CHAPTER I.

SECTION I.

THE DAWN OF HISTORY.

1. The early traditions of every nation that has undertaken to relate the story of its origin, have given us a confused account of supernatural persons and events which the judgment of more enlightened times has almost uniformly considered fabulous and impossible. It has always been an interesting inquiry how much of fact was veiled under this mythical dress, and a great variety of ingenious and contradictory explanations have been produced by the learned in all ages. In most cases, as in Greece, the national religion has been based on these legends which form its authority and explanation, and they passed with the people of all early times as facts which it was impious to question. So the wise and good Socrates was supposed to have denied the existence of the national gods, and was condemned to death. This sacred guard placed over early traditions, increased at once the interest and the difficulty involved in their examination.

2. During the present century the improved methods, larger range and more exact style of inquiry, and the assistance and hints which one branch of study has given to others, have produced the most surprising and satisfactory results. These inquiries are not yet complete; they seem, on the contrary, to have only commenced, and promise, ultimately, to satisfy all the useful purposes and legitimate curiosity of mankind; still, their conclusions, so far as they go, are unimpeachable. They prove themselves.

The study of Ethnology, which gives an account of the races of mankind; a critical comparison of all languages, ancient and modern; the patient study and ingenious deciphering of architecture and inscriptions found in ancient ruins, and various relics of human activity imbedded in the soil of different countries, have thrown down the barriers which the glowing imaginations of the poets and the want of authentic documents in early times had raised, and have given us a clue to many of the secrets of history, and a safe guide through some of the dark passages of man’s primitive life.

To show how this is done would require a treatise on Ethnology, another on Comparative Philology, a third on Antiquarian Research, and a fourth on the Geological Antiquities of Man. Each of these brings a large and valuable contribution to early history. We give only a brief summary of their conclusions.

3. The human race appears to have had its birth on the high table lands of central Asia, south and east of the Caspian Sea. The structure and growth of language, and the remains of early art, indicate an extremely infantile mental condition and successive emigrations from the primitive home of the race. Families and tribes which had remained together long enough to build up a common language and strong general features of character and habit, at length separated and formed a number of families of allied races.

4. The first emigrations were made by the Turanian nations, which scattered very widely. Turanian means “outside,” or “barbarian,” and was given by the later and better known races who found them, commonly in a very wild, undeveloped state, wherever they themselves wandered in after times. There are reasons for believing that the first Turanian migration was to _China_; that they were never afterward much interfered with, and that they early reached a high stage of civilization. It has certainly many very crude and primitive features. Having worked out all the progressive impulses dwelling in the primitive stock of their family almost before other races were heard of, and being undisturbed, their institutions stiffened and crystalized and made few improvements for thousands of years. Chinese history presents a curious problem not yet fully investigated.

Another stream of Turanian emigration is believed to have settled the more north-easterly portions of Asia. Some time after the tide set down through Farther India, and to the islands of Malaysia. In still later periods Hindoostan was peopled by Turanian races; the ancestors of the Mongols and Turks were spread over the vast plains of northern and central Asia; and somewhat later still an irruption into Europe furnished its primeval people. The Finns and Lapps in the north, and the Basques of Spain, are the living representatives of the ancient Turanian stock, while the Magyars, or Hungarians, are a modern branch of the same race, which made an irruption into Europe from Asia in the ninth century of the Christian era. The first appearance of this race in written history was in the establishment of a powerful empire at Babylon, which must have been cotemporary with the earliest Egyptian monarchy, and seems, from the inscriptions on the most ancient ruins, to have been conquered by, and mingled with, an Egyptian or Hamite family. It came to an end before the Assyrian Empire appeared, but seems to have reached a very considerable degree of development.

5. The other two great families of related languages, and therefore of common stock or race, are the Semitic and the Aryan. But previous to the appearance of either of these on this buried stage of history is a family, apparently related, distantly, to the Semites, but who might have separated from the common stock of both before them, called Hamites, who founded the very ancient and mysterious Egyptian monarchy. A section of this race conquered the Turanians of Babylon, and established the largest dominion then known to men. The Chedor-Laomer of Abraham’s day was one of its mightiest sovereigns, and ruled over a thickly-settled region a thousand miles in length by five hundred in breadth. Faint traces of it are found in profane history, and the Bible narrative is sustained and largely amplified by inscriptions on ancient ruins. A second Hamite empire in Babylon is believed to have followed this, continuing four hundred years, carrying agriculture and the peaceful arts to a high state of development.

6. Egypt was peopled by the Hamitic race, who founded two kingdoms, afterwards united. Here, social, political, and industrial institutions developed very early in great strength. Their language, the pictorial representation of their social, political, and religious affairs, and the grand and gloomy majesty of their works of art, imply a long period of growth before they reached the maturity in which we find them when written history commences. Their institutions, even in the earliest historic times, showed signs of the decrepitude and decay of age. The vastness and the grim maturity of their monuments and language seem to lend much support to their claim of an immense antiquity. The future study of their remains of art and literature will settle some important problems in the chronology of the human race. The children of Ham were clearly the first to lead off in the march of civilization.

The Semitic family, deriving its name from Shem, or Sem, the eldest son of Noah, is not as large nor as widely spread as the Turanian and Aryan, but has exerted an even greater influence on human destiny. It never strayed much from Asia, except to people small portions of Africa. They early appear in Western Asia as the successors of the second Hamitic empire in Babylon and Assyria. Settled in Phenicia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean sea, they became the first maritime and commercial people, and, with their colony established in Carthage, in the north of Africa, exerted a powerful influence in promoting the civilization of the ancient world. The Semites early peopled the Arabian peninsula, and established a state in Ethiopia, as some believe, before Egypt had attained its full development. The Ethiopians established a flourishing commerce on the Red Sea, with the eastern coasts of Africa, and with India, and contributed greatly to the resources of ancient Egypt.

They have always been a religious race, and gave the three great religions, Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, to the world, as well as some of the most debasing superstitions and forms of idolatry ever known. The larger part of the population of Asia is still Turanian, and the Semites now occupy about the same area as in prehistoric times; but the Hamites have been overpowered and have lost their clearly distinctive character as a family, unless represented by the negro tribes.

7. The third great family, the Aryan, called also the Japhetic, from Japhet, the third son of Noah, and from the regions they peopled and made illustrious by their genius and activity, the Indo-European, was the last to leave the birthplace of mankind. The other races were incapable of carrying the fortunes of humanity beyond a certain point, of themselves alone, as the history of Turanian China, Hamitic Egypt and the Semitic Mohammedans and Jews clearly proves. The history of the Aryans shows them to possess inexhaustible mental power and physical stamina, with a vigorous ambition, always dissatisfied with the present, and constantly seeking something better in the future and the distant, that have produced the happiest effect on the destinies of the human race.

8. It would seem that while the Turanians, Hamites, and Semites were taking the lead of the world and building up the empires of prehistoric times, whose mighty ruins have been the wonder of later ages, the Aryans were all united in following peaceful pursuits, which the common features of their languages indicate were chiefly the care of flocks and herds. They were much farther removed from barbarism than any of the other races when they began their wanderings. Warlike, agricultural and nautical terms, and the names of wild animals are not often found in the common vocabulary; while family relations, domestic animals and their uses, the heavenly bodies in connection with worship and the priestly relation of the father of the family, and terms indicating a considerable cultivation of sensibility and thoughtfulness, imply a purer social and religious condition, and more elevated mental traits, than in the primitive forefathers of the other families. Their language was highly picturesque, and its peculiar terms for natural phenomena are believed by some to have originated the mythological histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans and Teutonic nations. The ancient language used epithets and names, so glowing with personality, that the imaginative descendants of the primitive stock, when their early history was forgotten, believed them to contain an account of the origin of things, and the early deeds of gods and heroes; and the genius of the poets clothed the supposed marvels in the immortal dress of fiction which we find in Homer and Hesiod, in Virgil, the Indian Vedas, and the Sagas and Scalds of northern Europe. This, at least, is the conclusion reached by some of the most eminent scholars and philologists, whose study of the formation and growth of languages has thrown so much light on the ante-historical periods. These myths, the germs of which were embodied in their language, embellished by the supposed inspired genius of the poets, formed the literature and theology of the early historic nations, and were received as undisputed truth.

9. The first migration of the Aryan family appears to have occurred through the passes of the Caucasus, northwest to the northern part of Asia Minor and Southern Europe. The Turanian nations, or “barbarians,” were everywhere found in advance of them, in a very degraded condition, and the native spirit and ambition of the Aryan people rendered them the uniform conquerors. Afterward, another migration southward peopled India, and, in the earliest historic times, the part of the family still remaining in the ancient home of the race established the brilliant empire of the Medes and Persians, who extended their sway over all the central and western parts of Asia, broke down the ancient monarchy of Egypt, and, in the height of their power and glory, swept like a tempest into Europe with the purpose of subjugating a few self-governing tribes of their own race dwelling on the shores and among the mountains of the small peninsula of Greece. The failure of the mighty empire in this effort, through the indomitable resolution of a handful of hardy republicans, forms one of the most glorious pages of history. It was a grand era in the development of civilization, and Grecian culture became the inheritance of the world.

SECTION II.

THE DIRECTION OF PRE-HISTORIC GROWTH.

1. The three classes of indications on which we rely for a knowledge of the advance of mankind previous to the period when authentic history comes to our aid—the researches of geologists among the accidental traces of man’s early activities, the ruins of ancient cities, and the study of the growth of language—unite in testifying to an extremely rude, feeble and childish condition of the earliest representatives of the race, and to a progressive improvement in knowledge and capacity, precisely like what occurs in the case of every individual of our kind. A fourth more general observation also confirms this view. This is the obscurity that covers the early ages. Aside from the Bible narrative, a cloud rests on the early history of every people. A long period passes before they begin to reflect, to look around and back toward their origin, and still another of groping thought and study before they are led to record their reflections and experiences. The necessities and habit of social intercourse give rise to language and gradually mature it; a long period would necessarily pass before the natural aversion to other than desultory labor, the increase of population and the habit of obedience to an authority requiring continued painful toil, would render the massive monuments of some of the earlier peoples possible, and before their attempts at architecture could mature and originate the elaborate ruins which time has not been able to destroy during so many centuries.

