because they associated with +Asiatics and had in part adopted their dress. They were peaceful and +industrious, living luxuriously, speaking a smooth dialect, and +wearing long flowing garments like the Orientals.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span><b>The Hellenes.</b>—Dorians and Ionians—these are the two opposing +races, the most remarkable of Greece, and the most powerful: Sparta is +Dorian, Athens is Ionian. But the majority of the Greeks are neither +Dorians nor Ionians: they are called Æolians, a vague name which +covers very different peoples.</p> + +<p>All the Greeks from early times take the name "Hellenes" which they +have kept to this day. What is the origin of the term? They did not +know any more than we: they said only that Dorus and Æolus were sons +of Hellen, and Ion was his grandson.</p> + +<p><b>Cities.</b>—The Hellenes were still in little peoples as at the time of +Homer. The land of Greece, cut by mountains and sea, breaks naturally +into a large number of small cantons, each isolated from its neighbor +by an arm of the sea or by a wall of rocks, so that it is easy to +defend the land and difficult to communicate with other parts. Each +canton constituted a separate state which was called a city. There +were more than a hundred of these; counting the colonies, more than a +thousand. To us a Greek state seems a miniature. The whole of Attica +was but little larger than the state of Delaware, and Corinth or +Megara was much smaller. Usually the state was only a city with a +strip of shore and a harbor, or some villages scattered in the plain +around a citadel. From one state one sees the citadel, mountains, or +harbor of the next state. Many of them count their citizens only by +thousands; the largest included hardly 200,000 or 300,000.</p> + +<p>The Hellenes never formed one nation; they never ceased to fight and +destroy one another. And yet all spoke the same language, worshipped +the same gods, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>and lived the same sort of a life. In these respects +they recognized the bonds of a common race and distinguished +themselves from all other peoples whom they called barbarians and +regarded with disdain.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE HELLENES BEYOND SEA</h4> + +<p><b>Colonization.</b>—The Hellenes did not inhabit Greece alone. Colonists +from the Greek cities had gone forth to found new cities in all the +neighboring countries. There were little states in all the islands of +the Archipelago, over all the coast of Asia Minor, in Crete and +Cyprus, on the whole circumference of the Black Sea as far as the +Caucasus and the Crimea, along the shore of Turkey in Europe (then +called Thrace), on the shore of Africa, in Sicily, in south Italy, and +even on the coasts of France and Spain.</p> + +<p><b>Character of These Colonies.</b>—Greek colonies were being founded all +the time from the twelfth century to the fifth; they issued from +various cities and represented all the Greek races—Dorian, Ionian, +and Æolian. They were established in the wilderness, in an inhabited +land, by conquest, or by an agreement with the natives. Mariners, +merchants, exiles, or adventurers were their founders. But with all +this diversity of time, place, race, and origin, the colonies had +common characteristics: they were established at one stroke and +according to certain fixed rules. The colonists did not arrive one by +one or in small bands; nor did they settle at random, building houses +which little by little became a city, as is the case now with European +colonists in America. All the colonists started <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>at once under a +leader, and the new city was founded in one day. The foundation was a +religious ceremony; the "founder" traced a sacred enclosure, +constructed a sacred hearth, and lighted there the holy fire.</p> + +<p><b>Traditions Concerning the Colonists.</b>—The old stories about the +founding of some of these colonies enable us to see how they differed +from modern colonies. The account of the settlement of Marseilles runs +as follows: Euxenus, a citizen of Phocæa, coming to Gaul in a merchant +galley, was invited by a Gallic chief to the marriage of his daughter; +according to the custom of this people, the young girl about the time +of the feast entered bearing a cup which she was to present to the one +whom she would choose for a husband; she stopped before the Greek and +offered him the cup. This unpremeditated act appeared to have been +inspired from heaven; the Gallic chief gave his daughter to Euxenus +and permitted him and his companions to found a city on the gulf of +Marseilles. Later the Phocæans, seeing their city blockaded by the +Persian army, loaded on their ships their families, their movables, +the statues and treasures of their temple and went to sea, abandoning +their city. As they started, they threw into the sea a mass of red-hot +iron and swore never to return to Phocæa until the iron should rise to +the surface of the water. Many violated this oath and returned; but +the rest continued the voyage and after many adventures came to +Marseilles.</p> + +<p>At Miletus the Ionians who founded the city had brought no wives with +them; they seized a city inhabited by the natives of Asia, slaughtered +all the men, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>and forcibly married the women and girls of the families +of their victims. It was said that the women, affronted in this +manner, swore never to eat food with their captors and never to call +them by the name of husband; this custom was for centuries preserved +among the women of Miletus.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<p>The colony at Cyrene in Africa was founded according to the express +command of the oracle of Apollo. The inhabitants of Thera, who had +received this order, did not care to go to an unknown country. They +yielded only at the end of seven years since their island was +afflicted with dearth; they believed that Apollo had sent misfortune +on them as a penalty. Nevertheless the citizens who were sent out +attempted to abandon the enterprise, but their fellow-citizens +attacked them and forced them to return. After having spent two years +on an island where no success came to them, they at last came to +settle at Cyrene, which soon became a prosperous city.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p><b>Importance of the Colonies.</b>—Wherever they settled, the colonists +constituted a new state which in no respect obeyed the mother town +from which they had come out. And so the whole Mediterranean found +itself surrounded by Greek cities independent one of the others. Of +these cities many became richer and more powerful than their mother +towns; they had a territory which was larger and more fertile, and in +consequence a greater population. Sybaris, it was said, had 300,000 +men who were capable of bearing arms. Croton could place in the field +an infantry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>force of 120,000 men. Syracuse in Sicily, Miletus in Asia +had greater armies than even Sparta and Athens. South Italy was termed +Great Greece. In comparison with this great country fully peopled with +Greek colonies the home country was, in fact, only a little Greece. +And so it happened that the Greeks were much more numerous in the +neighboring countries than in Greece proper; and among these people of +the colonies figure a good share of the most celebrated names: Homer, +Alcæus, Sappho, Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus, +Empedocles, Aristotle, Archimedes, Theocritus, and many others.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a> +<a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a> +<a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_46_46">[46]</a> "Balmy and clement," says Euripides, "is our atmosphere. +The cold of winter has no extremes for us, and the shafts of the sun +do not wound."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_47_47">[47]</a> Autochthones.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_48_48">[48]</a> The story of the collection of the Homeric poems by +Pisistratus is without foundation—"eine blosse Fabel." Busolt, +"Griechische Geschichte." Gotha, 1893, i., 127.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_49_49">[49]</a> Probably this custom has another origin the recollection +of which was lost.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_50_50">[50]</a> Herodotus, iv., 150-158.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>GREEK RELIGION</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Gods. Polytheism.</b>—The Greeks, like the ancient Aryans, believed +in many gods. They had neither the sentiment of infinity nor that of +eternity; they did not conceive of God as one for whom the heavens are +only a tent and the earth a foot-stool. To the Greeks every force of +nature—the air, the sun, the sea—was divine, and as they did not +conceive of all these phenomena as produced by one cause, they +assigned each to a particular god. This is the reason that they +believed in many gods. They were polytheists.</p> + +<p><b>Anthropomorphism.</b>—Each god was a force in nature and carried a +distinct name. The Greeks, having a lively imagination, figured under +this name a living being, of beautiful form and human characteristics. +A god or goddess was represented as a beautiful man or woman. When +Odysseus or Telemachus met a person peculiarly great and beautiful, +they began by asking him if he were not a god. Homer in describing the +army pictured on the shield of Achilles adds, "Ares and Athena led the +army, both clad in gold, beautiful and great, as becomes the gods, for +men were smaller." Greek gods are men; they have clothing, palaces, +bodies similar to ours; if they cannot die, they can at least be +wounded. Homer relates how <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>Ares, the god of war, struck by a warrior, +fled howling with pain. This fashion of making gods like men is what +is called <i>Anthropomorphism</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Mythology.</b>—The gods, being men, have parents, children, property. +Their mothers were goddesses, their brothers were gods, and their +children other gods or men who were half divine. This genealogy of the +gods is what is called the <i>Theogony</i>. The gods have also a history; +we are told the story of their birth, the adventures of their youth, +their exploits. Apollo, for example, was born on the island of Delos +to which his mother Latona had fled; he slew a monster which was +desolating the country at the foot of Parnassus. Each canton of Greece +had thus its tales of the gods. These are called myths; the sum of +them is termed <i>Mythology</i>, or the history of the gods.</p> + +<p><b>The Local Gods.</b>—The Greek gods, even under their human form, +remained what they were at first, phenomena of nature. They were +thought of both as men and as forces of nature. The Naiad is a young +woman, but at the same time a bubbling fountain. Homer represents the +river Xanthus as a god, and yet he says, "The Xanthus threw itself on +Achilles, boiling with fury, full of tumult, foam, and the bodies of +the dead." The people itself continued to say "Zeus rains" or "Zeus +thunders." To the Greek the god was first of all rain, storm, heaven, +or sun, and not the heaven, sun, or earth in general, but that corner +of the heaven under which he lived, the land of his canton, the river +which traversed it. Each city, then, had its divinities, its sun-god, +its earth-goddess, its sea-god, and these are not to be confounded +with the sun, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>earth, and the sea of the neighboring city. The +Zeus of Sparta is not the same as the Zeus of Athens; in the same oath +one sometimes invokes two Athenas or two Apollos. A traveller who +would journey through Greece<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> would therefore meet thousands of +local gods (they called them Poliades, or gods of the city). No +torrent, no wood, no mountain was without its own deity,<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> although +often a minor divinity, adored only by the people of the vicinity and +whose sanctuary was only a grotto in the rock.</p> + +<p><b>The Great Gods.</b>—Above the innumerable legion of local gods of each +canton the Greeks imagined certain great divinities—the heaven, the +sun, the earth, and the sea—and these everywhere had the same name, +and had their temple or sanctuary in every place. Each represented one +of the principal forces of nature. These gods common to all the Greeks +were never numerous; if all are included, we have hardly twenty.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> +We have the bad habit of calling them by the name of a Latin god. The +following are their true names: Zeus (Jupiter), Hera (Juno), Athena +(Minerva), Apollo, Artemis (Diana), Hermes (Mercury), Hephaistos +(Vulcan), Hestia (Vesta), Ares (Mars), Aphrodite (Venus), Poseidon +(Neptune), Amphitrite, Proteus, Kronos (Saturn), Rhea (Cybele), +Demeter (Ceres), Persephone (Proserpina), Hades <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>(Pluto), Dionysos +(Bacchus). It is this little group of gods that men worshipped in all +the temples, that men ordinarily invoked in their prayers.</p> + +<p><b>Attributes of the Gods.</b>—Each of these great gods had his form, his +costume, his instruments (which we call his attributes); it is thus +that the faithful imagined him and that the sculptors represented him. +Each has his character which is well known to his worshippers. Each +has his rôle in the world, performing his determined functions, +ordinarily with the aid of secondary divinities who obey him.</p> + +<p>Athena, virgin of clear eye, is represented standing, armed with a +lance, a helmet on the head, and gleaming armor on the breast. She is +the goddess of the clear air, of wisdom, and of invention, a goddess +of dignity and majesty.</p> + +<p>Hephaistos, the god of fire, is figured with a hammer and in the form +of a lame and ugly blacksmith. It is he who forges the thunderbolt.</p> + +<p>Artemis, shy maiden, armed with bow and quiver, courses the forests +hunting with a troop of nymphs. She is the goddess of the woods, of +the chase, and of death.</p> + +<p>Hermes, represented with winged sandals, is the god of the fertile +showers. But he has other offices; he is the god of streets and +squares, the god of commerce, of theft, and of eloquence. He it is who +guides the souls of the dead, the messenger of the gods, the deity +presiding over the breeding of cattle.</p> + +<p>Almost always a Greek god has several functions, quite dissimilar to +our eyes, but to the Greeks bearing some relation to one another.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span><b>Olympus and Zeus.</b>—Each one of these gods is like a king in his own +domain. Still the Greeks had remarked that all the forces of nature do +not operate by chance and that they act in harmony; the same word +served them for the idea of order and of universe. They supposed, +then, that the gods were in accord for the administration of the +world, and that they, like men, had laws and government among them.</p> + +<p>In the north of Greece there was a mountain to whose snowy summit no +man had ever climbed. This was Olympus. On this summit, which was +hidden by clouds from the eyes of men, it was imagined the gods +assembled. Meeting under the light of heaven, they conferred on the +affairs of the world. Zeus, the mightiest of them, presided over the +gathering: he was god of the heavens and of the light, the god "who +masses the clouds," who launches the thunderbolt—an old man of +majestic mien, with long beard, sitting on a throne of gold. It is he +who commands and the other gods bow before him. Should they essay to +resist, Zeus menaces them; Homer makes him say,<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> "Bind to heaven a +chain of gold, and all of you, gods or goddesses, throw your weight +upon it; all your united efforts cannot draw Zeus, the sovereign +ordainer, to the earth. On the contrary, if I wished to draw the chain +to myself, I should bring with it the earth and the very sea. Then I +would attach it to the summit of Olympus and all the universe would be +suspended. By so much am I superior to gods and men."</p> + +<p><b>Morality of the Greek Mythology.</b>—The greater part <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>of their gods +were conceived by the Greeks as violent, sanguinary, deceitful, +dissolute. They ascribed to them scandalous adventures or dishonest +acts. Hermes was notorious for his thieving, Aphrodite for her +coquetry, Ares for his ferocity. All were so vain as to persecute +those who neglected to offer sacrifices to them. Niobe had seen all +her children pierced with arrows by Apollo because she herself had +boasted of her numerous family. The gods were so jealous that they +could not endure seeing a man thoroughly happy; prosperity for the +Greeks was the greatest of dangers, for it never failed to draw the +anger of the gods, and this anger became a goddess (Nemesis) about +whom were told such anecdotes as the following: Once Polycrates of +Samos, become very powerful, feared the jealousy of the gods; and so a +ring of gold which he still retained was cast into the sea that his +good fortune might not be unmixed with evil. Some time after, a +fisherman brought to Polycrates an enormous fish and in its belly was +found the ring. This was a certain presage of evil. Polycrates was +besieged in his city, taken, and crucified. The gods punished him for +his good fortune.</p> + +<p>Greek mythology was immoral in that the gods gave bad examples to men. +The Greek philosophers were already saying this and were inveighing +against the poets who had published these stories. A disciple of +Pythagoras affirmed that his master, descending to hell, had seen the +soul of Homer hanging to a tree and that of Hesiod bound to a column +to punish them for calumniating the gods. "Homer and Hesiod," Said +Xenophanes, "attribute to the gods all the acts which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>among men are +culpable and shameful; there is but one god who neither in body nor in +soul resembles men." And he added this profound remark: "If oxen and +lions had hands and could manipulate like men, they would have made +gods with bodies similar to their own, horses would have framed gods +with horses' bodies, and cattle with cattle's.... Men think that the +gods have their feelings, their voice, and their body." Xenophanes was +right; the primitive Greeks had created their gods in their own image. +As they were then sanguinary, dissolute, jealous, and vain, their gods +were the same. Later, as the people became better, their descendants +were shocked with all these vices; but the history and the character +of the gods were fixed by the ancient traditions, and later +generations, without daring to change them, had received the gross and +dishonest gods of their ancestors.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE HEROES</h4> + +<p><b>The Hero.</b>—The hero in Greece is a man who has become illustrious, +and after death a mighty spirit—not a god, but a demi-god. The heroes +do not live on Olympus in the heaven of the gods, they do not direct +the life of the world. And yet they, too, possess a power higher than +that of any human, and this permits them to aid their friends and +destroy their enemies. For this reason the Greeks rendered them +worship as to the gods and implored their protection. There was not a +city, not a tribe, not a family but had its hero, a protecting spirit +which it adored.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span><b>Different Kinds of Heroes.</b>—Of these heroes many are legendary +persons (Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon); some without doubt never +existed (Herakles, Œdipus); others like Hellen, Dorus, Æolus are only +names. But their worshippers regarded them as men of the olden time; +and, in fact, the most of the heroes lived at one time. Many are +historical personages: generals like Leonidas, Lysander; philosophers +like Democritus and Aristotle; legislators like Lycurgus and Solon. +The people of Croton adored even one of their fellow-citizens, Philip +by name, because he had been in his time the most beautiful man in +Greece. The leader who had guided a band of colonists and founded a +city became for the inhabitants the Founder; a temple was raised to +him and every year sacrifices were offered to him. The Athenian +Miltiades was thus worshipped in a city of Thrace. The Spartiate +Brasidas, killed in the defence of Amphipolis, had divine honors paid +to him in that city, for the inhabitants had come to regard him as +their Founder.</p> + +<p><b>Presence of the Heroes.</b>—The hero continued to reside in the place +where his body was interred, either in his tomb or in the +neighborhood. A story told by Herodotus (v. 67) depicts this belief in +a lively way. The city of Sicyon adored the hero Adrastus and in a +public place was a chapel dedicated to his honor. Cleisthenes, the +tyrant of Sicyon, took a fancy to rid himself of this hero. He went to +the oracle at Delphi to ask if it would aid him in expelling Adrastus. +The oracle replied to his question that Adrastus was king of the +Sicyonians and Cleisthenes was a brigand. The tyrant, not daring to +evict the hero, adopted a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>ruse; he sent to Thebes to seek the bones +of Melanippus, another hero, and installed them with great pomp in the +sanctuary of the city. "He did this," says Herodotus, "because +Melanippus during his life had been the greatest enemy of Adrastus and +had killed his brother and his son-in-law." Then he transferred to +Melanippus the festivals and the sacrifices formerly paid to the honor +of Adrastus. He was persuaded, and all the Greeks with him, that the +hero would be irritated and would flee.</p> + +<p><b>Intervention of the Heroes.</b>—The heroes have divine power; like the +gods, they can according to their whim send good or evil. The poet +Stesichorus had spoken ill of the famous Helen (that Helen who the +legend states was carried away to Troy); he suddenly became blind; +when he retracted what he had said, the heroine restored his sight.</p> + +<p>The protecting heroes of a city kept it from plagues and famine and +even fought against its enemies. At the battle of the Marathon the +Athenian soldiers saw in the midst of them Theseus, the mythical +founder of Athens, clad in shining armor. During the battle of Salamis +the heroes Ajax and Telamon, once kings of Salamis, appeared on the +highest point of the island extending their hands to the Greek fleet. +"It is not we," said Themistocles, "that have vanquished the Persians; +it is the gods and heroes." In "Œdipus at Colonus," a tragedy of +Sophocles, Œdipus at the point of death receives the visit of the king +of Athens and of the king of Thebes, both of whom as gods request him +to have his body interred in their territory, and to become a +protecting hero. Œdipus at last consents to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>be buried in the soil of +the Athenians, and says to the king, "Dead, I shall not be a useless +inhabitant of this country, I shall be a rampart for you, stronger +than millions of warriors." In himself alone a hero was as efficient +as a whole army; his spirit was mightier than all living men.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>WORSHIP</h4> + +<p><b>Principles of Worship of the Gods.</b>—Gods and heroes, potent as they +were, bestowed on men all good or evil fortune according to their +will. It was dangerous to have them against you, wise to have them on +your side. They were conceived as like men, irritated if they were +neglected, contented if they were venerated. On this principle worship +was based. It consisted in doing things agreeable to the gods to +obtain their favor. Plato expresses as follows<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> the thought of the +common man, "To know how to say and do those things that are pleasing +to the gods, either in prayers or in offerings, this is piety which +brings prosperity to individuals and to states. The reverse is impiety +which ruins everything." "It is natural," says Xenophon at the end of +his treatise on Cavalry, "that the gods should favor those especially +who not only consult them in need, but honor them in the day of +prosperity." Religion was first of all a contract; the Greek sought to +delight the gods and in return required their services. "For a long +time," says a priest of Apollo to his god, "I have burned fat +bullocks <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>for you; now grant my petitions and discharge your arrows +against my enemies."</p> + +<p><b>The Great Festivals.</b>—Since the gods had the feelings of men they +were to be pleased in the same way as men. Wine, cakes, fruits, food +were brought to them. Palaces were built for them. Festivals were +given in their honor, for they were "joyous gods" who loved pleasure +and beautiful spectacles. A festival was not, as with us, purely an +occasion of rejoicing, but a religious ceremony. On those days free +from the daily toil men were required to rejoice in public before the +god. The Greek, without doubt, delighted in these fêtes; but it is for +the god and not for himself that he celebrates them. "The Ionians," +says an ancient hymn to Apollo, "delight thee with trial of strength, +the hymn, and the dance."</p> + +<p><b>The Sacred Games.</b>—From these diversions offered to the gods +originated the solemn games. Each city had them to the honor of its +gods; ordinarily only its citizens were admitted to them; but in four +districts of Greece were celebrated games at which all Greeks could be +present and participate. These are called the Four Great Games.</p> + +<p>The principal of these four festivals was that at Olympia. This was +given every four years in honor of Zeus and continued five or six +days. The multitude coming from all parts of Greece filled the +amphitheatre. They commenced by sacrificing victims and addressing +prayers to Zeus and the other gods. Then came the contests; they were:</p> + +<p>The foot-race around the stadion.</p> + +<p>The Pentathlon, so called because it comprised five <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>exercises. The +competitors were to leap, run from one end of the stadion to the +other, make a long throw of the metal discus, hurl the javelin, and +wrestle.</p> + +<p>Boxing, in which one fought with arms bound with thongs of hide.</p> + +<p>The chariot races, which were held in the hippodrome; the cars were +light and were drawn by four horses.</p> + +<p>The judges of the games were clothed in purple, crowned with laurel. +After the combat a herald proclaimed before the whole assembly the +name of the victor and of his city. A crown of olive was the only +reward given him; but his fellow-citizens on his return received him +as a conquering hero; sometimes they threw down a section of the city +wall to give him entrance. He arrived in a chariot drawn by four +horses, clothed in purple, escorted by all the people. "These +victories which we leave today to the athletes of the public shows +appeared then the greatest of all. Poets of greatest renown celebrated +them; Pindar, the most illustrious lyric poet of antiquity, has hardly +done more than sing of chariot races. It is related that a certain +Diagoras, who had seen his two sons crowned on the same day, was borne +in triumph by them in the sight of the spectators. The people, holding +such an honor too great for a mortal, cried out, 'Perish, Diagoras, +for after all you cannot become a god.' Diagoras, suffocated with +emotion, died in the arms of his sons. In his eyes and the eyes of the +Greeks the fact that his sons possessed the stoutest fists and the +nimblest limbs in Greece was the acme of earthly happiness."<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>Greeks had their reasons for thus admiring physical prowess: in their +wars in which they fought hand to hand the most vigorous athletes were +the best soldiers.</p> + +<p><b>Omens.</b>—In return for so much homage, so many festivals and +offerings, the Greeks expected no small amount of service from their +gods. The gods protected their worshippers, gave them health, riches, +victory. They preserved them from the evils that menaced them, sending +signs which men interpreted. These are called Omens. "When a city," +says Herodotus,<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> "is about to suffer some great misfortune, this is +usually anticipated by signs. The people of Chios had omens of their +defeat: of a band of one hundred youths sent to Delphi but two +returned; the others had died of the plague. About the same time the +roof of a school of the city fell on the children who were learning to +read; but one escaped of the one hundred and twenty. Such were the +anticipating signs sent them by the deity."</p> + +<p>The Greeks regarded as supernatural signs, dreams, the flight of birds +in the heavens, the entrails of animals sacrificed—in a word, +everything that they saw, from the tremblings of the earth and +eclipses to a simple sneeze. In the expedition to Sicily, Nicias, the +general of the Athenians, at the moment of embarking his army for the +retreat, was arrested by an eclipse of the moon; the gods, thought he, +had sent this prodigy to warn the Athenians not to continue their +enterprise. And so Nicias waited; he waited twenty-seven days offering +sacrifices to appease the gods. During this inactivity the enemy +closed the port, destroyed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>fleet, and exterminated his army. The +Athenians on learning this news found but one thing with which to +reproach Nicias: he should have known that for an army in retreat the +eclipse of the moon was a favorable sign. During the retreat of the +Ten Thousand, Xenophon, the general, making an address to his +soldiers, uttered this sentiment: "With the help of the gods we have +the surest hope that we shall save ourselves with glory." At this +point a soldier sneezed. At once all adored the god who had sent this +omen. "Since at the very instant when we are deliberating concerning +our safety," exclaimed Xenophon, "Zeus the savior has sent us an omen, +let us with one consent offer sacrifices to him."<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> + +<p><b>The Oracles.</b>—Often the god replies to the faithful who consult him +not by a mute sign, but by the mouth of an inspired person. The +faithful enter the sanctuary of the god seeking responses and counsel. +These are Oracles.</p> + +<p>There were oracles in many places in Greece and Asia. The most noted +were at Dodona in Epirus, and at Delphi, at the foot of Mount +Parnassus. At Dodona it was Zeus who spoke by the rustling of the +sacred oaks. At Delphi it was Apollo who was consulted. Below his +temple, in a grotto, a current of cool air issued from a rift in the +ground. This air the Greeks thought<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> was sent by the god, for he +threw into a frenzy those who inhaled it. A tripod was placed over the +orifice, a woman (the Pythia), prepared by a bath in the sacred +spring, took her seat on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>the tripod, and received the inspiration. At +once, seized with a nervous frenzy, she uttered cries and broken +sentences. Priests sitting about her caught these expressions, set +them to verse, and brought them to him who sought advice of the god.</p> + +<p>The oracles of the Pythia were often obscure and ambiguous. When +Crœsus asked if he should make war on the Persians, the reply was, +"Crœsus will destroy a great empire." In fact, a great empire was +destroyed, but it was that of Crœsus.</p> + +<p>The Spartans had great confidence in the Pythia, and never initiated +an expedition without consulting her. The other Greeks imitated them, +and Delphi thus became a sort of national oracle.</p> + +<p><b>Amphictyonies.</b>—To protect the sanctuary of Delphi twelve of the +principal peoples of Greece had formed an association called an +Amphictyony.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> Every year deputies from these peoples assembled at +Delphi to celebrate the festival of Apollo and see that the temple was +not threatened; for this temple contained immense wealth, a temptation +to pillage it. In the sixth century the people of Cirrha, a +neighboring city of Delphi, appropriated these treasures,<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> The +Amphictyons declared war against them for sacrilege. Cirrha was taken +and destroyed, the inhabitants sold as slaves, the territory left +fallow. In the fourth century the Amphictyons made war on the +Phocidians also who had seized the treasury of Delphi, and on the +people of Amphissa who had tilled a field dedicated to Apollo.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>Still it is not necessary to believe that the assembly of the +Amphictyons ever resembled a Greek senate. It was concerned only with +the temple of Apollo, not at all with political affairs. It did not +even prevent members of the Amphictyony fighting one another. The +oracle and the Amphictyony of Delphi were more potent than the other +oracles and the other amphictyonies; but they never united the Greeks +into a single nation.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a> +<a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a> +<a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a> +<a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a> +<a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a> +<a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_51_51">[51]</a> See the account of the traveller Pausanias.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_52_52">[52]</a> "There are," says Hesiod, "30,000 gods on the fruitful +earth."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_53_53">[53]</a> Greek scholars formed a select society of twelve gods +and goddesses, but their choice was arbitrary, and all did not agree +on the same series. The Greeks of different countries and of different +epochs often represented the same god under different forms. Further, +the majority of the gods seem to us to have vague and undetermined +attributes; this is because they were not the same everywhere.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_54_54">[54]</a> Iliad, viii., 18.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_55_55">[55]</a> In the dialogue "Eutyphron."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_56_56">[56]</a> Taine, "Philosophy of Art."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_57_57">[57]</a> Herodotus, vi., 27</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_58_58">[58]</a> Xenophon, "Anabasis," iii, 2.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_59_59">[59]</a> This idea gained currency only in the later periods of +Grecian history.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_60_60">[60]</a> There were similar amphictyonies at Delos, Calauria, and +Onchestus.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_61_61">[61]</a> The special charge against Cirrha was the levying of +toll on pilgrims coming to Delphi.—ED.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>SPARTA</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE PEOPLE</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Laconia.</b>—When the Dorian mountaineers invaded the Peloponnesus, the +main body of them settled at Sparta in Laconia. Laconia is a narrow +valley traversed by a considerable stream (the Eurotas) flowing +between two massive mountain ranges with snowy summits. A poet +describes the country as follows: "A land rich in tillable soil, but +hard to cultivate, deep set among perpendicular mountains, rough in +aspect, inaccessible to invasion." In this enclosed country lived the +Dorians of Sparta in the midst of the ancient inhabitants who had +become, some their subjects, others their serfs. There were, then, in +Laconia three classes: Helots, Periœci, Spartiates.</p> + +<p><b>The Helots.</b>—The Helots dwelt in the cottages scattered in the plain +and cultivated the soil. But the land did not belong to them—indeed, +they were not even free to leave it. They were, like the serfs of the +Middle Ages, peasants attached to the soil, from father to son. They +labored for a Spartiate proprietor who took from them the greater part +of the harvest. The Spartiates instructed them, feared them, and ill +treated them. They compelled them to wear rude garments, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>beat them +unreasonably to remind them of their servile condition, and sometimes +made them intoxicated to disgust their children with the sight of +drunkenness. A Spartiate poet compares the Helots to "loaded asses +stumbling under their burdens and the blows inflicted."</p> + +<p><b>The Periœci.</b>—The Periœci (those who live around) inhabited a +hundred villages in the mountains or on the coast. They were sailors, +they engaged in commerce, and manufactured the objects necessary to +life. They were free and administered the business of their village, +but they paid tribute to the magistrates of Sparta and obeyed them.</p> + +<p><b>Condition of the Spartiates.</b>—Helots and Periœci despised the +Spartiates, their masters. "Whenever one speaks to them of the +Spartiates," says Xenophon,<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> "there isn't one of them who can +conceal the pleasure he would feel in eating them alive." Once an +earthquake nearly destroyed Sparta: the Helots at once rushed from all +sides of the plain to massacre those of the Spartiates who had escaped +the catastrophe. At the same time the Periœci rose and refused +obedience. The Spartiates' bearing toward the Periœci was certain to +exasperate them. At the end of a war in which many of the Helots had +fought in their army, they bade them choose those who had especially +distinguished themselves for bravery, with the promise of freeing +them. It was a ruse to discover the most energetic and those most +capable of revolting. Two thousand were chosen; they were conducted +about the temples with heads crowned as an evidence of their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>manumission; then the Spartiates put them out of the way, but how it +was done no one ever knew.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p> + +<p>And yet the oppressed classes were ten times more, numerous than their +masters. While there were more than 200,000 Helots and 120,000 +Periœci, there were never more than 9,000 Spartiate heads of families. +In a matter of life and death, then, it was necessary that a Spartiate +be as good as ten Helots. As the form of battle was hand-to-hand, they +needed agile and robust men. Sparta was like a camp without walls; its +people was an army always in readiness.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>EDUCATION</h4> + +<p><b>The Children.</b>—They began to make soldiers of them at birth. The +newly-born infant was brought before a council; if it was found +deformed, it was exposed on the mountain to die; for an army has use +only for strong men. The children who were permitted to grow up were +taken from their parents at the age of seven years and were trained +together as members of a group. Both summer and winter they went +bare-foot and had but a single mantle. They lay on a heap of reeds and +bathed in the cold waters of the Eurotas. They ate little and that +quickly and had a rude diet. This was to teach them not to satiate the +stomach. They were grouped by hundreds, each under a chief. Often they +had to contend together with blows of feet and fists. At the feast of +Artemis they were beaten before the statue of the goddess till <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>the +blood flowed; some died under this ordeal, but their honor required +them not to weep. They were taught to fight and suffer.</p> + +<p>Often they were given nothing to eat; provision must be found by +foraging. If they were captured on these predatory expeditions, they +were roughly beaten. A Spartiate boy who had stolen a little fox and +had hidden it under his mantle, rather than betray himself let the +animal gnaw out his vitals. They were to learn how to escape from +perplexing situations when they were in the field.</p> + +<p>They walked with lowered glance, silent, hands under the mantle, +without turning the head and "making no more noise than statues." They +were not to speak at table and were to obey all men that they +encountered. This was to accustom them to discipline.</p> + +<p><b>The Girls.</b>—The other Greeks kept their daughters secluded in the +house, spinning flax. The Spartiates would have robust women capable +of bearing vigorous children. The girls, therefore, were trained in +much the same manner as the boys. In their gymnasia they practised +running, leaping, throwing the disc and Javelin. A poet describes a +play in which Spartiate girls "like colts with flowing manes make the +dust fly about them." They were reputed the healthiest and bravest +women in Greece.</p> + +<p><b>The Discipline.</b>—The men, too, have their regular life and this a +soldier's life. The presence of many enemies requires that no one +shall weaken. At seventeen years the Spartiate becomes a soldier and +this he until he is sixty. The costume, hour of rising <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>and retiring, +meals, exercise—everything is fixed by regulations as in barracks.</p> + +<p>Since the Spartiate engages only in war, he is to prepare himself for +that; he exercises himself in running, leaping, and wielding his arms; +he disciplines all the members of the body—the neck, the arms, the +shoulders, the legs, and that too, every day. He has no right to +engage in trade, to pursue an industry, nor to cultivate the earth; he +is a soldier and is not to allow himself to be diverted to any other +occupation. He cannot live at his pleasure with his own family; the +men eat together in squads; they cannot leave the country without +permission. It is the discipline of a regiment in the enemy's +territory.</p> + +<p><b>Laconism.</b>—These warriors had a rude life, with clean-cut aims and +proud disposition. They spoke in short phrases—or as we say, +laconically—the word has still persisted. The Greeks cited many +examples of these expressions. To a garrison in danger of being +surprised the government sent this message, "Attention!" A Spartan +army was summoned by the king of Persia to lay down his arms; the +general replied, "Come and take them." When Lysander captured Athens, +he wrote simply, "Athens is fallen."</p> + +<p><b>Music. The Dance.</b>—The arts of Sparta were those that pertained to +an army. The Dorian conquerors brought with them a peculiar sort of +music—the Dorian style, serious, strong, even harsh. It was military +music; the Spartiates went into battle to the sound of the flute so +that the step might be regular.</p> + +<p>Their dance was a military movement. In the "Pyrrhic" the dancers were +armed and imitated all the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>movements of a battle; they made the +gestures of striking, of parrying, of retreating, and of throwing the +javelin.</p> + +<p><b>Heroism of the Women.</b>—The women stimulated the men to combat; their +exhibitions of courage were celebrated in Greece, so much so that +collections of stories of them were made.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> A Spartan mother, seeing +her son fleeing from battle, killed him with her own hand, saying; +"The Eurotas does not flow for deer." Another, learning that her five +sons had perished, said, "This is not what I wish to know; does +victory belong to Sparta?" "Yes." "Then let us render thanks to the +gods."</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE INSTITUTIONS OF SPARTA</h4> + +<p><b>The Kings and the Council.</b>—The Spartiates had at first, like the +other Greeks, an assembly of the people. All these institutions were +preserved, but only in form. The kings, descendants of the god +Herakles, were loaded with honors; they were given the first place at +the feasts and were served with a double portion; when they died all +the inhabitants made lamentation for them. But no power was left to +them and they were closely watched.</p> + +<p>The Senate was composed of twenty-eight old men taken from the rich +and ancient families, appointed for life; but it did not govern.</p> + +<p><b>The Ephors.</b>—The real masters of Sparta were the Ephors (the name +signifies overseers), five magistrates who were renewed every year. +They decided peace <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>and war, and had judicial functions; when the king +commanded the army, they accompanied him, directed the operations, and +sometimes made him return. Usually they consulted the senators and +took action in harmony with them. Then they assembled the Spartiates +in one place, announced to them what had been decided and asked their +approbation. The people without discussing the matter approved the +action by acclamation. No one knew whether he had the right to refuse +assent; accustomed to obey, the Spartiate never refused. It was, +therefore, an aristocracy of governing families. Sparta was not a +country of equality. There were some men who were called Equals, but +only because they were equal among themselves. The others were termed +Inferiors and had no part in the government.</p> + +<p><b>The Army.</b>—Thanks to this régime, the Spartiates preserved the rude +customs of mountaineers; they had no sculptors, no architects, no +orators, no philosophers. They had sacrificed everything to war; they +became "adepts in the military art,"<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> and instructors of the other +Greeks. They introduced two innovations especially: a better method of +combat, a better method of athletic exercise.</p> + +<p><b>The Hoplites.</b>—Before them the Greeks marched into battle in +disorder; the chiefs, on horseback or in a light chair, rushed ahead, +the men following on foot, armed each in his own fashion, +helter-skelter, incapable of acting together or of resisting. A +battle reduced itself to a series of duels and to a massacre. At +Sparta all the soldiers had the same arms; for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>defence, the +breastplate covering the chest, the casque which protected the head, +the greaves over the legs, the buckler held before the body. For +offence the soldier had a short sword and a long lance. The man thus +armed was called a hoplite. The Spartan hoplites were drawn up in +regiments, battalions, companies, squads, almost like our armies. An +officer commanded each of these groups and transmitted to his men the +orders of his superior officer, so that the general in chief might +have the same movement executed throughout the whole army. This +organization which appears so simple to us was to the Greeks an +astonishing novelty.</p> + +<p><b>The Phalanx.</b>—Come into the presence of the enemy, the soldiers +arrange themselves in line, ordinarily eight ranks deep, each man +close to his neighbor, forming a compact mass which we call a Phalanx. +The king, who directs the army, sacrifices a goat to the gods; if the +entrails of the victim are propitious, he raises a chant which all the +army takes up in unison. Then they advance. With rapid and measured +step, to the sound of the flute, with lance couched and buckler before +the body, they meet the enemy in dense array, overwhelm him by their +mass and momentum, throw him into rout, and only check themselves to +avoid breaking the phalanx. So long as they remain together each is +protected by his neighbor and all form an impenetrable mass on which +the enemy could secure no hold. These were rude tactics, but +sufficient to overcome a disorderly troop. Isolated men could not +resist such a body. The other Greeks understood this, and all, as far +as they were able, imitated the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>Spartans; everywhere men were armed +as hoplites and fought in phalanx.</p> + +<p><b>Gymnastics.</b>—To rush in orderly array on the enemy and stand the +shock of battle there was need of agile and robust men; every man had +to be an athlete. The Spartans therefore organized athletic exercises, +and in this the other Greeks imitated them; gymnastics became for all +a national art, the highest esteemed of all the arts, the crowning +feature of the great festivals.</p> + +<p>In the most remote countries, in the midst of the barbarians of Gaul +or of the Black Sea, a Greek city was recognized by its gymnasium. +There was a great square surrounded by porticoes or walks, usually +near a spring, with baths and halls for exercise. The citizens came +hither to walk and chat: it was a place of association. All the young +men entered the gymnasium; for two years or less they came here every +day; they learned to leap, to run, to throw the disc and the javelin, +to wrestle by seizing about the waist. To harden the muscles and +strengthen the skin they plunged into cold water, dispensed with oil +for the body, and rubbed the flesh with a scraper (the strigil).</p> + +<p><b>Athletes.</b>—Many continued these exercises all their lives as a point +of honor and became Athletes. Some became marvels of skill. Milo of +Croton in Italy, it was said, would carry a bull on his shoulders; he +stopped a chariot in its course by seizing it from behind. These +athletes served sometimes in combats as soldiers, or as generals. +Gymnastics were the school of war.</p> + +<p><b>Rôle of the Spartiates.</b>—The Spartans taught the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>other Greeks to +exercise and to fight. They always remained the most vigorous +wrestlers and the best soldiers, and were recognized as such by the +rest of Greece. Everywhere they were respected. When the rest of the +Greeks had to fight together against the Persians, they unhesitatingly +took the Spartans as chiefs—and with justice, said an Athenian +orator.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a> +<a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_62_62">[62]</a> "Hellenica," iii., 3, 6.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_63_63">[63]</a> See Thucydides, iv., 80.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_64_64">[64]</a> A collection by Plutarch is still preserved.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_65_65">[65]</a> A phrase of Xenophon.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>ATHENS</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Attica.</b>—The Athenians boasted of having always lived in the same +country; their ancestors, according to their story, originated from +the soil itself. The mountaineers who conquered the south land passed +by the country without invading it; Attica was hardly a temptation to +them.</p> + +<p>Attica is composed of a mass of rocks which in the form of a triangle +advances into the sea. These rocks, renowned for their blocks of +marble and for the honey of their bees,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> are bare and sterile. +Between them and the sea are left three small plains with meagre soil, +meanly watered (the streams are dry in summer) and incapable of +supporting a numerous population.</p> + +<p><b>Athens.</b>—In the largest of these plains, a league from the sea, +rises a massive isolated rock: Athens was built at its foot. The old +city, called the Acropolis, occupied the summit of the rock.</p> + +<p>The inhabitants of Attica commenced, not by forming a single state, +but by founding scattered villages, each of which had its own king and +its own government. Later all these villages united under one +king,<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>the king of Athens, and established a single city. This +does not mean that all the people came to dwell in one town. They +continued to have their own villages and to cultivate their lands; but +all adored one and the same protecting goddess, Athena, divinity of +Athens, and all obeyed the same king.</p> + +<p><b>Athenian Revolutions.</b>—Later still the kings were suppressed. In +their place Athens had nine chiefs (the archons) who changed every +year. This whole history is little known to us for no writing of the +time is preserved. They used to say that for centuries the Athenians +had lived in discord; the nobles (Eupatrids) who were proprietors of +the soil oppressed the peasants on their estates; creditors held their +debtors as slaves. To reëstablish order the Athenians commissioned +Solon, a sage, to draft a code of laws for them (594).</p> + +<p>Solon made three reforms:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. He lessened the value of the money, which allowed the debtors +to release themselves more easily.</p> + +<p>2. He made the peasants proprietors of the land that they +cultivated. From this time there were in Attica more small +proprietors than in any other part of Greece.</p> + +<p>3. He grouped all the citizens into four classes according to +their incomes. Each had to pay taxes and to render military +service according to his wealth, the poor being exempt from +taxation and military service.</p></div> + +<p>After Solon the Athenians were subject to Pisistratus, one of their +powerful and clever citizens; but in 510 the dissensions revived.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span><b>Reforms of Cleisthenes.</b>—Cleisthenes, leader of one of the parties, +used the occasion to make a thoroughgoing revolution.</p> + +<p>There were many strangers in Athens, especially seamen and traders who +lived in Piræus near the harbor. Cleisthenes gave them the rights of +citizenship and made them equal<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> to the older inhabitants. From +this time there were two populations side by side—the people of +Attica and those of Piræus. A difference of physical features was +apparent for three centuries afterward: the people of Attica resembled +the rest of the Greeks; those in Piræus resembled Asiatics. The +Athenian people thus augmented was a new people, the most active in +Greece.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE</h4> + +<p>In the fifth century the society of Athens was definitely formed: +three classes inhabited the district of Attica—slaves, foreigners, +and citizens.</p> + +<p><b>The Slaves.</b>—The slaves constituted the great majority of the +population; there was no man so poor that he did not have at least one +slave; the rich owned a multitude of them, some as many as five +hundred. The larger part of the slaves lived in the house occupied +with grinding grain, kneading bread, spinning and weaving cloth, +performing the service of the kitchens, and in attendance on their +masters. Others labored in the shops as blacksmiths, as dyers, or in +stone quarries or silver mines. Their master fed them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>but sold at a +profit everything which they produced, giving them in return nothing +but their living. All the domestic servants, all the miners, and the +greater part of the artisans were slaves. These men lived in society +but without any part in it; they had not even the disposition of their +own bodies, being wholly the property of other men. They were thought +of only as objects of property; they were often referred to as "a +body" (<span class="Greek" title="sôma">σωμα</span>). There was no other law for them than the will of their +master, and he had all power over them—to make them work, to imprison +them, to deprive them of their sustenance, to beat them. When a +citizen went to law, his adversary had the right to require that the +former's slaves should be put to the torture to tell what they knew. +Many Athenian orators commend this usage as an ingenious means for +obtaining true testimony. "Torture," says the orator Isæus, "is the +surest means of proof; and so when you wish to clear up a contested +question, you do not address yourselves to freemen, but, placing the +slaves to the torture, you seek to discover the truth."</p> + +<p><b>Foreigners.</b>—The name Metics was applied to people of foreign origin +who were established in Athens. To become a citizen of Athens it was +not enough, as with us, to be born in the country; one must be the son +of a citizen. It might be that some aliens had resided in Attica for +several generations and yet their family not become Athenian. The +metics could take no part in the government, could not marry a +citizen, nor acquire land. But they were personally free, they had the +right of commerce by sea, of banking and of trade on condition that +they take a patron to represent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>them in the courts. There were in +Athens more than ten thousand families of metics, the majority of them +bankers or merchants.</p> + +<p><b>The Citizens.</b>—To be a citizen of Athens it was necessary that both +parents should be citizens. The young Athenian, come to maturity at +about eighteen years of age, appeared before the popular assembly, +received the arms which he was to bear and took the following oath: "I +swear never to dishonor these sacred arms, not to quit my post, to +obey the magistrates and the laws, to honor the religion of my +country." He became simultaneously citizen and soldier. Thereafter he +owed military service until he was sixty years of age. With this he +had the right to sit in the assembly and to fulfil the functions of +the state.</p> + +<p>Once in a while the Athenians consented to receive into the +citizenship a man who was not the son of a citizen, but this was rare +and a sign of great favor. The assembly had to vote the stranger into +its membership, and then nine days after six thousand citizens had to +vote for him on a secret ballot. The Athenian people was like a closed +circle; no new members were admitted except those pleasing to the old +members, and they admitted few beside their sons.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS</h4> + +<p><b>The Assembly.</b>—The Athenians called their government a democracy (a +government by the people). But this people was not, as with us, the +mass of inhabitants, but the body of citizens, a true aristocracy of +15,000 to 20,000 men who governed the whole <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>nation as masters. This +body had absolute power, and was the true sovereign of Athens. It +assembled at least three times a month to deliberate and to vote. The +assembly was held in the open air on the Pnyx; the citizens sat on +stone benches arranged in an amphitheatre; the magistrates before them +on a platform opened the session with a religious ceremony and a +prayer, then a herald proclaimed in a loud voice the business which +was to occupy the assembly, and said, "Who wishes to speak?" Every +citizen had the right to this privilege; the orators mounted the +tribune according to age. When all had spoken, the president put the +question; the assembly voted by a show of hands, and then dissolved.</p> + +<p><b>The Courts.</b>—The people itself, being sovereign, passed judgment in +the courts. Every citizen of thirty years of age could participate in +the judicial assembly (the Heliæa). The heliasts sat in the great +halls in sections of five hundred; the tribunal was, then, composed of +one thousand to fifteen hundred judges. The Athenians had no +prosecuting officer as we have; a citizen took upon himself to make +the accusation. The accused and the accuser appeared before the court; +each delivered a plea which was not to exceed the time marked off by a +water-clock. Then the judges voted by depositing a black or white +stone. If the accuser did not obtain a certain number of votes, he +himself was condemned.</p> + +<p><b>The Magistrates.</b>—The sovereign people needed a council to prepare +the business for discussion and magistrates to execute their +decisions. The council was composed of five hundred citizens drawn by +lot <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>for one year. The magistrates were very numerous: ten generals to +command the army, thirty officials for financial administration, sixty +police officials to superintend the streets, the markets, weights and +measures, etc.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p><b>Character of This Government.</b>—The power in Athens did not pertain +to the rich and the noble, as in Sparta. In the assembly everything +was decided by a majority of votes and all the votes were equal. All +the jurors, all the members of the council, all the magistrates except +the generals were chosen by lot. The citizens were equal not only in +theory, but also in practice. Socrates said<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> to a well-informed +Athenian who did not dare to speak before the people: "Of what are you +afraid? Is it of the fullers, the shoe-makers, the masons, the +artisans, or the merchants? for the assembly is composed of all these +people."</p> + +<p>Many of these people had to ply their trade in order to make a living, +and could not serve the state gratuitously; and so a salary was +instituted: every citizen who sat in the assembly or in the courts +received for every day of session three obols (about eight cents of +our money), a sum just sufficient to maintain life at that time. From +this day the poor administered the government.</p> + +<p><b>The Demagogues.</b>—Since all important affairs whether in the assembly +or in the courts were decided by discussion and discourse, the +influential men were those who knew how to speak best. The people +accustomed themselves to listen to the orators, to follow <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>their +counsels, to charge them with embassies, and even to appoint them +generals. These men were called Demagogues (leaders of the people). +The party of the rich scoffed at them: in a comedy Aristophanes +represents the people (Demos) under the form of an old man who has +lost his wits: "You are foolishly credulous, you let flatterers and +intriguers pull you around by the nose and you are enraptured when +they harangue you." And the chorus, addressing a charlatan, says to +him, "You are rude, vicious; you have a strong voice, an impudent +eloquence, and violent gestures; believe me, you have all that is +necessary to govern Athens."</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>PRIVATE LIFE</h4> + +<p>The Athenians created so many political functions that a part of the +citizens was engaged in fulfilling them. The citizen of Athens, like +the functionary or soldier of our days, was absorbed in public +affairs. Warring and governing were the whole of his life. He spent +his days in the assembly, in the courts, in the army, at the +gymnasium, or at the market. Almost always he had a wife and children, +for his religion commanded this, but he did not live at home.</p> + +<p><b>The Children.</b>—When a child came into the world, the father had the +right to reject it. In this case it was laid outside the house where +it died from neglect, unless a passer-by took it and brought it up as +a slave. In this custom Athens followed all the Greeks. It was +especially the girls that were exposed to death. "A son," says a +writer of comedy, "is always raised <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>even if the parents are in the +last stage of misery; a daughter is exposed even though the parents +are rich."</p> + +<p>If the father accepted the child, the latter entered the family. He +was left at first in the women's apartments with the mother. The girls +remained there until the day of their marriage; the boys came out when +they were seven years old. The boy was then entrusted to a preceptor +(pedagogue), whose business it was to teach him to conduct himself +well and to obey. The pedagogue was often a slave, but the father gave +him the right to beat his son. This was the general usage in +antiquity.</p> + +<p>Later the boy went to school, where he learned to read, write, cipher, +recite poetry, and to sing in the chorus or to the sound of the flute. +At last came gymnastics. This was the whole of the instruction; it +made men sound in body and calm in spirit—what the Greeks called +"good and beautiful."</p> + +<p>To the young girl, secluded with her mother, nothing of the liberal +arts was taught; it was thought sufficient if she learned to obey. +Xenophon represents a rich and well-educated Athenian speaking thus of +his wife with Socrates: "She was hardly twenty years old when I +married her, and up to that time she had been subjected to an exacting +surveillance; they had no desire that she should live, and she learned +almost nothing. Was it not enough that one should find in her a woman +who could spin the flax to make garments, and who had learned how to +distribute duties to the slaves?" When her husband proposed that she +become his assistant, she replied with great surprise, "In what can I +aid you? Of what am I capable? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>My mother has always taught me that my +business was to be prudent." Prudence or obedience was the virtue +which was required of the Greek woman.</p> + +<p><b>Marriage.</b>—At the age of fifteen the girl married. The parents had +chosen the husband; it might be a man from a neighboring family, or a +man who had been a long-time friend of the father, but always a +citizen of Athens. It was rare that the young girl knew him; she was +never consulted in the case. Herodotus, speaking of a Greek, adds: +"This Callias deserves mention for his conduct toward his daughters; +for when they were of marriageable age he gave them a rich dowry, +permitted them to choose husbands from all the people, and he then +married them to the men of their choice."</p> + +<p><b>Athenian Women.</b>—In the inner recess of the Athenian house there was +a retired apartment reserved for the women—the Gynecæum. Husband and +relatives were the only visitors; the mistress of the household +remained here all day with her slaves; she directed them, +superintended the house-keeping, and distributed to them the flax for +them to spin. She herself was engaged with weaving garments. She left +the house seldom save for the religious festivals. She never appeared +in the society of men: "No one certainly would venture," says the +orator Isæus, "to dine with a married woman; married women do not go +out to dine with men or permit themselves to eat with strangers." An +Athenian woman who frequented society could not maintain a good +reputation.</p> + +<p>The wife, thus secluded and ignorant, was not an agreeable companion. +The husband had taken her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>not for his life-long companion, but to +keep his house in order, to be the mother of his children, and because +Greek custom and religion required that he should marry. Plato says +that one does not marry because he wants to, but "because the law +constrains him." And the comic poet Menander had found this saying: +"Marriage, to tell the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil." And +so the women in Athens, as in most of the other states of Greece, +always held but little place in society.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a> +<a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a> +<a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_66_66">[66]</a> The marble of Pentelicus and the honey of Hymettus.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_67_67">[67]</a> This legendary king was called Theseus.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_68_68">[68]</a> Certain limitations, however, are referred to below, +under "Metics."—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_69_69">[69]</a> Not to mention the Archons, whom they had not ventured +to suppress.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_70_70">[70]</a> Xenophon, "Memorabilia," iii., 7, 6.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>WARS OF THE GREEKS</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE PERSIAN WARS</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Origin of the Persian Wars.</b>—While the Greeks were completing the +organization of their cities, the Persian king was uniting all the +nations of the East in a single empire. Greeks and Orientals at length +found themselves face to face. It is in Asia Minor that they first +meet.</p> + +<p>On the coast of Asia Minor there were rich and populous colonies of +the Greeks;<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Cyrus, the king of Persia, desired to subject them. +These cities sent for help to the Spartans, who were reputed the +bravest of the Greeks, and this action was reported to Cyrus; he +replied,<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> "I have never feared this sort of people that has in the +midst of the city a place where the people assemble to deceive one +another with false oaths." (He was thinking of the market-place.) The +Greeks of Asia were subdued and made subject to the Great King.</p> + +<p>Thirty years later King Darius found himself in the presence of the +Greeks of Europe. But this time it was the Greeks that attacked the +Great King. The Athenians sent twenty galleys to aid the revolting +Ionians; their soldiers entered Lydia, took Sardis by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>surprise and +burned it. Darius revenged himself by destroying the Greek cities of +Asia, but he did not forget the Greeks of Europe. He had decreed, they +say, that at every meal an officer should repeat to him: "Master, +remember the Athenians." He sent to the Greek cities to demand earth +and water, a symbol in use among the Persians to indicate submission +to the Great King. Most of the Greeks were afraid and yielded. But the +Spartans cast the envoys into a pit, bidding them take thence earth +and water to carry to the king. This was the beginning of the Median +wars.</p> + +<p><b>Comparison of the Two Adversaries.</b>—The contrast between the two +worlds which now entered into conflict is well marked by Herodotus<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> +in the form of a conversation of King Xerxes with Demaratus, a Spartan +exile: "'I venture to assure you,' said Demaratus, 'that the Spartans +will offer you battle even if all the rest of the Greeks fight on your +side, and if their army should not amount to more than one thousand +men.' 'What!' said Xerxes, 'one thousand men attack so immense an army +as mine! I fear your words are only boasting; for although they be +five thousand, we are more than one thousand to one. If they had a +master like us, fear would inspire them with courage; they would march +under the lash against a larger army; but being free and independent, +they will have no more courage than that with which nature has endowed +them.' 'The Spartans,' replied Demaratus, 'are not inferior to anybody +in a hand-to-hand contest, and united in a phalanx they are the +bravest of all men. Yet, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>though free, they have an absolute master, +the Law, which they dread more than all your subjects do you; they +obey it, and this law requires them to stand fast to their post and +conquer or die.'" This is the difference between the two parties to +the conflict: on the one side, a multitude of subjects united by force +under a capricious master; on the other, little martial republics +whose citizens govern themselves according to laws which they respect.</p> + +<p><b>First Persian War.</b>—There were two Persian wars. The first was +simply an expedition against Athens; six hundred galleys sent by +Darius disembarked a Persian army on the little plain of Marathon, +seven hours distant from Athens.</p> + +<p>Religious sentiment prevented the Spartans from taking the field +before the full moon, and it was still only the first quarter; the +Athenians had to fight alone.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> Ten thousand citizens armed as +hoplites camped before the Persians. The Athenians had ten generals, +having the command on successive days; of these Miltiades, when his +turn came, drew up the army for battle. The Athenians charged the +enemy in serried ranks, but the Persians seeing them advancing without +cavalry and without archers, thought them fools. It was the first time +that the Greeks had dared to face the Persians in battle array. The +Athenians began by turning both flanks, and then engaged the centre, +driving the Persians in disorder to the sea and forcing them to +reëmbark on their ships.</p> + +<p>The victory of Marathon delivered the Athenians and made them famous +in all Greece (490).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span><b>Second Persian War.</b>—The second war began ten years later with an +invasion. Xerxes united all the peoples of the empire, so that the +land force amounted, as some say, to 1,700,000 men.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> There were +Medes and Persians clad in sleeved tunics, armed with cuirasses of +iron, bucklers, bows and arrows; Assyrians with cuirass of linen, +armed with clubs pointed with iron; Indians clad in cotton with bows +and arrows of bamboo; savages of Ethiopia with leopard skins for +clothing; nomads armed only with lassos; Phrygians armed with short +pikes; Lydians equipped like Greeks; Thracians carrying javelins and +daggers. The enumeration of these fills twenty chapters in +Herodotus.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> These warriors brought with them a crowd equally +numerous of non-combatants, of servants, slaves, women, together with +a mass of mules, horses, camels, and baggage wagons.</p> + +<p>This horde crossed the Hellespont by a bridge of boats in the spring +of 480. For seven days and nights it defiled under the lash. Then +traversing Thrace, it marched on Greece, conquering the peoples whom +it met.</p> + +<p>The Persian fleet, 1,200 galleys strong, coasted the shores of Thrace, +passing through the canal at Mount Athos which Xerxes had had built +for this very purpose.</p> + +<p>The Greeks, terrified, submitted for the most part to the Great King +and joined their armies to the Persian force. The Athenians sent to +consult the oracle of Delphi, but received only the reply; "Athens +will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>be destroyed from base to summit." The god being asked to give a +more favorable response, replied, "Zeus accords to Pallas [protectress +of Athens] a wall of wood which alone shall not be taken; in that +shall you and your children find safety." The priests of whom they +asked the interpretation of this oracle bade the Athenians quit Attica +and go to establish themselves elsewhere. But Themistocles explained +the "wall of wood" as meaning the ships; they should retire to the +fleet and fight the Persians on sea.</p> + +<p>Athens and Sparta, having decided on resistance, endeavored to form a +league of the Greeks against the Persians. Few cities had the courage +to enter it, and these placed themselves under the command of the +Spartans. Four battles in one year settled the war. At Thermopylæ, +Leonidas, king of Sparta, who tried to bar the entrance to a defile +was outflanked and overwhelmed. At Salamis, the Persian fleet, crowded +into a narrow space where the ships embarrassed one another, was +defeated by the Greek navy (480). At Platæa the rest of the Persian +army left in Greece was annihilated by the Greek hoplites; of 300,000 +men but 40,000 escaped. The same day at Mycale, on the coast of Asia, +an army of the Greeks landed and routed the Persians (479). The Greeks +had conquered the Great King.</p> + +<p><b>Reasons for the Greek Victory.</b>—The Median war was not a national +war between Greeks and barbarians. All the Greeks of Asia and half the +Greeks of Europe fought on the Persian side. Many of the other Greeks +gave no assistance. In reality it was a fight of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>Great King and +his subjects against Sparta, Athens, and their allies.</p> + +<p>The conquest of this great horde by two small peoples appeared at that +time as a prodigy. The gods, said the Greeks, had fought for them. But +there is less wonder when we examine the two antagonists more closely: +the Persian army was innumerable, and Xerxes had thought that victory +was a matter of numbers. But this multitude was an embarrassment to +itself. It did not know where to secure food for itself, it advanced +but slowly, and it choked itself on the day of combat. Likewise the +ships arranged in too close order drove their prows into neighboring +ships and shattered their oars. Then in this immense crowd there were, +according to Herodotus, many men but few soldiers. Only the Persians +and Medes, the flower of the army, fought with energy; the rest +advanced only under the lash, they had come under pressure to a war +which had no interest for them, ill-armed and without discipline, +ready to desert as soon as no one was watching them. At Platæa the +Medes and Persians were the only ones to do any fighting; the subjects +kept aloof.</p> + +<p>The Persian soldiers were ill-equipped; they were embarrassed by their +long robes, the head was poorly protected by a felt hat, the body +ill-defended by a shield of wicker-work. For arms they had a bow, a +dagger, and a very short pike; they could fight only at a great +distance or hand-to-hand. The Spartans and their allies, on the +contrary, secure in the protection of great buckler, helmet and +greaves, marched in solid line and were irresistible; they broke the +enemy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>with their long pikes and at once the battle became a massacre.</p> + +<p><b>Results of the Persian Wars.</b>—Sparta had commanded the troops, but +as Herodotus says,<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> it was Athens who had delivered Greece by +setting an example of resistance and constituting the fleet of +Salamis. It was Athens who profited by the victory. All the Ionian +cities of the Archipelago and of the coast of Asia revolted and formed +a league against the Persians. The Spartans, men of the mountains, +could not conduct a maritime war, and so withdrew; the Athenians +immediately became chiefs of the league. In 476<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> Aristides, +commanding the fleet, assembled the delegates of the confederate +cities. They decided to continue the war against the Great King, and +engaged to provide ships and warriors and to pay each year a +contribution of 460 talents ($350,000). The treasure was deposited at +Delos in the temple of Apollo, god of the Ionians. Athens was charged +with the leadership of the military force and with collecting the tax. +To make the agreement irrevocable Aristides had a mass of hot iron +cast into the sea, and all swore to maintain the oaths until the day +that the iron should mount to the surface.</p> + +<p>A day came, however, when the war ceased, and the Greeks, always the +victors, concluded a peace, or at least a truce,<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> with the Great +King. He surrendered his claim on the Asiatic Greeks (about 449).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>What was to become of the treaty of Aristides? Were the confederate +cities still to pay their contribution now that there was no more +fighting? Some refused it even before the war was done. Athens +asserted that the cities had made their engagements in perpetuity and +forced them to pay them.</p> + +<p>The war finished, the treasury at Delos had no further use; the +Athenians transferred the money to Athens and used it in building +their monuments. They maintained that the allies paid for deliverance +from the Persians; they, therefore, had no claim against Athens so +long as she defended them from the Great King. The allies had now +become the tributaries of Athens: they were now her subjects. Athens +increased the tax on them, and required their citizens to bring their +cases before the Athenian courts; she even sent colonists to seize a +part of their lands. Athens, mistress of the league, was sovereign +over more than three hundred cities spread over the islands and the +coasts of the Archipelago, and the tribute paid her amounted to six +hundred talents a year.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>STRIFE AMONG THE GREEK STATES</h4> + +<p><b>The Peloponnesian War.</b>—After the foundation of the Athenian empire +in the Archipelago the Greeks found themselves divided between two +leagues—the maritime cities were subject to Athens; the cities of the +interior remained under the domination of Sparta. After much +preliminary friction war arose between Sparta and her continental +allies on the one side and Athens and her maritime subjects on the +other. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>was the <i>Peloponnesian War</i>. It continued twenty-seven +years (431-404), and when it ceased, it was revived under other names +down to 360.</p> + +<p>These wars were complicated affairs. They were fought simultaneously +on land and sea, in Greece, Asia, Thrace, and Sicily, ordinarily at +several points at once. The Spartans had a better army and ravaged +Attica; the Athenians had a superior fleet and made descents on the +coasts of the Peloponnesus. Then Athens sent its army to Sicily where +it perished to the last man (413); Lysander, a Spartan general, +secured a fleet from the Persians and destroyed the Athenian fleet in +Asia (405). The Athenian allies who fought only under compulsion +abandoned her. Lysander took Athens, demolished its walls, and burnt +its ships.</p> + +<p><b>Wars against Sparta.</b>—Sparta was for a time mistress on both land +and sea. "In those days," says Xenophon, "all cities obeyed when a +Spartan issued his orders." But soon the allies of Sparta, wearied of +her domination, formed a league against her. The Spartans, driven at +first from Asia, still maintained their power in Greece for some years +by virtue of their alliance with the king of the Persians (387). But +the Thebans, having developed a strong army under the command of +Epaminondas, fought them at Leuctra (371) and at Mantinea (362). The +allies of Sparta detached themselves from her, but the Thebans could +not secure from the rest of the Greeks the recognition of their +supremacy. From this time no Greek city was sovereign over the others.</p> + +<p><b>Savage Character of These Wars.</b>—These wars between the Greek cities +were ferocious. A few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>incidents suffice to show their character. At +the opening of the war the allies of Sparta threw into the sea all the +merchants from cities hostile to them. The Athenians in return put to +death the ambassadors of Sparta without allowing them to speak a word. +The town of Platæa was taken by capitulation, and the Spartans had +promised that no one should be punished without a trial; but the +Spartan judges demanded of every prisoner if during the war he had +rendered any service to the Peloponnesians; when the prisoner replied +in the negative, he was condemned to death. The women were sold as +slaves. The city of Mitylene having revolted from Athens was retaken +by her. The Athenians in an assembly deliberated and decreed that all +the people of Mitylene should be put to death. It is true that the +next day the Athenians revised the decree and sent a second ship to +carry a more favorable commission, but still more than one thousand +Mityleneans were executed.</p> + +<p>After the Syracusan disaster all the Athenian army was taken captive. +The conquerors began by slaughtering all the generals and many of the +soldiers. The remainder were consigned to the quarries which served as +prison. They were left there crowded together for seventy days, +exposed without protection to the burning sun of summer, and then to +the chilly nights of autumn. Many died from sickness, from cold and +hunger—for they were hardly fed at all; their corpses remained on the +ground and infected the air. At last the Syracusans drew out the +survivors sold them into slavery.</p> + +<p>Ordinarily when an army invaded a hostile state <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>it levelled the +houses, felled the trees, burned the crops and killed the laborers. +After battle it made short shrift of the wounded and killed prisoners +in cold blood. In a captured city everything belonged to the captor: +men, women, children were sold as slaves. Such was at this time the +right of war. Thucydides sums up the case as follows:<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> "Business is +regulated between men by the laws of justice when there is obligation +on both sides; but the stronger does whatever is in his power, and the +weaker yields. The gods rule by a necessity of their nature because +they are strongest; men do likewise."</p> + +<p><b>Results of These Wars.</b>—These wars did not result in uniting the +Greeks into one body. No city, Sparta more than Athens, was able to +force the others to obey her. They only exhausted themselves by +fighting one another. It was the king of Persia who profited by the +strife. Not only did the Greek cities not unite against him, but all +in succession allied themselves with him against the other Greeks. In +the notorious Peace of Antalcidas (387) the Great King declared that +all the Greek cities of Asia belonged to him, and Sparta recognized +this claim. Athens and Thebes did as much some years later. An +Athenian orator said, "It is the king of Persia who governs Greece; he +needs only to establish governors in our cities. Is it not he who +directs everything among us? Do we not summon the Great King as if we +were his slaves?" The Greeks by their strife had lost the vantage that +the Median war had gained for them.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a> +<a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a> +<a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a> +<a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a> +<a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_71_71">[71]</a> Twelve Ionian colonies, twelve Æolian, four Dorian.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_72_72">[72]</a> Herod., i., 153.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_73_73">[73]</a> Herod., vii., 103, 104.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_74_74">[74]</a> 1,000 Platæans came to the assistance of the +Athenians.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_75_75">[75]</a> Herodotus's statements of the numbers in Xerxes' army +are incredible.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_76_76">[76]</a> Herod., vii., 61-80.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_77_77">[77]</a> vii., 139.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_78_78">[78]</a> The chronology of these events is uncertain.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_79_79">[79]</a> Called the Peace of Cimon, but it is very doubtful +whether Cimon really concluded a treaty. [With more right may it be +called the Peace of Callias, who was probably principal +ambassador.—ED.]</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_80_80">[80]</a> In his chapters on the Mityleneans.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE ARTS IN GREECE</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>ATHENS AT THE TIME OF PERICLES</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Pericles.</b>—In the middle of the fifth century Athens found herself +the most powerful city in Greece. Pericles, descended from one of the +noble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state. He +wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the +vanity of the people. But the Athenians respected him and acted only +in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of +all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and +so they permitted him to govern. For forty years Pericles was the soul +of the politics of Athens; as Thucydides his contemporary said, "The +democracy existed in name; in reality it was the government of the +first citizen."</p> + +<p><b>Athens and Her Monuments.</b>—In Athens, as in the majority of Greek +cities, the houses of individuals were small, low, packed closely +together, forming narrow streets, tortuous and ill paved. The +Athenians reserved their display for their public monuments. Ever +after they levied heavy war taxes on their allies they had large sums +of money to expend, and these were employed in erecting beautiful +edifices. In the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>market-place they built a portico adorned with +paintings (the Poikile), in the city a theatre, a temple in honor of +Theseus, and the Odeon for the contests in music. But the most +beautiful monuments rose on the rock of the Acropolis as on a gigantic +pedestal. There were two temples of which the principal, the +Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena, protecting goddess of the city; a +colossal statue of bronze which represented Athena; and a staircase of +ornamental character leading up to the Propylæa. Athens was from this +time the most beautiful of the Greek cities.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p> + +<p><b>Importance of Athens.</b>—Athens became at the same time the city of +artists. Poets, orators, architects, painters, sculptors—some +Athenians by birth, others come from all corners of the Greek +world—met here and produced their masterpieces. There were without +doubt many Greek artists elsewhere than at Athens; there had been +before the fifth century, and there were a long time afterward; but +never were so many assembled at one time in the same city. Most of the +Greeks had fine sensibilities in matters of art; but the Athenians +more than all others had a refined taste, a cultivated spirit and love +of the beautiful. If the Greeks have gained renown in the history of +civilization, it is that they have been a people of artists; neither +their little states nor their small armies have played a great rôle in +the world. This is why the fifth century is the most beautiful moment +in the history of Greece; this is why Athens has remained renowned +above all the rest of the Greek cities.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +<h4>LETTERS</h4> + +<p><b>The Orators.</b>—Athens is above all the city of eloquence. Speeches in +the assembly determine war, peace, taxes, all state business of +importance; speeches before the courts condemn or acquit citizens and +subjects. Power is in the hands of the orators; the people follow +their counsels and often commit to them important public functions: +Cleon is appointed general; Demosthenes directs the war against +Philip.</p> + +<p>The orators have influence; they employ their talents in eloquence to +accuse their political enemies. Often they possess riches, for they +are paid for supporting one party or the other: Æschines is retained +by the king of Macedon; Demosthenes accepts fees from the king of +Persia.</p> + +<p>Some of the orators, instead of delivering their own orations, wrote +speeches for others. When an Athenian citizen had a case at court, he +did not desire, as we do, that an advocate plead his case for him; the +law required that each speak in person. He therefore sought an orator +and had him compose a speech which he learned by heart and recited +before the tribunal.</p> + +<p>Other orators travelled through the cities of Greece speaking on +subjects which pleased their fancy. Sometimes they gave lectures, as +we should say.</p> + +<p>The oldest orators spoke simply, limiting themselves to an account of +the facts without oratorical flourishes; on the platform they were +almost rigid without loud speaking or gesticulation. Pericles +delivered his orations with a calm air, so quietly, indeed, that no +fold <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>of his mantle was disturbed. When he appeared at the tribune, +his head, according to custom, crowned with leaves, he might have been +taken, said the people, "for a god of Olympus." But the orators who +followed wished to move the public. They assumed an animated style, +pacing the tribune in a declamatory and agitated manner. The people +became accustomed to this form of eloquence. The first time that +Demosthenes came to the tribune the assembly shouted with laughter; +the orator could not enunciate, he carried himself ill. He disciplined +himself in declamation and gesture and became the favorite of the +people. Later when he was asked what was the first quality of the +orator, he replied, "Action, and the second, action, and the third, +action." Action, that is delivery, was more to the Greeks than the +sense of the discourse.</p> + +<p><b>The Sages.</b>—For some centuries there had been, especially among the +Greeks of Asia, men who observed and reflected on things. They were +called by a name which signifies at once wise men and scholars. They +busied themselves with physics, astronomy, natural history, for as yet +science was not separated from philosophy. Such were in the seventh +century the celebrated Seven Sages of Greece.</p> + +<p><b>The Sophists.</b>—About the time of Pericles there came to Athens men +who professed to teach wisdom. They gathered many pupils and charged +fees for their lessons. Ordinarily they attacked the religion, +customs, and institutions of Greek cities, showing that they were not +founded on reason. They concluded that men could not know anything +with certainty (which was quite true for their time), that men can +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>know nothing at all, and that nothing is true or false: "Nothing +exists," said one of them, "and if it did exist, we could not know +it." These professors of scepticism were called sophists. Some of them +were at the same time orators.</p> + +<p><b>Socrates and the Philosophers.</b>—Socrates, an old man of Athens, +undertook to combat the sophists. He was a poor man, ugly, and without +eloquence. He opened no school like the sophists but contented himself +with going about the city, conversing with those he met, and leading +them by the force of his questions to discover what he himself had in +mind. He sought especially the young men and gave them instruction and +counsel. Socrates made no pretensions as a scholar: "All my +knowledge," said he, "is to know that I know nothing." He would call +himself no longer a sage, like the others, but a philosopher, that is +to say, a lover of wisdom. He did not meditate on the nature of the +world nor on the sciences; man was his only interest. His motto was, +"Know thyself." He was before all a preacher of virtue.</p> + +<p>As he always spoke of morals and religion, the Athenians took him for +a sophist.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> In 399 he was brought before the court, accused "of not +worshipping the gods of the city, of introducing new gods, and of +corrupting the youth." He made no attempt to defend himself, and was +condemned to death. He was then seventy years old.</p> + +<p>Xenophon, one of his disciples, wrote out his conversations and an +apology for him.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> Another disciple, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>Plato, composed dialogues in +which Socrates is always the principal personage. Since this time +Socrates has been regarded as the "father of philosophy." Plato +himself was the head of a school (429-348); Aristotle (384-322), a +disciple of Plato, summarized in his books all the science of his +time. The philosophers that followed attached themselves to one or the +other of these two masters: the disciples of Plato called themselves +Academicians,<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> those of Aristotle, Peripatetics.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p> + +<p><b>The Chorus.</b>—It was an ancient custom of the Greeks to dance in +their religious ceremonies. Around the altar dedicated to the god a +group of young men passed and repassed, assuming noble and expressive +attitudes, for the ancients danced with the whole body. Their dance, +very different from ours, was a sort of animated procession, something +like a solemn pantomime. Almost always this religious dance was +accompanied by chants in honor of the god. The group singing and +dancing at the same time was called the Chorus. All the cities had +their festival choruses in which the children of the noblest families +participated after long time of preparation. The god required the +service of a troop worthy of him.</p> + +<p><b>Tragedy and Comedy.</b>—In the level country about Athens the young men +celebrated in this manner each year religious dances in honor of +Dionysos, the god of the vintage. One of these dances was grave; it +represented the actions of the god. The leader of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>chorus played +Dionysos, the chorus itself the satyrs, his companions. Little by +little they came to represent also the life of the other gods and the +ancient heroes. Then some one (the Greeks call him Thespis) conceived +the idea of setting up a stage on which the actor could play while the +chorus rested. The spectacle thus perfected was transferred to the +city near the black poplar tree in the market. Thus originated +Tragedy.</p> + +<p>The other dance was comic. The masked dancers chanted the praises of +Dionysos mingled with jeers addressed to the spectators or with +humorous reflections on the events of the day. The same was done for +the comic chorus as for the tragic chorus: actors were introduced, a +dialogue, all of a piece, and the spectacle was transferred to Athens. +This was the origin of Comedy. This is the reason that from this time +tragedy has been engaged with heroes, and comedy with every-day life.</p> + +<p>Tragedy and comedy preserved some traces of their origin. Even when +they were represented in the theatre, they continued to be played +before the altar of the god. Even after the actors mounted on the +platform had become the most important personages of the spectacle, +the choir continued to dance and to chant around the altar. In the +comedies, like the masques in other days, sarcastic remarks on the +government came to be made; this was the Parabasis.</p> + +<p><b>The Theatre.</b>—That all the Athenians might be present at these +spectacles there was built on the side of the Acropolis the theatre of +Dionysos which could hold 30,000 spectators. Like all the Greek +theatres, it was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>open to heaven and was composed of tiers of rock +ranged in a half-circle about the orchestra where the chorus performed +and before the stage where the play was given.</p> + +<p>Plays were produced only at the time of the festivals of the god, but +then they continued for several days in succession. They began in the +morning at sunrise and occupied all the time till torch-light with the +production of a series of three tragedies (a trilogy) followed by a +satirical drama. Each trilogy was the work of one author. Other +trilogies were presented on succeeding days, so that the spectacle was +a competition between poets, the public determining the victor. The +most celebrated of these competitors were Æschylus, Sophocles, and +Euripides. There were also contests in comedy, but there remain to us +only the works of one comic poet, Aristophanes.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE ARTS</h4> + +<p><b>Greek Temples.</b>—In Greece the most beautiful edifices were +constructed to the honor of the gods, and when we speak of Greek +architecture it is their temples that we have in mind.</p> + +<p>A Greek temple is not, like a Christian church, designed to receive +the faithful who come thither to pray. It is the palace<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> where the +god lives, represented by his idol, a palace which men feel under +compulsion to make splendid. The mass of the faithful do not enter the +interior of the temple; they remain without, surrounding the altar in +the open air.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>At the centre of the temple is the "chamber" of the god, a mysterious +sanctuary without windows, dimly lighted from above.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> On the +pavement rises the idol of wood, of marble, or of ivory, clad in gold +and adorned with garments and jewels. The statue is often of colossal +size; in the temple of Olympia Zeus is represented sitting and his +head almost touches the summit of the temple. "If the god should +rise," they said, "his head would shatter the roof." This sanctuary, a +sort of reliquary for the idol, is concealed on every side from the +eyes. To enter, it is necessary to pass through a porch formed by a +row of columns.</p> + +<p>Behind the "chamber" is the "rear-chamber" in which are kept the +valuable property of the god—his riches,<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> and often the gold and +silver of the city. The temple is therefore storehouse, treasury, and +museum.</p> + +<p>Rows of columns surround the building on four sides, like a second +wall protecting the god and his treasures. There are three orders of +columns which differ in base and capital, each bearing the name of the +people that invented it or most frequently used it. They are, in the +order of age, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The temple is +named from the style of the columns supporting it.</p> + +<p>Above the columns, around the edifice are sculptured surfaces of +marble (the metopes) which alternate with plain blocks of marble (the +triglyphs). Metopes and triglyphs constitute the frieze.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>The temple is surmounted with a triangular pediment adorned with +statues.</p> + +<p>Greek temples were polychrome, that is to say, were painted in several +colors, yellow, blue, and red. For a long time the moderns refused to +believe this; it was thought that the Greeks possessed too sober taste +to add color to an edifice. But traces of painting have been +discovered on several temples, which cannot leave the matter in doubt. +It has at last been concluded, on reflection, that these bright colors +were to give a clearer setting to the lines.</p> + +<p><b>Characteristics of Greek Architecture.</b>—A Greek temple appears at +first a simple, bare edifice; it is only a long box of stone set upon +a rock; the façade is a square surmounted by a triangle. At first +glance one sees only straight lines and cylinders. But on nearer +inspection "it is discovered<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> that not a single one of these lines +is truly straight." The columns swell at the middle, vertical lines +are slightly inclined to the centre, and horizontal lines bulge a +little at the middle. And all this is so fine that exact measurements +are necessary to detect the artifice. Greek architects discovered +that, to produce a harmonious whole, it is necessary to avoid +geometrical lines which would appear stiff, and take account of +illusions in perspective. "The aim of the architect," says a Greek +writer, "is to invent processes for deluding the sight."</p> + +<p>Greek artists wrought conscientiously for they worked for the gods. +And so their monuments are elaborated in all their parts, even in +those that are least in view, and are constructed so solidly that +they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>exist to this day if they have not been violently destroyed. The +Parthenon was still intact in the seventeenth century. An explosion of +gunpowder wrecked it.</p> + +<p>The architecture of the Greeks was at once solid and elegant, simple +and scientific. Their temples have almost all disappeared; here and +there are a very few,<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> wholly useless, in ruins, with roofs fallen +in, often nothing left but rows of columns. And yet, even in this +state, they enrapture those who behold them.</p> + +<p><b>Sculpture.</b>—Among the Egyptians and the Assyrians sculpture was +hardly more than an accessory ornament of their edifices; the Greeks +made it the principal art. Their most renowned artists, Phidias, +Praxiteles, and Lysippus, were sculptors.</p> + +<p>They executed bas-reliefs to adorn the walls of a temple, its façade +or its pediment. Of this style of work is the famous frieze of the +Panathenaic procession which was carved around the Parthenon, +representing young Athenian women on the day of the great festival of +the goddess.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> + +<p>They sculptured statues for the most part, of which some represented +gods and served as idols; others represented athletes victorious in +the great games, and these were the recompense of his victory.</p> + +<p>The most ancient statues of the Greeks are stiff and rude, quite +similar to the Assyrian sculptures. They are often colored. Little by +little they become graceful and elegant. The greatest works are those +of Phidias in the fifth century and of Praxiteles in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>fourth. The +statues of the following centuries are more graceful, but less noble +and less powerful.</p> + +<p>There were thousands of statues in Greece,<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> for every city had its +own, and the sculptors produced without cessation for five centuries. +Of all this multitude there remain to us hardly fifteen complete +statues. Not a single example of the masterpieces celebrated among the +Greeks has come down to us. Our most famous Greek statues are either +copies, like the Venus of Milo, or works of the period of the +decadence, like the Apollo of the Belvidere.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> Still there remains +enough, uniting the fragments of statues and of bas-reliefs which are +continually being discovered,<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> to give us a general conception of +Greek sculpture.</p> + +<p>Greek sculptors sought above everything else to represent the most +beautiful bodies in a calm and noble attitude. They had a thousand +occasions for viewing beautiful bodies of men in beautiful poses, at +the gymnasium, in the army, in the sacred dances and choruses. They +studied them and learned to reproduce them; no one has ever better +executed the human body.</p> + +<p>Usually in a Greek statue the head is small, the face without emotion +and dull. The Greeks did not seek, as we do, the expression of the +face; they strove for beauty of line and did not sacrifice the limbs +for the head. In a Greek statue it is the whole body that is +beautiful.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span><b>Pottery.</b>—The Greeks came to make pottery a real art. They called it +Ceramics (the potter's art), and this name is still preserved. Pottery +had not the same esteem in Greece as the other arts, but for us it has +the great advantage of being better known than the others. While +temples and statues fell into ruin, the achievements of Greek potters +are preserved in the tombs. This is where they are found today. +Already more than 20,000 specimens have been collected in all the +museums of Europe. They are of two sorts:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. Painted vases, with black or red figures, of all sizes and +every form;</p> + +<p>2. Statuettes of baked earth; hardly known twenty years ago, they +have now attained almost to celebrity since the discovery of the +charming figurines of Tanagra in Bœotia. The most of them are +little idols, but some represent children or women.</p></div> + +<p><b>Painting.</b>—There were illustrious painters in Greece—Zeuxis, +Parrhasius, and Apelles. We know little of them beyond some anecdotes, +often doubtful, and some descriptions of pictures. To obtain an +impression of Greek painting we are limited to the frescoes found in +the houses of Pompeii, an Italian city of the first century of our +era. This amounts to the same as saying we know nothing of it.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a> +<a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a> +<a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a> +<a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a> +<a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a> +<a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a> +<a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_81_81">[81]</a> The moderns have called this time the Age of Pericles, +because Pericles was then governing and was the friend of many of +these artists; but the ancients never employed the phrase.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_82_82">[82]</a> See Aristophanes' "Clouds."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_83_83">[83]</a> The "Memorabilia" and "Apologia."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_84_84">[84]</a> Because Plato had lectured in the gardens of a certain +Academus.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_85_85">[85]</a> Because Aristotle had given instruction while moving +about. [Or rather from a favorite walk (Peripatus) in the +Lyceum.—ED.]</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_86_86">[86]</a> The Greek word for temple signifies "dwelling."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_87_87">[87]</a> But not by a square opening in the roof as formerly +supposed.—ED. See Gardner, "Ancient Athens," N.Y., 1902, p. 268.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_88_88">[88]</a> The Parthenon contained vases of gold and silver, a +crown of gold, shields, helmets, swords, serpents of gold, an ivory +table, eighteen couches, and quivers of ivory.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_89_89">[89]</a> Boutmy, "Philosophie de l'Architecture en Grèce."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_90_90">[90]</a> The most noted are the Parthenon at Athens and the +temple of Poseidon at Pæstum, in south Italy.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_91_91">[91]</a> Knights and other subjects were also shown.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_92_92">[92]</a> Even in the second century after the Romans had pillaged +Greece to adorn their palaces, there were many thousands of statues in +the Greek cities.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_93_93">[93]</a> It is not certain that the Apollo Belvidere was not a +Roman copy.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_94_94">[94]</a> In the ruins of Olympia has been found a statue of +Hermes, the work of Praxiteles.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>ASIA BEFORE ALEXANDER</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Decadence of the Persian Empire.</b>—The Greeks, engaged in strife, +ceased to attack the Great King; they even received their orders from +him. But the Persian empire still continued to become enfeebled. The +satraps no longer obeyed the government; each had his court, his +treasure, his army, made war according to his fancy, and in short, +became a little king in his province. When the Great King desired to +remove a satrap, he had scarcely any way of doing it except by +assassinating him. The Persians themselves were no longer that nation +before which all the Asiatic peoples were wont to tremble. Xenophon, a +Greek captain, who had been in their pay, describes them as follows: +"They recline on tapestries wearing gloves and furs. The nobles, for +the sake of the pay, transform their porters, their bakers, and cooks +into knights—even the valets who served them at table, dressed them +or perfumed them. And so, although their armies were large, they were +of no service, as is apparent from the fact that their enemies +traversed the empire more freely than their friends. They no longer +dared to fight. The infantry as formerly was equipped with buckler, +sword, and axe, but they had no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>courage to use them. The drivers of +chariots before facing the enemy basely allowed themselves to be +overthrown at once or leaped down from the cars, so that these being +no longer under control injured the Persians more than the enemy. For +the rest, the Persians do not disguise their military weakness, they +concede their inferiority and do not dare to take the field except +there are Greeks in their army. They have for their maxim 'never to +fight Greeks without Greek auxiliaries on their side.'"</p> + +<p><b>Expedition of the Ten Thousand.</b>—This weakness was very apparent +when in 400 Cyrus, brother of the Great King Artaxerxes, marched +against him to secure his throne. There were then some thousands of +adventurers or Greek exiles who hired themselves as mercenaries. Cyrus +retained ten thousand of them. Xenophon, one of their number, has +written the story of their expedition.</p> + +<p>This army crossed the whole of Asia even to the Euphrates without +resistance from any one.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> They at last came to battle near Babylon. +The Greeks according to their habit broke into a run, raising the +war-cry. The barbarians took flight before the Greeks had come even +within bow-shot. The Greeks followed in pursuit urging one another to +keep ranks.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>When the war-chariots attacked them, they opened their ranks and let +them through. Not a Greek received the least stroke with the exception +of one only who was wounded with an arrow. Cyrus was killed; his army +disbanded without fighting, and the Greeks remained alone in the heart +of a hostile country threatened by a large army. And yet the Persians +did not dare to attack them, but treacherously killed their five +generals, twenty captains, and two hundred soldiers who had come to +conclude a truce.</p> + +<p>The friendless mercenaries elected new chiefs, burned their tents and +their chariots, and began their retreat. They broke into the rugged +mountains of Armenia, and notwithstanding famine, snow, and the arrows +of the natives who did not wish to let them pass, they came to the +Black Sea and returned to Greece after traversing the whole Persian +empire. At their return (399) their number amounted still to 8,000.</p> + +<p><b>Agesilaus.</b>—Three years after, Agesilaus, king of Sparta, with a +small army invaded the rich country of Asia Minor, Lydia, and Phrygia. +He fought the satraps and was about to invade Asia when the Spartans +ordered his return to fight the armies of Thebes and Athens. Agesilaus +was the first of the Greeks to dream of conquering Persia. He was +distressed to see the Greeks fighting among themselves. When they +announced to him the victory at Corinth where but eight Spartans had +perished and 10,000 of the enemy, instead of rejoicing he sighed and +said, "Alas, unhappy Greece, to have lost enough men to have +subjugated all the barbarians!" He refused one day <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>to destroy a Greek +city. "If we exterminate all the Greeks who fail of their duty," said +he, "where shall we find the men to vanquish the barbarians?" This +feeling was rare at that time. In relating these words of Agesilaus +Xenophon, his biographer, exclaims, "Who else regarded it as a +misfortune to conquer when he was making war on peoples of his own +race?"</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>CONQUEST OF ASIA BY ALEXANDER</h4> + +<p><b>Macedon.</b>—Sparta and Athens, exhausted by a century of wars, had +abandoned the contest against the king of Persia. A new people resumed +it and brought it to an end; these were the Macedonians. They were a +very rude people, crude, similar to the ancient Dorians, a people of +shepherds and soldiers. They lived far to the north of Greece in two +great valleys that opened to the sea. The Greeks had little regard for +them, rating them as half barbarians; but since the kings of Macedon +called themselves sons of Herakles they had been permitted to run +their horses in the races of the Olympian games. This gave them +standing as Greeks.</p> + +<p><b>Philip of Macedon.</b>—These kings ruling in the interior, remote from +the sea, had had but little part in the wars of the Greeks. But in 359 +B.C. Philip ascended the throne of Macedon, a man young, active, bold, +and ambitious. Philip had three aims:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. To develop a strong army;</p> + +<p>2. To conquer all the ports on the coast of Macedon;</p> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +<p>3. To force all the other Greeks to unite under his command +against the Persians.</p></div> + +<p>He consumed twenty-four years in fulfilling these purposes and +succeeded in all. The Greeks let him alone, often even aided him; in +every city he bribed partisans who spoke in his favor. "No fortress is +impregnable," said he, "if only one can introduce within it a mule +laden with gold." And by these means he took one after another all the +cities of northern Greece.</p> + +<p><b>Demosthenes.</b>—The most illustrious opponent of Philip was the orator +Demosthenes. The son of an armorer, he was left an orphan at the age +of seven, and his guardians had embezzled a part of his fortune. As +soon as he gained his majority he entered a case against them and +compelled them to restore the property. He studied the orations of +Isæus and the history of Thucydides which he knew by heart. But when +he spoke at the public tribune he was received with shouts of +laughter; his voice was too feeble and his breath too short. For +several years he labored to discipline his voice. It is said that he +shut himself up for months with head half shaved that he might not be +tempted to go out, that he declaimed with pebbles in his mouth, and on +the sea-shore, in order that his voice might rise above the uproar of +the crowd. When he reappeared on the tribune, he was master of his +voice, and, as he preserved the habit of carefully preparing all his +orations, he became the most finished and most potent orator of +Greece.</p> + +<p>The party that then governed Athens, whose chief was Phocion, wished +to maintain the peace: Athens had neither soldiers nor money enough to +withstand the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>king of Macedon. "I should counsel you to make war," +said Phocion, "when you are ready for it." Demosthenes, however, +misunderstood Philip, whom he regarded as a barbarian; he placed +himself at the service of the party that wished to make war on him and +employed all his eloquence to move the Athenians from their policy of +peace. For fifteen years he seized every occasion to incite them to +war; many of his speeches have no other object than an attack on +Philip. He himself called these Philippics, and there are three of +them. (The name Olynthiacs has been applied to the orations delivered +with the purpose of enlisting the Athenians in the aid of Olynthus +when it was besieged by Philip.) The first Philippic is in 352. "When, +then, O Athenians, will you be about your duty? Will you always roam +about the public places asking one of another: What is the news? Ah! +How can there be anything newer than the sight of a Macedonian +conquering Athens and dominating Greece? I say, then, that you ought +to equip fifty galleys and resolve, if necessary, to man them +yourselves. Do not talk to me of an army of 10,000 or of 20,000 aliens +that exists only on paper. I would have only citizen soldiers."</p> + +<p>In the third Philippic (341) Demosthenes calls to the minds of the +Athenians the progress made by Philip, thanks to their inaction. "When +the Greeks once abused their power to oppress others, all Greece rose +to prevent this injustice; and yet today we suffer an unworthy +Macedonian, a barbarian of a hated race, to destroy Greek cities, +celebrate the Pythian games, or have them celebrated by his slaves. +And <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>the Greeks look on without doing anything, just as one sees hail +falling while he prays that it may not touch him. You let increase his +power without taking a step to stop it, each regarding it as so much +time gained when he is destroying another, instead of planning and +working for the safety of Greece, when everybody knows that the +disaster will end with the inclusion of the most remote."</p> + +<p>At last, when Philip had taken Elatea on the borders of Bœotia, the +Athenians, on the advice of Demosthenes, determined to make war and to +send envoys to Thebes. Demosthenes was at the head of the embassy; he +met at Thebes an envoy come from Philip; the Thebans hesitated. +Demosthenes besought them to bury the old enmities and to think only +of the safety of Greece, to defend its honor and its history. He +persuaded them to an alliance with Athens and to undertake the war. A +battle was fought at Chæronea in Bœotia, Demosthenes, then at the age +of forty-eight, serving as a private hostile. But the army of the +Athenians and Thebans, levied in haste, was not equal to the veterans +of Philip and was thrown into rout.</p> + +<p><b>The Macedonian Supremacy.</b>—Philip, victorious at Chæronea, placed a +garrison in Thebes and offered peace to Athens. He then entered the +Peloponnesus and was received as a liberator among the peoples whom +Sparta had oppressed. From this time he met with no resistance. He +came to Corinth and assembled delegates from all the Greek states +(337)<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> except Sparta.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>Here Philip published his project of leading a Greek army to the +invasion of Persia. The delegates approved the proposition and made a +general confederation of all the Greek states. Each city was to govern +itself and to live at peace with its neighbors. A general council was +initiated to prevent wars, civil dissensions, proscriptions, and +confiscations.</p> + +<p>This confederacy made an alliance with the king of Macedon and +conferred on him the command of all the Greek troops and navies. Every +Greek was prohibited making war on Philip on pain of banishment.</p> + +<p><b>Alexander.</b>—Philip of Macedon was assassinated in 336. His son +Alexander was then twenty years old. Like all the Greeks of good +family he was accustomed to athletic exercises, a vigorous fighter, an +excellent horseman (he alone had been able to master Bucephalus, his +war-horse). But at the same time he was informed in politics, in +eloquence, and in natural history, having had as teacher from his +thirteenth to his seventeenth year Aristotle, the greatest scholar of +Greece. He read the Iliad with avidity, called this the guide to the +military art, and desired to imitate its heroes. He was truly born to +conquer, for he loved to fight and was ambitious to distinguish +himself. His father said to him, "Macedon is too small to contain +you."</p> + +<p><b>The Phalanx.</b>—Philip left a powerful instrument of conquest, the +Macedonian army, the best that Greece had seen. It comprised the +phalanx of infantry and a corps of cavalry.</p> + +<p>The phalanx of Macedonians was formed of 16,000 men ranged with 1,000 +in front and 16 men deep. Each had a sarissa, a spear about twenty +feet in length. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>On the field of battle the Macedonians, instead of +marching on the enemy facing all in the same direction, held +themselves in position and presented their pikes to the enemy on all +sides, those in the rear couching their spears above the heads of the +men of the forward ranks. The phalanx resembled "a monstrous beast +bristling with iron," against which the enemy was to throw itself. +While the phalanx guarded the field of battle, Alexander charged the +enemy at the head of his cavalry. This Macedonian cavalry was a +distinguished body formed of young nobles.</p> + +<p><b>Departure of Alexander.</b>—Alexander started in the spring of 334 with +30,000 infantry (the greater part of these Macedonians) and 4,500 +knights; he carried only seventy talents (less than eighty thousand +dollars) and supplies for forty days. He had to combat not only the +crowd of ill-armed peoples such as Xerxes had brought together, but an +army of 50,000 Greeks enrolled in the service of the Great King under +a competent general, Memnon of Rhodes. These Greeks might have +withstood the invasion of Alexander, but Memnon died and his army +dispersed. Alexander, delivered from his only dangerous opponent, +conquered the Persian empire in two years.</p> + +<p><b>Victories of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela.</b>—Three victories gave the +empire to Alexander. In Asia Minor he overthrew the Persian troops +stationed behind the river Granicus (May, 333). At Issus, in the +ravines of Cilicia, he routed King Darius and his army of 600,000 men +(November, 333). At Arbela, near the Tigris, he scattered and +massacred a still more numerous army (331).</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>This was a repetition of the Median wars. The Persian army was ill +equipped and knew nothing of manœuvring; it was embarrassed with its +mass of soldiers, valets, and baggage. The picked troops alone gave +battle, the rest were scattered and massacred. Between the battles the +conquest was only a triumphal progress. Nobody resisted (except the +city of Tyre, commercial rival of the Greeks); what cared the peoples +of the empire whether they were subject to Darius or Alexander? Each +victory gave Alexander the whole of the country: the Granicus opened +Asia Minor, Issus Syria and Egypt, Arbela the rest of the empire.</p> + +<p><b>Death of Alexander.</b>—Master now of the Persian empire Alexander +regarded himself as the heir of the Great King. He assumed Persian +dress, adopted the ceremonies of the Persian court and compelled his +Greek generals to prostrate themselves before him according to Persian +usage. He married a woman of the land and united eighty of his +officers to daughters of the Persian nobles. He aimed to extend his +empire to the farthest limits of the ancient kings and advanced even +to India, warring with the combative natives. After his return with +his army to Babylon (324), he died at the age of thirty-three, +succumbing to a fever of brief duration (323).</p> + +<p><b>Projects of Alexander.</b>—It is very difficult to know exactly what +Alexander's purposes were. Did he conquer for the mere pleasure of it? +Or did he have a plan? Did he wish to fuse into one all the peoples of +his empire? Was he following the example already set him by Persia? Or +did he, perhaps, imitate the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>Great King simply for vain-glory? And so +of his intentions we know nothing. But his acts had great results. He +founded seventy cities—many Alexandrias in Egypt, in Tartary, and +even in India. He distributed to his subjects the treasures that had +been uselessly hoarded in the chests of the Great King. He stimulated +Greek scholars to study the plants, the animals, and the geography of +Asia. But what is of special importance, he prepared the peoples of +the Orient to receive the language and customs of the Greeks. This is +why the title "Great" has been assigned to Alexander.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE HELLENES IN THE ORIENT</h4> + +<p><b>Dissolution of the Empire of Alexander.</b>—Alexander had united under +one master all the ancient world from the Adriatic to the Indus, from +Egypt to the Caucasus. This vast empire endured only while he lived. +Soon after his death his generals disputed as to who should succeed +him; they made war on one another for twenty years, at first under the +pretext of supporting some one of the house of Alexander—his brother, +his son, his mother, his sisters or one of his wives, later openly in +their own names.</p> + +<p>Each had on his side a part of the Macedonian army or some of the +Greek mercenary soldiers. The Greeks were thus contending among +themselves who should possess Asia. The inhabitants were indifferent +in these wars as they had been in the strife between the Greeks and +the Persians. When the war ceased, there remained but three generals; +from the empire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>of Alexander each of them had carved for himself a +great kingdom: Ptolemy had Egypt, Seleucus Syria, Lysimachus +Macedonia. Other smaller kingdoms were already separated or detached +themselves later: in Europe Epirus; in Asia Minor, Pontus, Bithynia, +Galatia, Cappadocia, Pergamos; in Persia, Bactriana and Parthia. Thus +the empire of Alexander was dismembered.</p> + +<p><b>The Hellenistic Kingdoms.</b>—In these new kingdoms the king was a +Greek; accustomed to speak Greek, to adore the Greek gods, and to live +in Greek fashion, he preserved his language, his religion, and his +customs. His subjects were Asiatics, that is to say, barbarians; but +he sought to maintain a Greek court about him; he recruited his army +with Greek mercenaries, his administrative officers were Greeks, he +invited to his court Greek poets, scholars, and artists.