Ancient States and Empires For Colleges and Schools

(M489) The great and disastrous war between the two leading States of Greece broke out about two years and a half before the death of Pericles, but the causes of the war can be...

After the death of Constantine, the decline was rapid, and new dangers multiplied. Warlike emperors had staved off the barbarians, and done all that man could do to avert ruin....

We come now to the most important and interesting of Grecian history—the great contest with Persia—the age of heroes and of battle-fields, when military glory was the master pas...

We have alluded to the centralization of political power in the person of Octavius. He simply retained all the great offices of State, and ruled, not so much by a new title, as...

(M726) We come now to consider briefly the career of Alexander, the son of Philip—the most successful, fortunate, and brilliant hero of antiquity. I do not admire either his cha...

(M1102) Able or virtuous princes had now ruled the Roman world, with a few exceptions, from Julius Cæsar to Commodus, a period of more than two hundred years. Among these were s...

We have already seen how the Athenian fleet was destroyed at the siege of Syracuse, where Nicias and Demosthenes were so lamentably defeated, which defeat resulted in the humili...

(M315) The Greeks possessed no authentic written history of that period which included the first appearance of the Hellenes in Thessaly to the first Olympiad, B.C. 776. This is...

(M219) We have seen how the ten tribes were carried captive to Assyria, on the fall of Samaria, by Shalmanezer, B.C., 721. From that time history loses sight of the ten tribes,...

(M356) The most important of these was Sparta, which was the leading State. We have seen how it was conquered by Dorians, under Heraclic princes. Its first great historic name w...

(M122) We can not enter upon a detail of the conquests of David, the greatest warrior that his nation has produced. In successive campaigns, extending over thirty years, he redu...

(M620) After Sparta and Athens, no State of Greece arrived at pre-eminence, until the Macedonian empire arose, except Thebes, the capital of Bœotia; and the empire of this city...

(M456) With the defeat of the Persian armies, Athens and Sparta became, respectively, the leaders of two great parties in Greece. Athens advocated maritime interests and democra...

(M698) No one would have supposed, B.C. 400, that the destruction of Grecian liberties would come from Macedonia—a semi-barbarous kingdom which, during the ascendency of Sparta,...

The peace between the Carthaginians and Romans was a mere truce. Though it lasted twenty-one years, new sources of quarrel were accumulating, and forces were being prepared for...

(M255) The history of the Jews after the death of Herod is marked by the greatest event in human annals. In four years after he expired in agonies of pain and remorse, Jesus Chr...

On the death of Sulla, the Roman government was once more in the hands of the aristocracy, and for several years the consuls were elected from the great ruling families. But, in...

(M85) When Joseph was sold by the Midianites to Potiphar, Egypt was probably ruled by the Shepherd kings, who were called Pharaoh, like all the other kings, by the Jewish writer...

The assassination of Cæsar was not immediately followed with the convulsions which we should naturally expect. The people were weary of war, and sighed for repose, and, moreover...

(M281) We have seen that the Oriental-world, so favored by nature, so rich in fields, in flocks, and fruits, failed to realize the higher destiny of man. In spite of all the adv...

(M1010) The condition of Rome when Cæsar returned, crowned with glory, from his Gallic campaign, in which he had displayed the most consummate ability, was miserable enough. The...

In presenting the growth of that great power which gradually absorbed all other States and monarchies so as to form the largest empire ever known on earth, I shall omit a notice...

(M787) The Tarquins being expelled, political power fell into the hands of the patricians, under whose government the city slowly increased in wealth and population, but it was...

(M174) The third of the great Oriental monarchies brought in contact with the Jews was that of the Medes and Persians, which arose on the dissolution of the Assyrian and Babylon...

A new era in the history of Rome now commences, a period of glory and shame, when a great change took place in the internal structure of the State, now corrupted by the introduc...

(M36) We postpone the narrative of the settlements and empires which grew up on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile, the oldest monarchies, until we have contemplated the ea...

(M597) I have already shown that Sparta, after a battle with the Argives, B.C. 547, obtained the ascendency in the southern part of the Peloponnesus, and became the leading mili...

(M921) Rome was now the unrivaled mistress of the world. She had conquered all the civilized States around the Mediterranean, or had established a protectorate over them. She ha...

(M574) The Peloponnesian war being closed, a large body of Grecian soldiers were disbanded, but rendered venal and restless by the excitements and changes of the past thirty yea...

On the extinction of the Julian line, a new class of emperors succeeded, by whom the prosperity of the empire was greatly advanced. We have now to fall back on Niebuhr, Gibbon,...

A contest greater than with Pyrrhus and the Greek cities, more memorable in its incidents, and more important in its consequences, now awaited the Romans. This was with Carthage...

Octavius, now master of the world, is generally called Augustus Cæsar—the name he assumed. He was the first of that great line of potentates whom we call emperors. Let us, befor...

Scarcely was Rome left to recover from the exhaustion of the long and desperate war with Hannibal, before she was involved in a new war with Macedonia, which led to very importa...

(M65) The first country to which Moses refers, in connection with the Hebrew history, is Egypt. This favored land was the seat of one of the oldest monarchies of the world. Alth...

Early civilization. We understand by civilization the progress which nations have made in art, literature, material strength, social culture, and political institutions, by whic...

(M159) On a great plain, four hundred miles in length and one hundred miles in width, forming the valley of the Euphrates, bounded on the north by Mesopotamia, on the east by th...

The peace between Carthage and Rome, after the second Punic war, lasted fifty years, during which the Carthaginians gave the Romans no cause of complaint. Carthage, in the enjoy...

There reigned at this time in Pontus, the northeastern State of Asia Minor, bordered on the south by Cappadocia, on the east by Armenia, and the north by the Euxine, a powerful...

The fall of the Gracchi restored Rome to the rule of the oligarchy. The government of the Senate was resumed, and a war of prosecution was carried on against the followers of Gr...

(M201) Concerning the original inhabitants of Asia Minor our information is very scanty. The works of Strabo shed an indefinite light, and the author of the Iliad seems to have...

Hitherto, the Romans, after the expulsion of the kings, were involved in wars with their immediate neighbors, and exposed to great calamities. All they could do for one hundred...

(M1) The history of this world begins, according to the chronology of Archbishop Ussher, which is generally received as convenient rather than probable, in the year 4004 before...

The only survivors of the generation that had escaped from Egypt were Caleb and Joshua. All the rest had offended God by murmurings, rebellion, idolatries, and sundry offenses,...

Although the Roman domination now extended in some form or other over most of the countries around the Mediterranean, still several States remained to be subdued, in the East an...

(M25) When Noah and his family issued from the ark, they were blessed by God. They were promised a vast posterity, dominion over nature, and all animals for food, as well as the...

Great discontent had long existed among the Italian subjects of Rome. They were not only oppressed, but they enjoyed no political privileges. They did not belong to the class of...

This work is designed chiefly for educational purposes, since there is still felt the need of some book, which, within moderate limits, shall give a connected history of the anc...