2. One of the most striking traits of pre-historic times is the simplicity and awkwardness that characterize childhood. The Chinese language has been remarked upon as showing the extremely infantile cast of mind among the people who formed and retained it to our times. Each word is a sentence, standing by itself originally; the tone and gesture give it much of its signification. It would seem as if its authors had never grown to the idea of an elaborated sentence. There is an average of eight words, spelled and pronounced exactly alike, for every sound used. There are, it is said, 212 characters pronounced _che_; 138 pronounced _foo_; and 1165 which all read _e_, and each letter is a word, a phrase and a sentence, and may be an adjective, a noun, or a verb, or all three together. The difficulty of expressing shades of meaning, or all that may be in the thought, where so much must be acquired before expression is possible, has kept the Chinese mind, in many respects, in a state of childhood, though they have preserved a stability of character and institutions nowhere else observed. The primitive mind and habits are maintained as if crystalized. The principle of decay, so universal elsewhere, would seem, by some singular process, banished from a vast nation, as it is in the human body in Egyptian mummies. The same feature is observable in a smaller degree among the Hindoos, and seems to have characterized the ancient Egyptians.

3. Such a habit of fixity among the early races, whose position secured them from disturbance by the more restless tribes, was favorable to the construction of the stupendous monuments which have been the wonder of after ages. All those races have been remarkably exclusive. It was not until nearly four hundred years after the era of authentic history that Egypt was freely open to all the Greeks. These observations apply only to those portions of the human family which were stranded in some quiet nook outside of the current of movement that carried along the most of mankind. Change of place, intercourse, conflict and conquest were the chief early educators. The isolated nations, after exhausting the power of their first impulses, ceased to improve. Their minds, institutions and habits stiffened and petrified. Nor did the families that wandered far from the general centre of movement usually acquire any high degree of development. They were characterized by unsettled habits; not favorable to highly organized institutions.

4. It was around, and westward of, the common centre of the race that a course of steady improvement went on. Here the laws of inheritance and suggestion, the stimulus of constant friction, and the infusion of newer and more enterprising blood worked the freest and developed the elements of a true civilization the soonest. If the legendary history of Greece is not to be trusted in its details, it at least establishes the certainty of active movement and incessant conflict out of which was, at length, evolved a noble, if incomplete, civilization. The Greeks were near enough to the scene of stirring action in Western Asia to be benefited by its influence without having their institutions frequently disturbed and broken up before they had reached any degree of maturity, as was the case with the Assyrians, Persians and Phenicians. They reaped the fruit, without sharing the disasters, of the great surgings back and forward which we find to have been the condition of the Asiatic peoples at the time reliable history begins to observe them. It appears to have been the same in that region (Western Asia) as far back as monument, legend, or science can trace. The fruit of this shock of races and mental activity matured on the spot the greatest and best religious systems the world has ever known, the three greatest of which have survived to our own day, viz.: the Judaic, the Christian and the Mohammedan. The germs of the other two were contained in the system of Abraham and Moses. Thus the three most important influences needed for the progress of civilization in the true direction were supplied in pre-historic times—the seething and surging of the nations in the West of Asia, a high religious ideal, and the primary discipline of the Greeks.

5. The lantern of science has guided us on the Track of Time by his advancing Footprints down to the period when the grand luminary, Written History, begins to shine from the hills of Greece. Looking over what was then known of Asia we find it a vast battlefield, on the western border of which were the Jews, receiving lessons of instruction or chastisement from the surrounding nations, and slowly evolving the Master Religion of the world, the massive grandeur of Egypt is dimly visible in the south, and on the eastern horizon rise the immense walls and towers of the huge cities of Nineveh and Babylon. On the north and west all is darkness, though we subsequently learn that the elements of a high culture among the Etrurians of Italy were waiting their destruction at the hands of valiant Rome, yet to be. The Phenicians were beginning to scour the sea and to build up a flourishing commerce, and the cities of Greece had already learned, from the tyranny of their petty kings, the advantages of free government.

The period of authentic history is held to have commenced seven hundred and seventy-six years before the Christian era. In that year the Greeks began to record the name of the conqueror in the Olympian games—a national and religious festival, which had been commenced long before—and it was called the First Olympiad. It formed the first definite starting point of the true and fairly reliable historians who, some four hundred years later, began to write a carefully-studied account of what was known of their own and of other countries. It was the time when dates of passing events first began to be stated in the records of the cities and kingdoms of Greece, and marks the beginning of a real civilization and culture, and the course of events began to be rescued from the magnifying and marvel-loving imaginations of the people.

6. The seven hundred and fifty years that follow are in the highest degree interesting and important; for they record the achievements of the early manhood of humanity, as represented by the nations that were most advanced in civilization, or contributed to the general progress of the world. Men developed their inherent capacities far more during that period than in all the previous centuries, however numerous they may have been. It was followed by about five hundred years of gradual decline, and that by a thousand years of confusion caused by the corruption of the old society and the imperfection of its elements, together with the irruption of vast hordes of barbarians, who brought in fresh and vigorous, but untamed blood, with rude and fierce manners. They were gradually tamed by fusion with the cultured races, and out of this union arose a civilization broader and more just, toward the perfection of which we ourselves are now rapidly advancing, and which, by its multiform vigor and unlimited resources, seems above the reach of decay. Its power of infusing new life into worn-out peoples and renewing the youth of nations as well as of civilizing barbarians appears irresistible.

From this outlook we return to consider the steps by which Time has led us to such a desirable eminence.

SECTION III.

THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF INSTITUTIONS.

1. Man, at first, had no institutions. He existed in the simplest and most spontaneous way, finding shelter in caves and clefts of the rocks and beneath the primeval forests, groping his way by strong instincts which soon began to dawn into intelligence of the lowest and most material kind. How long he led a purely _animal_ life we have no means of knowing; but we may suppose that the necessities of self-preservation and his powerful social instincts very soon developed the germs of the family and of language.

Childhood is comparatively long, and many generations must have passed before language could have acquired the distinctness and fixity that permitted it to come down through so long a period, and by so many different channels, to us. Yet there is plain evidence of an Eastern origin of all the various families of the race, and of a considerable mental development previous to the wanderings that peopled the East, the West, and the South. It has been remarked by Geologists that the introduction of any class of animal life was never made by its very _lowest_ orders, but usually by a class intermediate in organization between the highest and the lowest; some of the very lowest orders being represented in our own time.

2. A tolerably hardy race, which could endure the exposures and overcome the difficulties that must be greater for the first few generations than ever afterward, as we have every reason to believe, was first introduced. It has been common to suppose that man must have been supplied with a fund of knowledge, and a basis of language, to have successfully met the difficulties of his condition; but the uniform law that the _faculties_, the _innate capabilities_ of his race, are conferred on him, and that he works them out by a process of development is observable in his entire history, so far as we can trace it. All needful capacities being lodged in him, with strong appetites and instincts to impel him to the objects most vitally necessary to his own preservation and the continuance of his species, and the material from which to work out his predestined ends being placed within his reach, it is made his indispensable duty and his glory to realize those ends, soon or late, by his own endeavors. The evidences of his early activity, unearthed here and there by geologists, show him to have advanced by degrees from the lowest points, and such corroborative proof as the earliest forms of language afford are decidedly in the same direction.

3. Many of the terms employed for the first and most familiar objects with which the necessities of life brought him in contact, show the very imperfect extent of his early knowledge and resources, and they gradually change in a way to indicate, most significantly, a slow and laborious, but constant enlargement of ideas by experience. He advanced then, as now, by degrees. The races latest in development, as well as most vigorous and intelligent, were the Aryan, or Indo-European. They have left the most definite traces of their early condition and advancement in the common elements of their various languages, which show very clearly how much time and toil were required to work out the features of their first Institution—The Family. The proper family type established relations of protection and dependence, of care and trust, of purity and tenderness, of provident foresight, and the shelter and comforts of Home. Apparently it was many centuries after the other races had begun to migrate that this last and most valuable stock commenced to be “fruitful and multiply,” to tame animals for their use, to enclose and render their habitations comfortable, and to organize and designate their family relations down to son-in-law and daughter-in-law, as well as to name the most common domestic animals and occupations.

4. The fact doubtless existed long before common experience and common consent had settled on the terms that have remained the same in the language of the Hindoos, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Germanic families; but by many certain signs we know that it was only gradually that the tenderness and beauty and usefulness of this institution had laid the sure foundation of a future vigorous and virtuous civilization. This race devoted themselves mainly to the care of flocks and herds, though we find among them the knowledge of wheat and some other grains; they had very little experience of war until they separated and began their wanderings, as we infer from the fact that their common terms are nearly all peaceful—those designating a warlike habit differing in all the various branches of the stock.

The Family, with them, was usually founded on marriage—the union of one man and one woman—which laid great restraints on vice and preserved the growing society from manifold evils. The other races—Turanian, Hamitic and Semitic—appear to have been much more careless in this respect, and admitted a vicious element into the base of society, which loosened the bonds of relationship and discipline. They practiced polygamy, which magnified the position of the father, while it deprived him of the closer and more intimate relations to his household on which refinement depends, and degraded the mother who became the simple minister of pleasure to, and the means of increasing the influence of, the Patriarchal head. This point is very vividly shown in the earlier history of the Israelites where the unhappy effects of polygamy are distinctly portrayed. From the same source we see how the first institution among men gradually grew into the Tribe, and the foundations of Organized Government were laid.

5. Population rapidly increased, the original progenitor, or the oldest of his male descendants, became the fountain of authority and influence, and was, in many cases, the chief or king, exercising an undefined control, sometimes absolute and despotic, and again that of a merely nominal head, the variations taking every shade between the two. Occasionally, special gifts, as energy, foresight and skill, favored by circumstances, raised one in the tribe to eminence, and he became the acknowledged ruler to the exclusion of the patriarch, or hereditary heir of the patriarchal office, as in the case of Joseph in Egypt, and, in later times, Moses, Joshua and the Judges.