</p> + +<p>Already in the time of the Persian kings there were many Greeks in the +empire as colonists, merchants, and especially soldiers. The Greek +kings attracted still more of these. They came in such numbers that at +last the natives adopted the costume, the religion, the manners, and +even the language of the Greeks. The Orient ceased to be Asiatic, and +became Hellenic. The Romans found here in the first century B.C. only +peoples like the Greeks and who spoke Greek.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p> + +<p><b>Alexandria.</b>—The Greek kings of Egypt, descendants of Ptolemy,<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> +accepted the title of Pharaoh held by the ancient kings, wore the +diadem, and, like the earlier sovereigns, had themselves worshipped +as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>children of the Sun. But they surrounded themselves with Greeks +and founded their capital on the edge of the sea in a Greek city, +Alexandria, a new city established by the order of Alexander.</p> + +<p>Built on a simple plan, Alexandria was more regular than other Greek +cities. The streets intersected at right angles; a great highway 100 +feet broad and three and one-half miles in length traversed the whole +length of the city. It was bordered with great monuments—the Stadium +where the public games were presented, the Gymnasium, the Museum, and +the Arsineum. The harbor was enclosed with a dike nearly a mile long +which united the mainland to the island of Pharos. At the very +extremity of this island a tower of marble was erected, on the summit +of which was maintained a fire always burning to guide the mariners +who wished to enter the port. Alexandria superseded the Phœnician +cities and became the great port of the entire world.</p> + +<p><b>The Museum.</b>—The Museum was an immense edifice of marble connected +with the royal palace. The kings of Egypt purposed to make of it a +great scientific institution.</p> + +<p>The Museum contained a great library.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> The chief librarian had a +commission to buy all the books that he could find. Every book that +entered Egypt was brought to the library; copyists transcribed the +manuscript and a copy was rendered the owner to indemnify him. Thus +they collected 400,000 volumes, an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>unheard-of number before the +invention of printing. Until then the manuscripts of celebrated books +were scarce, always in danger of being lost; now it was known where to +find them. In the Museum were also a botanical and zoölogical garden, +an astronomical observatory, a dissecting room established +notwithstanding the prejudices of the Egyptians, and even a chemical +laboratory.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p> + +<p>The Museum provided lodgings for scholars, mathematicians, +astronomers, physicians, and grammarians. They were supported at the +expense of the state; often to show his esteem for them the king dined +with them. These scholars held conferences and gave lectures. Auditors +came from all parts of the Greek world; it was to Alexandria that the +youth were sent for instruction. In the city were nearly 14,000 +students.</p> + +<p>The Museum was at once a library, an academy, and a school—something +like a university. This sort of institution, common enough among us, +was before that time completely unheard of. Alexandria, thanks to its +Museum, became the rendezvous for all the Orientals—Greeks, +Egyptians, Jews, and Syrians; each brought there his religion, his +philosophy, his science, and all were mingled together. Alexandria +became and remained for several centuries the scientific and +philosophical capital of the world.</p> + +<p><b>Pergamum.</b>—The kingdom of Pergamum in Asia Minor was small and weak. +But Pergamum, its capital, was, like Alexandria, a city of artists and +of letters. The sculptors of Pergamum constituted a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>celebrated school +in the third century before our era.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> Pergamum, like Alexandria, +possessed a great library where King Attalus had assembled all the +manuscripts of the ancient authors.</p> + +<p>It was at Pergamum that, to replace the papyrus on which down to that +time they used to write, they invented the art of preparing skins. +This new paper of Pergamum was the parchment on which the manuscripts +of antiquity have been preserved.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a> +<a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a> +<a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a> +<a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_95_95">[95]</a> An episode told by Xenophon shows what fear the Greeks +inspired. One day, to make a display before the queen of Cilicia, +Cyrus had his Greeks drawn up in battle array. "They all had their +brazen helmets, their tunics of purple, their gleaming shields and +greaves. The trumpet sounded, and the soldiers, with arms in action, +began the charge; hastening their steps and raising the war-cry, they +broke into a run. The barbarians were terrified; the Cilician queen +fled from her chariot, the merchants of the market abandoning their +goods took to flight, and the Greeks returned with laughter to their +tents."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_96_96">[96]</a> There were two assemblies in Corinth—the first in, 338, +the second in 337.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_97_97">[97]</a> The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles composed in +Asia Minor were written in Greek.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_98_98">[98]</a> They were called Lagidæ from the father of Ptolemy I.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_99_99">[99]</a> The library of the Museum was burnt during the siege of +Alexandria by Cæsar. But it had a successor in the Serapeum which +contained 300,000 volumes. This is said to have been burnt in the +seventh century by the Arabs. [The tale of the destruction of the +library under orders of Omar is doubtful.—ED.]</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_100_100">[100]</a> King Ptolemy Philadelphus who had great fear of death +passed many years searching for an elixir of life.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_101_101">[101]</a> There still remain to us some of the statues executed +by the orders of King Attalus to commemorate his victory over the +Gauls of Asia.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE LAST YEARS OF GREECE</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>DECADENCE OF THE GREEK CITIES</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Rich and Poor.</b>—In almost all the Greek cities the domains, the +shops of trade, the merchant ships, in short, all the sources of +financial profit were in the hands of certain rich families. The other +families, that is to say, the majority of the citizens,<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> had +neither lands nor money. What, then, could a poor citizen do to gain a +livelihood? Hire himself as a farmer, an artisan, or a sailor? But the +proprietors already had their estates, their workshops, their +merchantmen manned by slaves who served them much more cheaply than +free laborers, for they fed them ill and did not pay them. Could he +work on his own account? But money was very scarce; he could not +borrow, since interest was at the rate of ten per cent. Then, too, +custom did not permit a citizen to become an artisan. "Trade," said +the philosophers, "injures the body, enfeebles the soul and leaves no +leisure to engage in public affairs." "And so," says Aristotle, "a +well-constituted city ought not to receive the artisan into +citizenship." The citizens in Greece constituted a noble <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>class whose +only honorable functions, like the nobles of ancient France, were to +govern and go to war; working with the hands was degrading. Thus by +the competition of slaves and their exalted situation the greater part +of the citizens were reduced to extreme misery.</p> + +<p><b>Social Strife.</b>—The poor governed the cities and had no means of +living. The idea occurred to them to despoil the rich, and the latter, +to resist them, organized associations. Then every Greek city was +divided into two parties: the rich, called the minority, and the poor, +called the majority or the people. Rich and poor hated one another and +fought one another. When the poor got the upper hand, they exiled the +rich and confiscated their goods; often they even adopted these two +radical measures:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. The abolition of debts;</p> + +<p>2. A new partition of lands.</p></div> + +<p>The rich, when they returned to power, exiled the poor. In many cities +they took this oath among themselves: "I swear always to be an enemy +to the people and to do them all the injury I can."</p> + +<p>No means were found of reconciling the two parties: the rich could not +persuade themselves to surrender their property; the poor were +unwilling to die of hunger. According to Aristotle all revolutions +have their origin in the distribution of wealth. "Every civil war," +says Polybius, "is initiated to subvert wealth."</p> + +<p>They fought savagely, as is always the case between neighbors. "At +Miletus the poor were at first predominant and forced the rich to flee +the city. But afterwards, regretting that they had not killed them +all, they took the children of the exiles, assembled them in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>barns +and had them trodden under the feet of cattle. The rich reëntered the +city and became masters of it. In their turn they seized the children +of the poor, coated them with pitch, and burned them alive."</p> + +<p><b>Democracy and Oligarchy.</b>—Each of the two parties—rich and +poor—had its favorite form of government and set it in operation when +the party held the city. The party of the rich was the Oligarchy which +gave the government into the hands of a few people. That of the poor +was the Democracy which gave the power to an assembly of the people. +Each of the two parties maintained an understanding with the similar +party in the other cities. Thus were formed two leagues which divided +all the Greek cities: the league of the rich, or Oligarchy, the league +of the poor, or Democracy. This régime began during the Peloponnesian +War. Athens supported the democratic party, Sparta the oligarchic. The +cities in which the poor had the sovereignty allied themselves with +Athens; the cities where the rich governed, with Sparta. Thus at Samos +when the poor gained supremacy they slew two hundred of the rich, +exiled four hundred of them, and confiscated their lands and houses. +Samos then adopted a democratic government and allied itself with +Athens. The Spartan army came to besiege Samos, bringing with it the +rich exiles of Samos who wished to return to the city by force. The +city was captured, set up an oligarchy, and joined the league of +Sparta.</p> + +<p><b>The Tyrants.</b>—At length, the poor perceived that the democratic form +of government did not give them strength enough to maintain the +contest. In most of the cities they consented to receive a chief. This +chief <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>was called Tyrant. He governed as master without obeying any +law, condemning to death, and confiscating property at will. +Mercenaries defended him against his enemies. The following anecdote +represents the policy of the tyrants: "Periander, tyrant of Corinth, +sent one day to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, to ask what conduct he +ought to follow in order to govern with safety. Thrasybulus led the +envoy into the field end walked with him through the wheat, striking +off with his staff all heads that were higher than the others. He sent +off the envoy without further advice." The messenger took him for a +fool, but Periander understood: Thrasybulus was counselling him to +slay the principal citizens.</p> + +<p>Everywhere the rich were killed by the tyrant and their goods +confiscated; often the wealth was distributed among the poor. This is +why the populace always sustained the tyrant.</p> + +<p>There were tyrants in Greece from the sixth century; some, like +Pisistratus, Polycrates, and Pittacus, were respected for their +wisdom. At that time every man was called tyrant who exercised +absolute power outside the limits of the constitution; it was not a +title of reproach.</p> + +<p>But when the tyrants made incessant warfare on the rich they became +sanguinary and so were detested. Their situation is depicted in the +famous story of Damocles. This Damocles said to Dionysius, tyrant of +Syracuse, "You are the happiest of men." "I will show you the delight +of being a tyrant," replied Dionysius. He had Damocles served with a +sumptuous feast and ordered his servants to show the guest the same +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>honors as to himself. During the feast Damocles raised his eyes and +perceived a sword suspended to the ceiling held only by a horse hair, +and hanging directly over his head. The comparison was a striking +one—the tyrant's life hung only by a thread. The rich, his enemies, +watched for an opportunity to cut it, for it was regarded as +praiseworthy to assassinate a tyrant. This danger irritated him and +made him suspicious and cruel. He dared not trust anybody, believed +himself secure only after the massacre of all his enemies, and +condemned the citizens to death on the slightest suspicion. Thus the +name tyrant became a synonym of injustice.</p> + +<p><b>Exhaustion of Greece.</b>—The civil wars between rich and poor +continued for nearly three centuries (430-150 B.C.). Many citizens +were massacred, a greater number exiled. These exiles wandered about +in poverty. Knowing no trade but that of a soldier, they entered as +mercenaries into the armies of Sparta, Athens, the Great King, the +Persian satraps—in short, of anybody who would hire them. There were +50,000 Greeks in the service of Darius against Alexander. It was +seldom that such men returned to their own country.</p> + +<p>Thus the cities lost their people. At the same time families became +smaller, many men preferring not to marry or raise children, others +having but one or two. "Is not this," says Polybius, "the root of the +evil, that of these two children war or sickness removes one, then the +home becomes deserted and the city enfeebled?" A time came when there +were no longer enough citizens in the towns to resist a conqueror.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +<h4>THE ROMAN CONQUEST</h4> + +<p><b>The Greek Leagues.</b>—The most discerning of the Greeks commenced to +see the danger during the second war of Rome with Carthage. In an +assembly held at Naupactus in 207 B.C. a Greek orator said, "Turn your +eyes to the Occident; the Romans and Carthaginians are disputing +something else than the possession of Italy. A cloud is forming on +that coast, it increases, and impends over Greece."<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p> + +<p>The Greek cities at this time grouped themselves in two leagues +hostile to each other. Two little peoples, the Ætolians and Achæans, +had the direction of them; they commanded the armies and determined on +peace and war, just as Athens and Sparta once did. Each league +supported in the Greek states one of the two political parties—the +Ætolian League the democratic, the Achæan League<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> the +oligarchical.</p> + +<p><b>The Roman Allies.</b>—Neither of the two leagues was strong enough to +unite all the Greek states. The Romans then appeared. Philip, the king +of Macedon (197), and later Antiochus,<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> the king of Syria +(193-169), made war on them. Both were beaten. Rome destroyed their +armies and made them surrender their fleets.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>Perseus, the new king of Macedon, was conquered, made prisoner, and +his kingdom overthrown (167).<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> The Greeks made no effort to unite +for the common defence; rich and poor persisted in their strife, and +each hated the other more than the foreigner. The democratic party +allied itself with Macedon, the oligarchical party called in the +Romans.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> While the Theban democrats were fighting in the army of +Philip, the Theban oligarchs opened the town to the Roman general. At +Rhodes all were condemned to death who had acted or spoken against +Rome. Even among the Achæans, Callicrates, a partisan of the Romans, +prepared a list of a thousand citizens whom he accused of having been +favorable to Perseus; these suspects were sent to Rome where they were +held twenty years without trial.</p> + +<p><b>The Last Fight.</b>—The Romans were not at first introduced as enemies. +In 197 the consul Flamininus, after conquering the king of Macedon, +betook himself to the Isthmus of Corinth and before the Greeks +assembled to celebrate the games, proclaimed that "all the Greek +peoples were free." The crowd in transports of joy approached +Flamininus to thank him; they wished to salute their liberator, see +his form, touch his hand; crowns and garlands were cast upon him. The +pressure upon him was so great that he was nearly suffocated.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>The Romans seeing themselves in control soon wished to command. The +rich freely recognized their sovereignty; Rome served them by +shattering the party of the poor. This endured for forty years. At +last in 147, Rome being engaged with Carthage, the democratic party +gained the mastery in Greece and declared war on the Romans. A part of +the Greeks were panic-stricken; many came before the Roman soldiers +denouncing their compatriots and themselves; others betook themselves +to a safe distance from the cities; some hurled themselves into wells +or over precipices. The leaders of the opposition confiscated the +property of the rich, abolished debts, and gave arms to the slaves. It +was a desperate contest. Once overcome, the Achæans reassembled an +army and marched to the combat with their wives and children. The +general Diœus shut himself in his house with his whole family and set +fire to the building. Corinth had been the centre of the resistance; +the Romans entered it, massacred the men, and sold the women and +children as slaves. The city full of masterpieces of art was pillaged +and burnt; pictures of the great painters were thrown into the dust, +Roman soldiers lying on them and playing at dice.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT</h4> + +<p><b>Influence of Greece on Rome.</b>—The Romans at the time of their +conquest of the Greeks were still only soldiers, peasants, and +merchants; they had no statues, monuments, literature, science, or +philosophy. All this was found among the Greeks. Rome sought to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>imitate these, as the Assyrian conquerors imitated the Chaldeans, as +the Persians did the Assyrians. The Romans kept their costume, tongue, +and religion, and never confused these with those of the Greeks. But +thousands of Greek scholars and artists came to establish themselves +in Rome and to open schools of literature and of eloquence. Later it +was the fashion for the youth of the great Roman families to go as +students to the schools of Athens and Alexandria. Thus the arts and +science of the Greeks were gradually introduced into Rome. "Vanquished +Greece overcame her savage conqueror," says Horace, the Roman poet; +"she brought the arts to uncultured Latium."</p> + +<p><b>Architecture.</b>—The Romans had a national architecture. But they +borrowed the column from the Greeks and often imitated their +buildings. Many Roman temples resemble a Greek temple.</p> + +<p>A wealthy Roman's house is composed ordinarily of two parts: the +first, the ancient Roman house; the other is only a Greek house added +to the first.</p> + +<p><b>Sculpture.</b>—The Greeks had thousands of statues, in temples, squares +of the city, gymnasia, and in their dwellings. The Romans regarded +themselves as the owners of everything that had belonged to the +vanquished people. Their generals, therefore, removed a great number +of statues, transporting them to the temples and the porticos of Rome. +In the triumph of Æmilius Paullus, victor over the king of Macedon +(Perseus), a notable spectacle was two hundred and fifty cars full of +statues and paintings.</p> + +<p>Soon the Romans became accustomed to adorn with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>statues their +theatres, council-halls, and private villas; every great noble wished +to have some of them and gave commissions for them to Greek artists. +Thus a Roman school of sculpture was developed which continued to +imitate ancient Greek models. And so it was Greek sculpture, a little +blunted and disfigured, which was spread over all the world subject to +the Romans.</p> + +<p><b>Literature.</b>—The oldest Latin writer was a Greek, Livius Andronicus, +a freedman, a schoolmaster, and later an actor. The first works in +Latin were translations from the Greek. Livius Andronicus had +translated the Odyssey and several tragedies. The Roman people took +pleasure in Greek pieces and would have no others. Even the Roman +authors who wrote for the theatre did nothing but translate or arrange +Greek tragedies and comedies. Thus the celebrated works of Plautus and +of Terence are imitations of the comedies of Menander and of Diphilus, +now lost to us.</p> + +<p>The Romans imitated also the Greek historians. For a long time it was +the fashion to write history, even Roman history, in Greek.</p> + +<p>The only great Roman poets declare themselves pupils of the Greeks. +Lucretius writes only to expound the philosophy of Epicurus; Catullus +imitates the poets of Alexander; Vergil, Theocritus and Homer; Horace +translates the odes of the Greek lyrics.</p> + +<p><b>Epicureans and Stoics.</b>—The Romans had a practical and literal +spirit, very indifferent to pure science and metaphysics. They took +interest in Greek philosophy only so far as they believed it had a +bearing on morals.</p> + +<p>Epicureans and Stoics were two sects of Greek philosophers. The +Epicureans maintained that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>pleasure is the supreme good, not sensual +pleasure, but the calm and reasonable pleasure of the temperate man; +happiness consists in the quiet enjoyment of a peaceful life, +surrounded with friends and without concern for imaginary goods. For +the Stoics the supreme good is virtue, which consists in conducting +one's self according to reason, with a view to the good of the whole +universe. Riches, honor, health, beauty, all the goods of earth are +nothing for the wise man; even if one torture him, he remains happy in +the possession of the true good.</p> + +<p>The Romans took sides for one or the other philosophy, usually without +thoroughly comprehending either. Those who passed for Epicureans spent +their lives in eating and drinking and even compared themselves to +swine. Those calling themselves Stoics, like Cato and Brutus, affected +a rude language, a solemn demeanor and emphasized the evils of life. +Nevertheless these doctrines, spreading gradually, aided in destroying +certain prejudices of the Romans. Epicureans and Stoics were in +harmony on two points: they disdained the ancient religion and taught +that all men are equal, slaves or citizens, Greeks or barbarians. +Their Roman disciples renounced in their school certain old +superstitions, and learned to show themselves less cruel to their +slaves, less insolent toward other peoples.</p> + +<p>The conquest of Greece by the Romans gave the arts, letters, and +morals of the Greeks currency in the west, just as the conquest of the +Persian empire by the Greeks had carried their language, customs, and +religion into the Orient.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a> +<a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a> +<a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_102_102">[102]</a> In almost all the Greek cities there was no middle +class. In this regard Athens with its thirteen thousand small +proprietors is a remarkable exception.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_103_103">[103]</a> Polybius, v., 104.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_104_104">[104]</a> The Achæan league had illustrious leaders. In the third +century, Aratus, who for twenty-seven years (251-224) traversed +Greece, expelling tyrants, recalling the rich and returning to them +their property and the government; in the second century Philopœmen, +who fought the tyrants of Sparta and died by poison.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_105_105">[105]</a> There were two kings of Syria by the name of Antiochus, +between 193 and 169.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_106_106">[106]</a> The decisive battle (Pydna) was fought in 168. Perseus +walked in the triumph of Paullus the next year.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_107_107">[107]</a> The party policies of the Greeks of this period were +hardly so clearly drawn as the above would seem to indicate. Thus the +Achæan League allied itself with Macedon against the Ætolians and +against Sparta. The Ætolians leagued with the Romans against +Macedon.—ED.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>ROME</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>ANCIENT PEOPLES OF ITALY</h3> +<br /> + +<h4>THE ETRUSCANS</h4> + +<p><b>Etruria.</b>—The word Italy never signified for the ancients the same +as for us: the Po Valley (Piedmont and Lombardy) was a part of Gaul. +The frontier country at the north was Tuscany. The Etruscans who dwelt +there have left it their name (Tusci).</p> + +<p>Etruria was a country at once warm and humid; the atmosphere hung +heavily over the inhabitants. The region on the shore of the sea where +the Etruscans had most of their cities is the famous Maremma, a +wonderfully fertile area, covered with beautiful forests, but where +the water having no outlet forms marshes that poison the air. "In the +Maremma," says an Italian proverb, "one gets rich in a year, but dies +in six months."</p> + +<p><b>The Etruscan People.</b>—The Etruscans were for the ancients, and are +still for us, a mysterious people. They had no resemblance to their +neighbor's, and doubtless they came from a distance—from Germany, +Asia, or from Egypt; all these opinions have been maintained, but no +one of them is demonstrated.</p> + +<p>We are ignorant even of the language that they spoke. Their alphabet +resembles that of the Greeks, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>but the Etruscan inscriptions present +only proper names, and these are too short to furnish a key to the +language.</p> + +<p>The Etruscans established twelve cities in Tuscany, united in a +confederation, each with its own fortress, its king, and its +government. They had colonies on both coasts, twelve in Campania in +the vicinity of Naples, and twelve more in the valley of the Po.</p> + +<p><b>Etruscan Tombs.</b>—There remain to us from the Etruscans only city +walls and tombs.</p> + +<p>When an Etruscan tomb is opened, one perceives a porch supported by +columns and behind this chambers with couches, and bodies laid on +these. Round about are ornaments of gold, ivory, and amber; purple +cloths, utensils, and especially large painted vases. On the walls are +paintings of combats, games, banquets, and fantastic scenes.</p> + +<p><b>Industry and Commerce.</b>—The Etruscans knew how to turn their fertile +soil to some account, but they were for the most part mariners and +traders. Like the Phœnicians they made long journeys to seek the ivory +of India, amber from the Baltic, tin, the Phœnician purple, Egyptian +jewels adorned with hieroglyphics, and even ostrich eggs. All these +objects are found in their tombs. Their navies sailed to the south as +far as Sicily. The Greeks hated them and called them "savage +Tyrrhenians" or "Etruscan pirates." At this time every mariner on +occasion was a pirate, and the Etruscans were especially interested to +exclude the Greeks so that they might keep for themselves the trade of +the west coast of Italy.</p> + +<p>The famous Etruscan vases, which have been taken <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>from the tombs by +the thousand to enrich our museums, were imitations of Greek vases, +but manufactured by the Etruscans. They represent scenes from Greek +mythology, especially the combats about Troy; the human figures are in +red on a black ground.</p> + +<p><b>Religion.</b>—The Etruscans were a sombre people. Their gods were +stern, often malevolent. The two most exalted gods were "the veiled +deities," of whom we know nothing. Below these were the gods who +hurled the lightning and these form a council of twelve gods. Under +the earth, in the abode of the dead, were gods of evil omen. These are +represented on the Etruscan vases. The king of the lower world, +Mantus, a winged genius, sits with crown on his head and torch in his +hand. Other demons armed with sword or club with serpents in their +hands receive the souls of the dead; the principal of these under the +name Charun (the Charon of the Greeks), an old man of hideous form, +bears a heavy mallet to strike his victims. The souls of the dead (the +Manes) issue from the lower world three days in the year, wandering +about the earth, terrifying the living and doing them evil. Human +victims are offered to appease their lust for blood. The famous +gladiatorial combats which the Romans adopted had their origin in +bloody sacrifices in honor of the dead.</p> + +<p><b>The Augurs.</b>—The Etruscans used to say that a little evil spirit +named Tages issued one day from a furrow and revealed to the people +assembled the secrets of divination. The Etruscan priests who called +themselves haruspices or augurs had rules for predicting the future. +They observed the entrails of victims, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>thunderbolt, but +especially the flight of birds (whence their name "augurs"). The augur +at first with face turned to the north, holding a crooked staff in his +hand, describes a line which cuts the heavens in two sections; the +part to the right is favorable, to the left unfavorable. A second line +cutting the first at right angles, and others parallel to these form +in the heavens a square which was called the Temple. The augur +regarded the birds that flew in this square: some like the eagle have +a lucky significance; others like the owl presage evil.</p> + +<p>The Etruscans predicted the future destiny of their own people. They +are the only people of antiquity who did not expect that they were to +persist forever. Etruria, they said, was to endure ten centuries. +These centuries were not of exactly one hundred years each, but +certain signs marked the end of each period. In the year 44, the year +of the death of Cæsar, a comet appeared; an Etruscan haruspex stated +to the Romans in an assembly of the people that this comet announced +the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, the last +of the Etruscan people.</p> + +<p><b>Influence of the Etruscans.</b>—The Romans, a semi-barbarous people, +always imitated their more civilized neighbors, the Etruscans. They +drew from them especially the forms of their religion: the costume of +the priests and of the magistrates, the religious rites, and the art +of divining the future from birds (the auspices). When the Romans +found a city, they observe the Etruscan rites: the founder traces a +square enclosure with a plough with share of bronze, drawn by a white +bull and a white heifer. Men follow the founder and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>carefully cast +the clods of earth from the side of the furrow. The whole ditch left +by the plough is sacred and is not to be crossed. To allow entrance to +the enclosure, it is necessary that the founder break the ditch at +certain points, and he does this by lifting the plough and carrying it +an instant; the interval made in this manner remains profane and it +becomes the gate by which one enters. Rome itself was founded +according to these rites. It was called Roma Quadrata, and it was said +that the founder had killed his brother to punish him for crossing the +sacred furrow. Later the limits of Roman colonies and of camps, and +even the bounds of domains were always traced in conformity with +religious rules and with geometrical lines.</p> + +<p>The Roman religion was half Etruscan. The Fathers of the church were +right, therefore, in calling Etruria the "Mother of Superstitions."</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE ITALIAN PEOPLE</h4> + +<p><b>Umbrians and Oscans.</b>—In the rugged mountains of the Apennines, to +the east and south of the Roman plain, resided numerous tribes. These +peoples did not bear the same name and did not constitute a single +nation. They were Umbrians, Sabines, Volscians, Æquians, Hernicans, +Marsians, and Samnites. But all spoke almost the same language, +worshipped the same gods, and had similar customs. Like the Persians, +Hindoos, and Greeks, they were of Aryan race; secluded in their +mountains, remote from strangers, they remained like the Aryans of the +ancient period; they lived in groups with their herds scattered in the +plains; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>they had no villages nor cities. Fortresses erected on the +mountains defended them in time of war. They were brave martial +people, of simple and substantial manners. They later constituted the +strength of the Roman armies. A proverb ran: "Who could vanquish the +Marsians without the Marsians?"</p> + +<p><b>The Sacred Spring.</b>—In the midst of a pressing danger, the Sabines, +according to a legend, believing their gods to be angry, decided to +appease their displeasure by sacrificing to the god of war and of +death everything that was born during a certain spring. This sacrifice +was called a "Sacred Spring." All the children born in this year +belonged to the god. Arrived at the age of manhood, they left the +country and journeyed abroad. These exiles formed several groups, each +taking for guide one of the sacred animals of Italy, a woodpecker, a +wolf, or a bull, and followed it as a messenger of the god. Where the +animal halted the band settled itself. Many peoples of Italy, it was +said, had originated in these colonies of emigrants and still +preserved the name of the animal which had led their ancestors. Such +were, the Hirpines (people of the wolf), the Picentines (people of the +woodpecker), and the Samnites whose capital was named Bovianum (city +of the ox).</p> + +<p><b>The Samnites.</b>—The Samnites were the most powerful of all. Settled +in the Abruzzi, a paradise for brigands, they descended into the +fertile plains of Naples and of Apulia and put Etruscan and Greek +towns to ransom.</p> + +<p>The Samnites fought against the Romans for two centuries; although +always beaten because they had no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>central administration and no +discipline they yet reopened the war. Their last fight was heroic. An +old man brought to the chiefs of the army a sacred book written on +linen. They formed in the interior of the camp a wall of linen, raised +an altar in the midst of it, and around this stood soldiers with +unsheathed swords. One by one the bravest of the warriors entered the +precinct. They swore not to flee before the enemy and to kill the +fugitives. Those who took the oath, to the number of 16,000, donned +linen garments. This was the "linen legion"; it engaged in battle, and +was slaughtered to the last man.</p> + +<p><b>The Greeks of Italy.</b>—All south Italy was covered with Greek +colonies, some, like Sybaris, Croton, and Tarentum, very populous and +powerful. But the Greeks did not venture on the Roman coast for fear +of the Etruscans. Except the city of Cumæ the Greek colonies down to +the third century had almost no relations with the Romans.</p> + +<p><b>The Latins.</b>—The Latins dwelt in the country of hills and ravines to +the south of the Tiber, called today the Roman Campagna. They were a +small people, their territory comprising no more than one hundred +square miles. They were of the same race as the other Italians, +similar to them in language, religion, and manners, but slightly more +advanced in civilization. They cultivated the soil and built strong +cities. They separated themselves into little independent peoples. +Each people had its little territory, its city, and its government. +This miniature state was called a city. Thirty Latin cities had formed +among themselves a religious association analogous to the Greek +amphictyonies. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>Every year they celebrated a common festival, when +their delegates, assembled at Alba, sacrificed a bull in honor of +their common god, the Latin Jupiter.</p> + +<p><b>Rome.</b>—On the frontier of Latium, on the borders of Etruria, in the +marshy plain studded with hills that followed the Tiber, rose the city +of Rome, the centre of the Roman people scattered in the plain. The +land was malarial and dreary; but the situation was good. The Tiber +served as a barrier against the enemy from Etruria, the hills were +fortresses. The sea was but six leagues away, far enough to escape +fear of pirates, and near enough to permit the transportation of +merchandise. The port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a suburb +of Rome, as Piræus was of Athens. The locality was therefore agreeable +to a people of soldiers and merchants.</p> + +<p><b>Roma Quadrata and the Capitol.</b>—Of the first centuries of Rome we +know only some legends, and the Romans knew no more than we. Rome, +they said, was a little square town, limited to the Palatine Hill. The +founder whom they called Romulus had according to the Etruscan forms +traced the circuit with the plough. Every year, on the 21st of April, +the Romans celebrated the anniversary of these ceremonies: a +procession marched about the primitive enclosure and a priest fixed a +nail in a temple in commemoration of it. It was calculated that the +founding had occurred in the year 754<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> B.C.</p> + +<p>On the other hills facing the Palatine other small cities rose. A band +of Sabine mountaineers established themselves on the Capitoline, a +group of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>Etruscan adventurers<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> on Mount Cœlius; perhaps there +were still other peoples. All these small settlements ended with +uniting with Rome on the Palatine. A new wall was built to include the +seven hills. The Capitol was then for Rome what the Acropolis was for +Athens: here rose the temples of the three protecting deities of the +city—Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and the citadel that contained the +treasure and the archives of the people. In laying the foundations, it +was said there was found a human head recently cleft from the body; +this head was a presage that Rome should become the head of the world.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_108_108">[108]</a> Rather 753 B.C.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_109_109">[109]</a> There were three tribes in old Rome, the Ramnes on the +Palatine, the Tities or Sabines on the Capitoline, and the Luceres; +but whether the last were Etruscans or Ramnians or neither is +uncertain.—ED.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XVIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>ROMAN RELIGION</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Roman Gods.</b>—The Romans, like the Greeks, believed that +everything that occurs in the world was the work of a deity. But in +place of a God who directs the whole universe, they had a deity for +every phenomenon which they saw. There was a divinity to make the seed +sprout, another to protect the bounds of the fields, another to guard +the fruits. Each had its name, its sex, and its functions.</p> + +<p>The principal gods were Jupiter, god of the heaven; Janus, the +two-faced god (the deity who opens); Mars, god of war; Mercury, god of +trade; Vulcan, god of fire; Neptune, god of the sea; Ceres, goddess of +grains, the Earth, the Moon, Juno, and Minerva.</p> + +<p>Below these were secondary deities. Some personified a quality—for +example, Youth, Concord, Health, Peace. Others presided over a certain +act in life: when the infant came into the world there were a god to +teach him to speak, a goddess to teach him to drink, another charged +with knitting his bones, two to accompany him to school, two to take +him home again. In short, there was a veritable legion of minor +special deities.</p> + +<p>Other gods protected a city, a certain section of a mountain, a +forest; every river, every <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>fountain, every tree had its little local +divinity. It is this that makes an old woman in a Latin romance +exclaim, "Our country is so full of gods that it is much easier to +find a god than a man."</p> + +<p><b>Form of the Gods.</b>—The Romans, unlike the Greeks, did not give their +gods a precise form. For a long time there was no idol in Rome; they +worshipped Jupiter under the form of a rock, Mars under that of a +sword. It was later that they imitated the wooden statues of the +Etruscans and the marbles of the Greeks. Perhaps they did not at first +conceive of the gods as having human forms.</p> + +<p>Unlike the Greeks they did not imagine marriage and kinship among +their gods; they had no legends to tell of these relationships; they +knew of no Olympus where the gods met together. The Latin language had +a very significant word for designating the gods: they were called +Manifestations. They were the manifestations of a mysterious divine +power. This is why they were formless, without family relationship, +without legends. Everything that was known of the gods was that each +controlled a natural force and could benefit or injure men.</p> + +<p><b>Principles of the Roman Religion.</b>—The Roman was no lover of these +pale and frigid abstractions; he even seemed to fear them. When he +invoked them, he covered his face, perhaps that he might not see them. +But he thought that they were potent and that they would render him +service, if he knew how to please them. "The man whom the gods favor," +says Plautus, "they cause to gain wealth."</p> + +<p>The Roman conceives of religion as an exchange <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>of good offices; the +worshipper brings offerings and homage; the god in return confers some +advantage.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> If after having made a present to the god the man +receives nothing, he considers himself cheated. During the illness of +Germanicus the people offered sacrifices for his restoration. When it +was announced that Germanicus was dead, the people in their anger +overturned the altars and cast the statues of the gods into the +streets, because they had not done what was expected of them. And so +in our day the Italian peasant abuses the saint who does not give him +what he asks.</p> + +<p><b>Worship.</b>—Worship, therefore, consists in doing those things that +please the gods. They are presented with fruits, milk, wine, or animal +sacrifices. Sometimes the statues of the gods are brought from their +temples, laid on couches, and served with a feast. As in Greece, +magnificent homes (temples<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a>) were built for them, and diversions +were arranged for them.</p> + +<p><b>Formalism.</b>—But it is not enough that one make a costly offering to +the gods. The Roman gods are punctilious as to form; they require that +all the acts of worship, the sacrifices, games, dedications, shall +proceed according to the ancient rules (the rites). When one desires +to offer a victim to Jupiter, one must select a white beast, sprinkle +salted meal on its head, and strike it with an axe; one must stand +erect <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>with hands raised to heaven, the abode of Jupiter, and +pronounce a sacred formula. If any part of the ceremonial fails, the +sacrifice is of no avail; the god, it is thought, will have no +pleasure in it. A magistrate may be celebrating games in honor of the +protecting deities of Rome; "if he alters a word in his formula, if a +flute-player rests, if the actor stops short, the games do not conform +to the rites; they must be recommenced."<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p> + +<p>And so the prudent man secures the assistance of two priests, one to +pronounce the formula, the other to follow the ritual accurately.</p> + +<p>Every year the Arval Brothers, a college of priests, assemble in a +temple in the environs of Rome where they perform a sacred dance and +recite a prayer; this is written in an archaic language which no one +any longer comprehends, so much so that at the beginning of the +ceremony a written formulary must be given to each of the priests. And +yet, ever since the time that they ceased to comprehend it, they +continued to chant it without change. This is because the Romans hold +before all to the letter of the law in dealing with their gods. This +exactness in performing the prescribed ritual is for them their +religion. And so they regarded themselves as "the most religious of +men." "On all other points we are the inferiors or only the equals of +other peoples, but we excel all in religion, that is, the worship we +pay the gods."</p> + +<p><b>Prayer.</b>—When the Roman prays, it is not to lift his soul and feel +himself in communion with a god, but to ask of him a service. He is +concerned, then, first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>to find the god who can render it. "It is as +important," says Varro, "to know what god can aid us in a special case +as to know where the carpenter and baker live." Thus one must address +Ceres if one wants rich harvests, Mercury to make a fortune, Neptune +to have a happy voyage. Then the suppliant dons the proper garments, +for the gods love neatness; he brings an offering, for the gods love +not that one should come with empty hands. Then, erect, the head +veiled, the worshipper invokes the god. But he does not know the exact +name of the god, for, say the Romans, "no one knows the true names of +the gods." He says, then, for example, "Jupiter, greatest and best, or +whatever is the name that thou preferrest...." Then he proposes his +request, taking care to use always the clearest expressions so that +the god may make no mistake. If a libation is offered, one says, +"Receive the homage of this wine that I am pouring"; for the god might +think that one would present other wine and keep this back. The +prayers, too, are long, verbose, and full of repetitions.</p> + +<p><b>Omens.</b>—The Romans, like the Greeks, believe in omens. The gods, +they think, know the future, and they send signs that permit men to +divine them. Before undertaking any act, the Roman consults the gods. +The general about to engage in battle examines the entrails of +victims; the magistrates before holding an assembly regards the +passing birds (called "taking the auspices"). If the signs are +favorable, the gods are thought to approve the enterprise; if not, +they are against it. The gods often send a sign that had not been +requested. Every unexpected phenomenon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>is the presage of an event. A +comet appeared before the death of Cæsar and was thought to have +announced it.</p> + +<p>When the assembly of the people deliberates and it thunders, it is +because Jupiter does not wish that anything shall be decided on that +day and the assembly must dissolve. The most insignificant fact may be +interpreted as a sign—a flash of lightning, a word overheard, a rat +crossing the road, a diviner met on the way. And so when Marcellus had +determined on an enterprise, he had himself carried in a closed litter +that he might be sure of not seeing anything which could impose itself +on him as a portent.</p> + +<p>These were not the superstitions of the populace; the republic +supported six augurs charged with predicting the future. It carefully +preserved a collection of prophecies, the Sibylline Books. It had +sacred chickens guarded by priests. No public act—assembly, election, +deliberation—could be done without the taking of the auspices, that +is to say, observation of the flight of birds. In the year 195 it was +learned that lightning had struck a temple of Jupiter and that it had +hit a hair on the head of the statue of Hercules; a governor wrote +that a chicken with three feet had been hatched; the senate assembled +to discuss these portents.</p> + +<p><b>The Priests.</b>—The priest in Rome, as in Greece, is not charged with +the care of souls, he exists only for the service of the god. He +guards his temple, administers his property, and performs the +ceremonies in his honor. Thus the guild of the Salii (the leapers) +watches over a shield which fell from heaven, they said, and which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>was adored as an idol; every year they perform a dance in arms, and +this is their sole function.</p> + +<p>The augurs predict the future. The pontiffs superintend the ceremonies +of worship; they regulate the calendar and fix the festivals to be +celebrated on the various days of the year.</p> + +<p>Neither the priests, the augurs, nor the pontiffs form a separate +class. They are chosen from among the great families and continue to +exercise all the functions of state—judging, presiding over +assemblies, and commanding armies. This is the reason that the Roman +priests, potent as they were, did not constitute, as in Egypt, a +sacerdotal caste. At Rome it was a state religion, but not a +government by the priests.</p> + +<p><b>The Dead.</b>—The Romans, like the Hindoos and the Greeks, believed +that the soul survived the body. If care were taken to bury the body +according to the proper rites, the soul went to the lower world and +became a god; otherwise the soul could not enter the abode of the +dead, but returned to the earth terrifying the living and tormenting +them until suitable burial was performed. Pliny the Younger<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> +relates the story of a ghost which haunted a house and terrified to +death all the inhabitants of the dwelling; a philosopher who was brave +enough to follow it discovered at the place where the spectre stopped +some bones which had not been buried in the proper manner. The shade +of the Emperor Caligula wandered in the gardens of the palace; it was +necessary to disinter the body and bury it anew in regular form.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span><b>Cult of the Dead.</b>—It was of importance, therefore, to both the +living and the dead that the rites should be observed. The family of +the deceased erected a funeral pile, burned the body on it, and placed +the ashes in an urn which was deposited in the tomb, a little chapel +dedicated to the <span style="white-space: nowrap;">Manes,<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></span> <i>i.e.</i>, the souls that had become gods. +On fixed days of the year the relatives came to the tomb to bring +food; doubtless they believed that the soul was in need of +nourishment, for wine and milk were poured on the earth, flesh of +victims was burned, and vessels of milk and cakes were left behind. +These funeral ceremonies were perpetuated for an indefinite period; a +family could not abandon the souls of its ancestors, but continued to +maintain their tomb and the funeral feasts. In return, these souls +which had become gods loved and protected their posterity. Each +family, therefore, had its guardian deities which they called Lares.</p> + +<p><b>Cult of the Hearth.</b>—Each family had a hearth, also, that it adored. +For the Romans, as for the Hindoos, fire was a god and the hearth an +altar. The flame was to be maintained day and night, and offerings +made on the hearth of oil, fat, wine, and incense; the fire then +became brilliant and rose higher as if nourished by the offering.</p> + +<p>Before beginning his meal the Roman thanked the god of the hearth, +gave him a part of the food, and poured out for him a little wine +(this was the libation). Even the sceptical Horace supped with his +slaves before the hearth and offered libation and prayer.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>Every Roman family had in its house a sanctuary where were to be found +the Lares, the souls of the ancestors, and the altar of the hearth. +Rome also had its sacred hearth, called Vesta, an ancient word +signifying the hearth itself. Four virgins of the noblest families, +the Vestals, were charged with keeping the hearth, for it was +necessary that the flame should never be extinguished, and the care of +it could be confided only to pure beings. If a Vestal broke her vow, +she was buried alive in a cave, for she had committed sacrilege and +had endangered the whole Roman people.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE FAMILY</h4> + +<p><b>Religion of the Family.</b>—All the members of a family render worship +to the same ancestors and unite about the same hearth. They have +therefore the same gods, and these are their peculiar possession. The +sanctuary where the Lares<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> were kept was concealed in the house +and no stranger was to approach it. Thus the Roman family was a little +church; it had its religion and its worship to which no others than +its members had access. The ancient family was very different from the +modern, having its basis in the principles of religion.</p> + +<p><b>Marriage.</b>—The first rule of this religion is that one should be the +issue of a regular marriage if one is to have the right of adoring the +ancestors of the family. Roman marriage, therefore, is at the start a +religious ceremony. The father of the bride gives her away outside the +house when a procession conducts her to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>the house of the groom +chanting an ancient sacred refrain, "Hymen, O Hymen!" The bride is +then led before the altar of the husband where water and fire are +presented, and there in the presence of the gods of the family the +bride and groom divide between them a cake of meal. Marriage at this +period was called confarreatio (communion through the cake). Later +another form of marriage was invented. A relative of the bride in the +presence of witnesses sells her to the husband who declares that he +buys her for his wife. This is marriage by sale (coemptio).</p> + +<p>For the Romans as for the Greeks marriage is a religious duty; +religion ordains that the family should not become extinct. The Roman, +therefore, declares when he marries that he takes his wife to +perpetuate the family through their children. A noble Roman who +sincerely loved his wife repudiated her because she brought him no +children.</p> + +<p><b>The Roman Woman.</b>—The Roman woman is never free. As a young girl, +she belongs to her father who chooses her husband for her; married, +she comes under the power of her husband—the jurisconsults say she is +under his "manus," <i>i.e.</i>, she is in the same position as his +daughter. The woman always has a master who has the right of life and +death over her. And yet, she is never treated like a slave. She is the +equal in dignity of her husband; she is called the mother of the +family (materfamilias) just as her husband is called the father of the +family (paterfamilias). She is the mistress in the house, as he is the +master. She gives orders to the slaves whom she charges with all the +heavy tasks—the grinding of the grain, the making <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>of bread, and the +cooking. She sits in the seat of honor (the atrium), spins and weaves, +apportions work to the slaves, watches the children, and directs the +house. She is not excluded from association with the men, like the +Greek woman; she eats at the table with her husband, receives +visitors, goes into town to dinner, appears at the public ceremonies, +at the theatre, and even at the courts. And still she is ordinarily +uncultured; the Romans do not care to instruct their daughters; the +quality which they most admire in woman is gravity, and on her tomb +they write by way of eulogy, "She kept the house and spun linen."</p> + +<p><b>The Children.</b>—The Roman child belongs to the father like a piece of +property. The father has the right of exposing him in the street. If +he accepts the child, the latter is brought up at first in the house. +Girls remain here until marriage; they spin and weave under the +supervision of their mother. The boys walk to the fields with their +father and exercise themselves in arms. The Romans are not an artistic +people; they require no more of their children than that they know how +to read, write, and reckon; neither music nor poetry is taught them. +They are brought up to be sober, silent, modest in their demeanor, and +obedient.</p> + +<p><b>The Father of the Family.</b>—The master of the house was called by the +Romans the father of the family. The paterfamilias is at once the +proprietor of the domain, the priest of the cult of the ancestors, and +the sovereign of the family. He reigns as master in his house. He has +the right of repudiating his wife, of rejecting his children, of +selling them, and marrying them at his pleasure. He can take for +himself all that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>belongs to them, everything that his wife brings to +him, and everything that his children gain; for neither the wife nor +the children may be proprietors. Finally he has over them all<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> the +"right of life and death," that is to say, he is their only judge. If +they commit crime, it is not the magistrate who punishes them, but the +father of the family who condemns them. One day (186 B.C.) the Roman +Senate decreed the penalty of death for all those who had participated +in the orgies of the cult of Bacchus. The men were executed, but for +all the women who were discovered among the guilty, it was necessary +that the Senate should address itself to the fathers of families, and +it was these who condemned to death their wives or their daughters. +"The husband," said the elder Cato, "is the judge of the wife, he can +do with her as he will; if she has committed any fault, he chastises +her; if she has drunk wine, he condemns her; if she has been +unfaithful to him, he kills her." When Catiline conspired against the +Senate, a senator perceived that his own son had taken part in the +conspiracy; he had him arrested, judged him, and condemned him to +death.</p> + +<p>The power of the father of the family endured as long as life; the son +was never freed from it. Even if he became consul, he remained subject +to the power of his father. When the father died, the sons became in +turn fathers of families. As for the wife, she could never attain +freedom; she fell under the power of the heir of her husband; she +could, then, become subject to her own son.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a> +<a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a> +<a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a> +<a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_110_110">[110]</a> A legend represents King Numa debating with Jupiter the +terms of a contract: "You will sacrifice a head to me?" says Jupiter. +"Very well," says Numa, "the head of an onion that I shall take in my +garden." "No," replies Jupiter, "but I want something that pertains to +a man." "We will give you then the tip of the hair." "But it must be +alive." "Then we will add to this a little fish." Jupiter laughed and +consented to this.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_111_111">[111]</a> In Rome, as in Greece, the temple was called a house.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_112_112">[112]</a> The remark is Cicero's.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_113_113">[113]</a> Pliny, Epistles, vii, 27. See another story in +Plautus's Mostellaria.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_114_114">[114]</a> The letters D.M. found on Roman tombs are the initials +of Dei Manes.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_115_115">[115]</a> They were called the Penates, that is to say, the gods +of the interior.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_116_116">[116]</a> In the language of the Roman law the wife, children, +and slaves "are not their own masters."</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XIX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE ROMAN CITY</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>FORMATION OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Kings.</b>—Tradition relates that Rome for two centuries and a half +was governed by kings. They told not only the names of these kings and +the date of their death, but the life of each.</p> + +<p>They said there were seven kings. Romulus, the first king, came from +the Latin city of Alba, founded the hamlet on the Palatine, and killed +his brother who committed the sacrilege of leaping over the sacred +furrow encircling the settlement; he then allied himself with Tatius, +a Sabine king. (A legend of later origin added that he had founded at +the foot of the hill-city a quarter surrounded with a palisade where +he received all the adventurers who wished to come to him.)</p> + +<p>Numa Pompilius, the second king, was a Sabine. It was he who organized +the Roman religion, taking counsel with a goddess, the nymph Egeria +who dwelt in a wood.</p> + +<p>The third king, Tullus Hostilius, was a warrior. He made war on Alba, +the capital of the Latin confederation, took and destroyed it.</p> + +<p>Ancus Martius, the fourth king, was the grandson of Numa and built the +wooden bridge over the Tiber <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>and founded the port of Ostia through +which commerce passed up the river to Rome.</p> + +<p>The last three kings were Etruscans. Tarquin the Elder enlarged the +territory of Rome and introduced religious ceremonies from Etruria. +Servius Tullius organized the Roman army, admitting all the citizens +without distinction of birth and separating them into centuries +(companies) according to wealth. The last king, Tarquinius Superbus, +oppressed the great families of Rome; some of the nobles conspired +against him and succeeded in expelling him. Since this time there were +no longer any kings. The Roman state, or as they said, the +commonwealth (res publica) was governed by the consuls, two +magistrates elected each year.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to know how much truth there is in this tradition, +for it took shape a long time after the Romans began to write their +history, and it includes so many legends that we cannot accept it in +its entirety.</p> + +<p>Attempt has been made to explain these names of kings as symbols of a +race or class. The early history of Rome has been reconstructed in a +variety of ways, but the greater the labor applied to it, the less the +agreement among students with regard to it.</p> + +<p><b>The Roman People.</b>—About the fifth century before Christ there were +in Rome two classes of people, the patricians and the plebeians. The +patricians were the descendants of the old families who had lived from +remote antiquity on the little territory in the vicinity of the city; +they alone had the right to appear in the assembly of the people, to +assist in religious ceremonies, and to hold office. Their ancestors +had founded the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>Roman state, or as they called it, the Roman city +(Civitas), and these had bequeathed it to them. And so they were the +true people of Rome.</p> + +<p><b>The Plebs.</b>—The plebeians were descended from the foreigners<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> +established in the city, and especially from the conquered peoples of +the neighboring cities; for Rome had gradually subjected all the Latin +cities and had forcibly annexed their inhabitants. Subjects and yet +aliens, they obeyed the government of Rome, but they could have no +part in it. They did not possess the Roman religion and could not +participate in its ceremonies. They had not even the right of +intermarrying with the patrician families. They were called the plebs +(the multitude) and were not considered a part of the Roman people. In +the old prayers we still find this formula: "For the welfare of the +people and the plebs of Rome."</p> + +<p><b>Strife between Patricians and Plebeians.</b>—The people and the plebs +were like two distinct peoples, one of masters, the other of subjects. +And yet the plebeians were much like the patricians. Soldiers, like +them, they served in the army at their own cost and suffered death in +the service of the Roman people; peasants like them, they lived on +their domains. Many of the plebeians were rich and of ancient family. +The only difference was that they were descended from a great family +of some conquered Latin city, while the patricians were the scions of +an old family in the conquering city.</p> + +<p><b>Tribunes of the Plebs.</b>—One day, says the legend, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>the plebeians, +finding themselves mistreated, withdrew under arms to a mountain, +determined to break with the Roman people. The patricians in +consternation sent to them Menenius Agrippa who told them the fable of +the members and the stomach. The plebs consented to return but they +made a treaty with the people. It was agreed that their chiefs (they +called them tribunes of the plebs) should have the right of protecting +the plebeians against the magistrates of the people and of prohibiting +any measure against them. All that was necessary was to pronounce the +word "Veto" (I forbid); this single word stopped everything; for +religion prevented attacks on a tribune under penalty of being devoted +to the infernal gods.</p> + +<p><b>Triumph of the Plebs.</b>—The strife between the two orders beginning +at the end of the fifth century continued for two centuries (494 B.C. +to about 300 B.C.).<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p> + +<p>The plebeians, much more numerous and wealthy, ended by gaining the +victory. They first secured the adoption of laws common to the two +orders; afterward that marriage should be permitted between the +patricians and the plebeians. The hardest task was to obtain the high +magistracies, or, as it was said, "secure the honors." Religious +scruple ordained, indeed, that before one could be named as a +magistrate, the gods must be asked for their approval of the choice. +This was determined by inspecting the flight of birds ("taking the +auspices"). But the old Roman religion allowed the auspices to be +taken only on the name <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>of a patrician; it was not believed that the +gods could accept a plebeian magistrate. But there were great plebeian +families who were bent on being the equals of the patrician families +in dignity, as they were in riches and in importance. They gradually +forced the patricians to open to them all the offices, beginning with +the consulship, and ending with the great pontifical office (Pontifex +Maximus). The first plebeian consul was named in 366 B.C., the first +plebeian pontifex maximus in 302 B.C.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Patricians and plebeians +then coalesced and henceforth formed but one people.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE ROMAN PEOPLE</h4> + +<p><b>The Right of Citizenship.</b>—The <i>people</i> in Rome, as in Greece, is +not the whole of the inhabitants, but the body of citizens. Not every +man who lives in the territory is a citizen, but only he who has the +right of citizenship. The citizen has numerous privileges:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. He alone is a member of the body politic; he alone has the +right of voting in the assemblies of the Roman people, of serving +in the army, of being present at the religious ceremonials at +Rome, of being elected a Roman magistrate. These are what were +called public rights.</p> + +<p>2. The citizen alone is protected by the Roman law; he only has +the right of marrying legally, of becoming the father of a family, +that is to say, of being master of his wife and his children, of +making his will, of buying or selling. These were the private +rights.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>Those who were not citizens were not only excluded from the army and +the assembly, but they could not marry, could not possess the absolute +power of the father, could not hold property legally, could not invoke +the Roman law, nor demand justice at a Roman tribunal. Thus the +citizens constituted an aristocracy amidst the other inhabitants of +the city. But they were not equal among themselves; there were class +differences, or, as the Romans said, ranks.</p> + +<p><b>The Nobles.</b>—In the first rank are the nobles. A citizen is noble +when one of his ancestors has held a magistracy, for the magisterial +office in Rome is an honor, it ennobles the occupant and also his +posterity.</p> + +<p>When a citizen becomes ædile, prætor, or consul, he receives a +purple-bordered toga, a sort of throne (the curule chair), and the +right of having an image made of himself. These images are statuettes, +at first in wax, later in silver. They are placed in the atrium, the +sanctuary of the house, near the hearth and the gods of the family; +there they stand in niches like idols, venerated by posterity. When +any one of the family dies, the images are brought forth and carried +in the funeral procession, and a relative pronounces the oration for +the dead. It is these images that ennoble a family that preserves +them. The more images there are in a family, the nobler it is. The +Romans spoke of those who were "noble by one image" and those who were +"noble by many images."</p> + +<p>The noble families of Rome were very few (they would not amount to +300), for the magistracies which conferred nobility were usually given +to men who were already noble.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span><b>The Knights.</b>—Below the nobles were the knights. They were the rich +who were not noble. Their fortune as inscribed on the registers of the +treasury must amount to at least 400,000<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> sesterces. They were +merchants, bankers, and contractors; they did not govern, but they +grew rich. At the theatre they had places reserved for them behind the +nobles.</p> + +<p>If a knight were elected to a magistracy, the nobles called him a "new +man" and his son became noble.</p> + +<p><b>The Plebs.</b>—Those who were neither nobles nor knights formed the +mass of the people, the plebs. The majority of them were peasants, +cultivating a little plat in Latium or in the Sabine country. They +were the descendants of the Latins or the Italians who were subjugated +by the Romans. Cato the Elder in his book on Agriculture gives us an +idea of their manners: "Our ancestors, when they wished to eulogize a +man, said 'a good workman,' 'a good farmer'; this encomium seemed the +greatest of all."<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p> + +<p>Hardened to work, eager for the harvest, steady and economical, these +laborers constituted the strength of the Roman armies. For a long time +they formed the assembly too, and dictated the elections. The nobles +who wished to be elected magistrates came to the parade-ground to +grasp the hand of these peasants ("prensare manus," was the common +expression). A candidate, finding the hand of a laborer callous, +ventured to ask him, "Is it because you walk on your <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>hands?" He was a +noble of great family, but he was not elected.</p> + +<p><b>The Freedmen.</b>—The last of all the citizens are the freedmen, once +slaves, or the sons of slaves. The taint of their origin remains on +them; they are not admitted to service in the Roman army and they vote +after all the rest.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC</h4> + +<p><b>The Comitia.</b>—The government of Rome called itself a republic +(Respublica), that is to say, a thing of the people. The body of +citizens called the people was regarded as absolute master in the +state. It is this body that elects the magistrates, votes on peace and +war, and that makes the laws. "The law," say the jurisconsults, "is +what the Roman people ordains." At Rome, as in Greece, the people do +not appoint deputies, they pass on the business itself. Even after +more than 500,000 men scattered over all Italy were admitted into the +citizenship, the citizens had to go in person to Rome to exercise +their rights. The people, therefore, meet at but one place; the +assembly is called the Comitia.</p> + +<p>A magistrate convokes the people and presides over the body. Sometimes +the people are convoked by the blast of the trumpet and come to the +parade-ground (the Campus Martius), ranging themselves by companies +under their standards. This is the Comitia by centuries. Sometimes +they assemble in the market-place (the forum) and separate themselves +into thirty-five groups, called tribes. Each tribe in turn enters an +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>enclosed space where it does its voting. This is the Comitia by +tribes. The magistrate who convokes the assembly indicates the +business on which the suffrages are to be taken, and when the assembly +has voted, it dissolves. The people are sovereign, but accustomed to +obey their chiefs.</p> + +<p><b>The Magistrates.</b>—Every year the people elect officials to govern +them and to them they delegate absolute power. These are called +magistrates (those who are masters). Lictors march before them bearing +a bundle of rods and an axe, emblems of the magisterial powers of +chastising and condemning to death. The magistrate has at once the +functions of presiding over the popular assembly and the senate, of +sitting in court, and of commanding the army; he is master everywhere. +He convokes and dissolves the assembly at will, he alone renders +judgment, he does with the soldiers as he pleases, putting them to +death without even taking counsel with his officers. In a war against +the Latins Manlius, the Roman general, had forbidden the soldiers +leaving camp: his son, provoked by one of the enemy, went forth and +killed him; Manlius had him arrested and executed him immediately.</p> + +<p>According to the Roman expression, the magistrate has the power of a +king; but this power is brief and divided. The magistrate is elected +for but one year and he has a colleague who has the same power as +himself. There are at once in Rome two consuls who govern the people +and command the armies, and several prætors to serve as subordinate +governors or commanders and to pronounce judgment. There are other +magistrates, besides—two censors, four ædiles to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>supervise the +public ways and the markets, ten tribunes of the plebs, and quæstors +to care for the state treasure.</p> + +<p><b>The Censors.</b>—The highest of all the magistrates are the censors. +They are charged with taking the census every five years, that is to +say, the enumeration of the Roman people. All the citizens appear +before them to declare under oath their name, the number of their +children and their slaves, the amount of their fortune; all this is +inscribed on the registers. It is their duty, too, to draw up the list +of the senators, of the knights, and of the citizens, assigning to +each his proper rank in the city. They are charged as a result with +making the lustrum, a great ceremony of purification which occurs +every five years.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p> + +<p>On that day all the citizens are assembled on the Campus Martius +arranged in order of battle; thrice there are led around the assembly +three expiatory victims, a bull, a ram, and a swine; these are killed +and their blood sprinkled on the people; the city is purified and +reconciled with the gods.</p> + +<p>The censors are the masters of the registration and they rank each as +they please; they may degrade a senator by striking him from the +senate-list, a knight by not registering him among the knights, and a +citizen by not placing his name on the registers of the tribes. It is +for them an easy means of punishing those whom they regard at fault +and of reaching those whom the law does not condemn. They have been +known to degrade citizens for poor tillage of the soil and for having +too costly an equipage, a senator because he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>possessed ten pounds of +silver, another for having repudiated his wife. It is this overweening +power that the Romans call the supervision of morals. It makes the +censors the masters of the city.</p> + +<p><b>The Senate.</b>—The Senate is composed of about 300 persons appointed +by the censor. But the censor does not appoint at random; he chooses +only rich citizens respected and of high family, the majority of them +former magistrates. Almost always he appoints those who are already +members of the Senate, so that ordinarily one remains a senator for +life. The Senate is an assembly of the principal men of Rome, hence +its authority. As soon as business is presented, one of the +magistrates convokes the senators in a temple, lays the question +before them, and then asks "what they think concerning this matter." +The senators reply one by one, following the order of dignity. This is +what they call "consulting the Senate," and the judgment of the +majority is a senatus consultum (decree of the Senate). This +conclusion is only advisory as the Senate has no power to make laws; +but Rome obeys this advice as if it were a law. The people have +confidence in the senators, knowing that they have more experience +than themselves; the magistrates do not dare to resist an assembly +composed of nobles who are their peers. And so the Senate regulates +all public business: it declares war and determines the number of the +armies; it receives ambassadors and makes peace; it fixes the revenues +and the expenses. The people ratify these measures and the magistrates +execute them. In 200 B.C. the Senate decided on war with the king of +Macedon, but the people in terror refused to approve <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>it: the Senate +then ordered a magistrate to convoke the comitia anew and to adopt a +more persuasive speech. This time the people voted for the war. In +Rome it was the people who reigned, just as is the case with the king +in England, but it was the Senate that governed.</p> + +<p><b>The Offices.</b>—Being magistrate or senator in Rome is not a +profession. Magistrates or senators spend their time and their money +without receiving any salary. A magistracy in Rome is before all an +honor. Entrance to it is to nobles, at most to knights, but always to +the rich; but these come to the highest magistracies only after they +have occupied all the others. The man who aims one day to govern Rome +must serve in the army during ten campaigns. Then he may be elected +quæstor and he receives the administration of the state treasury. +After this he becomes ædile, charged with the policing of the city and +with the provision of the corn supply. Later he is elected prætor and +gives judgment in the courts. Later yet, elected consul, he commands +an army and presides over the assemblies. Then only may he aspire to +the censorship. This is the highest round of the ladder and may be +reached hardly before one's fiftieth year. The same man has therefore, +been financier, administrator, judge, general, and governor before +arriving at this original function of censor, the political +distribution of the Roman people. This series of offices is what is +called the "order of the honors." Each of these functions lasts but +one year, and to rise to the one next higher a new election is +necessary. In the year which precedes the voting one must show one's +self continually in the streets, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>"circulate" as the Romans say +(<i>ambire</i>: hence the word "ambition"), to solicit the suffrages of the +people. For all this time it is the custom to wear a white toga, the +very sense of the word "candidate" (white garment).</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a> +<a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a> +<a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_117_117">[117]</a> Probably some of the plebeians originated in non-noble +Roman families.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_118_118">[118]</a> We know the story of this contest only through Livy and +Dionysius of Halicarnassus; their very dramatic account has become +celebrated, but it is only a legend frequently altered by falsifiers.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_119_119">[119]</a> The pontificate was opened to the plebeians by the +Ogulnian Law of 300 B.C. The first plebeian pontifex maximus was in +254 B.C. Livy, Epitome, xviii.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_120_120">[120]</a> This qualification was set in the last century of the +republic.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_121_121">[121]</a> He cites several of their old proverbs: "A bad farmer +is one who buys what his land can raise." "It is bad economy to do in +the day what can be done at night."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_122_122">[122]</a> After the completion of the census.—ED.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>ROMAN CONQUEST</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE ROMAN ARMY</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Military Service.</b>—To be admitted to service in the Roman army one +must be a Roman citizen. It is necessary to have enough wealth to +equip one's self at one's own expense, for the state furnishes no arms +to its soldiers; down to 402 B.C. it did not even pay them. And so +only those citizens are enrolled who are provided with at least a +small fortune. The poor (called the proletariat) are exempt from +service, or rather, they have no right to serve. Every citizen who is +rich enough to be admitted to the army owes the state twenty +campaigns; until these are completed the man remains at the +disposition of the consul and this from the age of seventeen to +forty-six. In Rome, as in the Greek cities, every man is at once +citizen and soldier. The Romans are a people of small proprietors +disciplined in war.</p> + +<p><b>The Levy.</b>—When there was need of soldiers, the consul ordered all +the citizens qualified for service to assemble at the Capitol. There +the officers elected by the people chose as many men as were necessary +to form the army. This was the enrolment (the Romans called it the +Choice); then came the military oath. The officers first took the +oath, and then the rank and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>file; they swore to obey their general, +to follow him wherever he led them and to remain under the standards +until he released them from their oath. One man pronounced the formula +and each in turn advanced and said, "I also." From this time the army +was bound to the general by the bonds of religion.</p> + +<p><b>Legions and Allies.</b>—The Roman army was at first called the Legion +(levy). When the people increased in number, instead of one legion, +several were formed.</p> + +<p>The legion was a body of 4,200 to 5,000 men, all Roman citizens. The +smallest army had always at least one legion, every army commanded by +a consul had at least two. But the legions constituted hardly a half +of the Roman army. All the subject peoples in Italy were required to +send troops, and these soldiers, who were called allies, were placed +under the orders of Roman officers. In a Roman army the allies were +always a little more numerous than the citizens of the legions. +Ordinarily with four legions (16,800 men) there were enrolled 20,000 +archers and 40,000 horse from the allies. In the Second Punic War, in +218 B.C., 26,000 citizens and 45,000 allies were drawn for service. +Thus the Roman people, in making war, made use of its subjects as well +as of its citizens.</p> + +<p><b>Military Exercises.</b>—Rome had no gymnasium; the future soldiers +exercised themselves on the parade-ground, the Campus Martius, on the +other side of the Tiber. There the young man marched, ran, leaped +under the weight of his arms, fenced with his sword, hurled the +javelin, wielded the mattock, and then, covered with dust and with +perspiration, swam across the Tiber. Often the older men, sometimes +even the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>generals, mingled with the young men, for the Roman never +ceased to exercise. Even in the campaign the rule was not to allow the +men to be unoccupied; once a day, at least, they were required to take +exercise, and when there was neither enemy to fight nor intrenchment +to erect, they were employed in building roads, bridges, and +aqueducts.</p> + +<p><b>The Camp.</b>—The Roman soldier carried a heavy burden—his arms, his +utensils, rations for seventeen days, and a stake, in all sixty Roman +pounds. The army moved more rapidly as it was not encumbered with +baggage. Every time that a Roman army halted for camp, a surveyor +traced a square enclosure, and along its lines the soldiers dug a deep +ditch; the earth which was excavated, thrown inside, formed a bank +which they fortified with stakes. The camp was thus defended by a +ditch and a palisade. In this improvised fortress the soldiers erected +their tents, and in the middle was set the Prætorium, the tent of the +general. Sentinels mounted guard throughout the night, and so +prevented the army from being surprised.</p> + +<p><b>The Order of Battle.</b>—In the presence of the enemy the soldiers did +not form in a solid mass, as did the Greeks. The legion was divided +into small bodies of 120 men, called maniples because they had for +standards bundles of hay.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> The maniples were ranged in quincunx +form in three lines, each separated from the neighboring maniple in +such a way as to manœuvre separately. The soldiers of the maniples of +the first line hurled their javelins, grasped their swords, and began +the battle. If they were repulsed, they withdrew to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>the rear through +the vacant spaces. The second line of the maniples then in turn +marched to the combat. If it was repulsed, it fell back on the third +line. The third line was composed of the best men of the legion and +was equipped with lances. They received the others into their ranks +and threw themselves on the enemy. The army was no longer a single +mass incapable of manœuvring; the general could form his lines +according to the nature of the ground. At Cynoscephalæ, where for the +first time the two most renowned armies of antiquity met, the Roman +legion and the Macedonian phalanx, the ground was bristling with +hills; on this rugged ground the 16,000 Macedonion hoplites could not +remain in order, their ranks were opened, and the Roman platoons threw +themselves into the gaps and demolished the phalanx.</p> + +<p><b>Discipline.</b>—The Roman army obeyed a rude discipline. The general +had the right of life and death over all his men. The soldier who +quitted his post or deserted in battle was condemned to death; the +lictors bound him to a post, beat him with rods, and cut off his head; +or the soldiers may have killed him with blows of their staves. When +an entire body of troops mutinied, the general separated the guilty +into groups of ten and drew by lot one from every group to be +executed. This was called decimation (from decimus, the tenth). The +others were placed on a diet of barley-bread and made to camp outside +the lines, always in danger of surprise from the enemy. The Romans +never admitted that their soldiers were conquered or taken prisoners: +after the battle of Cannæ the 3,000 soldiers who escaped the carnage +were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>sent by the senate to serve in Sicily without pay and without +honors until the enemy should be expelled from Italy; the 8,000 left +in the camp were taken by Hannibal who offered to return them for a +small ransom, but the senate refused to purchase them.</p> + +<p><b>Colonies and Military Roads.</b>—In the countries that were still only +partially subject, Rome established a small garrison. This body of +soldiers founded a town which served as a fortress, and around about +it the lands were cut into small domains and distributed to the +soldiers. This is what they called a Colony. The colonists continued +to be Roman citizens and obeyed all commands from Rome. Quite +different from a Greek colony which emancipated itself even to the +point of making war on its mother city, the Roman colony remained a +docile daughter. It was only a Roman garrison posted in the midst of +the enemy. Almost all these military posts were in Italy, but there +were others besides; Narbonne and Lyons were once Roman colonies.</p> + +<p>To hold these places and to send their armies to a distance the Romans +built military roads. These were causeways constructed in a straight +line, of limestone, stone, and sand. The Romans covered their empire +with them. In a land like France there is no part where one does not +find traces of the Roman roads.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>CHARACTER OF THE CONQUEST</h4> + +<p><b>War.</b>—There was at Rome a temple consecrated to the god Janus whose +gates remained open while the Roman people continued at war. For the +five <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>hundred years of the republic this temple was closed but once +and that for only a few years. Rome, then, lived in a state of war. As +it had the strongest army of the time, it finished by conquering all +the other peoples and by overcoming the ancient world.</p> + +<p><b>Conquest of Italy.</b>—Rome began by subjecting her neighbors, the +Latins, first, then the little peoples of the south, the Volscians, +the Æquians, the Hernicans, later the Etruscans and the Samnites, and +finally the Greek cities. This was the hardest and slowest of their +conquests: beginning with the time of the kings, it did not terminate +until 266, after four centuries of strife.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p> + +<p>The Romans had to fight against peoples of the same race as +themselves, as vigorous and as brave as they. Some who were not +content to obey they exterminated. The rich plains of the Volscians +became a swampy wilderness, uninhabitable even to the present time, +the gloomy region of the Pontine marshes.</p> + +<p>In the land of the Samnites there were still recognizable, three +hundred years after the war, the forty-five camps of Decius and the +eighty-six of Fabius, less apparent by the traces of their +intrenchments than by the solitude of the neighborhood.</p> + +<p><b>The Punic Wars.</b>—Come into Sicily, Rome antagonized Carthage. Then +began the Punic wars (that is to say, against the Phœnicians). There +were three of these wars. The first, from 264 to 241, was determined +by naval battles; Rome became mistress of Sicily. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>was related that +Rome had never had any war-ships, that she took as a model a +Carthaginian galley cast ashore by accident on her coast and began by +exercising her oarsmen in rowing on the land. This legend is without +foundation for the Roman navy had long endured. This is the Roman +account of this war: the Roman consul Duillius had vanquished the +Carthaginian fleet at Mylæ (260); a Roman army had disembarked in +Africa under the lead of Regulus, had been attacked and destroyed +(255); Regulus was sent as a prisoner to Rome to conclude a peace, but +persuading the Senate to reject it, he returned to Carthage where he +perished by torture. The war was concentrated in Sicily where the +Carthaginian fleet, at first victorious at Drepana, was defeated at +the Ægates Islands; Hamilcar, besieged on Mount Eryx, signed the +peace.</p> + +<p>The second war (from 218 to 201) was the work of Hannibal.</p> + +<p>The third war was a war of extermination: the Romans took Carthage by +assault, razed it, and conquered Africa.</p> + +<p>These wars had long made Rome tremble. Carthage had the better navy, +but its warriors were armed adventurers fighting not for country but +for pay, lawless, terrible under a general like Hannibal.</p> + +<p><b>Hannibal.</b>—Hannibal, who directed the whole of the second war and +almost captured Rome, was of the powerful family of the Barcas. His +father Hamilcar had commanded a Carthaginian army in the first Punic +war and had afterwards been charged with the conquest of Spain. +Hannibal was then but a child, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>his father took him with him. The +departure of an army was always accompanied by sacrifices to the gods +of the country; it was said that Hamilcar after the sacrifice made his +infant son swear eternal enmity to Rome.</p> + +<p>Hannibal, brought up in the company of the soldiers, became the best +horseman and the best archer of the army. War was his only aim in +life; his only needs, therefore, were a horse and arms. He had made +himself so popular that at the death of Hasdrubal who was in the +command of the army, the soldiers elected him general without waiting +for orders from the Carthaginian senate. Thus Hannibal found himself +at the age of twenty-one at the head of an army which was obedient +only to himself. He began war, regardless of the senate at Carthage, +by advancing to the siege of Saguntum, a Greek colony allied with +Rome; he took this and destroyed it.</p> + +<p>The glory of Hannibal was that he did not wait for the Romans, but had +the audacity to march into Italy to attack them. As he had no fleet, +he resolved to advance by land, through the Pyrenees, crossing the +Rhone and the Alps. He made sure of the alliance of the Gallic peoples +and penetrated the Pyrenees with an army of 60,000 men, African and +Spanish mercenaries, and with 37 war-elephants. A Gallic people wished +to stop him at the Rhone, but he sent a detachment to pass the river +some leagues farther up the stream and to attack the Gauls in the +rear; the mass of the army crossed the river in boats, the elephants +on great rafts.</p> + +<p>He next ascended the valley of the Isère and arrived <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>at the Alps at +the end of October; he crossed them regardless of the snow and the +attacks of the mountaineers; many men and horses rolled down the +precipices. But nine days were consumed in attaining the summits of +the Alps. The descent was very difficult; the pass by which he had to +go was covered with ice and he was compelled to cut a road out of the +rock. When he arrived in the plain, the army was reduced to half its +former number.</p> + +<p>Hannibal met three Roman armies in succession, first at the Ticinus, +next on the banks of the Trebia, and last near Lake Trasimenus in +Etruria. He routed all of them. As he advanced, his army increased in +number; the warriors of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) joined him +against the Romans. He took up position beyond Rome in Apulia, and it +was here that the Roman army came to attack him. Hannibal had an army +only half as large as theirs, but he had African cavalrymen mounted on +swift horses; he formed his lines in the plain of Cannæ so that the +Romans had the sun in their face and the dust driven by the wind +against them; the Roman army was surrounded and almost annihilated +(216). It was thought that Hannibal would march on Rome, but he did +not consider himself strong enough to do it. The Carthaginian senate +sent him no reënforcements. Hannibal endeavored to take Naples and to +have Rome attacked by the king of Macedon; he succeeded only in +gaining some towns which Rome besieged and destroyed. Hannibal +remained nine years in south Italy; at last his brother Hasdrubal +started with the army of Spain to assist him, and made his way almost +to central <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>Italy. The two Carthaginian armies marched to unite their +forces, each opposed by a Roman army under the command of a consul. +Nero, facing Hannibal, had the audacity to traverse central Italy and +to unite with his colleague who was intrenched against Hasdrubal. One +morning Hasdrubal heard the trumpets sounding twice in the camp of the +Romans, a sign that there were two consuls in the camp. He believed +his brother was conquered and so retreated; the Romans pursued him, he +was killed and his entire army massacred. Then Nero rejoined the army +which he had left before Hannibal and threw the head of Hasdrubal into +the Carthaginian camp (207). Hannibal, reduced to his own troops, +remained in Calabria for five years longer. The descent of a Roman +army on Africa compelled him to leave Italy; he massacred the Italian +soldiers who refused to accompany him and embarked for Carthage (203). +The battle of Zama (202) terminated the war. Hannibal had counted as +usual on drawing the Romans within his lines and surrounding them; but +Scipio, the Roman general, kept his troops in order and on a second +attack threw the enemy's army into rout. Carthage was obliged to treat +for peace; she relinquished everything she possessed outside of +Africa, ceding Spain to the Romans. She bound herself further to +surrender her navy and the elephants, to pay over $10,000,000 and to +agree not to make war without the permission of Rome.</p> + +<p>Hannibal reorganized Carthage for a new war. The Romans, disturbed at +this, demanded that the Carthaginians put him to death. Hannibal fled +to Antiochus, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>king of Syria, and proposed to him to incite a revolt +in Italy against Rome; but Antiochus, following the counsel of his +courtiers, distrusted Hannibal and invaded Greece, where his army was +captured. Hannibal withdrew to the king of Bithynia. The Romans sent +Flamininus thither to take him, but Hannibal, seeing his house +surrounded, took the poison which he always had by him (183).</p> + +<p><b>Conquests of the Orient.</b>—The Greek kings, successors of the +generals of Alexander, divided the Orient among themselves. The most +powerful of these took up war against Rome; but they were +defeated—Philip, the king of Macedon, in 197, his son Perseus in 168, +Antiochus, the king of Syria, in 190. The Romans, having from this +time a free field, conquered one by one all the lands which they found +of use to them: Macedon (148), the kingdom of Pergamum (129), the rest +of Asia (from 74 to 64) after the defeat of Mithradates, and Egypt +(30).</p> + +<p>With the exception of the Macedonians, the Orient opposed the Romans +with mercenaries only or with undisciplined barbarians who fled at the +first onset. In the great victory over Antiochus at Magnesia there +were only 350 Romans killed. At Chæronea, Sulla was victorious with +the loss of but twelve men. The other kings, now terrified, obeyed the +Senate without resistance.</p> + +<p>Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, having conquered a part of Egypt, +was bidden by Popilius acting under the command of the Senate to +abandon his conquest. Antiochus hesitated; but Popilius, taking a rod +in his hand, drew a circle about the king, and said, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>"Before you move +from this circle, give answer to the Senate." Antiochus submitted, and +surrendered Egypt. The king of Numidia desired of the Senate that it +should regard his kingdom as the property of the Roman people. +Prusias, the king of Bithynia, with shaved head and in the garb of a +freedman, prostrated himself before the Senate. Mithradates alone, +king of Pontus, endeavored to resist; but after thirty years of war he +was driven from his states and compelled to take his life by poison.</p> + +<p><b>Conquest of the Barbarian Lands.</b>—The Romans found more difficult +the subjection of the barbarous and warlike peoples of the west. A +century was required to conquer Spain. The shepherd Viriathus made +guerilla warfare on them in the mountains of Portugal (149-139), +overwhelmed five armies, and compelled even a consul to treat for +peace; the Senate got rid of him by assassination.</p> + +<p>Against the single town of Numantia it was necessary to send Scipio, +the best general of Rome.</p> + +<p>The little and obscure peoples of Corsica, of Sardinia, and of the +mountains of Genoa (the Ligurians) were always reviving the war with +Rome.</p> + +<p>But the most indomitable of all were the Gauls. Occupying the whole of +the valley of the Po, they threw themselves on Italy to the south. One +of their bands had taken Rome in 390. Their big white bodies, their +long red mustaches, their blue eyes, their savage yells terrified the +Roman soldiers. As soon as their approach was learned, consternation +seized Rome, and the Senate proclaimed the levy of the whole army +(they called this the "Gallic tumult"). These wars were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>the bloodiest +but the shortest; the first (225-222) gave to the Romans all Cisalpine +Gaul (northern Italy); the second (120), the Rhone lands (Languedoc, +Provence, Dauphiné); the third (58-51), all the rest of Gaul.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>ROMAN WARFARE</h4> + +<p><b>The Triumph.</b>—When a general has won a great victory, the Senate +permits him as a signal honor to celebrate the triumph. This is a +religious procession to the temple of Jupiter. The magistrates and +senators march at the head; then come the chariots filled with booty, +the captives chained by the feet, and, at last, on a golden car drawn +by four horses, the victorious general crowned with laurel. His +soldiers follow him singing songs with the solemn refrain "Io, +Triomphe."<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> The procession traverses the city in festal attire and +ascends to the Capitol: there the victor lays down his laurel on the +knees of Jupiter and thanks him for giving victory. After the ceremony +the captives are imprisoned, or, as in the case of Vercingetorix, +beheaded, or, like Jugurtha, cast into a dungeon to die of hunger. The +triumph of Æmilius Paullus, conqueror of Macedon, lasted for three +days. The first day witnessed a procession of 250 chariots bearing +pictures and statues, the second the trophies of weapons and 25 casks +of silver, the third the vases of gold and 120 sacrificial bulls. At +the rear walked King Perseus, clad in black, surrounded by his +followers in chains and his three young children who extended their +hands to the people to implore their pity.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span><b>Booty.</b>—In the wars of antiquity the victor took possession of +everything that had belonged to the vanquished, not only of the arms +and camp-baggage, but of the treasure, the movable property, beasts of +the hostile people, the men, women, and children. At Rome the booty +did not belong to the soldiers but to the people. The prisoners were +enslaved, the property was sold and the profits of the sale turned +into the public chest. And so every war was a lucrative enterprise. +The kings of Asia had accumulated enormous treasure and this the Roman +generals transported to Rome. The victor of Carthage deposited in the +treasury more than 100,000 pounds of silver; the conqueror of +Antiochus 140,000 pounds of silver and 1,000 pounds of gold without +counting the coined metals; the victor over Persia remitted +120,000,000 sesterces.</p> + +<p><b>The Allies of Rome.</b>—The ancient world was divided among a great +number of kings, little peoples, and cities that hated one another. +They never united for resistance and so Rome absorbed them one by one.</p> + +<p>Those whom she did not attack remained neutral and indifferent; often +they even united with the Romans. In the majority of her wars Rome did +not fight alone, but had the assistance of allies: against Carthage, +the king of Numidia; against the king of Macedon, the Ætolians; +against the king of Syria, the Rhodians. In the east many kings +proudly assumed the title of "Ally of the Roman People." In the +countries divided into small states, some peoples called in the Romans +against their neighbors, receiving the Roman army, furnishing it with +provisions, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>guiding it to the frontiers of the hostile country. +And so in Gaul it was Marseilles that introduced the Romans into the +valley of the Rhone; it was the people of Autun (the Ædui) who +permitted them to establish themselves in the heart of the land.</p> + +<p><b>Motives of Conquest.</b>—The Romans did not from the first have the +purpose to conquer the world. Even after winning Italy and Carthage +they waited a century before subjecting the Orient which really laid +itself at their feet. They conquered, it appears, without +predetermined plan, and because they all had interest in conquest. The +magistrates who were leaders of the armies saw in conquest a means of +securing the honors of the triumph and the surest instrument for +making themselves popular. The most powerful statesmen in Rome, +Papirius, Fabius, the two Scipios, Cato, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Cæsar, +and Crassus, were victorious generals. The nobles who composed the +Senate gained by the increase of Roman subjects, and with these they +allied themselves as governors to receive their homage and their +presents. For the knights—that is to say, the bankers, the merchants, +and the contractors—every new conquest was a new land to exploit. The +people itself profited by the booty taken from the enemy. After the +treasure of the king of Macedon was deposited in the public chest, +taxes were finally abolished. As for the soldiers, as soon as war was +carried into rich lands, they received immense sums from their +general, to say nothing of what they took from the vanquished. The +Romans conquered the world less for glory than for the profits of +war.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +<h4>EFFECTS OF ROMAN CONQUEST</h4> + +<p><b>The Empire of the Roman People.</b>—Rome subjected all the lands around +the Mediterranean from Spain to Asia Minor. These countries were not +annexed, their inhabitants did not become citizens of Rome, nor their +territory Roman territory. They remained aliens entering simply into +the Roman empire, that is, under the domination of the Roman people. +In just the same way today the Hindoos are not citizens but subjects +of England; India is a part, not of England, but of the British +Empire.</p> + +<p><b>The Public Domain.</b>—When a conquered people asked peace, this is the +formula which its deputies were expected to pronounce: "We surrender +to you the people, the town, the fields, the waters, the gods of the +boundaries, and movable property; all things which belonged to the +gods and to men we deliver to the power of the Roman people." By this +act, the Roman people became the proprietor of everything that the +vanquished possessed, even of their persons. Sometimes it sold the +inhabitants into slavery: Æmilius Paullus sold 150,000 Epeirots who +surrendered to him. Ordinarily Rome left to the conquered their +liberty, but their territory was incorporated into the <i>domain of the +Roman people</i>. Of this land three equal parts were made:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. A part of their lands was returned to the people, but on +condition that they pay a tribute in money or in grain, and Rome +reserved the right of recalling the land at will.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>2. The fields and pastures were farmed out to publicans.</p> + +<p>3. Some of the uncultivated land was resigned to the first +occupant, every Roman citizen having the right of settling there +and of cultivating it.</p></div> + +<p><b>Agrarian Laws.</b>—The Agrarian Laws which deeply agitated Rome were +concerned with this public domain. No Roman had leave to expel the +possessors, for the boundaries of these domains were gods (Termini) +and religious scruple prevented them from being disturbed. By the +Agrarian Laws the people resumed the lands of the public domain which +they distributed to citizens as property. Legally the people had the +right to do this, since all the domain belonged to them. But for some +centuries certain subjects or citizens had been permitted to enjoy +these lands; at last they regarded them as their own property; they +bequeathed them, bought and sold them. To take these from the +occupants would suddenly ruin a multitude of people. In Italy +especially, if this were done, all the people of a city would be +expelled. Thus Augustus deprived the inhabitants of Mantua of the +whole of their territory; Vergil was among the victims, but, thanks to +his verse, he obtained the return of his domain, while the other +proprietors who were not poets remained in exile. These lands thus +recovered were sometimes distributed to poor citizens of Rome, but +most frequently to old soldiers. Sulla bestowed lands on 120,000 +veterans at the expense of the people of Etruria. The Agrarian Laws +were a menace to all the subjects of Rome, and it was one of the +benefits conferred by the emperors that they were abolished.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a> +<a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_123_123">[123]</a> Wisps or bundle of hay were twisted around poles.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_124_124">[124]</a> Regarding all these Italian wars the Romans had only a +number of legends, most of them developed to glorify the heroism of +some ancestor of a noble family—a Valerius, a Fabius, a Decius, or a +Manlius.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_125_125">[125]</a> These songs were mingled with coarse ribaldry at the +expense of the general.—ED.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XXI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE CONQUERED PEOPLES</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE PROVINCIALS</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Provinces.</b>—The inhabitants of conquered countries did not enter +into Roman citizenship, but remained strangers (peregrini), while yet +subjects of the Roman empire. They were to pay tribute—the tithe of +their crops, a tax in silver, a capitation tax. They must obey Romans +of every order. But as the Roman people could not itself administer +the province, it sent a magistrate in its place with the mission of +governing. The country subject to a governor was called <i>province</i> +(which signifies mission).</p> + +<p>At the end of the republic (in 46), there were seventeen provinces: +ten in Europe, five in Asia, two in Africa—the majority of these very +large. Thus the entire territory of Gaul constituted but four +provinces, and Spain but two. "The provinces," said Cicero, "are the +domains of the Roman people"—if it made all these peoples subjects, +it was not for their advantage, but for its own. Its aim was not to +administer, but to exploit them.</p> + +<p><b>The Proconsuls.</b>—For the administration of a province the Roman +people always appointed a magistrate, consul or prætor, who was just +finishing the term of his office, and whose prerogative it +prolonged.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>proconsul, like the consul, had absolute power +and he could exercise it to his fancy, for he was alone in his +province;<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> there were no other magistrates to dispute the power +with him, no tribunes of the people to veto his acts, no senate to +watch him. He alone commanded the troops, led them to battle, and +posted them where he wished. He sat in his tribunal (prætorium), +condemning to fine, imprisonment, or death. He promulgated decrees +which had the force of law. He was the sole authority over himself for +he was in himself the incarnation of the Roman people.</p> + +<p><b>Tyranny and Oppression of the Proconsuls.</b>—This governor, whom no +one resisted, was a true despot. He made arrests, cast into prison, +beat with rods, or executed those who displeased him. The following is +one of a thousand of these caprices of the governor as a Roman orator +relates it: "At last the consul came to Termini, where his wife took a +fancy to bathe in the men's bath. All the men who were bathing there +were driven out The wife of the consul complained that it had not been +done quickly enough and that the baths were not well prepared. The +consul had a post set up in a public place, brought to it one of the +most eminent men of the city, stripped him of his garments, and had +him beaten with rods."</p> + +<p>The proconsul drew from the province as much money as he wanted; thus +he regarded it as his private property. Means were not wanting to +exploit it. He plundered the treasuries of the cities, removed the +statues and jewels stored in the temples, and made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>requisitions on +the rich inhabitants for money or grain. As he was able to lodge +troops where he pleased, the cities paid him money to be exempt from +the presence of the soldiers. As he could condemn to death at will, +individuals gave him security-money. If he demanded an object of art +or even a sum of money, who would dare to refuse him? The men of his +escort imitated his example, pillaging under his name, and even under +his protection. The governor was in haste to accumulate his wealth as +it was necessary that he make his fortune in one year. After he +returned to Rome, another came who recommenced the whole process. +There was, indeed, a law that prohibited every governor from accepting +a gift, and a tribunal (since 149) expressly for the crime of +extortion. But this tribunal was composed of nobles and Roman knights +who would not condemn their compatriot, and the principal result of +this system was, according to the remark of Cicero, to compel the +governor to take yet more plunder from the province in order to +purchase the judges of the tribunal.</p> + +<p>It cannot surprise one that the term "proconsul" came to be a synonym +for despot. Of these brigands by appointment the most notorious was +Verres, proprætor of Sicily, since Cicero from political motives +pronounced against him seven orations which have made him famous. But +it is probable that many others were as bad as he.</p> + +<p><b>The Publicans.</b>—In every province the Roman people had considerable +revenues—the customs, the mines, the imposts, the grain-lands, and +the pastures. These were farmed out to companies of contractors who +were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>called publicans. These men bought from the state the right of +collecting the impost in a certain place, and the provincials had to +obey them as the representatives of the Roman people. And so in every +province there were many companies of publicans, each with a crowd of +clerks and collectors. These people carried themselves as masters, +extorted more than was due them, reduced the debtors to misery, +sometimes selling them as slaves. In Asia they even exiled the +inhabitants without any pretext. When Marius required the king of +Bithynia to furnish him with soldiers, the king replied that, thanks +to the publicans, he had remaining as citizens only women, children, +and old people. The Romans were well informed of these excesses. +Cicero wrote to his brother, then a governor, "If you find the means +of satisfying the publicans without letting the provincials be +destroyed, it is because you have the attributes of a god." But the +publicans were judged in the tribunals and the proconsuls themselves +obeyed them. Scaurus, the proconsul of Asia, a man of rigid +probity,<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> wished to prevent them from pillaging his province; on +his return to Rome they had him accused and condemned.</p> + +<p>The publicans drove to extremities even the peaceable and submissive +inhabitants of the Orient: in a single night, at the order of +Mithradates, 100,000 Romans were massacred. A century later, in the +time of Christ, the word "publican" was synonymous with thief.</p> + +<p><b>The Bankers.</b>—The Romans had heaped up at home the silver of the +conquered countries. And so silver <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>was very abundant in Rome and +scarce in the provinces. At Rome one could borrow at four or five per +cent.; in the provinces not less than twelve per cent. was charged. +The bankers borrowed money in Rome and loaned it in the provinces, +especially to kings or to cities. When the exhausted peoples could not +return the principal and the interest, the bankers imitated the +procedure of the publicans. In 84 the cities of Asia made a loan to +pay an enormous war-levy; fourteen years later, the interest alone had +made the debt amount to six times the original amount. The bankers +compelled the cities to sell even their objects of art; parents sold +even their children. Some years later one of the most highly esteemed +Romans of his time, Brutus, the Stoic, loaned to the city of Salamis +in Cyprus a sum of money at forty-eight per cent. interest (four per +cent. a month). Scaptius, his business manager, demanded the sum with +interest; the city could not pay; Scaptius then went in search of the +proconsul Appius, secured a squadron of cavalry and came to Salamis to +blockade the senate in its hall of assembly; five senators died of +famine.</p> + +<p><b>Defencelessness of the Provincials.</b>—The provincials had no redress +against all these tyrants. The governor sustained the publicans, and +the Roman army and people sustained the governor. Admit that a Roman +citizen could enter suit against the plunderers of the provinces: a +governor was inviolable and could not be accused until he had given up +his office; while he held his office there was nothing to do but to +watch him plunder. If he were accused on his return to Rome, he +appeared before a tribunal of nobles and of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>publicans who were more +interested to support him than to render justice to the provincials. +If, perchance, the tribunal condemned him, exile exempted him from all +further penalty and he betook himself to a city of Italy to enjoy his +plunder. This punishment was nothing to him and was not even a loss to +him. And so the provincials preferred to appease their governor by +submission. They treated him like a king, flattered him, sent +presents, and raised statues to him. Often, indeed, in Asia they +raised altars to him,<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> built temples to him, and adored him as a +god.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>SLAVERY</h4> + +<p><b>The Sale of Slaves.</b>—Every prisoner of war, every inhabitant of a +captured city belonged to the victor. If they were not killed, they +were enslaved. Such was the ancient custom and the Romans exercised +the right to the full. Captives were treated as a part of the booty +and were therefore either sold to slave-merchants who followed the +army or, if taken to Rome, were put up at auction.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> After every +war thousands of captives, men and women, were sold as slaves. +Children born of slave mothers would themselves be slaves. Thus it was +the conquered peoples who furnished the slave-supply for the Romans.</p> + +<p><b>Condition of the Slave.</b>—The slave belonged to a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>master, and so was +regarded not as a person but as a piece of property. He had, then, no +rights; he could not be a citizen or a proprietor; he could be neither +husband nor father. "Slave marriages!" says a character in a Roman +comedy;<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> "A slave takes a wife; it is contrary to the custom of +every people." The master has full right over his slave; he sends him +where he pleases, makes him work according to his will, even beyond +his strength, ill feeds him, beats him, tortures him, kills him +without accounting to anybody for it. The slave must submit to all the +whims of his master; the Romans declare, even, that he is to have no +conscience, his only duty is blind obedience. If he resists, if he +flees, the state assists the master to subdue or recover him; the man +who gives refuge to a fugitive slave renders himself liable to the +charge of theft, as if he had taken an ox or a horse belonging to +another.</p> + +<p><b>Number of Slaves.</b>—Slaves were far more numerous than free men. Rich +citizens owned 10,000 to 20,000 of them,<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> some having enough of +them to constitute a real army. We read of Cæcilius Claudius Isidorius +who had once been a slave and came to possess more than 4,000 slaves. +Horace, who had seven slaves, speaks of his modest patrimony. Having +but three was in Rome a mark of poverty.</p> + +<p><b>Urban Slaves.</b>—The Roman nobles, like the Orientals of our day, +delighted in surrounding themselves with a crowd of servants. In a +great Roman house lived hundreds of slaves, organized for different +services. There were slaves to care for the furniture, for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>the silver +plate, for the objects of art; slaves of the wardrobe, valets and +chambermaids, the troop of cooks, the slaves of the bath, the master +of the house and his aids, the slaves to escort the master and +mistress on the street, the litter-carriers, coachmen and grooms, +secretaries, readers, copyists, physicians, teachers, actors, +musicians, artisans of every kind, for in every great house grain was +ground, flax was spun, and garments were woven. Others, gathered in +workshops, manufactured objects which the master sold to his profit. +Others were hired out as masons or as sailors; Crassus had 500 +carpenter-slaves. These classes of slaves were called "slaves of the +city."</p> + +<p><b>Rural Slaves.</b>—Every great domain was tilled by a band of slaves. +They were the laborers, the shepherds, the vine-dressers, the +gardeners, the fishermen, grouped together in squads of ten. An +overseer, himself a slave, superintended them. The proprietor made it +a matter to produce everything on his lands: "He buys nothing; +everything that he consumes he raises at home," this is the compliment +paid to the rich. The Roman, therefore, kept a great number of +country-slaves, as they were called. A Roman domain had a strong +resemblance to a village; indeed it was called a "villa." The name has +been preserved: what the French call "ville" since the Middle Ages is +only the old Roman domain increased in size.</p> + +<p><b>Treatment of Slaves.</b>—The kind of treatment the slaves received +depended entirely on the character of the master. Some enlightened and +humane masters may be enumerated, such as Cicero, Seneca, and Pliny, +who fed their slaves well, talked with them, sometimes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>had them sit +at table with them, and permitted them to have families and small +fortunes (the peculium).</p> + +<p>But other masters are mentioned who treated their slaves as animals, +punished them cruelly, and even had them put to death for a whim. +Examples of these are not lacking. Vedius Pollio, a freedman of +Augustus, used to keep some lampreys in his fish-pond: when one of his +slaves carelessly broke a vase, he had him thrown into the fish-pond +as food for the lampreys. The philosopher Seneca paints in the +following words the violent cruelty of the masters: "If a slave coughs +or sneezes during a meal, if he pursues the flies too slowly, if he +lets a key fall noisily lo the floor, we fall into a great rage. If he +replies with too much spirit, if his countenance shows ill humor, have +we any right to have him flogged? Often we strike too hard and shatter +a limb or break a tooth." The philosopher Epictetus, who was a slave, +had had his ankle fractured in this way by his master. Women were no +more humane. Ovid, in a compliment paid to a woman, says, "Many times +she had her hair dressed in my presence, but never did she thrust her +needle into the arm of the serving-woman."</p> + +<p>Public opinion did not condemn these cruelties. Juvenal represents a +woman angry at one of her slaves. "Crucify him," says she. "By what +crime has the slave merited this punishment? Blockhead! Is a slave, +then, a man? It may be that he has done nothing. I wish it, I order +it, my will is reason enough."</p> + +<p>The law was no milder than custom. As late as the first century after +Christ, when a master was assassinated in his house, all the slaves +were put to death. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>When some wished to abolish this law, Thraseas, +one of the philosophers of high repute, rose to address the Senate to +demand that the law be maintained.</p> + +<p><b>The Ergastulum.</b>—A subterranean prison, lighted by narrow windows so +high that they could not be reached by the hand, was called the +ergastulum. The slaves who had displeased their master spent the night +there; during the day they were sent to work loaded with heavy chains +of iron. Many were branded with a red-hot iron.</p> + +<p><b>The Mill.</b>—The ancients had no mills run by machinery; they had the +grain ground by slaves with hand-mills. It was the most difficult kind +of work and was usually inflicted as a punishment. The mill of +antiquity was like a convict-prison. "There," says Plautus, "moan the +wicked slaves who are fed on polenta; there resound the noise of whips +and the clanking of chains." Three centuries later, in the second +century, Apuleius the novelist, depicts the interior of a mill as +follows: "Gods! what poor shrunken up men! with white skin striped +with blows of the whip, ... they wear only the shreds of a tunic; bent +forward, head shaved, the feet held in a chain, the body deformed by +the heat of the fire, the eyelids eaten away by the fumes, everything +covered with grain-dust."</p> + +<p><b>Character of the Slaves.</b>—Subjected to crushing labor or to enforced +idleness, always under the threat of the whip or of torture, slaves +became, according to their nature, either melancholy and savage, or +lazy and subservient. The most energetic of them committed suicide; +the others led a life that was merely mechanical. "The slave," said +Cato the Elder, "ought always <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>to work or to sleep." The majority of +them lost all sense of honor. And so they used to call a mean act +"servile," that is, like a slave.</p> + +<p><b>Slave Revolts.</b>—The slaves did not write and so we do not know from +their own accounts what they thought of their masters. But the masters +felt themselves surrounded by hate. Pliny the Younger, learning that a +master was to be assassinated at the bath by his slaves, made this +reflection, "This is the peril under which we all live." "More +Romans," says another writer, "have fallen victims to the hate of +their slaves than to that of tyrants."</p> + +<p>At different times slave revolts flamed up (the servile wars), almost +always in Sicily and south Italy where slaves were armed to guard the +herds. The most noted of these wars was the one under Spartacus. A +band of seventy gladiators, escaping from Capua, plundered a chariot +loaded with arms, and set themselves to hold the country. The slaves +escaped to them in crowds to unite their fortunes with theirs, and +soon they became an army.</p> + +<p>The slaves defeated three Roman armies sent in succession against +them.</p> + +<p>Their chief Spartacus wished to traverse the whole peninsula of Italy +in order to return to Thrace, from which country he had been brought +as a prisoner of war to serve as a gladiator. But at last these +ill-disciplined bands were shattered by the army of Crassus. The +revolutionists were all put to death. Rome now prohibited the slaves +from carrying arms thereafter, and it is reported that a shepherd was +once executed for having killed a boar with a spear.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span><b>Admission to Citizenship.</b>—Rome treated its subjects and its slaves +brutally, but it did not drive them out, as the Greek cities did.</p> + +<p>The alien could become a Roman citizen by the will of the Roman +people, and the people often accorded this favor, sometimes they even +bestowed it upon a whole people at once. They created the Latins +citizens at one stroke; in 89 it was the turn of the Italians; in 46 +the people of Cisalpine Gaul entered the body of citizens. All the +inhabitants of Italy thus became the equals of the Romans.</p> + +<p>The slave could be manumitted by his master and soon became a citizen.</p> + +<p>This is the reason why the Roman people, gradually exhausting +themselves, were renewed by accessions from the subjects and the +slaves. The number of the citizens was increased at every census; it +rose from 250,000 to 700,000. The Roman city, far from emptying itself +as did Sparta, replenished itself little by little from all those whom +it had conquered.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a> +<a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a> +<a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a> +<a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_126_126">[126]</a> In the smallest provinces the title of the governor was +<i>proprætor</i>.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_127_127">[127]</a> In the oriental countries Rome left certain little +kings (like King Herod in Judæa), but they paid tribute and obeyed the +governor.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_128_128">[128]</a> This estimate of the character of Scaurus is too +favorable.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_129_129">[129]</a> Cicero speaks of the temples which were raised to him +by the people of Cilicia, of which county he was governor.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_130_130">[130]</a> Every important town had its market for slaves as for +cattle and horses. The slave to be sold was exhibited on a platform +with a label about his neck indicating his age, his better qualities +and his defects.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_131_131">[131]</a> In the Casina of Plautus.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_132_132">[132]</a> Athenæus, who makes this statement, is probably guilty +of exaggeration.—ED.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XXII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE IN ROME</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Greek and Oriental Influence.</b>—Conquest gave the Romans a clearer +view of the Greeks and Orientals. Thousands of foreigners brought to +Rome as slaves, or coming thither to make their fortune, established +themselves in the city as physicians, professors, diviners, or actors. +Generals, officers and soldiers lived in the midst of Asia, and thus +the Romans came to know the customs and the new beliefs and gradually +adopted them. This transformation had its beginning with the first +Macedonian war (about 200 B.C.), and continued until the end of the +empire.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>CHANGES IN RELIGION</h4> + +<p><b>The Greek Gods.</b>—The Roman gods bore but a slight resemblance to the +Greek gods, even in name; yet in the majority of the divinities of +Rome the Greeks recognized or believed they recognized their own. The +Roman gods up to that time had neither precise form nor history; this +rendered confusion all the easier. Every Roman god was represented +under the form of a Greek god and a history was made of the adventures +of this god.</p> + +<p>The Latin Jupiter was confounded with the Greek Zeus; Juno with Hera; +Minerva, the goddess of memory, with Pallas, goddess of wisdom; Diana, +female <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>counterpart of Janus, unites with Artemis, the brilliant +huntress; Hercules, the god of the enclosure, was assimilated to +Herakles, the victor over monsters. Thus Greek mythology insinuated +itself under Latin names, and the gods of Rome found themselves +transformed into Greek gods. The fusion was so complete that we have +preserved the custom of designating the Greek gods by their Latin +names; we still call Artemis Diana, and Pallas Minerva.</p> + +<p><b>The Bacchanals.</b>—The Greeks had adopted an oriental god, Bacchus, +the god of the vintage, and the Romans began to adore him also. The +worshippers of Bacchus celebrated his cult at night and in secret. +Only the initiated were admitted to the mysteries of the Bacchanals, +who swore not to reveal any of the ceremonies. A woman, however, dared +to denounce to the Senate the Bacchanalian ceremonies that occurred in +Rome in 186. The Senate made an inquiry, discovered 7,000 persons, men +and women, who had participated in the mysteries, and had them put to +death.</p> + +<p><b>Oriental Superstitions.</b>—Already in 220 there was in Rome a temple +of the Egyptian god Serapis. The Senate ordered it to be demolished. +As no workman dared to touch it, the consul himself had to come and +beat down the doors with blows of an axe.</p> + +<p>Some years after, in 205, during the war with Hannibal, it was the +Senate itself that sent an ambassador to Asia Minor to seek the +goddess Cybele. The Great Mother (as she was called) was represented +by a black stone, and this the envoys of the Senate brought in great +pomp and installed in Rome. Her priests <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>followed her and paced the +streets to the sound of fifes and cymbals, clad in oriental fashion, +and begging from door to door.</p> + +<p>Later, Italy was filled with Chaldean sorcerers. The mass of the +people were not the only ones to believe in these diviners. When the +Cimbri menaced Rome (104), Martha, a prophetess of Syria, came to the +Senate to offer it victory over the barbarians; the Senate drove her +out, but the Roman women brought her to the camp, and Marius, the +general in chief, kept her by him and consulted her to the end of the +war. Sulla, likewise, had seen in vision the goddess of Cappadocia and +it was on her advice that he took his way to Italy.</p> + +<p><b>Sceptics.</b>—Not only priests and diviners came to Rome, but also +philosophers who scoffed at the old religion. The best known of these, +Carneades, the ambassador of the Athenians, spoke in Rome in public, +and the youth of Rome came in crowds to hear him. The Senate bade him +leave the city. But the philosophers continued to teach in the schools +of Athens and Rhodes, and it was the fashion to send the Roman youth +thither for instruction. About the third century before Christ +Euhemerus, a Greek, had written a book to prove that there were no +gods; the gods, he said, were only men of ancient times who had been +deified; Jupiter himself had been a king of Crete. This book had a +great success and was translated into Latin by the poet Ennius. The +nobles of Rome were accustomed to mock at their gods, maintaining only +the cult of the old religion. The higher Roman society was for a +century at once superstitious and sceptical.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +<h4>CHANGES IN MANNERS</h4> + +<p><b>The Old Customs.</b>—The old Romans had for centuries been diligent and +rude husbandmen, engaged in cultivating their fields, in fighting, and +in fulfilling the ceremonies of their religion. Their ideal was the +<i>grave</i> man. Cincinnatus, they said, was pushing his plough when the +deputies of the Senate came to offer him the dictatorship. Fabricius +had of plate only a cup and a salt-cellar of silver. Curius Dentatus, +the conqueror of the Samnites, was sitting on a bench eating some +beans in a wooden bowl when the envoys of the Samnites presented +themselves before him to offer him a bribe.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> "Go and tell the +Samnites," said he, "that Curius prefers commanding those who have +gold to having it himself." These are some of the anecdotes that they +used to tell about the generals of the olden time. True or false, +these legends exhibit the ideas that were current in Rome at a later +time regarding the ancient Romans.</p> + +<p><b>Cato the Elder.</b>—At the time when manners were changing, one man +made himself notable by his attachment to the "customs of the +fathers." This was Cato. He was born in 232<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> in the little village +of Tusculum and had spent his youth in manual labor. Entering the +army, according to the usage of the time, at the age of seventeen, he +fought in all the campaigns against Hannibal. He was not noble, but he +made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>himself popular by his energy, his probity, and his austerity. +He passed through the whole course of political honors—quæstor, +ædile, prætor, consul, and censor. He showed himself everywhere, like +the old Romans, rude, stern, and honest. As quæstor he remonstrated +with the consul about his expenses; but the consul, who was Scipio, +replied to him, "I have no need of so exact a quæstor." As prætor in +Sardinia, he refused the money that was offered him by the province +for the expenses of entertainment. As consul, he spoke with vigor for +the Oppian law which prohibited Roman women from wearing costly +attire; the women put it off, and the law was abrogated. Sent to +command the army of Spain, Cato took 400 towns, securing immense +treasure which he turned into the public chest; at the moment of +embarking, he sold his horse to save the expenses of transportation. +As censor, he erased from the senate-list many great persons on the +ground of their extravagance; he farmed the taxes at a very high price +and taxed at ten times their value the women's habits, jewels, and +conveyances. Having obtained the honor of a triumph, he withdrew to +the army in Macedonia as a simple officer.</p> + +<p>All his life he fought with the nobles of the new type, extravagant +and elegant. He "barked" especially at the Scipios, accusing them of +embezzling state moneys. In turn he was forty-four times made +defendant in court, but was always acquitted.</p> + +<p>On his farm Cato labored with his slaves, ate with them, and when he +had to correct them, beat them with his own hand. In his treatise on +Agriculture, written for his son, he has recorded all the old axioms +of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>Roman peasantry.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> He considered it to be a duty to become +rich. "A widow," he said, "can lessen her property; a man ought to +increase his. He is worthy of fame and inspired of the gods who gains +more than he inherits." Finding that agriculture was not profitable +enough, he invested in merchant ships; he united with fifty associates +and all together constructed fifty ships of commerce, that each might +have a part in the risks and the profits. A good laborer, a good +soldier, a foe to luxury, greedy of gain, Cato was the type of the +Roman of the old stock.</p> + +<p><b>The New Manners.</b>—Many Romans on the contrary, especially the +nobles, admired and imitated the foreigners. At their head were the +generals who had had a nearer view of Greece and the Orient—Scipio, +conqueror of the king of Syria, Flamininus and Æmilius Paullus, +victors over the kings of Macedon, later Lucullus, conqueror of the +king of Armenia. They were disgusted with the mean and gross life of +their ancestors, and adopted a more luxurious and agreeable mode of +living. Little by little all the nobles, all the rich followed their +example; one hundred and fifty years later in Italy all the great were +living in Greek or oriental fashion.</p> + +<p><b>Oriental Luxury.</b>—In the East the Romans found models in the royal +successors of Alexander, possessors of enormous wealth; for all the +treasure that was not employed in paying mercenaries was squandered by +the court. These oriental kings indulged their vanity by displaying +gleaming robes, precious stones, furniture <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>of silver, golden plate; +by surrounding themselves with a multitude of useless servants, by +casting money to the people who were assembled to admire them.<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p> + +<p>The Romans, very vain and with artistic tastes but slightly developed, +had a relish for this species of luxury. They had but little regard +for beauty or for comfort, and had thought for nothing else than +display. They had houses built with immense gardens adorned with +statues, sumptuous villas projecting into the sea in the midst of +enormous gardens. They surrounded themselves with troops of slaves. +They and their wives substituted for linen garments those of gauze, +silk, and gold. At their banquets they spread embroidered carpets, +purple coverings, gold and silver plate. Sulla had one hundred and +fifty dishes of silver; the plate of Marcus Drusus weighed 10,000 +pounds. While the common people continued to sit at table in +accordance with old Italian custom, the rich adopted the oriental +usage of reclining on couches at their meals. At the same time was +introduced the affected and costly cookery of the East—exotic fishes, +brains of peacocks, and tongues of birds.</p> + +<p>From the second century the extravagance was such that a consul who +died in 152 could say in his will: "As true glory does not consist in +vain pomp but in the merits of the dead and of one's ancestors, I bid +my children not to spend on my funeral ceremonies more than a million +as" ($10,000).</p> + +<p><b>Greek Humanity.</b>—In Greece the Romans saw the monuments, the +statues, and the pictures which had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>crowded their cities for +centuries; they came to know their learned people and the +philosophers. Some of the Romans acquired a taste for the beautiful +and for the life of the spirit. The Scipios surrounded themselves with +cultivated Greeks. Æmilius Paullus asked from all the booty taken by +him from Macedon only the library of King Perseus; he had his children +taught by Greek preceptors. It was then the fashion in Rome to speak, +and even to write in Greek.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> The nobles desired to appear +connoisseurs in painting and in sculpture; they imported statues by +the thousand, the famous bronzes of Corinth, and they heaped these up +in their houses. Thus Verres possessed a whole gallery of objects of +art which he had stolen in Sicily. Gradually the Romans assumed a +gloss of Greek art and literature. This new culture was called +"humanity," as opposed to the "rusticity" of the old Roman peasants.</p> + +<p>It was little else than gloss; the Romans had realized but slightly +that beauty and truth were to be sought for their own sakes; art and +science always remained objects of luxury and parade. Even in the time +of Cicero the soldier, the peasant, the politician, the man of +affairs, the advocate were alone regarded as truly occupied. Writing, +composing, contributing to science, philosophy, or criticism—all this +was called "being at leisure."<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> Artists and scholars were never +regarded at Rome as the equals of the rich merchant. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>Lucian, a Greek +writer, said, "If you would be a Pheidias, if you would make a +thousand masterpieces, nobody will care to imitate you, for as skilful +as you are, you will always pass for an artisan, a man who lives by +the work of his hands."</p> + +<p><b>Lucullus.</b>—Lucullus, the type of the new Roman, was born in 145 of a +noble and rich family; thus he entered without difficulty into the +course of political honors. From his first campaigns he was notable +for his magnanimity to the vanquished. Become consul, he was placed at +the head of the army against Mithradates. He found the inhabitants of +Asia exasperated by the brigandage and the cruelties of the publicans, +and gave himself to checking these excesses; he forbade, too, his +soldiers pillaging conquered towns. In this way he drew to him the +useless affection of the Asiatics and the dangerous hate of the +publicans and the soldiers. They intrigued to have him recalled; he +had then defeated Mithradates and was pursuing him with his ally, the +king of Armenia; he came with a small army of 20,000 men to put to +rout an immense multitude of barbarians. His command was taken from +him and given to Pompey, the favorite of the publicans.</p> + +<p>Lucullus then retired to enjoy the riches that he had accumulated in +Asia. He had in the neighborhood of Rome celebrated gardens, at Naples +a villa constructed in part in the sea, and at Tusculum a summer +palace with a whole museum of objects of art. He spent the beautiful +season at Tusculum surrounded by his friends, by scholars and men of +letters, reading Greek authors, and discussing literature and +philosophy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>Many anecdotes are told of the luxury of Lucullus. One day, being +alone at dinner, he found his table simpler than ordinary and +reproached the cook, who excused himself by saying there was no guest +present. "Do you not know," replied his master, "that Lucullus dines +today with Lucullus?" Another day he invited Cæsar and Cicero to dine, +who accepted on condition that he would make no change from his +ordinary arrangements. Lucullus simply said to a slave to have dinner +prepared in the hall of Apollo. A magnificent feast was spread, the +guests were astonished. Lucullus replied he had given no order, that +the expense of his dinners was regulated by the hall where he gave +them; those of the hall of Apollo were to cost not less than $10,000. +A prætor who had to present a grand spectacle asked Lucullus if he +would lend him one hundred purple robes; he replied by tendering two +hundred.</p> + +<p>Lucullus remained the representative of the new manners, as Cato of +the old customs. For the ancients Cato was the virtuous Roman, +Lucullus the degenerate Roman. Lucullus, in effect, discarded the +manners of his ancestors, and so acquired a broader, more elevated, +and more refined spirit, more humanity toward his slaves and his +subjects.</p> + +<p><b>The New Education.</b>—At the time when Polybius lived in Rome (before +150) the old Romans taught their children nothing else than to +read.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> The new Romans provided Greek instructors for their +children. Some Greeks opened in Rome schools of poesy, rhetoric, and +music. The great families took sides <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>between the old and new systems. +But there always remained a prejudice against music and the dance; +they were regarded as arts belonging to the stage, improper for a man +of good birth. Scipio Æmilianus, the protector of the Greeks, speaks +with indignation of a dancing-school to which children and young girls +of free birth resorted: "When it was told me, I could not conceive +that nobles would teach such things to their children. But when some +one took me to the dancing-school, I saw there more than 500 boys and +girls and, among the number a twelve-year-old child, a candidate's +son, who danced to the sound of castanets." Sallust, speaking of a +Roman woman of little reputation, says, "She played on the lyre and +danced better than is proper for an honest woman."</p> + +<p><b>The New Status of Women.</b>—The Roman women gave themselves with +energy to the religions and the luxury of the East. They flocked in +crowds to the Bacchanals and the mysteries of Isis. Sumptuary laws +were made against their fine garments, their litters, and their +jewels, but these laws had to be abrogated and the women allowed to +follow the example of the men. Noble women ceased to walk or to remain +in their homes; they set out with great equipages, frequented the +theatre, the circus, the baths, and the places of assembly. Idle and +exceedingly ignorant, they quickly became corrupt. In the nobility, +women of fine character became the exception. The old discipline of +the family fell to the ground. The Roman law made the husband the +master of his wife; but a new form of marriage was invented which left +the woman under the authority of her father and gave no power to her +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>husband. To make their daughter still more independent, her parents +gave her a dower.</p> + +<p><b>Divorce.</b>—Sometimes the husband alone had the right to repudiate his +wife, but the custom was that this right should be exercised only in +the gravest circumstances. The woman gained the right of leaving her +husband, and so it became very easy to break a marriage. There was no +need of a judgment, or even of a motive. It was enough for the +discontented husband or wife to say to the other, "Take what belongs +to you, and return what is mine." After the divorce either could marry +again.</p> + +<p>In the aristocracy, marriage came to be regarded as a passing union; +Sulla had five wives, Cæsar four, Pompey five, and Antony four. The +daughter of Cicero had three husbands. Hortensius divorced his wife to +give her to a friend. "There are noble women," says Seneca, "who count +their age not by the years of the consuls, but by the husbands they +have had; they divorce to marry again, they marry to divorce again."</p> + +<p>But this corruption affected hardly more than the nobles of Rome and +the upstarts. In the families of Italy and the provinces the more +serious manners of the old time still prevailed; but the discipline of +the family gradually slackened and the woman slowly freed herself from +the despotism of her husband.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a> +<a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a> +<a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a> +<a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_133_133">[133]</a> Another version is that he was sitting at the hearth +roasting turnips.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_134_134">[134]</a> 232 and 234 are both given as the date of Cato's birth. +The latter is the more probable.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_135_135">[135]</a> Nearly all Romans of Cato's time were husbandmen, +tilling the soil with their own hands.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_136_136">[136]</a> This taste for useless magnificence is exhibited in the +stories of the Thousand and One Nights.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_137_137">[137]</a> Cato the Elder had a horror of the Greeks. He said to +his son: "I will tell what I have seen in Athens. This race is the +most perverse and intractable. Listen to me as to an oracle: whenever +this people teaches us its arts it will corrupt everything."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_138_138">[138]</a> "Schola," from which we derive "school," signified +leisure.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_139_139">[139]</a> Also to write and reckon, as previously stated.—ED.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XXIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>FALL OF THE REPUBLIC</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>DECADENCE OF REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Destruction of the Peasantry.</b>—The old Roman people consisted of +small proprietors who cultivated their own land. These honest and +robust peasants constituted at once the army and the assembly of the +people. Though still numerous in 221 and during the Second Punic War, +in 133 there were no more of them. Many without doubt had perished in +the foreign wars; but the special reason for their disappearance was +that it had become impossible for them to subsist.</p> + +<p>The peasants lived by the culture of grain. When Rome received the +grain of Sicily and Africa, the grain of Italy fell to so low a price +that laborers could not raise enough to support their families and pay +the military tax. They were compelled to sell their land and this was +bought by a rich neighbor. Of many small fields he made a great +domain; he laid the land down to grazing, and to protect his herds or +to cultivate it he sent shepherds and slave laborers. On the soil of +Italy at that time there were only great proprietors and troops of +slaves. "Great domains," said Pliny the Elder, "are the ruin of +Italy."</p> + +<p>It was, in fact, the great domains that drove the free <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>peasants from +the country districts. The old proprietor who sold his land could no +longer remain a farmer; he had to yield the place to slaves, and he +himself wandered forth without work. "The majority of these heads of +families," says Varro in his treatise on agriculture, "have slipped +within our walls, leaving the scythe and the plough; they prefer +clapping their hands at the circus to working in their fields and +their vineyards." Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the plebs, exclaimed +in a moment of indignation, "The wild beasts of Italy have at least +their lairs, but the men who offer their blood for Italy have only the +light and the air that they breathe; they wander about without +shelter, without a dwelling, with their wives and their children. +Those generals do but mock them who exhort them to fight for their +tombs and their temples. Is there one of them who still possesses the +sacred altar of his house and the tomb of his ancestors? They are +called the masters of the world while they have not for themselves a +single foot of earth."</p> + +<p><b>The City Plebs.</b>—While the farms were being drained, the city of +Rome was being filled with a new population. They were the descendants +of the ruined peasants whom misery had driven to the city; besides +these, there were the freedmen and their children. They came from all +the corners of the world—Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Asiatics, +Africans, Spaniards, Gauls—torn from their homes, and sold as slaves; +later freed by their masters and made citizens, they massed themselves +in the city. It was an entirely new people that bore the name Roman. +One day Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage and of Numantia, haranguing +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>people in the forum, was interrupted by the cries of the mob. +"Silence! false sons of Italy," he cried; "do as you like; those whom +I brought to Rome in chains will never frighten me even if they are no +longer slaves." The populace preserved quiet, but these "false sons of +Italy," the sons of the vanquished, had already taken the place of the +old Romans.</p> + +<p>This new plebeian order could not make a livelihood for itself, and so +the state had to provide food for it. A beginning was made in 123 with +furnishing corn at half price to all citizens, and this grain was +imported from Sicily and Africa. Since the year 63<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> corn was +distributed gratuitously and oil was also provided. There were +registers and an administration expressly for these distributions, a +special service for furnishing provisions (the Annona). In 46 Cæsar +found 320,000 citizens enrolled for these distributions.</p> + +<p><b>Electoral Corruption.</b>—This miserable and lazy populace filled the +forum on election days and made the laws and the magistrates. The +candidates sought to win its favors by giving shows and public feasts, +and by dispensing provisions. They even bought votes. This sale took +place on a large scale and in broad day; money was given to +distributers who divided it among the voters. Once the Senate +endeavored to stop this trade; but when Piso, the consul, proposed a +law to prohibit the sale of suffrages, the distributers excited a riot +and drove the consul from the forum. In the time of Cicero no +magistrate could be elected without enormous expenditures.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span><b>Corruption of the Senate.</b>—Poverty corrupted the populace who formed +the assemblies; luxury tainted the men of the old families who +composed the Senate. The nobles regarded the state as their property +and so divided among themselves the functions of the state and +intrigued to exclude the rest of the citizens from them. When Cicero +was elected magistrate, he was for thirty years the first "new man" to +enter the succession of offices.</p> + +<p>Accustomed to exercise power, some of the senators believed themselves +to be above the law. When Scipio was accused of embezzlement, he +refused even to exonerate himself and said at the tribune, "Romans, it +was on this day that I conquered Hannibal and the Carthaginians. +Follow me to the Capitol to render thanks to the gods and to beseech +them always to provide generals like myself."</p> + +<p>To support their pretensions at home, the majority of the nobles +required a large amount of money. Many used their power to get it for +themselves: some sent as governors plundered the subjects of Rome; +others compelled foreign or hostile kings to pay for the peace granted +them, or even for letting their army be beaten. It was in this way +that Jugurtha bribed a Roman general. Cited to Rome to answer for a +murder, he escaped trial by buying up a tribune who forbade him to +speak. It was related that in leaving Rome he had said, "O city for +sale, if thou only couldst find a purchaser!"</p> + +<p><b>Corruption of the Army.</b>—The Roman army was composed of small +proprietors who, when a war was finished, returned to the cultivation +of their fields. In <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>becoming soldiers they remained citizens and +fought only for their country. Marins began to admit to the legions +poor citizens who enrolled themselves for the purpose of making +capital from their campaigns. Soon the whole army was full of +adventurers who went to war, not to perform their service, but to +enrich themselves from the vanquished. One was no longer a soldier +from a sense of duty, but as a profession.</p> + +<p>The soldiers enrolled themselves for twenty years; their time +completed, they reëngaged themselves at higher pay and became +veterans. These people knew neither the Senate nor the laws; their +obedience was only to their general. To attach them to himself, the +general distributed to them the money taken from the vanquished. +During the war against Mithradates Sulla lodged his men with the rich +inhabitants of Asia; they lived as they chose, they and their friends, +receiving each sixteen drachmas a day. These first generals, Marius +and Sulla, were still Roman magistrates. But soon rich individuals +like Pompey and Crassus drew the soldiers to their pay. In 78 at the +death of Sulla there were four armies, levied entirely and commanded +by simple citizens. From that time there was no further question of +the legions of Rome, there were left only the legions of Pompey or +Cæsar.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE REVOLUTION</h4> + +<p><b>Necessity of the Revolution.</b>—The Roman people was no longer +anything but an indigent and lazy multitude, the army only an +aggregation of adventurers. Neither the assembly nor the legions +obeyed the Senate, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>for the corrupt nobles had lost all moral +authority, so that there was left but one real power—the army; there +were no men of influence beside the generals, and the generals had no +longer any desire to obey. The government by the Senate, now no longer +practicable, gave place to the government of the general.</p> + +<p><b>The Civil Wars.</b>—The revolution was inevitable, but it did not come +at one stroke; it required more than a hundred years to accomplish it. +The Senate resisted, but too weak itself to govern, it was strong +enough to prevent domination by another power. The generals fought +among themselves to see who should remain master. For a century the +Romans and their subjects lived in the midst of riot and civil war.</p> + +<p><b>The Gracchi.</b>—The first civil discord that blazed up in Rome was the +contest of the Gracchi against the Senate. The two brothers, Tiberius +and Gaius Gracchus, were of one of the noblest families of Rome, but +both endeavored to take the government from the nobles who formed the +Senate by making themselves tribunes of the plebs. There was at that +time, either in Rome or in Italy, a crowd of citizens without means +who desired a revolution; even among the rich the majority were of the +class of the knights, who complained that they had no part in the +government. Tiberius Gracchus had himself named tribune of the plebs +and sought to gain control of the government. He proposed to the +people an agrarian law. All the lands of the public domain occupied by +individuals were to be resumed by the state (with the exception of 500 +acres for each one); these lands taken by the state were to be +distributed in small lots to poor citizens. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>The law was voted. It +caused general confusion regarding property, for almost all of the +lands of the empire constituted a part of the public domain, but they +had been occupied for a long time and the possessors were accustomed +to regard themselves as proprietors. Further, as the Romans had no +registry of the lands, it was often very difficult to ascertain +whether a domain were private or public property. To direct these +operations, Tiberius had three commissioners named on whom the people +conferred absolute authority; they were Tiberius, his brother, and his +father-in-law, and it was uncertain whether Tiberius had acted in the +interest of the people, or simply to have a pretext for having power +placed in his hands. For a year he was master of Rome; but when he +wished to be elected tribune of the plebs for the succeeding year, his +enemies protested, as this was contrary to custom. A riot followed. +Tiberius and his friends seized the Capitol; the partisans of the +Senate and their slaves, armed with clubs and fragments of benches, +pursued them and despatched them (133).</p> + +<p>Ten years later Gaius, the younger of the Gracchi, elected tribune of +the plebs (123), had the agrarian law voted anew, and established +distributions<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> of corn to the poor citizens. Then, to destroy the +power of the nobles, he secured a decree that the judges should be +taken from among the knights. For two years Gaius dominated the +government, but while he was absent from the city conducting a colony +of Roman citizens to Carthage the people abandoned him. On his return +he could not be reëlected. The consul armed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>the partisans of the +Senate and marched against Gaius and his friends who had fled to the +Aventine Hill. Gaius had himself killed by a slave; his followers were +massacred or executed in prison; their houses were razed and their +property confiscated.</p> + +<p><b>Marius and Sulla.</b>—The contests of the Gracchi and the Senate had +been no more than riots in the streets of Rome, terminating in a +combat between bands hastily armed. The strife that followed was a +succession of real wars between regular armies, wars in Italy, wars in +all the provinces. From this time the party chiefs were no other than +the generals.</p> + +<p>The first to use his army to secure obedience in Rome was Marius. He +was born in Arpinum, a little town in the mountains, and was not of +noble descent. He had attained reputation as an officer in the army, +and had been elected tribune of the plebs, then prætor, with the help +of the nobles. He turned against them and was elected consul and +commissioned with the war against Jugurtha, king of Numidia, who had +already fought several Roman armies. It was then that Marius enrolled +poor citizens for whom military service became a profession. With his +army Marius conquered Jugurtha and the barbarians, the Cimbri and +Teutones, who had invaded the empire. He then returned to Rome where +he had himself elected consul for the sixth time and now exercised +absolute power. Two parties now took form in Rome who called +themselves the party of the people (the party of Marius), and the +party of the nobles (that of the Senate).</p> + +<p>The partisans of Marius committed so many acts of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>violence that they +ended by making him unpopular. Sulla, a noble, of the great family of +the Cornelii, profited by this circumstance to dispute the power of +Marius; Sulla was also a general. When the Italians rose against Rome +to secure the right of citizenship and levied great armies which +marched almost to the gates of the city, it was Sulla who saved Rome +by fighting the Italians.</p> + +<p>He became consul and was charged with the war against Mithradates, +king of Pontus, who had invaded Asia Minor and massacred all the +Romans (88). Marius in jealousy excited a riot in the city; Sulla +departed, joined his army which awaited him in south Italy, then +returned to Rome. Roman religion prohibited soldiers entering the city +under arms; the consul even before passing the gates had to lay aside +his mantle of war and assume the toga. Sulla was the first general who +dared to violate this restriction. Marius took flight.</p> + +<p>But when Sulla had left for Asia, Marius came with an army of +adventurers and entered Rome by force (87). Then commenced the +proscriptions.</p> + +<p>The principal partisans of Sulla were outlawed, and command was given +to kill them anywhere they were met and to confiscate their goods. +Marius died some months later; but his principal partisan, Cinna, +continued to govern Rome and to put to death whomever he pleased.</p> + +<p>During this time Sulla had conquered Mithradates and had assured the +loyalty of his soldiers by giving them the free pillage of Asia. He +returned with his army (83) to Italy. His enemies opposed him with +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>five armies, but these were defeated or they deserted. Sulla entered +Rome, massacred his prisoners and overthrew the partisans of Marius. +After some days of slaughter he set himself to proceed regularly: he +posted three lists of those whom he wished killed. "I have posted now +all those whom I can recall; I have forgotten many, but their names +will be posted as the names occur to me." Every proscribed man—that +is to say, every man whose name was on the list, was marked for death; +the murderer who brought his head was rewarded. The property of the +proscribed was confiscated. Proscription was not the result of any +trial but of the caprice of the general, and that too without any +warning. Sulla thus massacred not only his enemies but the rich whose +property he coveted. It is related that a citizen who was unaccustomed +to politics glanced in passing at the list of proscriptions and saw +his own name inscribed at the top of the list. "Alas!" he cried, "my +Alban house has been the death of me!" Sulla is said to have +proscribed 1800<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> knights.</p> + +<p>After having removed his enemies, he endeavored to organize a +government in which all power should be in the hands of the Senate. He +had himself named Dictator, an old title once given to generals in +moments of danger and which conferred absolute power. Sulla used the +office to make laws which changed the entire constitution. From that +time all the judges were to be taken from the Senate, no law could be +discussed before it had been accepted by the Senate, the right of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>proposing laws was taken from the tribunes of the plebs.</p> + +<p>After these reforms Sulla abdicated his functions and retired to +private life (79). He knew he had nothing to fear, for he had +established 100,000 of his soldiers in Italy.</p> + +<p><b>Pompey and Cæsar.</b>—The Senate had recovered its power because Sulla +saw fit to give it this, but it had not the strength to retain it if a +general wished again to seize it. The government of the Senate +endured, however, in appearance for more than thirty years; this was +because there were several generals and each prevented a rival from +gaining all power.</p> + +<p>At the death of Sulla four armies took the field: two obeyed the +generals who were partisans of the Senate, Crassus and Pompey; two +followed generals who were adversaries of the Senate, Lepidus in +Italy, and Sertorius in Spain. It is very remarkable that no one of +these armies was regular, no one of the generals was a magistrate and +therefore had the right to command troops; down to this time the +generals had been consuls, but now they were individuals—private +persons; their soldiers came to them not to serve the interests of the +state, but to profit at the expense of the inhabitants.</p> + +<p>The armies of the enemies of the Senate were destroyed, and Crassus +and Pompey, left alone, joined issues to control affairs. They had +themselves elected consuls and Pompey received the conduct of two +wars. He went to Asia with a devoted army and was for several years +the master of Rome; but as he was more the possessor of offices than +of power, he changed nothing in the government. It was during this +time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>that Cæsar, a young noble, made himself popular. Pompey, +Crassus, and Cæsar united to divide the power between themselves. +Crassus received the command of the army sent to Asia against the +Parthians and was killed (53). Pompey remained at Rome. Cæsar went to +Gaul where he stayed eight years subjecting the country and making an +army for himself.</p> + +<p>Pompey and Cæsar were now the only persons on the stage. Each wished +to be master. Pompey had the advantage of being at Rome and of +dominating the Senate; Cæsar had on his side his army, disciplined by +eight years of expeditions. Pompey secured a decree of the Senate that +Cæsar should abandon his army and return to Rome. Cæsar decided then +to cross the boundary of his province (the river Rubicon), and to +march on Rome. Pompey had no army in Italy to defend himself, and so +with the majority of the senators took flight to the other side of the +Adriatic. He had several armies in Spain, in Greece, and in Africa, +Cæsar defeated them, one after another—that of Spain first (49), then +that of Greece at Pharsalus (48), at last, that of Africa (46). +Pompey, vanquished at Pharsalus, fled to Egypt where the king had him +assassinated.</p> + +<p>On his return to Rome Cæsar was appointed dictator for ten years and +exercised absolute power. The Senate paid him divine honors, and it is +possible that Cæsar desired the title of king. He was assassinated by +certain of his favorites who aimed to reëstablish the sovereignty of +the Senate (44).</p> + +<p><b>End of the Republic.</b>—The people of Rome, who loved Cæsar, compelled +Brutus and Cassius, the chiefs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>of the assassins, to flee. They +withdrew to the East where they raised a large army. The West remained +in the hand of Antony, who with the support of the army of Cæsar, +governed Rome despotically.</p> + +<p>Cæsar in his will had adopted a young man of eighteen years, his +sister's son,<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> Octavian, who according to Roman usage assumed the +name of his adoptive father and called himself from that time Julius +Cæsar Octavianus. Octavian rallied to his side the soldiers of Cæsar +and was charged by the Senate with the war against Antony. But after +conquering him he preferred to unite with him for a division of power; +they associated Lepidus with them, and all three returned to Rome +where they secured absolute power for five years under the title of +triumvirs for organizing public affairs. They began by proscribing +their adversaries and their personal enemies. Antony secured the death +of Cicero (43). Then they left for the East to destroy the army of the +conspirators. After they had divided the empire among themselves it +was impossible to preserve harmony and war was undertaken in Italy. It +was the soldiers who compelled them to make terms of peace. A new +partition was made; Antony took the East and Octavian the West (39). +For some years peace was preserved; Antony resigned himself to the +life of an oriental sovereign in company with Cleopatra, queen of +Egypt; Octavian found it necessary to fight a campaign against the +sons of Pompey. The two leaders came at last to an open breach, and +then flamed up the last of the civil wars. This was a war between the +East and West. It was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>decided by the naval battle of Actium; Antony, +abandoned by the fleet of Cleopatra, fled to Egypt and took his own +life. Octavian, left alone, was absolute master of the empire. The +government of the Senate was at an end.</p> + +<p><b>Need of Peace.</b>—Everybody had suffered by these wars. The +inhabitants of the provinces were plundered, harassed, and massacred +by the soldiers; each of the hostile generals forced them to take +sides with him, and the victor punished them for supporting the +vanquished. To reward the old soldiers the generals promised them +lands, and then expelled all the inhabitants of a city to make room +for the veterans.</p> + +<p>Rich Romans risked their property and their life; when their party was +overthrown, they found themselves at the mercy of the victor. Sulla +had set the example for organized massacres (81). Forty years later +(in 43) Octavian and Antony again drew up lists of proscription.</p> + +<p>The populace suffered. The grain on which they lived came no longer to +Rome with the former regularity, being intercepted either by pirates +or by the fleet of an enemy.</p> + +<p>After a century of this régime all the Romans and provincials, rich +and poor, had but one desire—peace.</p> + +<p><b>The Power of the Individual.</b>—It was then that the heir of Cæsar, +his nephew<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> Octavian, one of the triumvirs, after having conquered +his two colleagues presented himself to the people now wearied with +civil discord. "He drew to himself all the powers of the people, of +the Senate, and of the magistrates;" for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>twelve years he was emperor +without having the title. No one dreamed of resisting him; he had +closed the temple of Janus and given peace to the world, and this was +what everybody wished. The government of the republic by the Senate +represented only pillage and civil war. A master was needed strong +enough to stop the wars and revolutions. Thus the Roman empire was +founded.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a> +<a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a> +<a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_140_140">[140]</a> The Lex Clodia of 58 B.C. made these distributions +legal.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_141_141">[141]</a> At a very low price.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_142_142">[142]</a> 1600, according to Mommsen, "History of Rome," Bk. IV, +ch. x.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_143_143">[143]</a> Grandson.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_144_144">[144]</a> Grand-nephew.—ED.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XXIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>THE TWELVE CÆSARS</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Emperor.</b>—In the new régime absolute authority was lodged in a +single man; he was called the emperor (imperator—the commander). In +himself alone he exercised all those functions which the ancient +magistrates distributed among themselves: he presided over the Senate; +he levied and commanded all the armies; he drew up the lists of +senators, knights, and people; he levied taxes; he was supreme judge; +he was pontifex maximus; he had the power of the tribunes. And to +indicate that this authority made him a superhuman being, it was +decreed that he should bear a religious surname: Augustus (the +venerable).</p> + +<p>The empire was not established by a radical revolution. The name of +the republic was not suppressed and for more than three centuries the +standards of the soldiers continued to bear the initials S.P.Q.R. +(senate and people of Rome). The emperor's power was granted to him +for life instead of for one year, as with the old magistrates. The +emperor was the only and lifelong magistrate of the republic. In him +the Roman people was incarnate; this is why he was absolute.</p> + +<p><b>Apotheosis of the Emperor.</b>—As long as the emperor lived he was sole +master of the empire, since the Roman people had conveyed all its +power to him. But <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>at his death the Senate in the name of the people +reviewed his life and passed judgment upon it. If he were condemned, +all the acts which he had made were nullified, his statues thrown +down, and his name effaced from the monuments.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> If, on the +contrary, his acts were ratified (which almost always occurred), the +Senate at the same time decreed that the deceased emperor should be +elevated to the rank of the gods. The majority of the emperors, +therefore, became gods after their death. Temples were raised to them +and priests appointed to render them worship. Throughout the empire +there were temples dedicated to the god Augustus and to the goddess +Roma, and persons are known who performed the functions of flamen +(priest) of the divine Claudius, or of the divine Vespasian. This +practice of deifying the dead emperor was called Apotheosis. The word +is Greek; the custom probably came from the Greeks of the Orient.</p> + +<p><b>The Senate and the People.</b>—The Roman Senate remained what it had +always been—the assembly of the richest and most eminent personages +of the empire. To be a senator was still an eagerly desired honor; in +speaking of a great family one would say, "a senatorial family." But +the Senate, respected as it was, was now powerless, because the +emperor could dispense with it. It was still the most distinguished +body in the state, but it was no longer the master of the government. +The emperor often pretended to consult it, but he was not bound by its +advice.</p> + +<p>The people had lost all its power since the assemblies <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>(the Comitia) +were suppressed in the reign of Tiberius. The population of 2,000,000 +souls crowded into Rome was composed only of some thousands of great +lords with their slaves and a mob of paupers. Already the state had +assumed the burden of feeding the latter; the emperors continued to +distribute grain to them, and supplemented this with donations of +money (the congiarium). Augustus thus donated $140 apiece in nine +different distributions, and Nero $50 in three. At the same time to +amuse this populace shows were presented. The number of days regularly +appointed for the shows under the republic had already amounted to 66 +in the year; it had increased in a century and a half, under Marcus +Aurelius, to 135, and in the fourth century to 175 (without counting +supplementary days). These spectacles continued each day from sunrise +to sunset; the spectators ate their lunch in their places. This was a +means used by the emperors for the occupation of the crowd. "It is for +your advantage, Cæsar," said an actor to Augustus, "that the people +engage itself with us." It was also a means for securing popularity. +The worst emperors were among the most popular; Nero was adored for +his magnificent spectacles; the people refused to believe that he was +dead, and for thirty years they awaited his return.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>The multitude of Rome no longer sought to govern; it required only to +be amused and fed: in the forceful expression of Juvenal—to be +provided with bread and the games of the circus (panem et circenses).</p> + +<p><b>The Prætorians.</b>—Under the republic a general was prohibited from +leading his army into the city of Rome. The emperor, chief of all the +armies, had at Rome his military escort (prætorium), a body of about +10,000 men quartered in the interior of the city. The prætorians, +recruited among the veterans, received high pay and frequent +donatives. Relying on these soldiers, the emperor had nothing to fear +from malcontents in Rome. But the danger came from the prætorians +themselves; as they had the power they believed they had free rein, +and their chief, the prætorian prefect, was sometimes stronger than +the emperor.</p> + +<p><b>The Freedmen of the Emperor.</b>—Ever since the monarchy had superseded +the republic, there was no other magistrate than the emperor. All the +business of the empire of 80,000,000 people originated with him. For +this crushing task he required assistants. He found them, not among +the men of great family whom he mistrusted, but among the slaves of +whom he felt sure. The secretaries, the men of trust, the ministers of +the emperor were his freedmen, the majority of them foreigners from +Greece or the Orient, pliant people, adepts in flattery, +inventiveness, and loquacity. Often the emperor, wearied with serious +matters, gave the government into their hands, and, as occurs in +absolute monarchies, instead of aiding their master, they supplemented +him. Pallas and Narcissus, the freedmen of Claudius, distributed +offices and pronounced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>judgments; Helius, Nero's freedman, had +knights and senators executed without even consulting his master. Of +all the freedmen Pallas was the most powerful, the richest, and the +most insolent; he gave his orders to his underlings only by signs or +in writing. Nothing so outraged the old noble families of Rome as +this. "The princes," said a Roman writer, "are the masters of citizens +and the slaves of their freedmen." Among the scandals with which the +emperors were reproached, one of the gravest was governing Roman +citizens by former slaves.</p> + +<p><b>Despotism and Disorder.</b>—This régime had two great vices:</p> + +<p>1. <i>Despotism.</i>—The emperor was invested for life with a power +unlimited, extravagant, and hardly conceivable; according to his fancy +he disposed of persons and their property, condemned, confiscated, and +executed without restraint. No institution, no law fettered his will. +"The decree of the emperor has the force of law," say the +jurisconsults themselves. Rome recognized then the unlimited despotism +that the tyrants had exercised in the Greek cities, no longer +circumscribed within the borders of a single city, but gigantic as the +empire itself. As in Greece some honorable tyrants had presented +themselves, one sees in Rome some wise and honest monarchs (Augustus, +Vespasian, Titus). But few men had a head strong enough to resist +vertigo when they saw themselves so elevated above other men. The +majority of the emperors profited by their tremendous power only to +make their names proverbial: Tiberius, Nero, Domitian by their +cruelty, Vitellius by his gluttony, Claudius by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>his imbecility. One +of them, Caligula, was a veritable fool; he had his horse made consul +and himself worshipped as a god. The emperors persecuted the nobles +especially to keep them from conspiring against them, and the rich to +confiscate their goods.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Disorder.</i>—This overweening authority was, moreover, very ill +regulated; it resided entirely in the person of the emperor. When he +was dead, everything was in question. It was well known that the world +could not continue without a master, but no law nor usage determined +who was to be this master. The Senate alone had the right of +nominating the emperor, but almost always it would elect under +pressure the one whom the preceding emperor had designated or the man +who was pleasing to the soldiers.</p> + +<p>After the death of Caligula, some prætorians who were sacking the +palace discovered, concealed behind the tapestry, a poor man trembling +with fear. This was a relative of Caligula; the prætorians made him +emperor (it was the emperor Claudius). After the death of Nero, the +Senate had elected Galba; the prætorians did not find him liberal +enough and so they massacred him to set up in his place Otho, a +favorite of Nero. In their turn the soldiers on the frontier wished to +make an emperor: the legions of the Rhine entered Italy, met the +prætorians at Bedriac near Cremona, and overthrew them in so furious a +battle that it lasted all night; then they compelled the Senate to +elect Vitellius, their general, as emperor. During this time the army +of Syria had elected its chief Vespasian, who in turn defeated +Vitellius and was named in his place; thus in two years three emperors +had been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>created and three overthrown by the soldiers. The new +emperor often undid what his predecessor had done; imperial despotism +had not even the advantage of being stable.</p> + +<p><b>The Twelve Cæsars.</b>—This regime of oppression interrupted by +violence endured for more than a century (31 B.C. to 96 A.D.).</p> + +<p>The twelve emperors who came to the throne during this time are called +the Twelve Cæsars, although only the first six were of the family of +Augustus. It is difficult to judge them equitably. Almost all of them +persecuted the noble families of Rome of whom they were afraid, and it +is the writers of these families that have made their reputation. But +it is quite possible that in the provinces their government was mild +and just, superior to that of the senators of the republic.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE CENTURY OF THE ANTONINES</h4> + +<p><b>The Antonines.</b>—The five emperors succeeding the twelve Cæsars, +Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius (96-180), have +left a reputation for justice and wisdom. They were called the +Antonines, though this name properly belongs only to the last two. +They were not descended from the old families of Rome; Trajan and +Hadrian were Spaniards, Antoninus was born at Nîmes in Gaul. They were +not princes of imperial family, destined from their birth to rule. +Four emperors came to the throne without sons and so the empire could +not be transmitted by inheritance. On each occasion the prince chose +among his generals and his governors the man most capable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>of +succeeding him; he adopted him as his son and sought his confirmation +by the Senate. Thus there came to the empire only experienced men, who +without confusion assumed the throne of their adoptive fathers.</p> + +<p><b>Government of the Antonines.</b>—This century of the Antonines was the +calmest that the ancient world had ever known. Wars were relegated to +the frontier of the empire. In the interior there were still military +seditions, tyranny, and arbitrary condemnations. The Antonines held +the army in check, organized a council of state of jurisconsults, +established tribunals, and replaced the freedmen who had so long +irritated the Romans under the twelve Cæsars by regular functionaries +taken from among the men of the second class—that is, the knights. +The emperor was no longer a tyrant served by the soldiers; he was +truly the first magistrate of the republic, using his authority only +for the good of the citizens. The last two Antonines especially, +Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, honored the empire by their integrity. +Both lived simply, like ordinary men, although they were very rich, +without anything that resembled a court or a palace, never giving the +impression that they were masters. Marcus Aurelius consulted the +Senate on all state business and regularly attended its sessions.</p> + +<p><b>Marcus Aurelius.</b>—Marcus Aurelius has been termed the Philosopher on +the Throne. He governed from a sense of duty, against his disposition, +for he loved solitude; and yet he spent his life in administration and +the command of armies. His private journal (his "Thoughts") exhibits +the character of the Stoic—virtuous, austere, separated from the +world, and yet mild <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>and good. "The best form of vengeance on the +wicked is not to imitate them; the gods themselves do good to evil +men; it is your privilege to act like the gods."</p> + +<p><b>Conquests of the Antonines.</b>—The emperors of the first century had +continued the course of conquest; they had subjected the Britons of +England, the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine, and in the +provinces had reduced several countries which till then had retained +their kings—Mauretania, Thrace, Cappadocia. The Rhine, the Danube, +and the Euphrates were the limits of the empire.</p> + +<p>The emperors of the second century were almost all generals; they had +the opportunity of waging numerous wars to repel the hostile peoples +who sought to invade the empire. The enemies were in two quarters +especially:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. On the Danube were the Dacians, barbarous people, who occupied +the country of mountains and forests now called Transylvania.</p> + +<p>2. On the Euphrates was the great military monarchy of the +Parthians which had its capital at Ctesiphon, near the ruins of +Babylon, and which extended over all Persia.</p></div> + +<p>Trajan made several expeditions against the Dacians, crossed the +Danube, won three great battles, and took the capital of the Dacians +(101-102). He offered them peace, but when they reopened the war he +resolved to end matters with them: he had a stone bridge built over +the Danube, invaded Dacia and reduced it to a Roman province (106). +Colonies were transferred thither, cities were built, and Dacia became +a Roman province where Latin was spoken and Roman customs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>were +assimilated. When the Roman armies withdrew at the end of the third +century, the Latin language remained and continued throughout the +Middle Ages, notwithstanding the invasions of the barbarian Slavs. It +is from Transylvania (ancient Dacia) that the peoples came from the +twelfth to the fourteenth century who now inhabit the plains to the +north of the Danube. It has preserved the name of Rome (Roumania) and +speaks a language derived from the Latin, like the French or Spanish. +Trajan made war on the Parthians also. He crossed the Euphrates, took +Ctesiphon, the capital, and advanced into Persia, even to Susa, whence +he took away the massive gold throne of the kings of Persia. He +constructed a fleet on the Tigris, descended the stream to its mouth +and sailed into the Persian Gulf; he would have delighted, like +Alexander, in the conquest of India. He took from the Parthians the +country between the Euphrates and the Tigris—Assyria and +Mesopotamia—and erected there two Roman provinces.</p> + +<p>To commemorate his conquests Trajan erected monuments which still +remain. The Column of Trajan on the Roman Forum is a shaft whose +bas-reliefs represent the war against the Dacians. The arch of triumph +of Benevento recalls the victories over the Parthians.</p> + +<p>Of these two conquests one alone was permanent, that of Dacia. The +provinces conquered from the Parthians revolted after the departure of +the Roman army. The emperor Hadrian retained Dacia, but returned their +provinces to the Parthians, and the Roman empire again made the +Euphrates its eastern frontier. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>To escape further warfare with the +highlanders of Scotland, Hadrian built a wall in the north of England +(the Wall of Hadrian) extending across the whole island. There was no +need of other wars save against the revolting Jews; these people were +overthrown and expelled from Jerusalem, the name of which was changed +to obliterate the memory of the old Jewish kingdom.</p> + +<p>Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Antonines, had to resist the invasion +of several barbarous peoples of Germany who had crossed the Danube on +the ice and had penetrated even to Aquileia, in the north of Italy. In +order to enroll a sufficient army he had to enlist slaves and +barbarians (172). The Germans retreated, but while Marcus was occupied +with a general uprising in Syria, they renewed their attacks on the +empire, and the emperor died on the banks of the Danube (180). This +was the end of conquest.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION</h4> + +<p><b>Extent of the Empire in the Second Century.</b>—The Roman emperors were +but little bent on conquest. But to occupy their army and to secure +frontiers which might be easily defended, they continued to conquer +barbarian peoples for more than a century. When the course of conquest +was finally arrested after Trajan, the empire extended over all the +south of Europe, all the north of Africa and the west of Asia; it was +limited only by natural frontiers—the ocean to the west; the +mountains of Scotland, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Caucasus to the +north; the deserts of the Euphrates <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>and of Arabia to the east; the +cataracts of the Nile and the great desert to the south. The empire, +therefore, embraced the countries which now constitute England, Spain, +Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, +European Turkey, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and +Asiatic Turkey. It was more than double the extent of the empire of +Alexander.</p> + +<p>This immense territory was subdivided into forty-eight provinces,<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> +unequal in size, but the majority of them very large. Thus Gaul from +the Pyrenees to the Rhine formed but seven provinces.</p> + +<p><b>The Permanent Army.</b>—In the provinces of the interior there was no +Roman army, for the peoples of the empire had no desire to revolt. It +was on the frontier that the empire had its enemies, foreigners always +ready to invade: behind the Rhine and the Danube the barbarian +Germans; behind the sands of Africa the nomads of the desert; behind +the Euphrates the Persian army. On this frontier which was constantly +threatened it was necessary to have soldiers always in readiness. +Augustus had understood this, and so created a permanent army. The +soldiers of the empire were no longer proprietors transferred from +their fields to serve during a few campaigns, but poor men who made +war a profession. They enlisted for sixteen or twenty years and often +reënlisted. There were, then, thirty legions of citizens—that is, +180,000 legionaries, and, according to Roman usage, a slightly larger +number of auxiliaries—in all about 400,000 men. This number was small +for so large a territory.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>Each frontier province had its little army, garrisoned in a permanent +camp similar to a fortress. Merchants came to establish themselves in +the vicinity, and the camp was transformed into a city; but still the +soldiers, encamped in the face of the enemy, preserved their valor and +their discipline. There were for three centuries severe wars, +especially on the banks of the Rhine and of the Danube, where Romans +fought fierce barbarians in a swampy country, uncultivated, covered +with forests and bogs. The imperial army exhibited, perhaps, as much +bravery and energy in these obscure wars as the ancient Romans in the +conquest of the world.</p> + +<p><b>Deputies and Agents of the Emperor.</b>—All the provinces belonged to +the emperor<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> as the representative of the Roman people. He is +there the general of all the soldiers, master of all persons, and +proprietor of all lands.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> But as the emperor could not be +everywhere at once, he sent deputies appointed by himself. To each +province went a lieutenant (called a deputy of Augustus with the +function of prætor); this official governed the country, commanded the +army, and went on circuit through his province to judge important +cases, for he, like the emperor, had the right of life and death.</p> + +<p>The emperor sent also a financial agent to levy the taxes and return +the money to the imperial chest. This official was called the +"procurator of Augustus." These two men represented the emperor, +governing his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>subjects, commanding his soldiers, and exploiting his +domain. The emperor always chose them among the two nobilities of +Rome, the prætors from the senators, the procurators from the knights. +For them, as for the magistrates of old Rome, there was a succession +of offices: they passed from one province to another, from one end of +the empire to the other,<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> from Syria to Spain, from Britain to +Africa. In the epitaphs of officials of this time we always find +carefully inscribed all the posts which they have occupied; +inscriptions on their tombs are sufficient to construct their +biographies.</p> + +<p><b>Municipal life.</b>—Under these omnipotent representatives of the +emperor the smaller subject peoples continued to administer their own +government. The emperor had the right of interfering in their local +affairs, but ordinarily he did not exercise this right. He only +demanded of them that they keep the peace, pay their taxes regularly, +and appear before the tribunal of the governor. There were in every +province several of these little subordinate governments; they were +called, just as at other times the Roman state was called, "cities," +and sometimes municipalities. A city in the empire was copied after +the Roman city: it also had its assembly of the people, its +magistrates elected for a year and grouped into colleges of two +members, its senate called a curia, formed of the great proprietors, +people rich and of old family. There, as at Rome, the assembly of the +people was hardly more than a form; it is the senate—that is to say, +the nobility, that governs.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>The centre of the provincial city was always a town, a Rome in +miniature, with its temples, its triumphal arches, its public baths, +its fountains, its theatres, and its arenas for the combats. The life +led there was that of Rome on a small scale: distributions of grain +and money, public banquets, grand religious ceremonies, and bloody +spectacles. Only, in Rome, it was the money of the provinces that paid +the expenses; in the municipalities the nobility itself defrayed the +costs of government and fêtes. The tax levied for the treasury of the +emperor went entirely to the imperial chest; it was necessary, then, +that the rich of the city should at their own charges celebrate the +games, heat the baths, pave the streets, construct the bridges, +aqueducts, and circuses. They did this for more than two centuries, +and did it generously; monuments scattered over the whole of the +empire and thousands of inscriptions are a witness to this.</p> + +<p><b>The Imperial Régime.</b>—After the conquest three or four hundred +families of the nobility of Rome governed and exploited the rest of +the world. The emperor deprived them of the government and subjected +them to his tyranny. The Roman writers could groan over their lost +liberty. The inhabitants of the provinces had nothing to regret; they +remained subject, but in place of several hundreds of masters, +ceaselessly renewed and determined to enrich themselves, they had now +a single sovereign, the emperor, interested to spare them. Tiberius +stated the imperial policy in the following words: "A good shepherd +shears his sheep, but does not flay them." For more than two centuries +the emperors contented themselves with shearing the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>people of the +empire; they took much of their money, but they protected them from +the enemy without, and even against their own agents. When the +provincials had grounds of complaint on account of the violence or the +robbery of their governor, they could appeal to the emperor and secure +justice. It was known that the emperor received complaints against his +subordinates; this was sufficient to frighten bad governors and +reassure subjects. Some emperors, like Marcus Aurelius, came to +recognize that they had duties to their subjects. The other emperors +at least left their subjects to govern themselves when they had no +interest to prevent this.</p> + +<p>The imperial régime was a loss for the Romans, but a deliverance for +their subjects: it abased the conquerors and raised the vanquished, +reconciling them and preparing them for assimilation in the empire.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>SOCIAL LIFE UNDER THE EMPIRE</h4> + +<p><b>Moral Decay Continues at Rome.</b>—Seneca in his Letters and Juvenal in +his Satires have presented portraits of the men and women of their +time so striking that the corruption of the Rome of the Cæsars has +remained proverbial. They were not only the disorders left over from +the republic—the gross extravagance of the rich, the ferocity of +masters against their slaves, the unbridled frivolity of women. The +evil did not arise with the imperial régime, but resulted from the +excessive accumulation of the riches of the world in the hands of some +thousands of nobles or upstarts, under whom lived some hundreds of +free men in poverty, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>and slaves by millions subjected to an +unrestrained oppression. Each of these great proprietors lived in the +midst of his slaves like a petty prince, indolent and capricious. His +house at Rome was like a palace; every morning the hall of honor (the +atrium) was filled with clients, citizens who came for a meagre salary +to salute the master<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> and escort him in the street. For fashion +required that a rich man should never appear in public unless +surrounded by a crowd; Horace ridicules a prætor who traversed the +streets of Tibur with only five slaves in his following. Outside Rome +the great possessed magnificent villas at the sea-shore or in the +mountains; they went from one to the other, idle and bored.</p> + +<p>These great families were rapidly extinguished. Alarmed at the +diminishing number of free men, Augustus had made laws to encourage +marriage and to punish celibacy. As one might expect, his laws did not +remedy the evil. There were so many rich men who had not married that +it had become a lucrative trade to flatter them in order to be +mentioned in their will; by having no children one could surround +himself with a crowd of flatterers. "In the city," says a Roman +story-teller, "all men divide themselves into two classes, those who +fish, and those who are angled for." "Losing his children augments the +influence of a man."</p> + +<p><b>The Shows.</b>—In the life of this idle people of Rome the spectacles +held a place that we are now hardly able <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>to conceive. They were, as +in Greece, games, that is to say, religious ceremonies. The games +proceeded throughout the day and again on the following day, and this +for a week at least. The amphitheatre was, as it were, the rendezvous +of the whole free population; it was there that they manifested +themselves. Thus in 196, during the civil wars, all the spectators +cried with one voice, "Peace!" The spectacle was the passion of the +time. Three emperors appeared in public, Caligula as a driver, Nero as +an actor, Commodus as a gladiator.</p> + +<p><b>The Theatre.</b>—There were three sorts of spectacles: the theatre, the +circus, and the amphitheatre.</p> + +<p>The theatre was organized on Greek models. The actors were masked and +presented plays imitated from the Greek. The Romans had little taste +for this recreation which was too delicate for them. They preferred +the mimes, comedies of gross character, and especially the pantomimes +in which the actor without speaking expressed by his attitudes the +sentiments of the character.</p> + +<p><b>The Circus.</b>—Between the two hills of the Aventine and the Palatine +extended a field filled with race courses surrounded by arcades and +tiers of seats rising above them. This was the Circus Maximus. After +Nero enlarged it it could accommodate 250,000 spectators; in the +fourth century its size was increased to provide sittings for 385,000 +people.</p> + +<p>Here was presented the favorite spectacle of the Roman people, the +four-horse chariot race (quadrigæ); in each race the chariot made a +triple circuit of the circus and there were twenty-five races in a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>single day. The drivers belonged to rival companies whose colors they +wore; there were at first four of these colors, but they were later +reduced to two—the Blue and the Green, notorious in the history of +riots. At Rome there was the same passion for chariot-races that there +is now for horse-races; women and even children talked of them. Often +the emperor participated and the quarrel between the Blues and the +Greens became an affair of state.</p> + +<p><b>The Amphitheatre.</b>—At the gates of Rome the emperor Vespasian had +built the Colosseum, an enormous structure of two stories, +accommodating 87,000 spectators. It was a circus surrounding an arena +where hunts and combats were represented.</p> + +<p>For the hunts the arena was transformed into a forest where wild +beasts were released and men armed with spears came into combat with +them. Variety was sought in this spectacle by employing the rarest +animals—lions, panthers, elephants, bears, buffaloes, rhinoceroses, +giraffes, tigers, and crocodiles. In the games presented by Pompey had +already appeared seventeen elephants and five hundred lions; some of +the emperors maintained a large menagerie.</p> + +<p>Sometimes instead of placing armed men before the beasts, it was found +more dramatic to let loose the animals on men who were naked and +bound. The custom spread into all cities of the empire of compelling +those condemned to death to furnish this form of entertainment for the +people. Thousands of persons of both sexes and of every age, and among +them Christian martyrs, were thus devoured by beasts under the eyes of +the multitude.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span><b>The Gladiators.</b>—But the national spectacle of the Romans was the +fight of gladiators (men armed with swords). Armed men descended into +the arena and fought a duel to the death. From the time of Cæsar<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> +as many as 320 pairs of gladiators were fought at once; Augustus in +his whole life fought 10,000 of them, Trajan the same number in four +months. The vanquished was slain on the field unless the people wished +to show him grace.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the condemned were compelled to fight, but more often slaves +and prisoners of war. Each victory thus brought to the amphitheatre +bands of barbarians who exterminated one another for the delight of the +spectators.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> Gladiators were furnished by all countries—Gauls, +Germans, Thracians, and sometimes negroes. These peoples fought with +various weapons, usually with their national arms. The Romans loved to +behold these battles in miniature.</p> + +<p>There were also, among these contestants in the circus, some who +fought from their own choice, free men who from a taste for danger +submitted to the terrible discipline of the gladiator, and swore to +their chief "to allow themselves to be beaten with rods, be burned +with hot iron, and even be killed." Many senators enrolled themselves +in these bands of slaves and adventurers, and even an emperor, +Commodus, descended into the arena.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>These bloody games were practised not only at Rome, but in all the +cities of Italy, Gaul, and Africa. The Greeks always opposed their +adoption. An inscription on a statue raised to one of the notables in +the little city of Minturnæ runs as follows: "He presented in four +days eleven pairs of gladiators who ceased to fight only when half of +them had fallen in the arena. He gave a hunt of ten terrible bears. +Treasure this in memory, noble fellow-citizens." The people, +therefore, had the passion for blood,<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> which still manifests +itself in Spain in bull-fights. The emperor, like the modern king of +Spain, must be present at these butcheries. Marcus Aurelius became +unpopular in Rome because he exhibited his weariness at the spectacles +of the amphitheatre by reading, speaking, or giving audiences instead +of regarding the games. When he enlisted gladiators to serve against +the barbarians who invaded Italy, the populace was about to revolt. +"He would deprive us of our amusements," cried one, "to compel us to +become philosophers."</p> + +<p><b>The Roman Peace.</b>—But there was in the empire something else than +the populace of Rome. To be just to the empire as a whole one must +consider events in the provinces. By subjecting all peoples, the +Romans had suppressed war in the interior of their empire. Thus was +established the Roman Peace which a Greek author describes in the +following language: "Every man can go where he will; the harbors are +full of ships, the mountains are safe for travellers just as the towns +for their inhabitants. Fear has everywhere <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>ceased. The land has put +off its old armor of iron and put on festal garments. You have +realized the word of Homer, 'the earth is common to all.'" For the +first time, indeed, men of the Occident could build their houses, +cultivate their fields, enjoy their property and their leisure without +fearing at every moment being robbed, massacred, or thrown into +slavery—a security which we can hardly appreciate since we have +enjoyed it from infancy, but which seemed very sweet to the men of +antiquity.</p> + +<p><b>The Fusion of Peoples.</b>—In this empire now at peace travel became +easy. The Romans had built roads in every direction with stations and +relays; they had also made road-maps of the empire. Many people, +artisans, traders, journeyed from one end of the empire to the +other.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> Rhetors and philosophers penetrated all Europe, going from +one city to another giving lectures. In every province could be found +men from the most remote provinces. Inscriptions show us in Spain +professors, painters, Greek sculptors; in Gaul, goldsmiths and Asiatic +workmen. Everybody transported and mingled customs, arts, and +religion. Little by little they accustomed themselves to speak the +language of the Romans. From the third century the Latin had become +the common language of the West, as the Greek since the successors of +Alexander had been the language of the Orient. Thus, as in Alexandria, +a common civilization was developed. This has been called by the name +Roman, though it was this hardly more than in name and in language. In +reality, it was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>the civilization of the ancient world united under +the emperor's authority.</p> + +<p><b>Superstitions.</b>—Religious beliefs were everywhere blended. As the +ancients did not believe in a single God, it was easy for them to +adopt new gods. All peoples, each of whom had its own religion, far +from rejecting the religions of others, adopted the gods of their +neighbors and fused them with their own. The Romans set the example by +raising the Pantheon, a temple to "all the gods," where each deity had +his sanctuary.</p> + +<p>Everywhere there was much credulity. Men believed in the divinity of +the dead emperors; it was believed that Vespasian had in Egypt healed +a blind man and a paralytic. During the war with the Dacians the Roman +army was perishing of thirst; all at once it began to rain, and the +sudden storm appeared to all as a miracle; some said that an Egyptian +magician had conjured Hermes, others believed that Jupiter had taken +pity on the soldiers; and on the column of Marcus Aurelius Jupiter was +represented, thunderbolt in hand, sending the rain which the soldiers +caught in their bucklers.</p> + +<p>When the apostles Barnabas and Paul came to the city of Lystra in Asia +Minor, the inhabitants invoked Barnabas as Jupiter and Paul as +Mercury; they were met by a procession, with priests at the head +leading a bull which they were about to sacrifice.</p> + +<p>Cultured people were none the less credulous.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> The Stoic +philosophers admitted omens. The emperor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>Augustus regarded it as a +bad sign when he put on the wrong shoe. Suetonius wrote to Pliny the +Younger, begging him to transfer his case to another day on account of +a dream which he had had. Pliny the Younger believed in ghosts.</p> + +<p>Among peoples ready to admit everything, different religions, instead +of going to pieces, fused into a common religion. This religion, at +once Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Asiatic, dominated the world at the +second century of our era; and so the Christians called it the +religion of the nations; down to the fourth century they gave the +pagans the name of "gentiles" (men of the nations); at the same time +the common law was called the Law of Nations.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a> +<a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a> +<a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a> +<a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a> +<a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a> +<a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_145_145">[145]</a> Inscriptions have been found where the name of Domitian +has thus been cut away.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_146_146">[146]</a> Suetonius ("Lives of the Twelve Cæsars," Nero, ch. +lvii.) relates, that the king of the Parthians, when he sent +ambassadors to the Senate to renew his alliance with the Roman people, +earnestly requested that due honor should be paid to the memory of +Nero. The historian continues, "When, twenty years afterwards, at +which time I was a young man, some person of obscure birth gave +himself out for Nero, that name secured him so favorable a reception +from the Parthians that he was very zealously supported, and it was +with much difficulty that they were persuaded to give him up."—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_147_147">[147]</a> Italy was not included among the provinces.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_148_148">[148]</a> A few provinces, the less important, remained to the +Senate, but the emperor was almost always master in these as well.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_149_149">[149]</a> The jurisconsult Gaius says, "On provincial soil we can +have possession only; the emperor owns the property."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_150_150">[150]</a> "Great personages," says Epictetus, "cannot root +themselves like plants; they must be much on the move in obedience to +the commands of the emperor."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_151_151">[151]</a> A client's task was a hard one; the poet Martial, who +had served thus, groans about it. He had to rise before day, put on +his toga which was an inconvenient and cumbersome garment, and wait a +long time in the ante-room.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_152_152">[152]</a> Cæsar gave also a combat between two troops, each +composed of 500 archers, 300 knights (30 knights according to +Suetonius; Julius, ch. 39), and 20 elephants.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_153_153">[153]</a> In an official discourse an orator thanks the emperor +Constantine who had given to the amphitheatre an entire army of +barbarian captives, "to bring about the destruction of these men for +the amusement of the people. What triumph," he cried, "could have been +more glorious?"</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_154_154">[154]</a> St. Augustine in his "Confessions" describes the +irresistible attraction of these sanguinary spectacles.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_155_155">[155]</a> A Phrygian relates in an inscription that he had made +seventy-two voyages from Asia to Italy.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_156_156">[156]</a> There were some sceptical writers, like Lucian, but +they were isolated.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XXV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE ARTS AND SCIENCES IN ROME</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>LETTERS</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>Imitation of the Greeks.</b>—The Romans were not artists naturally. +They became so very late and by imitating the Greeks. From Greece they +took their models of tragedy, comedy, the epic, the ode, the didactic +poem, pastoral poetry, and history. Some writers limited themselves to +the free translation of a Greek original (as Horace in his Odes). All +borrowed from the Greeks at least their ideas and their forms. But +they carried into this work of adaptation their qualities of patience +and vigor, and many came to a true originality.</p> + +<p><b>The Age of Augustus.</b>—There is common agreement in regarding the +fifty years of the government of Augustus as the most brilliant period +in Latin literature. It is the time of Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, +Propertius, and Livy. The emperor, or rather his friend Mæcenas, +personally patronized some of these poets, especially Horace and +Vergil, who sang the glory of Augustus and of his time. But this +Augustan Age was preceded and followed by two centuries that perhaps +equalled it. It was in the preceding century,<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> the first before +Christ, that the most original Roman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>poet<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> appeared, Cæsar the +most elegant prose-writer, and Cicero the greatest orator. It was in +the following age that Seneca, Lucan, Tacitus, Pliny, and Juvenal +wrote. Between Lucretius and Tacitus there were for three centuries +many great writers in Rome. One might also add another century by +recurring to the time of Plautus, the second century before Christ.</p> + +<p>Of these great authors a few had their origin in Roman families; but +the majority of them were Italians. Many came from the provinces, +Vergil from Mantua, Livy from Padua (in Cisalpine Gaul), while Seneca +was a Spaniard.</p> + +<p><b>Orators and Rhetors.</b>—The true national art at Rome was eloquence. +Like the Italians of our day, the Romans loved to speak in public. In +the forum where they held the assemblies of the people was the +rostrum, the platform for addressing the people, so named from the +prows of captured ships that ornamented it like trophies of war. +Thither the orators came in the last epoch of the republic to declaim +and to gesticulate before a tumultuous crowd.</p> + +<p>The tribunals, often composed of a hundred judges, furnished another +occasion for eloquent advocates. The Roman law permitted the accused +to have an advocate speak in his place.</p> + +<p>There were orators in Rome from the second century. Here, as in +Athens, the older orators, such as Cato and the Gracchi, spoke simply, +too simply for the taste of Cicero. Those who followed them in the +first century learned in the schools of the Greek rhetors the long +oratorical periods and pompous style. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>greatest of all was Cicero, +the only one whose works have come down to us in anything but +fragments; and yet we have his speeches as they were left by him and +not as they were delivered.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p> + +<p>With the fall of the republic the assemblies and the great political +trials ceased. Eloquence perished for the want of matter, and the +Roman writers remarked this with bitterness.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> Then the rhetors +commenced to multiply, who taught the art of speaking well.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> Some +of these teachers had their pupils compose as exercises pleas on +imaginary rhetorical subjects. The rhetor Seneca has left us many of +these oratorical themes; they discuss stolen children, brigands, and +romantic adventures.</p> + +<p>Then came the mania for public lectures. Pollio, a favorite of +Augustus, had set the example. For a century it was the fashion to +read poems, panegyrics, even tragedies before an audience of friends +assembled to applaud them. The taste for eloquence that had once +produced great orators exhibited in the later centuries only finished +declaimers.</p> + +<p><b>Importance of the Latin Literature and Language.</b>—Latin literature +profited by the conquests of Rome; the Romans carried it with their +language to their barbarian subjects of the West. All the peoples of +Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, and the Danubian lands discarded their +language and took the Latin. Having no national <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>literature, they +adopted that of their masters. The empire was thus divided between the +two languages of the two great peoples of antiquity: the Orient +continued to speak Greek; almost the entire Occident acquired the +Latin. Latin was not only the official language of the state +functionaries and of great men, like the English of our day in India; +the people themselves spoke it with greater or less correctness—in +fact, so well that today eighteen centuries after the conquest five +languages of Europe are derived from the Latin—the Italian, Spanish, +Portuguese, French, and Roumanian.</p> + +<p>With the Latin language the Latin literature extended itself over all +the West. In the schools of Bordeaux and Autun in the fifth century +only Latin poets and orators were studied. After the coming of the +barbarians, bishops and monks continued to write in Latin and they +carried this practice among the peoples of England and Germany who +were still speaking their native languages. Throughout almost the +whole mediæval period, acts, laws, histories, and books of science +were written in Latin. In the convents and the schools they read, +copied, and appreciated only works written in Latin; beside books of +piety only the Latin authors were known—Vergil, Horace, Cicero, and +Pliny the Younger. The renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries consisted partly in reviving the forgotten Latin writers. +More than ever it was the fashion to know and to imitate them.</p> + +<p>As the Romans constructed a literature in imitation of the Greeks, the +moderns have taken the Latin writers for their models. Was this good +or bad? Who would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>venture to say? But the fact is indisputable. Our +romance languages are daughters of the Latin, our literatures are full +of the ideas and of the literary methods of the Romans. The whole +western world is impregnated with the Latin literature.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE ARTS</h4> + +<p><b>Sculpture and Painting.</b>—Great numbers of Roman statues and +bas-reliefs of the time of the empire have come to light. Some are +reproductions and almost all are imitations of Greek works, but less +elegant and less delicate than the models. The most original +productions of this form of art are the bas-reliefs and the busts.</p> + +<p>Bas-reliefs adorned the monuments (temples, columns, and triumphal +arches), tombs, and sarcophagi. They represent with scrupulous +fidelity real scenes, such as processions, sacrifices, combats, and +funeral ceremonies and so give us information about ancient life. The +bas-reliefs which surround the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius +bring us into the presence of the great scenes of their wars. One may +see the soldiers fighting against the barbarians, besieging their +fortresses, leading away the captives; the solemn sacrifices, and the +emperor haranguing the troops.</p> + +<p>The busts are especially those of the emperors, of their wives and +their children. As they were scattered in profusion throughout the +empire, so many have been found that today all the great museums of +Europe have collections of imperial busts. They are real portraits, +probably very close resemblances, for each emperor had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>a well-marked +physiognomy, often of a striking ugliness that no one attempted to +disguise.</p> + +<p>In general, Roman sculpture holds itself much more close to reality +than does the Greek; it may be said that the artist is less concerned +with representing things beautifully than exactly.</p> + +<p>Of Roman painting we know only the frescoes painted on the walls of +the rich houses of Pompeii and of the house of Livy at Rome. We do not +know but these were the work of Greek painters; they bear a close +resemblance to the paintings on Greek vases, having the same simple +and elegant grace.</p> + +<p><b>Architecture.</b>—The true Roman art, because it operated to satisfy a +practical need, is architecture. In this too the Romans imitated the +Greeks, borrowing the column from them. But they had a form that the +Greeks never employed—the arch, that is to say, the art of arranging +cut stones in the arc of a circle so that they supported one another. +The arch allowed them to erect buildings much larger and more varied +than those of the Greeks. The following are the principal varieties of +Roman monuments:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. The <i>Temple</i> was sometimes similar to a Greek temple with a +broad vestibule, sometimes vaster and surmounted with a dome. Of +this sort is the Pantheon built in Rome under Augustus.</p> + +<p>2. The <i>Basilica</i> was a long low edifice, covered with a roof and +surrounded with porticos. There sat the judge with his assistants +about him; traders discussed the price of goods; the place was at +once a bourse and a tribunal. It was in the basilicas that the +assemblies of the Christians were later held, and for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>several +centuries the Christian churches preserved the name and form of +basilicas.</p> + +<p>3. The <i>Amphitheatre</i> and the <i>Circus</i> were constructed of several +stories of arcades surrounding an arena; each range of arcades +supported many rows of seats. Such were the Colosseum at Rome and +the arenas at Arles and Nîmes.</p> + +<p>4. The <i>Arch of Triumph</i> was a gate of honor wide enough for the +passage of a chariot, adorned with columns and surmounted with a +group of sculpture. The Arch of Titus is an example.</p> + +<p>5. The <i>Sepulchral Vault</i> was an arched edifice provided with many +rows of niches, in each of which were laid the ashes of a corpse. +It was called a Columbarium (pigeon-house) from its shape.</p> + +<p>6. The <i>Thermæ</i> were composed of bathing-halls furnished with +basins. The heat was provided by a furnace placed in an +underground chamber. The Thermæ in a Roman city were what the +gymnasium was in a Greek city—a rendezvous for the idle. Much +more than the gymnasium it was a labyrinth of halls of every sort: +there were a cool hall, warm apartments, a robing-room, a hall +where the body was anointed with oil, parlors, halls for exercise, +gardens, and the whole surrounded by an enormous wall. Thus the +Thermæ of Caracalla covered an immense area.</p> + +<p>7. The <i>Bridge</i> and the <i>Aqueduct</i> were supported by a range of +arches thrown over a river or over a valley. Examples are the +bridge of Alcantara and the Pont du Gard.</p> + +<p>8. The <i>House</i> of a rich Roman was a work of art. Unlike our +modern houses, the ancient house had no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>façade; the house was +turned entirely toward the interior; on the outside it showed only +bare walls.</p> + +<p>The rooms were small, ill furnished, and dark; they were lighted +only through the atrium. In the centre was the great hall of honor +(the atrium) where the statues of the ancestors were erected and +where visitors were received. It was illuminated by an opening in +the roof.</p> + +<p>Behind the atrium was the peristyle, a garden surrounded by +colonnades, in which were the dining halls, richly ornamented and +provided with couches, for among the rich Romans, as among the +Asiatic Greeks, guests reclined on couches at the banquets. The +pavement was often made of mosaic.</p></div> + +<p><b>Character of the Roman Architecture.</b>—The Romans,<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> unlike the +Greeks, did not always build in marble. Ordinarily they used the stone +that they found in the country, binding this together with an +indestructible mortar which has resisted even dampness for eighteen +hundred years. Their monuments have not the wonderful grace of the +Greek monuments, but they are large, strong, and solid—like the Roman +power. The soil of the empire is still covered with their débris. We +are astonished to find monuments almost intact as remote as the +deserts of Africa. When it was planned to furnish a water-system for +the city of Tunis, all that had to be done was to repair a Roman +aqueduct.</p> + +<p><b>Rome and Its Monuments.</b>—Rome at the time of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>emperors was a +city of 2,000,000 inhabitants.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> This population was herded in +houses of five and six stories, poorly built and crowded together. The +populous quarters were a labyrinth of tortuous paths, steep, and ill +paved. Juvenal who frequented them leaves us a picture of them which +has little attractiveness. At Pompeii, a city of luxury, it may be +seen how narrow were the streets of a Roman city. In the midst of +hovels monuments by the hundred would be erected. The emperor Augustus +boasted of having restored more than eighty temples. "I found a city +of bricks," said he; "I leave a city of marble." His successors all +worked to embellish Rome. It was especially about the Forum that the +monuments accumulated. The Capitol with its temple of Jupiter became +almost like the Acropolis at Athens. In the same quarter many +monumental areas were constructed—the forum of Cæsar, the forum of +Augustus, the forum of Nerva, and, most brilliant of all, the forum of +Trajan. Two villas surrounded by a park were situated in the midst of +the city; the most noted was the Golden House, built for Nero.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE LAW</h4> + +<p><b>The Twelve Tables.</b>—The Romans, like all other ancient peoples, had +at first no written laws. They followed the customs of the +ancestors—that is to say, each generation did in everything just as +the preceding generation did.</p> + +<p>In 450 ten specially elected magistrates, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>decemvirs, made a +series of laws that they wrote on twelve tables of stone. This was the +Law of the Twelve Tables, codified in short, rude, and trenchant +sentences—a legislation severe and rude like the semi-barbarous +people for whom it was made. It punished the sorcerer who by magical +words blasted the crop of his neighbor. It pronounced against the +insolvent debtor, "If he does not pay, he shall be cited before the +court; if sickness or age deter him, a horse shall be furnished him, +but no litter; he may have thirty days' delay, but if he does not +satisfy the debt in this time, the creditor may bind him with straps +or chains of fifteen pounds weight; at the end of sixty days he may be +sold beyond the Tiber; if there are many creditors, they may cut him +in parts, and if they cut more or less, there is no wrong in the act." +According to the word of Cicero, the Law of the Twelve Tables was "the +source of all the Roman law." Four centuries after it was written down +the children had to learn it in the schools.</p> + +<p><b>The Symbolic Process.</b>—In the ancient Roman law it was not enough in +buying, selling, or inheriting that this was the intention of the +actor; to obtain justice in the Roman tribunal it was not sufficient +to present the case; one had to pronounce certain words and use +certain gestures. Consider, for example, the manner of purchasing. In +the presence of five citizens who represent an assembly and of a sixth +who holds a balance in his hand, the buyer places in the balance a +piece of brass which represents the price of the thing sold. If it be +an animal or a slave that is sold, the purchaser touches it with his +hand saying, "This is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>mine by the law of the Romans, I have bought it +with this brass duly weighed." Before the tribunal every process is a +pantomime: to reclaim an object one seizes it with the hand; to +protest against a neighbor who has erected a wall, a stone is thrown +against the wall. When two men claim proprietorship in a field, the +following takes place at the tribunal: the two adversaries grasp hands +and appear to fight; then they separate and each says, "I declare this +field is mine by the law of the Romans; I cite you before the tribunal +of the prætor to debate our right at the place in question." The judge +orders them to go to the place. "Before these witnesses here present, +this is your road to the place; go!" The litigants take a few steps as +if to go thither, and this is the symbol of the journey. A witness +says to them, "Return," and the journey is regarded as completed. Each +of the two presents a clod of earth, the symbol of the field. Thus the +trial commences;<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> then the judge alone hears the case. Like all +primitive peoples, the Romans comprehended well only what they +actually saw; the material acts served to represent to them the right +that could not be seen.</p> + +<p><b>The Formalism of Roman Law.</b>—The Romans scrupulously respected their +ancient forms. In justice, as in religion, they obeyed the letter of +the law, caring nothing for its sense. For them every form was sacred +and ought to be strictly applied. In cases before the courts their +maxim was: "What has already been pronounced ought to be the law." If +an advocate made a mistake in one word in reciting the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>formula, his +case was lost. A man entered a case against his neighbor for having +cut down his vines: the formula that he ought to use contained the +word "arbor," he replaced it with the word "vinea," and could not win +his case.</p> + +<p>This absolute reverence for the form allowed the Romans some strange +accommodations. The law said that if a father sold his son three +times, the son should be freed from the power of the father; when, +therefore, a Roman wished to emancipate his son, he sold him three +times in succession, and this comedy of sale sufficed to emancipate +him.</p> + +<p>The law required that before beginning war a herald should be sent to +declare it at the frontier of the enemy. When Rome wished to make war +on Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had his kingdom on the other side of +the Adriatic, they were much embarrassed to execute this formality. +They hit on the following: a subject of Pyrrhus, perhaps a deserter, +bought a field in Rome; they then assumed that this territory had +become territory of Epirus, and the herald threw his javelin on this +land and made his solemn declaration. Like all other immature peoples, +the Romans believed that consecrated formulas had a magical virtue.</p> + +<p><b>Jurisprudence.</b>—The Law of the Twelve Tables and the laws made after +them were brief and incomplete. But many questions presented +themselves that had no law for their solution. In these embarrassing +cases it was the custom at Rome to consult certain persons who were of +high reputation for their knowledge of questions of law. These were +men of eminence, often old consuls or pontiffs; they gave their advice +in writing, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>and their replies were called the Responses of the Wise. +Usually these responses were authoritative according to the respect +had for the sages. The emperor Augustus went further: he named some of +them whose responses should have the force of law. Thus Law began to +be a science and the men versed in law formulated new rules which +became obligatory. This was Jurisprudence.</p> + +<p><b>The Prætor's Edict.</b>—To apply the sacred rules of law a supreme +magistrate was needed at Rome. Only a consul or a prætor could direct +a tribunal and, according to the Roman expression, "say the law." The +consuls engaged especially with the army ordinarily left this care to +the prætors.</p> + +<p>There were always at Rome at least two prætors as judges: one +adjudicated matters between citizens and was called the prætor of the +city (prætor urbanus); the other judged cases between citizens and +aliens and was called prætor of the aliens (prætor peregrinus), or, +more exactly, prætor between aliens and citizens. There was need of at +least two tribunals, since an alien could not be admitted to the +tribunal of the citizens. These prætors, thanks to their absolute +power, adjusted cases according to their sense of equity; the prætor +of the aliens was bound by no law, for the Roman laws were made only +for Roman citizens. And yet, since each prætor was to sit and judge +for a year, on entering upon his office he promulgated a decree in +which he indicated the rules that he expected to follow in his +tribunal; this was the Prætor's Edict. At the end of the year, when +the præter left his office, his ordinance was no longer in force, and +his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>successor had the right to make an entirely different one. But it +came to be the custom for each prætor to preserve the edicts of his +predecessors, making a few changes and some additions. Thus +accumulated for centuries the ordinances of the magistrates. At last +the emperor Hadrian in the second century had the Prætorian Edict +codified and gave it the force of law.</p> + +<p><b>Civil Law and the Law of Nations.</b>—As there were two separate +tribunals, there developed two systems of rules, two different laws. +The rules applied to the affairs of citizens by the prætor of the city +formed the Civil Law—that is to say, the law of the city. The rules +followed by the prætor of aliens constituted the Law of Nations—that +is to say, of the peoples (alien to Rome). It was then perceived that +of these two laws the more human, the more sensible, the simpler—in a +word, the better, was the law of aliens. The law of citizens, derived +from the superstitious and strict rules of the old Romans, had +preserved from this rude origin troublesome formulas and barbarous +regulations. The Law of Nations, on the contrary, had for its +foundation the dealings of merchants and of men established in Rome, +dealings that were free from every formula, from every national +prejudice, and were slowly developed and tried by the experience of +several centuries. And so it may be seen how contrary to reason the +ancient law was. "Strict law is the highest injustice," is a Roman +proverb. The prætors of the city set themselves to correct the ancient +law and to judge according to equity or justice. They came gradually +to apply to citizens the same rules that the prætor of the aliens +followed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>in his tribunal. For example, the Roman law ordained that +only relatives on the male side should be heirs; the prætor summoned +the relatives on the female side also to participate in the +succession.</p> + +<p>The old law required that a man to become a proprietor must perform a +complicated ceremony of sale; the prætor recognized that it was +sufficient to have paid the price of the sale and to be in possession +of the property. Thus the Law of Nations invaded and gradually +superseded the Civil Law.</p> + +<p><b>"Written Reason."</b>—It was especially under the emperors that the new +Roman law took its form. The Antonines issued many ordinances (edicts) +and re-scripts (letters in which the emperor replied to those who +consulted him). Jurisconsults who surrounded them assisted them in +their reforms. Later, at the beginning of the third century, under the +bad emperors as under the good, others continued to state new rules +and to rectify the old. Papinian, Ulpian, Modestinus, and Paullus were +the most noted of these lawyers; their works definitively fixed the +Roman law.</p> + +<p>This law of the third century has little resemblance to the old Roman +law, so severe on the weak. The jurisconsults adopt the ideas of the +Greek philosophers, especially of the Stoics. They consider that all +men have the right of liberty: "By the law of nature all men are born +free," which is to say that slavery is contrary to nature. They also +admit that a slave could claim redress even against his master, and +that the master, if he killed his slave, should be punished as a +murderer. Likewise they protect the child against the tyranny of the +father.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>It is this new law that was in later times called Written Reason. In +fact, it is a philosophical law such as reason can conceive for all +men. And so there remains no longer an atom of the strict and gross +law of the Twelve Tables. The Roman law which has for a long time +governed all Europe, and which today is preserved in part in the laws +of several European states is not the law of the old Romans. It is +constructed, on the contrary, of the customs of all the peoples of +antiquity and the maxims of Greek philosophers fused together and +codified in the course of centuries by Roman magistrates and +jurisconsults.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a> +<a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a> +<a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a> +<a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_157_157">[157]</a> Sometimes called the Age of Cicero.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_158_158">[158]</a> Lucretius.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_159_159">[159]</a> One of the most noted, the plea for Milo, was written +much later. Cicero at the time of the delivery was distracted and said +almost nothing.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_160_160">[160]</a> See the "Dialogue of the Orators," attributed to +Tacitus.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_161_161">[161]</a> The word "rhetor" signified in Greek simply orator; the +Romans used the word in a mistaken sense to designate the men who made +a profession of speaking.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_162_162">[162]</a> The same reserve must be maintained with regard to the +arts as to the literature. The builders of the Roman monuments were +not Romans, but provincials, often slaves; the only Roman would be the +master for whom the slaves worked.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_163_163">[163]</a> This estimate is too liberal. 1,500,00 is probably +nearer the truth. See Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms, i. +25.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_164_164">[164]</a> Cicero describes this juridical comedy which was still +in force in his time.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XXVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY</h3> +<br /> + +<p><b>The Christ.</b>—He whom the Jews were expecting as their liberator and +king, the Messiah, appeared in Galilee, a small province of the North, +hardly regarded as Jewish, and in a humble family of carpenters. He +was called Jesus, but his Greek disciples called him the Christ (the +anointed), that is to say, the king consecrated by the holy oil. He +was also called the Master, the Lord, and the Saviour. The religion +that he came to found is that we now possess. We all know his life: it +is the model of every Christian. We know his instructions by heart; +they form our moral law. It is sufficient, then, to indicate what new +doctrines he disseminated in the world.</p> + +<p><b>Charity.</b>—Before all, Christ commended love. "Thou shalt love the +Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and thy neighbor +as thyself.... On these two commandments hang all the law and the +prophets." The first duty is to love others and to benefit them. When +God will judge men, he will set on his right hand those who have fed +the hungry, given drink to those who were thirsty, and have clad those +that were naked. To those who would follow him the Christ said at the +beginning: "Go, ... sell all that ye have and give to the poor."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>For the ancients the good man was the noble, the rich, the brave. +Since the time of Christ the word has changed its sense: the good man +is he who loves others. Doing good is loving others and seeking to be +of service to them. Charity (the Latin name of love) from that time +has been the cardinal virtue. Charitable becomes synonymous with +beneficent. To the old doctrine of vengeance the Christ formally +opposes his doctrine of charity. "Ye have heard that it was said, An +eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you ... +whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other +also.... Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy +neighbor and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you love your enemies, +do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute you, +... that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who +maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on +the just and the unjust." He himself on the cross prayed for his +executioners, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."</p> + +<p><b>Equality.</b>—The Christ loved all men; he died not for one people +only, but for all humanity. He never made a difference between men; +all are equal before God. The ancient religions, even the Jewish, were +religions of peoples who kept them with jealous care, as a treasure, +without wishing to communicate them to other peoples. Christ said to +his disciples, "Go, and teach all nations." And the apostle Paul thus +formulated the doctrine of Christian equality: "There is neither Greek +nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, bond nor free." +Two centuries later <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>Tertullian, a Christian writer, said, "The world +is a republic, the common land of the human race."</p> + +<p><b>Poverty and Humility.</b>—The ancients thought that riches ennobled a +man and they regarded pride as a worthy sentiment. "Blessed are the +poor," said Christ, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." He that +would not renounce all that he had could not be his disciple. He +himself went from city to city, possessing nothing, and when his +disciples were preoccupied with the future, he said, "Be not anxious +for what ye shall eat, nor for what ye shall put on. Behold the birds +of the heaven, they sow not neither do they reap, yet your heavenly +Father feedeth them."</p> + +<p>The Christian was to disdain riches, and more yet, worldly honors. One +day when his disciples were disputing who should have the highest rank +in heaven, he said, "He that is greatest among you shall be your +servant." "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that +humbleth himself shall be exalted." Till our day the successor of +Saint Peter calls himself "Servant of the servants of God." Christ +drew to himself by preference the poor, the sick, women, children,—in +a word, the weak and the helpless. He took all his disciples from +among the populace and bade them be "meek and lowly of heart."</p> + +<p><b>The Kingdom of God.</b>—Christ said that he had come to the earth to +found the kingdom of God. His enemies believed that he wished to be a +king, and when he was crucified, they placed this inscription on his +cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews." This was a gross +mistake. Christ himself had declared, "My kingdom is not of this +world." He did not come <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>to overturn governments nor to reform +society. To him who asked if he should pay the Roman tax, he replied, +"Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things +that are God's." And so the Christian accepted what he found +established and himself worked to perfect it, not to remodel society. +To make himself pleasing to God and worthy of his kingdom it was not +necessary to offer him sacrifices or to observe minute formulas as the +pagans did: "True worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and +truth." Their moral law is contained in this word of Christ: "Be ye +therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE FIRST CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH</h4> + +<p><b>Disciples and Apostles.</b>—The twelve disciples who associated with +Christ received from him the mission to preach his doctrine to all +peoples. From that time they were called Apostles. The majority of +them lived in Jerusalem and preached in Judæa; the first Christians +were still Jews. It was Saul, a new convert, who carried Christianity +to the other peoples of the Orient. Paul (for he took this name) spent +his life visiting the Greek cities of Asia, Greece, and Macedonia, +inviting to the new religion not only the Jews, but also and +especially the Gentiles: "You were once without Christ," said he to +them, "strangers to the covenant and to the promises; but you have +been brought nigh by the blood of Christ, for it is he who of two +peoples hath made both one." From this time it was no longer necessary +to be a Jew if one would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>become a Christian. The other nations, +disregarded by the law of Moses, are brought near by the law of +Christ. This fusion was the work of St. Paul, also called the Apostle +to the Gentiles.</p> + +<p>The religion of Christ spread very slowly, as he himself had +announced: "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed ... +which is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the +greatest among herbs ... and the birds of the air lodge under its +branches."</p> + +<p><b>The Church.</b>—In every city where Christians were found they +assembled to pray together, to sing the praises of God, and to +celebrate the mystery of the Lord's Supper. Their meeting was called +Ecclesia (assembly). Usually the Christians of the same assembly +regarded themselves as brothers; they contributed of their property to +support the widows, the poor, and the sick. The most eminent directed +the community and celebrated the religious ceremonies. These were the +Priests (their name signifies "elders"). Others were charged with the +administration of the goods of the community, and were called Deacons +(servants). Besides these officers, there was in each city a supreme +head—the Bishop (overseer).</p> + +<p>Later the functions of the church became so exacting that the body of +Christians was divided into two classes of people: the clergy, who +were the officials of the community; the rest, the faithful, who were +termed the laity.</p> + +<p>Each city had its independent church; thus they spoke of the church of +Antioch, of Corinth, of Rome; and yet they all formed but one church, +the church of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>Christ, in which all were united in one faith. The +universal or Catholic faith was regarded as the only correct body of +belief; all conflicting opinions (the heresies) were condemned as +errors.</p> + +<p><b>The Sacred Books.</b>—The sacred scripture of the Jews, the Old +Testament, remained sacred for the Christians, but they had other +sacred books which the church had brought into one structure (the New +Testament). The four Gospels recount the life of Christ and the "good +news" of salvation which he brought. The Acts of the Apostles +describes how the gospel was disseminated in the world. The Epistles +are the letters addressed by the apostles to the Christians of the +first century. The Apocalypse (Revelation) is the revelation made +through St. John to the seven churches of Asia. Many other +pseudo-sacred books were current among the Christians, but the church +has rejected all of these, and has termed them apocryphal.</p> + +<p><b>The Persecutions.</b>—The Christian religion was persecuted from its +birth. Its first enemies were the Jews, who forced the Roman governor +of Judæa to crucify Christ; who stoned St. Stephen, the first martyr, +and so set themselves against St. Paul that they almost compassed his +death.</p> + +<p>Then came the persecution by the Pagans. The Romans tolerated all the +religions of the East because the devotees of Osiris, of Mithra, and +of the Good Goddess recognized at the same time the Roman gods. But +the Christians, worshippers of the living God, scorned the petty +divinities of antiquity. More serious still in the eyes of the Romans, +they refused to adore the emperor as a god and to burn incense on the +altar <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>of the goddess Roma. Several emperors promulgated edicts +against the Christians, bidding the governors arrest them and put them +to death. A letter of Pliny the Younger, then governor in Asia, to the +emperor Trajan, shows the procedure against them. "Up to this time, +regarding the people who have been denounced as Christians, I have +always operated as follows: I asked them if they were Christians; if +they confessed it, I put the question to them a second time, and then +a third time, threatening them with the penalty of death. When they +persisted, I had them put to death, convinced that, whatever their +fault that they avowed, their disobedience and their resolute +obstinacy merited punishment. Many who have been denounced in +anonymous writings have denied that they were Christians, have +repeated a prayer that I pronounced before them, have offered wine and +incense to your statue, which I had set forth for this purpose +together with the statues of the gods, and have even reviled the name +of Christ. All these are things which it is not possible to compel any +true Christians to do. Others have confessed that they were +Christians, but they affirm that their crime and their error consisted +only in assembling on certain days before sunrise to adore Christ as +God, to sing together in his honor, and to bind themselves by oath to +commit no crime, to perpetrate no theft, murder, adultery, nor to +violate their word. I have believed it necessary in order to secure +the truth to put to the torture two female slaves whom they called +deaconesses; but I have discovered only an absurd and exaggerated +superstition."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>The Roman government was a persecutor,<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> but the populace were +severer yet. They could not endure these people who worshipped another +god than theirs and contemned their deities. Whenever famine or +epidemic occurred, the well-known cry was heard, "To the lions with +the Christians!" The people forced the magistrates to hunt and +persecute the Christians.</p> + +<p><b>The Martyrs.</b>—For the two centuries and a half that the Christians +were persecuted, throughout the empire there were thousands of +victims, of every age, sex, and condition. Roman citizens, like St. +Paul, were beheaded; the others were crucified, burned, most often +sent to the beasts in the amphitheatre. If they were allowed to escape +with their lives, they were set at forced labor in the mines. +Sometimes torture was aggravated by every sort of invention. In the +great execution at Lyons, in 177, the Christians, after being tortured +and confined in narrow prison quarters, were brought to the arena. The +beasts mutilated without killing them. They were then seated in iron +chairs heated red by fire. Blandina, a young slave, who survived all +these torments was bound with cords and exposed to the fury of a bull. +The Christians joyfully suffered these persecutions which gave them +entrance to heaven. The occasion presented an opportunity for +rendering public testimony to Christ. And so they did not call +themselves victims, but martyrs (witnesses); their torture was a +testimony. They compared it to the combat of the Olympian games; like +the victor in the athletic contests, they spoke of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>palm or the +crown. Even now the festal day of a martyr is the day of his death.