6. Again, a pastoral life being abandoned, the people gathered for various reasons in towns, and cities were built up, where the original style of government became impossible, from the mixed character of the population; the oldest, or family government, being founded on relationship and traditional respect. The need of leadership and the service rendered by some member of the community founded a despotic authority. In many cases a city was founded by an adventurer who had gathered supporters around him by some special ability, or by some accidental pre-eminence, as we see in Nimrod and Romulus; or, as often occurred, the head of a family or tribe which forsook the pastoral life and founded a city, from a patriarch or chieftain became a king.

Government, in early times, was very imperfectly organized. It gradually advanced with some people to a high point; while with others it continued in a very undeveloped state for long periods—some races never having reached any high stage at all, or only temporarily under some talented individual.

The first settled governments are found in fertile river valleys where the cultivation of the soil arrested roving and desultory habits, and often formed the nucleus of an empire. There is reason to believe that the first emigration from the early home of the race was toward the east, that a state was soon formed in China which became considerably civilized and fairly well organized the earliest of all. Their national traditions and some of their recorded dates claim a vast antiquity. It is not yet determined by scholars how much credit is to be allowed to these claims.

7. As it appears at present, two other governments were organized at nearly the same time, one in the lower valley of the Euphrates and the other on the Nile. It is also possible that a fourth was built up in India nearly cotemporary with these. Certain similarities between the ancient ruins of Egypt and India, and the traditions in the latter country have given rise to the suspicion; but no certainty has yet been reached. Several systems of chronology, independent of each other, are found in Egypt, all agreeing as to its enormous antiquity, but disagreeing in some important points, and satisfactory tests have not yet been met with, so that the early days of Egypt are very obscure. The evidences of a clearly defined progress are presented in its monuments, but the earliest bear so strong a resemblance to the later that there is some reason for supposing that the first inhabitants had reached a considerable degree of maturity before settling there. As yet, however, that point is only an inference—the most probable escape from a difficulty. The empires established on the Euphrates, and north of that on the Tigris, mark the steps of progress very distinctly, and furnish fairly satisfactory means of computing their general chronology.

8. In all these cases it appears from monuments, traditions, and from whatever information the records of the Bible and other histories give us, that when men began to gather in communities, cultivate the ground and build cities, their governments were controlled by kings. Despotic sovereignty was the natural and necessary instrument of government. The vigorous will of an admired chief concentrated the energies of the community, and a state was formed. The beginnings were very rude and improvement was slow, never reaching beyond the simple application of force as to the structure and modes of government. But another element, founded on the religious nature of mankind, which also had entered as an important influence into family government from the earliest times, became organized in the early days of monarchy, viz.:

THE INSTITUTION OF A PRIESTHOOD.

9. It would appear, from such traces of a religious tendency as are found in the primary languages, that the religious instinct was awakened by an observation of the forces of nature, which struck the mind with wonder, admiration, or terror. The mysteries of growth, the power of winds and storms and waters, the calm beauty, beneficence and brilliance of the sun, moon and stars riding undisturbed in the heavens, impressed man with a sense of something superior to himself. The moods of nature suggested some unknown being with a varying disposition like his own. His wants, his hopes and fears, and his sense of helplessness soon led him to seek to propitiate these unknown powers. The first religion, among all the primitive nations, seems to have been a worship of the powers of nature. The head of the family was naturally the first priest of the family. This office increased the respect in which he was held by his multiplying descendants, and contributed to strengthen his authority.

10. But when, in the organization of cities and states, patriarchal influence decayed, and was replaced by the authority of the chieftain or the king, a class of men was set apart to fill the office of religious instructors, to discover the art and conduct the acts of general worship. The great mystery and uncertainty surrounding the objects of worship, required exclusive study and a supposed purity and elevation of mind impossible to others which soon raised the priesthood into an institution much revered. It acquired great influence, and afforded an opening to ambition only inferior to that of the chief or king. The two commonly united for mutual support, and thus mankind gained two institutions destined to be of incalculable value, as well as of almost boundless injury. In the earlier ages they must have been an almost unmixed good. They disciplined, the one the labors, the other the minds, of communities. They were the two most powerful instruments for initiating progress. They moulded the mass, gave it form, and directed its energies.

To a certain degree they each formed a check on the excessive tendencies of the other. But, the power of each fairly established, they often united to set very hurtful limits to spontaneous action. The king used his power to the common injury, and the priests their knowledge to the common debasement. The first exhausted the sources of prosperity and growth among his people to gratify his caprices and pleasures, and the priesthood promoted degrading superstitions and a gross idolatry to strengthen their influence. It was for the interest of both to keep the people in pupilage, and check all tendencies to independent action or thought. Had it been possible for them to be wise and high-minded, the race would have been saved many centuries of debasement and misery.

11. These evils were, in some degree, checked by influences which have ever since been the mainspring of progress—_War_ and _Commerce_. In early times, relationships of blood or of immediate interest were the chief bonds among men. All outside the family, tribe, or nation were usually held as enemies; and passion, interest, or ambition in the ruler led to constant conflict. But the shock of peoples awakened their minds, made them acquainted with each other, made their inventions and arts in some degree common property, and mingled the thought and blood of different races; and this greatly enlarged the ideas and capacities of both conquerors and conquered. The acquaintance made in this way, with men and countries, led to an interchange of products, during quiet times, and trade and commerce soon sprung up. This, appealing to the best interests and instincts of the most enterprising among the people, has always been a powerful instrument of advancement. It led to distant voyages and travels, to observation and intercourse, with a view to pecuniary advantage, to inventions and improvements in industry and art, that kept the peoples so related in a state of constant progress.

12. A growing population required increasing attention to agriculture and the mechanic arts, and increasing wealth led to architectural display and the increase of instruments of luxury, the production of which disciplined the skill of the artisan and contributed to the general growth. All these were the elements and foundation of civilization. An organization commenced, and a state founded, the king soon found leisure to look about and envy the wealth and territories of his neighbor. He made war and commenced a career of conquest, or fell, under defeat, into his neighbor’s hand, when time took a step forward, and a new consolidation, wider and higher than the former, was laid on a broader base. Slowly but surely an advance was made.

13. We are now to observe this gradual development in the successive history of five monarchies in Asia and the kingdom of Egypt, down to the time when they all fell before the conquering power of Greece, under Alexander the Great, which introduces new and far higher elements of progress among the civilized races, and forms the full opening of a new Era.

SECTION IV.

ANCIENT MONARCHIES.

1. The Chaldean Monarchy was the first in order of time. It seems very likely that the first settlement which, in the slow development of the earliest races, finally produced an organized kingdom on the lower part of the Euphrates, was made somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 years before the Christian Era. It is, however, a matter of dispute between the best authorities whether it can be placed so far back. The monuments of that age are difficult to decipher, but it seems pretty certain that a Scythian or Turanian government preceded that which the traditions of ancient history, the statements of the Bible, and the indications of the ruins unite in placing at 2234 B. C. The founder appears as Nimrod, or Bilu-Nipur. Many indications render it fairly certain that the early formative stages of a kingdom had already passed, and that Nimrod merely changed the capital. The first people had learned to subdue their soil, had begun to build and to bring language and art to some degree of order, when it appears that a Hamitic race, more advanced than they, and showing strong likeness to the early Egyptians, mingled with them. In the first inscriptions the language is Turanian, but the character Hamitic, or Egyptian. So far as can be judged, the displacement was peaceful and gradual. About the time above named, a man of great genius, Nimrod, a Hamite, or Cushite, as he is termed in the Mosaic record, a “mighty hunter,” as his name implies, founded a kingdom farther up the Euphrates, and on the plain which lay between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris.

2. The existence of the first empire is dimly made out, and that is all. Nimrod had clearly a foundation to build on, and he made a great impression on his own times. After his death he was deified under the name of Bel, and became the favorite among the fifteen or sixteen principal deities of the early Chaldeans. These gods and goddesses seem to represent the heavenly bodies; while the earlier Turanian worship was a veneration of the powers of nature. Nimrod’s dynasty appears to have covered a period of about two hundred and fifty years, including the reigns of eleven kings. They made great advancement in draining the marshy valley and regulating the supply of moisture to the growing crops. They became expert in the manufacture of cloths and in building with bricks which are covered with inscriptions. The priesthood acquired a strong development at this time, as appears in the ruins and inscriptions of their temples. The kings do not appear to have been very warlike, or to have extended their dominion far.

3. A second Chaldean kingdom was founded about 1976 B. C. It is called Elam in the Bible, and furnishes the first known example of what was afterward so often seen in that region—an extensive kingdom formed by a series of rapid conquests, that fell to pieces again as soon as a vigorous hand failed to uphold it. The kingdom continued till about B. C. 1500. Kudur-Lagamer, the Chedor-Laomer of the Mosaic account, overran a territory one thousand miles in length by five hundred in width. In one of his incursions into Palestine his forces were defeated by Abraham, which ended a control over that region lasting twelve years. There is no indication that the following sovereigns exerted authority beyond Chaldea and Babylonia.

There, however, they grew rich and civilized, extending their commerce to India and Egypt, becoming famous and envied for their splendor and luxury. A single small dwelling house of that period has been preserved in the ruins of Chedor-Laomer’s capital “Ur of the Chaldees,” south of Babylon. It was built on a platform of dried bricks, the walls of great thickness, with two arched doors, and, apparently, lighted from the roof. The rooms were long and narrow. Iron was at that time unknown. All implements were of stone or bronze. Religion seemed to increase in its grossness, apparently under the policy of the priesthood, who laid the foundation of astronomical science and began to acquire the reputation for hidden knowledge for which they became famous in after centuries. Nothing of any importance is related of the kings of this monarchy except the one conqueror. Despotism and priestly craft kept most of the feeble tendencies to political improvement curbed—waiting for better times. That arrived with the advent of the _Assyrian Empire_, about B. C. 1500.

4. It appears that for a long time before, a family, or tribe, of Shemites had been settled in Chaldea, where they acquired its civilization and arts, and some time about B. C. 1600 emigrated north, settling on the river Tigris. They were a strong race, physically and mentally, quite too fierce and resolute to be held in leading-strings by the Chaldean priesthood. The country they occupied was higher and more varied, abundantly supplied with stone, which was wanting in Babylonia and Chaldea.