</p> + +<p>Frequently a Christian who was present at the persecution would draft +a written account of the martyrdom—he related the arrest, the +examination, the tortures, and the death. These brief accounts, filled +with edifying details, were called The Acts of the Martyrs. They were +circulated in the remotest communities; from one end of the empire to +the other they published the glory of the martyrs and excited a desire +to imitate them. Thousands of the faithful, seized by a thirst for +martyrdom, pressed forward to incriminate themselves and to demand +condemnation. One day a governor of Asia had decreed persecutions +against some Christians: all the Christians of the city presented +themselves in his tribunal and demanded to be persecuted. The +governor, exasperated, had some of them executed and sent away the +others. "Begone, you wretches! If you are so bent on death, you have +precipices and ropes." Some of the faithful, to be surer of torture, +entered the temples and threw down the idols of the gods. It was +several times necessary for even the church to prohibit the +solicitation of martyrdom.</p> + +<p><b>The Catacombs.</b>—The ancient custom of burning the dead was repugnant +to the Christians. Like the Jews, they interred their dead wrapped +with a shroud in a sarcophagus. Cemeteries<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> were therefore +required. At Rome where land was very high in price the Christians +went below ground, and in the brittle tufa on which Rome was built may +be seen long galleries and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>subterranean chambers. There, in niches +excavated along the passages, they laid the bodies of their dead. As +each generation excavated new galleries, there was formed at length a +subterranean city, called the Catacombs ("to the tombs"). There were +similar catacombs in several cities—Naples, Milan, Alexandria, but +the most celebrated were those in Rome. These have been investigated +in our day and thousands of Christian tombs and inscriptions +recovered. The discovery of this subterranean world gave birth to a +new department of historical science—Christian Epigraphy and +Archæology.</p> + +<p>The sepulchral halls of the catacombs do not resemble those of the +Egyptians or those of the Etruscans; they are bare and severe. The +Christians knew that a corpse had no bodily wants and so they did not +adorn the tombs. The most important halls are decorated with very +simple ornaments and paintings which almost always represent the same +scenes. The most common subjects are the faithful in prayer, and the +Good Shepherd, symbolical of Christ. Some of these halls were like +chapels. In them were interred the bodies of the holy martyrs and the +faithful who wished to lie near them; every year Christians came here +to celebrate the mysteries. During the persecutions of the third +century the Christians of Rome often took refuge in these subterranean +chapels to hold their services of worship, or to escape from pursuit. +The Christians could feel safe in this bewildering labyrinth of +galleries whose entrance was usually marked by a pagan tomb.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> +<h4>THE MONKS OF THE THIRD CENTURY</h4> + +<p><b>The Solitaries.</b>—It was an idea current among Christians, especially +in the East, that one could not become a perfect Christian by +remaining in the midst of other men. Christ himself had said, "If any +man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and +children, and brethren, and sisters ... he cannot be my disciple." The +faithful man or woman who thus withdrew from the world to work out his +salvation the more surely, was termed an Anchorite (the man who is set +apart), or a Monk (solitary). This custom began in the East in the +middle of the third century. The first anchorites established +themselves in the deserts and the ruins of the district of Thebes in +Upper Egypt, which remained the holy land of the solitaries.</p> + +<p>Paul (235-340), the oldest of the monks, lived to his ninetieth year +in a grotto near a spring and a palm-tree which furnished him with +food and clothing. The model of the monks was St Anthony.<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> At the +age of twenty he heard read one day the text of the gospel, "If thou +wilt be perfect, sell all thy goods and give to the poor." He was fine +looking, noble, and rich, having received an inheritance from his +parents. He sold all his property, distributed it in alms and buried +himself in the desert of Egypt. He first betook himself to an empty +tomb, then to the ruins of a fortress; he was clad in a hair-shirt, +had for food only the bread that was brought to him every six months, +fasted, starved <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>himself, prayed day and night. Often sunrise found +him still in prayer. "O sun," cried he, "why hast thou risen and +prevented my contemplating the true light?" He felt himself surrounded +by demons, who, under every form, sought to distract him from his +religious thoughts. When he became old and revered by all Egypt, he +returned to Alexandria for a day to preach against the Arian heretics, +but soon repaired to the desert again. They besought him to remain: he +replied, "The fishes die on land, the monks waste away in the city; we +return to our mountains like the fish to the water."</p> + +<p>Women also became solitaries. Alexandra, one of these, shut herself in +an empty tomb and lived there for ten years without leaving it to see +anybody.</p> + +<p><b>Asceticism.</b>—These men who had withdrawn to the desert to escape the +world thought that everything that came from the world turned the soul +from God and placed it in the peril of losing salvation. The Christian +ought to belong entirely to God; he should forget everything behind +him. "Do you not know," said St. Nilus later, "that it is a trap of +Satan to be too much attached to one's family?" The monk Poemen had +withdrawn to the desert with his brothers, and their mother came to +visit them. As they refused to appear, she waited a little until they +were going to the church; but on seeing her, they fled and would not +consent to speak to her unless they were concealed. She asked to see +them, but they consoled her by saying, "You will see us in the other +world."</p> + +<p>But the world is not the only danger for the monk. Every man carried +about with himself an enemy from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>whom he could not deliver himself as +he had delivered himself from the world—that is, his own body. The +body prevented the soul from rising to God and drew it to worldly +pleasures that came from the devil. And so the solitaries applied +themselves to overcoming the body by refusing to it everything that it +loved. They subsisted only on bread and water; many ate but twice a +week, some went to the mountains to cut herbs which they ate raw. They +dwelt in grottoes, ruins, and tombs, lying on the earth or on a mat of +rushes. The most zealous of them added other tortures to mortify, or +kill, the body. St. Pachomius for fifteen years slept only in an erect +position, leaning against a wall. Macarius remained six months in a +morass, the prey of mosquitoes "whose stings would have penetrated the +hide of a wild boar." The most noted of these monks was St. Simeon, +surnamed Stylites (the man of the column). For forty years he lived in +the desert of Arabia on the summit of a column, exposed to the sun and +the rain, compelling himself to stay in one position for a whole day; +the faithful flocked from afar to behold him; he gave them audience +from the top of his column, bidding creditors free their debtors, and +masters liberate their slaves; he even sent reproaches to ministers +and counsellors of the emperor. This form of life was called +Asceticism (exercise).</p> + +<p><b>The Cenobites.</b>—The solitaries who lived in the same desert drew +together and adopted a common life for the practice of their +austerities. About St. Anthony were already assembled many anchorites +who gave him their obedience. St. Pachomius (272-348) in this way +assembled 3,000. Their establishment was at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>Tabenna, near the first +cataract of the Nile. He founded many other similar communities, +either of men or women. In 256 a traveller said he had seen in a +single city of Egypt 10,000 monks and 20,000 vowed to a religious +life. There were more of them in Syria, in Palestine, in all the +Orient. The monks thus united in communities became Cenobites (people +who live in common). They chose a chief, the abbot (the word signifies +in Syriac "father"), and they implicitly obeyed him. Cassian relates +that in one community in Egypt he had seen the abbot before the whole +refectory give a cenobite a violent blow on the head to try his +obedience.</p> + +<p>The primitive monks renounced all property and family relations; the +cenobites surrendered also their will. On entering the community they +engaged to possess nothing, not to marry, and to obey. "The monks," +says St. Basil, "live a spiritual life like the angels." The first +union among the cenobites was the construction of houses in close +proximity. Later each community built a monastery, a great edifice, +where each monk had his cell. A Christian compares these cells "to a +hive of bees where each has in his hands the wax of work, in his mouth +the honey of psalms and prayers." These great houses needed a written +constitution; this was the Monastic Rule. St. Pachomius was the first +to prepare one. St. Basil wrote another that was adopted by almost all +the monasteries of the Orient.</p> + +<br /> +<a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a> +<a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_165_165">[165]</a> The church counted ten persecutions, the first under +Nero, the last under Diocletian.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_166_166">[166]</a> The word is Greek and signifies place of repose.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a href="#FNanchor_167_167">[167]</a> See his biography in the "Lives of the Fathers of the +Desert," by Rufinus.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span><br /> +<h3>CHAPTER XXVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE LATER EMPIRE</h3> + +<br /> + +<h3>THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE THIRD CENTURY</h3> + +<p><b>Military Anarchy.</b>—After the reigns of the Antonines the civil wars +commenced. There were in the empire, beside the prætorian guard in +Rome, several great armies on the Rhine, on the Danube, in the East, +and in England. Each aimed to make its general emperor. Ordinarily the +rivals fought it out until there was but one left; this one then +governed for a few years, after which he was assassinated,<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> or if, +by chance, he could transmit his power to his son, the soldiers +revolted against the son and the war recommenced. The following, for +example, is what occurred in 193. The prætorians had massacred the +emperor Pertinax, and the army conceived the notion of putting up the +empire at auction; two purchasers presented themselves, Sulpicius +offering each soldier $1,000 and Didius more than $1,200. The +prætorians brought the latter to the Senate and had him named emperor; +later, when he did not pay them, they murdered him. At the same time +the great armies of Britain, Illyricum, and Syria proclaimed each its +own <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>general as emperor and the three rivals marched on Rome. The +Illyrian legions arrived first, and their general Septimius Severus +was named emperor by the Senate. Then commenced two sanguinary wars, +the one against the legions of Syria, and the other against the +legions of Britain. At the end of two years the emperor was +victorious. It is he who states his policy as follows, "My son, +content the soldiers and you may despise the rest." For a century +there was no other form of government than the will of the soldiers. +They killed the emperors who displeased them and replaced them by +their favorites.</p> + +<p>Strange emperors, therefore, occupied the throne: Elagabalus, a Syrian +priest, who garbed himself as a woman and had his mother assemble a +senate of women; Maximin, a soldier of fortune, a rough and +bloodthirsty giant, who ate, it was said, thirty pounds of food and +drank twenty-one quarts of wine a day. Once there were twenty emperors +at the same time, each in a corner of the empire (260-278). These have +been called the Thirty Tyrants.</p> + +<p><b>The Cult of Mithra.</b>—This century of wars is also a century of +superstitions. The deities of the Orient, Isis, Osiris, the Great +Mother, have their devotees everywhere. But, more than all the others, +Mithra, a Persian god, becomes the universal god of the empire. Mithra +is no other than the sun. The monuments in his honor that are found in +all parts of the empire represent him slaughtering a bull, with this +inscription: "To the unconquerable sun, to the god Mithra." His cult +is complicated, sometimes similar to the Christian worship; there are +a baptism, sacred feasts, an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>anointing, penances, and chapels. To be +admitted to this one must pass through an initiatory ceremony, through +fasting and certain fearful tests.</p> + +<p>At the end of the third century the religion of Mithra was the +official religion of the empire. The Invincible God was the god of the +emperors; he had his chapels everywhere in the form of grottoes with +altars and bas-reliefs; in Rome, even, he had a magnificent temple +erected by the emperor Aurelian.</p> + +<p><b>The Taurobolia.</b>—One of the most urgent needs of this time was +reconciliation with the deity; and so ceremonies of purification were +invented.</p> + +<p>The most striking of these was the Taurobolia. The devotee, clad in a +white robe with ornaments of gold, takes his place in the bottom of a +ditch which is covered by a platform pierced with holes. A bull is led +over this platform, the priest kills him and his blood runs through +the holes of the platform upon the garments, the face, and the hair of +the worshipper. It was believed that this "baptism of blood" purified +one of all sins. He who had received it was born to a new life; he +came forth from the ditch hideous to look upon, but happy and envied.</p> + +<p><b>Confusion of Religions.</b>—In the century that preceded the victory of +Christianity, all religions fell into confusion. The sun was adored at +once under many names (Sol, Helios, Baal, Elagabal, and Mithra). All +the cults imitated one another and sometimes copied Christian forms. +Even the life of Christ was copied. The Asiatic philosopher, +Apollonius of Tyana, who lived in the first century (3-96), became in +legend a kind of prophet, son of a god, who went about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>surrounded by +his disciples, expelling demons, curing sicknesses, raising the dead. +He had come, it was said, to reform the doctrine of Pythagoras and +Plato. In the third century an empress had the life of Apollonius of +Tyana written, to be, as it were, a Pythagorean gospel opposed to the +gospel of Christ. The most remarkable example of this confusion in +religion was given by Alexander Severus, a devout emperor, mild and +conscientious: he had in his palace a chapel where he adored the +benefactors of humanity—Abraham, Orpheus, Jesus, and Apollonius of +Tyana.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE GOVERNMENT OF THE LATER EMPIRE</h4> + +<p><b>Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.</b>—After a century of civil +wars emperors were found who were able to stop the anarchy. They were +men of the people, rude and active, soldiers of fortune rising from +one grade to another to become generals-in-chief, and then emperors. +Almost all arose in the semi-barbarous provinces of the Danube and of +Illyria; some in their infancy had been shepherds or peasants. They +had the simple manners of the old Roman generals. When the envoys of +the king of Persia asked to see the emperor Probus, they found a bald +old man clad in a linen cassock, lying on the ground, who ate peas and +bacon. It was the story of Curius Dentatus repeated after five +centuries.</p> + +<p>Severe with their soldiers, these emperors reëstablished discipline in +the army, and then order in the empire. But a change had become +necessary. A <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>single man was no longer adequate to the government and +defence of this immense territory; and so from this time each emperor +took from among his relatives or his friends two or three +collaborators, each charged with a part of the empire. Usually their +title was that of Cæsar, but sometimes there were two equal emperors, +and both had the title of Augustus. When the emperor died, one of the +Cæsars succeeded him; it was no longer possible for the army to create +emperors. The provinces were too great, and Diocletian divided them. +The prætorians of Rome being dangerous, Diocletian replaced them with +two legions. The Occident was in ruins and depopulated and hence the +Orient had become the important part of the empire; Diocletian, +therefore, abandoned Rome and established his capital at Nicomedia in +Asia Minor.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> Constantine did more and founded a new Rome in the +East—Constantinople.</p> + +<p><b>Constantinople.</b>—On a promontory where Europe is separated from Asia +only by the narrow channel of the Bosporus, in a country of vineyards +and rich harvests, under a beautiful sky, Greek colonists had founded +the town of Byzantium. The hills of the vicinity made the place easily +defensible; its port, the Golden Horn, one of the best in the world, +could shelter 1,200 ships, and a chain of 820 feet in length was all +that was necessary to exclude a hostile fleet. This was the site of +Constantine's new city, Constantinople (the city of Constantine).</p> + +<p>Around the city were strong walls; two public squares surrounded with +porticos were constructed; a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>palace was erected, a circus, theatres, +aqueducts, baths, temples, and a Christian church. To ornament his +city Constantine transferred from other cities the most celebrated +statues and bas-reliefs. To furnish it with population he forced the +people of the neighboring towns to remove to it, and offered rewards +and honors to the great families who would come hither to make their +home. He established, as in Rome, distributions of grain, of wine, of +oil, and provided a continuous round of shows. This was one of those +rapid transformations, almost fantastic, in which the Orient delights. +The task began the 4th of November, 326; on the 11th of May, 330, the +city was dedicated. But it was a permanent creation. For ten centuries +Constantinople resisted invasions, preserving always in the ruins of +the empire its rank of capital. Today it is still the first city of +the East.</p> + +<p><b>The Palace.</b>—The emperors who dwelt in the East<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> adopted the +customs of the Orient, wearing delicate garments of silk and gold and +for a head-dress a diadem of pearls. They secluded themselves in the +depths of their palace where they sat on a throne of gold, surrounded +by their ministers, separated from the world by a crowd of courtiers, +servants, functionaries and military guards. One must prostrate one's +self before them with face to the earth in token of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>adoration; they +were called Lord and Majesty; they were treated as gods. Everything +that touched their person was sacred, and so men spoke of the sacred +palace, the sacred bed-chamber, the sacred Council of State, even the +sacred treasury.</p> + +<p>The régime of this period has been termed that of the Later Empire as +distinguished from that of the three preceding centuries, which we +call the Early Empire.</p> + +<p>The life of an emperor of the Early Empire (from the first to the +third century) was still that of a magistrate and a general; the +palace of an emperor of the Later Empire became similar to the court +of the Persian king.</p> + +<p><b>The Officials.</b>—The officials often became very numerous. Diocletian +found the provinces too large and so made several divisions of them. +In Gaul, for example, Lugdunensis (the province about Lyons) was +partitioned into four, Aquitaine into three. In place of forty-six +governors there were from this time 117.<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></p> + +<p>At the same time the duties of the officials were divided. Besides the +governors and the deputies in the provinces there were in the border +provinces military commanders—the dukes and the counts. The emperor +had about him a small picked force to guard the palace, body-guards, +chamberlains, assistants, domestics, a council of state, bailiffs, +messengers, and a whole body of secretaries organized in four bureaus.</p> + +<p>All these officials did not now receive their orders <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>directly from +the emperor; they communicated with him only through their superior +officers. The governors were subordinate to the two prætorian +prefects, the officials of public works to the two prefects of the +city, the collectors of taxes to the Count of the Sacred Largesses, +the deputies to the Count of the Domains, all the officers of the +palace to the Master of the Offices, the domestics of the court to the +Chamberlain. These heads of departments had the character of +ministers.</p> + +<p>This system is not very difficult for us to comprehend. We are +accustomed to see officials, judges, generals, collectors, and +engineers, organized in distinct departments, each with his special +duty, and subordinated to the commands of a chief of the service. We +even have more ministers than there were in Constantinople; but this +administrative machine which has become so familiar to us because we +have been acquainted with it from our infancy, is none the less +complicated and unnatural. It is the Later Empire that gave us the +first model of this; the Byzantine empire preserved it and since that +time all absolute governments have been forced to imitate it because +it has made the work of government easier for those who have it to do.</p> + +<p><b>Society in the Later Empire.</b>—The Later Empire is a decisive moment +in the history of civilization. The absolute power of the Roman +magistrate is united to the pompous ceremonial of the eastern kings to +create a power unknown before in history. This new imperial majesty +crushes everything beneath it; the inhabitants of the empire cease to +be citizens and from the fourth century are called in Latin "subjects" +and in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>Greek "slaves." In reality all are slaves of the emperor, but +there are different grades of servitude. There are various degrees of +nobility which the master confers on them and which they transmit to +their posterity. The following is the series:<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p> + +<div class="block"><p>1. The <i>Nobilissimi</i> (the very noble); these are the imperial +family;</p> + +<p>2. The <i>Illustres</i> (the notable)—the chief ministers of +departments;</p> + +<p>3. The <i>Spectabiles</i> (the eminent)—the high dignitaries;</p> + +<p>4. The <i>Clarissimi</i> (most renowned)—the great officials, also +sometimes called senators;</p> + +<p>5. The <i>Perfectissimi</i> (very perfect).<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a></p></div> + +<p>Every important man has his rank, his title, and his functions.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> +The only men who are of consequence are the courtiers and officials; +it is the régime of titles and of etiquette. A clearer instance has +never been given of the issue of absolute power united with the mania +for titles and with the purpose to regulate everything. The Later +Empire exhibits the completed type of a society reduced to a machine +and of a government absorbed by a court. It realized the ideal that is +proposed today by the partisans of absolute power; and for a long time +the friends of liberty must fight against the traditions which the +Later Empire has left to us.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> +<h4>THE CHURCH AND THE STATE</h4> + +<p><b>Triumph of Christianity.</b>—During the first two centuries of our era +the Christians occupied but a small place in the empire. Almost all of +them were of the lower classes, workmen, freedmen, slaves, who lived +obscure lives in the multitude of the great cities. For a long time +the aristocracy ignored the Christians; even in the second century +Suetonius in his "Lives of the Twelve Cæsars" speaks of a certain +Chrestus who agitated the populace of Rome. When the religion first +concerned the world of the rich and cultivated people, they were +interested simply to deride it as one only for the poor and ignorant. +It was precisely because it addressed the poor of this world in +providing a compensation in the life to come that Christianity made so +many proselytes. Persecution, far from suppressing it, gave it more +force. "The blood of the martyrs," said the faithful, "is the seed of +the church." During the whole of the third century conversions +continued, not only among the poor, but among the aristocracy as well. +At the first of the fourth century all the East had become Christian. +Helena, the mother of Constantine, was a Christian and has been +canonized by the church. When Constantine marched against his rival, +he took for his ensign a standard (the labarum), which bore the cross +and the monogram of Christ. His victory was the victory of the +Christians. He allowed them now to perform their religious rites +freely (by the edict of 313), and later he favored them openly. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>Yet +he did not break with the ancient religion: while he presided at the +great assembly of the Christian bishops, he continued to hold the +title of Pontifex Maximus; he carried in his helmet a nail of the true +cross and on his coins he still had the sun-god represented. In his +city of Constantinople he had a Christian church built, but also a +temple to Victory. For a half-century it was difficult to know what +was the official religion of the empire.</p> + +<p><b>Organization of the Church.</b>—The Christians even under persecution +had never dreamed of overthrowing the empire. As soon as persecution +ceased, the bishops became the allies of the emperors. Then the +Christian church was organized definitively, and it was organized on +the model of the Later Empire, in the form that it preserves to this +day. Each city had a bishop who resided in the city proper and +governed the people of the territory; this territory subject to the +bishop was termed a Diocese. In any country in the Later Empire, there +were as many bishops and dioceses as there were cities. This is why +the bishops were so numerous and dioceses so many in the East and in +Italy where the country was covered with cities. In Gaul, on the +contrary, there were but 120 dioceses between the Rhine and the +Pyrenees, and the most of these, save in the south, were of the size +of a modern French department. Each province became an ecclesiastical +province; the bishop of the capital (metropolis) became the +metropolitan, or as he was later termed, the archbishop.</p> + +<p><b>The Councils.</b>—In this century began the councils, the great +assemblies of the church. There had already <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>been some local councils +at which the bishops and priests of a single province had been +present. For the first time, in 324,<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> Constantine convoked a +General Assembly of the World (an ecumenical council) at Nicæa, in +Asia Minor; 318 ecclesiastics were in attendance. They discussed +questions of theology and drew up the Nicene Creed, the Catholic +confession of faith. Then the emperor wrote to all the churches, +bidding them "conform to the will of God as expressed by the council." +This was the first ecumenical council, and there were three +others<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> of these before the arrival of the barbarians made an +assembly of the whole church impossible. The decisions reached by +these councils had the force of law for all Christians: the decisions +are called Canons<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> (rules). The collection of these regulations +constitutes the Canon Law.</p> + +<p><b>The Heretics.</b>—From the second century there were among the +Christians heretics who professed opinions contrary to those of the +majority of the church. Often the bishops of a country assembled to +pronounce the new teaching as false, to compel the author to abjure, +and, if he refused, to separate him from the communion of Christians. +But frequently the author of the heresy had partisans convinced of the +truth of his teaching who would not submit and continued to profess +the condemned opinions. This was the cause of hatred and violent +strife between them and the faithful who were attached to the creed of +the church <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>(the orthodox). As long as the Christians were weak and +persecuted by the state, they fought among themselves only with words +and with books; but when all society was Christian, the contests +against the heretics turned into persecutions, and sometimes into +civil wars.</p> + +<p>Almost all of the heresies of this time arose among the Greeks of Asia +or Egypt, peoples who were subtle, sophistical, and disputatious. The +heresies were usually attempts to explain the mysteries of the Trinity +and of the Incarnation. The most significant of these heresies was +that of Arius; he taught that Christ was created by God the Father and +was not equal to him. The Council of Nicæa condemned this view, but +his doctrine, called Arianism, spread throughout the East. From that +time for two centuries Catholics and Arians fought to see who should +have the supremacy in the church; the stronger party anathematized, +exiled, imprisoned, and sometimes killed the chiefs of the opposition. +For a long time the Arians had the advantage; several emperors took +sides with them; then, too, as the barbarians entered the empire, they +were converted to Arianism and received Arian bishops. More than two +centuries had passed before the Catholics had overcome this heresy.</p> + +<p><b>Paganism.</b>—The ancient religion of the Gentiles did not disappear at +a single stroke. The Orient was quickly converted; but in the Occident +there were few Christians outside the cities, and even there many +continued to worship idols. The first Christian emperors did not wish +to break with the ancient imperial religion; they simultaneously +protected the bishops of the Christians and the priests of the gods; +they presided over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>councils and yet remained pontifex maximus. One of +them, Julian (surnamed the Apostate), openly returned to the ancient +religion. The emperor Gratian in 384<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> was the first to refuse the +insignia of the pontifex maximus. But as intolerance was general in +this century, as soon as the Roman religion ceased to be official, men +began to persecute it. The sacred fire of Rome that had burned for +eleven centuries was extinguished, the Vestals were removed, the +Olympian games were celebrated for the last time in 394. Then the +monks of Egypt issued from their deserts to destroy the altars of the +false gods and to establish relics in the temples of Anubis and +Serapis. Marcellus, a bishop of Syria, at the head of a band of +soldiers and gladiators sacked the temple of Jupiter at Aparnæa and +set himself to scour the country for the destruction of the +sanctuaries; he was killed by the peasants and raised by the church to +the honor of a saint.</p> + +<p>Soon idolatry persisted only in the rural districts where it escaped +detection; the idolaters were peasants who continued to adore sacred +trees and fountains and to assemble in proscribed sanctuaries.<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> +The Christians commenced to call "pagans" (the peasants) those whom up +to this time they had called Gentiles. And this name has still clung +to them. Paganism thus led an obscure existence in Italy, in Gaul, and +in Spain down to the end of the sixth century.</p> + +<p><b>Theodosius.</b>—The incursions of the Germanic peoples into the empire +continued for two centuries until the Huns, a people of Tartar +horsemen, came from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>steppes of Asia, and threw themselves on the +Germans, who occupied the country to the north of the Danube. In that +country there was already a great German kingdom, that of the Goths, +who had been converted to Christianity by Ulfilas, an Arian. To escape +the Huns, a part of this people, the West Goths (Visigoths), fled into +Roman territory, defeated the Roman armies, and overspread the country +even to Greece. Valens, the emperor of the East, had perished in the +defeat of Adrianople (378); Gratian, the emperor of the West, took as +colleague a noble Spaniard, Theodosius by name, and gave him the title +of Augustus of the East (379). Theodosius was able to rehabilitate his +army by avoiding a great battle with the Visigoths and by making a war +of skirmishes against them; this decided them to conclude a treaty. +They accepted service under the empire, land was given them in the +country to the south of the Danube, and they were charged with +preventing the enemies of the empire from crossing the river.</p> + +<p>Theodosius, having reëstablished peace in the East, came to the West +where Gratian had been killed by order of the usurper Maximus (383). +This Maximus was the commander of the Roman army of Britain; he had +crossed into Gaul with his army, abandoning the Roman provinces of +Britain to the ravages of the highland Scotch, had defeated Gratian, +and invaded Italy. He was master of the West, Theodosius of the East. +The contest between them was not only one between persons; it was a +battle between two religions: Theodosius was Catholic and had +assembled a council at Constantinople to condemn the heresy of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>Arius +(381); Maximus was ill-disposed toward the church. The engagement +occurred on the banks of the Save; Maximus was defeated, taken, and +executed.</p> + +<p>Theodosius established Valentinian II, the son of Gratian, in the West +and then returned to the East. But Arbogast, a barbarian Frank, the +general of the troops of Valentinian, had the latter killed, and +without venturing to proclaim himself emperor since he was not a +Roman, had his Roman secretary Eugenius made emperor. This was a +religious war: Arbogast had taken the side of the pagans; Theodosius, +the victor, had Eugenius executed and himself remained the sole +emperor. His victory was that of the Catholic church.</p> + +<p>In 391 the emperor Theodosius promulgated the Edict of Milan. It +prohibited the practice of the ancient religion; whoever offered a +sacrifice, adored an idol, or entered a temple should be condemned to +death as a state criminal, and his goods should be confiscated to the +profit of the informer. All the pagan temples were razed to the ground +or converted into Christian churches. And so Theodosius was extolled +by ecclesiastical writers as the model for emperors.</p> + +<p>Theodosius gave a rare example of submission to the church. The +inhabitants of Thessalonica had risen in riot, had killed their +governor, and overthrown the statues of the emperor. Theodosius in +irritation ordered the people to be massacred; 7,000 persons suffered +death. When the emperor presented himself some time after to enter the +cathedral of Milan, Ambrose, the bishop, charged him with his crime +before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>all the people, and declared that he could not give entrance +to the church to a man defiled with so many murders. Theodosius +confessed his sin, accepted the public penance which the bishop +imposed upon him, and for eight months remained at the door of the +church.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168">[168]</a> Of the forty-five emperors from the first to the third +century, twenty-nine died by assassination.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169">[169]</a> Other considerations also led to the change of +capital—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170">[170]</a> There were often two emperors, one in the East, the +other in the West, but there was but one empire. The two emperors, +though they may have resided, one in Constantinople and the other in +Italy, were considered as being but one person. In addressing one of +them the word "you" (in the plural) was used, as if both were +addressed at the same time. This was the first use of the pronoun of +the second person in the plural for such a purpose; for throughout +antiquity even kings and emperors were addressed in the singular.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171">[171]</a> The number under Diocletian was 101; under Constantine +(Bury's Gibbon, ii., 170), 116.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172">[172]</a> Without counting the ancient titles of consul and +præter, which were still preserved, and the new title of patrician +which was given by special favor.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173">[173]</a> Of inferior rank.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174">[174]</a> We know the whole system by an official almanac of +about the year 419, entitled Notitia Dignitatum, a list of all the +civil and military dignities and powers in the East and West. Each +dignitary has a special section preceded by an emblem which represents +his honors.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175">[175]</a> It met in 325.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176">[176]</a> It is to be noted that the author is speaking of +ecumenical or world councils. The three referred to are Constantinople +(381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451).—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177">[177]</a> Today, even, the word "canonical" signifies "in +accordance with rule."</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178">[178]</a> Probably 375; Gratian died in 383.—ED.</p> + +<p class="fn"><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179">[179]</a> Several saints, like St. Marcellus, found martyrdom at +the hands of peasants exasperated at the destruction of their +idols.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span><br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span><br /> +<h3>APPENDIX</h3> + +<h3>REFERENCES FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING</h3> +<br /> + + +<h4>PREHISTORIC TIMES</h4> +<br /> + +<ul> +<li>Lubbock: Prehistoric Times. 1878.</li> +<li>Lubbock: Origin of Civilisation. 1881.</li> +<li>Hoernes: Primitive Man. Temple Primers. 1901.</li> +<li>Lyell: Antiquity of Man. London: 1863.</li> +<li>Keary: Dawn of History.</li> +<li>Tylor: Anthropology. 1881.</li> +<li>McLennan: Studies in Ancient History. 1886.</li> +<li>Ripley: Races of Europe. 1899.</li> +<li>Sergi: The Mediterranean Race. 1901.</li> +<li>Maine: Ancient Law. 1883.</li> +<li>Mason: Woman's Share in Primitive Culture. 1894.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">General Works Of Reference</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Ploetz: Epitome of Universal History. 1883.</li> +<li>Ranke: Universal History, edited by Prothero. 1885.</li> +<li>Andrews: Institutes of General History. 1887.</li> +<li>Haydn: Dictionary of Dates. 1889.</li> +<li>Lamed: History for Ready Reference.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Atlases</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Spruner-Sieglin: Atlas Antiquus.</li> +<li>Kiepert: Atlas Antiquus. Leach.</li> +<li>Putzger: Historischer Schul-atlas. 1902.</li> +<li>Droysen: Allgemeiner Historischer Hand-atlas. Leipsic, 1885.</li> +<li>Freeman: Historical Geography of Europe. Edited by Bury. 1903.</li> +<li>Schrader: Atlas de Géographique Historique.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">General Histories of the East</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Sayce: Ancient Empires of the East. 1885.</li> +<li>Lenormant and Chevallier: Ancient History of the East. 1875.</li> +<li>Duncker: History of Antiquity. 1877-82</li> +<li>Rawlinson: Manual of Ancient History. 1871.</li> +<li>Clarke: Ten Great Religions. 1894.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></li> +<li>Cunningham: Western Civilisation in Its Economic Aspects. 1898.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>EGYPT</h4> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Sources</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Records of the Past, 1888-92. Old Series, 1875-8.</li> +<li>Herodotus: Book II. Rawlinson's edition. 1897.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Literature</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Rawlinson: Ancient Egypt. 1887.</li> +<li>Flinders-Petrie: History of Egypt. 1899.</li> +<li>Breasted: History of Egypt. 1905.</li> +<li>Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt. 1894.</li> +<li>Maspero: Dawn of Civilisation. 1896.</li> +<li>Maspero: Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria. 1892.</li> +<li>Wilkinson: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians.</li> +<li>Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Ancient Egypt. 1882.</li> +<li>Flinders-Petrie: Egyptian Decorative Art. 1895.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>BABYLON AND ASSYRIA</h4> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Sources</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Records of the Past.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Literature</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Ragozin: Chaldea. 1886.</li> +<li>Ragozin: Assyria. 1887.</li> +<li>Sayce: Assyria: Its Princes, Priests, and People. 1890.</li> +<li>Sayce: Social Life among the Assyrians and Babylonians. 1893.</li> +<li>Sayce: Fresh Light from Ancient Monuments. 1883.</li> +<li>Sayce: Babylonians and Assyrians. 1889.</li> +<li>Goodspeed: History of the Babylonians and Assyrians. 1902.</li> +<li>Layard: Discoveries among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. 1875.</li> +<li>Maspero: Dawn of Civilisation. 1896.</li> +<li>Maspero: Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria. 1892.</li> +<li>Maspero: Struggle of the Nations. 1897.</li> +<li>Maspero: Passing of the Empires. 1899.</li> +<li>Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Chaldea and Assyria. 1884.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>INDIA</h4> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Sources</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Sacred Books of the East.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Literature</span>—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> + +<ul> +<li>Wheeler: Primer of Indian History. 1890.</li> +<li>Smith, V.A.: Early History of India. 1904.</li> +<li>Ragozin: Vedic India. 1895.</li> +<li>Davids: Buddhist India. 1903.</li> +<li>Rhys-Davids: Buddhism. 1899.</li> +<li>Lane-Poole: Mediæval India under Mohammedan Rule. 1903.</li> +<li>Monier-Williams: Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism. 1889.</li> +<li>Monier-Williams: Indian Wisdom. London: 1875-6.</li> +<li>Frazer: Literary History of India. 1898.</li> +<li>Maine: Early History of Institutions. 1875.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>PERSIA</h4> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Sources</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Records of the Past.</li> +<li>Herodotus.</li> +<li>Church: Stories of the East (from Herodotus). 1883.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Literature</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Benjamin: Persia. 1887.</li> +<li>Markham: General Sketch of the History of Persia. 1874.</li> +<li>Vaux: Persia from the Monuments. 1878.</li> +<li>Jackson: Zoroaster, Prophet of Ancient Iran. 1899.</li> +<li>Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Persia, Phrygia, etc. 1895.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE PHŒNICIANS</h4> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Sources</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>The Old Testament.</li> +<li>Voyage of Hanno, translated by Falconer.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Literature</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Rawlinson: Phœnicia. 1889.</li> +<li>Maspero: Struggle of the Nations. 1897.</li> +<li>Paton: Early History of Syria and Palestine. 1901.</li> +<li>Taylor: The Alphabet. 1899.</li> +<li>Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Phœnicia and Cyprus. 1885.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>THE HEBREWS</h4> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Sources</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>The Old Testament.</li> +<li>The Talmud.</li> +<li>Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews; Wars of the Jews; Whiston's + translation. 1825. New edition of Whiston by Shilleto. 1889-90</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Literature</span>—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> + +<ul> +<li>Hosmer: The Jews. 1885.</li> +<li>Sayce: Early History of the Hebrews. 1897.</li> +<li>Kent: History of the Hebrew People. 1899.</li> +<li>Kent: History of the Jewish People. 1899.</li> +<li>Milman: History of the Jews. 1870.</li> +<li>Stanley: History of the Jewish Church. 1884.</li> +<li>McCurdy: History, Prophecy, and the Monuments. 1901. 3 V.</li> +<li>Graetz: History of the Jews. 1891-98.</li> +<li>Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Sardinia, Judea, Syria, and + Asia Minor. 1890.</li> +<li>Day: Social Life of the Hebrews. 1901.</li> +<li>Rosenau: Jewish Ceremonial Institutions and Customs. Baltimore. 1903.</li> +<li>Leroy-Boileau: Israel among the Nations; translated by Hellman. 1900.</li> +<li>Cheyne: Jewish Religious Life after the Exile. 1898.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>GREECE</h4> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">General Histories</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Grote: History of Greece. 1851-6.</li> +<li>Holm: History of Greece. 1894-8.</li> +<li>Duruy: History of Greece. 1890-2.</li> +<li>Abbott: History of Greece. 1888-99.</li> +<li>One volume histories of Greece are: Bury. 1903; Oman 1901; Botsford. + 1899; Myers. 1895; Cox, 1883.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Greek Antiquities</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Smith: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. 1890-1 2 v.</li> +<li>Gardner and Jevons: Manual of Greek Antiquities. 1895.</li> +<li>Schömann: The Antiquities of Greece. London, 1880. A new and improved + edition in the German.</li> +<li>Harpers' Classical Literature and Antiquities. 1896.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Greek Historical Sources (translated into English)</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Homer: Iliad. Translated by Lang, Leaf, and Myers.</li> +<li>Homer: Odyssey. Translated by Butcher and Lang.</li> +<li>Herodotus: Translated by Rawlinson.</li> +<li> Text of same with abridged notes. 1897.</li> +<li>Herodotus: Translated by Macaulay.</li> +<li>Thucydides: Translated by Jowett.</li> +<li>Xenophon: Dakyns' edition. 1890-7.</li> +<li>Demosthenes: Works translated by Kennedy.</li> +<li>Arrian: Translated in Bonn Library.</li> +<li>Pausanias: Description of Greece. Frazer's edition.</li> +<li>Polybius: Shuckburgh's edition. 1889.</li> +<li>Plutarch: Lives. Translated by Stewart and Long. 4 v., 1880.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></li> +<li>Plutarch: Lives. North's translation.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Periods Of Greek History</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Tsountas-Manatt: Mycenæan Age. 1896.</li> +<li>Ridgeway: The Early Age in Greece. 1901.</li> +<li>Freeman: Studies of Travel: Greece. 1893.</li> +<li>Clerke: Familiar Studies in Homer. 1892.</li> +<li>Jebb: Introduction to Homer. 1887.</li> +<li>Allcroft and Mason: Early Grecian History. 1898.</li> +<li>Benjamin: Troy. 1880.</li> +<li>Allcroft and Mason: Making of Athens. 1898.</li> +<li>Cox: Greeks and Persians. 1876.</li> +<li>Grundy: The Great Persian War. 1901.</li> +<li>Cox: Athenian Empire. 1877.</li> +<li>Lloyd: Age of Pericles. 1875.</li> +<li>Abbott: Pericles. 1895.</li> +<li>Grant: Greece in the Age of Pericles. 1893.</li> +<li>Allcroft and Mason: Peloponnesian War. 1898.</li> +<li>Freeman: Sicily. 1892.</li> +<li>Allcroft and Mason: Sparta and Thebes. 1898.</li> +<li>Sankey: Spartan and Theban Supremacies. 1877.</li> +<li>Allcroft and Mason: Decline of Hellas. 1898.</li> +<li>Curteis: Rise of the Macedonian Empire. 1878.</li> +<li>Hogarth: Philip and Alexander. 1897.</li> +<li>Wheeler: Alexander the Great. 1900.</li> +<li>Mahaffy: Alexander's Empire. 1887.</li> +<li>Mahaffy: Problems in Greek History. 1892.</li> +<li>Bevan: House of Seleucus. 1902.</li> +<li>Mahaffy: Empire of Egypt under the Ptolemies. 1899.</li> +<li>Mahaffy: Greek Life and Thought. 1887.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Greek Political Development</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Fowler: City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 1893.</li> +<li>Greenidge: Greek Constitutional History. 1896.</li> +<li>Schömann: Antiquities of Greece. 1886.</li> +<li>Cox: Lives of Greek Statesmen. 1886.</li> +<li>Gilbert: Constitutional Antiquities of Athens and Sparta. 1895.</li> +<li>Botsford: Athenian Constitution. 1893</li> +<li>Whibley: Greek Oligarchies. 1896.</li> +<li>Whibley: Political Parties in Athens in the Pelopponnesian War. 1889.</li> +<li>Freeman: History of Federal Government. 1863.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Social Life Of The Greeks</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Blümner: Home Life of the Ancient Greeks. 1893.</li> +<li>Mahaffy: Social Life in Greece. 1887.</li> +<li>Mahaffy: A Survey of Greek Civilisation. 1899.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></li> +<li>Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans. 1877.</li> +<li>Becker: Charicles.</li> +<li>Cunningham: Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects 1898.</li> +<li>Davidson: Education of the Greek People. 1894.</li> +<li>Mahaffy: Old Greek Education. 1882.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Histories of Greek Literature</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Mahaffy: History of Classical Greek Literature. 1880.</li> +<li>Murray: Ancient Greek Literature. 1897.</li> +<li>Jevons: History of Greek Literature. 1886.</li> +<li>Jebb: Primer of Greek Literature. 1878.</li> +<li>Jebb: Classical Greek Poetry.</li> +<li>Symonds: The Greek Poets.</li> +<li>Jebb: The Attic Orators. 1876.</li> +<li>Pater: Greek Studies. 1895.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Histories of Art</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Reber: History of Ancient Art. 1882.</li> +<li>Lübke: Outlines of the History of Art. 1881.</li> +<li>Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Primitive Greece. 1895.</li> +<li>Tarbell: History of Greek Art. 1896.</li> +<li>Fergusson: History of Architecture. 1875.</li> +<li>Gardner: Handbook of Greek Sculpture. 1896-7.</li> +<li>Harrison and Verall: Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens. 1894.</li> +<li>Harrison: Introductory Studies in Greek Art. 1892.</li> +<li>Gardner: Ancient Athens. 1902.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Greek Archæology</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Collignon: Manual of Greek Archæology. 1886.</li> +<li>Murray: Handbook of Greek Archæology. 1892.</li> +<li>Schuckardt: Schliemann's Excavations. 1891.</li> +<li>Diehl: Excursions in Greece. 1893.</li> +<li>Gardner: New Chapters in Greek History. 1892.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Greek Philosophy</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Mayor: Sketch of Ancient Philosophy. 1881.</li> +<li>Marshall: Short History of Greek Philosophy. 1891.</li> +<li>Plato: Translated by Jowett.</li> +<li>Aristotle: Translated in Bohn's Library.</li> +<li>Zeller: Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. 1890.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Grecian Mythology</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Gayley: Classic Myths. 1893.</li> +<li>Guerber: Myths of Greece and Rome. 1893.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> +<h4>ROME</h4> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">General Histories</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Mommsen: History of Rome.</li> +<li>Ihne: History of Rome. 1871-82.</li> +<li>Duruy: History of Rome. 1884-5.</li> +<li>Long: Decline of the Roman Republic. 1864-74.</li> +<li>Greenidge: History of Rome during the Latin Republic. 1904.</li> +<li>Shuckburgh: History of Rome. 1894.</li> +<li>How and Leigh: History of Rome. 1896.</li> +<li>Pelham: Outlines of Roman History. 1893.</li> +<li>Botsford: History of Rome. 1903.</li> +<li>Merivale: History of the Romans under the Empire. 1875.</li> +<li>Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Bury's edition.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Sources of Roman History (translated into English)</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Livy: History and Epitome, translated by Spillan. 1887-90.</li> +<li>Polybius: Histories, translated by Shuckburgh. 1889.</li> +<li>Plutarch: Lives, translated by Stewart and Long. 1880.</li> +<li>Appian: Roman History, translated by White. 1899.</li> +<li>Sallust, Florus, and Velleius Paterculus, translated by Watson. 1887.</li> +<li>Cicero: Orations, translated by Yonge. 1851-2.</li> +<li>Cicero: Letters, translated by Shuckburgh. 1899.</li> +<li>Cæsar: Gallic War and Civil War.</li> +<li>Justin, Nepos, and Eutropius, translated by Watson.</li> +<li>Suetonius: Lives of the Twelve Cæsars, translated by Thomas Forester. + 1898.</li> +<li>Tacitus: Annals, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1895.</li> +<li>Tacitus: History, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1894.</li> +<li>Tacitus: Germania, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1893.</li> +<li>Josephus: Antiquities and Wars of the Jews, translated by + Whiston-Shilleto. 1889-90.</li> +<li>Pliny the Younger: Letters, translated by Melmoth.</li> +<li>Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, translated by Long.</li> +<li>Ammianus Marcellinus: Roman History, translated by Yonge. 1894.</li> +<li>Julian the Emperor: Works, translated by King. 1888.</li> +<li>Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History and Life of Constantine translated + by McGiffert. 1890.</li> +<li>Jerome: Works.</li> +<li>Augustine: Works.</li> +<li>Munro: Source Book of Roman History. 1904.</li> +<li>Greenidge and Clay: Sources for Roman History B.C. 133-70. 1903.</li> +<li>Gwatkin: Selections from Early Christian Writers. 1893.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Periods of Roman History—</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + +<ul> +<li>Ihne: Early Rome. 1893.</li> +<li>Allcroft and Mason: Struggle for Empire. 1893</li> +<li>Church: Carthage. 1886.</li> +<li>Smith: Carthage and the Carthaginians. 1890.</li> +<li>Smith: Rome and Carthage. 1891.</li> +<li>Arnold: Second Punic War. 1849.</li> +<li>Dodge: Life of Hannibal. 1891.</li> +<li>Morris: Hannibal. 1897.</li> +<li>How: Hannibal and the Great War between Rome and Carthage. 1899.</li> +<li>Allcroft and Mason: Rome under the Oligarchs. 1893.</li> +<li>Beesly: Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla. 1893.</li> +<li>Allcroft and Mason: Decline of the Oligarchy. 1893.</li> +<li>Oman: Seven Roman Statesmen. 1902.</li> +<li>Beesly: Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius. 1898.</li> +<li>Strachan-Davidson: Cicero. 1894.</li> +<li>Forsyth: Life of Cicero. 1877.</li> +<li>Boissier: Cicero and His Friends. 1897.</li> +<li>Froude: Cæsar. 1879.</li> +<li>Dodge: Cæsar. 1892.</li> +<li>Fowler: Cæsar. 1892.</li> +<li>Merivale: The Roman Triumvirates. 1877.</li> +<li>Holmes: Cæsar's Conquest of Gaul. 1899.</li> +<li>Mahaffy: Greek World under Roman Sway. 1890.</li> +<li>Bossier: Roman Africa. 1899.</li> +<li>Bossier: Rome and Pompeii. 1896.</li> +<li>Hall: The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhone. 1898.</li> +<li>Bury: (Students') Roman Empire. 1893.</li> +<li>Capes: Early Roman Empire. 1886.</li> +<li>Mommsen: Provinces of the Roman Empire. 1887.</li> +<li>Firth: Augustus Cæsar. 1903.</li> +<li>Shuckburgh: Augustus. 1903.</li> +<li>Tarver: Tiberius the Tyrant. 1902.</li> +<li>Dill: Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. 1904.</li> +<li>Gregorovius: The Emperor Hadrian. 1898.</li> +<li>Bryant: Reign of Antoninus. 1896.</li> +<li>Capes: Age of the Antonines. 1887.</li> +<li>Watson: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 1884.</li> +<li>Firth: Constantine the Great. 1905.</li> +<li>Negri: Julian the Apostate. 1905.</li> +<li>Gardner: Julian. 1895.</li> +<li>Glover: Life and Letters in the Fourth Century. 1901.</li> +<li>Dill: Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. 1899.</li> +<li>Kingsley: Roman and Teuton. 1889.</li> +<li>Hodgkin: Dynasty of Theodosius. 1889.</li> +<li>Villari: Barbarian Invasions of Italy. 1902.</li> +<li>Hodgkin: Italy and Her Invaders, 1892-9.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></li> +<li>Sheppard: Fall of Rome. 1861.</li> +<li>Bury: Later Roman Empire. 1889.</li> +<li>Oman: Byzantine Empire. 1892.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Roman Antiquities</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Ramsay-Lanciani: Manual of Roman Antiquities. 1895.</li> +<li>Smith: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Murray. 1890-1.</li> +<li>Sayffert: Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, edited by Nettleship + and Sandys. 1895.</li> +<li>Schreiber: Atlas of Classical Antiquities. 1895.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Roman Political Development</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Fowler: City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 1895.</li> +<li>Taylor: Constitutional and Political History of Rome. 1899.</li> +<li>Greenidge: Roman Public Life. 1901.</li> +<li>Abbott: Roman Political Institutions. 1901.</li> +<li>Arnold: Roman Provincial Administration. 1879.</li> +<li>Mommsen: Provinces of the Roman Empire. 1887.</li> +<li>Seely: Roman Imperialism. 1871.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Social Life of the Romans</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans. 1889.</li> +<li>Church: Roman Life in the Days of Cicero. 1883.</li> +<li>Fowler: Roman Festivals. 1899.</li> +<li>Ingram: History of Slavery. 1895.</li> +<li>Rydberg: Roman Days. 1879.</li> +<li>Thomas: Roman Life under the Cæsars. 1899.</li> +<li>Johnston: Private Life of the Romans. 1903.</li> +<li>Inge: Society in Rome under the Cæsars. 1888.</li> +<li>Pellison: Roman Life in Pliny's Time. 1896.</li> +<li>Lecky: History of European Morals. 1869.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Roman Literature</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Mackail: Latin Literature. 1898.</li> +<li>Cruttwell: History of Roman Literature. 1878.</li> +<li>Simcox: History of Latin Literature. 1883.</li> +<li>Teuffel-Schwabe: History of Roman Literature. 1891.</li> +<li>Tyrrell: Latin Poetry. 1895.</li> +<li>Sellar: Roman Poets of the Republic. 1881.</li> +<li>Sellar: Roman Poets of the Augustan Age. 1877.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Roman Art</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Reber: History of Ancient Art. 1882.</li> +<li>Burn: Roman Literature in Relation to Roman Art. 1890.</li> +<li>Wickoff: Roman Art. 1900.</li> +<li>Falke: Greece and Rome: Their Life and Art. 1885.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></li> +<li>See under Greece for other histories of art.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Roman Law</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Hadley: Introduction to Roman Law. 1876.</li> +<li>Morey: Outlines of Roman Law. 1893.</li> +<li>Muirhead: Historical Introduction to the Private Law of Rome. 1899.</li> +<li>Howe: Studies in the Civil Law. 1896.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Roman Archæology</span>—</p> + +<ul> +<li>Lanciani: Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries. 1888.</li> +<li>Lanciani: Pagan and Christian Rome. 1896.</li> +<li>Lanciani: Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, 1897.</li> +<li>Lanciani: Destruction of Ancient Rome. 1899.</li> +<li>Mau: Pompeii, translated by Kelsey. 1899.</li> +<li>Plainer: Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome. 1904.</li> +<li>Lovell: Stories in Stone upon the Roman Forum. 1902.</li> +<li>Burton-Brown: Recent Excavations in the Roman Forum. 1905.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Christianity</span>—</p> + +<p>General Church Histories:</p> + +<ul> +<li>Moeller: History of the Christian Church. 1898-1900.</li> +<li> Gieseler: Church History. 1857-79.</li> +<li> Neander: History of the Christian Religion and Church. 1853-4.</li> +<li> Schaff: History of the Christian Church. 1884-92.</li> +<li> Alzog: Manual of Universal Church History. 1874-8.</li> +<li> Kurtz: Church History. 1860.</li> +<li> Milman: History of Christianity.</li> +<li> Milman: Latin Christianity. 1881.</li> +<li> Allen: Outline of Christian History. 1886.</li> +<li> Allen: Christian Institutions. 1897.</li> +<li> Fisher: History of the Christian Church. 1887.</li> +</ul> + +<p>The Early Church:</p> + +<ul> +<li>Pressensé: Early Years of Christianity. 1873.</li> +<li> Fisher: Beginnings of Christianity. 1877.</li> +<li> Carr: Church and the Roman Empire. 1902.</li> +<li> Spence: Early Christianity and Paganism. 1902.</li> +<li> Ramsay: Church in the Roman Empire before 170. 1893.</li> +<li> Gregg: Decian Persecution. 1898.</li> +<li> Healy: The Valerian Persecution. 1905.</li> +<li> Mason: Persecution of Diocletian. 1876.</li> +<li> Renan: Influence of the Institutions, Thought, and Culture of Rome + on Christianity. 1898.</li> +<li> Hardy: Studies in Roman History. 1906.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></li> +<li> Uhlhorn: Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism. 1879.</li> +<li> Newman: Arians of the Fourth Century. 1888.</li> +<li> Gwatkin: Arian Controversy 1889.</li> +<li> Cutts: St. Augustine. 1881.</li> +<li> Stanley: Eastern Church. 1884.</li> +<li> Smith-Wace: Dictionary of Christian Biography. 1877-87.</li> +</ul> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h4 class="sc">Copyright, 1906, by<br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h4> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h4>Printed by <span class="sc">Ballantyne & Co. Limited</span><br /> +Tavistock Street, London</h4> + +<hr /> +<br /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Ancient Civilization, by +Charles Seignobos + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION *** + +***** This file should be named 17720-h.htm or 17720-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/7/2/17720/ + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History Of Ancient Civilization + +Author: Charles Seignobos + +Release Date: February 9, 2006 [EBook #17720] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net. + + + + + + + * * * * * + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | | + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Bolded text is distinguished by ='s at start and finish. | + | Italicized text is distinguished by _'s at start and finish. | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +HISTORY OF + +ANCIENT CIVILIZATION + + +BY + +CHARLES SEIGNOBOS + +DOCTOR OF LETTERS OF THE UNIVERSITY +OF PARIS + + +LONDON +T. FISHER UNWIN +ADELPHI TERRACE +MCMVII + + + + +(_All rights reserved_) + + + + +EDITOR'S NOTE + + +In preparing this volume, the Editor has used both the three-volume +edition and the two-volume edition of the "Histoire de la +Civilisation." He has usually preferred the order of topics of the +two-volume edition, but has supplemented the material therein with +other matter drawn from the three-volume edition. + +A few corrections to the text have been given in foot-notes. These +notes are always clearly distinguished from the elucidations of the +author. + + A.H.W. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + +PREHISTORIC TIMES. Prehistoric archaeology--Prehistoric remains; their + antiquity--Prehistoric science--The four ages. + + THE ROUGH STONE AGE. Remains found in the gravels--The cave-men. + + THE POLISHED STONE AGE. Lake-villages--Megalithic monuments. + + THE BRONZE AGE. Bronze--Bronze objects. + + THE IRON AGE. Iron--Iron weapons--Epochs of the Iron Age. + + Conclusions: How the four ages are to be conceived; uncertainties; + solved questions. + + +CHAPTER II + +HISTORY AND THE DOCUMENTS. History--Legends--History in general--Great + divisions of history--Ancient history--Modern history--The Middle + Ages. + +SOURCES FOR THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS. + Books--Monuments--Inscriptions--Languages--Lacunae. + +RACES AND PEOPLES. Anthropology--The races--Civilized peoples--Aryans + and Semites. + + +CHAPTER III + +THE EGYPTIANS. Egypt--The country--The Nile--Fertility of the soil--The + accounts of Herodotus--Champollion--Egyptologists--Discoveries. + +THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE. Antiquity of the Egyptian people--Memphis and the + pyramids--Egyptian civilization--Thebes--The Pharaoh--The + subjects--Despotism--Isolation of the Egyptians. + +RELIGION OF THE EGYPTIANS. The gods--Osiris--Ammon-ra--Gods with animal + heads--Sacred animals--The bull Apis--Worship of the dead--Judgment + of the soul--Mummies--Book of the Dead--The arts--Industry-- + Architecture--Tombs--Temples--Sculpture--Painting--Literature-- + Destinies of the Egyptian civilization. + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS. Chaldea--The land--The people--The + cities. + +THE ASSYRIANS--Assyria--Origins--Ancient accounts--Modern discoveries-- + Inscriptions on bricks--Cuneiform writing--The Assyrian people--The + king--Fall of the Assyrian Empire. + +THE BABYLONIANS. The second Chaldean empire--Babylon--The Tower of + Babylon. + +CUSTOMS AND RELIGION. Customs--Religion--The gods--Astrology-- + Sorcery--The sciences. + +THE ARTS. Architecture--Palaces--Sculpture. + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ARYANS OF INDIA. The Aryans--Aryan languages--The Aryan people. + +PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS. The Aryans on the Indus--The + Vedas--The gods--Indra--Agni--The cult--Worship of ancestors. + +BRAHMANIC SOCIETY. The Hindoos on the Ganges--Castes--The Impure--The + Brahmans--The new religion of Brahma--Transmigration of souls-- + Character of this religion--The rites--Purity--Penances--The monks. + +BUDDHISM. Buddha--Nirvana--Charity--Fraternity--Tolerance--Later + history of Buddhism--Changes in Buddhism--Buddha transformed into a + god--Mechanical prayer--Amelioration of manners. + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PERSIANS. The religion of Zoroaster--Iran--The Iranians-- + Zoroaster--The Zend-Avesta--Ormuzd and Ahriman--Angels and demons-- + Creatures of Ormuzd and Ahriman--The cult--Morality--Funerals-- + Destiny of the soul--Character of Mazdeism. + +THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. The Medes--The Persians--Cyrus--The inscription of + Behistun--The Persian empire--The satrapies--Revenues of the + empire--The Great King--Services rendered by the Persians--Susa and + Persepolis--Persian architecture. + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE PHOENICIANS. The Phoenician people--The land--The cities--Phoenician + ruins--Organization of the Phoenician--Tyre--Carthage--Carthaginian + army--The Carthaginians--The Phoenician religion. + +PHOENICIAN COMMERCE. Occupations of the Phoenicians--Caravans--Marine + commerce--Commodities--Secret kept by the Phoenicians--Colonies-- + Influence of the Phoenicians--The alphabet. + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HEBREWS. Origin of the Hebrew people--The Bible--The Hebrews--The + patriarchs--The Israelites--The call of Moses--Israel in the + desert--The Promised Land. + +THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. One God--The people of God--The covenant--The + Ten Commandments--The Law--Religion constituted the Jewish people. + +THE EMPIRE OF ISRAEL. The Judges--The Hangs--Jerusalem--The + tabernacle--The temple. + +THE PROPHETS. Disasters of Israel--Sentiments of the Israelites--The + prophets--The new teaching--The Messiah. + +THE JEWISH PEOPLE. Return to Jerusalem--The Jews--The synagogues-- + Destruction of the temple--The Jews after the dispersion. + + +CHAPTER IX + +GREECE AND THE GREEKS. The country--The sea--The climate--Simplicity of + Greek life--The people--Origin of the Greeks--Legends--The Trojan + War--The Homeric Poems--The Greeks at the time of Homer--The + Dorians--The Ionians--The Hellenes--The cities. + +THE HELLENES BEYOND THE SEA. Colonization--Character of the colonies-- + Traditions touching the colonies--Importance of the Greek colonies. + + +CHAPTER X + +GREEK RELIGION. The + gods--Polytheism--Anthropomorphism--Mythology--Local gods--The + great gods--Attributes of the gods--Olympus and Zeus--Morality of + the Greek mythology. + +THE HEROES. Various sorts of heroes--Presence of the heroes-- + Intervention of the heroes. + +WORSHIP. Principle of the cult of the gods--The great Feasts--the sacred + games--Omens--Oracles--Amphictyonies. + + +CHAPTER XI + +SPARTA. The People--Laconia--The Helots--The Perioeci--Condition of the + Spartiates. + +EDUCATION. The children--The girls--The discipline--Laconism--Music-- + The dance--Heroism of the women. + +INSTITUTIONS. The kings and the council--The ephors--The army--The + hoplites--The phalanx--Gymnastics--Athletes--Role of the Spartiates. + + +CHAPTER XII + +ATHENS. Origins of the Athenian people--Attica--Athens--The revolutions + in Athens--Reforms of Cleisthenes. + +THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE. The slaves--The foreigners--The citizens. + +THE GOVERNMENT. The assembly--The courts--The magistrates--Character of + the government--The demagogues. + +PRIVATE LIFE. Children--Marriage--Women. + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WARS. The Persian wars--Origin of these wars--Comparison of the two + adversaries--First Persian war--Second Persian war--Reasons for the + victory of the Greeks--Results of the wars. + +WARS OF THE GREEKS AMONG THEMSELVES. The Peloponnesian war--War with + Sparta--Savage character of the wars--Effects of these wars. + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ARTS IN GREECE. Athens in the time of Pericles--Pericles--Athens + and her monuments--Importance of Athens. + +LETTERS. Orators--Sages--Sophists--Socrates and the philosophers--The + chorus--Tragedy and comedy--Theatre. + +ARTS. The Grecian temples--Characteristics of Grecian + architecture--Sculpture--Pottery--Painting. + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT. Asia before Alexander--Decadence of the + Persian empire--Expedition of the Ten Thousand--Agesilaus. + +CONQUEST OF ASIA BY ALEXANDER. Macedon--Philip--Demosthenes--The + Macedonian supremacy--Alexander--The phalanx--Departure of + Alexander--Victories of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela--Death of + Alexander--Projects of Alexander. + +THE HELLENES IN THE ORIENT. Dismemberment of the empire of Alexander-- + The Hellenistic kingdoms--Alexandria--Museum--Pergamum. + + +CHAPTER XVI + +LATER PERIOD OF GREEK HISTORY. Decadence of the cities--Rich and + poor--Strife between rich and poor--Democracy and oligarchy--The + tyrants--Exhaustion of Greece. + +THE ROMAN CONQUEST. The leagues--The allies of the Romans--The last + struggles. + +THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT. Influence of Greece on Rome-- + Architecture--Sculpture--Literature--Epicureans and Stoics. + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ANCIENT PEOPLES OF ITALY. The Etruscans--Etruria--The Etruscan people-- + The Etruscan tombs--Industry and commerce--Religion--The augurs-- + Influence of the Etruscans. + +THE ITALIAN PEOPLE. Umbrians and Oscans--The Sacred Spring--The + Samnites--The Greeks of Italy. + +LATINS AND ROMANS. The Latins--Rome--Roma Quadrata and the Capitol. + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +RELIGION AND THE FAMILY. Religion--The Roman gods--Form of the + gods--Principle of the Roman religion--Worship--Formalism-- + Prayer--Omens--The priests. + +WORSHIP OF ANCESTORS. The dead--Worship of the dead--Cult of the hearth. + +THE FAMILY. Religion of the family--Marriage--Women--Children--Father of + the family. + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROMAN CITY. Formation of the Roman people--The kings--The Roman + people--The plebeians--Strife between patricians and plebeians-- + The tribunes of the plebs--Triumph of the plebs. + +THE ROMAN PEOPLE. Right of citizenship--The nobles--The knights--The + plebs--Freedmen. + +THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. The comitia--Magistrates--Censors-- + Senate--The course of offices. + + +CHAPTER XX + +ROMAN CONQUEST. The Roman army--Military service--The levy--Legions and + allies--Military exercises--Camp--Order of battle--Discipline-- + Colonies &ad military roads. + +CHARACTER OF THE CONQUESTS. War--Conquest of Italy--Punic + wars--Hannibal--Conquest of the Orient--Conquest of barbarian + lands--The triumph--Booty--Allies of Rome--Motives of conquest. + +RESULTS OF THE CONQUESTS. Empire of the Roman people--The public + domain--Agrarian laws. + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CONQUERED PEOPLES. The provincials--Provinces--The proconsuls-- + Tyranny and oppression of the proconsuls--The publicans--Bankers-- + Defencelessness of the provincials. + +SLAVERY. Sale of slaves--Condition of slaves--Number of slaves--Urban + slaves--Rural slaves--Treatment of slaves--Ergastulum and mill-- + Character of the slaves--Revolts--Admission to citizenship. + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE IN ROME. Influence of Greece and the Orient. + +CHANGES IN RELIGION. Greek gods--The Bacchanals--Superstitions of the + Orient--Sceptics. + +CHANGES IN MANNERS. The old customs--Cato the Elder--The new manners-- + Oriental luxury--Greek humanity--Lucullus--The new education--New + status of women--Divorce. + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +FALL OF THE REPUBLIC. Causes of the decadence--Destruction of the + peasant class--The city plebs--Electoral corruption--Corruption of + the Senate--Corruption of the army. + +THE REVOLUTION. Necessity of the revolution--Civil wars--The Gracchi-- + Marius and Sulla--Pompey and Caesar--End of the Republic--Need of + peace--Power of the individual. + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT. The twelve Caesars--The emperor--Apotheosis-- + Senate and people--The praetorians--Freedmen of the emperors-- + Despotism and disorder. + +THE CENTURY OF THE ANTONINES. Marcus Aurelius--Conquests of the + Antonines. + +IMPERIAL INSTITUTIONS. Extent of the empire in the second century-- + Permanent army--Deputies and agents of the emperor--Municipal + life--Imperial regime. + +SOCIAL LIFE UNDER THE EMPIRE. The continued decadence at Rome--The + shows--Theatre--Circus--Amphitheatre--Gladiators--The Roman + peace--Fusion of the peoples--Superstitions. + + +CHAPTER XXV + +ARTS AND SCIENCES IN ROME. Letters--Imitation of the Greeks--The + Augustan Age--Orators and rhetoricians--Importance of the Latin + literature and language--Arts--Sculpture and painting-- + Architecture--Characteristics of Roman architecture--Rome and its + monuments. + +ROMAN LAW. The Twelve Tables--Symbolic process--Formalism-- + Jurisprudence--The praetor's edict--Civil law and the law of + nations--Written reason. + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Origin of Christianity--Christ--Charity-- + Equality--Poverty and humility--The kingdom of God. + +FIRST CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH. Disciples and apostles--The church-- + Sacred books--Persecutions--Martyrs--Catacombs. + +THE MONKS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. Solitaries--Asceticism--Cenobites. + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE LATER EMPIRE. The revolutions of the third century--Military + anarchy--Worship of Mithra--Taurobolia--Confusion of religions. + +REGIME OF THE LATER EMPIRE. Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine-- + Constantinople--The palace--The officials--Society of the later + empire. + +CHURCH AND STATE. Triumph of Christianity--Organization of the + church--Councils--Heretics--Paganism--Theodosius. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE ORIGINS OF CIVILIZATION + +PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY + + +=Prehistoric Remains.=--One often finds buried in the earth, weapons, +implements, human skeletons, debris of every kind left by men of whom +we have no direct knowledge. These are dug up by the thousand in all +the provinces of France, in Switzerland, in England, in all Europe; +they are found even in Asia and Africa. It is probable that they exist +in all parts of the world. + +These remains are called prehistoric because they are more ancient +than written history. For about fifty years men have been engaged in +recovering and studying them. Today most museums have a hall, or at +least, some cases filled with these relics. A museum at +Saint-German-en-Laye, near Paris, is entirely given up to prehistoric +remains. In Denmark is a collection of more than 30,000 objects. Every +day adds to the discoveries as excavations are made, houses built, and +cuts made for railroads. + +These objects are not found on the surface of the ground, but +ordinarily buried deeply where the earth has not been disturbed. They +are recovered from a stratum of gravel or clay which has been +deposited gradually and has fixed them in place safe from the air, a +sure proof that they have been there for a long time. + +=Prehistoric Science.=--Scholars have examined the debris and have +asked themselves what men have left them. From their skeletons, they +have tried to construct their physical appearance; from their tools, +the kind of life they led. They have determined that these instruments +resemble those used by certain savages today. The study of all these +objects constitutes a new science, Prehistoric Archaeology.[1] + +=The Four Ages.=--Prehistoric remains come down to us from very +diverse races of men; they have been deposited in the soil at widely +different epochs since the time when the mammoth lived in western +Europe, a sort of gigantic elephant with woolly hide and curved tusks. +This long lapse of time may be divided into four periods, called Ages: + + 1. The Rough Stone Age. + + 2. The Polished Stone Age. + + 3. The Bronze Age. + + 4. The Iron Age. + +The periods take their names from the materials used in the +manufacture of the tools,--stone, bronze, iron. These epochs, however, +are of very unequal length. It may be that the Rough Stone Age was ten +times as long as the Age of Iron. + + +THE ROUGH STONE AGE + +=Gravel Debris.=--The oldest remains of the Stone Age have been found +in the gravels. A French scholar found between 1841 and 1853, in the +valley of the Somme, certain sharp instruments made of flint. They +were buried to a depth of six metres in gravel under three layers of +clay, gravel, and marl which had never been broken up. In the same +place they discovered bones of cattle, deer, and elephants. For a long +time people made light of this discovery. They said that the chipping +of the flints was due to chance. At last, in 1860, several scholars +came to study the remains in the valley of the Somme and recognized +that the flints had certainly been cut by men. Since then there have +been found more than 5,000 similar flints in strata of the same order +either in the valley of the Seine or in England, and some of them by +the side of human bones. There is no longer any doubt that men were +living at the epoch when the gravel strata were in process of +formation. If the strata that cover these remains have always been +deposited as slowly as they are today, these men whose bones and tools +we unearth must have lived more than 200,000 years ago. + +=The Cave Men.=--Remains are also found in caverns cut in rock, often +above a river. The most noted are those on the banks of the Vezere, +but they exist in many other places. Sometimes they have been used as +habitations and even as graves for men. Skeletons, weapons, and tools +are found here together. There are axes, knives, scrapers, +lance-points of flint; arrows, harpoon-points, needles of bone like +those used by certain savages to this day. The soil is strewn with the +bones of animals which these men, untidy like all savages, threw into +a corner after they had eaten the meat; they even split the bones to +extract the marrow just as savages do now. Among the animals are found +not only the hare, the deer, the ox, the horse, the salmon, but also +the rhinoceros, the cave-bear, the mammoth, the elk, the bison, the +reindeer, which are all extinct or have long disappeared from France. +Some designs have been discovered engraved on the bone of a reindeer +or on the tusk of a mammoth. One of these represents a combat of +reindeer; another a mammoth with woolly hide and curved tusks. +Doubtless these men were the contemporaries of the mammoth and the +reindeer. They were, like the Esquimaux of our day, a race of hunters +and fishermen, knowing how to work in flint and to kindle fires. + + +POLISHED STONE AGE + +=Lake Dwellings.=--In 1854, Lake Zurich being very low on account of +the unusual dryness of the summer, dwellers on the shore of the lake +found, in the mud, wooden piles which had been much eaten away, also +some rude utensils. These were the remains of an ancient village built +over the water. Since this time more than 200 similar villages have +been found in the lakes of Switzerland. They have been called Lake +Villages. The piles on which they rest are trunks of trees, pointed +and driven into the lake-bottom to a depth of several yards. Every +village required 30,000 to 40,000 of these. + +A wooden platform was supported by the pile work and on this were +built wooden houses covered with turf. Objects found by the hundred +among the piles reveal the character of the life of the former +inhabitants. They ate animals killed in the chase--the deer, the boar, +and the elk. But they were already acquainted with such domestic +animals as the ox, the goat, the sheep, and the dog. They knew how to +till the ground, to reap, and to grind their grain; for in the ruins +of their villages are to be found grains of wheat and even fragments +of bread, or rather unleavend cakes. They wore coarse cloths of hemp +and sewed them into garments with needles of bone. They made pottery +but were very awkward in its manufacture. Their vases were poorly +burned, turned by hand, and adorned with but few lines. Like the +cave-men, they used knives and arrows of flint; but they made their +axes of a very hard stone which they had learned to polish. This is +why we call their epoch the Polished Stone Age. They are much later +than the cave-men, for they know neither the mammoth nor the +rhinoceros, but still are acquainted with the elk and the reindeer.[2] + +=Megalithic Monuments.=--Megalith is the name given to a monument +formed of enormous blocks of rough stone. Sometimes the rock is bare, +sometimes covered with a mass of earth. The buried monument is called +a _Tumulus_ on account of its resemblance to a hill. When it is +opened, one finds within a chamber of rock, sometimes paved with +flag-stones. The monuments whose stone is above ground are of various +sorts. The _Dolmen_, or table of rock, is formed of a long stone laid +flat over other stones set in the ground. The _Cromlech_, or +stone-circle, consists of massive rocks arranged in a circle. The +_Menhir_ is a block of stone standing on its end. Frequently several +menhirs are ranged in line. At Carnac in Brittany four thousand +menhirs in eleven rows are still standing. Probably there were once +ten thousand of these in this locality. Megalithic monuments appear by +hundreds in western France, especially in Brittany; almost every hill +in England has them; the Orkney Islands alone contain more than two +thousand. Denmark and North Germany are studded with them; the people +of the country call the tumuli the tombs of the giants. + +Megalithic monuments are encountered outside of Europe--in India, and +on the African coast. No one knows what people possessed the power to +quarry such masses and then transport and erect them. For a long time +it was believed that the people were the ancient Gauls, or Celts, +whence the name Celtic Monuments. But why are like remains found in +Africa and in India? + +When one of these tumuli still intact is opened, one always sees a +skeleton, often several, either sitting or reclining; these monuments, +therefore, were used as tombs. Arms, vases, and ornaments are placed +at the side of the dead. In the oldest of these tombs the weapons are +axes of polished stone; the ornaments are shells, pearls, necklaces of +bone or ivory; the vases are very simple, without handle or neck, +decorated only with lines or with points. Calcined bones of animals +lie about on the ground, the relics of a funeral repast laid in the +tomb by the friends of the dead. Amidst these bones we no longer find +those of the reindeer, a fact which proves that these monuments were +constructed after the disappearance of this animal from western +Europe, and therefore at a time subsequent to that of the lake +villages. + + +THE AGE OF BRONZE + +=Bronze Age.=--As soon as men learned to smelt metals, they preferred +these to stone in the manufacture of weapons. The metal first to be +used was copper, easier to extract because found free, and easier to +manipulate since it is malleable without the application of heat. Pure +copper, however, was not employed, as weapons made of it were too +fragile; but a little tin was mixed with it to give it more +resistance. It is this alloy of copper and tin that we call bronze. + +=Bronze Utensils.=--Bronze was used in the manufacture of ordinary +tools--knives, hammers, saws, needles, fish-hooks; in the fabrication +of ornaments--bracelets, brooches, ear-rings; and especially in the +making of arms--daggers, lance-points, axes, and swords. These objects +are found by thousands throughout Europe in the mounds, under the more +recent dolmens, in the turf-pits of Denmark, and in rock-tombs. Near +these objects of bronze, ornaments of gold are often seen and, now and +then, the remains of a woollen garment. It cannot be due to chance +that all implements of bronze are similar and all are made according +to the same alloy. Doubtless they revert to the same period of time +and are anterior to the coming of the Romans into Gaul, for they are +never discovered in the midst of debris of the Roman period. But what +men used them? What people invented bronze? Nobody knows. + + +THE IRON AGE + +=Iron.=--As iron was harder to smelt and work than bronze, it was +later that men learned how to use it. As soon as it was appreciated +that iron was harder and cut better than bronze, men preferred it in +the manufacture of arms. In Homer's time iron is still a precious +metal reserved for swords, bronze being retained for other purposes. +It is for this reason that many tombs contain confused remains of +utensils of bronze and weapons of iron. + +=Iron Weapons.=--These arms are axes, swords, daggers, and bucklers. +They are ordinarily found by the side of a skeleton in a coffin of +stone or wood, for warriors had their arms buried with them. But they +are found also scattered on ancient battle-fields or lost at the +bottom of a marsh which later became a turf-pit. There were found in a +turf-pit in Schleswig in one day 100 swords, 500 lances, 30 axes, 460 +daggers, 80 knives, 40 stilettos--and all of iron. Not far from there +in the bed of an ancient lake was discovered a great boat 66 feet +long, fully equipped with axes, swords, lances, and knives. + +It is impossible to enumerate the iron implements thus found. They +have not been so well preserved as the bronze, as iron is rapidly +eaten away by rust. At the first glance, therefore, they appear the +older, but in reality are more recent. + +=Epoch of the Iron Age.=--The inhabitants of northern Europe knew iron +before the coming of the Romans, the first century before Christ. In +an old cemetery near the salt mines of Hallstadt in Austria they have +opened 980 tombs filled with instruments of iron and bronze without +finding a single piece of Roman money. But the Iron Age continued +under the Romans. Almost always iron objects are found accompanied by +ornaments of gold and silver, by Roman pottery, funeral urns, +inscriptions, and Roman coins bearing the effigy of the emperor. The +warriors whom we find lying near their sword and their buckler lived +for the most part in a period quite close to ours, many under the +Merovingians, some even at the time of Charlemagne. The Iron Age is no +longer a prehistoric age. + + +CONCLUSIONS + +=How the Four Ages are to be Conceived.=--The inhabitants of one and +the same country have successively made use of rough stone, polished +stone, bronze, and iron. But all countries have not lived in the same +age at the same time. Iron was employed by the Egyptians while yet the +Greeks were in their bronze age and the barbarians of Denmark were +using stone. The conclusion of the polished stone age in America came +only with the arrival of Europeans. In our own time the savages of +Australia are still in the rough stone age. In their settlements may +be found only implements of bone and stone similar to those used by +the cave-men. The four ages, therefore, do not mark periods in the +life of humanity, but only epochs in the civilization of each country. + +=Uncertainties.=--Prehistoric archaeology is yet a very young science. +We have learned something of primitive men through certain remains +preserved and discovered by chance. A recent accident, a trench, a +landslip, a drought may effect a new discovery any day. Who knows what +is still under ground? The finds are already innumerable. But these +rarely tell us what we wish to know. How long was each of the four +ages? When did each begin and end in the various parts of the world? +Who planned the caverns, the lake villages, the mounds, the dolmens? +When a country passes from polished stone to bronze, is it the same +people changing implements, or is it a new people come on the scene? +When one thinks one has found the solution, a new discovery often +confounds the archaeologists. It was thought that the Celts originated +the dolmens, but these have been found in sections which could never +have been traversed by Celts. + +=What has been determined.=--Three conclusions, however, seem certain: + + 1.--Man has lived long on the earth, familiar as he was with the + mammoth and the cave-bear; he lived at least as early as the + geological period known as the Quaternary. + + 2.--Man has emerged from the savage state to civilized life; he + has gradually perfected his tools and his ornaments from the + awkward axe of flint and the necklace of bears' teeth to iron + swords and jewels of gold. The roughest instruments are the + oldest. + + 3.--Man has made more and more rapid progress. Each age has been + shorter than its predecessor. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It originated especially with French, Swiss, and scholars. + +[2] According to Lubbock (Prehistoric Times, N.Y., 1890, p. 212) the +reindeer was not known to the Second Stone Age.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HISTORY AND THE RECORDS + +HISTORY + + +=Legends.=--The most ancient records of people and their doings are +transmitted by oral tradition. They are recited long before they are +written down and are much mixed with fable. The Greeks told how their +heroes of the oldest times had exterminated monsters, fought with +giants, and battled against the gods. The Romans had Romulus nourished +by a wolf and raised to heaven. Almost all peoples relate such stories +of their infancy. But no confidence is to be placed in these legends. + +=History.=--History has its true beginning only with authentic +accounts, that is to say, accounts written by men who were well +informed. This moment is not the same with all peoples. The history of +Egypt commences more than 3,000 years before Christ; that of the +Greeks ascends scarcely to 800 years before Christ; Germany has had a +history only since the first century of our era; Russia dates back +only to the ninth century; certain savage tribes even yet have no +history. + +=Great Divisions of History.=--The history of civilization begins with +the oldest civilized people and continues to the present time. +Antiquity is the most remote period, Modern Times the era in which we +live. + +=Ancient History.=--Ancient History begins with the oldest known +nations, the Egyptians and Chaldeans (about 3,000 years before our +era), and surveys the peoples of the Orient, the Hindoos, Persians, +Phoenicians, Jews, Greeks, and last of all the Romans. It terminates +about the fifth century A.D., when the Roman empire of the west is +extinguished. + +=Modern History.=--Modern History starts with the end of the fifteenth +century, with the invention of printing, the discovery of America and +of the Indies, the Renaissance of the sciences and arts. It concerns +itself especially with peoples of the West, of Spain, Italy, France, +Germany, Russia, and America. + +=The Middle Age.=--Between Antiquity and Modern Times about ten +centuries elapse which belong neither to ancient times (for the +civilization of Antiquity has perished) nor to modern (since modern +civilization does not yet exist). This period we call the Middle Age. + + +SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PEOPLES + +=The Sources.=--The Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans are no longer with +us; all the peoples of antiquity have passed away. To know their +religion, their customs, and arts we have to seek for instruction in +the remains they have left us. These are books, monuments, +inscriptions, and languages, and these are our means for the study of +ancient civilizations. We term these _sources_ because we draw our +knowledge from them. Ancient History flows from these sources. + +=Books.=--Ancient peoples have left written records behind them. Some +of these peoples had sacred books--for example, the Hindoos, the +Persians, and the Jews; the Greeks and Romans have handed down to us +histories, poems, speeches, philosophical treatises. But books are +very far from furnishing all the information that we require. We do +not possess a single Assyrian or Phoenician book. Other peoples have +transmitted very few books to us. The ancients wrote less than we, and +so they had a smaller literature to leave behind them; and as it was +necessary to transcribe all of this by hand, there was but a small +number of copies of books. Further, most of these manuscripts have +been destroyed or have been lost, and those which remain to us are +difficult to read. The art of deciphering them is called Palaeography. + +=The Monuments.=--Ancient peoples, like ourselves, built monuments of +different sorts: palaces for their kings, tombs for the dead, +fortresses, bridges, aqueducts, triumphal arches. Of these monuments +many have fallen into ruin, have been razed, shattered by the enemy or +by the people themselves. But some of them survive, either because +there was no desire to destroy them, or because men could not. They +still stand in ruins like the old castles, for repairs are no longer +made; but enough is preserved to enable us to comprehend their former +condition. Some of them are still above ground, like the pyramids, the +temples of Thebes and of the island of Philae, the palace of Persepolis +in Persia, the Parthenon in Greece, the Colosseum in Rome, and the +Maison Carree and Pont du Gard in France. Like any modern monument, +these are visible to the traveller. But the majority of these +monuments have been recovered from the earth, from sand, from river +deposits, and from debris. One must disengage them from this thick +covering, and excavate the soil, often to a great depth. Assyrian +palaces may be reached only by cutting into the hills. A trench of +forty feet is necessary to penetrate to the tombs of the kings of +Mycenae. Time is not the only agency for covering these ruins; men have +aided it. When the ancients wished to build, they did not, as we do, +take the trouble to level off the space, nor to clear the site. +Instead of removing the debris, they heaped it together and built +above it. The new edifice in turn fell into ruins and its debris was +added to that of more remote time; thus there were formed several +strata of remains. When Schliemann excavated the site of Troy, he had +passed through five beds of debris; these were five ruined villages +one above another, the oldest at a depth of fifty feet. + +By accident one town has been preserved to us in its entirety. In 79 +A.D. the volcano of Vesuvius belched forth a torrent of liquid lava +and a rain of ashes, and two Roman cities were suddenly buried, +Herculaneum by lava, and Pompeii by ashes; the lava burnt the objects +it touched, while the ashes enveloped them, preserving them from the +air and keeping them intact. As we remove the ashes, Pompeii reappears +to us just as it was eighteen centuries ago. One still sees the +wheel-ruts in the pavement, the designs traced on the walls with +charcoal; in the houses, the pictures, the utensils, the furniture, +even the bread, the nuts, and olives, and here and there the skeleton +of an inhabitant surprised by the catastrophe. Monuments teach us +much about the ancient peoples. The science of monuments is called +Archaeology. + +=Inscriptions.=--By inscriptions one means all writings other than +books. Inscriptions are for the most part cut in stone, but some are +on plates of bronze. At Pompeii they have been found traced on the +walls in colors or with charcoal. Some have the character of +commemorative inscriptions just as these are now attached to our +statues and edifices; thus in the monument of Ancyra the emperor +Augustus publishes the story of his life. + +The greatest number of inscriptions are epitaphs graven on tombs. +Certain others fill the function of our placards, containing, as they +do, a law or a regulation that was to be made public. The science of +inscriptions is called Epigraphy. + +=Languages.=--The languages also which ancient peoples spoke throw +light on their history. Comparing the words of two different +languages, we perceive that the two have a common origin--an evidence +that the peoples who spoke them were descended from the same stock. +The science of languages is called Linguistics. + +=Lacunae.=--It is not to be supposed that books, monuments, +inscriptions, and languages are sufficient to give complete knowledge +of the history of antiquity. They present many details which we could +well afford to lose, but often what we care most to know escapes us. +Scholars continue to dig and to decipher; each year new discoveries of +inscriptions and monuments are made; but there remain still many gaps +in our knowledge and probably some of these will always exist. + + +RACES AND PEOPLES + +=Anthropology.=--The men who people the earth do not possess exact +resemblances, some differing from others in stature, the form of the +limbs and the head, the features of the face, the color of the hair and +eyes. Other differences are found in language, intelligence, and +sentiments. These variations permit us to separate the inhabitants of +the earth into several groups which we call races. A _race_ is the +aggregate of those men who resemble one another and are distinguished from +all others. The common traits of a race--its characteristics--constitute +the type of the race. For example, the type of the negro race is marked +by black skin, frizzly hair, white teeth, flat nose, projecting lips, and +prominent jaw. That part of Anthropology which concerns itself with races +and their sub-divisions is called Ethnology.[3] This science is yet in +its early development on account of its complete novelty, and is very +complex since types of men are very numerous and often very difficult to +differentiate. + +=The Races.=--The principal races are: + + 1.--The White race, which inhabits Europe, the north of Africa, + and western Asia. + + 2.--The Yellow race in eastern Asia to which belong the Chinese, + the Mongols, Turks, and Hungarians, who invaded Europe as + conquerors. They have yellow skin, small regular eyes, prominent + cheek-bones, and thin beard. + + 3.--The Black race, in central Africa. These are the Negroes, of + black skin, flat nose, woolly hair. + + 4.--The Red race, in America. These are the Indians, with + copper-colored skin and flat heads. + +=Civilized Peoples.=--Almost all civilized peoples belong to the white +race. The peoples of the other races have remained savage or +barbarian, like the men of prehistoric times.[4] + +It is within the limits of Asia and Africa that the first civilized +peoples had their development--the Egyptians in the Nile valley, the +Chaldeans in the plain of the Euphrates. They were peoples of +sedentary and peaceful pursuits. Their skin was dark, the hair short +and thick, the lips strong. Nobody knows their origin with exactness +and scholars are not agreed on the name to give them (some terming +them Cushites, others Hamites). Later, between the twentieth and +twenty-fifth centuries B.C. came bands of martial shepherds who had +spread over all Europe and the west of Asia--the Aryans and the +Semites. + +=The Aryans and the Semites.=--There is no clearly marked external +difference between the Aryans and the Semites. Both are of the white +race, having the oval face, regular features, clear skin, abundant +hair, large eyes, thin lips, and straight nose. Both peoples were +originally nomad shepherds, fond of war. We do not know whence they +came, nor is there agreement whether the Aryans came from the mountain +region in the northwest of the Himalayas or from the plains of +Russia. What distinguishes them is their spiritual bent and especially +their language, sometimes also their religion. Scholars by common +consent call those peoples Aryan who speak an Aryan language: in Asia, +the Hindoos and Persians; in Europe, the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, +Germans, Scandinavians, Slavs (Russians, Poles, Serfs), and Celts.[5] + +Similarly, we call Semites those peoples who speak a Semitic language: +Arabs, Jews and Syrians. But a people may speak an Aryan or a Semitic +language and yet not be of Aryan or Semitic race; a negro may speak +English without being of English stock. Many of the Europeans whom we +classify among the Aryans are perhaps the descendants of an ancient +race conquered by the Aryans and who have adopted their language, just +as the Egyptians received the language of the Arabs, their conquerors. + +These two names (Aryan and Semite), then, signify today rather two +groups of peoples than two distinct races. But even if we use the +terms in this sense, one may say that all the greater peoples of the +world have been Semites or Aryans. The Semitic family included the +Phoenicians, the people of commerce; the Jews, the people of religion; +the Arabs, the people of war. The Aryans, some finding their homes in +India, others in Europe, have produced the nations which have been, +and still are, foremost in the world--in antiquity, the Hindoos, a +people of great philosophical and religious ideas; the Greeks, +creators of art and of science; the Persians and Romans, the +founders, the former in the East, the latter in the West, of the +greatest empires of antiquity; in modern times, the Italians, French, +Germans, Dutch, Russians, English and Americans. + +The history of civilization begins with the Egyptians and the +Chaldeans; but from the fifteenth century before our era, history +concerns itself only with the Aryan and Semitic peoples. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Ethnography is the study of races from the point of view of their +objects and customs. + +[4] The Chinese only of the yellow race have elaborated among themselves +an industry, a regular government, a polite society. But placed at the +extremity of Asia they have had no influence on other civilized peoples. +[The Japanese should be included.--ED.] + +[5] The English and French are mixtures of Celtic and German blood. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EAST + +THE EGYPTIANS + + +=The Land of Egypt.=--Egypt is only the valley of the Nile, a narrow +strip of fertile soil stretching along both banks of the stream and +shut in by mountains on either side, somewhat over 700[6] miles in +length and 15 in width. Where the hills fall away, the Delta begins, a +vast plain cut by the arms of the Nile and by canals. As Herodotus +says, Egypt is wholly the gift of the Nile. + +=The Nile.=--Every year at the summer solstice the Nile, swollen by +the melted snows of Abyssinia, overflows the parched soil of Egypt. It +rises to a height of twenty-six or twenty-seven feet, sometimes even +to thirty-three feet.[7] The whole country becomes a lake from which +the villages, built on eminences, emerge like little islands. The +water recedes in September; by December it has returned to its proper +channel. Everywhere has been left a fertile, alluvial bed which serves +the purpose of fertilization. On the softened earth the peasant sows +his crop with almost no labor. The Nile, then, brings both water and +soil to Egypt; if the river should fail, Egypt would revert, like the +land on either side of it, to a desert of sterile sand where the rain +never falls. The Egyptians are conscious of their debt to their +stream. A song in its honor runs as follows: "Greeting to thee, O +Nile, who hast revealed thyself throughout the land, who comest in +peace to give life to Egypt. Does it rise? The land is filled with +joy, every heart exults, every being receives its food, every mouth is +full. It brings bounties that are full of delight, it creates all good +things, it makes the grass to spring up for the beasts." + +=Fertility of the Country.=--Egypt is truly an oasis in the midst of +the desert of Africa. It produces in abundance wheat, beans, lentils, +and all leguminous foods; palms rear themselves in forests. On the +pastures irrigated by the Nile graze herds of cattle and goats, and +flocks of geese. With a territory hardly equal to that of Belgium, +Egypt still supports 5,500,000 inhabitants. No country in Europe is so +thickly populated, and Egypt in antiquity was more densely thronged +than it is today. + +=The Accounts of Herodotus.=--Egypt was better known to the Greeks +than the rest of the Orient. Herodotus had visited it in the fifth +century B.C. He describes in his History the inundations of the Nile, +the manners, costume, and religion of the people; he recounts events +of their history and tales which his guides had told him. Diodorus and +Strabo also speak of Egypt. But all had seen the country in its +decadence and had no knowledge of the ancient Egyptians. + +=Champollion.=--The French expedition to Egypt (1798-1801) opened the +country to scholars. They made a close examination of the Pyramids +and ruins of Thebes, and collected drawings and inscriptions. But no +one could decipher the hieroglyphs, the Egyptian writing. It was an +erroneous impression that every sign in this writing must each +represent a word. In 1821 a French scholar, Champollion, experimented +with another system. An official had reported that there was an +inscription at Rosetta in three forms of writing--parallel with the +hieroglyphs was a translation in Greek. The name of King Ptolemy, was +surrounded with a cartouche.[8] Champollion succeeded in finding in +this name the letters P, T, O, L, M, I, S. Comparing these with other +names of kings similarly enclosed, he found the whole alphabet. He +then read the hieroglyphs and found that they were written in a +language like the Coptic, the language spoken in Egypt at the time of +the Romans, and which was already known to scholars. + +=Egyptologists.=--Since Champollion, many scholars have travelled over +Egypt and have ransacked it thoroughly. We call these students +Egyptologists, and they are to be found in every country of Europe. A +French Egyptologist, Mariette (1821-1881), made some excavations for +the Viceroy of Egypt and created the museum of Boulak. France has +established in Cairo a school of Egyptology, directed by Maspero. + +=Discoveries.=--Not every country yields such rich discoveries as does +Egypt. The Egyptians constructed their tombs like houses, and laid in +them objects of every kind for the use of the dead--furniture, +garments, arms, and edibles. The whole country was filled with tombs +similarly furnished. Under this extraordinarily dry climate everything +has been preserved; objects come to light intact after a burial of +4,000 or 5,000 years. No people of antiquity have left so many traces +of themselves as the Egyptians; none is better known to us. + + +THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE + +=Antiquity of the Egyptian People.=--An Egyptian priest said to +Herodotus, "You Greeks are only children." The Egyptians considered +themselves the oldest people of the world. Down to the Persian +conquest (520[9] B.C.) there were twenty-six dynasties of kings. The +first ran back 4,000 years,[10] and during these forty centuries Egypt +had been an empire. The capital down to the tenth dynasty (the period +of the Old Empire) was at Memphis in Lower Egypt, later, in the New +Empire, at Thebes in Upper Egypt. + +=Memphis and the Pyramids.=--Memphis, built by the first king of +Egypt, was protected by an enormous dike. The village has existed for +more than five thousand years; but since the thirteenth century the +inhabitants have taken the stones of its ruins to build the houses of +Cairo; what these people left the Nile recaptured. The Pyramids, not +far from Memphis, are contemporaneous with the old empire; they are +the tombs of three kings of the fourth dynasty. The greatest of the +pyramids, 480 feet high, required the labor of 100,000 men for thirty +years.[11] To raise the stones for it they built gradually ascending +platforms which were removed when the structure was completed. + +=Egyptian Civilization.=--The statues, paintings, and instruments +which are taken from the tombs of this epoch give evidence of an +already civilized people. When all the other eminent nations of +antiquity--the Hindoos, Persians, Jews, Greeks, Romans--were still in +a savage state, 3,500 years before our era, the Egyptians had known +for a long time how to cultivate the soil, to weave cloths, to work +metals, to paint, sculpture, and to write; they had an organized +religion, a king, and an administration. + +=Thebes.=--At the eleventh dynasty Thebes succeeds Memphis as capital. +The ruins of Thebes are still standing. They are marvellous, extending +as they do on both banks of the Nile, with a circuit of about seven +miles. On the left bank there is a series of palaces and temples which +lead to vast cemeteries. On the right bank two villages, Luxor and +Karnak, distant a half-hour one from the other, are built in the midst +of the ruins. They are united by a double row of sphinxes, which must +have once included more than 1,000 of these monuments. Among these +temples in ruins the greatest was the temple of Ammon at Karnak. It +was surrounded by a wall of over one and one-third miles in length; +the famous Hall of Columns, the greatest in the world, had a length +of 334 feet, a width of 174 feet,[12] and was supported by 134 +columns; twelve of these are over 65 feet high. Thebes was for 1,500 +years the capital and sacred city, the residence of kings and the +dwelling-place of the priests. + +=The Pharaoh.=--The king of Egypt, called Pharaoh, was esteemed as the +son of the Sun-god and his incarnation on earth; divinity was ascribed +to him also. We may see in a picture King Rameses II standing in +adoration before the divine Rameses who is sitting between two gods. +The king as man adores himself as god. Being god, the Pharaoh has +absolute power over men; as master, he gives his orders to his great +nobles at court, to his warriors, to all his subjects. But the +priests, though adoring him, surround and watch him; their head, the +high priest of the god Ammon, at last becomes more powerful than the +king; he often governs under the name of the king and in his stead. + +=The Subjects of Pharaoh.=--The king, the priests, the warriors, the +nobles, are proprietors of all Egypt; all the other people are simply +their peasants who cultivate the land for them. Scribes in the service +of the king watch them and collect the farm-dues, often with blows of +the staff. One of these functionaries writes as follows to a friend, +"Have you ever pictured to yourself the existence of the peasant who +tills the soil. The tax-collector is on the platform busily seizing +the tithe of the harvest. He has his men with him armed with staves, +his negroes provided with strips of palm. All cry, 'Come, give us +grain,' If the peasant hasn't it, they throw him full length on the +earth, bind him, draw him to the canal, and hurl him in head +foremost." + +=Despotism.=--The Egyptian people has always been, and still is, gay, +careless, gentle, docile as an infant, always ready to submit to +tyranny. In this country the cudgel was the instrument of education +and of government. "The young man," said the scribes, "has a back to +be beaten; he hears when he is struck." "One day," says a French +traveller, "finding myself before the ruins of Thebes, I exclaimed, +'But how did they do all this?' My guide burst out laughing, touched +me on the arm and, showing me a palm, said to me, 'Here is what they +used to accomplish all this. You know, sir, with 100,000 branches of +palms split on the backs of those who always have their shoulders +bare, you can build many a palace and some temples to boot.'" + +=Isolation of the Egyptians.=--The Egyptians moved but little beyond +their borders. As the sea inspired them with terror, they had no +commerce and did not trade with other peoples. They were not at all a +military nation. Their kings, it is true, often went on expeditions at +the head of mercenaries either against the negroes of Ethiopia or +against the tribes of Syria. They gained victories which they had +painted on the walls of their palaces, they brought back troops of +captives whom they used in building monuments; but they never made +great conquests. Foreigners came more to Egypt than Egyptians went +abroad. + +=Religion of the Egyptians.=--"The Egyptians," said Herodotus, "are +the most religious of all men." We do not know any people so devout; +almost all their paintings represent men in prayer before a god; +almost all their manuscripts are religious books. + +=Egyptian Gods.=--The principal deity is a Sun-god, creator, +beneficent, "who knows all things, who exists from the beginning." +This god has a divine wife and son. All the Egyptians adored this +trinity; but not all gave it the same name. Each region gave a +different name to these three gods. At Memphis they called the father +Phtah, the mother Sekhet, the son Imouthes; at Abydos they called them +Osiris, Isis, and Horus; at Thebes, Ammon, Mouth, and Chons. Then, +too, the people of one province adopted the gods of other provinces. +Further, they made other gods emanate from each god of the trinity. +Thus the number of gods was increased and religion was complicated. + +=Osiris.=--These gods have their history; it is that of the sun; for +the sun appeared to the Egyptians, as to most of the primitive +peoples, the mightiest of beings, and consequently a god. Osiris, the +sun, is slain by Set, god of the night; Isis, the moon, his wife, +bewails and buries him; Horus, his son, the rising sun, avenges him by +killing his murderer. + +=Ammon-ra.=--Ammon-ra, god of Thebes, is represented as traversing +heaven each day in a bark ("the good bark of millions of years"); the +shades of the dead propel it with long oars; the god stands at the +prow to strike the enemy with his lance. The hymn which they chanted +in his honor is as follows: "Homage to thee; thou watchest favoringly, +thou watchest truly, O master of the two horizons.... Thou treadest +the heavens on high, thine enemies are laid low. The heaven is glad, +the earth is joyful, the gods unite in festal cheer to render glory +to Ra when they see him rising in his bark after he has overwhelmed +his enemies. O Ra, give abounding life to Pharaoh, bestow bread for +his hunger (belly), water for his throat, perfumes for his hair." + +=Animal-Headed Gods.=--The Egyptians often represented their gods with +human form, but more frequently under the form of a beast. Each god +has his animal: Phtah incarnates himself in the beetle, Horus in the +hawk, Osiris in the bull. The two figures often unite in a man with +the head of an animal or an animal with the head of a man. Every god +may be figured in four forms: Horus, for example, as a man, a hawk, as +man with the head of a hawk, as a hawk with the head of a man. + +=Sacred Animals.=--What did the Egyptians wish to designate by this +symbol? One hardly knows. They, themselves, came to regard as sacred +the animals which served to represent the gods to them: the bull, the +beetle, the ibis, the hawk, the cat, the crocodile. They cared for +them and protected them. A century before the Christian era a Roman +citizen killed a cat at Alexandria; the people rose in riot, seized +him, and, notwithstanding the entreaties of the king, murdered him, +although at the same time they had great fear of the Romans. There was +in each temple a sacred animal which was adored. The traveller Strabo +records a visit to a sacred crocodile of Thebes: "The beast," said he, +"lay on the edge of a pond, the priests drew near, two of them opened +his mouth, a third thrust in cakes, grilled fish, and a drink made +with meal." + +=The Bull Apis.=--Of these animal gods the most venerated was the bull +Apis. It represented at once Osiris and Phtah and lived at Memphis in +a chapel served by the priests. After its death it became an Osiris +(Osar-hapi), it was embalmed, and its mummy deposited in a vault. The +sepulchres of the "Osar-hapi" constituted a gigantic monument, the +Serapeum, discovered in 1851 by Marietta. + +=Cult of the Dead.=--The Egyptians adored also the spirits of the +dead. They seem to have believed at first that every man had a +"double" (Ka), and that when the man was dead his double still +survived. Many savage peoples believe this to this day. The Egyptian +tomb in the time of the Old Empire was termed "House of the Double." +It was a low room arranged like a chamber, where for the service of +the double there were placed all that he required, chairs, tables, +beds, chests, linen, closets, garments, toilet utensils, weapons, +sometimes a war-chariot; for the entertainment of the double, statues, +paintings, books; for his sustenance, grain and foods. And then they +set there a double of the dead in the form of a statue in wood or +stone carved in his likeness. At last the opening to the vault was +sealed; the double was enclosed, but the living still provided for +him. They brought him foods or they might beseech a god that he supply +them to the spirit, as in this inscription, "An offering to Osiris +that he may confer on the Ka of the deceased N. bread, drink, meat, +geese, milk, wine, beer, clothing, perfumes--all good things and pure +on which the god (_i.e._ the Ka) subsists." + +=Judgment of the Soul.=--Later, originating with the eleventh +dynasty, the Egyptians believed that the soul flew away from the body +and sought Osiris under the earth, the realm into which the sun seemed +every day to sink. There Osiris sits on his tribunal, surrounded by +forty-two judges; the soul appears before these to give account of his +past life. His actions are weighed in the balance of truth, his +"heart" is called to witness. "O heart," cries the dead, "O heart, the +issue of my mother, my heart when I was on earth, offer not thyself as +witness, charge me not before the great god." The soul found on +examination to be bad is tormented for centuries and at last +annihilated. The good soul springs up across the firmament; after many +tests it rejoins the company of the gods and is absorbed into them. + +=Mummies.=--During this pilgrimage the soul may wish to re-enter the +body to rest there. The body must therefore be kept intact, and so the +Egyptians learned to embalm it. The corpse was filled with spices, +drenched in a bath of natron, wound with bandages and thus transformed +into a mummy. The mummy encased in a coffin of wood or plaster was +laid in the tomb with every provision necessary to its life. + +=Book of the Dead.=--A book was deposited with the mummy, the Book of +the Dead, which explains what the soul ought to say in the other world +when it makes its defence before the tribunal of Osiris: "I have never +committed fraud; ... I have never vexed the widow; ... I have never +committed any forbidden act; ... I have never been an idler; ... I +have never taken the slave from his master; ... I never stole the +bread from the temples; ... I never removed the provisions or the +bandages of the dead; I never altered the grain measure; ... I never +hunted sacred beasts; I never caught sacred fish; ... I am pure; ... I +have given bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the +naked; I have sacrificed to the gods, and offered funeral feasts to +dead." Here we see Egyptian morality: observance of ceremonies, +respect for everything pertaining to the gods, sincerity, honesty, and +beneficence. + + +THE ARTS + +=Industry.=--The Egyptians were the first to practice the arts +necessary to a civilized people. From the first dynasty, 3,000[13] +years B.C., paintings on the tomb exhibit men working, sowing, +harvesting, beating and winnowing grain; we have representations of +herds of cattle, sheep, geese, swine; of persons richly clothed, +processions, feasts where the harp is played--almost the same life +that we behold 3,000 years later. As early as this time the Egyptians +knew how to manipulate gold, silver, bronze; to manufacture arms and +jewels, glass, pottery, and enamel; they wove garments of linen and +wool, and cloths, transparent or embroidered with gold. + +=Architecture.=--They were the oldest artists of the world. They +constructed enormous monuments which appear to be eternal, for down to +the present, time has not been able to destroy them. They never built, +as we do, for the living, but for the gods and for the dead, _i.e._, +temples and tombs. Only a slight amount of debris is left of their +houses, and even the palaces of their kings in comparison with the +tombs appear, in the language of the Greeks, to be only inns. The +house was to serve only for a lifetime, the tomb for eternity. + +=Tombs.=--The Great Pyramid is a royal tomb. Ancient tombs ordinarily +had this form. In Lower Egypt there still remain pyramids arranged in +rows or scattered about, some larger, others smaller. These are the +tombs of kings and nobles. Later the tombs are constructed +underground, some under earth, others cut into the granite of the +hills. Each generation needs new ones, and therefore near the town of +living people is built the richer and greater city of the dead +(necropolis). + +=Temples.=--The gods also required eternal and splendid habitations. +Their temples include a magnificent sanctuary, the dwelling of the +god, surrounded with courts, gardens, chambers where the priests +lodge, wardrobes for his jewels, utensils, and vestments. This +combination of edifices, the work of many generations, is encircled +with a wall. The temple of Ammon at Thebes had the labors of the kings +of all the dynasties from the twelfth to the last. Ordinarily in front +of the temple a great gate-way is erected, with inclined faces--the +pylone. On either side of the entrance is an obelisk, a needle of rock +with gilded point, or perhaps a colossus in stone representing a +sitting giant. Often the approach to the temple is by a long avenue +rimmed with sphinxes. + +Pyramids, pylones, colossi, sphinxes, and obelisks characterize this +architecture. Everything is massive, compact, and, above all, immense. +Hence these monuments appear clumsy but indestructible. + +=Sculpture.=--Egyptian sculptors began with imitating nature. The +oldest statues are impressive for their life and freshness, and are +doubtless portraits of the dead. Of this sort is the famous squatting +scribe of the Louvre.[14] But beginning with the eleventh dynasty the +sculptor is no longer free to represent the human body as he sees it, +but must follow conventional rules fixed by religion. And so all the +statues resemble one another--parallel legs, the feet joined, arms +crossed on the breast, the figure motionless; the statues are often +majestic, but always stiff and monotonous. Art has ceased to reproduce +nature and is become a conventional symbol. + +=Painting.=--The Egyptians used very solid colors; after 5,000 years +they are still fresh and bright. But they were ignorant of coloring +designs; they knew neither tints, shadows, nor perspective. Painting, +like sculpture, was subject to religious rules and was therefore +monotonous. If fifty persons were to be represented, the artist made +them all alike. + +=Literature.=--The literature of the Egyptians is found in the +tombs--not only books of medicine, of magic and of piety, but also +poems, letters, accounts of travels, and even romances. + +=Destiny of the Egyptian Civilization.=--The Egyptians conserved their +customs, religion, and arts even after the fall of their empire. +Subjects of the Persians, then the Greeks, and at last of the Romans, +they kept their old usages, their hieroglyphics, their mummies and +sacred animals. At last between the third and second centuries A.D., +Egyptian civilization was slowly extinguished. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] Following the curves of the stream.--ED. + +[7] In some localities, _e.g._ Thebes, the flood is even higher.--ED. + +[8] An enclosing case. + +[9] 525 B.C.--ED. + +[10] The chronology of early Egyptian history is uncertain. Civilization +existed in this land much earlier than was formerly supposed.--ED. + +[11] According to Petrie ("History of Egypt," New York, 1895, i., 40) +_twenty years_ were consumed.--ED. + +[12] Perrot and Chipiez ("History of Ancient Egyptian Art," London. +1883, i., 365) give 340 feet by 170.--ED. + +[13] Probably much earlier than this.--ED. + +[14] The Louvre Museum in Paris has an excellent collection of Egyptian +subjects. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS + +CHALDEA + + +=The Land.=--From the high and snowy mountains of Armenia flow two +deep and rapid rivers, the Tigris to the east, the Euphrates to the +west. At first in close proximity, they separate as they reach the +plain. The Tigris makes a straight course, the Euphrates a great +detour towards the sandy deserts; then they unite before emptying into +the sea. The country which they embrace is Chaldea. It is an immense +plain of extraordinarily fertile soil; rain is rare and the heat is +overwhelming. But the streams furnish water and this clayey soil when +irrigated by canals becomes the most fertile in the world. Wheat and +barley produce 200-fold; in good years the returns are 300-fold. Palms +constitute the forests and from these the people make their wine, meal +and flour.[15] + +=The People.=--For many centuries, perhaps as long as Egypt, Chaldea +has been the abode of civilized peoples. Many races from various lands +have met and mingled in these great plains. There were Turanians of +the yellow race, similar to the Chinese, who came from the north-east; +Cushites, deep brown in color, related to the Egyptians, came from the +east; Semites, of the white race, of the same stock as the Arabs, +descended from the north.[16] The Chaldean people had its origin in +this mixture of races. + +=The Cities.