Here, in process of time, the most vigorous and progressive race that had yet been seen among the families of man, built up a succession of cities within a small circuit, each of which was, at different times, the capital, and which were all finally united and made the famous Nineveh of the Greek historians, and the immense “city of three days’ journey,” visited by the Jewish prophet, Jonah. Within a few years these ruins have been examined by competent men of science with great care, and have been found to confirm the Bible narrative, in all essential points, and most of the glowing descriptions of profane historians; while their higher style of art and greater vigor and pride of achievement led them to build monuments and engrave records that promise to make us very intimately acquainted with their social, political and moral life.

5. They seem to have acquired the habit in Chaldea of raising a vast elevated mound for their more important buildings. The largest mound is found to be nearly one hundred feet high, and to cover an area of one hundred acres, and on the summit of this were placed their temples and the palaces of their kings. This immense foundation, it is said, would require the labor of twenty thousand men for six years. After this were to be constructed their vast buildings, covered with sculptures and adorned with statues. Another mound, higher but embracing a smaller area—about forty acres—served the same purpose.

They were extremely religious in their way, but the vigor of the kings appears to have overshadowed the priesthood much more than in Chaldea. It seems to have been about three hundred years after the establishment of this enterprising stock in Assyria that they became famous for foreign conquest. Babylon had been gradually rising in importance, often in subjection, more or less nominal, to the growing northern power, but retaining its own kings and habits.

6. The reign of Shalmaneser I., about 1290 B. C., was distinguished by his building a new city and improving his kingdom; and his successor, in 1270, signalized his reign by establishing, for a time, a complete sovereignty over Babylon, and the historical Assyrian empire is commonly dated from that event. For a century and a half there are few important records. Tiglath-Pileser I., in B. C. 1130, commenced a series of efforts to extend his dominions by conquest, which his success led him to describe with unusual detail. It embraces five campaigns and a description of the conquest of all the neighboring people. He established a compact and powerful empire, which was surrounded by wild tribes whose conquest was of little honor or value, and whom it was difficult to hold long in subjection. In a return from a campaign against Babylon, which he had conquered, he suffered a great reverse, losing the images of his gods which he kept in his camp for protection and assistance in his enterprises; and they were carried to Babylon, remaining there, it is said, 400 years. A long period of apparent quiet was followed, after more than two hundred years, by another warlike king who pushed his conquests to the Mediterranean sea. His public works were larger and more magnificent than those of any of his predecessors. He has recorded ten successful campaigns.

7. His son, Shalmaneser II., increased the number, extent and thoroughness of the conquests of his father. Still, most of the countries conquered retained their laws and government, simply paying an annual tribute, and the conquest set lightly on them. Babylon seems to have retained comparative independence. In the following reign, Babylon was captured and remained some time tributary to Assyria and the Ninus, or Iva-lush IV., whose wife was the celebrated Semiramis, still further extended Assyrian power. The wonderful tales related by Grecian historians of Semiramis are not confirmed by the monuments. She appears to have been an energetic Babylonian princess, the principal queen of Ninus, who ruled conjointly with him. The novelty of a female ruler in that rude age, and the splendor of the empire at the time, seem to have originated the fabulous tales related of her.

8. At this time the development of the people of all the western parts of Asia was so great, and the wars as well as peaceful intercourse of different nations had so stimulated them all, that improvement kept a tolerably even step. Multitudes of populous cities and kingdoms existed in all directions. The magnificence of Solomon belongs to this period, the Jewish monarchy having reached the height of its glory and power, too high to be long endured by the proud and enterprising Assyrians. Commerce filled the east with activity and manufactures flourished, in some directions reaching a high degree of excellence. A true progress marked the general course of human effort. The psalms of David show to what a lofty point the religious ideas of that age were capable of being carried. Industrial pursuits and agriculture reached, in the next hundred and fifty years, the highest development they ever attained in some regions.

9. In the midst of this busy industry Nineveh rose, peerless in grandeur, enriching herself with the tribute and spoils of all countries, beautified by the master race, which was wise enough not to dry up the sources of their prosperity by the destruction of cities and kingdoms. The common policy, up to nearly the close of her splendid career, was to leave the real resources of all conquered nations untouched. After defeating her opposer in a battle, she received the submission of the king, imposed a heavy tax, or forced contribution, and an engagement to pay a definite annual tribute, and went on her way to subdue another nation to a like formal control. With misfortune, or a change of rulers in the dominant kingdom, the subject-kings would withhold tribute, raise an army, and the whole work of conquest had to be repeated.

Thus the empire consisted of a stable nucleus, Assyria, and a vast floating mass of half independent kingdoms, states and cities which were now submissive and now in revolt. We may easily conceive how this comparatively mild mode of warfare would contribute to the general advance of the whole population. This mingling and clash of armies, surging to and fro of vast bodies of men, and the knowledge and culture received from the great and wealthy capital made the school of that period for the education of humanity.

10. The Assyrian annals show a continued growth in splendor and power and extent of dominion until the very eve of its fall. In the course of that time Egypt was invaded and partially subdued for the first time; and, in the impatience of frequent revolt, the practice commenced of removing whole nations from their original homes, supplying their place by others. Thus the Ten Tribes were transported from their homes in Samaria, and other nations brought to occupy their places.

The last king of Assyria inherited an authority that extended farther and over larger numbers than had ever before been known. The vigorous governing race were perhaps corrupted and weakened by a thousand years of power and success; but various extraordinary circumstances united to bring on a sudden catastrophe. A considerable part of the central kingdom was devastated by an irresistible host of Scythians, immediately after which the Medians, who were as fierce and warlike as the Assyrians in their best days, attacked Assyria. A large army, sent by the king to meet the invaders, went over to the enemy by the treachery of its general, Nabopolassar, and the combined armies laid siege to Nineveh, which fell, the king burning himself and his family in his palace. Nineveh was destroyed, and Nabopolassar received as his reward the kingdom of Babylonia, and the Assyrian conquests in the south and west. He founded the

11. Babylonian Empire, which has made a greater impression on posterity than Nineveh. He was a man of great energy and resources. The treasures and captives of that mighty city, that fell to his share, were employed in rebuilding and improving Babylon. During his reign of twenty-one years, and the forty-three years of his still more illustrious son and successor, Nebuchadnezzar, that city was made the wonder of the world. Each side of it was fifteen miles in length, the river Euphrates passing through its center. They repaired the wall, which was eighty-seven feet thick and more than three hundred feet high. This wall was so immense as to contain more than twice the cubic contents of the great wall of China, which is 1,400 miles in length, and the vast enclosed space was filled with palaces, temples, hanging gardens, and all the impressive evidences of boundless power and resources in which the gross ambition of that period delighted. A second wall was built within the first, the river was, for a time, turned out of its bed and its bottom and sides paved with masonry, and huge walls erected on either bank; canals and aqueducts, for agricultural purposes, of the most stupendous character, were constructed all over the broad valley. The wealth and energies of the richest and most populous part of Asia, as then known, were employed to build up the great capital and improve the central province.

12. The Jews were kept there, as captives, for seventy years, all the treasures of their city and temple, and the accumulated wealth of their nation, were poured into the Babylonian treasury, and their people employed, with other countless multitudes, in the construction of its walls and buildings, and the cultivation of its fields. Tyre, the most renowned commercial city of ancient times, was taken, after a siege of thirteen years, and much of Egypt was reduced.

It was the culmination of the centralizing system of the Assyrians and Chaldeans which had lasted for two thousand years.

13. A dominion so resting on physical force, and gorged with booty wrested from others, with no moral power or national spirit underlying it, could not last long. A more vigorous and warlike power rose by the union of the Persians and Medes under the Persian warrior, Cyrus, who, after a series of conquests farther north and west, in Asia Minor, turned his arms against Babylon. The walls were impregnable, but the river proved a source of weakness. It had been once diverted from its course to pave its bed within the city; the hint was accepted, and, on a night of feasting and carelessness, it was again turned aside to give free entrance to the besiegers, and the Babylonian Empire fell in the very height of its pomp and glory. We find a regular progress in organization, in most institutions, from the first Chaldean to the last Babylonian Empire. In popular religion alone was there an increasing grossness, which reached its limit about this time by the fall of the Chaldean priesthood, purer practices and ideas were circulated by the Jews in their captivity, and the Magian religion was reformed by Zoroaster.

14. The Medo-Persian Empire lasted for 200 years. Those nationalities were both of the Aryan or Indo-European race. They had long been maturing on the highlands bordering the north and east of Chaldea and Assyria, with which their connection was close enough to communicate the general value of the growing organization, but too slight to drag them down to its level. They brought now, to the common stock of progress, the freshness of youth and the healthy habits and pure blood of the mountaineer. They had a higher capacity for organization, by which the experience and progress of the older nations, for more than two thousand years, was prepared to profit. They had already subdued Asia Minor and their vast Empire soon extended from India to the sea that washed the shores of Greece. A complicated civil and military organization consolidated this extensive region more perfectly than before by armies and governors located in each nation and principal city; a system of easy communication was introduced; and the preparation for the higher Greek models of thought, and the severe regularity of Roman institutions went on apace.

15. Babylon fell gradually into decay, being only occasionally the capital of the Persian Empire; the love of the sovereigns of that race for their native highlands leading them to build splendid capitals in the borders of their own country. A reform of great significance occurred about this time in the Persian national religion, which gradually displaced the debasing superstitions and gross idolatry of all the nations of the Empire.

The government was still despotic, somewhat relieved by the more humane and independent habits and traditions of a hardier race. A number of changes of dynasty by violence occurred, but they were merely revolutions of the palace. The vast wealth and power inherited from the subject empires gradually corrupted the conquerors. Their armies became vast crowds of comparatively undisciplined troops, who were accustomed to bear everything before them by their irresistible weight. Their conquests on the northern and eastern coasts of Asia Minor brought them in conflict with the Greeks, who had many colonies long settled in that region, and the Persians soon undertook to subdue that intelligent and independent people. Their signal failure had the effect to greatly stimulate the development of the Greek national spirit, and to awaken its intellectual enthusiasm, and the mighty armies of the Persians were destined to be annihilated by the small but resolute forces of the little republics.

16. Thirteen sovereigns ruled during the continuance of the Persian empire. Except the conquest of Egypt, they did not very greatly extend the boundaries formed by Cyrus; but the national features of the subject peoples were gradually effaced, and the whole brought to the common level of civilization. When Alexander, the great Grecian soldier, appeared with his army of 35,000 men he scattered the hosts of the Persian king, Darius, as the wind drives the leaves of the forest; and the vast empire, so long accustomed to bow to the fate of battles, became the unresisting heritage of the conquerer.

These five great monarchies were continuous—in part on the same soil—the centre having always been the fertile valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris; the successor stepping into the place and carrying out the general plans of his immediate predecessor, but on a broader scale and in an increasingly enlightened manner. Through all these long centuries a mysterious, and, apparently, still more ancient race had occupied Egypt, only occasionally interfering with, or being disturbed by, the surging sea of strife that raged and foamed so near them, which at length forced them from their seclusion and bore them on in the general tide of improvement.

17. The Egyptian monarchy presents many very curious and difficult problems. Possessing the most perfect organization in the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, the traces of its beginnings quite fail us, although, more than any other nation, it loved to build great and impressive monuments and record on them, in the most minute manner, the singular habits and monotonous daily life of its people. The first of those monuments, which, by many signs, must date very nearly as far back in the remote past as the earliest dawn of organization among any other people of whom we can gather any certain traces, indicate a long settled state, a high degree of organization, considerable culture and great resources.

18. The first king, who is called Menes by several independent and very ancient authorities, made his reign memorable by a system of vast and useful public works. It is conjectured that the previous rulers were the sacerdotal class and that, up to that time, they had no kings. The habits of the people were quiet and peaceful, and they seem to have been first gathered around temples. In all stages of their history, down to the time when foreign intrusion by force disorganized their peculiar institutions, the priesthood was the most influential element in their constitution, and their sway seems to have been, in some respects, singularly mild and beneficent. Except for the extreme inflexibility and minuteness of their regulations, which repressed all spontaneous growth, and the gross and absurd worship of animals which they introduced, they might be considered an unmixed blessing to those early times. It is certain that they were successful in controlling men and moulding them to their own views without producing discontent or revolt.

19. Everything in Egypt was remarkable—its river, its country, and the institutions and habits of its people. The Egyptians dwelt in the valley of the Nile for a space of 500 miles above its mouth; but this valley was so narrow that the habitable part of it contained only about 6,000 square miles in all. It was shut in by the Red sea on the east and by trackless deserts on the west, and a fall of rain was so rare as to be considered a prodigy. In June each year their mysterious river, whose sources are yet almost unknown, began to rise till it covered the whole valley like a vast sea. The rise and fall occupied the summer months and to the middle of October. The waters left a rich coating of mud and slime, which rendered the valley fertile beyond measure. The productive season occupied the remainder of the year, and their agricultural resources were only limited by their skill in spreading and husbanding the fertilizing waters. Vast canals and reservoirs covered the whole valley. Lake Moeris, a reservoir partly natural and partly artificial, was said by the first Greek historian, Herodotus, to have been 400 miles in circuit. When the waters had reached their highest point, the cisterns, canals and lakes were filled and the waters kept in reserve for late periods of the year, and a succession of crops.

20. The mysterious character of the river seems to have deeply impressed the nation with awe and reverence for unseen powers, and contributed to the influence of the priestly caste. Their peculiar source of wealth and the amount of leisure periodically afforded, perhaps led to the construction of the temples and palaces, whose gloomy strength is as mysterious as their river, or the origin of the people. Far back in the twilight of time, Thebes, the “city of a hundred gates,” was a colossal capital. Its vast temples and palaces were built on a scale of grandeur that seems almost superhuman; yet, before history begins its narrative in Greece, Thebes had had its youth, its long period of splendor and glory, its hoary age, and was already a thing of the past, and nearly in ruins; not by violence or conquest, but by the natural transfer of the center of activities to another region. Considering the small extent of Egypt, its always overflowing population, and the tenacious habits of the Egyptians, nothing could more impressively show its great age.

21. Egyptian sculpture was descriptive of religious ceremonies on the temples, and on the palaces of domestic life and general habits, and furnishes us with details of the whole social structure and all their industrial pursuits, as well as the events in the campaigns of their few warlike monarchs. Add to these the minute delineation of their temple service and religious teachings, and its ruins describe the entire round of its ancient life.

The people were divided into classes, or castes, the son being obliged to follow the occupation of the father; and all branches of business and industry, public and private, were arranged in the most methodical manner. The priest, the soldier, the husbandman, the artisan of whatever branch, was so because his ancestors had been such for numberless generations. A king could be selected either from the priestly or the soldier caste; but he must previously have been initiated into all the mysteries of the priesthood, and therefore Moses, the acknowledged heir of the throne, “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Otherwise, not belonging to the priestly caste, he must have remained in ignorance. With this exception, the priest alone had the key of knowledge, and all the employments requiring intellectual studies, or scientific culture, as we should now say, were filled from that class. They kept all records, measurements, and apportionments of land; prescribed the times, seasons, and conduct of all public transactions; were the constitutional advisers of the king; they were physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and guides of the people in every respect. They alone did the thinking, and they guarded their prerogative with the most jealous care.

22. A people are debased and gross in proportion to their ignorance, and the ignorant masses of Egypt were amused with the greatest possible multiplication of gods, and their leisure and simple minds fully occupied in religious ceremonies and absurd fictions. But the priests were as wise and moderate as they were crafty and persistent. Their discipline was extremely judicious and well administered, and was laid on the king as well and sternly, as to his general life, as on the lowest peasant. The priesthood were as absolute, as impartial, and as unvarying from age to age as it is possible to conceive. Their services to humanity were very great. They laid the foundation among men, of unvarying law, of diligence in the employment of time, of exactness in the division of labor, and inculcated, in an effective way, the idea of divine justice and of immortality.

23. Their “wisdom” was the highest and the most fruitful that was, perhaps, possible in their times; their fame was wide-spread, and their influence on the legislation of other lands has laid all ages under great obligations. The political economy of the Jews was the product of one of their most intelligent disciples, and the fact that he was so probably added greatly to his influence and success with his own people; and all the great legislators, philosophers, and historians of Greece went to them to complete their education. In after times, when the nation lost its liberty and became the province of a distant kingdom, they sunk the priest in the scholar, and Egypt had the largest libraries and the most eminent philosophers in the world. After Greece was carried, as it were, bodily, to Rome, far down into the Christian Era, Alexandria was the university of the world.

The history of Egypt is thus entirely peculiar, being mainly that of its own influential class. They impressed a peaceful, generally virtuous, laborious, as well as monotonous character on its history, and, besides the vast monuments which the patient industry they inspired reared up, and the names of their interminable list of kings, there was, perhaps, little to record.

24. The entire number of their dynasties of kings, as they have handed them down to us, is thirty-two, the last being the Ptolemies, founded by a Greek general of that name, after the death of Alexander the Great, which lasted more than three hundred years, closing B. C. 44. The first twelve dynasties are called the Old Empire, whose period it is impossible to determine accurately. The five following dynasties are ascribed to the reign of foreigners, called “shepherd kings,” who are supposed to have established their authority between the times of Joseph and Moses, and are called the Middle Empire; while thirteen dynasties, including the royal families that reigned down to the time of the conquest of Egypt by the Persians, comprise the New Empire. They were generally exclusive, shut up within themselves, too much absorbed in exact observance of the endless routine prescribed by their priests to be inclined to the ambition of foreign conquest; but several of their kings gathered large armies and invaded Palestine and Syria, or made a trial of strength with the Assyrians or Babylonians. They never made permanent conquests in that direction. Some of the later kings became friendly to the Greeks, and employed them in their armies, to the great disgust of their subjects, the soldier caste retiring, almost in a body, to Ethiopia, and refusing to return. The kingdom soon after fell into the hands of foreigners, and the accumulated discipline, knowledge and wealth of that wise people became the inheritance of humanity.

Nebuchadnezzar was the first who made a conquest of Egypt, but the country soon regained its independence. It was not till after the death of Cyrus, and when the details of the new Medo-Persian kingdom had been settled, that Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, subdued the whole of Egypt, and made it a Persian province, in which condition it remained most of the time to the Grecian invasion.

25. About twenty-five hundred years before the time of Alexander the Great, the cities of Sidon and Tyre were founded, in Phenicia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean sea. Their territory extended only twenty miles back, from the sea. They were of the Semite race, and their enterprising spirit led them to build ships and become at first pirates and then merchants. They were thrifty and grew rich, improved their vessels and became famous for their commerce. They at length planted colonies for trading purposes on the northern coasts of Africa, in Sicily and in Spain.

One of those colonies, Carthage, became more wealthy and powerful than the parent state. The merchandise they gathered from distant countries they distributed through Asia by a land trade, and their caravans reached Nineveh, Babylon and Persia, and, for long periods, were almost the only link that joined Egypt to the rest of the busy and growing world. They learned many useful things among the Egyptians, among others the invention of letters, or at least hints on which they improved. Many flourishing cities were built up by this internal commerce in places surrounded by desert regions, as Baalbek and Palmyra in Syria, and Petra in Arabia, a city excavated in the rocks, which, lying between Syria and Phenicia in the north and the rich districts of Arabia in the south, and between Babylon and Persia on the east and Egypt on the west, became a great mercantile depot. The Phenicians were the busiest and most enterprising people of ancient times. Their vessels reached the shores of England, where they had valuable mines of tin, as of silver in Spain; they visited the northwest coasts of Africa and the Madeira islands, and brought the rich products of India and gold from eastern Africa to the markets of the world. The amount of their contributions to civilization and progress by making known the discoveries and arts of distant nations to each other, by causing roads and inns to be built, and facilitating communication, was immense; as well as by awakening the love of gain and turning the activities of a part of mankind from warlike to more peaceful and useful pursuits. The arts and inventions that have done the most, in the long run, for the improvement of men, as shipbuilding and writing, were communicated from one nation to another. Their commercial routes were the highways over which the intelligent and inquiring Greeks traveled in search of the knowledge which they used for the education of their people. Tyre was destroyed by Alexander B. C. 332; but he replaced it the same year by building Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile.