=--Chaldean priests related that their kings had ruled for +150,000 years. While this is a fable, they were right in ascribing +great antiquity to the Chaldean empire. The soil of Chaldea is +everywhere studded with hills and each of these is a mass of debris, +the residue of a ruined city. Many of these have been excavated and +many cities brought to view, (Our, Larsam, Bal-ilou), and some +inscriptions recovered. De Sarsec, a Frenchman, has discovered the +ruins of an entire city, overwhelmed by the invader and its palace +destroyed by fire. These ancient peoples are still little known to us; +many sites remain to be excavated when it is hoped new inscriptions +will be found. Their empire was destroyed about 2,300 B.C.; it may +then have been very old.[17] + + +THE ASSYRIANS + +=Assyria.=--The country back of Chaldea on the Tigris is Assyria. It +also is fertile, but cut with hills and rocks. Situated near the +mountains, it experiences snow in winter and severe storms in summer. + +=Origins.=--Chaldea had for a long time been covered with towns while +yet the Assyrians lived an obscure life in their mountains. About the +thirteenth century B.C. their kings leading great armies began to +invade the plains and founded a mighty empire whose capital was +Nineveh. + +=Ancient Accounts.=--Until about forty years ago we knew almost +nothing of the Assyrians--only a legend recounted by the Greek +Diodorus Siculus. Ninus, according to the story, had founded Nineveh +and conquered all Asia Minor; his wife, Semiramis, daughter of a +goddess, had subjected Egypt, after which she was changed into the +form of a dove. Incapable kings had succeeded this royal pair for the +space of 1,300 years; the last, Sardanapalus, besieged in his capital, +was burnt with his wives. This romance has not a word of truth in it. + +=Modern Discoveries.=--In 1843, Botta, the French consul at Mossoul, +discovered under a hillock near the Tigris, at Khorsabad, the palace +of an Assyrian king. Here for the first time one could view the +productions of Assyrian art; the winged bulls cut in stone, placed at +the gate of the palace were found intact and removed to the Louvre +Museum in Paris. The excavations of Botta drew the attention of +Europe, so that many expeditions were sent out, especially by the +English; Place and Layard investigated other mounds and discovered +other palaces. These ruins had been well preserved, protected by the +dryness of the climate and by a covering of earth. They found walls +adorned with bas-reliefs and paintings; statues and inscriptions were +discovered in great number. It was now possible to study on the ground +the plan of the structures and to publish reproductions of the +monuments and inscriptions. + +The palace first discovered, that of Khorsabad, had been built by King +Sargon at Nineveh, the site of the capital of the Assyrian kings. The +city was built on several eminences, and was encircled by a wall 25 +to 30 miles[18] in length, in the form of a quadrilateral. The wall +was composed of bricks on the exterior and of earth within. The +dwellings of the city have disappeared leaving no traces, but we have +recovered many palaces constructed by various kings of Assyria. +Nineveh remained the residence of the kings down to the time that the +Assyrian empire was destroyed by the Medes and Chaldeans. + +=Inscriptions on the Bricks.=--In these inscriptions every character +is formed of a combination of signs shaped like an arrow or wedge, and +this is the reason that this style of writing is termed cuneiform +(Latin _cuneus_ and _forma_). To trace these signs the writer used a +stylus with a triangular point; he pressed it into a tablet of soft +clay which was afterwards baked to harden it and to make the +impression permanent. In the palace of Assurbanipal a complete library +of brick tablets has been found in which brick serves the purpose of +paper. + +=Cuneiform Writing.=--For many years the cuneiform writing has +occupied the labors of many scholars impatient to decipher it. It has +been exceedingly difficult to read, for, in the first place, it served +as the writing medium of five different languages--Assyrian, Susian, +Mede, Chaldean, and Armenian, without counting the Old Persian--and +there was no knowledge of these five languages. Then, too, it is very +complicated, for several reasons: + + 1. It is composed at the same time of symbolic signs, each of + which represents a word (sun, god, fish), and of syllabic signs, + each of which represents a syllable. + + 2. There are nearly two hundred syllabic signs, much alike and + easy to confuse. + + 3. The same sign is often the representation of a word and a + syllable. + + 4. Often (and this is the hardest condition) the same sign is used + to represent different syllables. Thus the same sign is sometimes + read "ilou," and sometimes "an." This writing was difficult even + for those who executed it. "A good half of the cuneiform monuments + which we possess comprises guides (grammars, dictionaries, + pictures), which enable us to decipher the other half, and which + we consult just as Assyrian scholars did 2,500 years ago."[19] + +Cuneiform inscriptions have been solved in the same manner as the +Egyptian hieroglyphics--there was an inscription in three +languages--Assyrian, Mede, and Persian. The last gave the key to the +other two. + +=The Assyrian People.=--The Assyrians were a race of hunters and +soldiers. Their bas-reliefs ordinarily represent them armed with bow +and lance, often on horseback. They were good knights--alert, brave, +clever in skirmish and battle; also bombastic, deceitful, and +sanguinary. For six centuries they harassed Asia, issuing from their +mountains to hurl themselves on their neighbors, and returning with +entire peoples reduced to slavery. They apparently made war for the +mere pleasure of slaying, ravaging, and pillaging. No people ever +exhibited greater ferocity. + +=The King.=--Following Asiatic usage they regarded their king as the +representative of God on earth and gave him blind obedience. He was +absolute master of all his subjects, he led them in battle, and at +their head fought against other peoples of Asia. On his return he +recorded his exploits on the walls of his palace in a long inscription +in which he told of his victories, the booty which he had taken, the +cities burned, the captives beheaded or flayed alive. We present some +passages from these stories of campaigns: + +Assurnazir-hapal in 882 says, "I built a wall before the great gates +of the city; I flayed the chiefs of the revolt and with their skins I +covered this wall. Some were immured alive in the masonry, others were +crucified or impaled along the wall. I had some of them flayed in my +presence and had the wall hung with their skins. I arranged their +heads like crowns and their transfixed bodies in the form of +garlands." + +In 745 Tiglath-Pilezer II writes, "I shut up the king in his royal +city. I raised mountains of bodies before his gates. All his villages +I destroyed, desolated, burnt. I made the country desert, I changed it +into hills and mounds of debris." + +In the seventh century Sennacherib wrote: "I passed like a hurricane +of desolation. On the drenched earth the armor and arms swam in the +blood of the enemy as in a river. I heaped up the bodies of their +soldiers like trophies and I cut off their extremities. I mutilated +those whom I took alive like blades of straw; as punishment I cut off +their hands." In a bas-relief which shows the town of Susa +surrendering to Assurbanipal one sees the chiefs of the conquered +tortured by the Assyrians; some have their ears cut off, the eyes of +others are put out, the beard torn out, while some are flayed alive. +Evidently these kings took delight in burnings, massacres, and +tortures. + +=Ruin of the Assyrian Empire.=--The Assyrian regime began with the +capture of Babylon (about 1270). From the ninth century the Assyrians, +always at war, subjected or ravaged Babylonia, Syria, Palestine, and +even Egypt. The conquered always revolted, and the massacres were +repeated. At last the Assyrians were exhausted. The Babylonians and +Medes made an alliance and destroyed their empire. In 625 their +capital, Nineveh, "the lair of lions, the bloody city, the city gorged +with prey," as the Jewish prophets call it, was taken and destroyed +forever. "Nineveh is laid waste," says the prophet Nahum, "who will +bemoan her?" + + +THE BABYLONIANS + +=The Second Chaldean Empire.=--In the place of the fallen Assyrian +empire there arose a new power--in ancient Chaldea. This has received +the name Babylonian Empire or the Second Chaldean Empire. A Jewish +prophet makes one say to Jehovah, "I raise up the Chaldeans, that +bitter and hasty nation which shall march through the breadth of the +land to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. Their horses are +swifter than leopards. Their horsemen spread themselves; (their +horsemen) shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat." They were a +people of knights, martial and victorious, like the Assyrians. They +subjected Susiana, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Jordan. But their regime +was short: founded in 625, the Babylonian Empire was overthrown by the +Persians in 538 B.C. + +=Babylon.=--The mightiest of its kings, Nebuchadrezzar (or +Nebuchadnezzar), 604-561, who destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Jews +into captivity, built many temples and places in Babylon, his capital. +These monuments were in crude brick as the plain of the Euphrates has +no supply of stone; in the process of decay they have left only +enormous masses of earth and debris. And yet it has been possible on +the site of Babylon to recover some inscriptions and to restore the +plan of the city. The Greek Herodotus who had visited Babylon in the +fifth century B.C., describes it in detail. The city was surrounded by +a square wall cut by the Euphrates; it covered about 185 square miles, +or seven times the extent of Paris. This immense space was not filled +with houses; much of it was occupied with fields to be cultivated for +the maintenance of the people in the event of a siege. Babylon was +less a city than a fortified camp. The walls equipped with towers and +pierced by a hundred gates of brass were so thick that a chariot might +be driven on them. All around the wall was a large, deep ditch full of +water, with its sides lined with brick. The houses of the city were +constructed of three or four stories. The streets intersected at right +angles. The bridge and docks of the Euphrates excited admiration; the +fortified palace also, and the hanging gardens, one of the seven +wonders of the world. These gardens were terraces planted with trees, +supported by pillars and rows of arches. + +=Tower of Babylon.=--Hard by the city Nebuchadnezzar had aimed to +rebuild the town of Babel. "For the admiration of men," he says in an +inscription: "I rebuilt and renovated the wonder of Borsippa, the +temple of the seven spheres of the world. I laid the foundations and +built it according to its ancient plan." This temple, in the form of a +square, comprised seven square towers raised one above another, each +tower being dedicated to one of the seven planets and painted with the +color attributed by religion to this planet. They were, beginning with +the lowest: Saturn (black), Venus (white), Jupiter (purple), Mercury +(blue), Mars (vermilion), the moon (silver), the sun (gold). The +highest tower contained a chapel with a table of gold and magnificent +couch whereon a priestess kept watch continually. + + +CUSTOMS AND RELIGION + +=Customs.=--We know almost nothing of these peoples apart from the +testimony of their monuments, and nearly all of these refer to the +achievements of their kings. The Assyrians are always represented at +war, hunting, or in the performance of ceremonies; their women never +appear on the bas-reliefs; they were confined in a harem and never +went into public life. The Chaldeans on the contrary, were a race of +laborers and merchants, but of their life we know nothing. Herodotus +relates that once a year in their towns they assembled all the girls +to give them in marriage; they sold the prettiest, and the profits of +the sale of these became a dower for the marriage of the plainest. +"According to my view," he adds, "this is the wisest of all their +laws." + +=Religion.=--The religion of the Assyrians and Chaldeans was the same, +for the former had adopted that of the latter. It is very obscure to +us, since it originated, like that of the Chaldean people, in a +confusion of religions very differently mingled. The Turanians, like +the present yellow race of Siberia, imagined the world full of demons +(plague, fever, phantoms, vampires), engaged in prowling around men to +do them harm; sorcerers were invoked to banish these demons by magical +formulas. The Cushites adored a pair of gods, the male deity of force +and the female of matter. The Chaldean priests, united in a powerful +guild, confused the two religions into a single one. + +=The Gods.=--The supreme god at Babylon is Ilou; in Assyria, Assur. No +temple was raised to him. Three gods proceed from him: Anou, the "lord +of darkness," under the figure of a man with the head of a fish and +the tail of an eagle; Bel, the "sovereign of spirits," represented as +a king on the throne; Nouah, the "master of the visible world," under +the form of a genius with four extended wings. Each has a feminine +counterpart who symbolizes fruitfulness. Below these gods are the Sun, +the Moon, and the five planets, for in the transparent atmosphere of +Chaldea the stars shine with a brilliancy which is strange to us; they +gleam like deities. To these the Chaldeans raised temples, veritable +observatories in which men who adored them could follow all their +motions. + +=Astrology.=--The priests believed that these stars, being powerful +deities, had determining influence on the lives of men. Every man +comes into the world under the influence of a planet and this moment +decides his destiny; one may foretell one's fortune if the star under +which one is born is known. This is the origin of the horoscope. What +occurs in heaven is indicative of what will come to pass on earth; a +comet, for example, announces a revolution. By observing the heavens +the Chaldean priests believed they could predict events. This is the +origin of Astrology. + +=Sorcery.=--The Chaldeans had also magical words; these were uttered +to banish spirits or to cause their appearance. This custom, a relic +of the Turanian religion, is the origin of sorcery. From Chaldea +astrology and sorcery were diffused over the Roman empire, and later +over all Europe. In the formulas of sorcery of the sixteenth century +corrupted Assyrian words may still be detected.[20] + +=Sciences.=--On the other hand it is in Chaldea that we have the +beginning of astronomy. From this land have come down to us the +zodiac, the week of seven days in honor of the seven planets; the +division of the year into twelve months, of the day into twenty-four +hours, of the hour into sixty minutes, of the minute into sixty +seconds. Here originated, too, the system of weights and measures +reckoned on the unit of length, a system adopted by all the ancient +peoples. + + +ARTS + +=Architecture.=--We do not have direct knowledge of the art of the +Chaldeans, since their monuments have fallen to ruin. But the Assyrian +artists whose works we possess imitated those of Chaldea, and so we +may form a judgment at the same time of the two countries. The +Assyrians like the Chaldeans built with crude, sun-dried brick, but +they faced the exterior of the wall with stone. + +=Palaces.=--They constructed their palaces[21] on artificial mounds, +making these low and flat like great terraces. The crude brick was not +adapted to broad and high arches. Halls must therefore be straight and +low, but in compensation they were very long. An Assyrian palace, +then, resembled a succession of galleries; the roofs were flat +terraces provided with battlements. At the gate stood gigantic winged +bulls. Within, the walls were covered now with panelling in precious +woods, now with enamelled bricks, now with plates of sculptural +alabaster. Sometimes the chambers were painted, and even richly +encrusted marbles were used. + +=Sculpture.=--The sculpture of the Assyrian palaces is especially +admirable. Statues, truly, are rare and coarse; sculptors preferred to +execute bas-reliefs similar to pictures on great slabs of alabaster. +They represented scenes which were often very complicated--battles, +chases, sieges of towns, ceremonies in which the king appeared with a +great retinue. Every detail is scrupulously done; one sees the files +of servants in charge of the feast of the king, the troops of workmen +who built his palace, the gardens, the fields, the ponds, the fish in +the water, the birds perched over their nests or flitting from tree to +tree. Persons are exhibited in profile, doubtless because the artist +could not depict the face; but they possess dignity and life. Animals +often appeared, especially in hunting scenes; they are ordinarily made +with a startling fidelity. The Assyrians observed nature and +faithfully reproduced it; hence the merit of their art. + +The Greeks themselves learned in this school, by imitating the +Assyrian bas-reliefs. They have excelled them, but no people, not even +the Greeks, has better known how to represent animals. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] A Persian song enumerates 300 different uses of the palm. + +[16] Or perhaps from the east (Arabia).--ED. + +[17] Recent discoveries confirm the view of a very ancient +civilization--ED. + +[18] Somewhat exaggerated. See Perrot and Chipiez, "History of Art in +Assyria and Chaldea," ii., 60; and Maspero, "Passing of the Empires," p. +468.--ED. + +[19] Lenormant, "Ancient History." + +[20] For example, hilka, hilka, bescha, bescha (begone! begone! bad! +bad!) + +[21] The temples were pyramidal, of stones or terraces similar to the +tower of Borsippa. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ARYANS OF INDIA + +THE ARYANS + + +=Aryan Languages.=--The races which in our day inhabit Europe--Greeks +and Italians to the south, Slavs in Russia, Teutons in Germany, Celts +in Ireland--speak very different languages. When, however, one studies +these languages closely, it is perceived that all possess a stock of +common words, or at least certain roots. The same roots occur in +Sanscrit, the ancient language of the Hindoos, and also in Zend, the +ancient tongue of the Persians. Thus, + +Father--pere (French), pitar (Sanscrit), pater (Greek and Latin). It +is the same word pronounced in various ways. From this (and other such +examples) it has been concluded that all--Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, +Latins, Celts, Germans, Slavs--once spoke the same language, and +consequently were one people. + +=The Aryan People.=--These peoples then called themselves Aryans and +lived to the north-west of India, either in the mountains of Pamir, or +in the steppes of Turkestan or Russia; from this centre they dispersed +in all directions. The majority of the people--Greeks, Latins, +Germans, Slavs--forgot their origin; but the sacred books of the +Hindoos and the Persians preserve the tradition. Effort has been +made[22] to reconstruct the life of our Aryan ancestors in their +mountain home before the dispersion. It was a race of shepherds; they +did not till the soil, but subsisted from their herds of cattle and +sheep, though they already had houses and even villages. + +It was a fighting race; they knew the lance, the javelin, and shield. +Government was patriarchal; a man had but one wife; as head of the +family he was for his wife, his children, and his servants at once +priest, judge, and king. In all the countries settled by the Aryans +they have followed this type of life--patriarchal, martial, and +pastoral. + + +PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS + +=The Aryans on the Indus.=--About 2,000 years before our era some +Aryan tribes traversed the passes of the Hindu-Kush and swarmed into +India. They found the fertile plains of the Indus inhabited by a +people of dark skin, with flat heads, industrious and wealthy; they +called these aborigines Dasyous (the enemy). They made war on them for +centuries and ended by exterminating or subjecting them; they then +gradually took possession of all the Indus valley (the region of the +five rivers).[23] They then called themselves Hindoos. + +=The Vedas.=--These people were accustomed in their ceremonies to +chant hymns (vedas) in honor of their gods. These chants constituted +a vast compilation which has been preserved to the present time. They +were collected, perhaps, about the fourteenth century B.C. when the +Aryans had not yet passed the Indus. The hymns present to us the +oldest religion of the Hindoos. + +=The Gods.=--The Hindoo calls his gods devas (the resplendent). +Everything that shines is a divinity--the heavens, the dawn, the +clouds, the stars--but especially the sun (Indra) and fire (Agni). + +=Indra.=--The sun, Indra, the mighty one, "king of the world and +master of creatures," bright and warm, traverses the heavens on a car +drawn by azure steeds; he it is who hurls the thunderbolt, sends the +rain, and banishes the clouds. India is a country of violent tempests; +the Hindoo struck with this phenomenon explained it in his own +fashion. He conceived the black cloud as an envelope in which were +contained the waters of heaven; these beneficent waters he called the +gleaming cows of Indra. When the storm is gathering, an evil genius, +Vritra, a three-headed serpent, has driven away the cows and enclosed +them in the black cavern whence their bellowings are heard (the +far-away rumblings of thunder). Indra applies himself to the task of +finding them; he strikes the cavern with his club, the strokes of +which are heard (the thunderbolt), and the forked tongue of the +serpent (the lightning) darts forth. At last the serpent is +vanquished, the cave is opened, the waters released fall on the earth, +Indra the victor appears in glory. + +=Agni.=--Fire (Agni, the tireless) is regarded as another form of the +sun. The Hindoo, who produces it by rapidly rubbing two pieces of +wood together, imagines that the fire comes from the wood and that the +rain has placed it there. He conceives it then as the fire of heaven +descended to earth; in fact, when one places it on the hearth, it +springs up as if it would ascend toward heaven. Agni dissipates +darkness, warms mankind, and cooks his food; it is the benefactor and +the protector of the house. It is also "the internal fire," the soul +of the world; even the ancestor of the human race is the "son of +lightning." Thus, heat and light, sources of all life, are the deities +of the Hindoo. + +=Worship.=--To adore his gods he strives to reproduce what he sees in +heaven. He ignites a terrestrial fire by rubbing sticks, he nourishes +it by depositing on the hearth, butter, milk, and soma, a fermented +drink. To delight the gods he makes offerings to them of fruits and +cakes; he even sacrifices to them cattle, rams and horses; he then +invokes them, chanting hymns to their praise. "When thou art bidden by +us to quaff the soma, come with thy sombre steeds, thou deity whose +darts are stones. Our celebrant is seated according to prescription, +the sacred green is spread, in the morning stones have been gathered +together. Take thy seat on the holy sward; taste, O hero, our offering +to thee. Delight thyself in our libations and our chants, vanquisher +of Vritra, thou who art honored in these ceremonies of ours, O Indra." + +The Hindoo thinks that the gods, felicitated by his offerings and +homage, will in their turn make him happy. He says naively, "Give +sacrifice to the gods for their profit, and they will requite you. +Just as men traffic by the discussion of prices, let us exchange +force and vigor, O Indra. Give to me and I will give to you; bring to +me and I will bring to you." + +=Ancestor Worship.=--At the same time the Hindoo adores his ancestors +who have become gods, and perhaps this cult is the oldest of all. It +is the basis of the family. The father who has transmitted the "fire +of life" to his children makes offering every day at his hearth-fire, +which must never be extinguished, the sacrifice to gods and ancestors, +and utters the prayers. Here it is seen that among Hindoos, as among +other Aryans, the father is at once a priest and a sovereign. + + +THE BRAHMANIC SOCIETY + +=The Hindoos on the Ganges.=--The Hindoos passing beyond the region of +the Indus, between the fourteenth and tenth century B.C. conquered all +the immense plains of the Ganges. Once settled in this fertile +country, under a burning climate, in the midst of a people of slaves, +they gradually changed customs and religion. And so the Brahmanic +society was established. Many works in Sanscrit are preserved from +this time, which, with the Vedas, form the sacred literature of the +Hindoos. The principal are the great epic poems, the Mahabarata, which +has more than 200,000 verses; the Ramayana with 50,000, and the laws +of Manou, the sacred code of India. + +=Caste.=--In this new society there were no longer, as in the time of +the Vedas, poets who chanted hymns to the gods. The men who know the +prayers and the ceremonies are become theologians by profession; the +people revere and obey them. The following is their conception of the +structure of society: the supreme god, Brahma, has produced four kinds +of men to each of whom he has assigned a mission. From his mouth he +drew the Brahmans, who are, of course, the theologians; their mission +is to study, to teach the hymns, to perform the sacrifices. The +Kchatrias have come from his arms; these are the warriors who are +charged with the protection of the people. The Vaicyas proceed from +the thigh; they must raise cattle, till the earth, loan money at +interest, and engage in commerce. The Soudras issue from his foot; +their only mission is to serve all the others. + +There were already in the Aryan people theologians, warriors, +artisans, and below them aborigines reduced to slavery. These were +classes which one could enter and from which one could withdraw. But +the Brahmans determined that every man should be attached to the +condition in which he was born, he and his descendants for all time. +The son of a workman could never become a warrior, nor the son of a +warrior a theologian. Thus each is chained to his own state. Society +is divided into four hereditary and closed castes. + +=The Unclean.=--Whoever is not included in one of the four castes is +unclean, excluded from society and religion. The Brahmans reckoned +forty-four grades of outcasts; the last and the lowest is that of the +pariahs; their very name is an insult. The outcasts may not practise +any honorable trade nor approach other men. They may possess only dogs +and asses, for these are unclean beasts. "They must have for their +clothing the garments of the dead; for plates, broken pots; ornaments +of iron; they must be ceaselessly on the move from one place to +another." + +=The Brahmans.=--In the organization of society the Brahmans were +assigned the first place. "Men are the first among intelligent beings; +the Brahmans are the first among men. They are higher than warriors, +than kings, even. As between a Brahman of ten years of age and a +Kchatria of one hundred years, the Brahman is to be regarded as the +father." These are not priests as in Egypt and Chaldea, but only men +who know religion, and pass their time in reading and meditating on +the sacred books; they live from presents made to them by other men. +To this day they are the dominating class of India. As they marry only +among themselves, better than the other Hindoos they have preserved +the Aryan type and have a clearer resemblance to Europeans. + +=The New Religion of Brahma.=--The Brahmans did not discard the +ancient gods of the Vedas, they continued to adore them. But by sheer +ingenuity they invented a new god. When prayers are addressed to the +gods, the deities are made to comply with the demands made on them, as +if they thought that prayer was more powerful than the gods. And so +prayer (Brahma) has become the highest of all deities. He is invoked +with awe:[24] "O god, I behold in thy body all the gods and the +multitudes of living beings. I am powerless to regard thee in thine +entirety, for thou shinest like the fire and the sun in thine +immensity. Thou art the Invisible, thou art the supreme Intelligence, +thou art the sovereign treasure of the universe, without beginning, +middle, or end; equipped with infinite might. Thine arms are without +limit, thine eyes are like the moon and the sun, thy mouth hath the +brightness of the sacred fire. With thyself alone thou fillest all the +space between heaven and earth, and thou permeatest all the universe." +Brahma is not only supreme god; he is the soul of the universe. All +beings are born from Brahma, all issue naturally from him, not as a +product comes from the hands of an artisan, but "as the tree from the +seed, as the web from the spider." Brahma is not a deity who has +created the world; he is the very substance of the world. + +=Transmigration of Souls.=--There is, then, a soul, a part of the soul +of Brahma, in every being, in gods, in men, in animals, in the very +plants and stones. But these souls pass from one body into another; +this is the transmigration of souls. When a man dies, his soul is +tested; if it is good, it passes into the heaven of Indra there to +enjoy felicity; if it is bad, it falls into one of the twenty-eight +hells, where it is devoured by ravens, compelled to swallow burning +cakes, and is tormented by demons. But souls do not remain forever in +heaven or in the hells; they part from these to begin a new life in +another body. The good soul rises, entering the body of a saint, +perhaps that of a god; the evil soul descends, taking its abode in +some impure animal--in a dog, an ass, even in a plant. In this new +state it may rise or fall. And this journey from one body to another +continues until the soul by degrees comes to the highest sphere. From +lowest to highest in the scale, say the Brahmans, twenty-four millions +of years elapse. At last perfect, the soul returns to the level of +Brahma from which it descends and is absorbed into it. + +=Character of this Religion.=--The religion of the Aryans, simple and +happy, was that of a young and vigorous people. This is complicated +and barren; it takes shape among men who are not engaged in practical +life; it is enervated by the heat and vexatious of life. + +=Rites.=--The practice of the religion is much more complicated. Hymns +and sacrifices are still offered to the gods, but the Brahmans have +gradually invented thousands of minute customs so that one's life is +completely engaged with them. For all the ceremonies of the religious +life there are prayers, offerings, vows, libations, ablutions. Some of +the religious requirements attach themselves to dress, ornaments, +etiquette, drinking, eating, mode of walking, of lying down, of +sleeping, of dressing, of undressing, of bathing. It is ordered: "That +a Brahman shall not step over a rope to which a calf is attached; that +he shall not run when it rains; that he shall not drink water in the +hollow of his hand; that he shall not scratch his head with both his +hands. The man who breaks clods of earth, who cuts grass with his +nails or who bites his nails is, like the outcast, speedily hurried to +his doom." An animal must not be killed, for a human soul may perhaps +be dwelling in the body; one must not eat it on penalty of being +devoured in another life by the animals which one has eaten. + +All these rites have a magical virtue; he who observes them all is a +saint; he who neglects any of them is impious and destined to pass +into the body of an animal. + +=Purity.=--The principal duty is keeping one's self pure; for every +stain is a sin and opens one to the attack of evil spirits. But the +Brahmans are very scrupulous concerning purity: men outside of the +castes, many animals, the soil, even the utensils which one uses are +so many impure things; whoever touches these is polluted and must at +once purify himself. Life is consumed in purifications. + +=Penances.=--For every defect in the rites, a penance is necessary, +often a terrible one. He who involuntarily kills a cow must clothe +himself in its skin, and for three months, day and night, follow and +tend a herd of cows. Whoever has drunk of arrack[25] must swallow a +boiling liquid which burns the internal organs until death results. + +=The Monks.=--To escape so many dangers and maintain purity, it is +better to leave the world. Often a Brahman when he has attained to a +considerable age withdraws to the desert, fasts, watches, refrains +from speech, exposes himself naked to the rain, holds himself erect +between four fires under the burning sun. After some years, the +solitary becomes "penitent"; then his only subsistence is from +almsgiving; for whole days he lifts an arm in the air uttering not a +word, holding his breath; or perchance, he gashes himself with +razor-blades; or he may even keep his thumbs closed until the nails +pierce the hands. By these mortifications he destroys passion, +releases himself from this life, and by contemplation rises to Brahma. +And yet, this way of salvation is open only to the Brahman; and even +he has the right to withdraw to the desert only in old age, after +having studied the Vedas all his life, practised all the rites, and +established a family. + + +BUDDHISM + +=Buddha.=--Millions of men who were not Brahmans, suffered by this +life of minutiae and anguish. A man then appeared who brought a +doctrine of deliverance. He was not a Brahman, but of the caste of the +Kchatrias, son of a king of the north. To the age of twenty-nine he +had lived in the palace of his father. One day he met an old man with +bald head, of wrinkled features, and trembling limbs; a second time he +met an incurable invalid, covered with ulcers, without a home; again +he fell in with a decaying corpse devoured by worms. And so, thought +he, youth, health, and life are nothing for they offer no resistance +to old age, to sickness, and to death. He had compassion on men and +sought a remedy. Then he met a religious mendicant with grave and +dignified air; following his example he decided to renounce the world. +These four meetings had determined his calling. + +Buddha fled to the desert, lived seven years in penitence, undergoing +hunger, thirst, and rain. These mortifications gave him no repose. He +ate, became strong, and found the truth. Then he reentered the world +to preach it; he made disciples in crowds who called him Buddha (the +scholar); and when he died after forty-five years of preaching, +Buddhism was established. + +=Nirvana.=--To live is to be unhappy, taught Buddha. Every man suffers +because he desires the goods of this world, youth, health, life, and +cannot keep them. All life is a suffering; all suffering is born of +desire. To suppress suffering, it is necessary to root out desire; to +destroy it one must cease from wishing to live, "emancipate one's self +from the thirst of being." The wise man is he who casts aside +everything that attaches to this life and makes it unhappy. One must +cease successively from feeling, wishing, thinking. Then, freed from +passion, volition, even from reflection, he no longer suffers, and +can, after his death, come to the supreme good, which consists in +being delivered from all life and from all suffering. The aim of the +wise man is the annihilation of personality: the Buddhists call it +Nirvana. + +=Charity.=--The Brahmans also considered life as a place of suffering +and annihilation as felicity. Buddha came not with a new doctrine, but +with new sentiments. + +The religion of the Brahmans was egoistic. Buddha had compassion on +men, he loved them, and preached love to his disciples. It was just +this word of sympathy of which despairing souls were in need. He bade +to love even those who do us ill. Purna, one of his disciples, went +forth to preach to the barbarians. Buddha said to him to try him, +"There are cruel, passionate, furious men; if they address angry words +to you, what would you think?" "If they addressed angry words to me," +said Purna, "I should think these are good men, these are gentle men, +these men who attack me with wicked words but who strike me neither +with the hand nor with stones." "But if they strike you, what would +you think?" "I should think that those were good men who did not +strike me with their staves or with their swords." "But if they did +strike you with staff and sword, what would you think then?" "That +those are good men who strike me with staff and sword, but do not take +my life." "But if they should take your life?" "I should think them +good men who delivered me with so little pain from this body filled as +it is with pollution." "Well, well, Purna! You may dwell in the +country of the barbarians. Go, proceed on the way to complete Nirvana +and bring others to the same goal." + +=Fraternity.=--The Brahmans, proud of their caste, assert that they +are purer than the others. Buddha loves all men equally, he calls all +to salvation even the pariahs, even the barbarians--all he declares +are equal. "The Brahman," said he, "just like the pariah, is born of +woman; why should he be noble and the other vile?" He receives as +disciples street-sweepers, beggars, cripples, girls who sleep on +dung-hills, even murderers and thieves; he fears no contamination in +touching them. He preaches to them in the street in language simple +with parables. + +=Tolerance.=--The Brahmans passed their lives in the practice of +minute rites, regarding as criminal whoever did not observe them. +Buddha demanded neither rites nor exertions. To secure salvation it +was enough to be charitable, chaste, and beneficent. "Benevolence," +says he, "is the first of virtues. Doing a little good avails more +than the fulfilment of the most arduous religious tasks. The perfect +man is nothing unless he diffuses himself in benefits over creatures, +unless he comforts the afflicted. My doctrine is a doctrine of mercy; +this is why the fortunate in the world find it difficult." + +=Later History of Buddhism.=--Thus was established about 500 years +before Christ a religion of an entirely new sort. It is a religion +without a god and without rites; it ordains only that one shall love +his neighbor and become better; annihilation is offered as supreme +recompense. But, for the first time in the history of the world, it +preaches self-renunciation, the love of others, equality of mankind, +charity and tolerance. The Brahmans made bitter war upon it and +extirpated it in India. Missionaries carried it to the barbarians in +Ceylon, in Indo-China, Thibet, China, and Japan. It is today the +religion of about 500,000,000[26] people. + +=Changes in Buddhism.=--During these twenty centuries Buddhism has +undergone change. Buddha had himself formed communities of monks. +Those who entered these renounced their family, took the vow of +poverty and chastity; they had to wear filthy rags and beg their +living. These religious rapidly multiplied; they founded convents in +all Eastern Asia, gathered in councils to fix the doctrine, proclaimed +dogmas and rules. As they became powerful they, like the Brahmans, +came to esteem themselves as above the rest of the faithful. "The +layman," they said, "plight to support the religious and consider +himself much honored that the holy man accepts his offering. It is +more commendable to feed one religious than many thousands of laymen." +In Thibet the religious, men and women together, constitute a fifth of +the entire population, and their head, the Grand Lama, is venerated +as an incarnation of God. + +At the same time that they transformed themselves into masters, the +Buddhist religious constructed a complicated theology, full of +fantastic figures. They say there is an infinite number of worlds. If +one surrounded with a wall a space capable of holding 100,000 times +ten millions of those worlds, if this wall were raised to heaven, and +if the whole space were filled with grains of mustard, the number of +the grains would not even then equal one-half the number of worlds +which occupy but one division of heaven. All these worlds are full of +creatures, gods, men, beasts, demons, who are born and who die. The +universe itself is annihilated and another takes its place. The +duration of each universe is called _kalpa_; and this is the way we +obtain an impression of a kalpa: if there were a rock twelve miles in +height, breadth, and length, and if once in a century it were only +touched with a piece of the finest linen, this rock would be worn and +reduced to the size of a kernel of mango before a quarter of a kalpa +had elapsed. + +=Buddha Transformed into a God.=--It no longer satisfied the Buddhists +to honor their founder as a perfect man; they made him a god, erecting +idols to him, and offering him worship. They adored also the saints, +his disciples; pyramids and shrines were built to preserve their +bones, their teeth, their cloaks. From every quarter the faithful came +to venerate the impression of the foot of Buddha. + +=Mechanical Prayer.=--Modern Buddhists regard prayer as a magical +formula which acts of itself. They spend the day reciting prayers as +they walk or eat, often in a language which they do not understand. +They have invented prayer-machines; these are revolving cylinders and +around these are pasted papers on which the prayer is written; every +turn of the cylinder counts for the utterance of the prayer as many +times as it is written on the papers. + +=Amelioration of Manners.=--And yet Buddhism remains a religion of +peace and charity. Wherever it reigns, kings refrain from war, and +even from the chase; they establish hospitals, caravansaries, even +asylums for animals. Strangers, even Christian missionaries, are +hospitably received; they permit the women to go out, and to walk +without veiling themselves; they neither fight nor quarrel. At +Bangkok, a city of 400,000 souls, hardly more than one murder a year +is known. + +Buddhism has enfeebled the intelligence and sweetened the +character.[27] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] The process is as follows: when a word (or rather a root) is found +in several Aryan languages at once, it is admitted that this was in use +before the dispersion occurred, and therefore the people knew the object +designated by the word. + +[23] The Punjab.--ED. + +[24] Prayer of the Mahabarata cited by Lenormant. + +[25] A spirituous liquor made by the natives.--ED. + +[26] A high estimate.--ED. + +[27] India is for us the country of the Vedas, the Brahmans, and Buddha. +We know the religion of the Hindoos, but of their political history we +are ignorant. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PERSIANS + +THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER + + +=Iran.=--Between the Tigris and the Indus, the Caspian Sea and the +Persian Gulf rises the land of Iran, five times as great as +France,[28] but partly sterile. It is composed of deserts of burning +sand and of icy plateaux cut by deep and wooded valleys. Mountains +surround it preventing the escape of the rivers which must lose +themselves in the sands or in the salt lakes. The climate is harsh, +very uneven, torrid in summer, frigid in winter; in certain quarters +one passes from 104 deg. above zero to 40 deg. below, from the cold of Siberia +to the heat of Senegal. Violent winds blow which "cut like a sword." +But in the valleys along the rivers the soil is fertile. Here the +peach and cherry are indigenous; the country is a land of fruits and +pastures. + +=The Iranians.=--Aryan tribes inhabited Iran. Like all the Aryans, +they were a race of shepherds, but well armed and warlike. The +Iranians fought on horseback, drew the bow, and, to protect themselves +from the biting wind of their country, wore garments of skin sewed on +the body. + +=Zoroaster.=--Like the ancient Aryans, they first adored the forces of +nature, especially the sun (Mithra). Between the tenth and seventh[29] +centuries before our era their religion was reformed by a sage, +Zarathustra (Zoroaster). We know nothing certainly about him except +his name. + +=The Zend-Avesta.=--No writing from the hand of Zoroaster is preserved +to us; but his doctrine, reduced to writing long after his death, is +conserved in the Zend-Avesta (law and reform), the sacred books of the +Persians. It was a compilation written in an ancient language (the +Zend) which the faithful themselves no longer understood. It was +divided into twenty-one books, inscribed on 12,000 cow skins, bound by +golden cords. The Mohammedans destroyed it when they invaded Persia. +But some Persian families, faithful to the teaching of Zoroaster, fled +into India. Their posterity, whom we call Parsees, have there +maintained the old religion. An entire book of the Zend-Avesta and +fragments of two others have been found among them. + +=Ormuzd and Ahriman.=--The Zend-Avesta is the sacred book of the +religion of Zoroaster. According to these writings Ahura Mazda +(Ormuzd), "the omniscient sovereign," created the world. He is +addressed in prayer in the following language: "I invoke and celebrate +the creator, Ahura Mazda, luminous, glorious, most intelligent and +beautiful, eminent in purity, who possessest the good knowledge, +source of joy, who hast treated us, hast fashioned us, and hast +nourished us." Since he is perfect in his goodness, he can create +only that which is good. Everything bad in the world has been created +by an evil deity, Angra Manyou, (Ahriman), the "spirit of anguish." + +=Angels and Demons.=--Over against Ormuzd, the god and the creator, is +Ahriman, wicked and destructive. Each has in his service a legion of +spirits. The soldiers of Ormuzd are the good angels (yazatas), those +of Ahriman the evil demons (devs). The angels dwell in the East in the +light of the rising sun; the demons in the West in the shadows of the +darkness. The two armies wage incessant warfare; the world is their +battleground, for both troops are omnipresent. Ormuzd and his angels +seek to benefit men, to make them good and happy; Ahriman and his +demons gnaw around them to destroy them, to make them unhappy and +wicked. + +=Creatures of Ormuzd and Ahriman.=--Everything good on the earth is +the work of Ormuzd and works for good; the sun and fire that dispel +the night, the stars, fermented drinks that seem to be liquid fire, +the water that satisfies the thirst of man, the cultivated fields that +feed him, the trees that shade him, domestic animals--especially the +dog,[30] the birds (because they live in the air), among all these the +cock since he announces the day. On the other hand everything that is +baneful comes from Ahriman and tends to evil: the night, drought, +cold, the desert, poisonous plants, thorns, beasts of prey, serpents, +parasites (mosquitoes, fleas, bugs) and animals that live in dark +holes--lizards, scorpions, toads, rats, ants. Likewise in the moral +world life, purity, truth, work are good things and come from Ormuzd; +death, filth, falsehood, idleness are bad, and issue from Ahriman. + +=Worship.=--From these notions proceed worship and morality. Man ought +to adore the good god[31] and fight for him. According to Herodotus, +"The Persians are not accustomed to erect statues, temples, or altars +to their gods; they esteem those who do this as lacking in sense for +they do not believe, as the Greeks do, that the gods have human +forms."[32] Ormuzd manifests himself only under the form of fire or +the sun. This is why the Persians perform their worship in the open +air on the mountains, before a lighted fire. To worship Ormuzd they +sing hymns to his praise and sacrifice animals in his honor. + +=Morality.=--Man fights for Ormuzd in aiding his efforts and in +overcoming Ahriman's. He wars against darkness in supplying the fire +with dry wood and perfumes; against the desert in tilling the soil and +in building houses; against the animals of Ahriman in killing +serpents, lizards, parasites, and beasts of prey. He battles against +impurity in keeping himself clean, in banishing from himself +everything that is dead, especially the nails and hair, for "where +hairs and clipped nails are, demons and unclean animals assemble." He +fights against falsehood by always being truthful. "The Persians," +says Herodotus,[33] "consider nothing so shameful as lying, and after +falsehood nothing so shameful as contracting debts, for he who has +debts necessarily lies." He wars against death by marrying and having +many children. "Terrible," says the Zend-Avesta, "are the houses void +of posterity." + +=Funerals.=--As soon as a man is dead his body belongs to the evil +spirit. It is necessary, then, to remove it from the house. But it +ought not to be burned, for in this way the fire would be polluted; it +should not be buried, for so is the soil defiled; nor is it to be +drowned, and thus contaminate the water. These dispositions of the +corpse would bring permanent pollution. The Persians resorted to a +different method. The body with face toward the sun was exposed in an +elevated place and left uncovered, securely fixed with stones; the +bearers then withdrew to escape the demons, for they assemble "in the +places of sepulture, where reside sickness, fever, filth, cold, and +gray hairs." Dogs and birds, pure animals, then come to purify the +body by devouring it. + +=Destiny of the Soul.=--The soul of the dead separates itself from the +body. In the third night after death it is conducted over the "Bridge +of Assembling" (Schinvat) which leads to the paradise above the gulf +of inferno. There Ormuzd questions it on its past life. If it has +practised the good, the pure spirits and the spirits of dogs support +it and aid it in crossing the bridge and give it entrance into the +abode of the blest; the demons flee, for they cannot bear the odor of +virtuous spirits. The soul of the wicked, on the other hand, comes to +the dread bridge, and reeling, with no one to support it, is dragged +by demons to hell, is seized by the evil spirit and chained in the +abyss of darkness. + +=Character of Mazdeism.=--This religion originated in a country of +violent contrasts, luxuriant valleys side by side with barren steppes, +cool oases with burning deserts, cultivated fields and stretches of +sand, where the forces of nature seem engaged in an eternal warfare. +This combat which the Iranian saw around him he assumed to be the law +of the universe. Thus a religion of great purity was developed, which +urged man to work and to virtue; but at the same time issued a belief +in the devil and in demons which was to propagate itself in the west +and torment all the peoples of Europe. + + +THE PERSIAN EMPIRE + +=The Medes.=--Many were the tribes dwelling in Iran; two of these have +become noted in history--the Medes and the Persians. The Medes at the +west, nearer the Assyrians, destroyed Nineveh and its empire (625). +But soon they softened their manners, taking the flowing robes, the +indolent life, the superstitious religion of the degenerate Assyrians. +They at last were confused with them. + +=The Persians.=--The Persians to the east preserved their manners, +their religion, and their vigor. "For twenty years," says Herodotus, +"the Persians teach their children but three things--to mount a horse, +to draw the bow, and to tell the truth." + +=Cyrus.=--About 550 Cyrus, their chief, overthrew the king of the +Medes, reunited all the peoples of Iran, and then conquered Lydia, +Babylon, and all Asia Minor. Herodotus recounts in detail a legend +which became attached to this prince. Cyrus himself in an inscription +says of himself, "I am Cyrus, king of the legions, great king, mighty +king, king of Babylon, king of Sumir and Akkad, king of the four +regions, son of Cambyses, great king of Susiana, grand-son of Cyrus, +king of Susiana." + +=The Inscription of Behistun.=--The eldest son of Cyrus, Cambyses, put +to death his brother Smerdis and conquered Egypt. What occurred +afterward is known to us from an inscription. Today one may see on the +frontier of Persia, in the midst of a plain, an enormous rock, cut +perpendicularly, about 1,500 feet high, the rock of Behistun. A +bas-relief carved on the rock represents a crowned king, with left +hand on a bow; he tramples on one captive while nine other prisoners +are presented before him in chains. An inscription in three languages +relates the life of the king: "Darius the king declares, This is what +I did before I became king. Cambyses, son of Cyrus, of our race, +reigned here before me. This Cambyses had a brother Smerdis, of the +same father and the same mother. One day Cambyses killed Smerdis. When +Cambyses had killed Smerdis the people were ignorant that Smerdis was +dead. After this Cambyses made an expedition to Egypt and while he was +there the people became rebellious; falsehood was then rife in the +country, in Persia, in Media and the other provinces. There was at +that time a magus named Gaumata; he deceived the people by saying that +he was Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. Then the whole people rose in +revolt, forsook Cambyses and went over to the pretender. After this +Cambyses died from a wound inflicted by himself. + +"After Gaumata had drawn away Persia, Media, and the other countries +from Cambyses, he followed out his purpose: he became king. The people +feared him on account of his cruelty: he would have killed the people +so that no one might learn that he was not Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. +Darius the king declares there was not a man in all Persia or in Media +who dared to snatch the crown from this Gaumata, the magus. Then I +presented myself, I prayed Ormuzd. Ormuzd accorded me his +protection.... Accompanied by faithful men I killed this Gaumata and +his principal accomplices. By the will of Ormuzd I became king. The +empire which had been stolen from our race I restored to it. The +altars that Gaumata, the magus, had thrown down I rebuilt to the +deliverance of the people; I received the chants and the sacred +ceremonials." Having overturned the usurper, Darius had to make war on +many of the revolting princes, "I have," said he, "won nineteen +battles and overcome nine kings." + +=The Persian Empire.=--Darius then subjected the peoples in revolt and +reestablished the empire of the Persians. He enlarged it also by +conquering Thrace and a province of India. This empire reunited all +the peoples of the Orient: Medes and Persians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, +Jews, Phoenicians, Syrians, Lydians, Egyptians, Indians; it covered +all the lands from the Danube on the west to the Indus on the east, +from the Caspian Sea on the north to the cataracts of the Nile on the +south. It was the greatest empire up to this time. One tribe of +mountaineers, the last to come, thus received the heritage of all the +empires of Asia. + +=The Satrapies.=--Oriental kings seldom concerned themselves with +their subjects more than to draw money from them, levy soldiers, and +collect presents; they never interfered in their local affairs. +Darius, like the rest, left each of the peoples of his empire to +administer itself according to its own taste, to keep its language, +its religion, its laws, often its ancient princes. But he took care to +regulate the taxes which his subjects paid him. He divided all the +empire into twenty[34] districts called satrapies. There were in the +same satrapy peoples who differed much in language, customs, and +beliefs; but each satrapy was to pay a fixed annual tribute, partly in +gold and silver, partly in natural products (wheat, horses, ivory). +The satrap, or governor, had the tribute collected and sent it to the +king. + +=Revenues of the Empire.=--The total revenue of the king amounted to +sixteen millions of dollars and this money was paid by weight. This +sum was in addition to the tributes in kind. These sixteen millions of +dollars, if we estimate them by the value of the metals at this time, +would be equivalent to one hundred and twenty millions in our day. +With this sum the king supported his satraps, his army, his domestic +servants and an extravagant court; there still remained to him every +year enormous ingots of metal which accumulated in his treasuries. +The king of Persia, like all the Orientals, exercised his vanity in +possessing an immense treasure. + +=The Great King.=--No king had ever been so powerful and rich. The +Greeks called the Persian king The Great King. Like all the monarchs +of the East, the king had absolute sway over all his subjects, over +the Persians as well as over tributary peoples. From Herodotus one can +see how Cambyses treated the great lords at his court. "What do the +Persians think of me?" said he one day to Prexaspes, whose son was his +cupbearer. "Master, they load you with praises, but they believe that +you have a little too strong desire for wine." "Learn," said Cambyses +in anger, "whether the Persians speak the truth. If I strike in the +middle of the heart of your son who is standing in the vestibule, that +will show that the Persians do not know what they say." He drew his +bow and struck the son of Prexaspes. The youth fell; Cambyses had the +body opened to see where the shot had taken effect The arrow was found +in the middle of the heart. The prince, full of joy said in derision +to the father of the young man, "You see that it is the Persians who +are out of their senses; tell me if you have seen anybody strike the +mark with so great accuracy." "Master," replied Prexaspes, "I do not +believe that even a god could shoot so surely."[35] + +=Services Rendered by the Persians.=--The peoples of Asia have always +paid tribute to conquerors and given allegiance to despots. The +Persians, at least, rendered them a great service: in subjecting all +these peoples to one master they prevented them from fighting among +themselves. Under their domination we do not see a ceaseless burning +of cities, devastation of fields, massacre or wholesale enslavement of +inhabitants. It was a period of peace. + +=Susa and Persepolis.=--The kings of the Medes and Persians, following +the example of the lords of Assyria, had palaces built for them. Those +best known to us are the palaces at Susa and Persepolis. The ruins of +Susa have been excavated by a French engineer,[36] who has discovered +sculptures, capitals, and friezes in enameled bricks which give +evidence of an advanced stage of art. The palace of Persepolis has +left ruins of considerable mass. The rock of the hill had been +fashioned into an enormous platform on which the palace was built. The +approach to it was by a gently rising staircase so broad that ten +horsemen could ascend riding side by side. + +=Persian Architecture.=--Persian architects had copied the palaces of +the Assyrians. At Persepolis and Susa, as in Assyria, are flat-roofed +edifices with terraces, gates guarded by monsters carved in stone, +bas-reliefs and enameled bricks, representing hunting-scenes and +ceremonies. At three points, however, the Persians improved on their +models: + +(1) They used marble instead of brick; (2) they made in the halls +painted floors of wood; (3) they erected eight columns in the form of +trunks of trees, the slenderest that we know, twelve times as high as +they were thick. + +Thus their architecture is more elegant and lighter than that of +Assyria. + +The Persians had made little progress in the arts. But they seem to +have been the most honest, the sanest, and the bravest people of the +time. For two centuries they exercised in Asia a sovereignty the least +cruel and the least unjust that it had ever known. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] That is, of about the same area as that part of the United States +east of the Mississippi, with Minnesota and Iowa. Modern Persia is not +two-thirds of this area.--ED. + +[29] Most historians place Zoroaster before 1000 B.C.--ED. + +[30] "I created the dog," said Ormuzd, "with a delicate scent and strong +teeth, attached to man, biting the enemy to protect the herds. Thieves +and wolves come not near the sheep-fold when the dog is on guard, strong +in voice and defending the flocks." + +[31] Certain Persian heretics of our day, on the contrary, adore only +the evil god, for, they say, the principle of the good being in itself +good and indulgent does not require appeasing. They are called Yezidis +(worshippers of the devil). + +[32] Herod., i., 131. + +[33] i., 138. + +[34] Herodotus mentions 20, but we find as many as 31 enumerated in the +inscriptions. + +[35] Herod., iii., 34, 35. Compare also iii., 78, 79; and the book of +Esther. + +[36] M. Dieulafoi. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE PHOENICIANS + +THE PHOENICIAN PEOPLE + + +=The Land.=--Phoenicia is the narrow strip of country one hundred and +fifty miles long by twenty-four to thirty wide, shut in between the +sea of Syria and the high range of Lebanon. It is a succession of +narrow valleys and ravines confined by abrupt hills which descend +towards the sea; little torrents formed by the snows or rain-storms +course through these in the early spring; in summer no water remains +except in wells and cisterns. The mountains in this quarter were +always covered with trees; at the summit were the renowned cedars of +Lebanon, on the ridges, pines and cypresses; while lower yet palms +grew even to the sea-shore. In the valleys flourished the olive, the +vine, the fig, and the pomegranate. + +=The Cities.=--At intervals along the rocky coast promontories or +islands formed natural harbors. On these the Phoenicians had founded +their cities; Tyre and Arad were each built on a small island. The +people housed themselves in dwellings six to eight stories in height. +Fresh water was ferried over in ships. The other cities, Gebel, +Beirut, and Sidon arose on the mainland. The soil was inadequate to +support these swarms of men, and so the Phoenicians were before all +else seamen and traders. + +=Phoenician Ruins.=--Not a book of the Phoenicians has come down to us, +not even their sacred book. The sites of their cities have been +excavated. But, in the words of the scholar sent to do this work, +"Ruins are not preserved, especially in countries where people are not +occupied with them," and the Syrians are not much occupied with ruins. +They have violated the tombs to remove the jewels of the dead, have +demolished edifices to secure stone for building purposes, and +Mussulman hatred of chiseled figures has shattered the sculptures.[37] +Very little is found beyond broken marble, cisterns, wine-presses cut +in the rock and some sarcophagi hewn in rock. All this debris gives us +little information and we know very little more of the Phoenicians than +Greek writers and Jewish prophets have taught us. + +=Political Organization of the Phoenicians.=--The Phoenicians never +built an empire. Each city had its little independent territory, its +assemblies, its king, and its government. For general state business +each city sent delegates to Tyre, which from the thirteenth century +B.C. was the principal city of Phoenicia. The Phoenicians were not a +military people, and so submitted themselves to all the +conquerors--Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians. They +fulfilled all their obligations to them in paying tribute. + +=Tyre.=--From the thirteenth century Tyre was the most notable of the +cities. Its island becoming too small to contain it, a new city was +built on the coast opposite. Tyrian merchants had founded colonies in +every part of the Mediterranean, receiving silver from the mines of +Spain and commodities from the entire ancient world. The prophet +Isaiah[38] calls these traders princes; Ezekiel[39] describes the +caravans which came to them from all quarters. It is Hiram, a king of +Tyre, from whom Solomon asked workmen to build his palace and temple +at Jerusalem. + +=Carthage.=--A colony of Tyre surpassed even her in power. In the +ninth century some Tyrians, exiled by a revolution, founded on the +shore of Africa near Tunis the city of Carthage. A woman led them, +Elissar, whom we call Dido (the fugitive). The inhabitants of the +country, says the legend, were willing to sell her only as much land +as could be covered by a bull's hide; but she cut the hide in strips +so narrow that it enclosed a wide territory; and there she constructed +a citadel. Situated at the centre of the Mediterranean, provided with +two harbors, Carthage flourished, sent out colonies in turn, made +conquests, and at last came to reign over all the coasts of Africa, +Spain, and Sardinia. Everywhere she had agencies for her commerce and +subjects who paid her tribute. + +=The Carthaginian Army.=--To protect her colonies from the natives, to +hold her subjects in check who were always ready to revolt, a strong +army was necessary. But the life of a Carthaginian was too valuable to +risk it without necessity. Carthage preferred to pay mercenary +soldiers, recruiting them among the barbarians of her empire and among +the adventurers of all countries. Her army was a bizarre aggregation +in which all languages were spoken, all religions practised, and in +which every soldier wore different arms and costume. There were seen +Numidians clothed in lion skins which served them as couch, mounted +bareback on small fleet horses, and drawing the bow with horse at full +gallop; Libyans with black skins, armed with pikes; Iberians from +Spain in white garments adorned with red, armed with a long pointed +sword; Gauls, naked to the girdle, bearing enormous shields and a +rounded sword which they held in both hands; natives of the Balearic +Islands, trained from infancy to sling with stones or balls of lead. +The generals were Carthaginians; the government distrusted them, +watched them closely, and when they were defeated, had them crucified. + +=The Carthaginians.=--Carthage had two kings, but the senate was the +real power, being composed of the richest merchants of the city. And +so every state question for this government became a matter of +commerce. The Carthaginians were hated by all other peoples, who found +them cruel, greedy, and faithless. And yet, since they had a good +fleet, had money to purchase soldiers, and possessed an energetic +government, they succeeded in the midst of barbarous and divided +peoples in maintaining their empire over the western Mediterranean for +300 years (from the sixth to the third century B.C.). + +=The Phoenician Religion.=--The Phoenicians and the Carthaginians had a +religion similar to that of the Chaldeans. The male god, Baal, is a +sun-god; for the sun and the moon are in the eyes of the Phoenicians +the great forces which create and which destroy. Each of the cities of +Phoenicia has therefore its divine pair: at Sidon it is Baal Sidon (the +sun) and Astoreth (the moon); at Gebel, Baal Tammouz and Baaleth; at +Carthage, Baal-Hamon, and Tanith. But the same god changes his name +according as he is conceived as creator or destroyer; thus Baal as +destroyer is worshipped at Carthage under the name of Moloch. These +gods, represented by idols, have their temples, altars, and priests. +As creators they are honored with orgies, with tumultuous feasts; as +destroyers, by human victims. Astoreth, the great goddess of Sidon, +whom they represented by the crescent of the moon and the dove, had +her cult in the sacred woods. Baal Moloch is figured at Carthage as a +bronze colossus with arms extended and lowered. When they wished to +appease him they laid children in his hands who fell at once into a +pit of fire. During the siege of Carthage by Agathocles the principal +men of the city sacrificed to Moloch as many as two hundred of their +children. + +This sensual and sanguinary religion inspired other peoples with +horror, but they imitated it. The Jews sacrificed to Baal on the +mountains; the Greeks adored Astarte of Sidon under the name of +Aphrodite, and Baal Melkhart of Tyre under the name of Herakles. + + +PHOENICIAN COMMERCE + +=Phoenicians Occupations.=--Crowded into a small territory, the +Phoenicians gained their livelihood mainly from commerce. None of the +other peoples of the East--the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the +Assyrians, nor the barbarian tribes of the West (Spaniards, Gauls, +Italians) had a navy. The Phoenicians alone in this time dared to +navigate. They were the commission merchants of the old world; they +went to every people to buy their merchandise and sold them in +exchange the commodities of other countries. This traffic was by +caravan with the East, by sea with the West. + +=Caravans.=--On land the Phoenicians sent caravans in three directions: + + 1.--Towards Arabia, from which they brought gold, agate, and onyx, + incense and myrrh, and the perfumes of Arabia; pearls, spices, + ivory, ebony, ostrich plumes and apes from India. + + 2.--Towards Assyria, whence came cotton and linen cloths, asphalt, + precious stones, perfumery, and silk from China. + + 3.--Towards the Black Sea, where they went to receive horses, + slaves, and copper vases made by the mountaineers of the Caucasus. + +=Marine Commerce.=--For their sea commerce they built ships from the +cedars of Lebanon to be propelled by oars and sails. In their sailing +it was not necessary to remain always in sight of the coast, for they +knew how to direct their course by the polar star. Bold mariners, they +pushed in their little boats to the mouth of the Mediterranean; they +ventured even to pass through the strait of Gibraltar or, as the +ancients called it, the Pillars of Hercules, and took the ocean course +to the shores of England, and perhaps to Norway, Phoenicians in the +service of a king of Egypt started in the seventh century B.C. to +circumnavigate Africa, and returned, it is said, at the end of three +years by the Red Sea. An expedition issuing from Carthage skirted the +coast of Africa to the Gulf of Guinea; the commander Hanno wrote an +account of the voyage which is still preserved. + +=Commodities.=--To civilized peoples the Phoenicians sold the products +of their industry. In barbarous countries they went to search for what +they could not find in the Orient. On the coast of Greece they +gathered shell-fish from which they extracted a red tint, the purple; +cloths colored with purple were used among all the peoples of ancient +times for garments of kings and great lords. + +From Spain and Sardinia they brought the silver which the inhabitants +took from the mines. Tin was necessary to make bronze, an alloy of +copper and tin, but the Orient did not furnish this, and so they +sought it even on the coasts of England, in the Isles of Tin (the +Cassiterides). In every country they procured slaves. Sometimes they +bought them, as lately the slavers bought negroes on the coast of +Africa, for all the peoples of this time made commerce in slaves; +sometimes they swooped down on a coast, threw themselves on the women +and children and carried them off to be retained in their own cities +or to be sold abroad; for on occasion they were pirates and did not +scruple to plunder strangers. + +=The Secrets Kept by the Phoenicians.=--The Phoenicians did not care to +have mariners of other peoples come into competition with them. On the +return from these far countries they concealed the road which they had +travelled. No one in antiquity knew where were the famous Isles of the +Cassiterides from which they got their tin. It was by chance that a +Greek ship discovered Spain, with which the Phoenicians had traded for +centuries. Carthage drowned the foreign merchants whom they found in +Sardinia or on the shore of Gibraltar. Once a Carthaginian +merchantman, seeing a strange ship following it, was run aground by +the pilot that the foreigner might not see where he was going. + +=Colonies.=--In the countries where they traded, the Phoenicians +founded factories, or branch-houses. They were fortified posts on a +natural harbor. There they landed their merchandise, ordinarily +cloths, pottery, ornaments, and idols.[40] The natives brought down +their commodities and an exchange was made, just as now European +merchants do with the negroes of Africa. There were Phoenician markets +in Cyprus, in Egypt, and in all the then barbarous countries of the +Mediterranean--in Crete, Greece, Sicily, Africa, Malta, Sardinia, on +the coasts of Spain at Malaga and Cadiz, and perhaps in Gaul at +Monaco. Often around these Phoenician buildings the natives set up +their cabins and the mart became a city. The inhabitants adopted the +Phoenician gods, and even after the city had become Greek, the cult of +the dove-goddess was found there (as in Cythera), that of the god +Melkhart (as at Corinth), or of the god with the bull-face that +devours human victims (as in Crete). + +=Influence of the Phoenicians.=--It is certain that the Phoenicians in +founding their trading stations cared only for their own interest. But +it came to pass that their colonies contributed to civilization. The +barbarians of the West received the cloths, the jewels, the utensils +of the peoples of the East who were more civilized, and, receiving +them, learned to imitate them. For a long time the Greeks had only +vases, jewels, and idols brought by the Phoenicians, and these served +them as models. The Phoenicians brought simultaneously from Egypt and +from Assyria industry and commodities. + +=The Alphabet.=--At the same time they exported their alphabet. The +Phoenicians did not invent writing. The Egyptians knew how to write many +centuries before them, they even made use of letters each of which +expressed its own sound, as in our alphabet. But their alphabet was +still encumbered with ancient signs which represented, some a syllable, +others an entire word. Doubtless the Phoenicians had need of a simpler +system for their books of commerce. They rejected all the syllabic signs +and ideographs, preserving only twenty-two letters, each of which marks +a sound (or rather an articulation of the language). The other peoples +imitated this alphabet of twenty-two letters. Some, like the Jews, wrote +from right to left just as the Phoenicians themselves did; others, like +the Greeks, from left to right. All have slightly changed the form of +the letters, but the Phoenician alphabet is found at the basis of all +the alphabets--Hebrew, Lycian, Greek, Italian, Etruscan, Iberian, +perhaps even in the runes of the Norse. It is the Phoenicians that taught +the world how to write. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] Renan ("Mission de Phenicio," p. 818) says, "I noticed at Tripolis +a sarcophagus serving as a public fountain and the sculptured face of it +was turned to the wall. I was told that a governor had placed it thus so +as not to provide distractions for the inhabitants." + +[38] See ch. xxiii. + +[39] See chs. xxvi., xxvii., xxviii. + +[40] These idols, one of their principal exports, are found wherever the +Phoenicians traded. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HEBREWS + +ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW PEOPLE + + +=The Bible.=--The Jews united all their sacred books into a single +aggregation which we call by a Greek name the Bible, that is to say, +the Book. It is the Book par excellence. The sacred book of the Jews +became also the sacred book of the Christians. The Bible is at the +same time the history of the Jewish nation, and all that we know of +the sacred people we owe to the sacred books. + +=The Hebrews.=--When the Semites had descended from the mountains of +Armenia into the plains of the Euphrates, one of their tribes, at the +time of the first Chaldean empire, withdrew to the west, crossed the +Euphrates, the desert, and Syria and came to the country of the Jordan +beyond Phoenicia. This tribe was called the Hebrews, that is to say, +the people from beyond the river. Like the majority of the Semites +they were a race of nomadic shepherds. They did not till the soil and +had no houses; they moved from place to place with their herds of +cattle, sheep, and camels, seeking pasturage and living in tents as +the Arabs of the desert do to this day. In the book of Genesis one has +a glimpse of this nomad life. + +=The Patriarchs.=--The tribe was like a great family; it was composed +of the chief, his wives, his children, and his servants. The chief had +absolute authority over all; for the tribe he was father, priest, +judge, and king. We call these tribal chiefs patriarchs. The principal +ones were Abraham and Jacob; the former the father of the Hebrews, the +latter of the Israelites. The Bible represents both of them as +designed by God to be the scions of a sacred people. Abraham made a +covenant with God that he and his descendants would obey him; God +promised to Abraham a posterity more numerous than the stars of +heaven. Jacob received from God the assurance that a great nation +should issue from himself. + +=The Israelites.=--Moved by a vision Jacob took the name of Israel +(contender with God). His tribe was called Beni-Israel (sons of +Israel) or Israelites. The Bible records that, driven by famine, Jacob +abandoned the Jordan country to settle with all his house on the +eastern frontier of Egypt, to which Joseph, one of his sons who had +become minister of a Pharaoh, invited him. There the sons of Israel +abode for several centuries. Coming hither but seventy in number, they +multiplied, according to the Bible, until they became six hundred +thousand men, without counting women and children. + +=The Call of Moses.=--The king of Egypt began to oppress them, +compelling them to make mortar and bricks for the construction of his +strong cities. It was then that one of them, Moses, received from God +the mission to deliver them. One day while he was keeping his herds on +the mountain, an angel appeared to him in the midst of a burning +bush, and he heard these words: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of +Isaac, the God of Jacob. I have seen the affliction of my people which +is in Egypt, I have heard their cry against their oppressors, I know +their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of +the Egyptians and to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey, +to the place of the Canaanites.... Come now therefore and I will send +thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children +of Israel, out of Egypt."[41] The Israelites under the guidance of +Moses fled from Egypt (the Exodus); they journeyed to the foot of +Mount Sinai, where they received the law of God, and for an entire +generation wandered in the deserts to the south of Syria. + +=Israel in the Desert.=--Often the Israelites wished to turn back. "We +remember," said they, "the fish which we ate in Egypt, the cucumbers, +melons, leeks, and onions. Let us appoint a chief who will lead us +back to Egypt." Moses, however, held them to obedience. At last they +reached the land promised by God to their race. + +=The Promised Land.=--It was called the land of Canaan or Palestine; +the Jews named it the land of Israel, later Judea. Christians have +termed it =the= Holy Land. It is an arid country, burning with heat in +the summer, but a country of mountains. The Bible describes it thus: +"Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of +water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a +land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and +pomegranates; a land of oil olive and honey, wherein thou shalt eat +bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it." The +Israelites according to their estimate were then 601,700 men capable +of bearing arms, divided among twelve tribes, ten descended from +Jacob, two from Joseph; this enumeration does not include the Levites +or priests to the number of 23,000. The land was occupied by several +small peoples who were called Canaanites. The Israelites exterminated +them and at last occupied their territory. + + +THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL + +=One God.=--The other ancient peoples adored many gods; the Israelites +believed in but one God, immaterial, who made the world and governs +it. "In the beginning," says the book of Genesis, "God created the +heavens and the earth." He created plants and animals, he "created man +in his own image." All men are the handiwork of God. + +=The People of God.=--But among all mankind God has chosen the +children of Israel to make of them "his people." He called Abraham and +said to him, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy +seed after me ... to be a God unto thee and to thy seed." He appeared +to Jacob: "I am God," said he to him, "the God of thy father; fear not +to go down into Egypt, for I will make of thee there a great nation." +When Moses asks his name, he replies, "Thou shalt say to the children +of Israel, The Lord, the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the +God of Isaac, the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you. This is my name +forever." + +=The Covenant.=--There is, then, a covenant between the Israelites and +God. Jehovah (the Eternal) loves and protects the Israelites, they are +"a holy nation," "his most precious jewel among all the nations." He +promises to make them mighty and happy. In return, the Israelites +swear to worship him, to serve him, to obey him in everything as a +lawgiver, a judge, and a sovereign. + +=The Ten Commandments.=--Jehovah, lawgiver of the Israelites, dictated +his precepts to Moses on Mount Sinai amidst lightnings and +thunderings. They were inscribed on two tables, the Tables of the Law, +in these terms: + +"Hear, O Israel, I am Jehovah, thy God, who brought you out of the +land of Egypt, from the land of bondage." (Then follow the ten +commandments to be found in the twentieth chapter of the book of +Exodus.) + +=The Law.=--Beside the ten commandments, the Israelites are required +to obey many other divine ordinances. These are all delivered to them +in the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and constitute +the Law of Israel. The Law regulates the ceremonies of religion, +establishes the feasts--including the Sabbath every seven days, the +Passover in memory of the escape from Egypt, the week of harvest, the +feast of Tabernacles during the vintage; it organizes marriage, the +family, property, government, fixes the penalty of crimes, indicates +even foods and remedies. It is a code at once religious, political, +civil and penal. God the ruler of the Israelites has the right to +regulate all the details of their lives. + +=Religion has made the Jewish People.=--The Israelites did not receive +with docility the government of God. Moses on his death-bed could say +to the Levites in delivering to them the book of the law, "Take this +book that it may be a witness against you, Israel, for I know thy +rebellion and thy stiff neck" (Deut. xxxi. 27). "During my life you +have been rebellious against the Lord, and how much more after my +death." During these centuries some of the Israelites, often the +majority of the nation, had been idolaters. They became similar to the +other Semites of Syria. Only the Israelites who remained faithful to +God formed the Jewish people. It is the religion of Jehovah which has +transformed an obscure tribe into the holy nation, a small nation, but +one of the most significant in the history of the world. + + +THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL + +=The Judges.=--Once established in Palestine the Hebrews remained +divided for several centuries. "In those days," says the Bible, "there +was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own +eyes." Often the Israelites forgot Jehovah and served the gods of +neighboring tribes. Then "the anger of the Lord was kindled against +the Israelites, and he delivered them into the hands of their +enemies." When they had repented and had humbled themselves, "the Lord +raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those that +spoiled them." "But it came to pass that at the death of the judge +they corrupted themselves anew ... bowing themselves to other gods." +These judges--Gideon, Jephthah, Samson--were warriors who came in the +name of Jehovah to free the people. Then they fell at once into +idolatry again and their servitude was repeated. + +=The Kings.=--At last the Israelites were wearied and asked of Samuel, +the high-priest, that he would give them a king. Samuel unwillingly +placed Saul at their head. This king should have been the ready +servant of the will of God; he dared to disobey him, upon which the +high-priest said to him, "Thou hast rejected the word of the Lord and +the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel." A war-chief, +David, was set in his place. He defeated all the enemies of Israel, +captured from them Mount Zion, and transferred his capital thither. +This was Jerusalem. + +=Jerusalem.=--Compared with Babylon or Thebes, Jerusalem was a poor +capital. The Hebrews were not builders; their religion prevented them +from raising temples; the houses of individuals were shaped like cubes +of rock which may be seen today on the sides of Lebanon in the midst +of vines and fig-trees. But Jerusalem was the holy city of the +Hebrews. The king had his palace there--the palace of Solomon, who +astonished the Hebrews with his throne of ivory; Jehovah had his +temple there, the first Hebrew temple. + +=The Tabernacle.=--The emblem of the covenant between God and Israel +was a great chest of cedar-wood furnished with rings of gold, which +contained the tables of the Law. This was borne before the people on +high feast-days; it was the Ark of the Covenant. To preserve this ark +and necessary objects of worship, Moses is said to have made the +Tabernacle--a pavilion of wood covered with skins and hangings. It was +a portable temple which the Hebrews carried with them until they could +erect a true temple in the promised land. + +=The Temple.=--The Temple of Jerusalem, built at last under Solomon, +was divided into three parts: + + 1.--To the rear, the Holy of Holies, in which rested the ark of + the covenant; the high-priest only had the right to enter here, + and that but once a year. + + 2.--In the middle, the Holy Place, in which were kept the altar of + incense, the candle-stick with the seven arms, the table of + shew-bread; the priests entered to burn incense and to present the + offerings. + + 3.--At the front, the Court open to the people, where the victims + were sacrificed on the great altar. + +The Temple of Jerusalem was from the first the centre of the nation; +from all Palestine the people came to be present at the ceremonies. +The high-priest who directed the worship was a person sometimes of +greater power than the king. + + +THE PROPHETS + +=Disasters of Israel.=--Solomon was the last king who enjoyed great +power. After him ten tribes separated themselves and constituted the +kingdom of Israel, whose inhabitants worshipped the golden calves and +the gods of the Phoenicians. Two tribes only remained faithful to +Jehovah and to the king at Jerusalem; these formed the kingdom of +Judah (977).[42] The two kingdoms exhausted their energies in making +war on each other. Then came the armies of the Eastern conquerors; +Israel was destroyed by Sargon, king of Assyria (722); Judah, by +Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadrezzar), king of Chaldea (586). + +=Sentiments of the Israelites.=--Faithful Israelites regarded these +woes as a chastisement: God was punishing his people for their +disobedience; as before, he delivered them from their conquerors. "The +children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah, their God, they had +built them high places in every city, they imitated the nations around +them, although the Lord had forbidden them to do like them; they made +them idols of brass; they bowed themselves before all the host of +heaven [the stars], they worshipped Baal. It is for this that Jehovah +rejected all the race of Israel, he afflicted them and delivered them +into the hands of those that plundered them." + +=The Prophets.=--Then appeared the prophets, or as they were called, +the Seers: Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. Usually they came from +the desert where they had fasted, prayed, and given themselves to +meditation. They came in the name of Jehovah, not as warriors in +judgment, but as preachers. They called the Israelites to repent, to +overthrow their idols, to return to Jehovah; they foretold all the +woes that would come upon them if they did not reconcile themselves to +him. They preached and uttered prophecies at the same time. + +=The New Teaching.=--These men on fire with the divine spirit found +the official religion at Jerusalem mean and cold. Why should they, +like the idolaters, slaughter cattle and burn incense to the honor of +God? "Hear the word of Jehovah," says Isaiah: "To what purpose is the +multitude of your sacrifices? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams +and of the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of +bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.... Bring no more vain +oblations, your incense is an abomination to me.... When ye spread +forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you ... for your hands +are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean ... cease to do evil, +learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the +fatherless, plead for the widow.... Though your sins be as scarlet, +they shall be as white as snow." In place of sacrifices, the prophets +would set justice and good works. + +=The Messiah.=--Israel deserved its afflictions, but there would be a +limit to the chastisement. "O my people," says Isaiah in the name of +Jehovah, "be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a +rod ... after the manner of Egypt ... for yet a very little while and +the indignation shall cease ... and the burden shall be taken away +from off thy shoulder." The prophets taught the people to look for the +coming of Him who should deliver them; they prepared the way for the +Messiah. + + +THE JEWISH PEOPLE + +=Return to Jerusalem.=--The children of Judah, removed to the plain of +the Euphrates, did not forget their country, but sang of it in their +chants: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept +when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the +midst thereof, for there they that carried us away required a song ... +saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' How shall we sing the +Lord's song in a strange land?" After seventy years of captivity, +Cyrus, victor over Babylon, allowed the Israelites to return to +Palestine. They rebuilt Jerusalem, reconstructed the temple, restored +the feasts, and recovered the sacred books. As a sign that they were +again the people of Jehovah they renewed the covenant with him; it was +a formal treaty, written and signed by the chiefs of the people. + +=The Jews.=--The little kingdom of Jerusalem maintained itself for +seven centuries, governed now by a king, now by the high-priest, but +always paying tribute to the masters of Syria--to the Persians first, +later to the Macedonians and the Syrians, and last of all to the +Romans. Faithful to the end to Jehovah, the Jews (their proper name +since the return) continued to live the law of Moses, to celebrate at +Jerusalem the feasts and the sacrifices. The high-priest, assisted by +a council of the elders, preserved the law; scribes copied it and +doctors expounded it to the people. The faithful obliged themselves to +observe it in the smallest details. The Pharisees were eminent among +them for their zeal in fulfilling all its requirements. + +=The Synagogues.=--Meanwhile the Jews for the sake of trade were +pushing beyond the borders of Judaea into Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and +even to Italy. Some of them were to be found in all the great +cities--Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome. +Dispersed among the Gentiles, the Jews were strenuous to preserve +their religion. They raised no temples, for the law prevented this; +there could be but one Jewish temple, that at Jerusalem, where they +celebrated the solemn feasts. But they joined themselves together to +read and comment on the word of God. These places of assembling were +called Synagogues, from a Greek word signifying meetings. + +=Destruction of the Temple.=--The Christ appeared at this moment. The +Jews crucified him and persecuted his disciples not only in Judaea but +in every city where they found them in any number. In the year 70 A.D. +Jerusalem, in revolt against the Romans, was taken by assault, and all +the inhabitants were massacred or sold into slavery. The Romans burnt +the temple and carried away the sacred utensils. From that time there +was no longer a centre of the Jewish religion. + +=Fortunes of the Jews after the Dispersion.=--The Jewish nation +survived the ruin of its capital. The Jews, scattered throughout the +world, learned to dispense with the temple. They preserved their +sacred books in the Hebrew tongue. Hebrew is the primitive language of +Israel; the Jews since the return from Babylon no longer spoke it, but +adopted the languages of the neighboring peoples--the Syriac, the +Chaldean, and especially the Greek. The Rabbis, however, instructed in +the religion, still learned the Hebrew, explained it, and commented on +the Scripture.[43] Thus the Jewish religion was preserved, and, +thanks to it, the Jewish people. It made converts even among the +Gentiles; there were in the empire proselytes, that is, people who +practised the religion of Jehovah without being of the Jewish race. + +The Christian Church, powerful since the fourth century, commenced to +persecute the Jews. This persecution has endured to this day in all +Christian countries. Usually the Jews were tolerated on account of +their wealth and because they transacted all banking operations; but +they were kept apart, not being permitted to hold any office. In the +majority of cities they were compelled to wear a special costume, to +live in a special quarter,[44] gloomy, filthy, unhealthy, and +sometimes at Easter time to send one of their number to suffer insult. +The people suspected them of poisoning fountains, of killing children, +of profaning the consecrated host; often the people rose against them, +massacred them, and pillaged their houses. Judges under the least +pretext had them imprisoned, tortured, and burned. Sometimes the +church tried to convert them by force; sometimes the government exiled +them _en masse_ from the country and confiscated their goods. The Jews +at last disappeared from France,[45] from Spain, England, and Italy. +In Portugal, Germany, and Poland, and in the Mohammedan lands they +maintained themselves. From these countries after the cessation of +persecution they returned to the rest of Europe. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[41] Exodus iii, 1-10. + +[42] There is much uncertainty regarding the chronology of this +period.--ED. + +[43] The Talmud is the accumulation of these commentaries. + +[44] The Jewish Quarter at Rome was called the Ghetto. This name has +since been applied to all Jewish quarters. + +[45] Except at Avignon, on the domains of the Pope, and in +Alsace-Lorraine. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +GREECE AND THE GREEKS + + +=The Country.=--Greece is a very little country (about 20,000 square +miles), hardly larger than Switzerland; but it is a country of great +variety, bristling with mountains, indented with gulfs--a country +originally constituted to influence mightily the character of the men +who inhabited it. + +A central chain, the Pindus, traverses Greece through the centre and +covers it with its rocky system. Toward the isthmus of Corinth it +becomes lower; but the Peloponnesus, on the other side of the isthmus, +is elevated about 2,000 feet above the sea level, like a citadel +crowned with lofty chains, abrupt and snowy, which fall +perpendicularly into the sea. The islands themselves scattered along +the coast are only submerged mountains whose summits rise above the +surface of the sea. In this diverse land there is little tillable +ground, but almost everywhere bare rock. The streams, like brooks, +leave between their half-dried channel and the sterile rock of the +mountain only a narrow strip of fertile soil. In this beautiful +country are found some forests, cypresses, laurels, palms, here and +there vines scattered on the rocky hillsides; but there are no rich +harvests and no green pasturages. Such a country produces wiry +mountaineers, active and sober. + +=The Sea.=--Greece is a land of shores: smaller than Portugal, it has +as great a coast-line as Spain. The sea penetrates it to a great +number of gulfs, coves, and indentations; it is ordinarily surrounded +with projecting rocks, or with approaching islands that form a natural +port. This sea is like a lake; it has not, like the ocean, a pale and +sombre color; usually it is calm, lustrous, and, as Homer says, "of +the color of violets." + +No sea lends itself better to navigation with small ships. Every +morning the north wind rises to conduct the barques of Athens to Asia; +in the evening the south wind brings them back to port. From Greece to +Asia Minor the islands are placed like stepping-stones; on a clear day +the mariner always has land in view. Such a sea beckons people to +cross it. + +And so the Greeks have been sailors, traders, travellers, pirates, and +adventurers; like the Phoenicians, they have spread over all the +ancient world, carrying with them the merchandise and the inventions +of Egypt, of Chaldea, and of Asia. + +=The Climate.=--The climate of Greece is mild. In Athens it freezes +hardly once in twenty years; in summer the heat is moderated by the +breeze from the sea.[46] Today the people still lie in the streets +from the month of May to September. The air is cool and transparent; +for many leagues could once be seen the crest of the statue of Pallas. +The contours of distant mountains are not, as with us, enveloped in +haze, but show a clear line against the clear sky. It is a beautiful +country which urges man to take life as a feast, for everything is +happy about him. "Walking at night in the gardens, listening to the +grasshoppers, playing the lute in the clear of the moon, going to +drink at the spring at the mountain, carrying with him some wine that +he may drink while he sings, spending the days in dancing--these are +Greek pleasures, the joys of a race poor, economical, and eternally +young." + +=Simplicity of Greek Life.=--In this country men are not melted with +the heat nor stiffened with cold; they live in the open air gay and at +slight expense. Food in great quantity is not required, nor warm +clothing, nor a comfortable house. The Greek could live on a handful +of olives and a sardine. His entire clothing consisted of sandals, a +tunic, a large mantle; very often he went bare-footed and bare-headed. +His house was a meagre and unsubstantial building; the air easily +entered through the walls. A couch with some coverings, a coffer, some +beautiful vases, a lamp,--this was his furniture. The walls were bare +and whitened with lime. This house was only a sleeping place. + + +THE PEOPLE + +=Origin of the Greeks.=--The people who inhabited this charming little +land were an Aryan people, related to the Hindoos and the Persians, +and like them come from the mountains of Asia or the steppes beyond +the Caspian Sea. The Greeks had forgotten the long journey made by +their ancestors; they said that they, like the grasshoppers, were the +children of the soil.[47] But their language and the names of their +gods leave no doubt of their origin.... Like all the Aryans, the +primitive Greeks nourished themselves with milk and with the flesh of +their herds; they moved about under arms, always ready to fight, and +grouped themselves in tribes governed by patriarchs. + +=The Legends.=--The Greeks like all the other ancient peoples were +ignorant of their origin. They neither knew whence their ancestors had +come nor when they had established themselves in Greece, nor what they +had done there. To preserve the exact memory of things as they occur, +there is need of some means of fixing them; but the Greeks did not +know how to write; they did not employ writing until about the eighth +century B.C. They had no way of calculating the number of years. Later +they adopted the usage of counting the years according to the great +feast which was celebrated every four years at Olympia; a period of +four years was called an olympiad. But the first olympiad was placed +in 776 B.C., and the chronology of the Greeks does not rise beyond +this date. + +And yet they used to tell in Greece a great number of legends about +this primitive period. These were especially the exploits of ancient +kings and of heroes who were adored as demi-gods. These stories were +so mingled with fable that it is impossible to know how much truth +they may contain. They said at Athens that the first king, Cecrops, +was half man and half serpent; at Thebes, that Cadmus, founder of the +city, had come from Phoenicia to seek his sister Europa who had been +stolen by a bull; that he had killed a dragon and had sowed his teeth, +from which was sprung a race of warriors, and that the noble families +of Thebes descended from these warriors. At Argos it was said that the +royal family was the issue of Pelops to whom Zeus had given a shoulder +of ivory to replace the one devoured by a goddess. Thus each country +had its legends and the Greeks continued to the end to relate them and +to offer worship to their ancient heroes--Perseus, Bellerophon, +Herakles, Theseus, Minos, Castor and Pollux, Meleager, OEdipus. The +majority of the Greeks, even among the better educated, admitted, at +least in part, the truth of these traditions. They accepted as +historical facts the war between the two sons of OEdipus, king of +Thebes, and the expedition of the Argonauts, sailing forth in quest of +the Golden Fleece, which was guarded by two brazen-footed bulls +vomiting flames. + +=The Trojan War.=--Of all these legends the most fully developed and +the most celebrated was the legend of the Trojan War. It recounted +that about the twelfth century, Troy, a rich and powerful city, held +sway over the coast of Asia. Paris, a Trojan prince, having come to +Greece, had abducted Helen, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. +Agamemnon, king of Argos, made a league of the kings of Greece; a +Greek army went in a fleet of two hundred galleys to besiege Troy. The +siege endured ten years because the supreme god, Zeus, had taken the +side of the Trojans. All the Greek chiefs participated in this +adventure. Achilles, the bravest and the most beautiful of these, +killed Hector, the principal defender of Troy, and dragged his corpse +around the city; he fought clad in divine armor which had been +presented him by his mother, a goddess of the sea; in turn he died, +shot by an arrow in the heel. The Greeks, despairing of taking the +city by force, employed a trick: they pretended to depart, and left an +immense horse of wood in which were concealed the chiefs of the army. +The Trojans drew this horse into the city; during the night the chiefs +came forth and opened the city to the Greeks. Troy was burnt, the men +slaughtered, the women led away as slaves. But the chiefs of the +Greeks on their return were beset by tempest. Some perished in the +sea, others were cast on foreign shores. Odysseus, the most crafty of +the chiefs, was for ten years buffeted from one land to another, +losing successively all his ships, himself the sole survivor of the +disasters. + +All antiquity had steadfast faith in the Trojan War. 1184 B.C. was set +as the date of the ending of the siege, and men pointed out the site +of the city. In 1874 Schliemann purposed to excavate this site; it was +necessary to traverse the debris of many cities which lay over it; at +last at a depth of about fifty feet he found in the deepest bed of +debris the traces of a mighty city reduced to ashes, and in the ruins +of the principal edifice a casket filled with gems of gold which he +called the Treasury of Priam. There was no inscription, and the city, +the whole wall of which we have been able to bring to light, was a +very small one. A large number of small, very rude idols have been +found, which represent an owl-headed goddess (the Greeks thus +represented the goddess Pallas). Beyond this no proof has been found +that this city was called Troy. + +=The Homeric Poems.=--It is the two poems attributed to Homer which +have made the taking of Troy renowned throughout the world--the +Iliad, which related the combats of the Greeks and the exploits of +Achilles before Troy; and the Odyssey, which recounts the adventures +of Odysseus (Ulysses) after the capture of Troy. + +These two poems were handed down for centuries without being committed +to writing; the rhapsodists, wandering singers, knew long passages +from them by heart and recited them at feasts. It is not till the +sixth century that Pisistratus, a prince of Athens, had them collected +and edited.[48] The two poems became from that time and always +remained the most admired works of Greek literature. + +The Greeks said that the author of these poems was Homer, a Greek of +Ionia, who lived about the tenth or the ninth century B.C. They +represented him as a blind old man, poor and a wanderer. Seven towns +disputed the honor of being his birth-place. This tradition was +received without hesitation. But at the end of the eighteenth century +a German scholar, Wolf, noticed certain contradictions in these poems, +and at last asserted that they were not the work of a single poet, but +a collection of fragments from several different poets. This theory +has been attacked and supported with great energy: for a half century +men have flown into a passion for or against the existence of Homer. +Today we begin to think the problem insoluble. What is certain is that +these poems are very old, probably of the ninth century. The Iliad was +composed in Asia Minor and is perhaps the result of the union of two +poems--one dedicated to the combats of the Trojans, and the other to +the adventures of Achilles. The Odyssey appears to be the work of one +author; but it cannot be affirmed that it is of the same author as the +Iliad. + +=The Greeks at the Time of Homer.=--We are not able to go back very +far in the history of the Greeks; the Homeric poems are their oldest +historical document. When these were composed, about the ninth century +B.C., there was not yet any general name to designate all the +inhabitants of Greece: Homer mentions them under the names of their +principal tribes. From his description it appears that they have made +some progress since their departure from Asia. They know how to till +the ground, how to construct strong cities and to organize themselves +into little peoples. They obey kings; they have a council of old men +and an assembly of the people. They are proud of their institutions, +they despise their less advanced neighbors, the Barbarians, as they +call them. Odysseus, to show how rude the Cyclops were, says, "They +have no rules of justice nor places where they deliberate; each one +governs himself, his wife, and children, and has no association with +others." But these Greeks themselves are half barbarians; they do not +know how to write, to coin money, nor the art of working in iron. They +hardly dare to trust themselves on the sea and they imagine that +Sicily is peopled with monsters. + +=The Dorians.=--Dorians was the name given to those sons of the +mountaineers who had come from the north and had expelled or subjected +those dwelling in the plains and on the shore of the Peloponnesus; +the latter, crowded into too narrow limits, sent colonies into Asia. +Of these mountain bands the most renowned came from a little canton +called Doris and preserved the name Dorians. These invaders told how +certain kings of Sparta, the posterity of Herakles, having been thrust +out by their subjects, had come to seek the Dorians in their +mountains. These people of the mountains, moved by their love for +Herakles, had followed his descendants and had replaced them on their +throne. By the same stroke they dispossessed the inhabitants and took +their place. They were a martial, robust, and healthy race, accustomed +to cold, to meagre food, to a scant existence. Men and women wore a +short tunic which did not reach to the knee. They spoke a rude and +primitive dialect. The Dorians were a race of soldiers, always obliged +to keep themselves under arms; they were the least cultivated in +Greece, since, situated far from the sea, they preserved the customs +of the barbarous age; they were the most Greek because, being +isolated, they could neither mingle with strangers nor imitate their +manners. + +=The Ionians.=--The peoples of Attica, the isles, and the coast of +Asia were called Ionians; no one knows the origin of the name. Unlike +the Dorians, they were a race of sailors or traders, the most cultured +of Greece, gaining instruction from contact with the most civilized +peoples of the Orient; the least Greek, because they associated with +Asiatics and had in part adopted their dress. They were peaceful and +industrious, living luxuriously, speaking a smooth dialect, and +wearing long flowing garments like the Orientals. + +=The Hellenes.=--Dorians and Ionians--these are the two opposing +races, the most remarkable of Greece, and the most powerful: Sparta is +Dorian, Athens is Ionian. But the majority of the Greeks are neither +Dorians nor Ionians: they are called AEolians, a vague name which +covers very different peoples. + +All the Greeks from early times take the name "Hellenes" which they +have kept to this day. What is the origin of the term? They did not +know any more than we: they said only that Dorus and AEolus were sons +of Hellen, and Ion was his grandson. + +=Cities.=--The Hellenes were still in little peoples as at the time of +Homer. The land of Greece, cut by mountains and sea, breaks naturally +into a large number of small cantons, each isolated from its neighbor +by an arm of the sea or by a wall of rocks, so that it is easy to +defend the land and difficult to communicate with other parts. Each +canton constituted a separate state which was called a city. There +were more than a hundred of these; counting the colonies, more than a +thousand. To us a Greek state seems a miniature. The whole of Attica +was but little larger than the state of Delaware, and Corinth or +Megara was much smaller. Usually the state was only a city with a +strip of shore and a harbor, or some villages scattered in the plain +around a citadel. From one state one sees the citadel, mountains, or +harbor of the next state. Many of them count their citizens only by +thousands; the largest included hardly 200,000 or 300,000. + +The Hellenes never formed one nation; they never ceased to fight and +destroy one another. And yet all spoke the same language, worshipped +the same gods, and lived the same sort of a life. In these respects +they recognized the bonds of a common race and distinguished +themselves from all other peoples whom they called barbarians and +regarded with disdain. + + +THE HELLENES BEYOND SEA + +=Colonization.=--The Hellenes did not inhabit Greece alone. Colonists +from the Greek cities had gone forth to found new cities in all the +neighboring countries. There were little states in all the islands of +the Archipelago, over all the coast of Asia Minor, in Crete and +Cyprus, on the whole circumference of the Black Sea as far as the +Caucasus and the Crimea, along the shore of Turkey in Europe (then +called Thrace), on the shore of Africa, in Sicily, in south Italy, and +even on the coasts of France and Spain. + +=Character of These Colonies.=--Greek colonies were being founded all +the time from the twelfth century to the fifth; they issued from +various cities and represented all the Greek races--Dorian, Ionian, +and AEolian. They were established in the wilderness, in an inhabited +land, by conquest, or by an agreement with the natives. Mariners, +merchants, exiles, or adventurers were their founders. But with all +this diversity of time, place, race, and origin, the colonies had +common characteristics: they were established at one stroke and +according to certain fixed rules. The colonists did not arrive one by +one or in small bands; nor did they settle at random, building houses +which little by little became a city, as is the case now with European +colonists in America. All the colonists started at once under a +leader, and the new city was founded in one day. The foundation was a +religious ceremony; the "founder" traced a sacred enclosure, +constructed a sacred hearth, and lighted there the holy fire. + +=Traditions Concerning the Colonists.=--The old stories about the +founding of some of these colonies enable us to see how they differed +from modern colonies. The account of the settlement of Marseilles runs +as follows: Euxenus, a citizen of Phocaea, coming to Gaul in a merchant +galley, was invited by a Gallic chief to the marriage of his daughter; +according to the custom of this people, the young girl about the time +of the feast entered bearing a cup which she was to present to the one +whom she would choose for a husband; she stopped before the Greek and +offered him the cup. This unpremeditated act appeared to have been +inspired from heaven; the Gallic chief gave his daughter to Euxenus +and permitted him and his companions to found a city on the gulf of +Marseilles. Later the Phocaeans, seeing their city blockaded by the +Persian army, loaded on their ships their families, their movables, +the statues and treasures of their temple and went to sea, abandoning +their city. As they started, they threw into the sea a mass of red-hot +iron and swore never to return to Phocaea until the iron should rise to +the surface of the water. Many violated this oath and returned; but +the rest continued the voyage and after many adventures came to +Marseilles. + +At Miletus the Ionians who founded the city had brought no wives with +them; they seized a city inhabited by the natives of Asia, slaughtered +all the men, and forcibly married the women and girls of the families +of their victims. It was said that the women, affronted in this +manner, swore never to eat food with their captors and never to call +them by the name of husband; this custom was for centuries preserved +among the women of Miletus.[49] + +The colony at Cyrene in Africa was founded according to the express +command of the oracle of Apollo. The inhabitants of Thera, who had +received this order, did not care to go to an unknown country. They +yielded only at the end of seven years since their island was +afflicted with dearth; they believed that Apollo had sent misfortune +on them as a penalty. Nevertheless the citizens who were sent out +attempted to abandon the enterprise, but their fellow-citizens +attacked them and forced them to return. After having spent two years +on an island where no success came to them, they at last came to +settle at Cyrene, which soon became a prosperous city.[50] + +=Importance of the Colonies.=--Wherever they settled, the colonists +constituted a new state which in no respect obeyed the mother town +from which they had come out. And so the whole Mediterranean found +itself surrounded by Greek cities independent one of the others. Of +these cities many became richer and more powerful than their mother +towns; they had a territory which was larger and more fertile, and in +consequence a greater population. Sybaris, it was said, had 300,000 +men who were capable of bearing arms. Croton could place in the field +an infantry force of 120,000 men. Syracuse in Sicily, Miletus in Asia +had greater armies than even Sparta and Athens. South Italy was termed +Great Greece. In comparison with this great country fully peopled with +Greek colonies the home country was, in fact, only a little Greece. +And so it happened that the Greeks were much more numerous in the +neighboring countries than in Greece proper; and among these people of +the colonies figure a good share of the most celebrated names: Homer, +Alcaeus, Sappho, Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus, +Empedocles, Aristotle, Archimedes, Theocritus, and many others. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[46] "Balmy and clement," says Euripides, "is our atmosphere. The cold +of winter has no extremes for us, and the shafts of the sun do not +wound." + +[47] Autochthones. + +[48] The story of the collection of the Homeric poems by Pisistratus is +without foundation--"eine blosse Fabel." Busolt, "Griechische +Geschichte." Gotha, 1893, i., 127.--ED. + +[49] Probably this custom has another origin the recollection of which +was lost.--ED. + +[50] Herodotus, iv., 150-158. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GREEK RELIGION + + +=The Gods. Polytheism.=--The Greeks, like the ancient Aryans, believed +in many gods. They had neither the sentiment of infinity nor that of +eternity; they did not conceive of God as one for whom the heavens are +only a tent and the earth a foot-stool. To the Greeks every force of +nature--the air, the sun, the sea--was divine, and as they did not +conceive of all these phenomena as produced by one cause, they +assigned each to a particular god. This is the reason that they +believed in many gods. They were polytheists. + +=Anthropomorphism.=--Each god was a force in nature and carried a +distinct name. The Greeks, having a lively imagination, figured under +this name a living being, of beautiful form and human characteristics. +A god or goddess was represented as a beautiful man or woman. When +Odysseus or Telemachus met a person peculiarly great and beautiful, +they began by asking him if he were not a god. Homer in describing the +army pictured on the shield of Achilles adds, "Ares and Athena led the +army, both clad in gold, beautiful and great, as becomes the gods, for +men were smaller." Greek gods are men; they have clothing, palaces, +bodies similar to ours; if they cannot die, they can at least be +wounded. Homer relates how Ares, the god of war, struck by a warrior, +fled howling with pain. This fashion of making gods like men is what +is called _Anthropomorphism_. + +=Mythology.=--The gods, being men, have parents, children, property. +Their mothers were goddesses, their brothers were gods, and their +children other gods or men who were half divine. This genealogy of the +gods is what is called the _Theogony_. The gods have also a history; +we are told the story of their birth, the adventures of their youth, +their exploits. Apollo, for example, was born on the island of Delos +to which his mother Latona had fled; he slew a monster which was +desolating the country at the foot of Parnassus. Each canton of Greece +had thus its tales of the gods. These are called myths; the sum of +them is termed _Mythology_, or the history of the gods. + +=The Local Gods.=--The Greek gods, even under their human form, +remained what they were at first, phenomena of nature. They were +thought of both as men and as forces of nature. The Naiad is a young +woman, but at the same time a bubbling fountain. Homer represents the +river Xanthus as a god, and yet he says, "The Xanthus threw itself on +Achilles, boiling with fury, full of tumult, foam, and the bodies of +the dead." The people itself continued to say "Zeus rains" or "Zeus +thunders." To the Greek the god was first of all rain, storm, heaven, +or sun, and not the heaven, sun, or earth in general, but that corner +of the heaven under which he lived, the land of his canton, the river +which traversed it. Each city, then, had its divinities, its sun-god, +its earth-goddess, its sea-god, and these are not to be confounded +with the sun, the earth, and the sea of the neighboring city. The +Zeus of Sparta is not the same as the Zeus of Athens; in the same oath +one sometimes invokes two Athenas or two Apollos. A traveller who +would journey through Greece[51] would therefore meet thousands of +local gods (they called them Poliades, or gods of the city). No +torrent, no wood, no mountain was without its own deity,[52] although +often a minor divinity, adored only by the people of the vicinity and +whose sanctuary was only a grotto in the rock. + +=The Great Gods.=--Above the innumerable legion of local gods of each +canton the Greeks imagined certain great divinities--the heaven, the +sun, the earth, and the sea--and these everywhere had the same name, +and had their temple or sanctuary in every place. Each represented one +of the principal forces of nature. These gods common to all the Greeks +were never numerous; if all are included, we have hardly twenty.[53] +We have the bad habit of calling them by the name of a Latin god. The +following are their true names: Zeus (Jupiter), Hera (Juno), Athena +(Minerva), Apollo, Artemis (Diana), Hermes (Mercury), Hephaistos +(Vulcan), Hestia (Vesta), Ares (Mars), Aphrodite (Venus), Poseidon +(Neptune), Amphitrite, Proteus, Kronos (Saturn), Rhea (Cybele), +Demeter (Ceres), Persephone (Proserpina), Hades (Pluto), Dionysos +(Bacchus). It is this little group of gods that men worshipped in all +the temples, that men ordinarily invoked in their prayers. + +=Attributes of the Gods.=--Each of these great gods had his form, his +costume, his instruments (which we call his attributes); it is thus +that the faithful imagined him and that the sculptors represented him. +Each has his character which is well known to his worshippers. Each +has his role in the world, performing his determined functions, +ordinarily with the aid of secondary divinities who obey him. + +Athena, virgin of clear eye, is represented standing, armed with a +lance, a helmet on the head, and gleaming armor on the breast. She is +the goddess of the clear air, of wisdom, and of invention, a goddess +of dignity and majesty. + +Hephaistos, the god of fire, is figured with a hammer and in the form +of a lame and ugly blacksmith. It is he who forges the thunderbolt. + +Artemis, shy maiden, armed with bow and quiver, courses the forests +hunting with a troop of nymphs. She is the goddess of the woods, of +the chase, and of death. + +Hermes, represented with winged sandals, is the god of the fertile +showers. But he has other offices; he is the god of streets and +squares, the god of commerce, of theft, and of eloquence. He it is who +guides the souls of the dead, the messenger of the gods, the deity +presiding over the breeding of cattle. + +Almost always a Greek god has several functions, quite dissimilar to +our eyes, but to the Greeks bearing some relation to one another. + +=Olympus and Zeus.=--Each one of these gods is like a king in his own +domain. Still the Greeks had remarked that all the forces of nature do +not operate by chance and that they act in harmony; the same word +served them for the idea of order and of universe. They supposed, +then, that the gods were in accord for the administration of the +world, and that they, like men, had laws and government among them. + +In the north of Greece there was a mountain to whose snowy summit no +man had ever climbed. This was Olympus. On this summit, which was +hidden by clouds from the eyes of men, it was imagined the gods +assembled. Meeting under the light of heaven, they conferred on the +affairs of the world. Zeus, the mightiest of them, presided over the +gathering: he was god of the heavens and of the light, the god "who +masses the clouds," who launches the thunderbolt--an old man of +majestic mien, with long beard, sitting on a throne of gold. It is he +who commands and the other gods bow before him. Should they essay to +resist, Zeus menaces them; Homer makes him say,[54] "Bind to heaven a +chain of gold, and all of you, gods or goddesses, throw your weight +upon it; all your united efforts cannot draw Zeus, the sovereign +ordainer, to the earth. On the contrary, if I wished to draw the chain +to myself, I should bring with it the earth and the very sea. Then I +would attach it to the summit of Olympus and all the universe would be +suspended. By so much am I superior to gods and men." + +=Morality of the Greek Mythology.=--The greater part of their gods +were conceived by the Greeks as violent, sanguinary, deceitful, +dissolute. They ascribed to them scandalous adventures or dishonest +acts. Hermes was notorious for his thieving, Aphrodite for her +coquetry, Ares for his ferocity. All were so vain as to persecute +those who neglected to offer sacrifices to them. Niobe had seen all +her children pierced with arrows by Apollo because she herself had +boasted of her numerous family. The gods were so jealous that they +could not endure seeing a man thoroughly happy; prosperity for the +Greeks was the greatest of dangers, for it never failed to draw the +anger of the gods, and this anger became a goddess (Nemesis) about +whom were told such anecdotes as the following: Once Polycrates of +Samos, become very powerful, feared the jealousy of the gods; and so a +ring of gold which he still retained was cast into the sea that his +good fortune might not be unmixed with evil. Some time after, a +fisherman brought to Polycrates an enormous fish and in its belly was +found the ring. This was a certain presage of evil. Polycrates was +besieged in his city, taken, and crucified. The gods punished him for +his good fortune. + +Greek mythology was immoral in that the gods gave bad examples to men. +The Greek philosophers were already saying this and were inveighing +against the poets who had published these stories. A disciple of +Pythagoras affirmed that his master, descending to hell, had seen the +soul of Homer hanging to a tree and that of Hesiod bound to a column +to punish them for calumniating the gods. "Homer and Hesiod," Said +Xenophanes, "attribute to the gods all the acts which among men are +culpable and shameful; there is but one god who neither in body nor in +soul resembles men." And he added this profound remark: "If oxen and +lions had hands and could manipulate like men, they would have made +gods with bodies similar to their own, horses would have framed gods +with horses' bodies, and cattle with cattle's.... Men think that the +gods have their feelings, their voice, and their body." Xenophanes was +right; the primitive Greeks had created their gods in their own image. +As they were then sanguinary, dissolute, jealous, and vain, their gods +were the same. Later, as the people became better, their descendants +were shocked with all these vices; but the history and the character +of the gods were fixed by the ancient traditions, and later +generations, without daring to change them, had received the gross and +dishonest gods of their ancestors. + + +THE HEROES + +=The Hero.=--The hero in Greece is a man who has become illustrious, +and after death a mighty spirit--not a god, but a demi-god. The heroes +do not live on Olympus in the heaven of the gods, they do not direct +the life of the world. And yet they, too, possess a power higher than +that of any human, and this permits them to aid their friends and +destroy their enemies. For this reason the Greeks rendered them +worship as to the gods and implored their protection. There was not a +city, not a tribe, not a family but had its hero, a protecting spirit +which it adored. + +=Different Kinds of Heroes.=--Of these heroes many are legendary +persons (Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon); some without doubt never +existed (Herakles, OEdipus); others like Hellen, Dorus, AEolus are only +names. But their worshippers regarded them as men of the olden time; +and, in fact, the most of the heroes lived at one time. Many are +historical personages: generals like Leonidas, Lysander; philosophers +like Democritus and Aristotle; legislators like Lycurgus and Solon. +The people of Croton adored even one of their fellow-citizens, Philip +by name, because he had been in his time the most beautiful man in +Greece. The leader who had guided a band of colonists and founded a +city became for the inhabitants the Founder; a temple was raised to +him and every year sacrifices were offered to him. The Athenian +Miltiades was thus worshipped in a city of Thrace. The Spartiate +Brasidas, killed in the defence of Amphipolis, had divine honors paid +to him in that city, for the inhabitants had come to regard him as +their Founder. + +=Presence of the Heroes.=--The hero continued to reside in the place +where his body was interred, either in his tomb or in the +neighborhood. A story told by Herodotus (v. 67) depicts this belief in +a lively way. The city of Sicyon adored the hero Adrastus and in a +public place was a chapel dedicated to his honor. Cleisthenes, the +tyrant of Sicyon, took a fancy to rid himself of this hero. He went to +the oracle at Delphi to ask if it would aid him in expelling Adrastus. +The oracle replied to his question that Adrastus was king of the +Sicyonians and Cleisthenes was a brigand. The tyrant, not daring to +evict the hero, adopted a ruse; he sent to Thebes to seek the bones +of Melanippus, another hero, and installed them with great pomp in the +sanctuary of the city. "He did this," says Herodotus, "because +Melanippus during his life had been the greatest enemy of Adrastus and +had killed his brother and his son-in-law." Then he transferred to +Melanippus the festivals and the sacrifices formerly paid to the honor +of Adrastus. He was persuaded, and all the Greeks with him, that the +hero would be irritated and would flee. + +=Intervention of the Heroes.