26. We have thus seen nations and institutions gradually unfolding, passing through a period of youth, of vigorous organic action, and finally decaying, to give place to another of higher order which inherited all its general gain and proceeded to carry still further the banner of civilization. As this process continues the field widens, and with the increasing number and variety of the elements engaged in acting upon one another, the product becomes more valuable, the organization more complete and the institutions more useful.

The institutions purely political, however, the modes of government and the style of administering them, are imperfect, at best. They are too arbitrary, too restrictive; the masses are too large and too closely crowded to permit free play to the component parts. The mingling of the whole was, at first, evidently necessary to prevent the crystalizing of the separate nationalities and the arrest of progress; but when that process was stopped and a plastic condition and progressive tendency assured, the absolute despotism of the king and the priest stood in the way of advance. They had educated society and developed its resources until a power of vast combination had been gained; then a change must be introduced, or the entire resources of the civilized world would be employed to repress its further advancement, the fountains of wealth would be exhausted and the springs of activity dried up. This barrier against a destructive centralization had long been preparing among the Grecian states.

SECTION V.

THE GRECIAN STATES.

1. They were of the Aryan race, and showed a high capacity to receive the lessons taught by the experience and genius of all the past, and make them the stepping-stone to a higher civilization and freer institutions. They were preceded in the occupation of Greece by the Pelasgi, of the same stock, but too rude and uncultured to leave many traces of their presence except the ruins of immense cyclopean buildings, without inscriptions, indicating only a dawning culture, but a vigorous combination of physical force. The mythic history of Greece is in part a veiled and distorted account of the struggles of Hellens, or true Greeks, against those uncouth aborigines; the actual facts being mingled by the lively creative fancy of their poets with the religious traditions brought from their original home. The highly picturesque language of the primitive Aryan people accorded with the imaginative and observant character of that family, and its inclination to extemporize some plausible explanation of the natural phenomena which awakened their attention, and, apparently, suggested the general course of invention and embellishment adopted by the poets, who were the historians, the theologians, and the only literary class of their period. Thus the early speculations and crude religious ideas assumed, in poetic hands, an exceedingly fanciful and marvelous garb; and their heroes, who succeeded in overcoming the difficulties of a new settlement, and in laying the foundation of their communities in a rude country filled with men and beasts almost equally wild and savage, were endowed by their grateful and admiring descendants with superhuman qualities, and wonder and reverence ascribed to them a descent from the gods.

2. A characteristic feature of Grecian heroic mythology is the number and mutual contests of these mythical heroes which indicate a leading characteristic of the nation—a disposition toward independence and decentralization. Every small community had its divine hero, and insisted on maintaining its government in its own hands. In the early times the immediate descendants of these local benefactors commonly obtained the sovereignty, more or less qualified, over their city and community. They all greatly respected the tie that bound them together in kinship as one race; but they never would permit it to deprive them of local independence. If they had a king he should be of their own tribe and choice; if they were ruled with harshness it should be only because they chose to submit to their own tyrant. They seldom permitted another community to manage their internal affairs. Various leagues were early formed among contiguous cities or states closely related by origin; but they dealt only in matters of common interest, and if one city or king was acknowledged as the head, it was only in a general sense for the sake of realizing some general plan.

3. This instinctive and resolute refusal to accept a centralized government was a new and important feature in the history of men in a civilized, or highly organized state. It was the direct opposite of that which characterized Asiatic and African civilization, and held the Greek race open to a spontaneous growth and a mental development which made them the benefactors of the human family. With less individuality and mental force, or a less favorable time and situation, it would have kept them forever barbarous; but time had matured them and the nations about them, and their restless spirit of inquiry and constant movement among themselves stood in the place of the foreign action and shock of races that proved so beneficial and necessary to the Asiatics. The Egyptian, Chinese and Hindoo peoples reached a certain point of well regulated order, apparently by an original impulse, and stopped; the Chaldean, Assyrian and Persian races kept in the stream of progress by a sort of mechanical or forcible stir and intermingling of races and civilizations; and the principle accomplished, in each case, all it was capable of. Time and progress then transferred the care of the best interests of mankind to _intelligence_ as embodied in the Greek race. Without being conscious of such a high destiny, they fulfilled it with fidelity, and remained true to themselves and faithful to the impulses of their own minds until humanity required training of a different kind, and another race, receiving their mental culture, added to it administrative ability and carried the old world as high as it could possibly go on its ancient base.

4. It seems probable that about B. C. 2000, or in the time of Abraham, the progenitors of the Greeks reached that country from the highlands east of the Caspian Sea. Greece extends about 220 miles from north to south, and 160 from east to west, with a very irregular outline, and contains about 34,000 square miles, much of this being mountainous and barren. The separation of the different states by these mountain ranges much favored the disposition of the people to local independence, and formed a bold and hardy race. Access from three sides to the sea led to commerce and colonization, while it brought them into frequent contact with the most civilized people of the east without endangering their independence, and the lofty mountains on the north were an effectual barrier to the irruption of the wild and wandering tribes of northern Asia and Europe. Early in the history of the Greeks colonies came from Egypt and Phenicia and introduced the arts of those countries, then the most civilized in the world. This was about the time that the Jewish nation was founded by Moses, and we can easily understand that the native intelligence of the Greeks and their teachable spirit, led them to profit greatly by this early light.

5. The most celebrated traditions of this people relate to an expedition by the collective young chivalry of Greece, called the “Argonautic,” which indicates their enterprising spirit and early acquaintance with the sea, and also seems to have introduced the habit of planting colonies. Two wars against Thebes, in the central part of Greece, induced by the ambition and combinations of the kings of the various States, seem to have made much impression on the whole nation, while a combination of nearly all of its petty sovereigns, gathering an immense army, stated at 100,000 men, to punish an injury done to one of their number by the King of Troy, on the opposite coast of Asia, occupied ten years, and filled the whole country with confusion. This was soon followed by an event called the Return of the Heracleidæ, or descendants of Hercules—a mythic hero of great celebrity—to their ancient dominion in the southern peninsula, called the Pelopenesus. It appears to have been attended by the migration of one tribe into the domains of another, which they forcibly dispossessed and produced the emigration of the conquered people into Asia, where they formed extensive colonies—independent—but preserving a love for their race, and forming an important element in Greek progress.

6. The commotions and miseries of this period and of subsequent times, which had their rise mainly in this, most of which were due to the restless ambition and personal quarrels of their kings, came at length to disgust the spirited and progressive people with that form of government, and before the time that authentic history begins they had very generally set aside the kings and established a democracy; and where this was not the case, as in Sparta, the power of the kings became so limited that they were little more than leading magistrates in their respective cities. This was not often done by violent revolution, but generally in a quiet way, showing the steady and intelligent resolution of the people.

This rare nation knew how to adapt its governments to its needs. Not that everything went on without struggle or difficulty, nor that they did not share in the rude and sanguinary passions of their times. Their governments were often unsettled; there were frequent conflicts among aspirants for place and power in the state; they had a balance of power among the leading states to maintain; and the want of a strong central authority led to innumerable collisions and sometimes to desolating wars. But amidst all the confusion and imperfection of an early civilization they still maintained such an independence of any superior in each state that they could settle their internal affairs to suit themselves. They were yet uneducated men, in the enthusiastic young manhood of the world, but with spirit enough to be free.

7. That freedom had many defects. The true character of freedom was imperfectly apprehended in that age of the world. It was often violent; and much Grecian blood was shed by Greeks. It was frequently turbulent; and sometimes the strife of parties and factions did great injury to the welfare of the state. It was usually a restricted liberty in which all the inhabitants did not share, for the slave, the freedman, and the foreigner were admitted to no influence in the government, or in framing the laws; and there was always much oppression and injustice somewhere. It was not a well understood and well balanced liberty, as we comprehend it, but it left room for a large amount of free and spontaneous action. It made little account of the _individual_; that point was to be learned and made duly prominent after the lapse of more than two thousand years. The Greek identified himself with his state. He would not have it large in order that each free citizen might have a personal influence in it. His public life was an education to him; and the very defects of his institutions fitted them more perfectly to meet the wants of that age than anything more complete could have done.

8. They developed rapidly under a system so free from restraint, coupled with a nature so ardent, and a thirst for knowledge so absorbing. Still it was at least two hundred years after they had re-arranged their primitive modes of government before they reached a degree of order and system that influenced them to record events as they passed, and observe the world outside of their state, and even then their most learned men wrote little. Men were absorbed in their private matters, or in the affairs of the state. They thought little of the future; they were devoting themselves diligently to the only means of education that existed in those days, intercourse and action. Their priesthood was quite different from what we found it in Chaldea and Egypt. They did not form a class, nor attempt to exercise an influence on government. They were appointed from the body of the citizens to offer sacrifices and conduct religious ceremonies. The high spirited and active minded Greeks were not fit subjects for the dominion of a priestly caste. Although Cecrops, an Egyptian, settled and civilized Athens, and introduced some of the social arrangements of his country, he did not plant the all-controlling priesthood. The Athenians, of all other Greeks, were the thoughtful, progressive intelligence of the nation. The poets compiled the geneaologies and histories of the gods, the heroes, and the past records of the people. There was no other literature, there were no other sources of information but those from which the poets drew—tradition and inherited customs. Of these the poets explained the origin and reason, and no one thought of questioning their tales. They were supposed to be inspired; and their marvelous legends rested, to a certain extent, on monuments, habits, and oral tradition. Their lively narratives charmed and satisfied the public mind and gratified their pride. It was only in later years that the philosophers explained them away.

In the early days they had no standard by which to criticise them. All they required was that they should offer a pleasing explanation. The wisest of the Greeks came, ultimately, to believe in one God who ruled with wisdom and justice, and they laid the foundation of all useful knowledge by teaching men to think and reason; but true science was not possible in their age of the world. They, however, prepared the way for it.

9. Their religion was cheerful and bright, they had altars and temples in great numbers, and countless ceremonies in honor of particular deities. One class of these was festivals, or games, established, according to tradition, by their divine heroes. The Olympian Games were the most celebrated, and took place every fiftieth month at Olympia. In the year 776 B. C. they began to record the name of the victor in these games, and as that was done ever afterward, this became a fixed date and the interval between each was called an Olympiad. It was the beginning of reliable history, although it was one hundred and fifty years later that men of real wisdom, extensive observation and careful study began to flourish. But the eagerness with which the people sought information, and the honor in which they held men of thought and wisdom, encouraged study, reflection and travel for the sake of knowledge, so that this class, in time, became extremely numerous.

Their researches, and systems of what they held to be truth, were often imperfect, and, in many parts, false; but they were upright and earnest in the studies that were then possible, and did as much good, one might say, by their failures as by their successes. Inquirers, in after times, noted _where_ and _how_ they failed; so that all their pioneer work was useful—their mistakes for a warning, their success for instruction.

10. The course of Grecian development took two contrary directions, under the two leading states, Sparta and Athens. The last represents the generally received idea of Greece—as a land where the people were lively and beautiful, intelligent and richly endowed with _taste_ in the arts, or an exquisitely quick and thorough _judgment_ of _fitness_, developed to the very highest point. Sparta, on the other hand, through its whole career, was a military state. Somewhere about one hundred years before the first Olympiad (B. C. 776), a lawgiver, named Lycurgus, had reformed the institutions of the Spartan state with the avowed and only object to render it capable of producing the most vigorous and hardy warriors. He made an equal distribution of lands, which were cultivated by the ancient inhabitants, reduced to slavery. They were called Helots, and were treated with great cruelty. Lycurgus abolished every species of luxury, subjected the young, both boys and girls, to the most rigorous training, and discouraged all the amenities of family and social life that he supposed might interfere with the rude hardiness of the soldier. The whole intelligence, activity and vigor of the Greek mind was, in this state, confined to military life. These institutions continued to exist in Sparta for more than five hundred years. Among any other race they would have secured to them the supreme dominion of the nation; but among this liberty loving people they merely sufficed to render them the general leaders in war, and _one_, only, among the most powerful and respectable Greek states. Besides, this experiment shows that there is little real advantage in systematically trampling down the native instincts of humanity in order to promote superiority in a particular direction.

11. The entirely spontaneous character of the Athenians made them, in general, the equal of the Spartans in military fame, and gloriously eminent in many other directions. But the various members of the Greek nation seem to have been made, by their intelligence and the earnestness, the completeness, of all their lines of development, the pioneers of humanity in their experiments. They exhausted all the capacities of a complete military education in an entire state, and presented the most perfect achievements of a genius that had no models to commence on, in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, in philosophy and in such elements of science as were possible to humanity in their day.

It is worthy of remark that most of the Greek colonies, the Phenicians and their colonies, and a great part of the numerous nations in Italy became republican about the same time—as did the Romans later—and that those states which preserved hereditary monarchy, or tyrants—as those kings were called who were elected by the populace—had counterbalanced the individual despotism of the kingly office by various institutions that controlled and limited it.

12. At the period when history began to be carefully written and dates accurately given, civilization was under full career and rapidly moving westward. The Greeks had been struggling with the difficulties of the early times for more than a thousand years and had already begun to mature the institutions and to show the traits of character that afterwards made them so eminent and so useful in advancing the progress of mankind. The Tyrians, or commercial people of Phenicia, had formed the net-work of communication with all the parts of the earth then sufficiently civilized to produce anything which could be useful to the rest of the world, and Italy was alive with the energies of the primitive races, mainly Aryan—some of them transplanted from the East, and possessing many of the highest elements of the ancient culture—who fought the Romans with a vigor and persistence that contributed much to the discipline and strong development of that remarkable people, to whose instruction the Greek colonies in eastern Italy added not a little.

From this point the advance of the center of development toward the western continent, and of mental preparation for more perfect ideals of government was continuous. A more complete view of this progress will be gained by considering the general events of each century apart, or in chronological order.

13. B. C. 776. This is the first definite and positive date in reliable history and commences the First Olympiad. The Olympic religious and national festival was celebrated by foot and chariot races, boxing, wrestling, etc., and was commenced by religious sacrifices and ceremonies, mainly in honor of the god Apollo. This peaceable assembly of all the representatives of the Grecian race was one of the chief means of maintaining the national union, and greatly promoted the maintenance and importance of a kind of national congress, called the Amphictyonic League. The first object of this League was the protection of their common worship; but it came to have, afterward, considerable importance as a political body; its decrees having the character and force of the Laws of Nations in modern times. It was composed of two delegates from each of the twelve leading states of Greece, and held two meetings yearly; one at Delphi, where was a celebrated temple and oracle of Apollo, and one at Thermopylæ. The twelve chief cities of the Æolian colonies of Greece in Asia Minor, and also the same number of Ionian colonies on the same coast more to the south, had each Amphictyonic, or International Leagues; but the Greeks from all the various regions they settled, as well as from the mother country, took a pride in participating in the Olympic games.

14. B. C. 753. This is one of the most important dates in the history of mankind. In this year, Rome, “The Eternal City,” was founded by a band of adventurers and outlaws, under the lead of the twin brothers, Romulus and Remus. A spirit of adventure was the most characteristic feature of that era, in Greece and about the Mediterranean sea, together with a passion for colonizing, or founding new states. Education, or growth, seems to pursue parallel lines in the same era, so that the same general tendencies move the masses of widely separated nations. Greece began, at this period, to send out a large number of colonists, in rapid succession, to Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean. The tendency had commenced more than three centuries before, but the colonies had not gone far from the native state, and only one had been established in Italy, at Cumæ. Carthage, a commercial colony of the Tyrians, had been founded 127 years before, and was now beginning to rival the parent city.

Rome gathered its population from all the neighboring states. The mingling of races has always been favorable to the progress of mankind. A single race, isolating itself and receiving no new blood or impulses from without becomes stationary and fixed in all its habits and advancement ceases beyond a certain point. The men who founded Rome were, apparently, a crowd of adventurers who had resolved to found a state. After building the walls of their city and providing themselves with habitations, they were destitute of wives—a serious want which would soon leave their new city without inhabitants. They remedied it in true Roman style—by violence. They made a festival without the walls to celebrate the founding of their state, and invited their nearest neighbors, the Sabines, to take part in it. The Sabines came with their wives and daughters. At a concerted moment the young Romans each seized a young Sabine woman, and carried her off into the city; the gates were closed and each proceeded to make his captive his wife.

The Sabines were powerless to prevent the deed, but they soon made war on their violent sons-in-law, and the young city would have been destroyed but for the interference of the stolen women who had become satisfied with the bold deed which gave them valiant husbands. The Sabines were induced to unite with the young state so far as to build a new city adjoining and take part in its rising fortunes. Romulus was elected king by his followers, but popular institutions were established to limit his power, under the strong instinct of vigorous organization that, from the first, characterized the new nation. The people maintained their right to make laws in conjunction with the king, and preserved a limited monarchy for 250 years. At this time the prophet Isaiah flourished in Judea, and the kingdom of Samaria was approaching extinction.

15. B. C. 747. The Chaldeans established, or revived, their dominion in Babylon, under their king, Nabonassur, and seem to have been independent of Assyria for a time, but afterward to have been brought into a qualified subjection to that enterprising monarchy. It commences authentic history in the East, so far as well ascertained dates are concerned. In that year the Chaldean astronomers or priests, first introduced the Egyptian solar year, which furnished an accurate mode of measuring time. This was about the commencement of the Sixth Olympiad. Egypt was approaching its most perfect condition under its ancient system.

B. C. 743. Messenian war of 23 years—Sparta conquers Messene.

16. B. C. 735. A colony from Corinth founded the celebrated city of Syracuse in Sicily, and a fashion of colonizing seems to have obtained in Greece, which continued for a hundred years. The native enterprise of the Greeks, the great increase of inhabitants in their small territory, and the commotions and contests of parties in their states, which preceded the establishment of more complete popular governments, were probably the ruling causes of these foreign emigrations, and all contributed to the increase of knowledge, improvement in navigation, and the prevalence of a commercial spirit. Miletus, the leading Greek city of Ionia, in Asia Minor, became almost as powerful and prosperous by her commerce as Tyre in her best days. There were Grecian colonies on the coast of Africa west of Egypt, on the eastern coast of Italy, several in Sicily, one in France. They were, generally, very enterprising and prosperous, and diffused Greek intelligence and culture over a large part of the world as known at that time. They usually established a republican government. Syracuse remained republican for 251 years.

17. B. C. 728. The Assyrian Empire was now having its palmiest days, and spreading its dominion over all the central parts of western Asia, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. At this time Shalman-assur, or Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, led away the Ten Tribes of Israel into a hopeless captivity, and planted a different race in Samaria. Soon after this time the Ethiopians from the upper Nile established their dominion in Egypt, without apparently changing the general condition of things there. Three Ethiopian kings successively reigned in Egypt, and made conquests in Asia to some extent.

18. B. C. 600. About the beginning of this century the foundation of Greek philosophy was laid by Thales of Miletus, a Greek city in Asia. He represents the growth and acuteness of the Greek mind and the approach of its period of greatest activity. He travelled into Egypt in search of wisdom, and was the most able astronomer of his times. He calculated an eclipse of the sun, which, coming on just when two armies, the Median and Lydian, were about to engage in battle, so terrified them that they immediately separated and made peace. He was celebrated as a mathematician, and taught many truths concerning the existence of God which were far in advance of his time, and undertook to account for the origin of all things in a very bold and independent manner. He was one of the famous “Seven Wise Men” of Greece. Solon was held to be the first among the seven. He was an Athenian law-giver and writer, and established a very wise and enlightened system of government in Athens. He was a pure-hearted and clear-sighted man, enjoying the universal respect of the Greeks. Chilo, another of the seven, was a Spartan magistrate, held in the highest esteem for his wisdom. Pittacus of Mitylene, was a law-giver, held in high honor. Bias of Priene, in Ionia, was a very noble-hearted and public-spirited citizen, of universal reputation for wisdom. Cleobulus, of the island of Rhodes, was remarkable for his skill in answering difficult questions, and Periander of Corinth, the ruler, or tyrant, of that place, was the last of the seven. They were all living at the same time. They were only the most eminent among a people who could fully appreciate mental ability. The spirit of inquiry continued to spread rapidly for two hundred years, when the greatest masters, who immortalized themselves and their race by their genius, appeared.