=--The heroes have divine power; like the +gods, they can according to their whim send good or evil. The poet +Stesichorus had spoken ill of the famous Helen (that Helen who the +legend states was carried away to Troy); he suddenly became blind; +when he retracted what he had said, the heroine restored his sight. + +The protecting heroes of a city kept it from plagues and famine and +even fought against its enemies. At the battle of the Marathon the +Athenian soldiers saw in the midst of them Theseus, the mythical +founder of Athens, clad in shining armor. During the battle of Salamis +the heroes Ajax and Telamon, once kings of Salamis, appeared on the +highest point of the island extending their hands to the Greek fleet. +"It is not we," said Themistocles, "that have vanquished the Persians; +it is the gods and heroes." In "OEdipus at Colonus," a tragedy of +Sophocles, OEdipus at the point of death receives the visit of the king +of Athens and of the king of Thebes, both of whom as gods request him +to have his body interred in their territory, and to become a +protecting hero. OEdipus at last consents to be buried in the soil of +the Athenians, and says to the king, "Dead, I shall not be a useless +inhabitant of this country, I shall be a rampart for you, stronger +than millions of warriors." In himself alone a hero was as efficient +as a whole army; his spirit was mightier than all living men. + + +WORSHIP + +=Principles of Worship of the Gods.=--Gods and heroes, potent as they +were, bestowed on men all good or evil fortune according to their +will. It was dangerous to have them against you, wise to have them on +your side. They were conceived as like men, irritated if they were +neglected, contented if they were venerated. On this principle worship +was based. It consisted in doing things agreeable to the gods to +obtain their favor. Plato expresses as follows[55] the thought of the +common man, "To know how to say and do those things that are pleasing +to the gods, either in prayers or in offerings, this is piety which +brings prosperity to individuals and to states. The reverse is impiety +which ruins everything." "It is natural," says Xenophon at the end of +his treatise on Cavalry, "that the gods should favor those especially +who not only consult them in need, but honor them in the day of +prosperity." Religion was first of all a contract; the Greek sought to +delight the gods and in return required their services. "For a long +time," says a priest of Apollo to his god, "I have burned fat +bullocks for you; now grant my petitions and discharge your arrows +against my enemies." + +=The Great Festivals.=--Since the gods had the feelings of men they +were to be pleased in the same way as men. Wine, cakes, fruits, food +were brought to them. Palaces were built for them. Festivals were +given in their honor, for they were "joyous gods" who loved pleasure +and beautiful spectacles. A festival was not, as with us, purely an +occasion of rejoicing, but a religious ceremony. On those days free +from the daily toil men were required to rejoice in public before the +god. The Greek, without doubt, delighted in these fetes; but it is for +the god and not for himself that he celebrates them. "The Ionians," +says an ancient hymn to Apollo, "delight thee with trial of strength, +the hymn, and the dance." + +=The Sacred Games.=--From these diversions offered to the gods +originated the solemn games. Each city had them to the honor of its +gods; ordinarily only its citizens were admitted to them; but in four +districts of Greece were celebrated games at which all Greeks could be +present and participate. These are called the Four Great Games. + +The principal of these four festivals was that at Olympia. This was +given every four years in honor of Zeus and continued five or six +days. The multitude coming from all parts of Greece filled the +amphitheatre. They commenced by sacrificing victims and addressing +prayers to Zeus and the other gods. Then came the contests; they were: + +The foot-race around the stadion. + +The Pentathlon, so called because it comprised five exercises. The +competitors were to leap, run from one end of the stadion to the +other, make a long throw of the metal discus, hurl the javelin, and +wrestle. + +Boxing, in which one fought with arms bound with thongs of hide. + +The chariot races, which were held in the hippodrome; the cars were +light and were drawn by four horses. + +The judges of the games were clothed in purple, crowned with laurel. +After the combat a herald proclaimed before the whole assembly the +name of the victor and of his city. A crown of olive was the only +reward given him; but his fellow-citizens on his return received him +as a conquering hero; sometimes they threw down a section of the city +wall to give him entrance. He arrived in a chariot drawn by four +horses, clothed in purple, escorted by all the people. "These +victories which we leave today to the athletes of the public shows +appeared then the greatest of all. Poets of greatest renown celebrated +them; Pindar, the most illustrious lyric poet of antiquity, has hardly +done more than sing of chariot races. It is related that a certain +Diagoras, who had seen his two sons crowned on the same day, was borne +in triumph by them in the sight of the spectators. The people, holding +such an honor too great for a mortal, cried out, 'Perish, Diagoras, +for after all you cannot become a god.' Diagoras, suffocated with +emotion, died in the arms of his sons. In his eyes and the eyes of the +Greeks the fact that his sons possessed the stoutest fists and the +nimblest limbs in Greece was the acme of earthly happiness."[56] The +Greeks had their reasons for thus admiring physical prowess: in their +wars in which they fought hand to hand the most vigorous athletes were +the best soldiers. + +=Omens.=--In return for so much homage, so many festivals and +offerings, the Greeks expected no small amount of service from their +gods. The gods protected their worshippers, gave them health, riches, +victory. They preserved them from the evils that menaced them, sending +signs which men interpreted. These are called Omens. "When a city," +says Herodotus,[57] "is about to suffer some great misfortune, this is +usually anticipated by signs. The people of Chios had omens of their +defeat: of a band of one hundred youths sent to Delphi but two +returned; the others had died of the plague. About the same time the +roof of a school of the city fell on the children who were learning to +read; but one escaped of the one hundred and twenty. Such were the +anticipating signs sent them by the deity." + +The Greeks regarded as supernatural signs, dreams, the flight of birds +in the heavens, the entrails of animals sacrificed--in a word, +everything that they saw, from the tremblings of the earth and +eclipses to a simple sneeze. In the expedition to Sicily, Nicias, the +general of the Athenians, at the moment of embarking his army for the +retreat, was arrested by an eclipse of the moon; the gods, thought he, +had sent this prodigy to warn the Athenians not to continue their +enterprise. And so Nicias waited; he waited twenty-seven days offering +sacrifices to appease the gods. During this inactivity the enemy +closed the port, destroyed the fleet, and exterminated his army. The +Athenians on learning this news found but one thing with which to +reproach Nicias: he should have known that for an army in retreat the +eclipse of the moon was a favorable sign. During the retreat of the +Ten Thousand, Xenophon, the general, making an address to his +soldiers, uttered this sentiment: "With the help of the gods we have +the surest hope that we shall save ourselves with glory." At this +point a soldier sneezed. At once all adored the god who had sent this +omen. "Since at the very instant when we are deliberating concerning +our safety," exclaimed Xenophon, "Zeus the savior has sent us an omen, +let us with one consent offer sacrifices to him."[58] + +=The Oracles.=--Often the god replies to the faithful who consult him +not by a mute sign, but by the mouth of an inspired person. The +faithful enter the sanctuary of the god seeking responses and counsel. +These are Oracles. + +There were oracles in many places in Greece and Asia. The most noted +were at Dodona in Epirus, and at Delphi, at the foot of Mount +Parnassus. At Dodona it was Zeus who spoke by the rustling of the +sacred oaks. At Delphi it was Apollo who was consulted. Below his +temple, in a grotto, a current of cool air issued from a rift in the +ground. This air the Greeks thought[59] was sent by the god, for he +threw into a frenzy those who inhaled it. A tripod was placed over the +orifice, a woman (the Pythia), prepared by a bath in the sacred +spring, took her seat on the tripod, and received the inspiration. At +once, seized with a nervous frenzy, she uttered cries and broken +sentences. Priests sitting about her caught these expressions, set +them to verse, and brought them to him who sought advice of the god. + +The oracles of the Pythia were often obscure and ambiguous. When +Croesus asked if he should make war on the Persians, the reply was, +"Croesus will destroy a great empire." In fact, a great empire was +destroyed, but it was that of Croesus. + +The Spartans had great confidence in the Pythia, and never initiated +an expedition without consulting her. The other Greeks imitated them, +and Delphi thus became a sort of national oracle. + +=Amphictyonies.=--To protect the sanctuary of Delphi twelve of the +principal peoples of Greece had formed an association called an +Amphictyony.[60] Every year deputies from these peoples assembled at +Delphi to celebrate the festival of Apollo and see that the temple was +not threatened; for this temple contained immense wealth, a temptation +to pillage it. In the sixth century the people of Cirrha, a +neighboring city of Delphi, appropriated these treasures.[61] The +Amphictyons declared war against them for sacrilege. Cirrha was taken +and destroyed, the inhabitants sold as slaves, the territory left +fallow. In the fourth century the Amphictyons made war on the +Phocidians also who had seized the treasury of Delphi, and on the +people of Amphissa who had tilled a field dedicated to Apollo. + +Still it is not necessary to believe that the assembly of the +Amphictyons ever resembled a Greek senate. It was concerned only with +the temple of Apollo, not at all with political affairs. It did not +even prevent members of the Amphictyony fighting one another. The +oracle and the Amphictyony of Delphi were more potent than the other +oracles and the other amphictyonies; but they never united the Greeks +into a single nation. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] See the account of the traveller Pausanias. + +[52] "There are," says Hesiod, "30,000 gods on the fruitful earth." + +[53] Greek scholars formed a select society of twelve gods and +goddesses, but their choice was arbitrary, and all did not agree on the +same series. The Greeks of different countries and of different epochs +often represented the same god under different forms. Further, the +majority of the gods seem to us to have vague and undetermined +attributes; this is because they were not the same everywhere. + +[54] Iliad, viii., 18. + +[55] In the dialogue "Eutyphron." + +[56] Taine, "Philosophy of Art." + +[57] Herodotus, vi., 27 + +[58] Xenophon, "Anabasis," iii, 2. + +[59] This idea gained currency only in the later periods of Grecian +history.--ED. + +[60] There were similar amphictyonies at Delos, Calauria, and Onchestus. + +[61] The special charge against Cirrha was the levying of toll on +pilgrims coming to Delphi.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +SPARTA + +THE PEOPLE + + +=Laconia.=--When the Dorian mountaineers invaded the Peloponnesus, the +main body of them settled at Sparta in Laconia. Laconia is a narrow +valley traversed by a considerable stream (the Eurotas) flowing +between two massive mountain ranges with snowy summits. A poet +describes the country as follows: "A land rich in tillable soil, but +hard to cultivate, deep set among perpendicular mountains, rough in +aspect, inaccessible to invasion." In this enclosed country lived the +Dorians of Sparta in the midst of the ancient inhabitants who had +become, some their subjects, others their serfs. There were, then, in +Laconia three classes: Helots, Perioeci, Spartiates. + +=The Helots.=--The Helots dwelt in the cottages scattered in the plain +and cultivated the soil. But the land did not belong to them--indeed, +they were not even free to leave it. They were, like the serfs of the +Middle Ages, peasants attached to the soil, from father to son. They +labored for a Spartiate proprietor who took from them the greater part +of the harvest. The Spartiates instructed them, feared them, and ill +treated them. They compelled them to wear rude garments, beat them +unreasonably to remind them of their servile condition, and sometimes +made them intoxicated to disgust their children with the sight of +drunkenness. A Spartiate poet compares the Helots to "loaded asses +stumbling under their burdens and the blows inflicted." + +=The Perioeci.=--The Perioeci (those who live around) inhabited a +hundred villages in the mountains or on the coast. They were sailors, +they engaged in commerce, and manufactured the objects necessary to +life. They were free and administered the business of their village, +but they paid tribute to the magistrates of Sparta and obeyed them. + +=Condition of the Spartiates.=--Helots and Perioeci despised the +Spartiates, their masters. "Whenever one speaks to them of the +Spartiates," says Xenophon,[62] "there isn't one of them who can +conceal the pleasure he would feel in eating them alive." Once an +earthquake nearly destroyed Sparta: the Helots at once rushed from all +sides of the plain to massacre those of the Spartiates who had escaped +the catastrophe. At the same time the Perioeci rose and refused +obedience. The Spartiates' bearing toward the Perioeci was certain to +exasperate them. At the end of a war in which many of the Helots had +fought in their army, they bade them choose those who had especially +distinguished themselves for bravery, with the promise of freeing +them. It was a ruse to discover the most energetic and those most +capable of revolting. Two thousand were chosen; they were conducted +about the temples with heads crowned as an evidence of their +manumission; then the Spartiates put them out of the way, but how it +was done no one ever knew.[63] + +And yet the oppressed classes were ten times more, numerous than their +masters. While there were more than 200,000 Helots and 120,000 +Perioeci, there were never more than 9,000 Spartiate heads of families. +In a matter of life and death, then, it was necessary that a Spartiate +be as good as ten Helots. As the form of battle was hand-to-hand, they +needed agile and robust men. Sparta was like a camp without walls; its +people was an army always in readiness. + + +EDUCATION + +=The Children.=--They began to make soldiers of them at birth. The +newly-born infant was brought before a council; if it was found +deformed, it was exposed on the mountain to die; for an army has use +only for strong men. The children who were permitted to grow up were +taken from their parents at the age of seven years and were trained +together as members of a group. Both summer and winter they went +bare-foot and had but a single mantle. They lay on a heap of reeds and +bathed in the cold waters of the Eurotas. They ate little and that +quickly and had a rude diet. This was to teach them not to satiate the +stomach. They were grouped by hundreds, each under a chief. Often they +had to contend together with blows of feet and fists. At the feast of +Artemis they were beaten before the statue of the goddess till the +blood flowed; some died under this ordeal, but their honor required +them not to weep. They were taught to fight and suffer. + +Often they were given nothing to eat; provision must be found by +foraging. If they were captured on these predatory expeditions, they +were roughly beaten. A Spartiate boy who had stolen a little fox and +had hidden it under his mantle, rather than betray himself let the +animal gnaw out his vitals. They were to learn how to escape from +perplexing situations when they were in the field. + +They walked with lowered glance, silent, hands under the mantle, +without turning the head and "making no more noise than statues." They +were not to speak at table and were to obey all men that they +encountered. This was to accustom them to discipline. + +=The Girls.=--The other Greeks kept their daughters secluded in the +house, spinning flax. The Spartiates would have robust women capable +of bearing vigorous children. The girls, therefore, were trained in +much the same manner as the boys. In their gymnasia they practised +running, leaping, throwing the disc and Javelin. A poet describes a +play in which Spartiate girls "like colts with flowing manes make the +dust fly about them." They were reputed the healthiest and bravest +women in Greece. + +=The Discipline.=--The men, too, have their regular life and this a +soldier's life. The presence of many enemies requires that no one +shall weaken. At seventeen years the Spartiate becomes a soldier and +this he until he is sixty. The costume, hour of rising and retiring, +meals, exercise--everything is fixed by regulations as in barracks. + +Since the Spartiate engages only in war, he is to prepare himself for +that; he exercises himself in running, leaping, and wielding his arms; +he disciplines all the members of the body--the neck, the arms, the +shoulders, the legs, and that too, every day. He has no right to +engage in trade, to pursue an industry, nor to cultivate the earth; he +is a soldier and is not to allow himself to be diverted to any other +occupation. He cannot live at his pleasure with his own family; the +men eat together in squads; they cannot leave the country without +permission. It is the discipline of a regiment in the enemy's +territory. + +=Laconism.=--These warriors had a rude life, with clean-cut aims and +proud disposition. They spoke in short phrases--or as we say, +laconically--the word has still persisted. The Greeks cited many +examples of these expressions. To a garrison in danger of being +surprised the government sent this message, "Attention!" A Spartan +army was summoned by the king of Persia to lay down his arms; the +general replied, "Come and take them." When Lysander captured Athens, +he wrote simply, "Athens is fallen." + +=Music. The Dance.=--The arts of Sparta were those that pertained to +an army. The Dorian conquerors brought with them a peculiar sort of +music--the Dorian style, serious, strong, even harsh. It was military +music; the Spartiates went into battle to the sound of the flute so +that the step might be regular. + +Their dance was a military movement. In the "Pyrrhic" the dancers were +armed and imitated all the movements of a battle; they made the +gestures of striking, of parrying, of retreating, and of throwing the +javelin. + +=Heroism of the Women.=--The women stimulated the men to combat; their +exhibitions of courage were celebrated in Greece, so much so that +collections of stories of them were made.[64] A Spartan mother, seeing +her son fleeing from battle, killed him with her own hand, saying; +"The Eurotas does not flow for deer." Another, learning that her five +sons had perished, said, "This is not what I wish to know; does +victory belong to Sparta?" "Yes." "Then let us render thanks to the +gods." + + +THE INSTITUTIONS OF SPARTA + +=The Kings and the Council.=--The Spartiates had at first, like the +other Greeks, an assembly of the people. All these institutions were +preserved, but only in form. The kings, descendants of the god +Herakles, were loaded with honors; they were given the first place at +the feasts and were served with a double portion; when they died all +the inhabitants made lamentation for them. But no power was left to +them and they were closely watched. + +The Senate was composed of twenty-eight old men taken from the rich +and ancient families, appointed for life; but it did not govern. + +=The Ephors.=--The real masters of Sparta were the Ephors (the name +signifies overseers), five magistrates who were renewed every year. +They decided peace and war, and had judicial functions; when the king +commanded the army, they accompanied him, directed the operations, and +sometimes made him return. Usually they consulted the senators and +took action in harmony with them. Then they assembled the Spartiates +in one place, announced to them what had been decided and asked their +approbation. The people without discussing the matter approved the +action by acclamation. No one knew whether he had the right to refuse +assent; accustomed to obey, the Spartiate never refused. It was, +therefore, an aristocracy of governing families. Sparta was not a +country of equality. There were some men who were called Equals, but +only because they were equal among themselves. The others were termed +Inferiors and had no part in the government. + +=The Army.=--Thanks to this regime, the Spartiates preserved the rude +customs of mountaineers; they had no sculptors, no architects, no +orators, no philosophers. They had sacrificed everything to war; they +became "adepts in the military art,"[65] and instructors of the other +Greeks. They introduced two innovations especially: a better method of +combat, a better method of athletic exercise. + +=The Hoplites.=--Before them the Greeks marched into battle in +disorder; the chiefs, on horseback or in a light chair, rushed ahead, +the men following on foot, armed each in his own fashion, +helter-skelter, incapable of acting together or of resisting. A +battle reduced itself to a series of duels and to a massacre. At +Sparta all the soldiers had the same arms; for defence, the +breastplate covering the chest, the casque which protected the head, +the greaves over the legs, the buckler held before the body. For +offence the soldier had a short sword and a long lance. The man thus +armed was called a hoplite. The Spartan hoplites were drawn up in +regiments, battalions, companies, squads, almost like our armies. An +officer commanded each of these groups and transmitted to his men the +orders of his superior officer, so that the general in chief might +have the same movement executed throughout the whole army. This +organization which appears so simple to us was to the Greeks an +astonishing novelty. + +=The Phalanx.=--Come into the presence of the enemy, the soldiers +arrange themselves in line, ordinarily eight ranks deep, each man +close to his neighbor, forming a compact mass which we call a Phalanx. +The king, who directs the army, sacrifices a goat to the gods; if the +entrails of the victim are propitious, he raises a chant which all the +army takes up in unison. Then they advance. With rapid and measured +step, to the sound of the flute, with lance couched and buckler before +the body, they meet the enemy in dense array, overwhelm him by their +mass and momentum, throw him into rout, and only check themselves to +avoid breaking the phalanx. So long as they remain together each is +protected by his neighbor and all form an impenetrable mass on which +the enemy could secure no hold. These were rude tactics, but +sufficient to overcome a disorderly troop. Isolated men could not +resist such a body. The other Greeks understood this, and all, as far +as they were able, imitated the Spartans; everywhere men were armed +as hoplites and fought in phalanx. + +=Gymnastics.=--To rush in orderly array on the enemy and stand the +shock of battle there was need of agile and robust men; every man had +to be an athlete. The Spartans therefore organized athletic exercises, +and in this the other Greeks imitated them; gymnastics became for all +a national art, the highest esteemed of all the arts, the crowning +feature of the great festivals. + +In the most remote countries, in the midst of the barbarians of Gaul +or of the Black Sea, a Greek city was recognized by its gymnasium. +There was a great square surrounded by porticoes or walks, usually +near a spring, with baths and halls for exercise. The citizens came +hither to walk and chat: it was a place of association. All the young +men entered the gymnasium; for two years or less they came here every +day; they learned to leap, to run, to throw the disc and the javelin, +to wrestle by seizing about the waist. To harden the muscles and +strengthen the skin they plunged into cold water, dispensed with oil +for the body, and rubbed the flesh with a scraper (the strigil). + +=Athletes.=--Many continued these exercises all their lives as a point +of honor and became Athletes. Some became marvels of skill. Milo of +Croton in Italy, it was said, would carry a bull on his shoulders; he +stopped a chariot in its course by seizing it from behind. These +athletes served sometimes in combats as soldiers, or as generals. +Gymnastics were the school of war. + +=Role of the Spartiates.=--The Spartans taught the other Greeks to +exercise and to fight. They always remained the most vigorous +wrestlers and the best soldiers, and were recognized as such by the +rest of Greece. Everywhere they were respected. When the rest of the +Greeks had to fight together against the Persians, they unhesitatingly +took the Spartans as chiefs--and with justice, said an Athenian +orator. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[62] "Hellenica," iii., 3, 6. + +[63] See Thucydides, iv., 80. + +[64] A collection by Plutarch is still preserved. + +[65] A phrase of Xenophon. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ATHENS + +THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE + + +=Attica.=--The Athenians boasted of having always lived in the same +country; their ancestors, according to their story, originated from +the soil itself. The mountaineers who conquered the south land passed +by the country without invading it; Attica was hardly a temptation to +them. + +Attica is composed of a mass of rocks which in the form of a triangle +advances into the sea. These rocks, renowned for their blocks of +marble and for the honey of their bees,[66] are bare and sterile. +Between them and the sea are left three small plains with meagre soil, +meanly watered (the streams are dry in summer) and incapable of +supporting a numerous population. + +=Athens.=--In the largest of these plains, a league from the sea, +rises a massive isolated rock: Athens was built at its foot. The old +city, called the Acropolis, occupied the summit of the rock. + +The inhabitants of Attica commenced, not by forming a single state, +but by founding scattered villages, each of which had its own king and +its own government. Later all these villages united under one +king,[67] the king of Athens, and established a single city. This +does not mean that all the people came to dwell in one town. They +continued to have their own villages and to cultivate their lands; but +all adored one and the same protecting goddess, Athena, divinity of +Athens, and all obeyed the same king. + +=Athenian Revolutions.=--Later still the kings were suppressed. In +their place Athens had nine chiefs (the archons) who changed every +year. This whole history is little known to us for no writing of the +time is preserved. They used to say that for centuries the Athenians +had lived in discord; the nobles (Eupatrids) who were proprietors of +the soil oppressed the peasants on their estates; creditors held their +debtors as slaves. To reestablish order the Athenians commissioned +Solon, a sage, to draft a code of laws for them (594). + +Solon made three reforms: + + 1. He lessened the value of the money, which allowed the debtors + to release themselves more easily. + + 2. He made the peasants proprietors of the land that they + cultivated. From this time there were in Attica more small + proprietors than in any other part of Greece. + + 3. He grouped all the citizens into four classes according to + their incomes. Each had to pay taxes and to render military + service according to his wealth, the poor being exempt from + taxation and military service. + +After Solon the Athenians were subject to Pisistratus, one of their +powerful and clever citizens; but in 510 the dissensions revived. + +=Reforms of Cleisthenes.=--Cleisthenes, leader of one of the parties, +used the occasion to make a thoroughgoing revolution. + +There were many strangers in Athens, especially seamen and traders who +lived in Piraeus near the harbor. Cleisthenes gave them the rights of +citizenship and made them equal[68] to the older inhabitants. From +this time there were two populations side by side--the people of +Attica and those of Piraeus. A difference of physical features was +apparent for three centuries afterward: the people of Attica resembled +the rest of the Greeks; those in Piraeus resembled Asiatics. The +Athenian people thus augmented was a new people, the most active in +Greece. + + +THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE + +In the fifth century the society of Athens was definitely formed: +three classes inhabited the district of Attica--slaves, foreigners, +and citizens. + +=The Slaves.=--The slaves constituted the great majority of the +population; there was no man so poor that he did not have at least one +slave; the rich owned a multitude of them, some as many as five +hundred. The larger part of the slaves lived in the house occupied +with grinding grain, kneading bread, spinning and weaving cloth, +performing the service of the kitchens, and in attendance on their +masters. Others labored in the shops as blacksmiths, as dyers, or in +stone quarries or silver mines. Their master fed them but sold at a +profit everything which they produced, giving them in return nothing +but their living. All the domestic servants, all the miners, and the +greater part of the artisans were slaves. These men lived in society +but without any part in it; they had not even the disposition of their +own bodies, being wholly the property of other men. They were thought of +only as objects of property; they were often referred to as "a body" +({~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL +LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}). There was no other law for +them than the will of their master, and he had all power over them--to +make them work, to imprison them, to deprive them of their sustenance, +to beat them. When a citizen went to law, his adversary had the right to +require that the former's slaves should be put to the torture to tell +what they knew. Many Athenian orators commend this usage as an ingenious +means for obtaining true testimony. "Torture," says the orator Isaeus, +"is the surest means of proof; and so when you wish to clear up a +contested question, you do not address yourselves to freemen, but, +placing the slaves to the torture, you seek to discover the truth." + +=Foreigners.=--The name Metics was applied to people of foreign origin +who were established in Athens. To become a citizen of Athens it was +not enough, as with us, to be born in the country; one must be the son +of a citizen. It might be that some aliens had resided in Attica for +several generations and yet their family not become Athenian. The +metics could take no part in the government, could not marry a +citizen, nor acquire land. But they were personally free, they had the +right of commerce by sea, of banking and of trade on condition that +they take a patron to represent them in the courts. There were in +Athens more than ten thousand families of metics, the majority of them +bankers or merchants. + +=The Citizens.=--To be a citizen of Athens it was necessary that both +parents should be citizens. The young Athenian, come to maturity at +about eighteen years of age, appeared before the popular assembly, +received the arms which he was to bear and took the following oath: "I +swear never to dishonor these sacred arms, not to quit my post, to +obey the magistrates and the laws, to honor the religion of my +country." He became simultaneously citizen and soldier. Thereafter he +owed military service until he was sixty years of age. With this he +had the right to sit in the assembly and to fulfil the functions of +the state. + +Once in a while the Athenians consented to receive into the +citizenship a man who was not the son of a citizen, but this was rare +and a sign of great favor. The assembly had to vote the stranger into +its membership, and then nine days after six thousand citizens had to +vote for him on a secret ballot. The Athenian people was like a closed +circle; no new members were admitted except those pleasing to the old +members, and they admitted few beside their sons. + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS + +=The Assembly.=--The Athenians called their government a democracy (a +government by the people). But this people was not, as with us, the +mass of inhabitants, but the body of citizens, a true aristocracy of +15,000 to 20,000 men who governed the whole nation as masters. This +body had absolute power, and was the true sovereign of Athens. It +assembled at least three times a month to deliberate and to vote. The +assembly was held in the open air on the Pnyx; the citizens sat on +stone benches arranged in an amphitheatre; the magistrates before them +on a platform opened the session with a religious ceremony and a +prayer, then a herald proclaimed in a loud voice the business which +was to occupy the assembly, and said, "Who wishes to speak?" Every +citizen had the right to this privilege; the orators mounted the +tribune according to age. When all had spoken, the president put the +question; the assembly voted by a show of hands, and then dissolved. + +=The Courts.=--The people itself, being sovereign, passed judgment in +the courts. Every citizen of thirty years of age could participate in +the judicial assembly (the Heliaea). The heliasts sat in the great +halls in sections of five hundred; the tribunal was, then, composed of +one thousand to fifteen hundred judges. The Athenians had no +prosecuting officer as we have; a citizen took upon himself to make +the accusation. The accused and the accuser appeared before the court; +each delivered a plea which was not to exceed the time marked off by a +water-clock. Then the judges voted by depositing a black or white +stone. If the accuser did not obtain a certain number of votes, he +himself was condemned. + +=The Magistrates.=--The sovereign people needed a council to prepare +the business for discussion and magistrates to execute their +decisions. The council was composed of five hundred citizens drawn by +lot for one year. The magistrates were very numerous: ten generals to +command the army, thirty officials for financial administration, sixty +police officials to superintend the streets, the markets, weights and +measures, etc.[69] + +=Character of This Government.=--The power in Athens did not pertain +to the rich and the noble, as in Sparta. In the assembly everything +was decided by a majority of votes and all the votes were equal. All +the jurors, all the members of the council, all the magistrates except +the generals were chosen by lot. The citizens were equal not only in +theory, but also in practice. Socrates said[70] to a well-informed +Athenian who did not dare to speak before the people: "Of what are you +afraid? Is it of the fullers, the shoe-makers, the masons, the +artisans, or the merchants? for the assembly is composed of all these +people." + +Many of these people had to ply their trade in order to make a living, +and could not serve the state gratuitously; and so a salary was +instituted: every citizen who sat in the assembly or in the courts +received for every day of session three obols (about eight cents of +our money), a sum just sufficient to maintain life at that time. From +this day the poor administered the government. + +=The Demagogues.=--Since all important affairs whether in the assembly +or in the courts were decided by discussion and discourse, the +influential men were those who knew how to speak best. The people +accustomed themselves to listen to the orators, to follow their +counsels, to charge them with embassies, and even to appoint them +generals. These men were called Demagogues (leaders of the people). +The party of the rich scoffed at them: in a comedy Aristophanes +represents the people (Demos) under the form of an old man who has +lost his wits: "You are foolishly credulous, you let flatterers and +intriguers pull you around by the nose and you are enraptured when +they harangue you." And the chorus, addressing a charlatan, says to +him, "You are rude, vicious; you have a strong voice, an impudent +eloquence, and violent gestures; believe me, you have all that is +necessary to govern Athens." + + +PRIVATE LIFE + +The Athenians created so many political functions that a part of the +citizens was engaged in fulfilling them. The citizen of Athens, like +the functionary or soldier of our days, was absorbed in public +affairs. Warring and governing were the whole of his life. He spent +his days in the assembly, in the courts, in the army, at the +gymnasium, or at the market. Almost always he had a wife and children, +for his religion commanded this, but he did not live at home. + +=The Children.=--When a child came into the world, the father had the +right to reject it. In this case it was laid outside the house where +it died from neglect, unless a passer-by took it and brought it up as +a slave. In this custom Athens followed all the Greeks. It was +especially the girls that were exposed to death. "A son," says a +writer of comedy, "is always raised even if the parents are in the +last stage of misery; a daughter is exposed even though the parents +are rich." + +If the father accepted the child, the latter entered the family. He +was left at first in the women's apartments with the mother. The girls +remained there until the day of their marriage; the boys came out when +they were seven years old. The boy was then entrusted to a preceptor +(pedagogue), whose business it was to teach him to conduct himself +well and to obey. The pedagogue was often a slave, but the father gave +him the right to beat his son. This was the general usage in +antiquity. + +Later the boy went to school, where he learned to read, write, cipher, +recite poetry, and to sing in the chorus or to the sound of the flute. +At last came gymnastics. This was the whole of the instruction; it +made men sound in body and calm in spirit--what the Greeks called +"good and beautiful." + +To the young girl, secluded with her mother, nothing of the liberal +arts was taught; it was thought sufficient if she learned to obey. +Xenophon represents a rich and well-educated Athenian speaking thus of +his wife with Socrates: "She was hardly twenty years old when I +married her, and up to that time she had been subjected to an exacting +surveillance; they had no desire that she should live, and she learned +almost nothing. Was it not enough that one should find in her a woman +who could spin the flax to make garments, and who had learned how to +distribute duties to the slaves?" When her husband proposed that she +become his assistant, she replied with great surprise, "In what can I +aid you? Of what am I capable? My mother has always taught me that my +business was to be prudent." Prudence or obedience was the virtue +which was required of the Greek woman. + +=Marriage.=--At the age of fifteen the girl married. The parents had +chosen the husband; it might be a man from a neighboring family, or a +man who had been a long-time friend of the father, but always a +citizen of Athens. It was rare that the young girl knew him; she was +never consulted in the case. Herodotus, speaking of a Greek, adds: +"This Callias deserves mention for his conduct toward his daughters; +for when they were of marriageable age he gave them a rich dowry, +permitted them to choose husbands from all the people, and he then +married them to the men of their choice." + +=Athenian Women.=--In the inner recess of the Athenian house there was +a retired apartment reserved for the women--the Gynecaeum. Husband and +relatives were the only visitors; the mistress of the household +remained here all day with her slaves; she directed them, +superintended the house-keeping, and distributed to them the flax for +them to spin. She herself was engaged with weaving garments. She left +the house seldom save for the religious festivals. She never appeared +in the society of men: "No one certainly would venture," says the +orator Isaeus, "to dine with a married woman; married women do not go +out to dine with men or permit themselves to eat with strangers." An +Athenian woman who frequented society could not maintain a good +reputation. + +The wife, thus secluded and ignorant, was not an agreeable companion. +The husband had taken her not for his life-long companion, but to +keep his house in order, to be the mother of his children, and because +Greek custom and religion required that he should marry. Plato says +that one does not marry because he wants to, but "because the law +constrains him." And the comic poet Menander had found this saying: +"Marriage, to tell the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil." And +so the women in Athens, as in most of the other states of Greece, +always held but little place in society. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[66] The marble of Pentelicus and the honey of Hymettus. + +[67] This legendary king was called Theseus. + +[68] Certain limitations, however, are referred to below, under +"Metics."--ED. + +[69] Not to mention the Archons, whom they had not ventured to suppress. + +[70] Xenophon, "Memorabilia," iii., 7, 6. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WARS OF THE GREEKS + +THE PERSIAN WARS + + +=Origin of the Persian Wars.=--While the Greeks were completing the +organization of their cities, the Persian king was uniting all the +nations of the East in a single empire. Greeks and Orientals at length +found themselves face to face. It is in Asia Minor that they first +meet. + +On the coast of Asia Minor there were rich and populous colonies of +the Greeks;[71] Cyrus, the king of Persia, desired to subject them. +These cities sent for help to the Spartans, who were reputed the +bravest of the Greeks, and this action was reported to Cyrus; he +replied,[72] "I have never feared this sort of people that has in the +midst of the city a place where the people assemble to deceive one +another with false oaths." (He was thinking of the market-place.) The +Greeks of Asia were subdued and made subject to the Great King. + +Thirty years later King Darius found himself in the presence of the +Greeks of Europe. But this time it was the Greeks that attacked the +Great King. The Athenians sent twenty galleys to aid the revolting +Ionians; their soldiers entered Lydia, took Sardis by surprise and +burned it. Darius revenged himself by destroying the Greek cities of +Asia, but he did not forget the Greeks of Europe. He had decreed, they +say, that at every meal an officer should repeat to him: "Master, +remember the Athenians." He sent to the Greek cities to demand earth +and water, a symbol in use among the Persians to indicate submission +to the Great King. Most of the Greeks were afraid and yielded. But the +Spartans cast the envoys into a pit, bidding them take thence earth +and water to carry to the king. This was the beginning of the Median +wars. + +=Comparison of the Two Adversaries.=--The contrast between the two +worlds which now entered into conflict is well marked by Herodotus[73] +in the form of a conversation of King Xerxes with Demaratus, a Spartan +exile: "'I venture to assure you,' said Demaratus, 'that the Spartans +will offer you battle even if all the rest of the Greeks fight on your +side, and if their army should not amount to more than one thousand +men.' 'What!' said Xerxes, 'one thousand men attack so immense an army +as mine! I fear your words are only boasting; for although they be +five thousand, we are more than one thousand to one. If they had a +master like us, fear would inspire them with courage; they would march +under the lash against a larger army; but being free and independent, +they will have no more courage than that with which nature has endowed +them.' 'The Spartans,' replied Demaratus, 'are not inferior to anybody +in a hand-to-hand contest, and united in a phalanx they are the +bravest of all men. Yet, though free, they have an absolute master, +the Law, which they dread more than all your subjects do you; they +obey it, and this law requires them to stand fast to their post and +conquer or die.'" This is the difference between the two parties to +the conflict: on the one side, a multitude of subjects united by force +under a capricious master; on the other, little martial republics +whose citizens govern themselves according to laws which they respect. + +=First Persian War.=--There were two Persian wars. The first was +simply an expedition against Athens; six hundred galleys sent by +Darius disembarked a Persian army on the little plain of Marathon, +seven hours distant from Athens. + +Religious sentiment prevented the Spartans from taking the field +before the full moon, and it was still only the first quarter; the +Athenians had to fight alone.[74] Ten thousand citizens armed as +hoplites camped before the Persians. The Athenians had ten generals, +having the command on successive days; of these Miltiades, when his +turn came, drew up the army for battle. The Athenians charged the +enemy in serried ranks, but the Persians seeing them advancing without +cavalry and without archers, thought them fools. It was the first time +that the Greeks had dared to face the Persians in battle array. The +Athenians began by turning both flanks, and then engaged the centre, +driving the Persians in disorder to the sea and forcing them to +reembark on their ships. + +The victory of Marathon delivered the Athenians and made them famous +in all Greece (490). + +=Second Persian War.=--The second war began ten years later with an +invasion. Xerxes united all the peoples of the empire, so that the +land force amounted, as some say, to 1,700,000 men.[75] There were +Medes and Persians clad in sleeved tunics, armed with cuirasses of +iron, bucklers, bows and arrows; Assyrians with cuirass of linen, +armed with clubs pointed with iron; Indians clad in cotton with bows +and arrows of bamboo; savages of Ethiopia with leopard skins for +clothing; nomads armed only with lassos; Phrygians armed with short +pikes; Lydians equipped like Greeks; Thracians carrying javelins and +daggers. The enumeration of these fills twenty chapters in +Herodotus.[76] These warriors brought with them a crowd equally +numerous of non-combatants, of servants, slaves, women, together with +a mass of mules, horses, camels, and baggage wagons. + +This horde crossed the Hellespont by a bridge of boats in the spring +of 480. For seven days and nights it defiled under the lash. Then +traversing Thrace, it marched on Greece, conquering the peoples whom +it met. + +The Persian fleet, 1,200 galleys strong, coasted the shores of Thrace, +passing through the canal at Mount Athos which Xerxes had had built +for this very purpose. + +The Greeks, terrified, submitted for the most part to the Great King +and joined their armies to the Persian force. The Athenians sent to +consult the oracle of Delphi, but received only the reply; "Athens +will be destroyed from base to summit." The god being asked to give a +more favorable response, replied, "Zeus accords to Pallas [protectress +of Athens] a wall of wood which alone shall not be taken; in that +shall you and your children find safety." The priests of whom they +asked the interpretation of this oracle bade the Athenians quit Attica +and go to establish themselves elsewhere. But Themistocles explained +the "wall of wood" as meaning the ships; they should retire to the +fleet and fight the Persians on sea. + +Athens and Sparta, having decided on resistance, endeavored to form a +league of the Greeks against the Persians. Few cities had the courage +to enter it, and these placed themselves under the command of the +Spartans. Four battles in one year settled the war. At Thermopylae, +Leonidas, king of Sparta, who tried to bar the entrance to a defile +was outflanked and overwhelmed. At Salamis, the Persian fleet, crowded +into a narrow space where the ships embarrassed one another, was +defeated by the Greek navy (480). At Plataea the rest of the Persian +army left in Greece was annihilated by the Greek hoplites; of 300,000 +men but 40,000 escaped. The same day at Mycale, on the coast of Asia, +an army of the Greeks landed and routed the Persians (479). The Greeks +had conquered the Great King. + +=Reasons for the Greek Victory.=--The Median war was not a national +war between Greeks and barbarians. All the Greeks of Asia and half the +Greeks of Europe fought on the Persian side. Many of the other Greeks +gave no assistance. In reality it was a fight of the Great King and +his subjects against Sparta, Athens, and their allies. + +The conquest of this great horde by two small peoples appeared at that +time as a prodigy. The gods, said the Greeks, had fought for them. But +there is less wonder when we examine the two antagonists more closely: +the Persian army was innumerable, and Xerxes had thought that victory +was a matter of numbers. But this multitude was an embarrassment to +itself. It did not know where to secure food for itself, it advanced +but slowly, and it choked itself on the day of combat. Likewise the +ships arranged in too close order drove their prows into neighboring +ships and shattered their oars. Then in this immense crowd there were, +according to Herodotus, many men but few soldiers. Only the Persians +and Medes, the flower of the army, fought with energy; the rest +advanced only under the lash, they had come under pressure to a war +which had no interest for them, ill-armed and without discipline, +ready to desert as soon as no one was watching them. At Plataea the +Medes and Persians were the only ones to do any fighting; the subjects +kept aloof. + +The Persian soldiers were ill-equipped; they were embarrassed by their +long robes, the head was poorly protected by a felt hat, the body +ill-defended by a shield of wicker-work. For arms they had a bow, a +dagger, and a very short pike; they could fight only at a great +distance or hand-to-hand. The Spartans and their allies, on the +contrary, secure in the protection of great buckler, helmet and +greaves, marched in solid line and were irresistible; they broke the +enemy with their long pikes and at once the battle became a massacre. + +=Results of the Persian Wars.=--Sparta had commanded the troops, but +as Herodotus says,[77] it was Athens who had delivered Greece by +setting an example of resistance and constituting the fleet of +Salamis. It was Athens who profited by the victory. All the Ionian +cities of the Archipelago and of the coast of Asia revolted and formed +a league against the Persians. The Spartans, men of the mountains, +could not conduct a maritime war, and so withdrew; the Athenians +immediately became chiefs of the league. In 476[78] Aristides, +commanding the fleet, assembled the delegates of the confederate +cities. They decided to continue the war against the Great King, and +engaged to provide ships and warriors and to pay each year a +contribution of 460 talents ($350,000). The treasure was deposited at +Delos in the temple of Apollo, god of the Ionians. Athens was charged +with the leadership of the military force and with collecting the tax. +To make the agreement irrevocable Aristides had a mass of hot iron +cast into the sea, and all swore to maintain the oaths until the day +that the iron should mount to the surface. + +A day came, however, when the war ceased, and the Greeks, always the +victors, concluded a peace, or at least a truce,[79] with the Great +King. He surrendered his claim on the Asiatic Greeks (about 449). + +What was to become of the treaty of Aristides? Were the confederate +cities still to pay their contribution now that there was no more +fighting? Some refused it even before the war was done. Athens +asserted that the cities had made their engagements in perpetuity and +forced them to pay them. + +The war finished, the treasury at Delos had no further use; the +Athenians transferred the money to Athens and used it in building +their monuments. They maintained that the allies paid for deliverance +from the Persians; they, therefore, had no claim against Athens so +long as she defended them from the Great King. The allies had now +become the tributaries of Athens: they were now her subjects. Athens +increased the tax on them, and required their citizens to bring their +cases before the Athenian courts; she even sent colonists to seize a +part of their lands. Athens, mistress of the league, was sovereign +over more than three hundred cities spread over the islands and the +coasts of the Archipelago, and the tribute paid her amounted to six +hundred talents a year. + + +STRIFE AMONG THE GREEK STATES + +=The Peloponnesian War.=--After the foundation of the Athenian empire +in the Archipelago the Greeks found themselves divided between two +leagues--the maritime cities were subject to Athens; the cities of the +interior remained under the domination of Sparta. After much +preliminary friction war arose between Sparta and her continental +allies on the one side and Athens and her maritime subjects on the +other. This was the _Peloponnesian War_. It continued twenty-seven +years (431-404), and when it ceased, it was revived under other names +down to 360. + +These wars were complicated affairs. They were fought simultaneously +on land and sea, in Greece, Asia, Thrace, and Sicily, ordinarily at +several points at once. The Spartans had a better army and ravaged +Attica; the Athenians had a superior fleet and made descents on the +coasts of the Peloponnesus. Then Athens sent its army to Sicily where +it perished to the last man (413); Lysander, a Spartan general, +secured a fleet from the Persians and destroyed the Athenian fleet in +Asia (405). The Athenian allies who fought only under compulsion +abandoned her. Lysander took Athens, demolished its walls, and burnt +its ships. + +=Wars against Sparta.=--Sparta was for a time mistress on both land +and sea. "In those days," says Xenophon, "all cities obeyed when a +Spartan issued his orders." But soon the allies of Sparta, wearied of +her domination, formed a league against her. The Spartans, driven at +first from Asia, still maintained their power in Greece for some years +by virtue of their alliance with the king of the Persians (387). But +the Thebans, having developed a strong army under the command of +Epaminondas, fought them at Leuctra (371) and at Mantinea (362). The +allies of Sparta detached themselves from her, but the Thebans could +not secure from the rest of the Greeks the recognition of their +supremacy. From this time no Greek city was sovereign over the others. + +=Savage Character of These Wars.=--These wars between the Greek cities +were ferocious. A few incidents suffice to show their character. At +the opening of the war the allies of Sparta threw into the sea all the +merchants from cities hostile to them. The Athenians in return put to +death the ambassadors of Sparta without allowing them to speak a word. +The town of Plataea was taken by capitulation, and the Spartans had +promised that no one should be punished without a trial; but the +Spartan judges demanded of every prisoner if during the war he had +rendered any service to the Peloponnesians; when the prisoner replied +in the negative, he was condemned to death. The women were sold as +slaves. The city of Mitylene having revolted from Athens was retaken +by her. The Athenians in an assembly deliberated and decreed that all +the people of Mitylene should be put to death. It is true that the +next day the Athenians revised the decree and sent a second ship to +carry a more favorable commission, but still more than one thousand +Mityleneans were executed. + +After the Syracusan disaster all the Athenian army was taken captive. +The conquerors began by slaughtering all the generals and many of the +soldiers. The remainder were consigned to the quarries which served as +prison. They were left there crowded together for seventy days, +exposed without protection to the burning sun of summer, and then to +the chilly nights of autumn. Many died from sickness, from cold and +hunger--for they were hardly fed at all; their corpses remained on the +ground and infected the air. At last the Syracusans drew out the +survivors sold them into slavery. + +Ordinarily when an army invaded a hostile state it levelled the +houses, felled the trees, burned the crops and killed the laborers. +After battle it made short shrift of the wounded and killed prisoners +in cold blood. In a captured city everything belonged to the captor: +men, women, children were sold as slaves. Such was at this time the +right of war. Thucydides sums up the case as follows:[80] "Business is +regulated between men by the laws of justice when there is obligation +on both sides; but the stronger does whatever is in his power, and the +weaker yields. The gods rule by a necessity of their nature because +they are strongest; men do likewise." + +=Results of These Wars.=--These wars did not result in uniting the +Greeks into one body. No city, Sparta more than Athens, was able to +force the others to obey her. They only exhausted themselves by +fighting one another. It was the king of Persia who profited by the +strife. Not only did the Greek cities not unite against him, but all +in succession allied themselves with him against the other Greeks. In +the notorious Peace of Antalcidas (387) the Great King declared that +all the Greek cities of Asia belonged to him, and Sparta recognized +this claim. Athens and Thebes did as much some years later. An +Athenian orator said, "It is the king of Persia who governs Greece; he +needs only to establish governors in our cities. Is it not he who +directs everything among us? Do we not summon the Great King as if we +were his slaves?" The Greeks by their strife had lost the vantage that +the Median war had gained for them. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[71] Twelve Ionian colonies, twelve AEolian, four Dorian. + +[72] Herod., i., 153. + +[73] Herod., vii., 103, 104. + +[74] 1,000 Plataeans came to the assistance of the Athenians.--ED. + +[75] Herodotus's statements of the numbers in Xerxes' army are +incredible.--ED. + +[76] Herod., vii., 61-80. + +[77] vii., 139. + +[78] The chronology of these events is uncertain.--ED. + +[79] Called the Peace of Cimon, but it is very doubtful whether Cimon +really concluded a treaty. [With more right may it be called the Peace +of Callias, who was probably principal ambassador.--ED.] + +[80] In his chapters on the Mityleneans. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ARTS IN GREECE + +ATHENS AT THE TIME OF PERICLES + + +=Pericles.=--In the middle of the fifth century Athens found herself +the most powerful city in Greece. Pericles, descended from one of the +noble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state. He +wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the +vanity of the people. But the Athenians respected him and acted only +in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of +all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and +so they permitted him to govern. For forty years Pericles was the soul +of the politics of Athens; as Thucydides his contemporary said, "The +democracy existed in name; in reality it was the government of the +first citizen." + +=Athens and Her Monuments.=--In Athens, as in the majority of Greek +cities, the houses of individuals were small, low, packed closely +together, forming narrow streets, tortuous and ill paved. The +Athenians reserved their display for their public monuments. Ever +after they levied heavy war taxes on their allies they had large sums +of money to expend, and these were employed in erecting beautiful +edifices. In the market-place they built a portico adorned with +paintings (the Poikile), in the city a theatre, a temple in honor of +Theseus, and the Odeon for the contests in music. But the most +beautiful monuments rose on the rock of the Acropolis as on a gigantic +pedestal. There were two temples of which the principal, the +Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena, protecting goddess of the city; a +colossal statue of bronze which represented Athena; and a staircase of +ornamental character leading up to the Propylaea. Athens was from this +time the most beautiful of the Greek cities.[81] + +=Importance of Athens.=--Athens became at the same time the city of +artists. Poets, orators, architects, painters, sculptors--some +Athenians by birth, others come from all corners of the Greek +world--met here and produced their masterpieces. There were without +doubt many Greek artists elsewhere than at Athens; there had been +before the fifth century, and there were a long time afterward; but +never were so many assembled at one time in the same city. Most of the +Greeks had fine sensibilities in matters of art; but the Athenians +more than all others had a refined taste, a cultivated spirit and love +of the beautiful. If the Greeks have gained renown in the history of +civilization, it is that they have been a people of artists; neither +their little states nor their small armies have played a great role in +the world. This is why the fifth century is the most beautiful moment +in the history of Greece; this is why Athens has remained renowned +above all the rest of the Greek cities. + + +LETTERS + +=The Orators.=--Athens is above all the city of eloquence. Speeches in +the assembly determine war, peace, taxes, all state business of +importance; speeches before the courts condemn or acquit citizens and +subjects. Power is in the hands of the orators; the people follow +their counsels and often commit to them important public functions: +Cleon is appointed general; Demosthenes directs the war against +Philip. + +The orators have influence; they employ their talents in eloquence to +accuse their political enemies. Often they possess riches, for they +are paid for supporting one party or the other: AEschines is retained +by the king of Macedon; Demosthenes accepts fees from the king of +Persia. + +Some of the orators, instead of delivering their own orations, wrote +speeches for others. When an Athenian citizen had a case at court, he +did not desire, as we do, that an advocate plead his case for him; the +law required that each speak in person. He therefore sought an orator +and had him compose a speech which he learned by heart and recited +before the tribunal. + +Other orators travelled through the cities of Greece speaking on +subjects which pleased their fancy. Sometimes they gave lectures, as +we should say. + +The oldest orators spoke simply, limiting themselves to an account of +the facts without oratorical flourishes; on the platform they were +almost rigid without loud speaking or gesticulation. Pericles +delivered his orations with a calm air, so quietly, indeed, that no +fold of his mantle was disturbed. When he appeared at the tribune, +his head, according to custom, crowned with leaves, he might have been +taken, said the people, "for a god of Olympus." But the orators who +followed wished to move the public. They assumed an animated style, +pacing the tribune in a declamatory and agitated manner. The people +became accustomed to this form of eloquence. The first time that +Demosthenes came to the tribune the assembly shouted with laughter; +the orator could not enunciate, he carried himself ill. He disciplined +himself in declamation and gesture and became the favorite of the +people. Later when he was asked what was the first quality of the +orator, he replied, "Action, and the second, action, and the third, +action." Action, that is delivery, was more to the Greeks than the +sense of the discourse. + +=The Sages.=--For some centuries there had been, especially among the +Greeks of Asia, men who observed and reflected on things. They were +called by a name which signifies at once wise men and scholars. They +busied themselves with physics, astronomy, natural history, for as yet +science was not separated from philosophy. Such were in the seventh +century the celebrated Seven Sages of Greece. + +=The Sophists.=--About the time of Pericles there came to Athens men +who professed to teach wisdom. They gathered many pupils and charged +fees for their lessons. Ordinarily they attacked the religion, +customs, and institutions of Greek cities, showing that they were not +founded on reason. They concluded that men could not know anything +with certainty (which was quite true for their time), that men can +know nothing at all, and that nothing is true or false: "Nothing +exists," said one of them, "and if it did exist, we could not know +it." These professors of scepticism were called sophists. Some of them +were at the same time orators. + +=Socrates and the Philosophers.=--Socrates, an old man of Athens, +undertook to combat the sophists. He was a poor man, ugly, and without +eloquence. He opened no school like the sophists but contented himself +with going about the city, conversing with those he met, and leading +them by the force of his questions to discover what he himself had in +mind. He sought especially the young men and gave them instruction and +counsel. Socrates made no pretensions as a scholar: "All my +knowledge," said he, "is to know that I know nothing." He would call +himself no longer a sage, like the others, but a philosopher, that is +to say, a lover of wisdom. He did not meditate on the nature of the +world nor on the sciences; man was his only interest. His motto was, +"Know thyself." He was before all a preacher of virtue. + +As he always spoke of morals and religion, the Athenians took him for +a sophist.[82] In 399 he was brought before the court, accused "of not +worshipping the gods of the city, of introducing new gods, and of +corrupting the youth." He made no attempt to defend himself, and was +condemned to death. He was then seventy years old. + +Xenophon, one of his disciples, wrote out his conversations and an +apology for him.[83] Another disciple, Plato, composed dialogues in +which Socrates is always the principal personage. Since this time +Socrates has been regarded as the "father of philosophy." Plato +himself was the head of a school (429-348); Aristotle (384-322), a +disciple of Plato, summarized in his books all the science of his +time. The philosophers that followed attached themselves to one or the +other of these two masters: the disciples of Plato called themselves +Academicians,[84] those of Aristotle, Peripatetics.[85] + +=The Chorus.=--It was an ancient custom of the Greeks to dance in +their religious ceremonies. Around the altar dedicated to the god a +group of young men passed and repassed, assuming noble and expressive +attitudes, for the ancients danced with the whole body. Their dance, +very different from ours, was a sort of animated procession, something +like a solemn pantomime. Almost always this religious dance was +accompanied by chants in honor of the god. The group singing and +dancing at the same time was called the Chorus. All the cities had +their festival choruses in which the children of the noblest families +participated after long time of preparation. The god required the +service of a troop worthy of him. + +=Tragedy and Comedy.=--In the level country about Athens the young men +celebrated in this manner each year religious dances in honor of +Dionysos, the god of the vintage. One of these dances was grave; it +represented the actions of the god. The leader of the chorus played +Dionysos, the chorus itself the satyrs, his companions. Little by +little they came to represent also the life of the other gods and the +ancient heroes. Then some one (the Greeks call him Thespis) conceived +the idea of setting up a stage on which the actor could play while the +chorus rested. The spectacle thus perfected was transferred to the +city near the black poplar tree in the market. Thus originated +Tragedy. + +The other dance was comic. The masked dancers chanted the praises of +Dionysos mingled with jeers addressed to the spectators or with +humorous reflections on the events of the day. The same was done for +the comic chorus as for the tragic chorus: actors were introduced, a +dialogue, all of a piece, and the spectacle was transferred to Athens. +This was the origin of Comedy. This is the reason that from this time +tragedy has been engaged with heroes, and comedy with every-day life. + +Tragedy and comedy preserved some traces of their origin. Even when +they were represented in the theatre, they continued to be played +before the altar of the god. Even after the actors mounted on the +platform had become the most important personages of the spectacle, +the choir continued to dance and to chant around the altar. In the +comedies, like the masques in other days, sarcastic remarks on the +government came to be made; this was the Parabasis. + +=The Theatre.=--That all the Athenians might be present at these +spectacles there was built on the side of the Acropolis the theatre of +Dionysos which could hold 30,000 spectators. Like all the Greek +theatres, it was open to heaven and was composed of tiers of rock +ranged in a half-circle about the orchestra where the chorus performed +and before the stage where the play was given. + +Plays were produced only at the time of the festivals of the god, but +then they continued for several days in succession. They began in the +morning at sunrise and occupied all the time till torch-light with the +production of a series of three tragedies (a trilogy) followed by a +satirical drama. Each trilogy was the work of one author. Other +trilogies were presented on succeeding days, so that the spectacle was +a competition between poets, the public determining the victor. The +most celebrated of these competitors were AEschylus, Sophocles, and +Euripides. There were also contests in comedy, but there remain to us +only the works of one comic poet, Aristophanes. + + +THE ARTS + +=Greek Temples.=--In Greece the most beautiful edifices were +constructed to the honor of the gods, and when we speak of Greek +architecture it is their temples that we have in mind. + +A Greek temple is not, like a Christian church, designed to receive +the faithful who come thither to pray. It is the palace[86] where the +god lives, represented by his idol, a palace which men feel under +compulsion to make splendid. The mass of the faithful do not enter the +interior of the temple; they remain without, surrounding the altar in +the open air. + +At the centre of the temple is the "chamber" of the god, a mysterious +sanctuary without windows, dimly lighted from above.[87] On the +pavement rises the idol of wood, of marble, or of ivory, clad in gold +and adorned with garments and jewels. The statue is often of colossal +size; in the temple of Olympia Zeus is represented sitting and his +head almost touches the summit of the temple. "If the god should +rise," they said, "his head would shatter the roof." This sanctuary, a +sort of reliquary for the idol, is concealed on every side from the +eyes. To enter, it is necessary to pass through a porch formed by a +row of columns. + +Behind the "chamber" is the "rear-chamber" in which are kept the +valuable property of the god--his riches,[88] and often the gold and +silver of the city. The temple is therefore storehouse, treasury, and +museum. + +Rows of columns surround the building on four sides, like a second +wall protecting the god and his treasures. There are three orders of +columns which differ in base and capital, each bearing the name of the +people that invented it or most frequently used it. They are, in the +order of age, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The temple is +named from the style of the columns supporting it. + +Above the columns, around the edifice are sculptured surfaces of +marble (the metopes) which alternate with plain blocks of marble (the +triglyphs). Metopes and triglyphs constitute the frieze. + +The temple is surmounted with a triangular pediment adorned with +statues. + +Greek temples were polychrome, that is to say, were painted in several +colors, yellow, blue, and red. For a long time the moderns refused to +believe this; it was thought that the Greeks possessed too sober taste +to add color to an edifice. But traces of painting have been +discovered on several temples, which cannot leave the matter in doubt. +It has at last been concluded, on reflection, that these bright colors +were to give a clearer setting to the lines. + +=Characteristics of Greek Architecture.=--A Greek temple appears at +first a simple, bare edifice; it is only a long box of stone set upon +a rock; the facade is a square surmounted by a triangle. At first +glance one sees only straight lines and cylinders. But on nearer +inspection "it is discovered[89] that not a single one of these lines +is truly straight." The columns swell at the middle, vertical lines +are slightly inclined to the centre, and horizontal lines bulge a +little at the middle. And all this is so fine that exact measurements +are necessary to detect the artifice. Greek architects discovered +that, to produce a harmonious whole, it is necessary to avoid +geometrical lines which would appear stiff, and take account of +illusions in perspective. "The aim of the architect," says a Greek +writer, "is to invent processes for deluding the sight." + +Greek artists wrought conscientiously for they worked for the gods. +And so their monuments are elaborated in all their parts, even in +those that are least in view, and are constructed so solidly that +they exist to this day if they have not been violently destroyed. The +Parthenon was still intact in the seventeenth century. An explosion of +gunpowder wrecked it. + +The architecture of the Greeks was at once solid and elegant, simple +and scientific. Their temples have almost all disappeared; here and +there are a very few,[90] wholly useless, in ruins, with roofs fallen +in, often nothing left but rows of columns. And yet, even in this +state, they enrapture those who behold them. + +=Sculpture.=--Among the Egyptians and the Assyrians sculpture was +hardly more than an accessory ornament of their edifices; the Greeks +made it the principal art. Their most renowned artists, Phidias, +Praxiteles, and Lysippus, were sculptors. + +They executed bas-reliefs to adorn the walls of a temple, its facade +or its pediment. Of this style of work is the famous frieze of the +Panathenaic procession which was carved around the Parthenon, +representing young Athenian women on the day of the great festival of +the goddess.[91] + +They sculptured statues for the most part, of which some represented +gods and served as idols; others represented athletes victorious in +the great games, and these were the recompense of his victory. + +The most ancient statues of the Greeks are stiff and rude, quite +similar to the Assyrian sculptures. They are often colored. Little by +little they become graceful and elegant. The greatest works are those +of Phidias in the fifth century and of Praxiteles in the fourth. The +statues of the following centuries are more graceful, but less noble +and less powerful. + +There were thousands of statues in Greece,[92] for every city had its +own, and the sculptors produced without cessation for five centuries. +Of all this multitude there remain to us hardly fifteen complete +statues. Not a single example of the masterpieces celebrated among the +Greeks has come down to us. Our most famous Greek statues are either +copies, like the Venus of Milo, or works of the period of the +decadence, like the Apollo of the Belvidere.[93] Still there remains +enough, uniting the fragments of statues and of bas-reliefs which are +continually being discovered,[94] to give us a general conception of +Greek sculpture. + +Greek sculptors sought above everything else to represent the most +beautiful bodies in a calm and noble attitude. They had a thousand +occasions for viewing beautiful bodies of men in beautiful poses, at +the gymnasium, in the army, in the sacred dances and choruses. They +studied them and learned to reproduce them; no one has ever better +executed the human body. + +Usually in a Greek statue the head is small, the face without emotion +and dull. The Greeks did not seek, as we do, the expression of the +face; they strove for beauty of line and did not sacrifice the limbs +for the head. In a Greek statue it is the whole body that is +beautiful. + +=Pottery.=--The Greeks came to make pottery a real art. They called it +Ceramics (the potter's art), and this name is still preserved. Pottery +had not the same esteem in Greece as the other arts, but for us it has +the great advantage of being better known than the others. While +temples and statues fell into ruin, the achievements of Greek potters +are preserved in the tombs. This is where they are found today. +Already more than 20,000 specimens have been collected in all the +museums of Europe. They are of two sorts: + + 1. Painted vases, with black or red figures, of all sizes and + every form; + + 2. Statuettes of baked earth; hardly known twenty years ago, they + have now attained almost to celebrity since the discovery of the + charming figurines of Tanagra in Boeotia. The most of them are + little idols, but some represent children or women. + +=Painting.=--There were illustrious painters in Greece--Zeuxis, +Parrhasius, and Apelles. We know little of them beyond some anecdotes, +often doubtful, and some descriptions of pictures. To obtain an +impression of Greek painting we are limited to the frescoes found in +the houses of Pompeii, an Italian city of the first century of our +era. This amounts to the same as saying we know nothing of it. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[81] The moderns have called this time the Age of Pericles, because +Pericles was then governing and was the friend of many of these artists; +but the ancients never employed the phrase. + +[82] See Aristophanes' "Clouds." + +[83] The "Memorabilia" and "Apologia." + +[84] Because Plato had lectured in the gardens of a certain Academus. + +[85] Because Aristotle had given instruction while moving about. [Or +rather from a favorite walk (Peripatus) in the Lyceum.--ED.] + +[86] The Greek word for temple signifies "dwelling." + +[87] But not by a square opening in the roof as formerly supposed.--ED. +See Gardner, "Ancient Athens," N.Y., 1902, p. 268. + +[88] The Parthenon contained vases of gold and silver, a crown of gold, +shields, helmets, swords, serpents of gold, an ivory table, eighteen +couches, and quivers of ivory. + +[89] Boutmy, "Philosophie de l'Architecture en Grece." + +[90] The most noted are the Parthenon at Athens and the temple of +Poseidon at Paestum, in south Italy. + +[91] Knights and other subjects were also shown.--ED. + +[92] Even in the second century after the Romans had pillaged Greece to +adorn their palaces, there were many thousands of statues in the Greek +cities. + +[93] It is not certain that the Apollo Belvidere was not a Roman copy. + +[94] In the ruins of Olympia has been found a statue of Hermes, the work +of Praxiteles. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE GREEKS IN THE ORIENT + +ASIA BEFORE ALEXANDER + + +=Decadence of the Persian Empire.=--The Greeks, engaged in strife, +ceased to attack the Great King; they even received their orders from +him. But the Persian empire still continued to become enfeebled. The +satraps no longer obeyed the government; each had his court, his +treasure, his army, made war according to his fancy, and in short, +became a little king in his province. When the Great King desired to +remove a satrap, he had scarcely any way of doing it except by +assassinating him. The Persians themselves were no longer that nation +before which all the Asiatic peoples were wont to tremble. Xenophon, a +Greek captain, who had been in their pay, describes them as follows: +"They recline on tapestries wearing gloves and furs. The nobles, for +the sake of the pay, transform their porters, their bakers, and cooks +into knights--even the valets who served them at table, dressed them +or perfumed them. And so, although their armies were large, they were +of no service, as is apparent from the fact that their enemies +traversed the empire more freely than their friends. They no longer +dared to fight. The infantry as formerly was equipped with buckler, +sword, and axe, but they had no courage to use them. The drivers of +chariots before facing the enemy basely allowed themselves to be +overthrown at once or leaped down from the cars, so that these being +no longer under control injured the Persians more than the enemy. For +the rest, the Persians do not disguise their military weakness, they +concede their inferiority and do not dare to take the field except +there are Greeks in their army. They have for their maxim 'never to +fight Greeks without Greek auxiliaries on their side.'" + +=Expedition of the Ten Thousand.=--This weakness was very apparent +when in 400 Cyrus, brother of the Great King Artaxerxes, marched +against him to secure his throne. There were then some thousands of +adventurers or Greek exiles who hired themselves as mercenaries. Cyrus +retained ten thousand of them. Xenophon, one of their number, has +written the story of their expedition. + +This army crossed the whole of Asia even to the Euphrates without +resistance from any one.[95] They at last came to battle near Babylon. +The Greeks according to their habit broke into a run, raising the +war-cry. The barbarians took flight before the Greeks had come even +within bow-shot. The Greeks followed in pursuit urging one another to +keep ranks. + +When the war-chariots attacked them, they opened their ranks and let +them through. Not a Greek received the least stroke with the exception +of one only who was wounded with an arrow. Cyrus was killed; his army +disbanded without fighting, and the Greeks remained alone in the heart +of a hostile country threatened by a large army. And yet the Persians +did not dare to attack them, but treacherously killed their five +generals, twenty captains, and two hundred soldiers who had come to +conclude a truce. + +The friendless mercenaries elected new chiefs, burned their tents and +their chariots, and began their retreat. They broke into the rugged +mountains of Armenia, and notwithstanding famine, snow, and the arrows +of the natives who did not wish to let them pass, they came to the +Black Sea and returned to Greece after traversing the whole Persian +empire. At their return (399) their number amounted still to 8,000. + +=Agesilaus.=--Three years after, Agesilaus, king of Sparta, with a +small army invaded the rich country of Asia Minor, Lydia, and Phrygia. +He fought the satraps and was about to invade Asia when the Spartans +ordered his return to fight the armies of Thebes and Athens. Agesilaus +was the first of the Greeks to dream of conquering Persia. He was +distressed to see the Greeks fighting among themselves. When they +announced to him the victory at Corinth where but eight Spartans had +perished and 10,000 of the enemy, instead of rejoicing he sighed and +said, "Alas, unhappy Greece, to have lost enough men to have +subjugated all the barbarians!" He refused one day to destroy a Greek +city. "If we exterminate all the Greeks who fail of their duty," said +he, "where shall we find the men to vanquish the barbarians?" This +feeling was rare at that time. In relating these words of Agesilaus +Xenophon, his biographer, exclaims, "Who else regarded it as a +misfortune to conquer when he was making war on peoples of his own +race?" + + +CONQUEST OF ASIA BY ALEXANDER + +=Macedon.=--Sparta and Athens, exhausted by a century of wars, had +abandoned the contest against the king of Persia. A new people resumed +it and brought it to an end; these were the Macedonians. They were a +very rude people, crude, similar to the ancient Dorians, a people of +shepherds and soldiers. They lived far to the north of Greece in two +great valleys that opened to the sea. The Greeks had little regard for +them, rating them as half barbarians; but since the kings of Macedon +called themselves sons of Herakles they had been permitted to run +their horses in the races of the Olympian games. This gave them +standing as Greeks. + +=Philip of Macedon.=--These kings ruling in the interior, remote from +the sea, had had but little part in the wars of the Greeks. But in 359 +B.C. Philip ascended the throne of Macedon, a man young, active, bold, +and ambitious. Philip had three aims: + + 1. To develop a strong army; + + 2. To conquer all the ports on the coast of Macedon; + + 3. To force all the other Greeks to unite under his command + against the Persians. + +He consumed twenty-four years in fulfilling these purposes and +succeeded in all. The Greeks let him alone, often even aided him; in +every city he bribed partisans who spoke in his favor. "No fortress is +impregnable," said he, "if only one can introduce within it a mule +laden with gold." And by these means he took one after another all the +cities of northern Greece. + +=Demosthenes.=--The most illustrious opponent of Philip was the orator +Demosthenes. The son of an armorer, he was left an orphan at the age +of seven, and his guardians had embezzled a part of his fortune. As +soon as he gained his majority he entered a case against them and +compelled them to restore the property. He studied the orations of +Isaeus and the history of Thucydides which he knew by heart. But when +he spoke at the public tribune he was received with shouts of +laughter; his voice was too feeble and his breath too short. For +several years he labored to discipline his voice. It is said that he +shut himself up for months with head half shaved that he might not be +tempted to go out, that he declaimed with pebbles in his mouth, and on +the sea-shore, in order that his voice might rise above the uproar of +the crowd. When he reappeared on the tribune, he was master of his +voice, and, as he preserved the habit of carefully preparing all his +orations, he became the most finished and most potent orator of +Greece. + +The party that then governed Athens, whose chief was Phocion, wished +to maintain the peace: Athens had neither soldiers nor money enough to +withstand the king of Macedon. "I should counsel you to make war," +said Phocion, "when you are ready for it." Demosthenes, however, +misunderstood Philip, whom he regarded as a barbarian; he placed +himself at the service of the party that wished to make war on him and +employed all his eloquence to move the Athenians from their policy of +peace. For fifteen years he seized every occasion to incite them to +war; many of his speeches have no other object than an attack on +Philip. He himself called these Philippics, and there are three of +them. (The name Olynthiacs has been applied to the orations delivered +with the purpose of enlisting the Athenians in the aid of Olynthus +when it was besieged by Philip.) The first Philippic is in 352. "When, +then, O Athenians, will you be about your duty? Will you always roam +about the public places asking one of another: What is the news? Ah! +How can there be anything newer than the sight of a Macedonian +conquering Athens and dominating Greece? I say, then, that you ought +to equip fifty galleys and resolve, if necessary, to man them +yourselves. Do not talk to me of an army of 10,000 or of 20,000 aliens +that exists only on paper. I would have only citizen soldiers." + +In the third Philippic (341) Demosthenes calls to the minds of the +Athenians the progress made by Philip, thanks to their inaction. "When +the Greeks once abused their power to oppress others, all Greece rose +to prevent this injustice; and yet today we suffer an unworthy +Macedonian, a barbarian of a hated race, to destroy Greek cities, +celebrate the Pythian games, or have them celebrated by his slaves. +And the Greeks look on without doing anything, just as one sees hail +falling while he prays that it may not touch him. You let increase his +power without taking a step to stop it, each regarding it as so much +time gained when he is destroying another, instead of planning and +working for the safety of Greece, when everybody knows that the +disaster will end with the inclusion of the most remote." + +At last, when Philip had taken Elatea on the borders of Boeotia, the +Athenians, on the advice of Demosthenes, determined to make war and to +send envoys to Thebes. Demosthenes was at the head of the embassy; he +met at Thebes an envoy come from Philip; the Thebans hesitated. +Demosthenes besought them to bury the old enmities and to think only +of the safety of Greece, to defend its honor and its history. He +persuaded them to an alliance with Athens and to undertake the war. A +battle was fought at Chaeronea in Boeotia, Demosthenes, then at the age +of forty-eight, serving as a private hostile. But the army of the +Athenians and Thebans, levied in haste, was not equal to the veterans +of Philip and was thrown into rout. + +=The Macedonian Supremacy.=--Philip, victorious at Chaeronea, placed a +garrison in Thebes and offered peace to Athens. He then entered the +Peloponnesus and was received as a liberator among the peoples whom +Sparta had oppressed. From this time he met with no resistance. He +came to Corinth and assembled delegates from all the Greek states +(337)[96] except Sparta. + +Here Philip published his project of leading a Greek army to the +invasion of Persia. The delegates approved the proposition and made a +general confederation of all the Greek states. Each city was to govern +itself and to live at peace with its neighbors. A general council was +initiated to prevent wars, civil dissensions, proscriptions, and +confiscations. + +This confederacy made an alliance with the king of Macedon and +conferred on him the command of all the Greek troops and navies. Every +Greek was prohibited making war on Philip on pain of banishment. + +=Alexander.=--Philip of Macedon was assassinated in 336. His son +Alexander was then twenty years old. Like all the Greeks of good +family he was accustomed to athletic exercises, a vigorous fighter, an +excellent horseman (he alone had been able to master Bucephalus, his +war-horse). But at the same time he was informed in politics, in +eloquence, and in natural history, having had as teacher from his +thirteenth to his seventeenth year Aristotle, the greatest scholar of +Greece. He read the Iliad with avidity, called this the guide to the +military art, and desired to imitate its heroes. He was truly born to +conquer, for he loved to fight and was ambitious to distinguish +himself. His father said to him, "Macedon is too small to contain +you." + +=The Phalanx.=--Philip left a powerful instrument of conquest, the +Macedonian army, the best that Greece had seen. It comprised the +phalanx of infantry and a corps of cavalry. + +The phalanx of Macedonians was formed of 16,000 men ranged with 1,000 +in front and 16 men deep. Each had a sarissa, a spear about twenty +feet in length. On the field of battle the Macedonians, instead of +marching on the enemy facing all in the same direction, held +themselves in position and presented their pikes to the enemy on all +sides, those in the rear couching their spears above the heads of the +men of the forward ranks. The phalanx resembled "a monstrous beast +bristling with iron," against which the enemy was to throw itself. +While the phalanx guarded the field of battle, Alexander charged the +enemy at the head of his cavalry. This Macedonian cavalry was a +distinguished body formed of young nobles. + +=Departure of Alexander.=--Alexander started in the spring of 334 with +30,000 infantry (the greater part of these Macedonians) and 4,500 +knights; he carried only seventy talents (less than eighty thousand +dollars) and supplies for forty days. He had to combat not only the +crowd of ill-armed peoples such as Xerxes had brought together, but an +army of 50,000 Greeks enrolled in the service of the Great King under +a competent general, Memnon of Rhodes. These Greeks might have +withstood the invasion of Alexander, but Memnon died and his army +dispersed. Alexander, delivered from his only dangerous opponent, +conquered the Persian empire in two years. + +=Victories of Granicus, Issus, and Arbela.=--Three victories gave the +empire to Alexander. In Asia Minor he overthrew the Persian troops +stationed behind the river Granicus (May, 333). At Issus, in the +ravines of Cilicia, he routed King Darius and his army of 600,000 men +(November, 333). At Arbela, near the Tigris, he scattered and +massacred a still more numerous army (331). + +This was a repetition of the Median wars. The Persian army was ill +equipped and knew nothing of manoeuvring; it was embarrassed with its +mass of soldiers, valets, and baggage. The picked troops alone gave +battle, the rest were scattered and massacred. Between the battles the +conquest was only a triumphal progress. Nobody resisted (except the +city of Tyre, commercial rival of the Greeks); what cared the peoples +of the empire whether they were subject to Darius or Alexander? Each +victory gave Alexander the whole of the country: the Granicus opened +Asia Minor, Issus Syria and Egypt, Arbela the rest of the empire. + +=Death of Alexander.=--Master now of the Persian empire Alexander +regarded himself as the heir of the Great King. He assumed Persian +dress, adopted the ceremonies of the Persian court and compelled his +Greek generals to prostrate themselves before him according to Persian +usage. He married a woman of the land and united eighty of his +officers to daughters of the Persian nobles. He aimed to extend his +empire to the farthest limits of the ancient kings and advanced even +to India, warring with the combative natives. After his return with +his army to Babylon (324), he died at the age of thirty-three, +succumbing to a fever of brief duration (323). + +=Projects of Alexander.=--It is very difficult to know exactly what +Alexander's purposes were. Did he conquer for the mere pleasure of it? +Or did he have a plan? Did he wish to fuse into one all the peoples of +his empire? Was he following the example already set him by Persia? Or +did he, perhaps, imitate the Great King simply for vain-glory? And so +of his intentions we know nothing. But his acts had great results. He +founded seventy cities--many Alexandrias in Egypt, in Tartary, and +even in India. He distributed to his subjects the treasures that had +been uselessly hoarded in the chests of the Great King. He stimulated +Greek scholars to study the plants, the animals, and the geography of +Asia. But what is of special importance, he prepared the peoples of +the Orient to receive the language and customs of the Greeks. This is +why the title "Great" has been assigned to Alexander. + + +THE HELLENES IN THE ORIENT + +=Dissolution of the Empire of Alexander.=--Alexander had united under +one master all the ancient world from the Adriatic to the Indus, from +Egypt to the Caucasus. This vast empire endured only while he lived. +Soon after his death his generals disputed as to who should succeed +him; they made war on one another for twenty years, at first under the +pretext of supporting some one of the house of Alexander--his brother, +his son, his mother, his sisters or one of his wives, later openly in +their own names. + +Each had on his side a part of the Macedonian army or some of the +Greek mercenary soldiers. The Greeks were thus contending among +themselves who should possess Asia. The inhabitants were indifferent +in these wars as they had been in the strife between the Greeks and +the Persians. When the war ceased, there remained but three generals; +from the empire of Alexander each of them had carved for himself a +great kingdom: Ptolemy had Egypt, Seleucus Syria, Lysimachus +Macedonia. Other smaller kingdoms were already separated or detached +themselves later: in Europe Epirus; in Asia Minor, Pontus, Bithynia, +Galatia, Cappadocia, Pergamos; in Persia, Bactriana and Parthia. Thus +the empire of Alexander was dismembered. + +=The Hellenistic Kingdoms.=--In these new kingdoms the king was a +Greek; accustomed to speak Greek, to adore the Greek gods, and to live +in Greek fashion, he preserved his language, his religion, and his +customs. His subjects were Asiatics, that is to say, barbarians; but +he sought to maintain a Greek court about him; he recruited his army +with Greek mercenaries, his administrative officers were Greeks, he +invited to his court Greek poets, scholars, and artists. + +Already in the time of the Persian kings there were many Greeks in the +empire as colonists, merchants, and especially soldiers. The Greek +kings attracted still more of these. They came in such numbers that at +last the natives adopted the costume, the religion, the manners, and +even the language of the Greeks. The Orient ceased to be Asiatic, and +became Hellenic. The Romans found here in the first century B.C. only +peoples like the Greeks and who spoke Greek.[97] + +=Alexandria.=--The Greek kings of Egypt, descendants of Ptolemy,[98] +accepted the title of Pharaoh held by the ancient kings, wore the +diadem, and, like the earlier sovereigns, had themselves worshipped +as children of the Sun. But they surrounded themselves with Greeks +and founded their capital on the edge of the sea in a Greek city, +Alexandria, a new city established by the order of Alexander. + +Built on a simple plan, Alexandria was more regular than other Greek +cities. The streets intersected at right angles; a great highway 100 +feet broad and three and one-half miles in length traversed the whole +length of the city. It was bordered with great monuments--the Stadium +where the public games were presented, the Gymnasium, the Museum, and +the Arsineum. The harbor was enclosed with a dike nearly a mile long +which united the mainland to the island of Pharos. At the very +extremity of this island a tower of marble was erected, on the summit +of which was maintained a fire always burning to guide the mariners +who wished to enter the port. Alexandria superseded the Phoenician +cities and became the great port of the entire world. + +=The Museum.=--The Museum was an immense edifice of marble connected +with the royal palace. The kings of Egypt purposed to make of it a +great scientific institution. + +The Museum contained a great library.[99] The chief librarian had a +commission to buy all the books that he could find. Every book that +entered Egypt was brought to the library; copyists transcribed the +manuscript and a copy was rendered the owner to indemnify him. Thus +they collected 400,000 volumes, an unheard-of number before the +invention of printing. Until then the manuscripts of celebrated books +were scarce, always in danger of being lost; now it was known where to +find them. In the Museum were also a botanical and zooelogical garden, +an astronomical observatory, a dissecting room established +notwithstanding the prejudices of the Egyptians, and even a chemical +laboratory.[100] + +The Museum provided lodgings for scholars, mathematicians, +astronomers, physicians, and grammarians. They were supported at the +expense of the state; often to show his esteem for them the king dined +with them. These scholars held conferences and gave lectures. Auditors +came from all parts of the Greek world; it was to Alexandria that the +youth were sent for instruction. In the city were nearly 14,000 +students. + +The Museum was at once a library, an academy, and a school--something +like a university. This sort of institution, common enough among us, +was before that time completely unheard of. Alexandria, thanks to its +Museum, became the rendezvous for all the Orientals--Greeks, +Egyptians, Jews, and Syrians; each brought there his religion, his +philosophy, his science, and all were mingled together. Alexandria +became and remained for several centuries the scientific and +philosophical capital of the world. + +=Pergamum.=--The kingdom of Pergamum in Asia Minor was small and weak. +But Pergamum, its capital, was, like Alexandria, a city of artists and +of letters. The sculptors of Pergamum constituted a celebrated school +in the third century before our era.[101] Pergamum, like Alexandria, +possessed a great library where King Attalus had assembled all the +manuscripts of the ancient authors. + +It was at Pergamum that, to replace the papyrus on which down to that +time they used to write, they invented the art of preparing skins. +This new paper of Pergamum was the parchment on which the manuscripts +of antiquity have been preserved. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[95] An episode told by Xenophon shows what fear the Greeks inspired. +One day, to make a display before the queen of Cilicia, Cyrus had his +Greeks drawn up in battle array. "They all had their brazen helmets, +their tunics of purple, their gleaming shields and greaves. The trumpet +sounded, and the soldiers, with arms in action, began the charge; +hastening their steps and raising the war-cry, they broke into a run. +The barbarians were terrified; the Cilician queen fled from her chariot, +the merchants of the market abandoning their goods took to flight, and +the Greeks returned with laughter to their tents." + +[96] There were two assemblies in Corinth--the first in, 338, the second +in 337.--ED. + +[97] The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles composed in Asia Minor +were written in Greek. + +[98] They were called Lagidae from the father of Ptolemy I. + +[99] The library of the Museum was burnt during the siege of Alexandria +by Caesar. But it had a successor in the Serapeum which contained 300,000 +volumes. This is said to have been burnt in the seventh century by the +Arabs. [The tale of the destruction of the library under orders of Omar +is doubtful.--ED.] + +[100] King Ptolemy Philadelphus who had great fear of death passed many +years searching for an elixir of life. + +[101] There still remain to us some of the statues executed by the +orders of King Attalus to commemorate his victory over the Gauls of +Asia. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE LAST YEARS OF GREECE + +DECADENCE OF THE GREEK CITIES + + +=Rich and Poor.=--In almost all the Greek cities the domains, the +shops of trade, the merchant ships, in short, all the sources of +financial profit were in the hands of certain rich families. The other +families, that is to say, the majority of the citizens,[102] had +neither lands nor money. What, then, could a poor citizen do to gain a +livelihood? Hire himself as a farmer, an artisan, or a sailor? But the +proprietors already had their estates, their workshops, their +merchantmen manned by slaves who served them much more cheaply than +free laborers, for they fed them ill and did not pay them. Could he +work on his own account? But money was very scarce; he could not +borrow, since interest was at the rate of ten per cent. Then, too, +custom did not permit a citizen to become an artisan. "Trade," said +the philosophers, "injures the body, enfeebles the soul and leaves no +leisure to engage in public affairs." "And so," says Aristotle, "a +well-constituted city ought not to receive the artisan into +citizenship." The citizens in Greece constituted a noble class whose +only honorable functions, like the nobles of ancient France, were to +govern and go to war; working with the hands was degrading. Thus by +the competition of slaves and their exalted situation the greater part +of the citizens were reduced to extreme misery. + +=Social Strife.=--The poor governed the cities and had no means of +living. The idea occurred to them to despoil the rich, and the latter, +to resist them, organized associations. Then every Greek city was +divided into two parties: the rich, called the minority, and the poor, +called the majority or the people. Rich and poor hated one another and +fought one another. When the poor got the upper hand, they exiled the +rich and confiscated their goods; often they even adopted these two +radical measures: + + 1. The abolition of debts; + + 2. A new partition of lands. + +The rich, when they returned to power, exiled the poor. In many cities +they took this oath among themselves: "I swear always to be an enemy +to the people and to do them all the injury I can." + +No means were found of reconciling the two parties: the rich could not +persuade themselves to surrender their property; the poor were +unwilling to die of hunger. According to Aristotle all revolutions +have their origin in the distribution of wealth. "Every civil war," +says Polybius, "is initiated to subvert wealth." + +They fought savagely, as is always the case between neighbors. "At +Miletus the poor were at first predominant and forced the rich to flee +the city. But afterwards, regretting that they had not killed them +all, they took the children of the exiles, assembled them in barns +and had them trodden under the feet of cattle. The rich reentered the +city and became masters of it. In their turn they seized the children +of the poor, coated them with pitch, and burned them alive." + +=Democracy and Oligarchy.=--Each of the two parties--rich and +poor--had its favorite form of government and set it in operation when +the party held the city. The party of the rich was the Oligarchy which +gave the government into the hands of a few people. That of the poor +was the Democracy which gave the power to an assembly of the people. +Each of the two parties maintained an understanding with the similar +party in the other cities. Thus were formed two leagues which divided +all the Greek cities: the league of the rich, or Oligarchy, the league +of the poor, or Democracy. This regime began during the Peloponnesian +War. Athens supported the democratic party, Sparta the oligarchic. The +cities in which the poor had the sovereignty allied themselves with +Athens; the cities where the rich governed, with Sparta. Thus at Samos +when the poor gained supremacy they slew two hundred of the rich, +exiled four hundred of them, and confiscated their lands and houses. +Samos then adopted a democratic government and allied itself with +Athens. The Spartan army came to besiege Samos, bringing with it the +rich exiles of Samos who wished to return to the city by force. The +city was captured, set up an oligarchy, and joined the league of +Sparta. + +=The Tyrants.=--At length, the poor perceived that the democratic form +of government did not give them strength enough to maintain the +contest. In most of the cities they consented to receive a chief. This +chief was called Tyrant. He governed as master without obeying any +law, condemning to death, and confiscating property at will. +Mercenaries defended him against his enemies. The following anecdote +represents the policy of the tyrants: "Periander, tyrant of Corinth, +sent one day to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, to ask what conduct he +ought to follow in order to govern with safety. Thrasybulus led the +envoy into the field end walked with him through the wheat, striking +off with his staff all heads that were higher than the others. He sent +off the envoy without further advice." The messenger took him for a +fool, but Periander understood: Thrasybulus was counselling him to +slay the principal citizens. + +Everywhere the rich were killed by the tyrant and their goods +confiscated; often the wealth was distributed among the poor. This is +why the populace always sustained the tyrant. + +There were tyrants in Greece from the sixth century; some, like +Pisistratus, Polycrates, and Pittacus, were respected for their +wisdom. At that time every man was called tyrant who exercised +absolute power outside the limits of the constitution; it was not a +title of reproach. + +But when the tyrants made incessant warfare on the rich they became +sanguinary and so were detested. Their situation is depicted in the +famous story of Damocles. This Damocles said to Dionysius, tyrant of +Syracuse, "You are the happiest of men." "I will show you the delight +of being a tyrant," replied Dionysius. He had Damocles served with a +sumptuous feast and ordered his servants to show the guest the same +honors as to himself. During the feast Damocles raised his eyes and +perceived a sword suspended to the ceiling held only by a horse hair, +and hanging directly over his head. The comparison was a striking +one--the tyrant's life hung only by a thread. The rich, his enemies, +watched for an opportunity to cut it, for it was regarded as +praiseworthy to assassinate a tyrant. This danger irritated him and +made him suspicious and cruel. He dared not trust anybody, believed +himself secure only after the massacre of all his enemies, and +condemned the citizens to death on the slightest suspicion. Thus the +name tyrant became a synonym of injustice. + +=Exhaustion of Greece.=--The civil wars between rich and poor +continued for nearly three centuries (430-150 B.C.). Many citizens +were massacred, a greater number exiled. These exiles wandered about +in poverty. Knowing no trade but that of a soldier, they entered as +mercenaries into the armies of Sparta, Athens, the Great King, the +Persian satraps--in short, of anybody who would hire them. There were +50,000 Greeks in the service of Darius against Alexander. It was +seldom that such men returned to their own country. + +Thus the cities lost their people. At the same time families became +smaller, many men preferring not to marry or raise children, others +having but one or two. "Is not this," says Polybius, "the root of the +evil, that of these two children war or sickness removes one, then the +home becomes deserted and the city enfeebled?" A time came when there +were no longer enough citizens in the towns to resist a conqueror. + + +THE ROMAN CONQUEST + +=The Greek Leagues.=--The most discerning of the Greeks commenced to +see the danger during the second war of Rome with Carthage. In an +assembly held at Naupactus in 207 B.C. a Greek orator said, "Turn your +eyes to the Occident; the Romans and Carthaginians are disputing +something else than the possession of Italy. A cloud is forming on +that coast, it increases, and impends over Greece."[103] + +The Greek cities at this time grouped themselves in two leagues +hostile to each other. Two little peoples, the AEtolians and Achaeans, +had the direction of them; they commanded the armies and determined on +peace and war, just as Athens and Sparta once did. Each league +supported in the Greek states one of the two political parties--the +AEtolian League the democratic, the Achaean League[104] the +oligarchical. + +=The Roman Allies.=--Neither of the two leagues was strong enough to +unite all the Greek states. The Romans then appeared. Philip, the king +of Macedon (197), and later Antiochus,[105] the king of Syria +(193-169), made war on them. Both were beaten. Rome destroyed their +armies and made them surrender their fleets. + +Perseus, the new king of Macedon, was conquered, made prisoner, and +his kingdom overthrown (167).[106] The Greeks made no effort to unite +for the common defence; rich and poor persisted in their strife, and +each hated the other more than the foreigner. The democratic party +allied itself with Macedon, the oligarchical party called in the +Romans.[107] While the Theban democrats were fighting in the army of +Philip, the Theban oligarchs opened the town to the Roman general. At +Rhodes all were condemned to death who had acted or spoken against +Rome. Even among the Achaeans, Callicrates, a partisan of the Romans, +prepared a list of a thousand citizens whom he accused of having been +favorable to Perseus; these suspects were sent to Rome where they were +held twenty years without trial. + +=The Last Fight.=--The Romans were not at first introduced as enemies. +In 197 the consul Flamininus, after conquering the king of Macedon, +betook himself to the Isthmus of Corinth and before the Greeks +assembled to celebrate the games, proclaimed that "all the Greek +peoples were free." The crowd in transports of joy approached +Flamininus to thank him; they wished to salute their liberator, see +his form, touch his hand; crowns and garlands were cast upon him. The +pressure upon him was so great that he was nearly suffocated. + +The Romans seeing themselves in control soon wished to command. The +rich freely recognized their sovereignty; Rome served them by +shattering the party of the poor. This endured for forty years. At +last in 147, Rome being engaged with Carthage, the democratic party +gained the mastery in Greece and declared war on the Romans. A part of +the Greeks were panic-stricken; many came before the Roman soldiers +denouncing their compatriots and themselves; others betook themselves +to a safe distance from the cities; some hurled themselves into wells +or over precipices. The leaders of the opposition confiscated the +property of the rich, abolished debts, and gave arms to the slaves. It +was a desperate contest. Once overcome, the Achaeans reassembled an +army and marched to the combat with their wives and children. The +general Dioeus shut himself in his house with his whole family and set +fire to the building. Corinth had been the centre of the resistance; +the Romans entered it, massacred the men, and sold the women and +children as slaves. The city full of masterpieces of art was pillaged +and burnt; pictures of the great painters were thrown into the dust, +Roman soldiers lying on them and playing at dice. + + +THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT + +=Influence of Greece on Rome.=--The Romans at the time of their +conquest of the Greeks were still only soldiers, peasants, and +merchants; they had no statues, monuments, literature, science, or +philosophy. All this was found among the Greeks. Rome sought to +imitate these, as the Assyrian conquerors imitated the Chaldeans, as +the Persians did the Assyrians. The Romans kept their costume, tongue, +and religion, and never confused these with those of the Greeks. But +thousands of Greek scholars and artists came to establish themselves +in Rome and to open schools of literature and of eloquence. Later it +was the fashion for the youth of the great Roman families to go as +students to the schools of Athens and Alexandria. Thus the arts and +science of the Greeks were gradually introduced into Rome. "Vanquished +Greece overcame her savage conqueror," says Horace, the Roman poet; +"she brought the arts to uncultured Latium." + +=Architecture.=--The Romans had a national architecture. But they +borrowed the column from the Greeks and often imitated their +buildings. Many Roman temples resemble a Greek temple. + +A wealthy Roman's house is composed ordinarily of two parts: the +first, the ancient Roman house; the other is only a Greek house added +to the first. + +=Sculpture.=--The Greeks had thousands of statues, in temples, squares +of the city, gymnasia, and in their dwellings. The Romans regarded +themselves as the owners of everything that had belonged to the +vanquished people. Their generals, therefore, removed a great number +of statues, transporting them to the temples and the porticos of Rome. +In the triumph of AEmilius Paullus, victor over the king of Macedon +(Perseus), a notable spectacle was two hundred and fifty cars full of +statues and paintings. + +Soon the Romans became accustomed to adorn with statues their +theatres, council-halls, and private villas; every great noble wished +to have some of them and gave commissions for them to Greek artists. +Thus a Roman school of sculpture was developed which continued to +imitate ancient Greek models. And so it was Greek sculpture, a little +blunted and disfigured, which was spread over all the world subject to +the Romans. + +=Literature.=--The oldest Latin writer was a Greek, Livius Andronicus, +a freedman, a schoolmaster, and later an actor. The first works in +Latin were translations from the Greek. Livius Andronicus had +translated the Odyssey and several tragedies. The Roman people took +pleasure in Greek pieces and would have no others. Even the Roman +authors who wrote for the theatre did nothing but translate or arrange +Greek tragedies and comedies. Thus the celebrated works of Plautus and +of Terence are imitations of the comedies of Menander and of Diphilus, +now lost to us. + +The Romans imitated also the Greek historians. For a long time it was +the fashion to write history, even Roman history, in Greek. + +The only great Roman poets declare themselves pupils of the Greeks. +Lucretius writes only to expound the philosophy of Epicurus; Catullus +imitates the poets of Alexander; Vergil, Theocritus and Homer; Horace +translates the odes of the Greek lyrics. + +=Epicureans and Stoics.=--The Romans had a practical and literal +spirit, very indifferent to pure science and metaphysics. They took +interest in Greek philosophy only so far as they believed it had a +bearing on morals. + +Epicureans and Stoics were two sects of Greek philosophers. The +Epicureans maintained that pleasure is the supreme good, not sensual +pleasure, but the calm and reasonable pleasure of the temperate man; +happiness consists in the quiet enjoyment of a peaceful life, +surrounded with friends and without concern for imaginary goods. For +the Stoics the supreme good is virtue, which consists in conducting +one's self according to reason, with a view to the good of the whole +universe. Riches, honor, health, beauty, all the goods of earth are +nothing for the wise man; even if one torture him, he remains happy in +the possession of the true good. + +The Romans took sides for one or the other philosophy, usually without +thoroughly comprehending either. Those who passed for Epicureans spent +their lives in eating and drinking and even compared themselves to +swine. Those calling themselves Stoics, like Cato and Brutus, affected +a rude language, a solemn demeanor and emphasized the evils of life. +Nevertheless these doctrines, spreading gradually, aided in destroying +certain prejudices of the Romans. Epicureans and Stoics were in +harmony on two points: they disdained the ancient religion and taught +that all men are equal, slaves or citizens, Greeks or barbarians. +Their Roman disciples renounced in their school certain old +superstitions, and learned to show themselves less cruel to their +slaves, less insolent toward other peoples. + +The conquest of Greece by the Romans gave the arts, letters, and +morals of the Greeks currency in the west, just as the conquest of the +Persian empire by the Greeks had carried their language, customs, and +religion into the Orient. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[102] In almost all the Greek cities there was no middle class. In this +regard Athens with its thirteen thousand small proprietors is a +remarkable exception. + +[103] Polybius, v., 104. + +[104] The Achaean league had illustrious leaders. In the third century, +Aratus, who for twenty-seven years (251-224) traversed Greece, expelling +tyrants, recalling the rich and returning to them their property and the +government; in the second century Philopoemen, who fought the tyrants of +Sparta and died by poison. + +[105] There were two kings of Syria by the name of Antiochus, between +193 and 169.--ED. + +[106] The decisive battle (Pydna) was fought in 168. Perseus walked in +the triumph of Paullus the next year.--ED. + +[107] The party policies of the Greeks of this period were hardly so +clearly drawn as the above would seem to indicate. Thus the Achaean +League allied itself with Macedon against the AEtolians and against +Sparta. The AEtolians leagued with the Romans against Macedon.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ROME + +ANCIENT PEOPLES OF ITALY + + +THE ETRUSCANS + +=Etruria.=--The word Italy never signified for the ancients the same +as for us: the Po Valley (Piedmont and Lombardy) was a part of Gaul. +The frontier country at the north was Tuscany. The Etruscans who dwelt +there have left it their name (Tusci). + +Etruria was a country at once warm and humid; the atmosphere hung +heavily over the inhabitants. The region on the shore of the sea where +the Etruscans had most of their cities is the famous Maremma, a +wonderfully fertile area, covered with beautiful forests, but where +the water having no outlet forms marshes that poison the air. "In the +Maremma," says an Italian proverb, "one gets rich in a year, but dies +in six months." + +=The Etruscan People.=--The Etruscans were for the ancients, and are +still for us, a mysterious people. They had no resemblance to their +neighbor's, and doubtless they came from a distance--from Germany, +Asia, or from Egypt; all these opinions have been maintained, but no +one of them is demonstrated. + +We are ignorant even of the language that they spoke. Their alphabet +resembles that of the Greeks, but the Etruscan inscriptions present +only proper names, and these are too short to furnish a key to the +language. + +The Etruscans established twelve cities in Tuscany, united in a +confederation, each with its own fortress, its king, and its +government. They had colonies on both coasts, twelve in Campania in +the vicinity of Naples, and twelve more in the valley of the Po. + +=Etruscan Tombs.=--There remain to us from the Etruscans only city +walls and tombs. + +When an Etruscan tomb is opened, one perceives a porch supported by +columns and behind this chambers with couches, and bodies laid on +these. Round about are ornaments of gold, ivory, and amber; purple +cloths, utensils, and especially large painted vases. On the walls are +paintings of combats, games, banquets, and fantastic scenes. + +=Industry and Commerce.=--The Etruscans knew how to turn their fertile +soil to some account, but they were for the most part mariners and +traders. Like the Phoenicians they made long journeys to seek the ivory +of India, amber from the Baltic, tin, the Phoenician purple, Egyptian +jewels adorned with hieroglyphics, and even ostrich eggs. All these +objects are found in their tombs. Their navies sailed to the south as +far as Sicily. The Greeks hated them and called them "savage +Tyrrhenians" or "Etruscan pirates." At this time every mariner on +occasion was a pirate, and the Etruscans were especially interested to +exclude the Greeks so that they might keep for themselves the trade of +the west coast of Italy. + +The famous Etruscan vases, which have been taken from the tombs by +the thousand to enrich our museums, were imitations of Greek vases, +but manufactured by the Etruscans. They represent scenes from Greek +mythology, especially the combats about Troy; the human figures are in +red on a black ground. + +=Religion.=--The Etruscans were a sombre people. Their gods were +stern, often malevolent. The two most exalted gods were "the veiled +deities," of whom we know nothing. Below these were the gods who +hurled the lightning and these form a council of twelve gods. Under +the earth, in the abode of the dead, were gods of evil omen. These are +represented on the Etruscan vases. The king of the lower world, +Mantus, a winged genius, sits with crown on his head and torch in his +hand. Other demons armed with sword or club with serpents in their +hands receive the souls of the dead; the principal of these under the +name Charun (the Charon of the Greeks), an old man of hideous form, +bears a heavy mallet to strike his victims. The souls of the dead (the +Manes) issue from the lower world three days in the year, wandering +about the earth, terrifying the living and doing them evil. Human +victims are offered to appease their lust for blood. The famous +gladiatorial combats which the Romans adopted had their origin in +bloody sacrifices in honor of the dead. + +=The Augurs.=--The Etruscans used to say that a little evil spirit +named Tages issued one day from a furrow and revealed to the people +assembled the secrets of divination. The Etruscan priests who called +themselves haruspices or augurs had rules for predicting the future. +They observed the entrails of victims, the thunderbolt, but +especially the flight of birds (whence their name "augurs"). The augur +at first with face turned to the north, holding a crooked staff in his +hand, describes a line which cuts the heavens in two sections; the +part to the right is favorable, to the left unfavorable. A second line +cutting the first at right angles, and others parallel to these form +in the heavens a square which was called the Temple. The augur +regarded the birds that flew in this square: some like the eagle have +a lucky significance; others like the owl presage evil. + +The Etruscans predicted the future destiny of their own people. They +are the only people of antiquity who did not expect that they were to +persist forever. Etruria, they said, was to endure ten centuries. +These centuries were not of exactly one hundred years each, but +certain signs marked the end of each period. In the year 44, the year +of the death of Caesar, a comet appeared; an Etruscan haruspex stated +to the Romans in an assembly of the people that this comet announced +the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth, the last +of the Etruscan people. + +=Influence of the Etruscans.=--The Romans, a semi-barbarous people, +always imitated their more civilized neighbors, the Etruscans. They +drew from them especially the forms of their religion: the costume of +the priests and of the magistrates, the religious rites, and the art +of divining the future from birds (the auspices). When the Romans +found a city, they observe the Etruscan rites: the founder traces a +square enclosure with a plough with share of bronze, drawn by a white +bull and a white heifer. Men follow the founder and carefully cast +the clods of earth from the side of the furrow. The whole ditch left +by the plough is sacred and is not to be crossed. To allow entrance to +the enclosure, it is necessary that the founder break the ditch at +certain points, and he does this by lifting the plough and carrying it +an instant; the interval made in this manner remains profane and it +becomes the gate by which one enters. Rome itself was founded +according to these rites. It was called Roma Quadrata, and it was said +that the founder had killed his brother to punish him for crossing the +sacred furrow. Later the limits of Roman colonies and of camps, and +even the bounds of domains were always traced in conformity with +religious rules and with geometrical lines. + +The Roman religion was half Etruscan. The Fathers of the church were +right, therefore, in calling Etruria the "Mother of Superstitions." + + +THE ITALIAN PEOPLE + +=Umbrians and Oscans.=--In the rugged mountains of the Apennines, to +the east and south of the Roman plain, resided numerous tribes. These +peoples did not bear the same name and did not constitute a single +nation. They were Umbrians, Sabines, Volscians, AEquians, Hernicans, +Marsians, and Samnites. But all spoke almost the same language, +worshipped the same gods, and had similar customs. Like the Persians, +Hindoos, and Greeks, they were of Aryan race; secluded in their +mountains, remote from strangers, they remained like the Aryans of the +ancient period; they lived in groups with their herds scattered in the +plains; they had no villages nor cities. Fortresses erected on the +mountains defended them in time of war. They were brave martial +people, of simple and substantial manners. They later constituted the +strength of the Roman armies. A proverb ran: "Who could vanquish the +Marsians without the Marsians?" + +=The Sacred Spring.=--In the midst of a pressing danger, the Sabines, +according to a legend, believing their gods to be angry, decided to +appease their displeasure by sacrificing to the god of war and of +death everything that was born during a certain spring. This sacrifice +was called a "Sacred Spring." All the children born in this year +belonged to the god. Arrived at the age of manhood, they left the +country and journeyed abroad. These exiles formed several groups, each +taking for guide one of the sacred animals of Italy, a woodpecker, a +wolf, or a bull, and followed it as a messenger of the god. Where the +animal halted the band settled itself. Many peoples of Italy, it was +said, had originated in these colonies of emigrants and still +preserved the name of the animal which had led their ancestors. Such +were, the Hirpines (people of the wolf), the Picentines (people of the +woodpecker), and the Samnites whose capital was named Bovianum (city +of the ox). + +=The Samnites.=--The Samnites were the most powerful of all. Settled +in the Abruzzi, a paradise for brigands, they descended into the +fertile plains of Naples and of Apulia and put Etruscan and Greek +towns to ransom. + +The Samnites fought against the Romans for two centuries; although +always beaten because they had no central administration and no +discipline they yet reopened the war. Their last fight was heroic. An +old man brought to the chiefs of the army a sacred book written on +linen. They formed in the interior of the camp a wall of linen, raised +an altar in the midst of it, and around this stood soldiers with +unsheathed swords. One by one the bravest of the warriors entered the +precinct. They swore not to flee before the enemy and to kill the +fugitives. Those who took the oath, to the number of 16,000, donned +linen garments. This was the "linen legion"; it engaged in battle, and +was slaughtered to the last man. + +=The Greeks of Italy.=--All south Italy was covered with Greek +colonies, some, like Sybaris, Croton, and Tarentum, very populous and +powerful. But the Greeks did not venture on the Roman coast for fear +of the Etruscans. Except the city of Cumae the Greek colonies down to +the third century had almost no relations with the Romans. + +=The Latins.=--The Latins dwelt in the country of hills and ravines to +the south of the Tiber, called today the Roman Campagna. They were a +small people, their territory comprising no more than one hundred +square miles. They were of the same race as the other Italians, +similar to them in language, religion, and manners, but slightly more +advanced in civilization. They cultivated the soil and built strong +cities. They separated themselves into little independent peoples. +Each people had its little territory, its city, and its government. +This miniature state was called a city. Thirty Latin cities had formed +among themselves a religious association analogous to the Greek +amphictyonies. Every year they celebrated a common festival, when +their delegates, assembled at Alba, sacrificed a bull in honor of +their common god, the Latin Jupiter. + +=Rome.=--On the frontier of Latium, on the borders of Etruria, in the +marshy plain studded with hills that followed the Tiber, rose the city +of Rome, the centre of the Roman people scattered in the plain. The +land was malarial and dreary; but the situation was good. The Tiber +served as a barrier against the enemy from Etruria, the hills were +fortresses. The sea was but six leagues away, far enough to escape +fear of pirates, and near enough to permit the transportation of +merchandise. The port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a suburb +of Rome, as Piraeus was of Athens. The locality was therefore agreeable +to a people of soldiers and merchants. + +=Roma Quadrata and the Capitol.=--Of the first centuries of Rome we +know only some legends, and the Romans knew no more than we. Rome, +they said, was a little square town, limited to the Palatine Hill. The +founder whom they called Romulus had according to the Etruscan forms +traced the circuit with the plough. Every year, on the 21st of April, +the Romans celebrated the anniversary of these ceremonies: a +procession marched about the primitive enclosure and a priest fixed a +nail in a temple in commemoration of it. It was calculated that the +founding had occurred in the year 754[108] B.C. + +On the other hills facing the Palatine other small cities rose. A band +of Sabine mountaineers established themselves on the Capitoline, a +group of Etruscan adventurers[109] on Mount Coelius; perhaps there +were still other peoples. All these small settlements ended with +uniting with Rome on the Palatine. A new wall was built to include the +seven hills. The Capitol was then for Rome what the Acropolis was for +Athens: here rose the temples of the three protecting deities of the +city--Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and the citadel that contained the +treasure and the archives of the people. In laying the foundations, it +was said there was found a human head recently cleft from the body; +this head was a presage that Rome should become the head of the world. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[108] Rather 753 B.C.--ED. + +[109] There were three tribes in old Rome, the Ramnes on the Palatine, +the Tities or Sabines on the Capitoline, and the Luceres; but whether +the last were Etruscans or Ramnians or neither is uncertain.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +ROMAN RELIGION + + +=The Roman Gods.=--The Romans, like the Greeks, believed that +everything that occurs in the world was the work of a deity. But in +place of a God who directs the whole universe, they had a deity for +every phenomenon which they saw. There was a divinity to make the seed +sprout, another to protect the bounds of the fields, another to guard +the fruits. Each had its name, its sex, and its functions. + +The principal gods were Jupiter, god of the heaven; Janus, the +two-faced god (the deity who opens); Mars, god of war; Mercury, god of +trade; Vulcan, god of fire; Neptune, god of the sea; Ceres, goddess of +grains, the Earth, the Moon, Juno, and Minerva. + +Below these were secondary deities. Some personified a quality--for +example, Youth, Concord, Health, Peace. Others presided over a certain +act in life: when the infant came into the world there were a god to +teach him to speak, a goddess to teach him to drink, another charged +with knitting his bones, two to accompany him to school, two to take +him home again. In short, there was a veritable legion of minor +special deities. + +Other gods protected a city, a certain section of a mountain, a +forest; every river, every fountain, every tree had its little local +divinity. It is this that makes an old woman in a Latin romance +exclaim, "Our country is so full of gods that it is much easier to +find a god than a man." + +=Form of the Gods.=--The Romans, unlike the Greeks, did not give their +gods a precise form. For a long time there was no idol in Rome; they +worshipped Jupiter under the form of a rock, Mars under that of a +sword. It was later that they imitated the wooden statues of the +Etruscans and the marbles of the Greeks. Perhaps they did not at first +conceive of the gods as having human forms. + +Unlike the Greeks they did not imagine marriage and kinship among +their gods; they had no legends to tell of these relationships; they +knew of no Olympus where the gods met together. The Latin language had +a very significant word for designating the gods: they were called +Manifestations. They were the manifestations of a mysterious divine +power. This is why they were formless, without family relationship, +without legends. Everything that was known of the gods was that each +controlled a natural force and could benefit or injure men. + +=Principles of the Roman Religion.=--The Roman was no lover of these +pale and frigid abstractions; he even seemed to fear them. When he +invoked them, he covered his face, perhaps that he might not see them. +But he thought that they were potent and that they would render him +service, if he knew how to please them. "The man whom the gods favor," +says Plautus, "they cause to gain wealth." + +The Roman conceives of religion as an exchange of good offices; the +worshipper brings offerings and homage; the god in return confers some +advantage.[110] If after having made a present to the god the man +receives nothing, he considers himself cheated. During the illness of +Germanicus the people offered sacrifices for his restoration. When it +was announced that Germanicus was dead, the people in their anger +overturned the altars and cast the statues of the gods into the +streets, because they had not done what was expected of them. And so +in our day the Italian peasant abuses the saint who does not give him +what he asks. + +=Worship.=--Worship, therefore, consists in doing those things that +please the gods. They are presented with fruits, milk, wine, or animal +sacrifices. Sometimes the statues of the gods are brought from their +temples, laid on couches, and served with a feast. As in Greece, +magnificent homes (temples[111]) were built for them, and diversions +were arranged for them. + +=Formalism.=--But it is not enough that one make a costly offering to +the gods. The Roman gods are punctilious as to form; they require that +all the acts of worship, the sacrifices, games, dedications, shall +proceed according to the ancient rules (the rites). When one desires +to offer a victim to Jupiter, one must select a white beast, sprinkle +salted meal on its head, and strike it with an axe; one must stand +erect with hands raised to heaven, the abode of Jupiter, and +pronounce a sacred formula. If any part of the ceremonial fails, the +sacrifice is of no avail; the god, it is thought, will have no +pleasure in it. A magistrate may be celebrating games in honor of the +protecting deities of Rome; "if he alters a word in his formula, if a +flute-player rests, if the actor stops short, the games do not conform +to the rites; they must be recommenced."[112] + +And so the prudent man secures the assistance of two priests, one to +pronounce the formula, the other to follow the ritual accurately. + +Every year the Arval Brothers, a college of priests, assemble in a +temple in the environs of Rome where they perform a sacred dance and +recite a prayer; this is written in an archaic language which no one +any longer comprehends, so much so that at the beginning of the +ceremony a written formulary must be given to each of the priests. And +yet, ever since the time that they ceased to comprehend it, they +continued to chant it without change. This is because the Romans hold +before all to the letter of the law in dealing with their gods. This +exactness in performing the prescribed ritual is for them their +religion. And so they regarded themselves as "the most religious of +men." "On all other points we are the inferiors or only the equals of +other peoples, but we excel all in religion, that is, the worship we +pay the gods." + +=Prayer.=--When the Roman prays, it is not to lift his soul and feel +himself in communion with a god, but to ask of him a service. He is +concerned, then, first to find the god who can render it. "It is as +important," says Varro, "to know what god can aid us in a special case +as to know where the carpenter and baker live." Thus one must address +Ceres if one wants rich harvests, Mercury to make a fortune, Neptune +to have a happy voyage. Then the suppliant dons the proper garments, +for the gods love neatness; he brings an offering, for the gods love +not that one should come with empty hands. Then, erect, the head +veiled, the worshipper invokes the god. But he does not know the exact +name of the god, for, say the Romans, "no one knows the true names of +the gods." He says, then, for example, "Jupiter, greatest and best, or +whatever is the name that thou preferrest...." Then he proposes his +request, taking care to use always the clearest expressions so that +the god may make no mistake. If a libation is offered, one says, +"Receive the homage of this wine that I am pouring"; for the god might +think that one would present other wine and keep this back. The +prayers, too, are long, verbose, and full of repetitions. + +=Omens.=--The Romans, like the Greeks, believe in omens. The gods, +they think, know the future, and they send signs that permit men to +divine them. Before undertaking any act, the Roman consults the gods. +The general about to engage in battle examines the entrails of +victims; the magistrates before holding an assembly regards the +passing birds (called "taking the auspices"). If the signs are +favorable, the gods are thought to approve the enterprise; if not, +they are against it. The gods often send a sign that had not been +requested. Every unexpected phenomenon is the presage of an event. A +comet appeared before the death of Caesar and was thought to have +announced it. + +When the assembly of the people deliberates and it thunders, it is +because Jupiter does not wish that anything shall be decided on that +day and the assembly must dissolve. The most insignificant fact may be +interpreted as a sign--a flash of lightning, a word overheard, a rat +crossing the road, a diviner met on the way. And so when Marcellus had +determined on an enterprise, he had himself carried in a closed litter +that he might be sure of not seeing anything which could impose itself +on him as a portent. + +These were not the superstitions of the populace; the republic +supported six augurs charged with predicting the future. It carefully +preserved a collection of prophecies, the Sibylline Books. It had +sacred chickens guarded by priests. No public act--assembly, election, +deliberation--could be done without the taking of the auspices, that +is to say, observation of the flight of birds. In the year 195 it was +learned that lightning had struck a temple of Jupiter and that it had +hit a hair on the head of the statue of Hercules; a governor wrote +that a chicken with three feet had been hatched; the senate assembled +to discuss these portents. + +=The Priests.=--The priest in Rome, as in Greece, is not charged with +the care of souls, he exists only for the service of the god. He +guards his temple, administers his property, and performs the +ceremonies in his honor. Thus the guild of the Salii (the leapers) +watches over a shield which fell from heaven, they said, and which +was adored as an idol; every year they perform a dance in arms, and +this is their sole function. + +The augurs predict the future. The pontiffs superintend the ceremonies +of worship; they regulate the calendar and fix the festivals to be +celebrated on the various days of the year. + +Neither the priests, the augurs, nor the pontiffs form a separate +class. They are chosen from among the great families and continue to +exercise all the functions of state--judging, presiding over +assemblies, and commanding armies. This is the reason that the Roman +priests, potent as they were, did not constitute, as in Egypt, a +sacerdotal caste. At Rome it was a state religion, but not a +government by the priests. + +=The Dead.=--The Romans, like the Hindoos and the Greeks, believed +that the soul survived the body. If care were taken to bury the body +according to the proper rites, the soul went to the lower world and +became a god; otherwise the soul could not enter the abode of the +dead, but returned to the earth terrifying the living and tormenting +them until suitable burial was performed. Pliny the Younger[113] +relates the story of a ghost which haunted a house and terrified to +death all the inhabitants of the dwelling; a philosopher who was brave +enough to follow it discovered at the place where the spectre stopped +some bones which had not been buried in the proper manner. The shade +of the Emperor Caligula wandered in the gardens of the palace; it was +necessary to disinter the body and bury it anew in regular form. + +=Cult of the Dead.=--It was of importance, therefore, to both the +living and the dead that the rites should be observed. The family of +the deceased erected a funeral pile, burned the body on it, and placed +the ashes in an urn which was deposited in the tomb, a little chapel +dedicated to the Manes,[114] _i.e._, the souls that had become gods. +On fixed days of the year the relatives came to the tomb to bring +food; doubtless they believed that the soul was in need of +nourishment, for wine and milk were poured on the earth, flesh of +victims was burned, and vessels of milk and cakes were left behind. +These funeral ceremonies were perpetuated for an indefinite period; a +family could not abandon the souls of its ancestors, but continued to +maintain their tomb and the funeral feasts. In return, these souls +which had become gods loved and protected their posterity. Each +family, therefore, had its guardian deities which they called Lares. + +=Cult of the Hearth.=--Each family had a hearth, also, that it adored. +For the Romans, as for the Hindoos, fire was a god and the hearth an +altar. The flame was to be maintained day and night, and offerings +made on the hearth of oil, fat, wine, and incense; the fire then +became brilliant and rose higher as if nourished by the offering. + +Before beginning his meal the Roman thanked the god of the hearth, +gave him a part of the food, and poured out for him a little wine +(this was the libation). Even the sceptical Horace supped with his +slaves before the hearth and offered libation and prayer. + +Every Roman family had in its house a sanctuary where were to be found +the Lares, the souls of the ancestors, and the altar of the hearth. +Rome also had its sacred hearth, called Vesta, an ancient word +signifying the hearth itself. Four virgins of the noblest families, +the Vestals, were charged with keeping the hearth, for it was +necessary that the flame should never be extinguished, and the care of +it could be confided only to pure beings. If a Vestal broke her vow, +she was buried alive in a cave, for she had committed sacrilege and +had endangered the whole Roman people. + + +THE FAMILY + +=Religion of the Family.=--All the members of a family render worship +to the same ancestors and unite about the same hearth. They have +therefore the same gods, and these are their peculiar possession. The +sanctuary where the Lares[115] were kept was concealed in the house +and no stranger was to approach it. Thus the Roman family was a little +church; it had its religion and its worship to which no others than +its members had access. The ancient family was very different from the +modern, having its basis in the principles of religion. + +=Marriage.=--The first rule of this religion is that one should be the +issue of a regular marriage if one is to have the right of adoring the +ancestors of the family. Roman marriage, therefore, is at the start a +religious ceremony. The father of the bride gives her away outside the +house when a procession conducts her to the house of the groom +chanting an ancient sacred refrain, "Hymen, O Hymen!" The bride is +then led before the altar of the husband where water and fire are +presented, and there in the presence of the gods of the family the +bride and groom divide between them a cake of meal. Marriage at this +period was called confarreatio (communion through the cake). Later +another form of marriage was invented. A relative of the bride in the +presence of witnesses sells her to the husband who declares that he +buys her for his wife. This is marriage by sale (coemptio). + +For the Romans as for the Greeks marriage is a religious duty; +religion ordains that the family should not become extinct. The Roman, +therefore, declares when he marries that he takes his wife to +perpetuate the family through their children. A noble Roman who +sincerely loved his wife repudiated her because she brought him no +children. + +=The Roman Woman.=--The Roman woman is never free. As a young girl, +she belongs to her father who chooses her husband for her; married, +she comes under the power of her husband--the jurisconsults say she is +under his "manus," _i.e._, she is in the same position as his +daughter. The woman always has a master who has the right of life and +death over her. And yet, she is never treated like a slave. She is the +equal in dignity of her husband; she is called the mother of the +family (materfamilias) just as her husband is called the father of the +family (paterfamilias). She is the mistress in the house, as he is the +master. She gives orders to the slaves whom she charges with all the +heavy tasks--the grinding of the grain, the making of bread, and the +cooking. She sits in the seat of honor (the atrium), spins and weaves, +apportions work to the slaves, watches the children, and directs the +house. She is not excluded from association with the men, like the +Greek woman; she eats at the table with her husband, receives +visitors, goes into town to dinner, appears at the public ceremonies, +at the theatre, and even at the courts. And still she is ordinarily +uncultured; the Romans do not care to instruct their daughters; the +quality which they most admire in woman is gravity, and on her tomb +they write by way of eulogy, "She kept the house and spun linen." + +=The Children.=--The Roman child belongs to the father like a piece of +property. The father has the right of exposing him in the street. If +he accepts the child, the latter is brought up at first in the house. +Girls remain here until marriage; they spin and weave under the +supervision of their mother. The boys walk to the fields with their +father and exercise themselves in arms. The Romans are not an artistic +people; they require no more of their children than that they know how +to read, write, and reckon; neither music nor poetry is taught them. +They are brought up to be sober, silent, modest in their demeanor, and +obedient. + +=The Father of the Family.=--The master of the house was called by the +Romans the father of the family. The paterfamilias is at once the +proprietor of the domain, the priest of the cult of the ancestors, and +the sovereign of the family. He reigns as master in his house. He has +the right of repudiating his wife, of rejecting his children, of +selling them, and marrying them at his pleasure. He can take for +himself all that belongs to them, everything that his wife brings to +him, and everything that his children gain; for neither the wife nor +the children may be proprietors. Finally he has over them all[116] the +"right of life and death," that is to say, he is their only judge. If +they commit crime, it is not the magistrate who punishes them, but the +father of the family who condemns them. One day (186 B.C.) the Roman +Senate decreed the penalty of death for all those who had participated +in the orgies of the cult of Bacchus. The men were executed, but for +all the women who were discovered among the guilty, it was necessary +that the Senate should address itself to the fathers of families, and +it was these who condemned to death their wives or their daughters. +"The husband," said the elder Cato, "is the judge of the wife, he can +do with her as he will; if she has committed any fault, he chastises +her; if she has drunk wine, he condemns her; if she has been +unfaithful to him, he kills her." When Catiline conspired against the +Senate, a senator perceived that his own son had taken part in the +conspiracy; he had him arrested, judged him, and condemned him to +death. + +The power of the father of the family endured as long as life; the son +was never freed from it. Even if he became consul, he remained subject +to the power of his father. When the father died, the sons became in +turn fathers of families. As for the wife, she could never attain +freedom; she fell under the power of the heir of her husband; she +could, then, become subject to her own son. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[110] A legend represents King Numa debating with Jupiter the terms of a +contract: "You will sacrifice a head to me?" says Jupiter. "Very well," +says Numa, "the head of an onion that I shall take in my garden." "No," +replies Jupiter, "but I want something that pertains to a man." "We will +give you then the tip of the hair." "But it must be alive." "Then we +will add to this a little fish." Jupiter laughed and consented to this. + +[111] In Rome, as in Greece, the temple was called a house. + +[112] The remark is Cicero's. + +[113] Pliny, Epistles, vii, 27. See another story in Plautus's +Mostellaria. + +[114] The letters D.M. found on Roman tombs are the initials of Dei +Manes. + +[115] They were called the Penates, that is to say, the gods of the +interior. + +[116] In the language of the Roman law the wife, children, and slaves +"are not their own masters." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROMAN CITY + +FORMATION OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE + + +=The Kings.=--Tradition relates that Rome for two centuries and a half +was governed by kings. They told not only the names of these kings and +the date of their death, but the life of each. + +They said there were seven kings. Romulus, the first king, came from +the Latin city of Alba, founded the hamlet on the Palatine, and killed +his brother who committed the sacrilege of leaping over the sacred +furrow encircling the settlement; he then allied himself with Tatius, +a Sabine king. (A legend of later origin added that he had founded at +the foot of the hill-city a quarter surrounded with a palisade where +he received all the adventurers who wished to come to him.) + +Numa Pompilius, the second king, was a Sabine. It was he who organized +the Roman religion, taking counsel with a goddess, the nymph Egeria +who dwelt in a wood. + +The third king, Tullus Hostilius, was a warrior. He made war on Alba, +the capital of the Latin confederation, took and destroyed it. + +Ancus Martius, the fourth king, was the grandson of Numa and built the +wooden bridge over the Tiber and founded the port of Ostia through +which commerce passed up the river to Rome. + +The last three kings were Etruscans. Tarquin the Elder enlarged the +territory of Rome and introduced religious ceremonies from Etruria. +Servius Tullius organized the Roman army, admitting all the citizens +without distinction of birth and separating them into centuries +(companies) according to wealth. The last king, Tarquinius Superbus, +oppressed the great families of Rome; some of the nobles conspired +against him and succeeded in expelling him. Since this time there were +no longer any kings. The Roman state, or as they said, the +commonwealth (res publica) was governed by the consuls, two +magistrates elected each year. + +It is impossible to know how much truth there is in this tradition, +for it took shape a long time after the Romans began to write their +history, and it includes so many legends that we cannot accept it in +its entirety. + +Attempt has been made to explain these names of kings as symbols of a +race or class. The early history of Rome has been reconstructed in a +variety of ways, but the greater the labor applied to it, the less the +agreement among students with regard to it. + +=The Roman People.=--About the fifth century before Christ there were +in Rome two classes of people, the patricians and the plebeians. The +patricians were the descendants of the old families who had lived from +remote antiquity on the little territory in the vicinity of the city; +they alone had the right to appear in the assembly of the people, to +assist in religious ceremonies, and to hold office. Their ancestors +had founded the Roman state, or as they called it, the Roman city +(Civitas), and these had bequeathed it to them. And so they were the +true people of Rome. + +=The Plebs.=--The plebeians were descended from the foreigners[117] +established in the city, and especially from the conquered peoples of +the neighboring cities; for Rome had gradually subjected all the Latin +cities and had forcibly annexed their inhabitants. Subjects and yet +aliens, they obeyed the government of Rome, but they could have no +part in it. They did not possess the Roman religion and could not +participate in its ceremonies. They had not even the right of +intermarrying with the patrician families. They were called the plebs +(the multitude) and were not considered a part of the Roman people. In +the old prayers we still find this formula: "For the welfare of the +people and the plebs of Rome." + +=Strife between Patricians and Plebeians.=--The people and the plebs +were like two distinct peoples, one of masters, the other of subjects. +And yet the plebeians were much like the patricians. Soldiers, like +them, they served in the army at their own cost and suffered death in +the service of the Roman people; peasants like them, they lived on +their domains. Many of the plebeians were rich and of ancient family. +The only difference was that they were descended from a great family +of some conquered Latin city, while the patricians were the scions of +an old family in the conquering city. + +=Tribunes of the Plebs.=--One day, says the legend, the plebeians, +finding themselves mistreated, withdrew under arms to a mountain, +determined to break with the Roman people. The patricians in +consternation sent to them Menenius Agrippa who told them the fable of +the members and the stomach. The plebs consented to return but they +made a treaty with the people. It was agreed that their chiefs (they +called them tribunes of the plebs) should have the right of protecting +the plebeians against the magistrates of the people and of prohibiting +any measure against them. All that was necessary was to pronounce the +word "Veto" (I forbid); this single word stopped everything; for +religion prevented attacks on a tribune under penalty of being devoted +to the infernal gods. + +=Triumph of the Plebs.=--The strife between the two orders beginning +at the end of the fifth century continued for two centuries (494 B.C. +to about 300 B.C.).[118] + +The plebeians, much more numerous and wealthy, ended by gaining the +victory. They first secured the adoption of laws common to the two +orders; afterward that marriage should be permitted between the +patricians and the plebeians. The hardest task was to obtain the high +magistracies, or, as it was said, "secure the honors." Religious +scruple ordained, indeed, that before one could be named as a +magistrate, the gods must be asked for their approval of the choice. +This was determined by inspecting the flight of birds ("taking the +auspices"). But the old Roman religion allowed the auspices to be +taken only on the name of a patrician; it was not believed that the +gods could accept a plebeian magistrate. But there were great plebeian +families who were bent on being the equals of the patrician families +in dignity, as they were in riches and in importance. They gradually +forced the patricians to open to them all the offices, beginning with +the consulship, and ending with the great pontifical office (Pontifex +Maximus). The first plebeian consul was named in 366 B.C., the first +plebeian pontifex maximus in 302 B.C.[119] Patricians and plebeians +then coalesced and henceforth formed but one people. + + +THE ROMAN PEOPLE + +=The Right of Citizenship.=--The _people_ in Rome, as in Greece, is +not the whole of the inhabitants, but the body of citizens. Not every +man who lives in the territory is a citizen, but only he who has the +right of citizenship. The citizen has numerous privileges: + + 1. He alone is a member of the body politic; he alone has the + right of voting in the assemblies of the Roman people, of serving + in the army, of being present at the religious ceremonials at + Rome, of being elected a Roman magistrate. These are what were + called public rights. + + 2. The citizen alone is protected by the Roman law; he only has + the right of marrying legally, of becoming the father of a family, + that is to say, of being master of his wife and his children, of + making his will, of buying or selling. These were the private + rights. + +Those who were not citizens were not only excluded from the army and +the assembly, but they could not marry, could not possess the absolute +power of the father, could not hold property legally, could not invoke +the Roman law, nor demand justice at a Roman tribunal. Thus the +citizens constituted an aristocracy amidst the other inhabitants of +the city. But they were not equal among themselves; there were class +differences, or, as the Romans said, ranks. + +=The Nobles.=--In the first rank are the nobles. A citizen is noble +when one of his ancestors has held a magistracy, for the magisterial +office in Rome is an honor, it ennobles the occupant and also his +posterity. + +When a citizen becomes aedile, praetor, or consul, he receives a +purple-bordered toga, a sort of throne (the curule chair), and the +right of having an image made of himself. These images are statuettes, +at first in wax, later in silver. They are placed in the atrium, the +sanctuary of the house, near the hearth and the gods of the family; +there they stand in niches like idols, venerated by posterity. When +any one of the family dies, the images are brought forth and carried +in the funeral procession, and a relative pronounces the oration for +the dead. It is these images that ennoble a family that preserves +them. The more images there are in a family, the nobler it is. The +Romans spoke of those who were "noble by one image" and those who were +"noble by many images." + +The noble families of Rome were very few (they would not amount to +300), for the magistracies which conferred nobility were usually given +to men who were already noble. + +=The Knights.=--Below the nobles were the knights. They were the rich +who were not noble. Their fortune as inscribed on the registers of the +treasury must amount to at least 400,000[120] sesterces. They were +merchants, bankers, and contractors; they did not govern, but they +grew rich. At the theatre they had places reserved for them behind the +nobles. + +If a knight were elected to a magistracy, the nobles called him a "new +man" and his son became noble. + +=The Plebs.=--Those who were neither nobles nor knights formed the +mass of the people, the plebs. The majority of them were peasants, +cultivating a little plat in Latium or in the Sabine country. They +were the descendants of the Latins or the Italians who were subjugated +by the Romans. Cato the Elder in his book on Agriculture gives us an +idea of their manners: "Our ancestors, when they wished to eulogize a +man, said 'a good workman,' 'a good farmer'; this encomium seemed the +greatest of all."[121] + +Hardened to work, eager for the harvest, steady and economical, these +laborers constituted the strength of the Roman armies. For a long time +they formed the assembly too, and dictated the elections. The nobles +who wished to be elected magistrates came to the parade-ground to +grasp the hand of these peasants ("prensare manus," was the common +expression). A candidate, finding the hand of a laborer callous, +ventured to ask him, "Is it because you walk on your hands?" He was a +noble of great family, but he was not elected. + +=The Freedmen.=--The last of all the citizens are the freedmen, once +slaves, or the sons of slaves. The taint of their origin remains on +them; they are not admitted to service in the Roman army and they vote +after all the rest. + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC + +=The Comitia.=--The government of Rome called itself a republic +(Respublica), that is to say, a thing of the people. The body of +citizens called the people was regarded as absolute master in the +state. It is this body that elects the magistrates, votes on peace and +war, and that makes the laws. "The law," say the jurisconsults, "is +what the Roman people ordains." At Rome, as in Greece, the people do +not appoint deputies, they pass on the business itself. Even after +more than 500,000 men scattered over all Italy were admitted into the +citizenship, the citizens had to go in person to Rome to exercise +their rights. The people, therefore, meet at but one place; the +assembly is called the Comitia. + +A magistrate convokes the people and presides over the body. Sometimes +the people are convoked by the blast of the trumpet and come to the +parade-ground (the Campus Martius), ranging themselves by companies +under their standards. This is the Comitia by centuries. Sometimes +they assemble in the market-place (the forum) and separate themselves +into thirty-five groups, called tribes. Each tribe in turn enters an +enclosed space where it does its voting. This is the Comitia by +tribes. The magistrate who convokes the assembly indicates the +business on which the suffrages are to be taken, and when the assembly +has voted, it dissolves. The people are sovereign, but accustomed to +obey their chiefs. + +=The Magistrates.=--Every year the people elect officials to govern +them and to them they delegate absolute power. These are called +magistrates (those who are masters). Lictors march before them bearing +a bundle of rods and an axe, emblems of the magisterial powers of +chastising and condemning to death. The magistrate has at once the +functions of presiding over the popular assembly and the senate, of +sitting in court, and of commanding the army; he is master everywhere. +He convokes and dissolves the assembly at will, he alone renders +judgment, he does with the soldiers as he pleases, putting them to +death without even taking counsel with his officers. In a war against +the Latins Manlius, the Roman general, had forbidden the soldiers +leaving camp: his son, provoked by one of the enemy, went forth and +killed him; Manlius had him arrested and executed him immediately. + +According to the Roman expression, the magistrate has the power of a +king; but this power is brief and divided. The magistrate is elected +for but one year and he has a colleague who has the same power as +himself. There are at once in Rome two consuls who govern the people +and command the armies, and several praetors to serve as subordinate +governors or commanders and to pronounce judgment. There are other +magistrates, besides--two censors, four aediles to supervise the +public ways and the markets, ten tribunes of the plebs, and quaestors +to care for the state treasure. + +=The Censors.=--The highest of all the magistrates are the censors. +They are charged with taking the census every five years, that is to +say, the enumeration of the Roman people. All the citizens appear +before them to declare under oath their name, the number of their +children and their slaves, the amount of their fortune; all this is +inscribed on the registers. It is their duty, too, to draw up the list +of the senators, of the knights, and of the citizens, assigning to +each his proper rank in the city. They are charged as a result with +making the lustrum, a great ceremony of purification which occurs +every five years.[122] + +On that day all the citizens are assembled on the Campus Martius +arranged in order of battle; thrice there are led around the assembly +three expiatory victims, a bull, a ram, and a swine; these are killed +and their blood sprinkled on the people; the city is purified and +reconciled with the gods. + +The censors are the masters of the registration and they rank each as +they please; they may degrade a senator by striking him from the +senate-list, a knight by not registering him among the knights, and a +citizen by not placing his name on the registers of the tribes. It is +for them an easy means of punishing those whom they regard at fault +and of reaching those whom the law does not condemn. They have been +known to degrade citizens for poor tillage of the soil and for having +too costly an equipage, a senator because he possessed ten pounds of +silver, another for having repudiated his wife. It is this overweening +power that the Romans call the supervision of morals. It makes the +censors the masters of the city. + +=The Senate.=--The Senate is composed of about 300 persons appointed +by the censor. But the censor does not appoint at random; he chooses +only rich citizens respected and of high family, the majority of them +former magistrates. Almost always he appoints those who are already +members of the Senate, so that ordinarily one remains a senator for +life. The Senate is an assembly of the principal men of Rome, hence +its authority. As soon as business is presented, one of the +magistrates convokes the senators in a temple, lays the question +before them, and then asks "what they think concerning this matter." +The senators reply one by one, following the order of dignity. This is +what they call "consulting the Senate," and the judgment of the +majority is a senatus consultum (decree of the Senate). This +conclusion is only advisory as the Senate has no power to make laws; +but Rome obeys this advice as if it were a law. The people have +confidence in the senators, knowing that they have more experience +than themselves; the magistrates do not dare to resist an assembly +composed of nobles who are their peers. And so the Senate regulates +all public business: it declares war and determines the number of the +armies; it receives ambassadors and makes peace; it fixes the revenues +and the expenses. The people ratify these measures and the magistrates +execute them. In 200 B.C. the Senate decided on war with the king of +Macedon, but the people in terror refused to approve it: the Senate +then ordered a magistrate to convoke the comitia anew and to adopt a +more persuasive speech. This time the people voted for the war. In +Rome it was the people who reigned, just as is the case with the king +in England, but it was the Senate that governed. + +=The Offices.=--Being magistrate or senator in Rome is not a +profession. Magistrates or senators spend their time and their money +without receiving any salary. A magistracy in Rome is before all an +honor. Entrance to it is to nobles, at most to knights, but always to +the rich; but these come to the highest magistracies only after they +have occupied all the others. The man who aims one day to govern Rome +must serve in the army during ten campaigns. Then he may be elected +quaestor and he receives the administration of the state treasury. +After this he becomes aedile, charged with the policing of the city and +with the provision of the corn supply. Later he is elected praetor and +gives judgment in the courts. Later yet, elected consul, he commands +an army and presides over the assemblies. Then only may he aspire to +the censorship. This is the highest round of the ladder and may be +reached hardly before one's fiftieth year. The same man has therefore, +been financier, administrator, judge, general, and governor before +arriving at this original function of censor, the political +distribution of the Roman people. This series of offices is what is +called the "order of the honors." Each of these functions lasts but +one year, and to rise to the one next higher a new election is +necessary. In the year which precedes the voting one must show one's +self continually in the streets, "circulate" as the Romans say +(_ambire_: hence the word "ambition"), to solicit the suffrages of the +people. For all this time it is the custom to wear a white toga, the +very sense of the word "candidate" (white garment). + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[117] Probably some of the plebeians originated in non-noble Roman +families.--ED. + +[118] We know the story of this contest only through Livy and Dionysius +of Halicarnassus; their very dramatic account has become celebrated, but +it is only a legend frequently altered by falsifiers. + +[119] The pontificate was opened to the plebeians by the Ogulnian Law of +300 B.C. The first plebeian pontifex maximus was in 254 B.C. Livy, +Epitome, xviii.--ED. + +[120] This qualification was set in the last century of the +republic.--ED. + +[121] He cites several of their old proverbs: "A bad farmer is one who +buys what his land can raise." "It is bad economy to do in the day what +can be done at night." + +[122] After the completion of the census.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +ROMAN CONQUEST + +THE ROMAN ARMY + + +=Military Service.=--To be admitted to service in the Roman army one +must be a Roman citizen. It is necessary to have enough wealth to +equip one's self at one's own expense, for the state furnishes no arms +to its soldiers; down to 402 B.C. it did not even pay them. And so +only those citizens are enrolled who are provided with at least a +small fortune. The poor (called the proletariat) are exempt from +service, or rather, they have no right to serve. Every citizen who is +rich enough to be admitted to the army owes the state twenty +campaigns; until these are completed the man remains at the +disposition of the consul and this from the age of seventeen to +forty-six. In Rome, as in the Greek cities, every man is at once +citizen and soldier. The Romans are a people of small proprietors +disciplined in war. + +=The Levy.=--When there was need of soldiers, the consul ordered all +the citizens qualified for service to assemble at the Capitol. There +the officers elected by the people chose as many men as were necessary +to form the army. This was the enrolment (the Romans called it the +Choice); then came the military oath. The officers first took the +oath, and then the rank and file; they swore to obey their general, +to follow him wherever he led them and to remain under the standards +until he released them from their oath. One man pronounced the formula +and each in turn advanced and said, "I also." From this time the army +was bound to the general by the bonds of religion. + +=Legions and Allies.=--The Roman army was at first called the Legion +(levy). When the people increased in number, instead of one legion, +several were formed. + +The legion was a body of 4,200 to 5,000 men, all Roman citizens. The +smallest army had always at least one legion, every army commanded by +a consul had at least two. But the legions constituted hardly a half +of the Roman army. All the subject peoples in Italy were required to +send troops, and these soldiers, who were called allies, were placed +under the orders of Roman officers. In a Roman army the allies were +always a little more numerous than the citizens of the legions. +Ordinarily with four legions (16,800 men) there were enrolled 20,000 +archers and 40,000 horse from the allies. In the Second Punic War, in +218 B.C., 26,000 citizens and 45,000 allies were drawn for service. +Thus the Roman people, in making war, made use of its subjects as well +as of its citizens. + +=Military Exercises.=--Rome had no gymnasium; the future soldiers +exercised themselves on the parade-ground, the Campus Martius, on the +other side of the Tiber. There the young man marched, ran, leaped +under the weight of his arms, fenced with his sword, hurled the +javelin, wielded the mattock, and then, covered with dust and with +perspiration, swam across the Tiber. Often the older men, sometimes +even the generals, mingled with the young men, for the Roman never +ceased to exercise. Even in the campaign the rule was not to allow the +men to be unoccupied; once a day, at least, they were required to take +exercise, and when there was neither enemy to fight nor intrenchment +to erect, they were employed in building roads, bridges, and +aqueducts. + +=The Camp.=--The Roman soldier carried a heavy burden--his arms, his +utensils, rations for seventeen days, and a stake, in all sixty Roman +pounds. The army moved more rapidly as it was not encumbered with +baggage. Every time that a Roman army halted for camp, a surveyor +traced a square enclosure, and along its lines the soldiers dug a deep +ditch; the earth which was excavated, thrown inside, formed a bank +which they fortified with stakes. The camp was thus defended by a +ditch and a palisade. In this improvised fortress the soldiers erected +their tents, and in the middle was set the Praetorium, the tent of the +general. Sentinels mounted guard throughout the night, and so +prevented the army from being surprised. + +=The Order of Battle.=--In the presence of the enemy the soldiers did +not form in a solid mass, as did the Greeks. The legion was divided +into small bodies of 120 men, called maniples because they had for +standards bundles of hay.[123] The maniples were ranged in quincunx +form in three lines, each separated from the neighboring maniple in +such a way as to manoeuvre separately. The soldiers of the maniples of +the first line hurled their javelins, grasped their swords, and began +the battle. If they were repulsed, they withdrew to the rear through +the vacant spaces. The second line of the maniples then in turn +marched to the combat. If it was repulsed, it fell back on the third +line. The third line was composed of the best men of the legion and +was equipped with lances. They received the others into their ranks +and threw themselves on the enemy. The army was no longer a single +mass incapable of manoeuvring; the general could form his lines +according to the nature of the ground. At Cynoscephalae, where for the +first time the two most renowned armies of antiquity met, the Roman +legion and the Macedonian phalanx, the ground was bristling with +hills; on this rugged ground the 16,000 Macedonion hoplites could not +remain in order, their ranks were opened, and the Roman platoons threw +themselves into the gaps and demolished the phalanx. + +=Discipline.=--The Roman army obeyed a rude discipline. The general +had the right of life and death over all his men. The soldier who +quitted his post or deserted in battle was condemned to death; the +lictors bound him to a post, beat him with rods, and cut off his head; +or the soldiers may have killed him with blows of their staves. When +an entire body of troops mutinied, the general separated the guilty +into groups of ten and drew by lot one from every group to be +executed. This was called decimation (from decimus, the tenth). The +others were placed on a diet of barley-bread and made to camp outside +the lines, always in danger of surprise from the enemy. The Romans +never admitted that their soldiers were conquered or taken prisoners: +after the battle of Cannae the 3,000 soldiers who escaped the carnage +were sent by the senate to serve in Sicily without pay and without +honors until the enemy should be expelled from Italy; the 8,000 left +in the camp were taken by Hannibal who offered to return them for a +small ransom, but the senate refused to purchase them. + +=Colonies and Military Roads.=--In the countries that were still only +partially subject, Rome established a small garrison. This body of +soldiers founded a town which served as a fortress, and around about +it the lands were cut into small domains and distributed to the +soldiers. This is what they called a Colony. The colonists continued +to be Roman citizens and obeyed all commands from Rome. Quite +different from a Greek colony which emancipated itself even to the +point of making war on its mother city, the Roman colony remained a +docile daughter. It was only a Roman garrison posted in the midst of +the enemy. Almost all these military posts were in Italy, but there +were others besides; Narbonne and Lyons were once Roman colonies. + +To hold these places and to send their armies to a distance the Romans +built military roads. These were causeways constructed in a straight +line, of limestone, stone, and sand. The Romans covered their empire +with them. In a land like France there is no part where one does not +find traces of the Roman roads. + + +CHARACTER OF THE CONQUEST + +=War.=--There was at Rome a temple consecrated to the god Janus whose +gates remained open while the Roman people continued at war. For the +five hundred years of the republic this temple was closed but once +and that for only a few years. Rome, then, lived in a state of war. As +it had the strongest army of the time, it finished by conquering all +the other peoples and by overcoming the ancient world. + +=Conquest of Italy.=--Rome began by subjecting her neighbors, the +Latins, first, then the little peoples of the south, the Volscians, +the AEquians, the Hernicans, later the Etruscans and the Samnites, and +finally the Greek cities. This was the hardest and slowest of their +conquests: beginning with the time of the kings, it did not terminate +until 266, after four centuries of strife.[124] + +The Romans had to fight against peoples of the same race as +themselves, as vigorous and as brave as they. Some who were not +content to obey they exterminated. The rich plains of the Volscians +became a swampy wilderness, uninhabitable even to the present time, +the gloomy region of the Pontine marshes. + +In the land of the Samnites there were still recognizable, three +hundred years after the war, the forty-five camps of Decius and the +eighty-six of Fabius, less apparent by the traces of their +intrenchments than by the solitude of the neighborhood. + +=The Punic Wars.=--Come into Sicily, Rome antagonized Carthage. Then +began the Punic wars (that is to say, against the Phoenicians). There +were three of these wars. The first, from 264 to 241, was determined +by naval battles; Rome became mistress of Sicily. It was related that +Rome had never had any war-ships, that she took as a model a +Carthaginian galley cast ashore by accident on her coast and began by +exercising her oarsmen in rowing on the land. This legend is without +foundation for the Roman navy had long endured. This is the Roman +account of this war: the Roman consul Duillius had vanquished the +Carthaginian fleet at Mylae (260); a Roman army had disembarked in +Africa under the lead of Regulus, had been attacked and destroyed +(255); Regulus was sent as a prisoner to Rome to conclude a peace, but +persuading the Senate to reject it, he returned to Carthage where he +perished by torture. The war was concentrated in Sicily where the +Carthaginian fleet, at first victorious at Drepana, was defeated at +the AEgates Islands; Hamilcar, besieged on Mount Eryx, signed the +peace. + +The second war (from 218 to 201) was the work of Hannibal. + +The third war was a war of extermination: the Romans took Carthage by +assault, razed it, and conquered Africa. + +These wars had long made Rome tremble. Carthage had the better navy, +but its warriors were armed adventurers fighting not for country but +for pay, lawless, terrible under a general like Hannibal. + +=Hannibal.=--Hannibal, who directed the whole of the second war and +almost captured Rome, was of the powerful family of the Barcas. His +father Hamilcar had commanded a Carthaginian army in the first Punic +war and had afterwards been charged with the conquest of Spain. +Hannibal was then but a child, but his father took him with him. The +departure of an army was always accompanied by sacrifices to the gods +of the country; it was said that Hamilcar after the sacrifice made his +infant son swear eternal enmity to Rome. + +Hannibal, brought up in the company of the soldiers, became the best +horseman and the best archer of the army. War was his only aim in +life; his only needs, therefore, were a horse and arms. He had made +himself so popular that at the death of Hasdrubal who was in the +command of the army, the soldiers elected him general without waiting +for orders from the Carthaginian senate. Thus Hannibal found himself +at the age of twenty-one at the head of an army which was obedient +only to himself. He began war, regardless of the senate at Carthage, +by advancing to the siege of Saguntum, a Greek colony allied with +Rome; he took this and destroyed it. + +The glory of Hannibal was that he did not wait for the Romans, but had +the audacity to march into Italy to attack them. As he had no fleet, +he resolved to advance by land, through the Pyrenees, crossing the +Rhone and the Alps. He made sure of the alliance of the Gallic peoples +and penetrated the Pyrenees with an army of 60,000 men, African and +Spanish mercenaries, and with 37 war-elephants. A Gallic people wished +to stop him at the Rhone, but he sent a detachment to pass the river +some leagues farther up the stream and to attack the Gauls in the +rear; the mass of the army crossed the river in boats, the elephants +on great rafts. + +He next ascended the valley of the Isere and arrived at the Alps at +the end of October; he crossed them regardless of the snow and the +attacks of the mountaineers; many men and horses rolled down the +precipices. But nine days were consumed in attaining the summits of +the Alps. The descent was very difficult; the pass by which he had to +go was covered with ice and he was compelled to cut a road out of the +rock. When he arrived in the plain, the army was reduced to half its +former number. + +Hannibal met three Roman armies in succession, first at the Ticinus, +next on the banks of the Trebia, and last near Lake Trasimenus in +Etruria. He routed all of them. As he advanced, his army increased in +number; the warriors of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) joined him +against the Romans. He took up position beyond Rome in Apulia, and it +was here that the Roman army came to attack him. Hannibal had an army +only half as large as theirs, but he had African cavalrymen mounted on +swift horses; he formed his lines in the plain of Cannae so that the +Romans had the sun in their face and the dust driven by the wind +against them; the Roman army was surrounded and almost annihilated +(216). It was thought that Hannibal would march on Rome, but he did +not consider himself strong enough to do it. The Carthaginian senate +sent him no reenforcements. Hannibal endeavored to take Naples and to +have Rome attacked by the king of Macedon; he succeeded only in +gaining some towns which Rome besieged and destroyed. Hannibal +remained nine years in south Italy; at last his brother Hasdrubal +started with the army of Spain to assist him, and made his way almost +to central Italy. The two Carthaginian armies marched to unite their +forces, each opposed by a Roman army under the command of a consul. +Nero, facing Hannibal, had the audacity to traverse central Italy and +to unite with his colleague who was intrenched against Hasdrubal. One +morning Hasdrubal heard the trumpets sounding twice in the camp of the +Romans, a sign that there were two consuls in the camp. He believed +his brother was conquered and so retreated; the Romans pursued him, he +was killed and his entire army massacred. Then Nero rejoined the army +which he had left before Hannibal and threw the head of Hasdrubal into +the Carthaginian camp (207). Hannibal, reduced to his own troops, +remained in Calabria for five years longer. The descent of a Roman +army on Africa compelled him to leave Italy; he massacred the Italian +soldiers who refused to accompany him and embarked for Carthage (203). +The battle of Zama (202) terminated the war. Hannibal had counted as +usual on drawing the Romans within his lines and surrounding them; but +Scipio, the Roman general, kept his troops in order and on a second +attack threw the enemy's army into rout. Carthage was obliged to treat +for peace; she relinquished everything she possessed outside of +Africa, ceding Spain to the Romans. She bound herself further to +surrender her navy and the elephants, to pay over $10,000,000 and to +agree not to make war without the permission of Rome. + +Hannibal reorganized Carthage for a new war. The Romans, disturbed at +this, demanded that the Carthaginians put him to death. Hannibal fled +to Antiochus, king of Syria, and proposed to him to incite a revolt +in Italy against Rome; but Antiochus, following the counsel of his +courtiers, distrusted Hannibal and invaded Greece, where his army was +captured. Hannibal withdrew to the king of Bithynia. The Romans sent +Flamininus thither to take him, but Hannibal, seeing his house +surrounded, took the poison which he always had by him (183). + +=Conquests of the Orient.=--The Greek kings, successors of the +generals of Alexander, divided the Orient among themselves. The most +powerful of these took up war against Rome; but they were +defeated--Philip, the king of Macedon, in 197, his son Perseus in 168, +Antiochus, the king of Syria, in 190. The Romans, having from this +time a free field, conquered one by one all the lands which they found +of use to them: Macedon (148), the kingdom of Pergamum (129), the rest +of Asia (from 74 to 64) after the defeat of Mithradates, and Egypt +(30). + +With the exception of the Macedonians, the Orient opposed the Romans +with mercenaries only or with undisciplined barbarians who fled at the +first onset. In the great victory over Antiochus at Magnesia there +were only 350 Romans killed. At Chaeronea, Sulla was victorious with +the loss of but twelve men. The other kings, now terrified, obeyed the +Senate without resistance. + +Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, having conquered a part of Egypt, +was bidden by Popilius acting under the command of the Senate to +abandon his conquest. Antiochus hesitated; but Popilius, taking a rod +in his hand, drew a circle about the king, and said, "Before you move +from this circle, give answer to the Senate." Antiochus submitted, and +surrendered Egypt. The king of Numidia desired of the Senate that it +should regard his kingdom as the property of the Roman people. +Prusias, the king of Bithynia, with shaved head and in the garb of a +freedman, prostrated himself before the Senate. Mithradates alone, +king of Pontus, endeavored to resist; but after thirty years of war he +was driven from his states and compelled to take his life by poison. + +=Conquest of the Barbarian Lands.=--The Romans found more difficult +the subjection of the barbarous and warlike peoples of the west. A +century was required to conquer Spain. The shepherd Viriathus made +guerilla warfare on them in the mountains of Portugal (149-139), +overwhelmed five armies, and compelled even a consul to treat for +peace; the Senate got rid of him by assassination. + +Against the single town of Numantia it was necessary to send Scipio, +the best general of Rome. + +The little and obscure peoples of Corsica, of Sardinia, and of the +mountains of Genoa (the Ligurians) were always reviving the war with +Rome. + +But the most indomitable of all were the Gauls. Occupying the whole of +the valley of the Po, they threw themselves on Italy to the south. One +of their bands had taken Rome in 390. Their big white bodies, their +long red mustaches, their blue eyes, their savage yells terrified the +Roman soldiers. As soon as their approach was learned, consternation +seized Rome, and the Senate proclaimed the levy of the whole army +(they called this the "Gallic tumult"). These wars were the bloodiest +but the shortest; the first (225-222) gave to the Romans all Cisalpine +Gaul (northern Italy); the second (120), the Rhone lands (Languedoc, +Provence, Dauphine); the third (58-51), all the rest of Gaul. + + +ROMAN WARFARE + +=The Triumph.=--When a general has won a great victory, the Senate +permits him as a signal honor to celebrate the triumph. This is a +religious procession to the temple of Jupiter. The magistrates and +senators march at the head; then come the chariots filled with booty, +the captives chained by the feet, and, at last, on a golden car drawn +by four horses, the victorious general crowned with laurel. His +soldiers follow him singing songs with the solemn refrain "Io, +Triomphe."[125] The procession traverses the city in festal attire and +ascends to the Capitol: there the victor lays down his laurel on the +knees of Jupiter and thanks him for giving victory. After the ceremony +the captives are imprisoned, or, as in the case of Vercingetorix, +beheaded, or, like Jugurtha, cast into a dungeon to die of hunger. The +triumph of AEmilius Paullus, conqueror of Macedon, lasted for three +days. The first day witnessed a procession of 250 chariots bearing +pictures and statues, the second the trophies of weapons and 25 casks +of silver, the third the vases of gold and 120 sacrificial bulls. At +the rear walked King Perseus, clad in black, surrounded by his +followers in chains and his three young children who extended their +hands to the people to implore their pity. + +=Booty.=--In the wars of antiquity the victor took possession of +everything that had belonged to the vanquished, not only of the arms +and camp-baggage, but of the treasure, the movable property, beasts of +the hostile people, the men, women, and children. At Rome the booty +did not belong to the soldiers but to the people. The prisoners were +enslaved, the property was sold and the profits of the sale turned +into the public chest. And so every war was a lucrative enterprise. +The kings of Asia had accumulated enormous treasure and this the Roman +generals transported to Rome. The victor of Carthage deposited in the +treasury more than 100,000 pounds of silver; the conqueror of +Antiochus 140,000 pounds of silver and 1,000 pounds of gold without +counting the coined metals; the victor over Persia remitted +120,000,000 sesterces. + +=The Allies of Rome.=--The ancient world was divided among a great +number of kings, little peoples, and cities that hated one another. +They never united for resistance and so Rome absorbed them one by one. + +Those whom she did not attack remained neutral and indifferent; often +they even united with the Romans. In the majority of her wars Rome did +not fight alone, but had the assistance of allies: against Carthage, +the king of Numidia; against the king of Macedon, the AEtolians; +against the king of Syria, the Rhodians. In the east many kings +proudly assumed the title of "Ally of the Roman People." In the +countries divided into small states, some peoples called in the Romans +against their neighbors, receiving the Roman army, furnishing it with +provisions, and guiding it to the frontiers of the hostile country. +And so in Gaul it was Marseilles that introduced the Romans into the +valley of the Rhone; it was the people of Autun (the AEdui) who +permitted them to establish themselves in the heart of the land. + +=Motives of Conquest.=--The Romans did not from the first have the +purpose to conquer the world. Even after winning Italy and Carthage +they waited a century before subjecting the Orient which really laid +itself at their feet. They conquered, it appears, without +predetermined plan, and because they all had interest in conquest. The +magistrates who were leaders of the armies saw in conquest a means of +securing the honors of the triumph and the surest instrument for +making themselves popular. The most powerful statesmen in Rome, +Papirius, Fabius, the two Scipios, Cato, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, +and Crassus, were victorious generals. The nobles who composed the +Senate gained by the increase of Roman subjects, and with these they +allied themselves as governors to receive their homage and their +presents. For the knights--that is to say, the bankers, the merchants, +and the contractors--every new conquest was a new land to exploit. The +people itself profited by the booty taken from the enemy. After the +treasure of the king of Macedon was deposited in the public chest, +taxes were finally abolished. As for the soldiers, as soon as war was +carried into rich lands, they received immense sums from their +general, to say nothing of what they took from the vanquished. The +Romans conquered the world less for glory than for the profits of +war. + + +EFFECTS OF ROMAN CONQUEST + +=The Empire of the Roman People.=--Rome subjected all the lands around +the Mediterranean from Spain to Asia Minor. These countries were not +annexed, their inhabitants did not become citizens of Rome, nor their +territory Roman territory. They remained aliens entering simply into +the Roman empire, that is, under the domination of the Roman people. +In just the same way today the Hindoos are not citizens but subjects +of England; India is a part, not of England, but of the British +Empire. + +=The Public Domain.=--When a conquered people asked peace, this is the +formula which its deputies were expected to pronounce: "We surrender +to you the people, the town, the fields, the waters, the gods of the +boundaries, and movable property; all things which belonged to the +gods and to men we deliver to the power of the Roman people." By this +act, the Roman people became the proprietor of everything that the +vanquished possessed, even of their persons. Sometimes it sold the +inhabitants into slavery: AEmilius Paullus sold 150,000 Epeirots who +surrendered to him. Ordinarily Rome left to the conquered their +liberty, but their territory was incorporated into the _domain of the +Roman people_. Of this land three equal parts were made: + + 1. A part of their lands was returned to the people, but on + condition that they pay a tribute in money or in grain, and Rome + reserved the right of recalling the land at will. + + 2. The fields and pastures were farmed out to publicans. + + 3. Some of the uncultivated land was resigned to the first + occupant, every Roman citizen having the right of settling there + and of cultivating it. + +=Agrarian Laws.=--The Agrarian Laws which deeply agitated Rome were +concerned with this public domain. No Roman had leave to expel the +possessors, for the boundaries of these domains were gods (Termini) +and religious scruple prevented them from being disturbed. By the +Agrarian Laws the people resumed the lands of the public domain which +they distributed to citizens as property. Legally the people had the +right to do this, since all the domain belonged to them. But for some +centuries certain subjects or citizens had been permitted to enjoy +these lands; at last they regarded them as their own property; they +bequeathed them, bought and sold them. To take these from the +occupants would suddenly ruin a multitude of people. In Italy +especially, if this were done, all the people of a city would be +expelled. Thus Augustus deprived the inhabitants of Mantua of the +whole of their territory; Vergil was among the victims, but, thanks to +his verse, he obtained the return of his domain, while the other +proprietors who were not poets remained in exile. These lands thus +recovered were sometimes distributed to poor citizens of Rome, but +most frequently to old soldiers. Sulla bestowed lands on 120,000 +veterans at the expense of the people of Etruria. The Agrarian Laws +were a menace to all the subjects of Rome, and it was one of the +benefits conferred by the emperors that they were abolished. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[123] Wisps or bundle of hay were twisted around poles.--ED. + +[124] Regarding all these Italian wars the Romans had only a number of +legends, most of them developed to glorify the heroism of some ancestor +of a noble family--a Valerius, a Fabius, a Decius, or a Manlius. + +[125] These songs were mingled with coarse ribaldry at the expense of +the general.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CONQUERED PEOPLES + +THE PROVINCIALS + + +=The Provinces.=--The inhabitants of conquered countries did not enter +into Roman citizenship, but remained strangers (peregrini), while yet +subjects of the Roman empire. They were to pay tribute--the tithe of +their crops, a tax in silver, a capitation tax. They must obey Romans +of every order. But as the Roman people could not itself administer +the province, it sent a magistrate in its place with the mission of +governing. The country subject to a governor was called _province_ +(which signifies mission). + +At the end of the republic (in 46), there were seventeen provinces: +ten in Europe, five in Asia, two in Africa--the majority of these very +large. Thus the entire territory of Gaul constituted but four +provinces, and Spain but two. "The provinces," said Cicero, "are the +domains of the Roman people"--if it made all these peoples subjects, +it was not for their advantage, but for its own. Its aim was not to +administer, but to exploit them. + +=The Proconsuls.=--For the administration of a province the Roman +people always appointed a magistrate, consul or praetor, who was just +finishing the term of his office, and whose prerogative it +prolonged.[126] The proconsul, like the consul, had absolute power +and he could exercise it to his fancy, for he was alone in his +province;[127] there were no other magistrates to dispute the power +with him, no tribunes of the people to veto his acts, no senate to +watch him. He alone commanded the troops, led them to battle, and +posted them where he wished. He sat in his tribunal (praetorium), +condemning to fine, imprisonment, or death. He promulgated decrees +which had the force of law. He was the sole authority over himself for +he was in himself the incarnation of the Roman people. + +=Tyranny and Oppression of the Proconsuls.=--This governor, whom no +one resisted, was a true despot. He made arrests, cast into prison, +beat with rods, or executed those who displeased him. The following is +one of a thousand of these caprices of the governor as a Roman orator +relates it: "At last the consul came to Termini, where his wife took a +fancy to bathe in the men's bath. All the men who were bathing there +were driven out The wife of the consul complained that it had not been +done quickly enough and that the baths were not well prepared. The +consul had a post set up in a public place, brought to it one of the +most eminent men of the city, stripped him of his garments, and had +him beaten with rods." + +The proconsul drew from the province as much money as he wanted; thus +he regarded it as his private property. Means were not wanting to +exploit it. He plundered the treasuries of the cities, removed the +statues and jewels stored in the temples, and made requisitions on +the rich inhabitants for money or grain. As he was able to lodge +troops where he pleased, the cities paid him money to be exempt from +the presence of the soldiers. As he could condemn to death at will, +individuals gave him security-money. If he demanded an object of art +or even a sum of money, who would dare to refuse him? The men of his +escort imitated his example, pillaging under his name, and even under +his protection. The governor was in haste to accumulate his wealth as +it was necessary that he make his fortune in one year. After he +returned to Rome, another came who recommenced the whole process. +There was, indeed, a law that prohibited every governor from accepting +a gift, and a tribunal (since 149) expressly for the crime of +extortion. But this tribunal was composed of nobles and Roman knights +who would not condemn their compatriot, and the principal result of +this system was, according to the remark of Cicero, to compel the +governor to take yet more plunder from the province in order to +purchase the judges of the tribunal. + +It cannot surprise one that the term "proconsul" came to be a synonym +for despot. Of these brigands by appointment the most notorious was +Verres, propraetor of Sicily, since Cicero from political motives +pronounced against him seven orations which have made him famous. But +it is probable that many others were as bad as he. + +=The Publicans.=--In every province the Roman people had considerable +revenues--the customs, the mines, the imposts, the grain-lands, and +the pastures. These were farmed out to companies of contractors who +were called publicans. These men bought from the state the right of +collecting the impost in a certain place, and the provincials had to +obey them as the representatives of the Roman people. And so in every +province there were many companies of publicans, each with a crowd of +clerks and collectors. These people carried themselves as masters, +extorted more than was due them, reduced the debtors to misery, +sometimes selling them as slaves. In Asia they even exiled the +inhabitants without any pretext. When Marius required the king of +Bithynia to furnish him with soldiers, the king replied that, thanks +to the publicans, he had remaining as citizens only women, children, +and old people. The Romans were well informed of these excesses. +Cicero wrote to his brother, then a governor, "If you find the means +of satisfying the publicans without letting the provincials be +destroyed, it is because you have the attributes of a god." But the +publicans were judged in the tribunals and the proconsuls themselves +obeyed them. Scaurus, the proconsul of Asia, a man of rigid +probity,[128] wished to prevent them from pillaging his province; on +his return to Rome they had him accused and condemned. + +The publicans drove to extremities even the peaceable and submissive +inhabitants of the Orient: in a single night, at the order of +Mithradates, 100,000 Romans were massacred. A century later, in the +time of Christ, the word "publican" was synonymous with thief. + +=The Bankers.=--The Romans had heaped up at home the silver of the +conquered countries. And so silver was very abundant in Rome and +scarce in the provinces. At Rome one could borrow at four or five per +cent.; in the provinces not less than twelve per cent. was charged. +The bankers borrowed money in Rome and loaned it in the provinces, +especially to kings or to cities. When the exhausted peoples could not +return the principal and the interest, the bankers imitated the +procedure of the publicans. In 84 the cities of Asia made a loan to +pay an enormous war-levy; fourteen years later, the interest alone had +made the debt amount to six times the original amount. The bankers +compelled the cities to sell even their objects of art; parents sold +even their children. Some years later one of the most highly esteemed +Romans of his time, Brutus, the Stoic, loaned to the city of Salamis +in Cyprus a sum of money at forty-eight per cent. interest (four per +cent. a month). Scaptius, his business manager, demanded the sum with +interest; the city could not pay; Scaptius then went in search of the +proconsul Appius, secured a squadron of cavalry and came to Salamis to +blockade the senate in its hall of assembly; five senators died of +famine. + +=Defencelessness of the Provincials.=--The provincials had no redress +against all these tyrants. The governor sustained the publicans, and +the Roman army and people sustained the governor. Admit that a Roman +citizen could enter suit against the plunderers of the provinces: a +governor was inviolable and could not be accused until he had given up +his office; while he held his office there was nothing to do but to +watch him plunder. If he were accused on his return to Rome, he +appeared before a tribunal of nobles and of publicans who were more +interested to support him than to render justice to the provincials. +If, perchance, the tribunal condemned him, exile exempted him from all +further penalty and he betook himself to a city of Italy to enjoy his +plunder. This punishment was nothing to him and was not even a loss to +him. And so the provincials preferred to appease their governor by +submission. They treated him like a king, flattered him, sent +presents, and raised statues to him. Often, indeed, in Asia they +raised altars to him,[129] built temples to him, and adored him as a +god. + + +SLAVERY + +=The Sale of Slaves.=--Every prisoner of war, every inhabitant of a +captured city belonged to the victor. If they were not killed, they +were enslaved. Such was the ancient custom and the Romans exercised +the right to the full. Captives were treated as a part of the booty +and were therefore either sold to slave-merchants who followed the +army or, if taken to Rome, were put up at auction.[130] After every +war thousands of captives, men and women, were sold as slaves. +Children born of slave mothers would themselves be slaves. Thus it was +the conquered peoples who furnished the slave-supply for the Romans. + +=Condition of the Slave.=--The slave belonged to a master, and so was +regarded not as a person but as a piece of property. He had, then, no +rights; he could not be a citizen or a proprietor; he could be neither +husband nor father. "Slave marriages!" says a character in a Roman +comedy;[131] "A slave takes a wife; it is contrary to the custom of +every people." The master has full right over his slave; he sends him +where he pleases, makes him work according to his will, even beyond +his strength, ill feeds him, beats him, tortures him, kills him +without accounting to anybody for it. The slave must submit to all the +whims of his master; the Romans declare, even, that he is to have no +conscience, his only duty is blind obedience. If he resists, if he +flees, the state assists the master to subdue or recover him; the man +who gives refuge to a fugitive slave renders himself liable to the +charge of theft, as if he had taken an ox or a horse belonging to +another. + +=Number of Slaves.=--Slaves were far more numerous than free men. Rich +citizens owned 10,000 to 20,000 of them,[132] some having enough of +them to constitute a real army. We read of Caecilius Claudius Isidorius +who had once been a slave and came to possess more than 4,000 slaves. +Horace, who had seven slaves, speaks of his modest patrimony. Having +but three was in Rome a mark of poverty. + +=Urban Slaves.=--The Roman nobles, like the Orientals of our day, +delighted in surrounding themselves with a crowd of servants. In a +great Roman house lived hundreds of slaves, organized for different +services. There were slaves to care for the furniture, for the silver +plate, for the objects of art; slaves of the wardrobe, valets and +chambermaids, the troop of cooks, the slaves of the bath, the master +of the house and his aids, the slaves to escort the master and +mistress on the street, the litter-carriers, coachmen and grooms, +secretaries, readers, copyists, physicians, teachers, actors, +musicians, artisans of every kind, for in every great house grain was +ground, flax was spun, and garments were woven. Others, gathered in +workshops, manufactured objects which the master sold to his profit. +Others were hired out as masons or as sailors; Crassus had 500 +carpenter-slaves. These classes of slaves were called "slaves of the +city." + +=Rural Slaves.=--Every great domain was tilled by a band of slaves. +They were the laborers, the shepherds, the vine-dressers, the +gardeners, the fishermen, grouped together in squads of ten. An +overseer, himself a slave, superintended them. The proprietor made it +a matter to produce everything on his lands: "He buys nothing; +everything that he consumes he raises at home," this is the compliment +paid to the rich. The Roman, therefore, kept a great number of +country-slaves, as they were called. A Roman domain had a strong +resemblance to a village; indeed it was called a "villa." The name has +been preserved: what the French call "ville" since the Middle Ages is +only the old Roman domain increased in size. + +=Treatment of Slaves.=--The kind of treatment the slaves received +depended entirely on the character of the master. Some enlightened and +humane masters may be enumerated, such as Cicero, Seneca, and Pliny, +who fed their slaves well, talked with them, sometimes had them sit +at table with them, and permitted them to have families and small +fortunes (the peculium). + +But other masters are mentioned who treated their slaves as animals, +punished them cruelly, and even had them put to death for a whim. +Examples of these are not lacking. Vedius Pollio, a freedman of +Augustus, used to keep some lampreys in his fish-pond: when one of his +slaves carelessly broke a vase, he had him thrown into the fish-pond +as food for the lampreys. The philosopher Seneca paints in the +following words the violent cruelty of the masters: "If a slave coughs +or sneezes during a meal, if he pursues the flies too slowly, if he +lets a key fall noisily lo the floor, we fall into a great rage. If he +replies with too much spirit, if his countenance shows ill humor, have +we any right to have him flogged? Often we strike too hard and shatter +a limb or break a tooth." The philosopher Epictetus, who was a slave, +had had his ankle fractured in this way by his master. Women were no +more humane. Ovid, in a compliment paid to a woman, says, "Many times +she had her hair dressed in my presence, but never did she thrust her +needle into the arm of the serving-woman." + +Public opinion did not condemn these cruelties. Juvenal represents a +woman angry at one of her slaves. "Crucify him," says she. "By what +crime has the slave merited this punishment? Blockhead! Is a slave, +then, a man? It may be that he has done nothing. I wish it, I order +it, my will is reason enough." + +The law was no milder than custom. As late as the first century after +Christ, when a master was assassinated in his house, all the slaves +were put to death. When some wished to abolish this law, Thraseas, +one of the philosophers of high repute, rose to address the Senate to +demand that the law be maintained. + +=The Ergastulum.=--A subterranean prison, lighted by narrow windows so +high that they could not be reached by the hand, was called the +ergastulum. The slaves who had displeased their master spent the night +there; during the day they were sent to work loaded with heavy chains +of iron. Many were branded with a red-hot iron. + +=The Mill.=--The ancients had no mills run by machinery; they had the +grain ground by slaves with hand-mills. It was the most difficult kind +of work and was usually inflicted as a punishment. The mill of +antiquity was like a convict-prison. "There," says Plautus, "moan the +wicked slaves who are fed on polenta; there resound the noise of whips +and the clanking of chains." Three centuries later, in the second +century, Apuleius the novelist, depicts the interior of a mill as +follows: "Gods! what poor shrunken up men! with white skin striped +with blows of the whip, ... they wear only the shreds of a tunic; bent +forward, head shaved, the feet held in a chain, the body deformed by +the heat of the fire, the eyelids eaten away by the fumes, everything +covered with grain-dust." + +=Character of the Slaves.=--Subjected to crushing labor or to enforced +idleness, always under the threat of the whip or of torture, slaves +became, according to their nature, either melancholy and savage, or +lazy and subservient. The most energetic of them committed suicide; +the others led a life that was merely mechanical. "The slave," said +Cato the Elder, "ought always to work or to sleep." The majority of +them lost all sense of honor. And so they used to call a mean act +"servile," that is, like a slave. + +=Slave Revolts.=--The slaves did not write and so we do not know from +their own accounts what they thought of their masters. But the masters +felt themselves surrounded by hate. Pliny the Younger, learning that a +master was to be assassinated at the bath by his slaves, made this +reflection, "This is the peril under which we all live." "More +Romans," says another writer, "have fallen victims to the hate of +their slaves than to that of tyrants." + +At different times slave revolts flamed up (the servile wars), almost +always in Sicily and south Italy where slaves were armed to guard the +herds. The most noted of these wars was the one under Spartacus. A +band of seventy gladiators, escaping from Capua, plundered a chariot +loaded with arms, and set themselves to hold the country. The slaves +escaped to them in crowds to unite their fortunes with theirs, and +soon they became an army. + +The slaves defeated three Roman armies sent in succession against +them. + +Their chief Spartacus wished to traverse the whole peninsula of Italy +in order to return to Thrace, from which country he had been brought +as a prisoner of war to serve as a gladiator. But at last these +ill-disciplined bands were shattered by the army of Crassus. The +revolutionists were all put to death. Rome now prohibited the slaves +from carrying arms thereafter, and it is reported that a shepherd was +once executed for having killed a boar with a spear. + +=Admission to Citizenship.=--Rome treated its subjects and its slaves +brutally, but it did not drive them out, as the Greek cities did. + +The alien could become a Roman citizen by the will of the Roman +people, and the people often accorded this favor, sometimes they even +bestowed it upon a whole people at once. They created the Latins +citizens at one stroke; in 89 it was the turn of the Italians; in 46 +the people of Cisalpine Gaul entered the body of citizens. All the +inhabitants of Italy thus became the equals of the Romans. + +The slave could be manumitted by his master and soon became a citizen. + +This is the reason why the Roman people, gradually exhausting +themselves, were renewed by accessions from the subjects and the +slaves. The number of the citizens was increased at every census; it +rose from 250,000 to 700,000. The Roman city, far from emptying itself +as did Sparta, replenished itself little by little from all those whom +it had conquered. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[126] In the smallest provinces the title of the governor was +_propraetor_. + +[127] In the oriental countries Rome left certain little kings (like +King Herod in Judaea), but they paid tribute and obeyed the governor. + +[128] This estimate of the character of Scaurus is too favorable.--ED. + +[129] Cicero speaks of the temples which were raised to him by the +people of Cilicia, of which county he was governor. + +[130] Every important town had its market for slaves as for cattle and +horses. The slave to be sold was exhibited on a platform with a label +about his neck indicating his age, his better qualities and his defects. + +[131] In the Casina of Plautus. + +[132] Athenaeus, who makes this statement, is probably guilty of +exaggeration.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE IN ROME + + +=Greek and Oriental Influence.=--Conquest gave the Romans a clearer +view of the Greeks and Orientals. Thousands of foreigners brought to +Rome as slaves, or coming thither to make their fortune, established +themselves in the city as physicians, professors, diviners, or actors. +Generals, officers and soldiers lived in the midst of Asia, and thus +the Romans came to know the customs and the new beliefs and gradually +adopted them. This transformation had its beginning with the first +Macedonian war (about 200 B.C.), and continued until the end of the +empire. + + +CHANGES IN RELIGION + +=The Greek Gods.=--The Roman gods bore but a slight resemblance to the +Greek gods, even in name; yet in the majority of the divinities of +Rome the Greeks recognized or believed they recognized their own. The +Roman gods up to that time had neither precise form nor history; this +rendered confusion all the easier. Every Roman god was represented +under the form of a Greek god and a history was made of the adventures +of this god. + +The Latin Jupiter was confounded with the Greek Zeus; Juno with Hera; +Minerva, the goddess of memory, with Pallas, goddess of wisdom; Diana, +female counterpart of Janus, unites with Artemis, the brilliant +huntress; Hercules, the god of the enclosure, was assimilated to +Herakles, the victor over monsters. Thus Greek mythology insinuated +itself under Latin names, and the gods of Rome found themselves +transformed into Greek gods. The fusion was so complete that we have +preserved the custom of designating the Greek gods by their Latin +names; we still call Artemis Diana, and Pallas Minerva. + +=The Bacchanals.=--The Greeks had adopted an oriental god, Bacchus, +the god of the vintage, and the Romans began to adore him also. The +worshippers of Bacchus celebrated his cult at night and in secret. +Only the initiated were admitted to the mysteries of the Bacchanals, +who swore not to reveal any of the ceremonies. A woman, however, dared +to denounce to the Senate the Bacchanalian ceremonies that occurred in +Rome in 186. The Senate made an inquiry, discovered 7,000 persons, men +and women, who had participated in the mysteries, and had them put to +death. + +=Oriental Superstitions.=--Already in 220 there was in Rome a temple +of the Egyptian god Serapis. The Senate ordered it to be demolished. +As no workman dared to touch it, the consul himself had to come and +beat down the doors with blows of an axe. + +Some years after, in 205, during the war with Hannibal, it was the +Senate itself that sent an ambassador to Asia Minor to seek the +goddess Cybele. The Great Mother (as she was called) was represented +by a black stone, and this the envoys of the Senate brought in great +pomp and installed in Rome. Her priests followed her and paced the +streets to the sound of fifes and cymbals, clad in oriental fashion, +and begging from door to door. + +Later, Italy was filled with Chaldean sorcerers. The mass of the +people were not the only ones to believe in these diviners. When the +Cimbri menaced Rome (104), Martha, a prophetess of Syria, came to the +Senate to offer it victory over the barbarians; the Senate drove her +out, but the Roman women brought her to the camp, and Marius, the +general in chief, kept her by him and consulted her to the end of the +war. Sulla, likewise, had seen in vision the goddess of Cappadocia and +it was on her advice that he took his way to Italy. + +=Sceptics.=--Not only priests and diviners came to Rome, but also +philosophers who scoffed at the old religion. The best known of these, +Carneades, the ambassador of the Athenians, spoke in Rome in public, +and the youth of Rome came in crowds to hear him. The Senate bade him +leave the city. But the philosophers continued to teach in the schools +of Athens and Rhodes, and it was the fashion to send the Roman youth +thither for instruction. About the third century before Christ +Euhemerus, a Greek, had written a book to prove that there were no +gods; the gods, he said, were only men of ancient times who had been +deified; Jupiter himself had been a king of Crete. This book had a +great success and was translated into Latin by the poet Ennius. The +nobles of Rome were accustomed to mock at their gods, maintaining only +the cult of the old religion. The higher Roman society was for a +century at once superstitious and sceptical. + + +CHANGES IN MANNERS + +=The Old Customs.=--The old Romans had for centuries been diligent and +rude husbandmen, engaged in cultivating their fields, in fighting, and +in fulfilling the ceremonies of their religion. Their ideal was the +_grave_ man. Cincinnatus, they said, was pushing his plough when the +deputies of the Senate came to offer him the dictatorship. Fabricius +had of plate only a cup and a salt-cellar of silver. Curius Dentatus, +the conqueror of the Samnites, was sitting on a bench eating some +beans in a wooden bowl when the envoys of the Samnites presented +themselves before him to offer him a bribe.[133] "Go and tell the +Samnites," said he, "that Curius prefers commanding those who have +gold to having it himself." These are some of the anecdotes that they +used to tell about the generals of the olden time. True or false, +these legends exhibit the ideas that were current in Rome at a later +time regarding the ancient Romans. + +=Cato the Elder.=--At the time when manners were changing, one man +made himself notable by his attachment to the "customs of the +fathers." This was Cato. He was born in 232[134] in the little village +of Tusculum and had spent his youth in manual labor. Entering the +army, according to the usage of the time, at the age of seventeen, he +fought in all the campaigns against Hannibal. He was not noble, but he +made himself popular by his energy, his probity, and his austerity. +He passed through the whole course of political honors--quaestor, +aedile, praetor, consul, and censor. He showed himself everywhere, like +the old Romans, rude, stern, and honest. As quaestor he remonstrated +with the consul about his expenses; but the consul, who was Scipio, +replied to him, "I have no need of so exact a quaestor." As praetor in +Sardinia, he refused the money that was offered him by the province +for the expenses of entertainment. As consul, he spoke with vigor for +the Oppian law which prohibited Roman women from wearing costly +attire; the women put it off, and the law was abrogated. Sent to +command the army of Spain, Cato took 400 towns, securing immense +treasure which he turned into the public chest; at the moment of +embarking, he sold his horse to save the expenses of transportation. +As censor, he erased from the senate-list many great persons on the +ground of their extravagance; he farmed the taxes at a very high price +and taxed at ten times their value the women's habits, jewels, and +conveyances. Having obtained the honor of a triumph, he withdrew to +the army in Macedonia as a simple officer. + +All his life he fought with the nobles of the new type, extravagant +and elegant. He "barked" especially at the Scipios, accusing them of +embezzling state moneys. In turn he was forty-four times made +defendant in court, but was always acquitted. + +On his farm Cato labored with his slaves, ate with them, and when he +had to correct them, beat them with his own hand. In his treatise on +Agriculture, written for his son, he has recorded all the old axioms +of the Roman peasantry.[135] He considered it to be a duty to become +rich. "A widow," he said, "can lessen her property; a man ought to +increase his. He is worthy of fame and inspired of the gods who gains +more than he inherits." Finding that agriculture was not profitable +enough, he invested in merchant ships; he united with fifty associates +and all together constructed fifty ships of commerce, that each might +have a part in the risks and the profits. A good laborer, a good +soldier, a foe to luxury, greedy of gain, Cato was the type of the +Roman of the old stock. + +=The New Manners.=--Many Romans on the contrary, especially the +nobles, admired and imitated the foreigners. At their head were the +generals who had had a nearer view of Greece and the Orient--Scipio, +conqueror of the king of Syria, Flamininus and AEmilius Paullus, +victors over the kings of Macedon, later Lucullus, conqueror of the +king of Armenia. They were disgusted with the mean and gross life of +their ancestors, and adopted a more luxurious and agreeable mode of +living. Little by little all the nobles, all the rich followed their +example; one hundred and fifty years later in Italy all the great were +living in Greek or oriental fashion. + +=Oriental Luxury.=--In the East the Romans found models in the royal +successors of Alexander, possessors of enormous wealth; for all the +treasure that was not employed in paying mercenaries was squandered by +the court. These oriental kings indulged their vanity by displaying +gleaming robes, precious stones, furniture of silver, golden plate; +by surrounding themselves with a multitude of useless servants, by +casting money to the people who were assembled to admire them.[136] + +The Romans, very vain and with artistic tastes but slightly developed, +had a relish for this species of luxury. They had but little regard +for beauty or for comfort, and had thought for nothing else than +display. They had houses built with immense gardens adorned with +statues, sumptuous villas projecting into the sea in the midst of +enormous gardens. They surrounded themselves with troops of slaves. +They and their wives substituted for linen garments those of gauze, +silk, and gold. At their banquets they spread embroidered carpets, +purple coverings, gold and silver plate. Sulla had one hundred and +fifty dishes of silver; the plate of Marcus Drusus weighed 10,000 +pounds. While the common people continued to sit at table in +accordance with old Italian custom, the rich adopted the oriental +usage of reclining on couches at their meals. At the same time was +introduced the affected and costly cookery of the East--exotic fishes, +brains of peacocks, and tongues of birds. + +From the second century the extravagance was such that a consul who +died in 152 could say in his will: "As true glory does not consist in +vain pomp but in the merits of the dead and of one's ancestors, I bid +my children not to spend on my funeral ceremonies more than a million +as" ($10,000). + +=Greek Humanity.=--In Greece the Romans saw the monuments, the +statues, and the pictures which had crowded their cities for +centuries; they came to know their learned people and the +philosophers. Some of the Romans acquired a taste for the beautiful +and for the life of the spirit. The Scipios surrounded themselves with +cultivated Greeks. AEmilius Paullus asked from all the booty taken by +him from Macedon only the library of King Perseus; he had his children +taught by Greek preceptors. It was then the fashion in Rome to speak, +and even to write in Greek.[137] The nobles desired to appear +connoisseurs in painting and in sculpture; they imported statues by +the thousand, the famous bronzes of Corinth, and they heaped these up +in their houses. Thus Verres possessed a whole gallery of objects of +art which he had stolen in Sicily. Gradually the Romans assumed a +gloss of Greek art and literature. This new culture was called +"humanity," as opposed to the "rusticity" of the old Roman peasants. + +It was little else than gloss; the Romans had realized but slightly +that beauty and truth were to be sought for their own sakes; art and +science always remained objects of luxury and parade. Even in the time +of Cicero the soldier, the peasant, the politician, the man of +affairs, the advocate were alone regarded as truly occupied. Writing, +composing, contributing to science, philosophy, or criticism--all this +was called "being at leisure."[138] Artists and scholars were never +regarded at Rome as the equals of the rich merchant. Lucian, a Greek +writer, said, "If you would be a Pheidias, if you would make a +thousand masterpieces, nobody will care to imitate you, for as skilful +as you are, you will always pass for an artisan, a man who lives by +the work of his hands." + +=Lucullus.=--Lucullus, the type of the new Roman, was born in 145 of a +noble and rich family; thus he entered without difficulty into the +course of political honors. From his first campaigns he was notable +for his magnanimity to the vanquished. Become consul, he was placed at +the head of the army against Mithradates. He found the inhabitants of +Asia exasperated by the brigandage and the cruelties of the publicans, +and gave himself to checking these excesses; he forbade, too, his +soldiers pillaging conquered towns. In this way he drew to him the +useless affection of the Asiatics and the dangerous hate of the +publicans and the soldiers. They intrigued to have him recalled; he +had then defeated Mithradates and was pursuing him with his ally, the +king of Armenia; he came with a small army of 20,000 men to put to +rout an immense multitude of barbarians. His command was taken from +him and given to Pompey, the favorite of the publicans. + +Lucullus then retired to enjoy the riches that he had accumulated in +Asia. He had in the neighborhood of Rome celebrated gardens, at Naples +a villa constructed in part in the sea, and at Tusculum a summer +palace with a whole museum of objects of art. He spent the beautiful +season at Tusculum surrounded by his friends, by scholars and men of +letters, reading Greek authors, and discussing literature and +philosophy. + +Many anecdotes are told of the luxury of Lucullus. One day, being +alone at dinner, he found his table simpler than ordinary and +reproached the cook, who excused himself by saying there was no guest +present. "Do you not know," replied his master, "that Lucullus dines +today with Lucullus?" Another day he invited Caesar and Cicero to dine, +who accepted on condition that he would make no change from his +ordinary arrangements. Lucullus simply said to a slave to have dinner +prepared in the hall of Apollo. A magnificent feast was spread, the +guests were astonished. Lucullus replied he had given no order, that +the expense of his dinners was regulated by the hall where he gave +them; those of the hall of Apollo were to cost not less than $10,000. +A praetor who had to present a grand spectacle asked Lucullus if he +would lend him one hundred purple robes; he replied by tendering two +hundred. + +Lucullus remained the representative of the new manners, as Cato of +the old customs. For the ancients Cato was the virtuous Roman, +Lucullus the degenerate Roman. Lucullus, in effect, discarded the +manners of his ancestors, and so acquired a broader, more elevated, +and more refined spirit, more humanity toward his slaves and his +subjects. + +=The New Education.=--At the time when Polybius lived in Rome (before +150) the old Romans taught their children nothing else than to +read.[139] The new Romans provided Greek instructors for their +children. Some Greeks opened in Rome schools of poesy, rhetoric, and +music. The great families took sides between the old and new systems. +But there always remained a prejudice against music and the dance; +they were regarded as arts belonging to the stage, improper for a man +of good birth. Scipio AEmilianus, the protector of the Greeks, speaks +with indignation of a dancing-school to which children and young girls +of free birth resorted: "When it was told me, I could not conceive +that nobles would teach such things to their children. But when some +one took me to the dancing-school, I saw there more than 500 boys and +girls and, among the number a twelve-year-old child, a candidate's +son, who danced to the sound of castanets." Sallust, speaking of a +Roman woman of little reputation, says, "She played on the lyre and +danced better than is proper for an honest woman." + +=The New Status of Women.=--The Roman women gave themselves with +energy to the religions and the luxury of the East. They flocked in +crowds to the Bacchanals and the mysteries of Isis. Sumptuary laws +were made against their fine garments, their litters, and their +jewels, but these laws had to be abrogated and the women allowed to +follow the example of the men. Noble women ceased to walk or to remain +in their homes; they set out with great equipages, frequented the +theatre, the circus, the baths, and the places of assembly. Idle and +exceedingly ignorant, they quickly became corrupt. In the nobility, +women of fine character became the exception. The old discipline of +the family fell to the ground. The Roman law made the husband the +master of his wife; but a new form of marriage was invented which left +the woman under the authority of her father and gave no power to her +husband. To make their daughter still more independent, her parents +gave her a dower. + +=Divorce.=--Sometimes the husband alone had the right to repudiate his +wife, but the custom was that this right should be exercised only in +the gravest circumstances. The woman gained the right of leaving her +husband, and so it became very easy to break a marriage. There was no +need of a judgment, or even of a motive. It was enough for the +discontented husband or wife to say to the other, "Take what belongs +to you, and return what is mine." After the divorce either could marry +again. + +In the aristocracy, marriage came to be regarded as a passing union; +Sulla had five wives, Caesar four, Pompey five, and Antony four. The +daughter of Cicero had three husbands. Hortensius divorced his wife to +give her to a friend. "There are noble women," says Seneca, "who count +their age not by the years of the consuls, but by the husbands they +have had; they divorce to marry again, they marry to divorce again." + +But this corruption affected hardly more than the nobles of Rome and +the upstarts. In the families of Italy and the provinces the more +serious manners of the old time still prevailed; but the discipline of +the family gradually slackened and the woman slowly freed herself from +the despotism of her husband. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[133] Another version is that he was sitting at the hearth roasting +turnips.--ED. + +[134] 232 and 234 are both given as the date of Cato's birth. The latter +is the more probable.--ED. + +[135] Nearly all Romans of Cato's time were husbandmen, tilling the soil +with their own hands.--ED. + +[136] This taste for useless magnificence is exhibited in the stories of +the Thousand and One Nights. + +[137] Cato the Elder had a horror of the Greeks. He said to his son: "I +will tell what I have seen in Athens. This race is the most perverse and +intractable. Listen to me as to an oracle: whenever this people teaches +us its arts it will corrupt everything." + +[138] "Schola," from which we derive "school," signified leisure. + +[139] Also to write and reckon, as previously stated.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +FALL OF THE REPUBLIC + +DECADENCE OF REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS + + +=Destruction of the Peasantry.=--The old Roman people consisted of +small proprietors who cultivated their own land. These honest and +robust peasants constituted at once the army and the assembly of the +people. Though still numerous in 221 and during the Second Punic War, +in 133 there were no more of them. Many without doubt had perished in +the foreign wars; but the special reason for their disappearance was +that it had become impossible for them to subsist. + +The peasants lived by the culture of grain. When Rome received the +grain of Sicily and Africa, the grain of Italy fell to so low a price +that laborers could not raise enough to support their families and pay +the military tax. They were compelled to sell their land and this was +bought by a rich neighbor. Of many small fields he made a great +domain; he laid the land down to grazing, and to protect his herds or +to cultivate it he sent shepherds and slave laborers. On the soil of +Italy at that time there were only great proprietors and troops of +slaves. "Great domains," said Pliny the Elder, "are the ruin of +Italy." + +It was, in fact, the great domains that drove the free peasants from +the country districts. The old proprietor who sold his land could no +longer remain a farmer; he had to yield the place to slaves, and he +himself wandered forth without work. "The majority of these heads of +families," says Varro in his treatise on agriculture, "have slipped +within our walls, leaving the scythe and the plough; they prefer +clapping their hands at the circus to working in their fields and +their vineyards." Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the plebs, exclaimed +in a moment of indignation, "The wild beasts of Italy have at least +their lairs, but the men who offer their blood for Italy have only the +light and the air that they breathe; they wander about without +shelter, without a dwelling, with their wives and their children. +Those generals do but mock them who exhort them to fight for their +tombs and their temples. Is there one of them who still possesses the +sacred altar of his house and the tomb of his ancestors? They are +called the masters of the world while they have not for themselves a +single foot of earth." + +=The City Plebs.=--While the farms were being drained, the city of +Rome was being filled with a new population. They were the descendants +of the ruined peasants whom misery had driven to the city; besides +these, there were the freedmen and their children. They came from all +the corners of the world--Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Asiatics, +Africans, Spaniards, Gauls--torn from their homes, and sold as slaves; +later freed by their masters and made citizens, they massed themselves +in the city. It was an entirely new people that bore the name Roman. +One day Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage and of Numantia, haranguing +the people in the forum, was interrupted by the cries of the mob. +"Silence! false sons of Italy," he cried; "do as you like; those whom +I brought to Rome in chains will never frighten me even if they are no +longer slaves." The populace preserved quiet, but these "false sons of +Italy," the sons of the vanquished, had already taken the place of the +old Romans. + +This new plebeian order could not make a livelihood for itself, and so +the state had to provide food for it. A beginning was made in 123 with +furnishing corn at half price to all citizens, and this grain was +imported from Sicily and Africa. Since the year 63[140] corn was +distributed gratuitously and oil was also provided. There were +registers and an administration expressly for these distributions, a +special service for furnishing provisions (the Annona). In 46 Caesar +found 320,000 citizens enrolled for these distributions. + +=Electoral Corruption.=--This miserable and lazy populace filled the +forum on election days and made the laws and the magistrates. The +candidates sought to win its favors by giving shows and public feasts, +and by dispensing provisions. They even bought votes. This sale took +place on a large scale and in broad day; money was given to +distributers who divided it among the voters. Once the Senate +endeavored to stop this trade; but when Piso, the consul, proposed a +law to prohibit the sale of suffrages, the distributers excited a riot +and drove the consul from the forum. In the time of Cicero no +magistrate could be elected without enormous expenditures. + +=Corruption of the Senate.=--Poverty corrupted the populace who formed +the assemblies; luxury tainted the men of the old families who +composed the Senate. The nobles regarded the state as their property +and so divided among themselves the functions of the state and +intrigued to exclude the rest of the citizens from them. When Cicero +was elected magistrate, he was for thirty years the first "new man" to +enter the succession of offices. + +Accustomed to exercise power, some of the senators believed themselves +to be above the law. When Scipio was accused of embezzlement, he +refused even to exonerate himself and said at the tribune, "Romans, it +was on this day that I conquered Hannibal and the Carthaginians. +Follow me to the Capitol to render thanks to the gods and to beseech +them always to provide generals like myself." + +To support their pretensions at home, the majority of the nobles +required a large amount of money. Many used their power to get it for +themselves: some sent as governors plundered the subjects of Rome; +others compelled foreign or hostile kings to pay for the peace granted +them, or even for letting their army be beaten. It was in this way +that Jugurtha bribed a Roman general. Cited to Rome to answer for a +murder, he escaped trial by buying up a tribune who forbade him to +speak. It was related that in leaving Rome he had said, "O city for +sale, if thou only couldst find a purchaser!" + +=Corruption of the Army.=--The Roman army was composed of small +proprietors who, when a war was finished, returned to the cultivation +of their fields. In becoming soldiers they remained citizens and +fought only for their country. Marius began to admit to the legions +poor citizens who enrolled themselves for the purpose of making +capital from their campaigns. Soon the whole army was full of +adventurers who went to war, not to perform their service, but to +enrich themselves from the vanquished. One was no longer a soldier +from a sense of duty, but as a profession. + +The soldiers enrolled themselves for twenty years; their time +completed, they reengaged themselves at higher pay and became +veterans. These people knew neither the Senate nor the laws; their +obedience was only to their general. To attach them to himself, the +general distributed to them the money taken from the vanquished. +During the war against Mithradates Sulla lodged his men with the rich +inhabitants of Asia; they lived as they chose, they and their friends, +receiving each sixteen drachmas a day. These first generals, Marius +and Sulla, were still Roman magistrates. But soon rich individuals +like Pompey and Crassus drew the soldiers to their pay. In 78 at the +death of Sulla there were four armies, levied entirely and commanded +by simple citizens. From that time there was no further question of +the legions of Rome, there were left only the legions of Pompey or +Caesar. + + +THE REVOLUTION + +=Necessity of the Revolution.=--The Roman people was no longer +anything but an indigent and lazy multitude, the army only an +aggregation of adventurers. Neither the assembly nor the legions +obeyed the Senate, for the corrupt nobles had lost all moral +authority, so that there was left but one real power--the army; there +were no men of influence beside the generals, and the generals had no +longer any desire to obey. The government by the Senate, now no longer +practicable, gave place to the government of the general. + +=The Civil Wars.=--The revolution was inevitable, but it did not come +at one stroke; it required more than a hundred years to accomplish it. +The Senate resisted, but too weak itself to govern, it was strong +enough to prevent domination by another power. The generals fought +among themselves to see who should remain master. For a century the +Romans and their subjects lived in the midst of riot and civil war. + +=The Gracchi.=--The first civil discord that blazed up in Rome was the +contest of the Gracchi against the Senate. The two brothers, Tiberius +and Gaius Gracchus, were of one of the noblest families of Rome, but +both endeavored to take the government from the nobles who formed the +Senate by making themselves tribunes of the plebs. There was at that +time, either in Rome or in Italy, a crowd of citizens without means +who desired a revolution; even among the rich the majority were of the +class of the knights, who complained that they had no part in the +government. Tiberius Gracchus had himself named tribune of the plebs +and sought to gain control of the government. He proposed to the +people an agrarian law. All the lands of the public domain occupied by +individuals were to be resumed by the state (with the exception of 500 +acres for each one); these lands taken by the state were to be +distributed in small lots to poor citizens. The law was voted. It +caused general confusion regarding property, for almost all of the +lands of the empire constituted a part of the public domain, but they +had been occupied for a long time and the possessors were accustomed +to regard themselves as proprietors. Further, as the Romans had no +registry of the lands, it was often very difficult to ascertain +whether a domain were private or public property. To direct these +operations, Tiberius had three commissioners named on whom the people +conferred absolute authority; they were Tiberius, his brother, and his +father-in-law, and it was uncertain whether Tiberius had acted in the +interest of the people, or simply to have a pretext for having power +placed in his hands. For a year he was master of Rome; but when he +wished to be elected tribune of the plebs for the succeeding year, his +enemies protested, as this was contrary to custom. A riot followed. +Tiberius and his friends seized the Capitol; the partisans of the +Senate and their slaves, armed with clubs and fragments of benches, +pursued them and despatched them (133). + +Ten years later Gaius, the younger of the Gracchi, elected tribune of +the plebs (123), had the agrarian law voted anew, and established +distributions[141] of corn to the poor citizens. Then, to destroy the +power of the nobles, he secured a decree that the judges should be +taken from among the knights. For two years Gaius dominated the +government, but while he was absent from the city conducting a colony +of Roman citizens to Carthage the people abandoned him. On his return +he could not be reelected. The consul armed the partisans of the +Senate and marched against Gaius and his friends who had fled to the +Aventine Hill. Gaius had himself killed by a slave; his followers were +massacred or executed in prison; their houses were razed and their +property confiscated. + +=Marius and Sulla.=--The contests of the Gracchi and the Senate had +been no more than riots in the streets of Rome, terminating in a +combat between bands hastily armed. The strife that followed was a +succession of real wars between regular armies, wars in Italy, wars in +all the provinces. From this time the party chiefs were no other than +the generals. + +The first to use his army to secure obedience in Rome was Marius. He +was born in Arpinum, a little town in the mountains, and was not of +noble descent. He had attained reputation as an officer in the army, +and had been elected tribune of the plebs, then praetor, with the help +of the nobles. He turned against them and was elected consul and +commissioned with the war against Jugurtha, king of Numidia, who had +already fought several Roman armies. It was then that Marius enrolled +poor citizens for whom military service became a profession. With his +army Marius conquered Jugurtha and the barbarians, the Cimbri and +Teutones, who had invaded the empire. He then returned to Rome where +he had himself elected consul for the sixth time and now exercised +absolute power. Two parties now took form in Rome who called +themselves the party of the people (the party of Marius), and the +party of the nobles (that of the Senate). + +The partisans of Marius committed so many acts of violence that they +ended by making him unpopular. Sulla, a noble, of the great family of +the Cornelii, profited by this circumstance to dispute the power of +Marius; Sulla was also a general. When the Italians rose against Rome +to secure the right of citizenship and levied great armies which +marched almost to the gates of the city, it was Sulla who saved Rome +by fighting the Italians. + +He became consul and was charged with the war against Mithradates, +king of Pontus, who had invaded Asia Minor and massacred all the +Romans (88). Marius in jealousy excited a riot in the city; Sulla +departed, joined his army which awaited him in south Italy, then +returned to Rome. Roman religion prohibited soldiers entering the city +under arms; the consul even before passing the gates had to lay aside +his mantle of war and assume the toga. Sulla was the first general who +dared to violate this restriction. Marius took flight. + +But when Sulla had left for Asia, Marius came with an army of +adventurers and entered Rome by force (87). Then commenced the +proscriptions. + +The principal partisans of Sulla were outlawed, and command was given +to kill them anywhere they were met and to confiscate their goods. +Marius died some months later; but his principal partisan, Cinna, +continued to govern Rome and to put to death whomever he pleased. + +During this time Sulla had conquered Mithradates and had assured the +loyalty of his soldiers by giving them the free pillage of Asia. He +returned with his army (83) to Italy. His enemies opposed him with +five armies, but these were defeated or they deserted. Sulla entered +Rome, massacred his prisoners and overthrew the partisans of Marius. +After some days of slaughter he set himself to proceed regularly: he +posted three lists of those whom he wished killed. "I have posted now +all those whom I can recall; I have forgotten many, but their names +will be posted as the names occur to me." Every proscribed man--that +is to say, every man whose name was on the list, was marked for death; +the murderer who brought his head was rewarded. The property of the +proscribed was confiscated. Proscription was not the result of any +trial but of the caprice of the general, and that too without any +warning. Sulla thus massacred not only his enemies but the rich whose +property he coveted. It is related that a citizen who was unaccustomed +to politics glanced in passing at the list of proscriptions and saw +his own name inscribed at the top of the list. "Alas!" he cried, "my +Alban house has been the death of me!" Sulla is said to have +proscribed 1800[142] knights. + +After having removed his enemies, he endeavored to organize a +government in which all power should be in the hands of the Senate. He +had himself named Dictator, an old title once given to generals in +moments of danger and which conferred absolute power. Sulla used the +office to make laws which changed the entire constitution. From that +time all the judges were to be taken from the Senate, no law could be +discussed before it had been accepted by the Senate, the right of +proposing laws was taken from the tribunes of the plebs. + +After these reforms Sulla abdicated his functions and retired to +private life (79). He knew he had nothing to fear, for he had +established 100,000 of his soldiers in Italy. + +=Pompey and Caesar.=--The Senate had recovered its power because Sulla +saw fit to give it this, but it had not the strength to retain it if a +general wished again to seize it. The government of the Senate +endured, however, in appearance for more than thirty years; this was +because there were several generals and each prevented a rival from +gaining all power. + +At the death of Sulla four armies took the field: two obeyed the +generals who were partisans of the Senate, Crassus and Pompey; two +followed generals who were adversaries of the Senate, Lepidus in +Italy, and Sertorius in Spain. It is very remarkable that no one of +these armies was regular, no one of the generals was a magistrate and +therefore had the right to command troops; down to this time the +generals had been consuls, but now they were individuals--private +persons; their soldiers came to them not to serve the interests of the +state, but to profit at the expense of the inhabitants. + +The armies of the enemies of the Senate were destroyed, and Crassus +and Pompey, left alone, joined issues to control affairs. They had +themselves elected consuls and Pompey received the conduct of two +wars. He went to Asia with a devoted army and was for several years +the master of Rome; but as he was more the possessor of offices than +of power, he changed nothing in the government. It was during this +time that Caesar, a young noble, made himself popular. Pompey, +Crassus, and Caesar united to divide the power between themselves. +Crassus received the command of the army sent to Asia against the +Parthians and was killed (53). Pompey remained at Rome. Caesar went to +Gaul where he stayed eight years subjecting the country and making an +army for himself. + +Pompey and Caesar were now the only persons on the stage. Each wished +to be master. Pompey had the advantage of being at Rome and of +dominating the Senate; Caesar had on his side his army, disciplined by +eight years of expeditions. Pompey secured a decree of the Senate that +Caesar should abandon his army and return to Rome. Caesar decided then +to cross the boundary of his province (the river Rubicon), and to +march on Rome. Pompey had no army in Italy to defend himself, and so +with the majority of the senators took flight to the other side of the +Adriatic. He had several armies in Spain, in Greece, and in Africa. +Caesar defeated them, one after another--that of Spain first (49), then +that of Greece at Pharsalus (48), at last, that of Africa (46). +Pompey, vanquished at Pharsalus, fled to Egypt where the king had him +assassinated. + +On his return to Rome Caesar was appointed dictator for ten years and +exercised absolute power. The Senate paid him divine honors, and it is +possible that Caesar desired the title of king. He was assassinated by +certain of his favorites who aimed to reestablish the sovereignty of +the Senate (44). + +=End of the Republic.=--The people of Rome, who loved Caesar, compelled +Brutus and Cassius, the chiefs of the assassins, to flee. They +withdrew to the East where they raised a large army. The West remained +in the hand of Antony, who with the support of the army of Caesar, +governed Rome despotically. + +Caesar in his will had adopted a young man of eighteen years, his +sister's son,[143] Octavian, who according to Roman usage assumed the +name of his adoptive father and called himself from that time Julius +Caesar Octavianus. Octavian rallied to his side the soldiers of Caesar +and was charged by the Senate with the war against Antony. But after +conquering him he preferred to unite with him for a division of power; +they associated Lepidus with them, and all three returned to Rome +where they secured absolute power for five years under the title of +triumvirs for organizing public affairs. They began by proscribing +their adversaries and their personal enemies. Antony secured the death +of Cicero (43). Then they left for the East to destroy the army of the +conspirators. After they had divided the empire among themselves it +was impossible to preserve harmony and war was undertaken in Italy. It +was the soldiers who compelled them to make terms of peace. A new +partition was made; Antony took the East and Octavian the West (39). +For some years peace was preserved; Antony resigned himself to the +life of an oriental sovereign in company with Cleopatra, queen of +Egypt; Octavian found it necessary to fight a campaign against the +sons of Pompey. The two leaders came at last to an open breach, and +then flamed up the last of the civil wars. This was a war between the +East and West. It was decided by the naval battle of Actium; Antony, +abandoned by the fleet of Cleopatra, fled to Egypt and took his own +life. Octavian, left alone, was absolute master of the empire. The +government of the Senate was at an end. + +=Need of Peace.=--Everybody had suffered by these wars. The +inhabitants of the provinces were plundered, harassed, and massacred +by the soldiers; each of the hostile generals forced them to take +sides with him, and the victor punished them for supporting the +vanquished. To reward the old soldiers the generals promised them +lands, and then expelled all the inhabitants of a city to make room +for the veterans. + +Rich Romans risked their property and their life; when their party was +overthrown, they found themselves at the mercy of the victor. Sulla +had set the example for organized massacres (81). Forty years later +(in 43) Octavian and Antony again drew up lists of proscription. + +The populace suffered. The grain on which they lived came no longer to +Rome with the former regularity, being intercepted either by pirates +or by the fleet of an enemy. + +After a century of this regime all the Romans and provincials, rich +and poor, had but one desire--peace. + +=The Power of the Individual.=--It was then that the heir of Caesar, +his nephew[144] Octavian, one of the triumvirs, after having conquered +his two colleagues presented himself to the people now wearied with +civil discord. "He drew to himself all the powers of the people, of +the Senate, and of the magistrates;" for twelve years he was emperor +without having the title. No one dreamed of resisting him; he had +closed the temple of Janus and given peace to the world, and this was +what everybody wished. The government of the republic by the Senate +represented only pillage and civil war. A master was needed strong +enough to stop the wars and revolutions. Thus the Roman empire was +founded. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[140] The Lex Clodia of 58 B.C. made these distributions legal.--ED. + +[141] At a very low price.--ED. + +[142] 1600, according to Mommsen, "History of Rome," Bk. IV, ch. x.--ED. + +[143] Grandson.--ED. + +[144] Grand-nephew.--ED. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT + +THE TWELVE CAESARS + + +=The Emperor.=--In the new regime absolute authority was lodged in a +single man; he was called the emperor (imperator--the commander). In +himself alone he exercised all those functions which the ancient +magistrates distributed among themselves: he presided over the Senate; +he levied and commanded all the armies; he drew up the lists of +senators, knights, and people; he levied taxes; he was supreme judge; +he was pontifex maximus; he had the power of the tribunes. And to +indicate that this authority made him a superhuman being, it was +decreed that he should bear a religious surname: Augustus (the +venerable). + +The empire was not established by a radical revolution. The name of +the republic was not suppressed and for more than three centuries the +standards of the soldiers continued to bear the initials S.P.Q.R. +(senate and people of Rome). The emperor's power was granted to him +for life instead of for one year, as with the old magistrates. The +emperor was the only and lifelong magistrate of the republic. In him +the Roman people was incarnate; this is why he was absolute. + +=Apotheosis of the Emperor.=--As long as the emperor lived he was sole +master of the empire, since the Roman people had conveyed all its +power to him. But at his death the Senate in the name of the people +reviewed his life and passed judgment upon it. If he were condemned, +all the acts which he had made were nullified, his statues thrown +down, and his name effaced from the monuments.[145] If, on the +contrary, his acts were ratified (which almost always occurred), the +Senate at the same time decreed that the deceased emperor should be +elevated to the rank of the gods. The majority of the emperors, +therefore, became gods after their death. Temples were raised to them +and priests appointed to render them worship. Throughout the empire +there were temples dedicated to the god Augustus and to the goddess +Roma, and persons are known who performed the functions of flamen +(priest) of the divine Claudius, or of the divine Vespasian. This +practice of deifying the dead emperor was called Apotheosis. The word +is Greek; the custom probably came from the Greeks of the Orient. + +=The Senate and the People.=--The Roman Senate remained what it had +always been--the assembly of the richest and most eminent personages +of the empire. To be a senator was still an eagerly desired honor; in +speaking of a great family one would say, "a senatorial family." But +the Senate, respected as it was, was now powerless, because the +emperor could dispense with it. It was still the most distinguished +body in the state, but it was no longer the master of the government. +The emperor often pretended to consult it, but he was not bound by its +advice. + +The people had lost all its power since the assemblies (the Comitia) +were suppressed in the reign of Tiberius. The population of 2,000,000 +souls crowded into Rome was composed only of some thousands of great +lords with their slaves and a mob of paupers. Already the state had +assumed the burden of feeding the latter; the emperors continued to +distribute grain to them, and supplemented this with donations of +money (the congiarium). Augustus thus donated $140 apiece in nine +different distributions, and Nero $50 in three. At the same time to +amuse this populace shows were presented. The number of days regularly +appointed for the shows under the republic had already amounted to 66 +in the year; it had increased in a century and a half, under Marcus +Aurelius, to 135, and in the fourth century to 175 (without counting +supplementary days). These spectacles continued each day from sunrise +to sunset; the spectators ate their lunch in their places. This was a +means used by the emperors for the occupation of the crowd. "It is for +your advantage, Caesar," said an actor to Augustus, "that the people +engage itself with us." It was also a means for securing popularity. +The worst emperors were among the most popular; Nero was adored for +his magnificent spectacles; the people refused to believe that he was +dead, and for thirty years they awaited his return.[146] + +The multitude of Rome no longer sought to govern; it required only to +be amused and fed: in the forceful expression of Juvenal--to be +provided with bread and the games of the circus (panem et circenses). + +=The Praetorians.=--Under the republic a general was prohibited from +leading his army into the city of Rome. The emperor, chief of all the +armies, had at Rome his military escort (praetorium), a body of about +10,000 men quartered in the interior of the city. The praetorians, +recruited among the veterans, received high pay and frequent +donatives. Relying on these soldiers, the emperor had nothing to fear +from malcontents in Rome. But the danger came from the praetorians +themselves; as they had the power they believed they had free rein, +and their chief, the praetorian prefect, was sometimes stronger than +the emperor. + +=The Freedmen of the Emperor.=--Ever since the monarchy had superseded +the republic, there was no other magistrate than the emperor. All the +business of the empire of 80,000,000 people originated with him. For +this crushing task he required assistants. He found them, not among +the men of great family whom he mistrusted, but among the slaves of +whom he felt sure. The secretaries, the men of trust, the ministers of +the emperor were his freedmen, the majority of them foreigners from +Greece or the Orient, pliant people, adepts in flattery, +inventiveness, and loquacity. Often the emperor, wearied with serious +matters, gave the government into their hands, and, as occurs in +absolute monarchies, instead of aiding their master, they supplemented +him. Pallas and Narcissus, the freedmen of Claudius, distributed +offices and pronounced judgments; Helius, Nero's freedman, had +knights and senators executed without even consulting his master. Of +all the freedmen Pallas was the most powerful, the richest, and the +most insolent; he gave his orders to his underlings only by signs or +in writing. Nothing so outraged the old noble families of Rome as +this. "The princes," said a Roman writer, "are the masters of citizens +and the slaves of their freedmen." Among the scandals with which the +emperors were reproached, one of the gravest was governing Roman +citizens by former slaves. + +=Despotism and Disorder.=--This regime had two great vices: + +1. _Despotism._--The emperor was invested for life with a power +unlimited, extravagant, and hardly conceivable; according to his fancy +he disposed of persons and their property, condemned, confiscated, and +executed without restraint. No institution, no law fettered his will. +"The decree of the emperor has the force of law," say the +jurisconsults themselves. Rome recognized then the unlimited despotism +that the tyrants had exercised in the Greek cities, no longer +circumscribed within the borders of a single city, but gigantic as the +empire itself. As in Greece some honorable tyrants had presented +themselves, one sees in Rome some wise and honest monarchs (Augustus, +Vespasian, Titus). But few men had a head strong enough to resist +vertigo when they saw themselves so elevated above other men. The +majority of the emperors profited by their tremendous power only to +make their names proverbial: Tiberius, Nero, Domitian by their +cruelty, Vitellius by his gluttony, Claudius by his imbecility. One +of them, Caligula, was a veritable fool; he had his horse made consul +and himself worshipped as a god. The emperors persecuted the nobles +especially to keep them from conspiring against them, and the rich to +confiscate their goods. + +2. _Disorder._--This overweening authority was, moreover, very ill +regulated; it resided entirely in the person of the emperor. When he +was dead, everything was in question. It was well known that the world +could not continue without a master, but no law nor usage determined +who was to be this master. The Senate alone had the right of +nominating the emperor, but almost always it would elect under +pressure the one whom the preceding emperor had designated or the man +who was pleasing to the soldiers. + +After the death of Caligula, some praetorians who were sacking the +palace discovered, concealed behind the tapestry, a poor man trembling +with fear. This was a relative of Caligula; the praetorians made him +emperor (it was the emperor Claudius). After the death of Nero, the +Senate had elected Galba; the praetorians did not find him liberal +enough and so they massacred him to set up in his place Otho, a +favorite of Nero. In their turn the soldiers on the frontier wished to +make an emperor: the legions of the Rhine entered Italy, met the +praetorians at Bedriac near Cremona, and overthrew them in so furious a +battle that it lasted all night; then they compelled the Senate to +elect Vitellius, their general, as emperor. During this time the army +of Syria had elected its chief Vespasian, who in turn defeated +Vitellius and was named in his place; thus in two years three emperors +had been created and three overthrown by the soldiers. The new +emperor often undid what his predecessor had done; imperial despotism +had not even the advantage of being stable. + +=The Twelve Caesars.=--This regime of oppression interrupted by +violence endured for more than a century (31 B.C. to 96 A.D.). + +The twelve emperors who came to the throne during this time are called +the Twelve Caesars, although only the first six were of the family of +Augustus. It is difficult to judge them equitably. Almost all of them +persecuted the noble families of Rome of whom they were afraid, and it +is the writers of these families that have made their reputation. But +it is quite possible that in the provinces their government was mild +and just, superior to that of the senators of the republic. + + +THE CENTURY OF THE ANTONINES + +=The Antonines.=--The five emperors succeeding the twelve Caesars, +Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius (96-180), have +left a reputation for justice and wisdom. They were called the +Antonines, though this name properly belongs only to the last two. +They were not descended from the old families of Rome; Trajan and +Hadrian were Spaniards, Antoninus was born at Nimes in Gaul. They were +not princes of imperial family, destined from their birth to rule. +Four emperors came to the throne without sons and so the empire could +not be transmitted by inheritance. On each occasion the prince chose +among his generals and his governors the man most capable of +succeeding him; he adopted him as his son and sought his confirmation +by the Senate. Thus there came to the empire only experienced men, who +without confusion assumed the throne of their adoptive fathers. + +=Government of the Antonines.=--This century of the Antonines was the +calmest that the ancient world had ever known. Wars were relegated to +the frontier of the empire. In the interior there were still military +seditions, tyranny, and arbitrary condemnations. The Antonines held +the army in check, organized a council of state of jurisconsults, +established tribunals, and replaced the freedmen who had so long +irritated the Romans under the twelve Caesars by regular functionaries +taken from among the men of the second class--that is, the knights. +The emperor was no longer a tyrant served by the soldiers; he was +truly the first magistrate of the republic, using his authority only +for the good of the citizens. The last two Antonines especially, +Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, honored the empire by their integrity. +Both lived simply, like ordinary men, although they were very rich, +without anything that resembled a court or a palace, never giving the +impression that they were masters. Marcus Aurelius consulted the +Senate on all state business and regularly attended its sessions. + +=Marcus Aurelius.=--Marcus Aurelius has been termed the Philosopher on +the Throne. He governed from a sense of duty, against his disposition, +for he loved solitude; and yet he spent his life in administration and +the command of armies. His private journal (his "Thoughts") exhibits +the character of the Stoic--virtuous, austere, separated from the +world, and yet mild and good. "The best form of vengeance on the +wicked is not to imitate them; the gods themselves do good to evil +men; it is your privilege to act like the gods." + +=Conquests of the Antonines.=--The emperors of the first century had +continued the course of conquest; they had subjected the Britons of +England, the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine, and in the +provinces had reduced several countries which till then had retained +their kings--Mauretania, Thrace, Cappadocia. The Rhine, the Danube, +and the Euphrates were the limits of the empire. + +The emperors of the second century were almost all generals; they had +the opportunity of waging numerous wars to repel the hostile peoples +who sought to invade the empire. The enemies were in two quarters +especially: + + 1. On the Danube were the Dacians, barbarous people, who occupied + the country of mountains and forests now called Transylvania. + + 2. On the Euphrates was the great military monarchy of the + Parthians which had its capital at Ctesiphon, near the ruins of + Babylon, and which extended over all Persia. + +Trajan made several expeditions against the Dacians, crossed the +Danube, won three great battles, and took the capital of the Dacians +(101-102). He offered them peace, but when they reopened the war he +resolved to end matters with them: he had a stone bridge built over +the Danube, invaded Dacia and reduced it to a Roman province (106). +Colonies were transferred thither, cities were built, and Dacia became +a Roman province where Latin was spoken and Roman customs were +assimilated. When the Roman armies withdrew at the end of the third +century, the Latin language remained and continued throughout the +Middle Ages, notwithstanding the invasions of the barbarian Slavs. It +is from Transylvania (ancient Dacia) that the peoples came from the +twelfth to the fourteenth century who now inhabit the plains to the +north of the Danube. It has preserved the name of Rome (Roumania) and +speaks a language derived from the Latin, like the French or Spanish. +Trajan made war on the Parthians also. He crossed the Euphrates, took +Ctesiphon, the capital, and advanced into Persia, even to Susa, whence +he took away the massive gold throne of the kings of Persia. He +constructed a fleet on the Tigris, descended the stream to its mouth +and sailed into the Persian Gulf; he would have delighted, like +Alexander, in the conquest of India. He took from the Parthians the +country between the Euphrates and the Tigris--Assyria and +Mesopotamia--and erected there two Roman provinces. + +To commemorate his conquests Trajan erected monuments which still +remain. The Column of Trajan on the Roman Forum is a shaft whose +bas-reliefs represent the war against the Dacians. The arch of triumph +of Benevento recalls the victories over the Parthians. + +Of these two conquests one alone was permanent, that of Dacia. The +provinces conquered from the Parthians revolted after the departure of +the Roman army. The emperor Hadrian retained Dacia, but returned their +provinces to the Parthians, and the Roman empire again made the +Euphrates its eastern frontier. To escape further warfare with the +highlanders of Scotland, Hadrian built a wall in the north of England +(the Wall of Hadrian) extending across the whole island. There was no +need of other wars save against the revolting Jews; these people were +overthrown and expelled from Jerusalem, the name of which was changed +to obliterate the memory of the old Jewish kingdom. + +Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Antonines, had to resist the invasion +of several barbarous peoples of Germany who had crossed the Danube on +the ice and had penetrated even to Aquileia, in the north of Italy. In +order to enroll a sufficient army he had to enlist slaves and +barbarians (172). The Germans retreated, but while Marcus was occupied +with a general uprising in Syria, they renewed their attacks on the +empire, and the emperor died on the banks of the Danube (180). This +was the end of conquest. + + +IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION + +=Extent of the Empire in the Second Century.=--The Roman emperors were +but little bent on conquest. But to occupy their army and to secure +frontiers which might be easily defended, they continued to conquer +barbarian peoples for more than a century. When the course of conquest +was finally arrested after Trajan, the empire extended over all the +south of Europe, all the north of Africa and the west of Asia; it was +limited only by natural frontiers--the ocean to the west; the +mountains of Scotland, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Caucasus to the +north; the deserts of the Euphrates and of Arabia to the east; the +cataracts of the Nile and the great desert to the south. The empire, +therefore, embraced the countries which now constitute England, Spain, +Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, +European Turkey, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and +Asiatic Turkey. It was more than double the extent of the empire of +Alexander. + +This immense territory was subdivided into forty-eight provinces,[147] +unequal in size, but the majority of them very large. Thus Gaul from +the Pyrenees to the Rhine formed but seven provinces. + +=The Permanent Army.=--In the provinces of the interior there was no +Roman army, for the peoples of the empire had no desire to revolt. It +was on the frontier that the empire had its enemies, foreigners always +ready to invade: behind the Rhine and the Danube the barbarian +Germans; behind the sands of Africa the nomads of the desert; behind +the Euphrates the Persian army. On this frontier which was constantly +threatened it was necessary to have soldiers always in readiness. +Augustus had understood this, and so created a permanent army. The +soldiers of the empire were no longer proprietors transferred from +their fields to serve during a few campaigns, but poor men who made +war a profession. They enlisted for sixteen or twenty years and often +reenlisted. There were, then, thirty legions of citizens--that is, +180,000 legionaries, and, according to Roman usage, a slightly larger +number of auxiliaries--in all about 400,000 men. This number was small +for so large a territory. + +Each frontier province had its little army, garrisoned in a permanent +camp similar to a fortress. Merchants came to establish themselves in +the vicinity, and the camp was transformed into a city; but still the +soldiers, encamped in the face of the enemy, preserved their valor and +their discipline. There were for three centuries severe wars, +especially on the banks of the Rhine and of the Danube, where Romans +fought fierce barbarians in a swampy country, uncultivated, covered +with forests and bogs. The imperial army exhibited, perhaps, as much +bravery and energy in these obscure wars as the ancient Romans in the +conquest of the world. + +=Deputies and Agents of the Emperor.=--All the provinces belonged to +the emperor[148] as the representative of the Roman people. He is +there the general of all the soldiers, master of all persons, and +proprietor of all lands.[149] But as the emperor could not be +everywhere at once, he sent deputies appointed by himself. To each +province went a lieutenant (called a deputy of Augustus with the +function of praetor); this official governed the country, commanded the +army, and went on circuit through his province to judge important +cases, for he, like the emperor, had the right of life and death. + +The emperor sent also a financial agent to levy the taxes and return +the money to the imperial chest. This official was called the +"procurator of Augustus." These two men represented the emperor, +governing his subjects, commanding his soldiers, and exploiting his +domain. The emperor always chose them among the two nobilities of +Rome, the praetors from the senators, the procurators from the knights. +For them, as for the magistrates of old Rome, there was a succession +of offices: they passed from one province to another, from one end of +the empire to the other,[150] from Syria to Spain, from Britain to +Africa. In the epitaphs of officials of this time we always find +carefully inscribed all the posts which they have occupied; +inscriptions on their tombs are sufficient to construct their +biographies. + +=Municipal life.=--Under these omnipotent representatives of the +emperor the smaller subject peoples continued to administer their own +government. The emperor had the right of interfering in their local +affairs, but ordinarily he did not exercise this right. He only +demanded of them that they keep the peace, pay their taxes regularly, +and appear before the tribunal of the governor. There were in every +province several of these little subordinate governments; they were +called, just as at other times the Roman state was called, "cities," +and sometimes municipalities. A city in the empire was copied after +the Roman city: it also had its assembly of the people, its +magistrates elected for a year and grouped into colleges of two +members, its senate called a curia, formed of the great proprietors, +people rich and of old family. There, as at Rome, the assembly of the +people was hardly more than a form; it is the senate--that is to say, +the nobility, that governs. + +The centre of the provincial city was always a town, a Rome in +miniature, with its temples, its triumphal arches, its public baths, +its fountains, its theatres, and its arenas for the combats. The life +led there was that of Rome on a small scale: distributions of grain +and money, public banquets, grand religious ceremonies, and bloody +spectacles. Only, in Rome, it was the money of the provinces that paid +the expenses; in the municipalities the nobility itself defrayed the +costs of government and fetes. The tax levied for the treasury of the +emperor went entirely to the imperial chest; it was necessary, then, +that the rich of the city should at their own charges celebrate the +games, heat the baths, pave the streets, construct the bridges, +aqueducts, and circuses. They did this for more than two centuries, +and did it generously; monuments scattered over the whole of the +empire and thousands of inscriptions are a witness to this. + +=The Imperial Regime.=--After the conquest three or four hundred +families of the nobility of Rome governed and exploited the rest of +the world. The emperor deprived them of the government and subjected +them to his tyranny. The Roman writers could groan over their lost +liberty. The inhabitants of the provinces had nothing to regret; they +remained subject, but in place of several hundreds of masters, +ceaselessly renewed and determined to enrich themselves, they had now +a single sovereign, the emperor, interested to spare them. Tiberius +stated the imperial policy in the following words: "A good shepherd +shears his sheep, but does not flay them." For more than two centuries +the emperors contented themselves with shearing the people of the +empire; they took much of their money, but they protected them from +the enemy without, and even against their own agents. When the +provincials had grounds of complaint on account of the violence or the +robbery of their governor, they could appeal to the emperor and secure +justice. It was known that the emperor received complaints against his +subordinates; this was sufficient to frighten bad governors and +reassure subjects. Some emperors, like Marcus Aurelius, came to +recognize that they had duties to their subjects. The other emperors +at least left their subjects to govern themselves when they had no +interest to prevent this. + +The imperial regime was a loss for the Romans, but a deliverance for +their subjects: it abased the conquerors and raised the vanquished, +reconciling them and preparing them for assimilation in the empire. + + +SOCIAL LIFE UNDER THE EMPIRE + +=Moral Decay Continues at Rome.=--Seneca in his Letters and Juvenal in +his Satires have presented portraits of the men and women of their +time so striking that the corruption of the Rome of the Caesars has +remained proverbial. They were not only the disorders left over from +the republic--the gross extravagance of the rich, the ferocity of +masters against their slaves, the unbridled frivolity of women. The +evil did not arise with the imperial regime, but resulted from the +excessive accumulation of the riches of the world in the hands of some +thousands of nobles or upstarts, under whom lived some hundreds of +free men in poverty, and slaves by millions subjected to an +unrestrained oppression. Each of these great proprietors lived in the +midst of his slaves like a petty prince, indolent and capricious. His +house at Rome was like a palace; every morning the hall of honor (the +atrium) was filled with clients, citizens who came for a meagre salary +to salute the master[151] and escort him in the street. For fashion +required that a rich man should never appear in public unless +surrounded by a crowd; Horace ridicules a praetor who traversed the +streets of Tibur with only five slaves in his following. Outside Rome +the great possessed magnificent villas at the sea-shore or in the +mountains; they went from one to the other, idle and bored. + +These great families were rapidly extinguished. Alarmed at the +diminishing number of free men, Augustus had made laws to encourage +marriage and to punish celibacy. As one might expect, his laws did not +remedy the evil. There were so many rich men who had not married that +it had become a lucrative trade to flatter them in order to be +mentioned in their will; by having no children one could surround +himself with a crowd of flatterers. "In the city," says a Roman +story-teller, "all men divide themselves into two classes, those who +fish, and those who are angled for." "Losing his children augments the +influence of a man." + +=The Shows.=--In the life of this idle people of Rome the spectacles +held a place that we are now hardly able to conceive. They were, as +in Greece, games, that is to say, religious ceremonies. The games +proceeded throughout the day and again on the following day, and this +for a week at least. The amphitheatre was, as it were, the rendezvous +of the whole free population; it was there that they manifested +themselves. Thus in 196, during the civil wars, all the spectators +cried with one voice, "Peace!" The spectacle was the passion of the +time. Three emperors appeared in public, Caligula as a driver, Nero as +an actor, Commodus as a gladiator. + +=The Theatre.=--There were three sorts of spectacles: the theatre, the +circus, and the amphitheatre. + +The theatre was organized on Greek models. The actors were masked and +presented plays imitated from the Greek. The Romans had little taste +for this recreation which was too delicate for them. They preferred +the mimes, comedies of gross character, and especially the pantomimes +in which the actor without speaking expressed by his attitudes the +sentiments of the character. + +=The Circus.=--Between the two hills of the Aventine and the Palatine +extended a field filled with race courses surrounded by arcades and +tiers of seats rising above them. This was the Circus Maximus. After +Nero enlarged it it could accommodate 250,000 spectators; in the +fourth century its size was increased to provide sittings for 385,000 +people. + +Here was presented the favorite spectacle of the Roman people, the +four-horse chariot race (quadrigae); in each race the chariot made a +triple circuit of the circus and there were twenty-five races in a +single day. The drivers belonged to rival companies whose colors they +wore; there were at first four of these colors, but they were later +reduced to two--the Blue and the Green, notorious in the history of +riots. At Rome there was the same passion for chariot-races that there +is now for horse-races; women and even children talked of them. Often +the emperor participated and the quarrel between the Blues and the +Greens became an affair of state. + +=The Amphitheatre.=--At the gates of Rome the emperor Vespasian had +built the Colosseum, an enormous structure of two stories, +accommodating 87,000 spectators. It was a circus surrounding an arena +where hunts and combats were represented. + +For the hunts the arena was transformed into a forest where wild +beasts were released and men armed with spears came into combat with +them. Variety was sought in this spectacle by employing the rarest +animals--lions, panthers, elephants, bears, buffaloes, rhinoceroses, +giraffes, tigers, and crocodiles. In the games presented by Pompey had +already appeared seventeen elephants and five hundred lions; some of +the emperors maintained a large menagerie. + +Sometimes instead of placing armed men before the beasts, it was found +more dramatic to let loose the animals on men who were naked and +bound. The custom spread into all cities of the empire of compelling +those condemned to death to furnish this form of entertainment for the +people. Thousands of persons of both sexes and of every age, and among +them Christian martyrs, were thus devoured by beasts under the eyes of +the multitude. + +=The Gladiators.=--But the national spectacle of the Romans was the +fight of gladiators (men armed with swords). Armed men descended into +the arena and fought a duel to the death. From the time of Caesar[152] +as many as 320 pairs of gladiators were fought at once; Augustus in +his whole life fought 10,000 of them, Trajan the same number in four +months. The vanquished was slain on the field unless the people wished +to show him grace. + +Sometimes the condemned were compelled to fight, but more often slaves +and prisoners of war. Each victory thus brought to the amphitheatre +bands of barbarians who exterminated one another for the delight of the +spectators.[153] Gladiators were furnished by all countries--Gauls, +Germans, Thracians, and sometimes negroes. These peoples fought with +various weapons, usually with their national arms. The Romans loved to +behold these battles in miniature. + +There were also, among these contestants in the circus, some who +fought from their own choice, free men who from a taste for danger +submitted to the terrible discipline of the gladiator, and swore to +their chief "to allow themselves to be beaten with rods, be burned +with hot iron, and even be killed." Many senators enrolled themselves +in these bands of slaves and adventurers, and even an emperor, +Commodus, descended into the arena. + +These bloody games were practised not only at Rome, but in all the +cities of Italy, Gaul, and Africa. The Greeks always opposed their +adoption. An inscription on a statue raised to one of the notables in +the little city of Minturnae runs as follows: "He presented in four +days eleven pairs of gladiators who ceased to fight only when half of +them had fallen in the arena. He gave a hunt of ten terrible bears. +Treasure this in memory, noble fellow-citizens." The people, +therefore, had the passion for blood,[154] which still manifests +itself in Spain in bull-fights. The emperor, like the modern king of +Spain, must be present at these butcheries. Marcus Aurelius became +unpopular in Rome because he exhibited his weariness at the spectacles +of the amphitheatre by reading, speaking, or giving audiences instead +of regarding the games. When he enlisted gladiators to serve against +the barbarians who invaded Italy, the populace was about to revolt. +"He would deprive us of our amusements," cried one, "to compel us to +become philosophers." + +=The Roman Peace.=--But there was in the empire something else than +the populace of Rome. To be just to the empire as a whole one must +consider events in the provinces. By subjecting all peoples, the +Romans had suppressed war in the interior of their empire. Thus was +established the Roman Peace which a Greek author describes in the +following language: "Every man can go where he will; the harbors are +full of ships, the mountains are safe for travellers just as the towns +for their inhabitants. Fear has everywhere ceased. The land has put +off its old armor of iron and put on festal garments. You have +realized the word of Homer, 'the earth is common to all.'" For the +first time, indeed, men of the Occident could build their houses, +cultivate their fields, enjoy their property and their leisure without +fearing at every moment being robbed, massacred, or thrown into +slavery--a security which we can hardly appreciate since we have +enjoyed it from infancy, but which seemed very sweet to the men of +antiquity. + +=The Fusion of Peoples.=--In this empire now at peace travel became +easy. The Romans had built roads in every direction with stations and +relays; they had also made road-maps of the empire. Many people, +artisans, traders, journeyed from one end of the empire to the +other.[155] Rhetors and philosophers penetrated all Europe, going from +one city to another giving lectures. In every province could be found +men from the most remote provinces. Inscriptions show us in Spain +professors, painters, Greek sculptors; in Gaul, goldsmiths and Asiatic +workmen. Everybody transported and mingled customs, arts, and +religion. Little by little they accustomed themselves to speak the +language of the Romans. From the third century the Latin had become +the common language of the West, as the Greek since the successors of +Alexander had been the language of the Orient. Thus, as in Alexandria, +a common civilization was developed. This has been called by the name +Roman, though it was this hardly more than in name and in language. In +reality, it was the civilization of the ancient world united under +the emperor's authority. + +=Superstitions.=--Religious beliefs were everywhere blended. As the +ancients did not believe in a single God, it was easy for them to +adopt new gods. All peoples, each of whom had its own religion, far +from rejecting the religions of others, adopted the gods of their +neighbors and fused them with their own. The Romans set the example by +raising the Pantheon, a temple to "all the gods," where each deity had +his sanctuary. + +Everywhere there was much credulity. Men believed in the divinity of +the dead emperors; it was believed that Vespasian had in Egypt healed +a blind man and a paralytic. During the war with the Dacians the Roman +army was perishing of thirst; all at once it began to rain, and the +sudden storm appeared to all as a miracle; some said that an Egyptian +magician had conjured Hermes, others believed that Jupiter had taken +pity on the soldiers; and on the column of Marcus Aurelius Jupiter was +represented, thunderbolt in hand, sending the rain which the soldiers +caught in their bucklers. + +When the apostles Barnabas and Paul came to the city of Lystra in Asia +Minor, the inhabitants invoked Barnabas as Jupiter and Paul as +Mercury; they were met by a procession, with priests at the head +leading a bull which they were about to sacrifice. + +Cultured people were none the less credulous.[156] The Stoic +philosophers admitted omens. The emperor Augustus regarded it as a +bad sign when he put on the wrong shoe. Suetonius wrote to Pliny the +Younger, begging him to transfer his case to another day on account of +a dream which he had had. Pliny the Younger believed in ghosts. + +Among peoples ready to admit everything, different religions, instead +of going to pieces, fused into a common religion. This religion, at +once Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Asiatic, dominated the world at the +second century of our era; and so the Christians called it the +religion of the nations; down to the fourth century they gave the +pagans the name of "gentiles" (men of the nations); at the same time +the common law was called the Law of Nations. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[145] Inscriptions have been found where the name of Domitian has thus +been cut away. + +[146] Suetonius ("Lives of the Twelve Caesars," Nero, ch. lvii.) relates, +that the king of the Parthians, when he sent ambassadors to the Senate +to renew his alliance with the Roman people, earnestly requested that +due honor should be paid to the memory of Nero. The historian continues, +"When, twenty years afterwards, at which time I was a young man, some +person of obscure birth gave himself out for Nero, that name secured him +so favorable a reception from the Parthians that he was very zealously +supported, and it was with much difficulty that they were persuaded to +give him up."--ED. + +[147] Italy was not included among the provinces. + +[148] A few provinces, the less important, remained to the Senate, but +the emperor was almost always master in these as well. + +[149] The jurisconsult Gaius says, "On provincial soil we can have +possession only; the emperor owns the property." + +[150] "Great personages," says Epictetus, "cannot root themselves like +plants; they must be much on the move in obedience to the commands of +the emperor." + +[151] A client's task was a hard one; the poet Martial, who had served +thus, groans about it. He had to rise before day, put on his toga which +was an inconvenient and cumbersome garment, and wait a long time in the +ante-room. + +[152] Caesar gave also a combat between two troops, each composed of 500 +archers, 300 knights (30 knights according to Suetonius; Julius, ch. +39), and 20 elephants. + +[153] In an official discourse an orator thanks the emperor Constantine +who had given to the amphitheatre an entire army of barbarian captives, +"to bring about the destruction of these men for the amusement of the +people. What triumph," he cried, "could have been more glorious?" + +[154] St. Augustine in his "Confessions" describes the irresistible +attraction of these sanguinary spectacles. + +[155] A Phrygian relates in an inscription that he had made seventy-two +voyages from Asia to Italy. + +[156] There were some sceptical writers, like Lucian, but they were +isolated. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ARTS AND SCIENCES IN ROME + +LETTERS + + +=Imitation of the Greeks.=--The Romans were not artists naturally. +They became so very late and by imitating the Greeks. From Greece they +took their models of tragedy, comedy, the epic, the ode, the didactic +poem, pastoral poetry, and history. Some writers limited themselves to +the free translation of a Greek original (as Horace in his Odes). All +borrowed from the Greeks at least their ideas and their forms. But +they carried into this work of adaptation their qualities of patience +and vigor, and many came to a true originality. + +=The Age of Augustus.=--There is common agreement in regarding the +fifty years of the government of Augustus as the most brilliant period +in Latin literature. It is the time of Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, +Propertius, and Livy. The emperor, or rather his friend Maecenas, +personally patronized some of these poets, especially Horace and +Vergil, who sang the glory of Augustus and of his time. But this +Augustan Age was preceded and followed by two centuries that perhaps +equalled it. It was in the preceding century,[157] the first before +Christ, that the most original Roman poet[158] appeared, Caesar the +most elegant prose-writer, and Cicero the greatest orator. It was in +the following age that Seneca, Lucan, Tacitus, Pliny, and Juvenal +wrote. Between Lucretius and Tacitus there were for three centuries +many great writers in Rome. One might also add another century by +recurring to the time of Plautus, the second century before Christ. + +Of these great authors a few had their origin in Roman families; but +the majority of them were Italians. Many came from the provinces, +Vergil from Mantua, Livy from Padua (in Cisalpine Gaul), while Seneca +was a Spaniard. + +=Orators and Rhetors.=--The true national art at Rome was eloquence. +Like the Italians of our day, the Romans loved to speak in public. In +the forum where they held the assemblies of the people was the +rostrum, the platform for addressing the people, so named from the +prows of captured ships that ornamented it like trophies of war. +Thither the orators came in the last epoch of the republic to declaim +and to gesticulate before a tumultuous crowd. + +The tribunals, often composed of a hundred judges, furnished another +occasion for eloquent advocates. The Roman law permitted the accused +to have an advocate speak in his place. + +There were orators in Rome from the second century. Here, as in +Athens, the older orators, such as Cato and the Gracchi, spoke simply, +too simply for the taste of Cicero. Those who followed them in the +first century learned in the schools of the Greek rhetors the long +oratorical periods and pompous style. The greatest of all was Cicero, +the only one whose works have come down to us in anything but +fragments; and yet we have his speeches as they were left by him and +not as they were delivered.[159] + +With the fall of the republic the assemblies and the great political +trials ceased. Eloquence perished for the want of matter, and the +Roman writers remarked this with bitterness.[160] Then the rhetors +commenced to multiply, who taught the art of speaking well.[161] Some +of these teachers had their pupils compose as exercises pleas on +imaginary rhetorical subjects. The rhetor Seneca has left us many of +these oratorical themes; they discuss stolen children, brigands, and +romantic adventures. + +Then came the mania for public lectures. Pollio, a favorite of +Augustus, had set the example. For a century it was the fashion to +read poems, panegyrics, even tragedies before an audience of friends +assembled to applaud them. The taste for eloquence that had once +produced great orators exhibited in the later centuries only finished +declaimers. + +=Importance of the Latin Literature and Language.=--Latin literature +profited by the conquests of Rome; the Romans carried it with their +language to their barbarian subjects of the West. All the peoples of +Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, and the Danubian lands discarded their +language and took the Latin. Having no national literature, they +adopted that of their masters. The empire was thus divided between the +two languages of the two great peoples of antiquity: the Orient +continued to speak Greek; almost the entire Occident acquired the +Latin. Latin was not only the official language of the state +functionaries and of great men, like the English of our day in India; +the people themselves spoke it with greater or less correctness--in +fact, so well that today eighteen centuries after the conquest five +languages of Europe are derived from the Latin--the Italian, Spanish, +Portuguese, French, and Roumanian. + +With the Latin language the Latin literature extended itself over all +the West. In the schools of Bordeaux and Autun in the fifth century +only Latin poets and orators were studied. After the coming of the +barbarians, bishops and monks continued to write in Latin and they +carried this practice among the peoples of England and Germany who +were still speaking their native languages. Throughout almost the +whole mediaeval period, acts, laws, histories, and books of science +were written in Latin. In the convents and the schools they read, +copied, and appreciated only works written in Latin; beside books of +piety only the Latin authors were known--Vergil, Horace, Cicero, and +Pliny the Younger. The renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth +centuries consisted partly in reviving the forgotten Latin writers. +More than ever it was the fashion to know and to imitate them. + +As the Romans constructed a literature in imitation of the Greeks, the +moderns have taken the Latin writers for their models. Was this good +or bad? Who would venture to say? But the fact is indisputable. Our +romance languages are daughters of the Latin, our literatures are full +of the ideas and of the literary methods of the Romans. The whole +western world is impregnated with the Latin literature. + + +THE ARTS + +=Sculpture and Painting.=--Great numbers of Roman statues and +bas-reliefs of the time of the empire have come to light. Some are +reproductions and almost all are imitations of Greek works, but less +elegant and less delicate than the models. The most original +productions of this form of art are the bas-reliefs and the busts. + +Bas-reliefs adorned the monuments (temples, columns, and triumphal +arches), tombs, and sarcophagi. They represent with scrupulous +fidelity real scenes, such as processions, sacrifices, combats, and +funeral ceremonies and so give us information about ancient life. The +bas-reliefs which surround the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius +bring us into the presence of the great scenes of their wars. One may +see the soldiers fighting against the barbarians, besieging their +fortresses, leading away the captives; the solemn sacrifices, and the +emperor haranguing the troops. + +The busts are especially those of the emperors, of their wives and +their children. As they were scattered in profusion throughout the +empire, so many have been found that today all the great museums of +Europe have collections of imperial busts. They are real portraits, +probably very close resemblances, for each emperor had a well-marked +physiognomy, often of a striking ugliness that no one attempted to +disguise. + +In general, Roman sculpture holds itself much more close to reality +than does the Greek; it may be said that the artist is less concerned +with representing things beautifully than exactly. + +Of Roman painting we know only the frescoes painted on the walls of +the rich houses of Pompeii and of the house of Livy at Rome. We do not +know but these were the work of Greek painters; they bear a close +resemblance to the paintings on Greek vases, having the same simple +and elegant grace. + +=Architecture.=--The true Roman art, because it operated to satisfy a +practical need, is architecture. In this too the Romans imitated the +Greeks, borrowing the column from them. But they had a form that the +Greeks never employed--the arch, that is to say, the art of arranging +cut stones in the arc of a circle so that they supported one another. +The arch allowed them to erect buildings much larger and more varied +than those of the Greeks. The following are the principal varieties of +Roman monuments: + + 1. The _Temple_ was sometimes similar to a Greek temple with a + broad vestibule, sometimes vaster and surmounted with a dome. Of + this sort is the Pantheon built in Rome under Augustus. + + 2. The _Basilica_ was a long low edifice, covered with a roof and + surrounded with porticos. There sat the judge with his assistants + about him; traders discussed the price of goods; the place was at + once a bourse and a tribunal. It was in the basilicas that the + assemblies of the Christians were later held, and for several + centuries the Christian churches preserved the name and form of + basilicas. + + 3. The _Amphitheatre_ and the _Circus_ were constructed of several + stories of arcades surrounding an arena; each range of arcades + supported many rows of seats. Such were the Colosseum at Rome and + the arenas at Arles and Nimes. + + 4. The _Arch of Triumph_ was a gate of honor wide enough for the + passage of a chariot, adorned with columns and surmounted with a + group of sculpture. The Arch of Titus is an example. + + 5. The _Sepulchral Vault_ was an arched edifice provided with many + rows of niches, in each of which were laid the ashes of a corpse. + It was called a Columbarium (pigeon-house) from its shape. + + 6. The _Thermae_ were composed of bathing-halls furnished with + basins. The heat was provided by a furnace placed in an + underground chamber. The Thermae in a Roman city were what the + gymnasium was in a Greek city--a rendezvous for the idle. Much + more than the gymnasium it was a labyrinth of halls of every sort: + there were a cool hall, warm apartments, a robing-room, a hall + where the body was anointed with oil, parlors, halls for exercise, + gardens, and the whole surrounded by an enormous wall. Thus the + Thermae of Caracalla covered an immense area. + + 7. The _Bridge_ and the _Aqueduct_ were supported by a range of + arches thrown over a river or over a valley. Examples are the + bridge of Alcantara and the Pont du Gard. + + 8. The _House_ of a rich Roman was a work of art. Unlike our + modern houses, the ancient house had no facade; the house was + turned entirely toward the interior; on the outside it showed only + bare walls. + + The rooms were small, ill furnished, and dark; they were lighted + only through the atrium. In the centre was the great hall of honor + (the atrium) where the statues of the ancestors were erected and + where visitors were received. It was illuminated by an opening in + the roof. + + Behind the atrium was the peristyle, a garden surrounded by + colonnades, in which were the dining halls, richly ornamented and + provided with couches, for among the rich Romans, as among the + Asiatic Greeks, guests reclined on couches at the banquets. The + pavement was often made of mosaic. + +=Character of the Roman Architecture.=--The Romans,[162] unlike the +Greeks, did not always build in marble. Ordinarily they used the stone +that they found in the country, binding this together with an +indestructible mortar which has resisted even dampness for eighteen +hundred years. Their monuments have not the wonderful grace of the +Greek monuments, but they are large, strong, and solid--like the Roman +power. The soil of the empire is still covered with their debris. We +are astonished to find monuments almost intact as remote as the +deserts of Africa. When it was planned to furnish a water-system for +the city of Tunis, all that had to be done was to repair a Roman +aqueduct. + +=Rome and Its Monuments.=--Rome at the time of the emperors was a +city of 2,000,000 inhabitants.[163] This population was herded in +houses of five and six stories, poorly built and crowded together. The +populous quarters were a labyrinth of tortuous paths, steep, and ill +paved. Juvenal who frequented them leaves us a picture of them which +has little attractiveness. At Pompeii, a city of luxury, it may be +seen how narrow were the streets of a Roman city. In the midst of +hovels monuments by the hundred would be erected. The emperor Augustus +boasted of having restored more than eighty temples. "I found a city +of bricks," said he; "I leave a city of marble." His successors all +worked to embellish Rome. It was especially about the Forum that the +monuments accumulated. The Capitol with its temple of Jupiter became +almost like the Acropolis at Athens. In the same quarter many +monumental areas were constructed--the forum of Caesar, the forum of +Augustus, the forum of Nerva, and, most brilliant of all, the forum of +Trajan. Two villas surrounded by a park were situated in the midst of +the city; the most noted was the Golden House, built for Nero. + + +THE LAW + +=The Twelve Tables.=--The Romans, like all other ancient peoples, had +at first no written laws. They followed the customs of the +ancestors--that is to say, each generation did in everything just as +the preceding generation did. + +In 450 ten specially elected magistrates, the decemvirs, made a +series of laws that they wrote on twelve tables of stone. This was the +Law of the Twelve Tables, codified in short, rude, and trenchant +sentences--a legislation severe and rude like the semi-barbarous +people for whom it was made. It punished the sorcerer who by magical +words blasted the crop of his neighbor. It pronounced against the +insolvent debtor, "If he does not pay, he shall be cited before the +court; if sickness or age deter him, a horse shall be furnished him, +but no litter; he may have thirty days' delay, but if he does not +satisfy the debt in this time, the creditor may bind him with straps +or chains of fifteen pounds weight; at the end of sixty days he may be +sold beyond the Tiber; if there are many creditors, they may cut him +in parts, and if they cut more or less, there is no wrong in the act." +According to the word of Cicero, the Law of the Twelve Tables was "the +source of all the Roman law." Four centuries after it was written down +the children had to learn it in the schools. + +=The Symbolic Process.=--In the ancient Roman law it was not enough in +buying, selling, or inheriting that this was the intention of the +actor; to obtain justice in the Roman tribunal it was not sufficient +to present the case; one had to pronounce certain words and use +certain gestures. Consider, for example, the manner of purchasing. In +the presence of five citizens who represent an assembly and of a sixth +who holds a balance in his hand, the buyer places in the balance a +piece of brass which represents the price of the thing sold. If it be +an animal or a slave that is sold, the purchaser touches it with his +hand saying, "This is mine by the law of the Romans, I have bought it +with this brass duly weighed." Before the tribunal every process is a +pantomime: to reclaim an object one seizes it with the hand; to +protest against a neighbor who has erected a wall, a stone is thrown +against the wall. When two men claim proprietorship in a field, the +following takes place at the tribunal: the two adversaries grasp hands +and appear to fight; then they separate and each says, "I declare this +field is mine by the law of the Romans; I cite you before the tribunal +of the praetor to debate our right at the place in question." The judge +orders them to go to the place. "Before these witnesses here present, +this is your road to the place; go!" The litigants take a few steps as +if to go thither, and this is the symbol of the journey. A witness +says to them, "Return," and the journey is regarded as completed. Each +of the two presents a clod of earth, the symbol of the field. Thus the +trial commences;[164] then the judge alone hears the case. Like all +primitive peoples, the Romans comprehended well only what they +actually saw; the material acts served to represent to them the right +that could not be seen. + +=The Formalism of Roman Law.=--The Romans scrupulously respected their +ancient forms. In justice, as in religion, they obeyed the letter of +the law, caring nothing for its sense. For them every form was sacred +and ought to be strictly applied. In cases before the courts their +maxim was: "What has already been pronounced ought to be the law." If +an advocate made a mistake in one word in reciting the formula, his +case was lost. A man entered a case against his neighbor for having +cut down his vines: the formula that he ought to use contained the +word "arbor," he replaced it with the word "vinea," and could not win +his case. + +This absolute reverence for the form allowed the Romans some strange +accommodations. The law said that if a father sold his son three +times, the son should be freed from the power of the father; when, +therefore, a Roman wished to emancipate his son, he sold him three +times in succession, and this comedy of sale sufficed to emancipate +him. + +The law required that before beginning war a herald should be sent to +declare it at the frontier of the enemy. When Rome wished to make war +on Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had his kingdom on the other side of +the Adriatic, they were much embarrassed to execute this formality. +They hit on the following: a subject of Pyrrhus, perhaps a deserter, +bought a field in Rome; they then assumed that this territory had +become territory of Epirus, and the herald threw his javelin on this +land and made his solemn declaration. Like all other immature peoples, +the Romans believed that consecrated formulas had a magical virtue. + +=Jurisprudence.=--The Law of the Twelve Tables and the laws made after +them were brief and incomplete. But many questions presented +themselves that had no law for their solution. In these embarrassing +cases it was the custom at Rome to consult certain persons who were of +high reputation for their knowledge of questions of law. These were +men of eminence, often old consuls or pontiffs; they gave their advice +in writing, and their replies were called the Responses of the Wise. +Usually these responses were authoritative according to the respect +had for the sages. The emperor Augustus went further: he named some of +them whose responses should have the force of law. Thus Law began to +be a science and the men versed in law formulated new rules which +became obligatory. This was Jurisprudence. + +=The Praetor's Edict.=--To apply the sacred rules of law a supreme +magistrate was needed at Rome. Only a consul or a praetor could direct +a tribunal and, according to the Roman expression, "say the law." The +consuls engaged especially with the army ordinarily left this care to +the praetors. + +There were always at Rome at least two praetors as judges: one +adjudicated matters between citizens and was called the praetor of the +city (praetor urbanus); the other judged cases between citizens and +aliens and was called praetor of the aliens (praetor peregrinus), or, +more exactly, praetor between aliens and citizens. There was need of at +least two tribunals, since an alien could not be admitted to the +tribunal of the citizens. These praetors, thanks to their absolute +power, adjusted cases according to their sense of equity; the praetor +of the aliens was bound by no law, for the Roman laws were made only +for Roman citizens. And yet, since each praetor was to sit and judge +for a year, on entering upon his office he promulgated a decree in +which he indicated the rules that he expected to follow in his +tribunal; this was the Praetor's Edict. At the end of the year, when +the praeter left his office, his ordinance was no longer in force, and +his successor had the right to make an entirely different one. But it +came to be the custom for each praetor to preserve the edicts of his +predecessors, making a few changes and some additions. Thus +accumulated for centuries the ordinances of the magistrates. At last +the emperor Hadrian in the second century had the Praetorian Edict +codified and gave it the force of law. + +=Civil Law and the Law of Nations.=--As there were two separate +tribunals, there developed two systems of rules, two different laws. +The rules applied to the affairs of citizens by the praetor of the city +formed the Civil Law--that is to say, the law of the city. The rules +followed by the praetor of aliens constituted the Law of Nations--that +is to say, of the peoples (alien to Rome). It was then perceived that +of these two laws the more human, the more sensible, the simpler--in a +word, the better, was the law of aliens. The law of citizens, derived +from the superstitious and strict rules of the old Romans, had +preserved from this rude origin troublesome formulas and barbarous +regulations. The Law of Nations, on the contrary, had for its +foundation the dealings of merchants and of men established in Rome, +dealings that were free from every formula, from every national +prejudice, and were slowly developed and tried by the experience of +several centuries. And so it may be seen how contrary to reason the +ancient law was. "Strict law is the highest injustice," is a Roman +proverb. The praetors of the city set themselves to correct the ancient +law and to judge according to equity or justice. They came gradually +to apply to citizens the same rules that the praetor of the aliens +followed in his tribunal. For example, the Roman law ordained that +only relatives on the male side should be heirs; the praetor summoned +the relatives on the female side also to participate in the +succession. + +The old law required that a man to become a proprietor must perform a +complicated ceremony of sale; the praetor recognized that it was +sufficient to have paid the price of the sale and to be in possession +of the property. Thus the Law of Nations invaded and gradually +superseded the Civil Law. + +="Written Reason."=--It was especially under the emperors that the new +Roman law took its form. The Antonines issued many ordinances (edicts) +and re-scripts (letters in which the emperor replied to those who +consulted him). Jurisconsults who surrounded them assisted them in +their reforms. Later, at the beginning of the third century, under the +bad emperors as under the good, others continued to state new rules +and to rectify the old. Papinian, Ulpian, Modestinus, and Paullus were +the most noted of these lawyers; their works definitively fixed the +Roman law. + +This law of the third century has little resemblance to the old Roman +law, so severe on the weak. The jurisconsults adopt the ideas of the +Greek philosophers, especially of the Stoics. They consider that all +men have the right of liberty: "By the law of nature all men are born +free," which is to say that slavery is contrary to nature. They also +admit that a slave could claim redress even against his master, and +that the master, if he killed his slave, should be punished as a +murderer. Likewise they protect the child against the tyranny of the +father. + +It is this new law that was in later times called Written Reason. In +fact, it is a philosophical law such as reason can conceive for all +men. And so there remains no longer an atom of the strict and gross +law of the Twelve Tables. The Roman law which has for a long time +governed all Europe, and which today is preserved in part in the laws +of several European states is not the law of the old Romans. It is +constructed, on the contrary, of the customs of all the peoples of +antiquity and the maxims of Greek philosophers fused together and +codified in the course of centuries by Roman magistrates and +jurisconsults. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[157] Sometimes called the Age of Cicero. + +[158] Lucretius.--ED. + +[159] One of the most noted, the plea for Milo, was written much later. +Cicero at the time of the delivery was distracted and said almost +nothing. + +[160] See the "Dialogue of the Orators," attributed to Tacitus. + +[161] The word "rhetor" signified in Greek simply orator; the Romans +used the word in a mistaken sense to designate the men who made a +profession of speaking. + +[162] The same reserve must be maintained with regard to the arts as to +the literature. The builders of the Roman monuments were not Romans, but +provincials, often slaves; the only Roman would be the master for whom +the slaves worked. + +[163] This estimate is too liberal. 1,500,00 is probably nearer the +truth. See Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms, i. 25.--ED. + +[164] Cicero describes this juridical comedy which was still in force in +his time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION + +ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY + + +=The Christ.=--He whom the Jews were expecting as their liberator and +king, the Messiah, appeared in Galilee, a small province of the North, +hardly regarded as Jewish, and in a humble family of carpenters. He +was called Jesus, but his Greek disciples called him the Christ (the +anointed), that is to say, the king consecrated by the holy oil. He +was also called the Master, the Lord, and the Saviour. The religion +that he came to found is that we now possess. We all know his life: it +is the model of every Christian. We know his instructions by heart; +they form our moral law. It is sufficient, then, to indicate what new +doctrines he disseminated in the world. + +=Charity.=--Before all, Christ commended love. "Thou shalt love the +Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and thy neighbor +as thyself.... On these two commandments hang all the law and the +prophets." The first duty is to love others and to benefit them. When +God will judge men, he will set on his right hand those who have fed +the hungry, given drink to those who were thirsty, and have clad those +that were naked. To those who would follow him the Christ said at the +beginning: "Go, ... sell all that ye have and give to the poor." + +For the ancients the good man was the noble, the rich, the brave. +Since the time of Christ the word has changed its sense: the good man +is he who loves others. Doing good is loving others and seeking to be +of service to them. Charity (the Latin name of love) from that time +has been the cardinal virtue. Charitable becomes synonymous with +beneficent. To the old doctrine of vengeance the Christ formally +opposes his doctrine of charity. "Ye have heard that it was said, An +eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you ... +whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other +also.... Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy +neighbor and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you love your enemies, +do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute you, +... that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who +maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on +the just and the unjust." He himself on the cross prayed for his +executioners, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." + +=Equality.=--The Christ loved all men; he died not for one people +only, but for all humanity. He never made a difference between men; +all are equal before God. The ancient religions, even the Jewish, were +religions of peoples who kept them with jealous care, as a treasure, +without wishing to communicate them to other peoples. Christ said to +his disciples, "Go, and teach all nations." And the apostle Paul thus +formulated the doctrine of Christian equality: "There is neither Greek +nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, bond nor free." +Two centuries later Tertullian, a Christian writer, said, "The world +is a republic, the common land of the human race." + +=Poverty and Humility.=--The ancients thought that riches ennobled a +man and they regarded pride as a worthy sentiment. "Blessed are the +poor," said Christ, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." He that +would not renounce all that he had could not be his disciple. He +himself went from city to city, possessing nothing, and when his +disciples were preoccupied with the future, he said, "Be not anxious +for what ye shall eat, nor for what ye shall put on. Behold the birds +of the heaven, they sow not neither do they reap, yet your heavenly +Father feedeth them." + +The Christian was to disdain riches, and more yet, worldly honors. One +day when his disciples were disputing who should have the highest rank +in heaven, he said, "He that is greatest among you shall be your +servant." "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that +humbleth himself shall be exalted." Till our day the successor of +Saint Peter calls himself "Servant of the servants of God." Christ +drew to himself by preference the poor, the sick, women, children,--in +a word, the weak and the helpless. He took all his disciples from +among the populace and bade them be "meek and lowly of heart." + +=The Kingdom of God.=--Christ said that he had come to the earth to +found the kingdom of God. His enemies believed that he wished to be a +king, and when he was crucified, they placed this inscription on his +cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews." This was a gross +mistake. Christ himself had declared, "My kingdom is not of this +world." He did not come to overturn governments nor to reform +society. To him who asked if he should pay the Roman tax, he replied, +"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things +that are God's." And so the Christian accepted what he found +established and himself worked to perfect it, not to remodel society. +To make himself pleasing to God and worthy of his kingdom it was not +necessary to offer him sacrifices or to observe minute formulas as the +pagans did: "True worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and +truth." Their moral law is contained in this word of Christ: "Be ye +therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." + + +THE FIRST CENTURIES OF THE CHURCH + +=Disciples and Apostles.=--The twelve disciples who associated with +Christ received from him the mission to preach his doctrine to all +peoples. From that time they were called Apostles. The majority of +them lived in Jerusalem and preached in Judaea; the first Christians +were still Jews. It was Saul, a new convert, who carried Christianity +to the other peoples of the Orient. Paul (for he took this name) spent +his life visiting the Greek cities of Asia, Greece, and Macedonia, +inviting to the new religion not only the Jews, but also and +especially the Gentiles: "You were once without Christ," said he to +them, "strangers to the covenant and to the promises; but you have +been brought nigh by the blood of Christ, for it is he who of two +peoples hath made both one." From this time it was no longer necessary +to be a Jew if one would become a Christian. The other nations, +disregarded by the law of Moses, are brought near by the law of +Christ. This fusion was the work of St. Paul, also called the Apostle +to the Gentiles. + +The religion of Christ spread very slowly, as he himself had +announced: "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed ... +which is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the +greatest among herbs ... and the birds of the air lodge under its +branches." + +=The Church.=--In every city where Christians were found they +assembled to pray together, to sing the praises of God, and to +celebrate the mystery of the Lord's Supper. Their meeting was called +Ecclesia (assembly). Usually the Christians of the same assembly +regarded themselves as brothers; they contributed of their property to +support the widows, the poor, and the sick. The most eminent directed +the community and celebrated the religious ceremonies. These were the +Priests (their name signifies "elders"). Others were charged with the +administration of the goods of the community, and were called Deacons +(servants). Besides these officers, there was in each city a supreme +head--the Bishop (overseer). + +Later the functions of the church became so exacting that the body of +Christians was divided into two classes of people: the clergy, who +were the officials of the community; the rest, the faithful, who were +termed the laity. + +Each city had its independent church; thus they spoke of the church of +Antioch, of Corinth, of Rome; and yet they all formed but one church, +the church of Christ, in which all were united in one faith. The +universal or Catholic faith was regarded as the only correct body of +belief; all conflicting opinions (the heresies) were condemned as +errors. + +=The Sacred Books.=--The sacred scripture of the Jews, the Old +Testament, remained sacred for the Christians, but they had other +sacred books which the church had brought into one structure (the New +Testament). The four Gospels recount the life of Christ and the "good +news" of salvation which he brought. The Acts of the Apostles +describes how the gospel was disseminated in the world. The Epistles +are the letters addressed by the apostles to the Christians of the +first century. The Apocalypse (Revelation) is the revelation made +through St. John to the seven churches of Asia. Many other +pseudo-sacred books were current among the Christians, but the church +has rejected all of these, and has termed them apocryphal. + +=The Persecutions.=--The Christian religion was persecuted from its +birth. Its first enemies were the Jews, who forced the Roman governor +of Judaea to crucify Christ; who stoned St. Stephen, the first martyr, +and so set themselves against St. Paul that they almost compassed his +death. + +Then came the persecution by the Pagans. The Romans tolerated all the +religions of the East because the devotees of Osiris, of Mithra, and +of the Good Goddess recognized at the same time the Roman gods. But +the Christians, worshippers of the living God, scorned the petty +divinities of antiquity. More serious still in the eyes of the Romans, +they refused to adore the emperor as a god and to burn incense on the +altar of the goddess Roma. Several emperors promulgated edicts +against the Christians, bidding the governors arrest them and put them +to death. A letter of Pliny the Younger, then governor in Asia, to the +emperor Trajan, shows the procedure against them. "Up to this time, +regarding the people who have been denounced as Christians, I have +always operated as follows: I asked them if they were Christians; if +they confessed it, I put the question to them a second time, and then +a third time, threatening them with the penalty of death. When they +persisted, I had them put to death, convinced that, whatever their +fault that they avowed, their disobedience and their resolute +obstinacy merited punishment. Many who have been denounced in +anonymous writings have denied that they were Christians, have +repeated a prayer that I pronounced before them, have offered wine and +incense to your statue, which I had set forth for this purpose +together with the statues of the gods, and have even reviled the name +of Christ. All these are things which it is not possible to compel any +true Christians to do. Others have confessed that they were +Christians, but they affirm that their crime and their error consisted +only in assembling on certain days before sunrise to adore Christ as +God, to sing together in his honor, and to bind themselves by oath to +commit no crime, to perpetrate no theft, murder, adultery, nor to +violate their word. I have believed it necessary in order to secure +the truth to put to the torture two female slaves whom they called +deaconesses; but I have discovered only an absurd and exaggerated +superstition." + +The Roman government was a persecutor,[165] but the populace were +severer yet. They could not endure these people who worshipped another +god than theirs and contemned their deities. Whenever famine or +epidemic occurred, the well-known cry was heard, "To the lions with +the Christians!" The people forced the magistrates to hunt and +persecute the Christians. + +=The Martyrs.=--For the two centuries and a half that the Christians +were persecuted, throughout the empire there were thousands of +victims, of every age, sex, and condition. Roman citizens, like St. +Paul, were beheaded; the others were crucified, burned, most often +sent to the beasts in the amphitheatre. If they were allowed to escape +with their lives, they were set at forced labor in the mines. +Sometimes torture was aggravated by every sort of invention. In the +great execution at Lyons, in 177, the Christians, after being tortured +and confined in narrow prison quarters, were brought to the arena. The +beasts mutilated without killing them. They were then seated in iron +chairs heated red by fire. Blandina, a young slave, who survived all +these torments was bound with cords and exposed to the fury of a bull. +The Christians joyfully suffered these persecutions which gave them +entrance to heaven. The occasion presented an opportunity for +rendering public testimony to Christ. And so they did not call +themselves victims, but martyrs (witnesses); their torture was a +testimony. They compared it to the combat of the Olympian games; like +the victor in the athletic contests, they spoke of the palm or the +crown. Even now the festal day of a martyr is the day of his death. + +Frequently a Christian who was present at the persecution would draft +a written account of the martyrdom--he related the arrest, the +examination, the tortures, and the death. These brief accounts, filled +with edifying details, were called The Acts of the Martyrs. They were +circulated in the remotest communities; from one end of the empire to +the other they published the glory of the martyrs and excited a desire +to imitate them. Thousands of the faithful, seized by a thirst for +martyrdom, pressed forward to incriminate themselves and to demand +condemnation. One day a governor of Asia had decreed persecutions +against some Christians: all the Christians of the city presented +themselves in his tribunal and demanded to be persecuted. The +governor, exasperated, had some of them executed and sent away the +others. "Begone, you wretches! If you are so bent on death, you have +precipices and ropes." Some of the faithful, to be surer of torture, +entered the temples and threw down the idols of the gods. It was +several times necessary for even the church to prohibit the +solicitation of martyrdom. + +=The Catacombs.=--The ancient custom of burning the dead was repugnant +to the Christians. Like the Jews, they interred their dead wrapped +with a shroud in a sarcophagus. Cemeteries[166] were therefore +required. At Rome where land was very high in price the Christians +went below ground, and in the brittle tufa on which Rome was built may +be seen long galleries and subterranean chambers. There, in niches +excavated along the passages, they laid the bodies of their dead. As +each generation excavated new galleries, there was formed at length a +subterranean city, called the Catacombs ("to the tombs"). There were +similar catacombs in several cities--Naples, Milan, Alexandria, but +the most celebrated were those in Rome. These have been investigated +in our day and thousands of Christian tombs and inscriptions +recovered. The discovery of this subterranean world gave birth to a +new department of historical science--Christian Epigraphy and +Archaeology. + +The sepulchral halls of the catacombs do not resemble those of the +Egyptians or those of the Etruscans; they are bare and severe. The +Christians knew that a corpse had no bodily wants and so they did not +adorn the tombs. The most important halls are decorated with very +simple ornaments and paintings which almost always represent the same +scenes. The most common subjects are the faithful in prayer, and the +Good Shepherd, symbolical of Christ. Some of these halls were like +chapels. In them were interred the bodies of the holy martyrs and the +faithful who wished to lie near them; every year Christians came here +to celebrate the mysteries. During the persecutions of the third +century the Christians of Rome often took refuge in these subterranean +chapels to hold their services of worship, or to escape from pursuit. +The Christians could feel safe in this bewildering labyrinth of +galleries whose entrance was usually marked by a pagan tomb. + + +THE MONKS OF THE THIRD CENTURY + +=The Solitaries.=--It was an idea current among Christians, especially +in the East, that one could not become a perfect Christian by +remaining in the midst of other men. Christ himself had said, "If any +man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and +children, and brethren, and sisters ... he cannot be my disciple." The +faithful man or woman who thus withdrew from the world to work out his +salvation the more surely, was termed an Anchorite (the man who is set +apart), or a Monk (solitary). This custom began in the East in the +middle of the third century. The first anchorites established +themselves in the deserts and the ruins of the district of Thebes in +Upper Egypt, which remained the holy land of the solitaries. + +Paul (235-340), the oldest of the monks, lived to his ninetieth year +in a grotto near a spring and a palm-tree which furnished him with +food and clothing. The model of the monks was St Anthony.[167] At the +age of twenty he heard read one day the text of the gospel, "If thou +wilt be perfect, sell all thy goods and give to the poor." He was fine +looking, noble, and rich, having received an inheritance from his +parents. He sold all his property, distributed it in alms and buried +himself in the desert of Egypt. He first betook himself to an empty +tomb, then to the ruins of a fortress; he was clad in a hair-shirt, +had for food only the bread that was brought to him every six months, +fasted, starved himself, prayed day and night. Often sunrise found +him still in prayer. "O sun," cried he, "why hast thou risen and +prevented my contemplating the true light?" He felt himself surrounded +by demons, who, under every form, sought to distract him from his +religious thoughts. When he became old and revered by all Egypt, he +returned to Alexandria for a day to preach against the Arian heretics, +but soon repaired to the desert again. They besought him to remain: he +replied, "The fishes die on land, the monks waste away in the city; we +return to our mountains like the fish to the water." + +Women also became solitaries. Alexandra, one of these, shut herself in +an empty tomb and lived there for ten years without leaving it to see +anybody. + +=Asceticism.=--These men who had withdrawn to the desert to escape the +world thought that everything that came from the world turned the soul +from God and placed it in the peril of losing salvation. The Christian +ought to belong entirely to God; he should forget everything behind +him. "Do you not know," said St. Nilus later, "that it is a trap of +Satan to be too much attached to one's family?" The monk Poemen had +withdrawn to the desert with his brothers, and their mother came to +visit them. As they refused to appear, she waited a little until they +were going to the church; but on seeing her, they fled and would not +consent to speak to her unless they were concealed. She asked to see +them, but they consoled her by saying, "You will see us in the other +world." + +But the world is not the only danger for the monk. Every man carried +about with himself an enemy from whom he could not deliver himself as +he had delivered himself from the world--that is, his own body. The +body prevented the soul from rising to God and drew it to worldly +pleasures that came from the devil. And so the solitaries applied +themselves to overcoming the body by refusing to it everything that it +loved. They subsisted only on bread and water; many ate but twice a +week, some went to the mountains to cut herbs which they ate raw. They +dwelt in grottoes, ruins, and tombs, lying on the earth or on a mat of +rushes. The most zealous of them added other tortures to mortify, or +kill, the body. St. Pachomius for fifteen years slept only in an erect +position, leaning against a wall. Macarius remained six months in a +morass, the prey of mosquitoes "whose stings would have penetrated the +hide of a wild boar." The most noted of these monks was St. Simeon, +surnamed Stylites (the man of the column). For forty years he lived in +the desert of Arabia on the summit of a column, exposed to the sun and +the rain, compelling himself to stay in one position for a whole day; +the faithful flocked from afar to behold him; he gave them audience +from the top of his column, bidding creditors free their debtors, and +masters liberate their slaves; he even sent reproaches to ministers +and counsellors of the emperor. This form of life was called +Asceticism (exercise). + +=The Cenobites.=--The solitaries who lived in the same desert drew +together and adopted a common life for the practice of their +austerities. About St. Anthony were already assembled many anchorites +who gave him their obedience. St. Pachomius (272-348) in this way +assembled 3,000. Their establishment was at Tabenna, near the first +cataract of the Nile. He founded many other similar communities, +either of men or women. In 256 a traveller said he had seen in a +single city of Egypt 10,000 monks and 20,000 vowed to a religious +life. There were more of them in Syria, in Palestine, in all the +Orient. The monks thus united in communities became Cenobites (people +who live in common). They chose a chief, the abbot (the word signifies +in Syriac "father"), and they implicitly obeyed him. Cassian relates +that in one community in Egypt he had seen the abbot before the whole +refectory give a cenobite a violent blow on the head to try his +obedience. + +The primitive monks renounced all property and family relations; the +cenobites surrendered also their will. On entering the community they +engaged to possess nothing, not to marry, and to obey. "The monks," +says St. Basil, "live a spiritual life like the angels." The first +union among the cenobites was the construction of houses in close +proximity. Later each community built a monastery, a great edifice, +where each monk had his cell. A Christian compares these cells "to a +hive of bees where each has in his hands the wax of work, in his mouth +the honey of psalms and prayers." These great houses needed a written +constitution; this was the Monastic Rule. St. Pachomius was the first +to prepare one. St. Basil wrote another that was adopted by almost all +the monasteries of the Orient. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[165] The church counted ten persecutions, the first under Nero, the +last under Diocletian. + +[166] The word is Greek and signifies place of repose. + +[167] See his biography in the "Lives of the Fathers of the Desert," by +Rufinus. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE LATER EMPIRE + +THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE THIRD CENTURY + + +=Military Anarchy.=--After the reigns of the Antonines the civil wars +commenced. There were in the empire, beside the praetorian guard in +Rome, several great armies on the Rhine, on the Danube, in the East, +and in England. Each aimed to make its general emperor. Ordinarily the +rivals fought it out until there was but one left; this one then +governed for a few years, after which he was assassinated,[168] or if, +by chance, he could transmit his power to his son, the soldiers +revolted against the son and the war recommenced. The following, for +example, is what occurred in 193. The praetorians had massacred the +emperor Pertinax, and the army conceived the notion of putting up the +empire at auction; two purchasers presented themselves, Sulpicius +offering each soldier $1,000 and Didius more than $1,200. The +praetorians brought the latter to the Senate and had him named emperor; +later, when he did not pay them, they murdered him. At the same time +the great armies of Britain, Illyricum, and Syria proclaimed each its +own general as emperor and the three rivals marched on Rome. The +Illyrian legions arrived first, and their general Septimius Severus +was named emperor by the Senate. Then commenced two sanguinary wars, +the one against the legions of Syria, and the other against the +legions of Britain. At the end of two years the emperor was +victorious. It is he who states his policy as follows, "My son, +content the soldiers and you may despise the rest." For a century +there was no other form of government than the will of the soldiers. +They killed the emperors who displeased them and replaced them by +their favorites. + +Strange emperors, therefore, occupied the throne: Elagabalus, a Syrian +priest, who garbed himself as a woman and had his mother assemble a +senate of women; Maximin, a soldier of fortune, a rough and +bloodthirsty giant, who ate, it was said, thirty pounds of food and +drank twenty-one quarts of wine a day. Once there were twenty emperors +at the same time, each in a corner of the empire (260-278). These have +been called the Thirty Tyrants. + +The Cult of Mithra.--This century of wars is also a century of +superstitions. The deities of the Orient, Isis, Osiris, the Great +Mother, have their devotees everywhere. But, more than all the others, +Mithra, a Persian god, becomes the universal god of the empire. Mithra +is no other than the sun. The monuments in his honor that are found in +all parts of the empire represent him slaughtering a bull, with this +inscription: "To the unconquerable sun, to the god Mithra." His cult +is complicated, sometimes similar to the Christian worship; there are +a baptism, sacred feasts, an anointing, penances, and chapels. To be +admitted to this one must pass through an initiatory ceremony, through +fasting and certain fearful tests. + +At the end of the third century the religion of Mithra was the +official religion of the empire. The Invincible God was the god of the +emperors; he had his chapels everywhere in the form of grottoes with +altars and bas-reliefs; in Rome, even, he had a magnificent temple +erected by the emperor Aurelian. + +=The Taurobolia.=--One of the most urgent needs of this time was +reconciliation with the deity; and so ceremonies of purification were +invented. + +The most striking of these was the Taurobolia. The devotee, clad in a +white robe with ornaments of gold, takes his place in the bottom of a +ditch which is covered by a platform pierced with holes. A bull is led +over this platform, the priest kills him and his blood runs through +the holes of the platform upon the garments, the face, and the hair of +the worshipper. It was believed that this "baptism of blood" purified +one of all sins. He who had received it was born to a new life; he +came forth from the ditch hideous to look upon, but happy and envied. + +=Confusion of Religions.=--In the century that preceded the victory of +Christianity, all religions fell into confusion. The sun was adored at +once under many names (Sol, Helios, Baal, Elagabal, and Mithra). All +the cults imitated one another and sometimes copied Christian forms. +Even the life of Christ was copied. The Asiatic philosopher, +Apollonius of Tyana, who lived in the first century (3-96), became in +legend a kind of prophet, son of a god, who went about surrounded by +his disciples, expelling demons, curing sicknesses, raising the dead. +He had come, it was said, to reform the doctrine of Pythagoras and +Plato. In the third century an empress had the life of Apollonius of +Tyana written, to be, as it were, a Pythagorean gospel opposed to the +gospel of Christ. The most remarkable example of this confusion in +religion was given by Alexander Severus, a devout emperor, mild and +conscientious: he had in his palace a chapel where he adored the +benefactors of humanity--Abraham, Orpheus, Jesus, and Apollonius of +Tyana. + + +THE GOVERNMENT OF THE LATER EMPIRE + +=Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine.=--After a century of civil +wars emperors were found who were able to stop the anarchy. They were +men of the people, rude and active, soldiers of fortune rising from +one grade to another to become generals-in-chief, and then emperors. +Almost all arose in the semi-barbarous provinces of the Danube and of +Illyria; some in their infancy had been shepherds or peasants. They +had the simple manners of the old Roman generals. When the envoys of +the king of Persia asked to see the emperor Probus, they found a bald +old man clad in a linen cassock, lying on the ground, who ate peas and +bacon. It was the story of Curius Dentatus repeated after five +centuries. + +Severe with their soldiers, these emperors reestablished discipline in +the army, and then order in the empire. But a change had become +necessary. A single man was no longer adequate to the government and +defence of this immense territory; and so from this time each emperor +took from among his relatives or his friends two or three +collaborators, each charged with a part of the empire. Usually their +title was that of Caesar, but sometimes there were two equal emperors, +and both had the title of Augustus. When the emperor died, one of the +Caesars succeeded him; it was no longer possible for the army to create +emperors. The provinces were too great, and Diocletian divided them. +The praetorians of Rome being dangerous, Diocletian replaced them with +two legions. The Occident was in ruins and depopulated and hence the +Orient had become the important part of the empire; Diocletian, +therefore, abandoned Rome and established his capital at Nicomedia in +Asia Minor.[169] Constantine did more and founded a new Rome in the +East--Constantinople. + +=Constantinople.=--On a promontory where Europe is separated from Asia +only by the narrow channel of the Bosporus, in a country of vineyards +and rich harvests, under a beautiful sky, Greek colonists had founded +the town of Byzantium. The hills of the vicinity made the place easily +defensible; its port, the Golden Horn, one of the best in the world, +could shelter 1,200 ships, and a chain of 820 feet in length was all +that was necessary to exclude a hostile fleet. This was the site of +Constantine's new city, Constantinople (the city of Constantine). + +Around the city were strong walls; two public squares surrounded with +porticos were constructed; a palace was erected, a circus, theatres, +aqueducts, baths, temples, and a Christian church. To ornament his +city Constantine transferred from other cities the most celebrated +statues and bas-reliefs. To furnish it with population he forced the +people of the neighboring towns to remove to it, and offered rewards +and honors to the great families who would come hither to make their +home. He established, as in Rome, distributions of grain, of wine, of +oil, and provided a continuous round of shows. This was one of those +rapid transformations, almost fantastic, in which the Orient delights. +The task began the 4th of November, 326; on the 11th of May, 330, the +city was dedicated. But it was a permanent creation. For ten centuries +Constantinople resisted invasions, preserving always in the ruins of +the empire its rank of capital. Today it is still the first city of +the East. + +=The Palace.=--The emperors who dwelt in the East[170] adopted the +customs of the Orient, wearing delicate garments of silk and gold and +for a head-dress a diadem of pearls. They secluded themselves in the +depths of their palace where they sat on a throne of gold, surrounded +by their ministers, separated from the world by a crowd of courtiers, +servants, functionaries and military guards. One must prostrate one's +self before them with face to the earth in token of adoration; they +were called Lord and Majesty; they were treated as gods. Everything +that touched their person was sacred, and so men spoke of the sacred +palace, the sacred bed-chamber, the sacred Council of State, even the +sacred treasury. + +The regime of this period has been termed that of the Later Empire as +distinguished from that of the three preceding centuries, which we +call the Early Empire. + +The life of an emperor of the Early Empire (from the first to the +third century) was still that of a magistrate and a general; the +palace of an emperor of the Later Empire became similar to the court +of the Persian king. + +=The Officials.=--The officials often became very numerous. Diocletian +found the provinces too large and so made several divisions of them. +In Gaul, for example, Lugdunensis (the province about Lyons) was +partitioned into four, Aquitaine into three. In place of forty-six +governors there were from this time 117.[171] + +At the same time the duties of the officials were divided. Besides the +governors and the deputies in the provinces there were in the border +provinces military commanders--the dukes and the counts. The emperor +had about him a small picked force to guard the palace, body-guards, +chamberlains, assistants, domestics, a council of state, bailiffs, +messengers, and a whole body of secretaries organized in four bureaus. + +All these officials did not now receive their orders directly from +the emperor; they communicated with him only through their superior +officers. The governors were subordinate to the two praetorian +prefects, the officials of public works to the two prefects of the +city, the collectors of taxes to the Count of the Sacred Largesses, +the deputies to the Count of the Domains, all the officers of the +palace to the Master of the Offices, the domestics of the court to the +Chamberlain. These heads of departments had the character of +ministers. + +This system is not very difficult for us to comprehend. We are +accustomed to see officials, judges, generals, collectors, and +engineers, organized in distinct departments, each with his special +duty, and subordinated to the commands of a chief of the service. We +even have more ministers than there were in Constantinople; but this +administrative machine which has become so familiar to us because we +have been acquainted with it from our infancy, is none the less +complicated and unnatural. It is the Later Empire that gave us the +first model of this; the Byzantine empire preserved it and since that +time all absolute governments have been forced to imitate it because +it has made the work of government easier for those who have it to do. + +=Society in the Later Empire.=--The Later Empire is a decisive moment +in the history of civilization. The absolute power of the Roman +magistrate is united to the pompous ceremonial of the eastern kings to +create a power unknown before in history. This new imperial majesty +crushes everything beneath it; the inhabitants of the empire cease to +be citizens and from the fourth century are called in Latin "subjects" +and in Greek "slaves." In reality all are slaves of the emperor, but +there are different grades of servitude. There are various degrees of +nobility which the master confers on them and which they transmit to +their posterity. The following is the series:[172] + + 1. The _Nobilissimi_ (the very noble); these are the imperial + family; + + 2. The _Illustres_ (the notable)--the chief ministers of + departments; + + 3. The _Spectabiles_ (the eminent)--the high dignitaries; + + 4. The _Clarissimi_ (most renowned)--the great officials, also + sometimes called senators; + + 5. The _Perfectissimi_ (very perfect).[173] + +Every important man has his rank, his title, and his functions.[174] +The only men who are of consequence are the courtiers and officials; +it is the regime of titles and of etiquette. A clearer instance has +never been given of the issue of absolute power united with the mania +for titles and with the purpose to regulate everything. The Later +Empire exhibits the completed type of a society reduced to a machine +and of a government absorbed by a court. It realized the ideal that is +proposed today by the partisans of absolute power; and for a long time +the friends of liberty must fight against the traditions which the +Later Empire has left to us. + + +THE CHURCH AND THE STATE + +=Triumph of Christianity.=--During the first two centuries of our era +the Christians occupied but a small place in the empire. Almost all of +them were of the lower classes, workmen, freedmen, slaves, who lived +obscure lives in the multitude of the great cities. For a long time +the aristocracy ignored the Christians; even in the second century +Suetonius in his "Lives of the Twelve Caesars" speaks of a certain +Chrestus who agitated the populace of Rome. When the religion first +concerned the world of the rich and cultivated people, they were +interested simply to deride it as one only for the poor and ignorant. +It was precisely because it addressed the poor of this world in +providing a compensation in the life to come that Christianity made so +many proselytes. Persecution, far from suppressing it, gave it more +force. "The blood of the martyrs," said the faithful, "is the seed of +the church." During the whole of the third century conversions +continued, not only among the poor, but among the aristocracy as well. +At the first of the fourth century all the East had become Christian. +Helena, the mother of Constantine, was a Christian and has been +canonized by the church. When Constantine marched against his rival, +he took for his ensign a standard (the labarum), which bore the cross +and the monogram of Christ. His victory was the victory of the +Christians. He allowed them now to perform their religious rites +freely (by the edict of 313), and later he favored them openly. Yet +he did not break with the ancient religion: while he presided at the +great assembly of the Christian bishops, he continued to hold the +title of Pontifex Maximus; he carried in his helmet a nail of the true +cross and on his coins he still had the sun-god represented. In his +city of Constantinople he had a Christian church built, but also a +temple to Victory. For a half-century it was difficult to know what +was the official religion of the empire. + +=Organization of the Church.=--The Christians even under persecution +had never dreamed of overthrowing the empire. As soon as persecution +ceased, the bishops became the allies of the emperors. Then the +Christian church was organized definitively, and it was organized on +the model of the Later Empire, in the form that it preserves to this +day. Each city had a bishop who resided in the city proper and +governed the people of the territory; this territory subject to the +bishop was termed a Diocese. In any country in the Later Empire, there +were as many bishops and dioceses as there were cities. This is why +the bishops were so numerous and dioceses so many in the East and in +Italy where the country was covered with cities. In Gaul, on the +contrary, there were but 120 dioceses between the Rhine and the +Pyrenees, and the most of these, save in the south, were of the size +of a modern French department. Each province became an ecclesiastical +province; the bishop of the capital (metropolis) became the +metropolitan, or as he was later termed, the archbishop. + +=The Councils.=--In this century began the councils, the great +assemblies of the church. There had already been some local councils +at which the bishops and priests of a single province had been +present. For the first time, in 324,[175] Constantine convoked a +General Assembly of the World (an ecumenical council) at Nicaea, in +Asia Minor; 318 ecclesiastics were in attendance. They discussed +questions of theology and drew up the Nicene Creed, the Catholic +confession of faith. Then the emperor wrote to all the churches, +bidding them "conform to the will of God as expressed by the council." +This was the first ecumenical council, and there were three +others[176] of these before the arrival of the barbarians made an +assembly of the whole church impossible. The decisions reached by +these councils had the force of law for all Christians: the decisions +are called Canons[177] (rules). The collection of these regulations +constitutes the Canon Law. + +=The Heretics.=--From the second century there were among the +Christians heretics who professed opinions contrary to those of the +majority of the church. Often the bishops of a country assembled to +pronounce the new teaching as false, to compel the author to abjure, +and, if he refused, to separate him from the communion of Christians. +But frequently the author of the heresy had partisans convinced of the +truth of his teaching who would not submit and continued to profess +the condemned opinions. This was the cause of hatred and violent +strife between them and the faithful who were attached to the creed of +the church (the orthodox). As long as the Christians were weak and +persecuted by the state, they fought among themselves only with words +and with books; but when all society was Christian, the contests +against the heretics turned into persecutions, and sometimes into +civil wars. + +Almost all of the heresies of this time arose among the Greeks of Asia +or Egypt, peoples who were subtle, sophistical, and disputatious. The +heresies were usually attempts to explain the mysteries of the Trinity +and of the Incarnation. The most significant of these heresies was +that of Arius; he taught that Christ was created by God the Father and +was not equal to him. The Council of Nicaea condemned this view, but +his doctrine, called Arianism, spread throughout the East. From that +time for two centuries Catholics and Arians fought to see who should +have the supremacy in the church; the stronger party anathematized, +exiled, imprisoned, and sometimes killed the chiefs of the opposition. +For a long time the Arians had the advantage; several emperors took +sides with them; then, too, as the barbarians entered the empire, they +were converted to Arianism and received Arian bishops. More than two +centuries had passed before the Catholics had overcome this heresy. + +=Paganism.=--The ancient religion of the Gentiles did not disappear at +a single stroke. The Orient was quickly converted; but in the Occident +there were few Christians outside the cities, and even there many +continued to worship idols. The first Christian emperors did not wish +to break with the ancient imperial religion; they simultaneously +protected the bishops of the Christians and the priests of the gods; +they presided over councils and yet remained pontifex maximus. One of +them, Julian (surnamed the Apostate), openly returned to the ancient +religion. The emperor Gratian in 384[178] was the first to refuse the +insignia of the pontifex maximus. But as intolerance was general in +this century, as soon as the Roman religion ceased to be official, men +began to persecute it. The sacred fire of Rome that had burned for +eleven centuries was extinguished, the Vestals were removed, the +Olympian games were celebrated for the last time in 394. Then the +monks of Egypt issued from their deserts to destroy the altars of the +false gods and to establish relics in the temples of Anubis and +Serapis. Marcellus, a bishop of Syria, at the head of a band of +soldiers and gladiators sacked the temple of Jupiter at Aparnaea and +set himself to scour the country for the destruction of the +sanctuaries; he was killed by the peasants and raised by the church to +the honor of a saint. + +Soon idolatry persisted only in the rural districts where it escaped +detection; the idolaters were peasants who continued to adore sacred +trees and fountains and to assemble in proscribed sanctuaries.[179] +The Christians commenced to call "pagans" (the peasants) those whom up +to this time they had called Gentiles. And this name has still clung +to them. Paganism thus led an obscure existence in Italy, in Gaul, and +in Spain down to the end of the sixth century. + +=Theodosius.=--The incursions of the Germanic peoples into the empire +continued for two centuries until the Huns, a people of Tartar +horsemen, came from the steppes of Asia, and threw themselves on the +Germans, who occupied the country to the north of the Danube. In that +country there was already a great German kingdom, that of the Goths, +who had been converted to Christianity by Ulfilas, an Arian. To escape +the Huns, a part of this people, the West Goths (Visigoths), fled into +Roman territory, defeated the Roman armies, and overspread the country +even to Greece. Valens, the emperor of the East, had perished in the +defeat of Adrianople (378); Gratian, the emperor of the West, took as +colleague a noble Spaniard, Theodosius by name, and gave him the title +of Augustus of the East (379). Theodosius was able to rehabilitate his +army by avoiding a great battle with the Visigoths and by making a war +of skirmishes against them; this decided them to conclude a treaty. +They accepted service under the empire, land was given them in the +country to the south of the Danube, and they were charged with +preventing the enemies of the empire from crossing the river. + +Theodosius, having reestablished peace in the East, came to the West +where Gratian had been killed by order of the usurper Maximus (383). +This Maximus was the commander of the Roman army of Britain; he had +crossed into Gaul with his army, abandoning the Roman provinces of +Britain to the ravages of the highland Scotch, had defeated Gratian, +and invaded Italy. He was master of the West, Theodosius of the East. +The contest between them was not only one between persons; it was a +battle between two religions: Theodosius was Catholic and had +assembled a council at Constantinople to condemn the heresy of Arius +(381); Maximus was ill-disposed toward the church. The engagement +occurred on the banks of the Save; Maximus was defeated, taken, and +executed. + +Theodosius established Valentinian II, the son of Gratian, in the West +and then returned to the East. But Arbogast, a barbarian Frank, the +general of the troops of Valentinian, had the latter killed, and +without venturing to proclaim himself emperor since he was not a +Roman, had his Roman secretary Eugenius made emperor. This was a +religious war: Arbogast had taken the side of the pagans; Theodosius, +the victor, had Eugenius executed and himself remained the sole +emperor. His victory was that of the Catholic church. + +In 391 the emperor Theodosius promulgated the Edict of Milan. It +prohibited the practice of the ancient religion; whoever offered a +sacrifice, adored an idol, or entered a temple should be condemned to +death as a state criminal, and his goods should be confiscated to the +profit of the informer. All the pagan temples were razed to the ground +or converted into Christian churches. And so Theodosius was extolled +by ecclesiastical writers as the model for emperors. + +Theodosius gave a rare example of submission to the church. The +inhabitants of Thessalonica had risen in riot, had killed their +governor, and overthrown the statues of the emperor. Theodosius in +irritation ordered the people to be massacred; 7,000 persons suffered +death. When the emperor presented himself some time after to enter the +cathedral of Milan, Ambrose, the bishop, charged him with his crime +before all the people, and declared that he could not give entrance +to the church to a man defiled with so many murders. Theodosius +confessed his sin, accepted the public penance which the bishop +imposed upon him, and for eight months remained at the door of the +church. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[168] Of the forty-five emperors from the first to the third century, +twenty-nine died by assassination. + +[169] Other considerations also led to the change of capital--ED. + +[170] There were often two emperors, one in the East, the other in the +West, but there was but one empire. The two emperors, though they may +have resided, one in Constantinople and the other in Italy, were +considered as being but one person. In addressing one of them the word +"you" (in the plural) was used, as if both were addressed at the same +time. This was the first use of the pronoun of the second person in the +plural for such a purpose; for throughout antiquity even kings and +emperors were addressed in the singular. + +[171] The number under Diocletian was 101; under Constantine (Bury's +Gibbon, ii., 170), 116.--ED. + +[172] Without counting the ancient titles of consul and praeter, which +were still preserved, and the new title of patrician which was given by +special favor. + +[173] Of inferior rank. + +[174] We know the whole system by an official almanac of about the year +419, entitled Notitia Dignitatum, a list of all the civil and military +dignities and powers in the East and West. Each dignitary has a special +section preceded by an emblem which represents his honors. + +[175] It met in 325.--ED. + +[176] It is to be noted that the author is speaking of ecumenical or +world councils. The three referred to are Constantinople (381), Ephesus +(431), and Chalcedon (451).--ED. + +[177] Today, even, the word "canonical" signifies "in accordance with +rule." + +[178] Probably 375; Gratian died in 383.--ED. + +[179] Several saints, like St. Marcellus, found martyrdom at the hands +of peasants exasperated at the destruction of their idols. + + + + +APPENDIX + +REFERENCES FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING + + +PREHISTORIC TIMES + +Lubbock: Prehistoric Times. 1878. +Lubbock: Origin of Civilisation. 1881. +Hoernes: Primitive Man. Temple Primers. 1901. +Lyell: Antiquity of Man. London: 1863. +Keary: Dawn of History. +Tylor: Anthropology. 1881. +McLennan: Studies in Ancient History. 1886. +Ripley: Races of Europe. 1899. +Sergi: The Mediterranean Race. 1901. +Maine: Ancient Law. 1883. +Mason: Woman's Share in Primitive Culture. 1894. + +GENERAL WORKS OF REFERENCE-- + Ploetz: Epitome of Universal History. 1883. + Ranke: Universal History, edited by Prothero. 1885. + Andrews: Institutes of General History. 1887. + Haydn: Dictionary of Dates. 1889. + Lamed: History for Ready Reference. + +ATLASES-- + Spruner-Sieglin: Atlas Antiquus. + Kiepert: Atlas Antiquus. Leach. + Putzger: Historischer Schul-atlas. 1902. + Droysen: Allgemeiner Historischer Hand-atlas. Leipsic, 1885. + Freeman: Historical Geography of Europe. Edited by Bury. 1903. + Schrader: Atlas de Geographique Historique. + +GENERAL HISTORIES OF THE EAST-- + Sayce: Ancient Empires of the East. 1885. + Lenormant and Chevallier: Ancient History of the East. 1875. + Duncker: History of Antiquity. 1877-82 + Rawlinson: Manual of Ancient History. 1871. + Clarke: Ten Great Religions. 1894. + Cunningham: Western Civilisation in Its Economic Aspects. 1898. + +EGYPT + +SOURCES-- + Records of the Past, 1888-92. Old Series, 1875-8. + Herodotus: Book II. Rawlinson's edition. 1897. + +LITERATURE-- + Rawlinson: Ancient Egypt. 1887. + Flinders-Petrie: History of Egypt. 1899. + Breasted: History of Egypt. 1905. + Erman: Life in Ancient Egypt. 1894. + Maspero: Dawn of Civilisation. 1896. + Maspero: Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria. 1892. + Wilkinson: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Ancient Egypt. 1882. + Flinders-Petrie: Egyptian Decorative Art. 1895. + + +BABYLON AND ASSYRIA + +SOURCES-- + Records of the Past. + +LITERATURE-- + Ragozin: Chaldea. 1886. + Ragozin: Assyria. 1887. + Sayce: Assyria: Its Princes, Priests, and People. 1890. + Sayce: Social Life among the Assyrians and Babylonians. 1893. + Sayce: Fresh Light from Ancient Monuments. 1883. + Sayce: Babylonians and Assyrians. 1889. + Goodspeed: History of the Babylonians and Assyrians. 1902. + Layard: Discoveries among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. 1875. + Maspero: Dawn of Civilisation. 1896. + Maspero: Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria. 1892. + Maspero: Struggle of the Nations. 1897. + Maspero: Passing of the Empires. 1899. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Chaldea and Assyria. 1884. + + +INDIA + +SOURCES-- + Sacred Books of the East. + +LITERATURE-- + Wheeler: Primer of Indian History. 1890. + Smith, V.A.: Early History of India. 1904. + Ragozin: Vedic India. 1895. + Davids: Buddhist India. 1903. + Rhys-Davids: Buddhism. 1899. + Lane-Poole: Mediaeval India under Mohammedan Rule. 1903. + Monier-Williams: Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism. 1889. + Monier-Williams: Indian Wisdom. London: 1875-6. + Frazer: Literary History of India. 1898. + Maine: Early History of Institutions. 1875. + + +PERSIA + +SOURCES-- + Records of the Past. + Herodotus. + Church: Stories of the East (from Herodotus). 1883. + +LITERATURE-- + Benjamin: Persia. 1887. + Markham: General Sketch of the History of Persia. 1874. + Vaux: Persia from the Monuments. 1878. + Jackson: Zoroaster, Prophet of Ancient Iran. 1899. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Persia, Phrygia, etc. 1895. + + +THE PHOENICIANS + +SOURCES-- + The Old Testament. + Voyage of Hanno, translated by Falconer. + +LITERATURE-- + Rawlinson: Phoenicia. 1889. + Maspero: Struggle of the Nations. 1897. + Paton: Early History of Syria and Palestine. 1901. + Taylor: The Alphabet. 1899. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Phoenicia and Cyprus. 1885. + + +THE HEBREWS + +SOURCES-- + The Old Testament. + The Talmud. + Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews; Wars of the Jews; Whiston's + translation. 1825. New edition of Whiston by Shilleto. 1889-90 + +LITERATURE-- + Hosmer: The Jews. 1885. + Sayce: Early History of the Hebrews. 1897. + Kent: History of the Hebrew People. 1899. + Kent: History of the Jewish People. 1899. + Milman: History of the Jews. 1870. + Stanley: History of the Jewish Church. 1884. + McCurdy: History, Prophecy, and the Monuments. 1901. 3 V. + Graetz: History of the Jews. 1891-98. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Sardinia, Judea, Syria, and + Asia Minor. 1890. + Day: Social Life of the Hebrews. 1901. + Rosenau: Jewish Ceremonial Institutions and Customs. Baltimore. 1903. + Leroy-Boileau: Israel among the Nations; translated by Hellman. 1900. + Cheyne: Jewish Religious Life after the Exile. 1898. + + +GREECE + +GENERAL HISTORIES-- + Grote: History of Greece. 1851-6. + Holm: History of Greece. 1894-8. + Duruy: History of Greece. 1890-2. + Abbott: History of Greece. 1888-99. + One volume histories of Greece are: Bury. 1903; Oman 1901; Botsford. + 1899; Myers. 1895; Cox, 1883. + +GREEK ANTIQUITIES-- + Smith: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. 1890-1 2 v. + Gardner and Jevons: Manual of Greek Antiquities. 1895. + Schoemann: The Antiquities of Greece. London, 1880. A new and improved + edition in the German. + Harpers' Classical Literature and Antiquities. 1896. + +GREEK HISTORICAL SOURCES (translated into English)-- + Homer: Iliad. Translated by Lang, Leaf, and Myers. + Homer: Odyssey. Translated by Butcher and Lang. + Herodotus: Translated by Rawlinson. + Text of same with abridged notes. 1897. + Herodotus: Translated by Macaulay. + Thucydides: Translated by Jowett. + Xenophon: Dakyns' edition. 1890-7. + Demosthenes: Works translated by Kennedy. + Arrian: Translated in Bonn Library. + Pausanias: Description of Greece. Frazer's edition. + Polybius: Shuckburgh's edition. 1889. + Plutarch: Lives. Translated by Stewart and Long. 4 v., 1880. + Plutarch: Lives. North's translation. + +PERIODS OF GREEK HISTORY-- + Tsountas-Manatt: Mycenaean Age. 1896. + Ridgeway: The Early Age in Greece. 1901. + Freeman: Studies of Travel: Greece. 1893. + Clerke: Familiar Studies in Homer. 1892. + Jebb: Introduction to Homer. 1887. + Allcroft and Mason: Early Grecian History. 1898. + Benjamin: Troy. 1880. + Allcroft and Mason: Making of Athens. 1898. + Cox: Greeks and Persians. 1876. + Grundy: The Great Persian War. 1901. + Cox: Athenian Empire. 1877. + Lloyd: Age of Pericles. 1875. + Abbott: Pericles. 1895. + Grant: Greece in the Age of Pericles. 1893. + Allcroft and Mason: Peloponnesian War. 1898. + Freeman: Sicily. 1892. + Allcroft and Mason: Sparta and Thebes. 1898. + Sankey: Spartan and Theban Supremacies. 1877. + Allcroft and Mason: Decline of Hellas. 1898. + Curteis: Rise of the Macedonian Empire. 1878. + Hogarth: Philip and Alexander. 1897. + Wheeler: Alexander the Great. 1900. + Mahaffy: Alexander's Empire. 1887. + Mahaffy: Problems in Greek History. 1892. + Bevan: House of Seleucus. 1902. + Mahaffy: Empire of Egypt under the Ptolemies. 1899. + Mahaffy: Greek Life and Thought. 1887. + +GREEK POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT-- + Fowler: City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 1893. + Greenidge: Greek Constitutional History. 1896. + Schoemann: Antiquities of Greece. 1886. + Cox: Lives of Greek Statesmen. 1886. + Gilbert: Constitutional Antiquities of Athens and Sparta. 1895. + Botsford: Athenian Constitution. 1893 + Whibley: Greek Oligarchies. 1896. + Whibley: Political Parties in Athens in the Pelopponnesian War. 1889. + Freeman: History of Federal Government. 1863. + +SOCIAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS-- + Bluemner: Home Life of the Ancient Greeks. 1893. + Mahaffy: Social Life in Greece. 1887. + Mahaffy: A Survey of Greek Civilisation. 1899. + Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans. 1877. + Becker: Charicles. + Cunningham: Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects 1898. + Davidson: Education of the Greek People. 1894. + Mahaffy: Old Greek Education. 1882. + +HISTORIES OF GREEK LITERATURE-- + Mahaffy: History of Classical Greek Literature. 1880. + Murray: Ancient Greek Literature. 1897. + Jevons: History of Greek Literature. 1886. + Jebb: Primer of Greek Literature. 1878. + Jebb: Classical Greek Poetry. + Symonds: The Greek Poets. + Jebb: The Attic Orators. 1876. + Pater: Greek Studies. 1895. + +HISTORIES OF ART-- + Reber: History of Ancient Art. 1882. + Luebke: Outlines of the History of Art. 1881. + Perrot and Chipiez: History of Art in Primitive Greece. 1895. + Tarbell: History of Greek Art. 1896. + Fergusson: History of Architecture. 1875. + Gardner: Handbook of Greek Sculpture. 1896-7. + Harrison and Verall: Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens. 1894. + Harrison: Introductory Studies in Greek Art. 1892. + Gardner: Ancient Athens. 1902. + +GREEK ARCHAEOLOGY-- + Collignon: Manual of Greek Archaeology. 1886. + Murray: Handbook of Greek Archaeology. 1892. + Schuckardt: Schliemann's Excavations. 1891. + Diehl: Excursions in Greece. 1893. + Gardner: New Chapters in Greek History. 1892. + +GREEK PHILOSOPHY-- + Mayor: Sketch of Ancient Philosophy. 1881. + Marshall: Short History of Greek Philosophy. 1891. + Plato: Translated by Jowett. + Aristotle: Translated in Bohn's Library. + Zeller: Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. 1890. + +GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY-- + Gayley: Classic Myths. 1893. + Guerber: Myths of Greece and Rome. 1893. + + +ROME + +GENERAL HISTORIES-- + Mommsen: History of Rome. + Ihne: History of Rome. 1871-82. + Duruy: History of Rome. 1884-5. + Long: Decline of the Roman Republic. 1864-74. + Greenidge: History of Rome during the Latin Republic. 1904. + Shuckburgh: History of Rome. 1894. + How and Leigh: History of Rome. 1896. + Pelham: Outlines of Roman History. 1893. + Botsford: History of Rome. 1903. + Merivale: History of the Romans under the Empire. 1875. + Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Bury's edition. + +SOURCES OF ROMAN HISTORY (translated into English)-- + Livy: History and Epitome, translated by Spillan. 1887-90. + Polybius: Histories, translated by Shuckburgh. 1889. + Plutarch: Lives, translated by Stewart and Long. 1880. + Appian: Roman History, translated by White. 1899. + Sallust, Florus, and Velleius Paterculus, translated by Watson. 1887. + Cicero: Orations, translated by Yonge. 1851-2. + Cicero: Letters, translated by Shuckburgh. 1899. + Caesar: Gallic War and Civil War. + Justin, Nepos, and Eutropius, translated by Watson. + Suetonius: Lives of the Twelve Caesars, translated by Thomas Forester. + 1898. + Tacitus: Annals, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1895. + Tacitus: History, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1894. + Tacitus: Germania, translated by Church and Brodribb. 1893. + Josephus: Antiquities and Wars of the Jews, translated by + Whiston-Shilleto. 1889-90. + Pliny the Younger: Letters, translated by Melmoth. + Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, translated by Long. + Ammianus Marcellinus: Roman History, translated by Yonge. 1894. + Julian the Emperor: Works, translated by King. 1888. + Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History and Life of Constantine translated + by McGiffert. 1890. + Jerome: Works. + Augustine: Works. + Munro: Source Book of Roman History. 1904. + Greenidge and Clay: Sources for Roman History B.C. 133-70. 1903. + Gwatkin: Selections from Early Christian Writers. 1893. + +PERIODS OF ROMAN HISTORY-- + Ihne: Early Rome. 1893. + Allcroft and Mason: Struggle for Empire. 1893 + Church: Carthage. 1886. + Smith: Carthage and the Carthaginians. 1890. + Smith: Rome and Carthage. 1891. + Arnold: Second Punic War. 1849. + Dodge: Life of Hannibal. 1891. + Morris: Hannibal. 1897. + How: Hannibal and the Great War between Rome and Carthage. 1899. + Allcroft and Mason: Rome under the Oligarchs. 1893. + Beesly: Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla. 1893. + Allcroft and Mason: Decline of the Oligarchy. 1893. + Oman: Seven Roman Statesmen. 1902. + Beesly: Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius. 1898. + Strachan-Davidson: Cicero. 1894. + Forsyth: Life of Cicero. 1877. + Boissier: Cicero and His Friends. 1897. + Froude: Caesar. 1879. + Dodge: Caesar. 1892. + Fowler: Caesar. 1892. + Merivale: The Roman Triumvirates. 1877. + Holmes: Caesar's Conquest of Gaul. 1899. + Mahaffy: Greek World under Roman Sway. 1890. + Bossier: Roman Africa. 1899. + Bossier: Rome and Pompeii. 1896. + Hall: The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhone. 1898. + Bury: (Students') Roman Empire. 1893. + Capes: Early Roman Empire. 1886. + Mommsen: Provinces of the Roman Empire. 1887. + Firth: Augustus Caesar. 1903. + Shuckburgh: Augustus. 1903. + Tarver: Tiberius the Tyrant. 1902. + Dill: Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. 1904. + Gregorovius: The Emperor Hadrian. 1898. + Bryant: Reign of Antoninus. 1896. + Capes: Age of the Antonines. 1887. + Watson: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 1884. + Firth: Constantine the Great. 1905. + Negri: Julian the Apostate. 1905. + Gardner: Julian. 1895. + Glover: Life and Letters in the Fourth Century. 1901. + Dill: Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. 1899. + Kingsley: Roman and Teuton. 1889. + Hodgkin: Dynasty of Theodosius. 1889. + Villari: Barbarian Invasions of Italy. 1902. + Hodgkin: Italy and Her Invaders, 1892-9. + Sheppard: Fall of Rome. 1861. + Bury: Later Roman Empire. 1889. + Oman: Byzantine Empire. 1892. + +ROMAN ANTIQUITIES-- + Ramsay-Lanciani: Manual of Roman Antiquities. 1895. + Smith: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Murray. 1890-1. + Sayffert: Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, edited by Nettleship + and Sandys. 1895. + Schreiber: Atlas of Classical Antiquities. 1895. + +ROMAN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT-- + Fowler: City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 1895. + Taylor: Constitutional and Political History of Rome. 1899. + Greenidge: Roman Public Life. 1901. + Abbott: Roman Political Institutions. 1901. + Arnold: Roman Provincial Administration. 1879. + Mommsen: Provinces of the Roman Empire. 1887. + Seely: Roman Imperialism. 1871. + +SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ROMANS-- + Guhl and Koner: Life of the Greeks and Romans. 1889. + Church: Roman Life in the Days of Cicero. 1883. + Fowler: Roman Festivals. 1899. + Ingram: History of Slavery. 1895. + Rydberg: Roman Days. 1879. + Thomas: Roman Life under the Caesars. 1899. + Johnston: Private Life of the Romans. 1903. + Inge: Society in Rome under the Caesars. 1888. + Pellison: Roman Life in Pliny's Time. 1896. + Lecky: History of European Morals. 1869. + +ROMAN LITERATURE-- + Mackail: Latin Literature. 1898. + Cruttwell: History of Roman Literature. 1878. + Simcox: History of Latin Literature. 1883. + Teuffel-Schwabe: History of Roman Literature. 1891. + Tyrrell: Latin Poetry. 1895. + Sellar: Roman Poets of the Republic. 1881. + Sellar: Roman Poets of the Augustan Age. 1877. + +ROMAN ART-- + Reber: History of Ancient Art. 1882. + Burn: Roman Literature in Relation to Roman Art. 1890. + Wickoff: Roman Art. 1900. + Falke: Greece and Rome: Their Life and Art. 1885. + See under Greece for other histories of art. + +ROMAN LAW-- + Hadley: Introduction to Roman Law. 1876. + Morey: Outlines of Roman Law. 1893. + Muirhead: Historical Introduction to the Private Law of Rome. 1899. + Howe: Studies in the Civil Law. 1896. + +ROMAN ARCHAEOLOGY-- + Lanciani: Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries. 1888. + Lanciani: Pagan and Christian Rome. 1896. + Lanciani: Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, 1897. + Lanciani: Destruction of Ancient Rome. 1899. + Mau: Pompeii, translated by Kelsey. 1899. + Plainer: Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome. 1904. + Lovell: Stories in Stone upon the Roman Forum. 1902. + Burton-Brown: Recent Excavations in the Roman Forum. 1905. + +CHRISTIANITY-- + General Church Histories: + Moeller: History of the Christian Church. 1898-1900. + Gieseler: Church History. 1857-79. + Neander: History of the Christian Religion and Church. 1853-4. + Schaff: History of the Christian Church. 1884-92. + Alzog: Manual of Universal Church History. 1874-8. + Kurtz: Church History. 1860. + Milman: History of Christianity. + Milman: Latin Christianity. 1881. + Allen: Outline of Christian History. 1886. + Allen: Christian Institutions. 1897. + Fisher: History of the Christian Church. 1887. + + The Early Church: + Pressense: Early Years of Christianity. 1873. + Fisher: Beginnings of Christianity. 1877. + Carr: Church and the Roman Empire. 1902. + Spence: Early Christianity and Paganism. 1902. + Ramsay: Church in the Roman Empire before 170. 1893. + Gregg: Decian Persecution. 1898. + Healy: The Valerian Persecution. 1905. + Mason: Persecution of Diocletian. 1876. + Renan: Influence of the Institutions, Thought, and Culture of Rome + on Christianity. 1898. + Hardy: Studies in Roman History. 1906. + Uhlhorn: Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism. 1879. + Newman: Arians of the Fourth Century. 1888. + Gwatkin: Arian Controversy 1889. + Cutts: St. Augustine. 1881. + Stanley: Eastern Church. 1884. + Smith-Wace: Dictionary of Christian Biography. 1877-87. + +COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + + +Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. 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