19. In the early part of this century the kingdom of Lydia, in the central part of Asia Minor, rose to great wealth and power. The Lydian kingdom was ancient—many of its customs being similar to those of the Egyptians—and the Etrurians of Italy, a much more polished and cultivated people than the Romans who conquered them, are thought, by some eminent historians, to have been a Lydian colony planted in Italy in unknown times. The Lydian kings made war on the Asiatic Greek colonies and reduced many of them to subjection. Crœsus, the last king of Lydia, was proverbial for his vast wealth. He was conquered by Cyrus, the Persian, in the middle of the next century.

679 B. C. Numa, the second king of Rome, is said to have died. The Romans abstained from war during nearly the whole of his reign, which was occupied in settling the internal affairs of the new state, especially those relating to religion. He was followed by Tullus Hostilius, a very warlike prince, who did much to extend the Roman state.

20. About 650 B. C. a great change was introduced into Egypt, by Psammeticus, its king, who, having several rival claimants to the throne, employed the services of Greek soldiers to overcome them. For the first time the country was freely opened to foreigners, and the power of the priesthood broken. Thus the Greeks were instrumental in changing the current of Egyptian history.

The Median Kings began to make head in the east, and ventured—after various successful efforts to extend their dominion in other directions—to make direct war on Nineveh. At the close of the century, by the aid of the rebellious Nabopolassar, they succeeded in taking and destroying that city, and the whole of that immense empire was divided between Media and Nabopolassar, who made Babylon his capital.

21. B. C. 590 to 500. Events in this century begin to crowd thick upon each other. The Greeks rapidly advanced; the Romans succeeded, amid constant wars, in securely establishing their state in Italy, marching from conquest to conquest, not without heavy reverses at times, from which they soon recovered.

598—Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem for the first time.

594—Solon was made archon at Athens, with almost unlimited power to change the existing institutions, and he introduced many very useful reforms.

588—Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and the Jews carried into captivity to Babylon, where they remained seventy years. Soon after, Nebuchadnezzar conquered Tyre, after a siege of many years, but he found himself in possession of the walls only, for the inhabitants had built another city on an island near by, but inaccessible to the conqueror, and left him a barren conquest.

560—The most memorable event that followed was the union of Media and Persia under the military prowess of Cyrus. He first employed the forces of the Medo-Persian kingdom in Asia Minor, conquering Lydia and the rest of that region,

549—and dethroning Crœsus. Babylon and Egypt had both entered into an alliance with Crœsus against Cyrus, but before they could send Crœsus effectual aid Cyrus had triumphed. He then turned his arms against Babylon

538—which he took by stratagem after a long siege. Egypt was afterward obliged to become tributary to the universal conqueror.

534—Cyrus, who had before been the Persian general of the united armies under the Median king, Cyaxares, who was his maternal uncle, succeeded to the kingdom, and soon after sent the Jews home to their native land. During this period the Greeks swarmed on the eastern part of the Mediterranean sea and carried on nearly all its commerce, the Tyrians being mainly confined to the trade with India, Arabia and the various parts of the Persian empire.

529—Occurred the death of Cyrus, full of years and glory. History has described him as the most amiable of all the great conquerors. He was succeeded by his son, Cambyses, who, to punish the revolt of the Egyptians

525—invaded that country and made it a Persian province.

522—Cambyses died and was succeeded by a Persian nobleman, Darius Hystaspes, the line of Cyrus being extinct. He finally broke the power of the priesthood in his dominions, which perished at once in Egypt and Babylon, where they had so long reigned supreme over the minds of men.

515—The second temple was dedicated at Jerusalem.

510—In this year occurred a very important event in Roman history—the establishment of the republic. Kings had reigned there two hundred and forty-three years.

SECTION VI.

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.

1. The Romans, more than any other people of ancient times, understood how to establish a well ordered state. Respect for order and law among them was very great. The idea of a government with a definite constitution, which the rulers should always respect, and which should be an adequate bulwark to the people against oppression, had never occurred to any of the Asiatic nations. The nearest approach to it among the Greeks was in Sparta; but as their aim was directed, not so much to the general welfare of the state as to training a race of soldiers, their experiment was a failure. The Greeks had a great impatience of subjection; they had no great ambition to rule, but were impulsive, and each state wanted freedom to pursue its own particular fancy. Their exhaustless energy and acute minds were devoted to the pursuit of ideal objects. Even the sober and resolute Spartan put aside every other consideration in order to realize his idea of a well formed, thoroughly trained, and invincible warrior. Weakly and deformed children were destroyed in their infancy, by order of the state. The young women were subjected to the most rigorous physical training, that they might become mothers of hardy children. Physical training was one of the passions of all Greece, originating in their delight in beauty and symmetry of person. Sports that contributed to this were as pleasing to the Greeks as to our modern school-boys.

2. Athens, which most perfectly represented the Grecian mind, esteemed a fine poet, an able writer, a skillful painter or sculptor, as much as an enthusiastic scholar of our day can do. They had a passion for beauty, and their love of liberty was in great part produced by their ardent longing for mental freedom and the gratification of their mental tastes. The worship of their gods was chiefly their admiration for superhuman majesty, sublimity, and beauty, as they conceived them, and their theology was compounded of their thirst for knowledge and their love of the mysterious, the grand, the terrible, and the beautiful. Life was of no value to them, if they could not gratify these instincts, and their tenacity in maintaining their liberties found its inspiration in them. They were a nation of mental enthusiasts. They had no love of conquest for the sake of power. They were invaded by the Persians, and a handful of Greeks conquered its immense hosts with ease, by their intelligence and ardor. It was only when they saw the splendor and wealth of the East, and felt that they could repeat the glorious deeds of their mythic heroes, that they became enthusiastic over the romantic idea of conquering a magnificent empire. It was the mental charm of the undertaking that gave to Alexander his miraculous success.

But the Greeks were not practical. They wanted worldly wisdom. The Lacedemonians of Sparta had no adequate object when they sacrificed almost all that common humanity holds dear, to rear up model soldiers. Their ambition was confined mainly to preserving the headship of their state among the petty republics of Greece; and the resources of all the states were wasted in the effort to preserve a balance of power among the various members of the nation; or in struggles of the more powerful to obtain a leading influence. They had little political wisdom, when the independence of their territories was secured and the governments that restrained them too much from their favorite enthusiasms were abolished. Athens and all Greece admired immensely the wise measures of Solon, when he reformed the government and gave it excellent laws. But they had not the prudence to maintain them. In ten years all was again confusion. Most of their great men who possessed a special genius for government, were abandoned when they showed the most ability for benefitting their country by their wise statesmanship. Pericles alone, who was the most perfect embodiment of Grecian character, preserved his influence to the last; but it was by falling in perfectly with the tone of Grecian feeling, and he laid the foundation of innovations that corrupted and finally overthrew their liberty. He was as little practical and prudent as his countrymen. Beautiful in person, cultivated in mind, possessed of exquisite taste in literature and art, to which he devoted himself with boundless enthusiasm, Greece could always appreciate him. His age was the glory and joy of Greece; but when more homely political virtues were required to preserve his creations and protect this literary and artistic state, the people could not follow them. Their best statesmen were ostracised, banished, or slain, when their practical genius was most needed.

3. Rome was the opposite of this. She had a genius for producing and preserving a constitution, adding to it by slow degrees, maintaining checks and balances that preserved the machinery in working order, and rendered it capable of producing the most valuable results that were possible in those times. To rule was her passion. She was not wanting in intelligence, but it was the homely prudence of common life, the skill to adapt means to ends. Of all the nations, she was the first to carry organization into every part of her government, and conduct everything by inexorable system and order. If Rome was resolved to rule others, she was no less resolved to rule herself. The mission of Greece was in the domain of thought, to develop the intellectual capabilities of mankind. That of Rome also required intelligence, but of a lower and more material kind. She was to teach mankind to follow an orderly development, to introduce system, to prevent ruinous clashing of interests, to teach respect for law. Greece taught the world to think to purpose; Rome to govern with effect. Each served an important purpose. Without either the world was not prepared for Christianity, which added moral order, nor for true science, which was the mature fruit of these three, and prepared the perfect civilization which was to be developed to its conclusion in a New World.

4. Rome commenced, not with the king, but with the _Senate_—a body of experienced men, who made the laws and appointed a king to administer them. The king, except in time of war, was only the executive, the chief magistrate. The later kings were restive under this restraint and sought to place themselves above law, and the Romans at once dismissed them, appointing various officers to fill their place. The fundamental principles of government were not changed at all, or very little, except by the subsequent course of development. The Romans knew how to adapt their invincible spirit of order to all changing circumstances, and when external changes arose corresponding changes were developed, in a regular manner, within.

Thus the Roman _spirit_ was constant under the regal government, throughout the republic, and to the close of the empire, and had then become so thoroughly established in laws and institutions as to govern the development of the new states that rose out of its ruins and produced modern civilization.

At first the Roman government consisted only of the Senate and the king. The Senate was chosen from the body of citizens, and represented them. In the course of time the descendants of the first people became the aristocracy, called patricians, who enjoyed great privileges. A class was gradually formed called the _plebs_, or common people, who, for some time, had no share in the government. The patricians alone could hold office, and marriage between them and plebians was illegal. But, says an able writer, “the Roman commons were the greatest commons the world ever saw, except the commons of England and America.” In the course of time, by wise and prudent management, and taking advantage of favoring circumstances, resulting from the fact that they supplied the body of soldiers to the state, without revolution, breaking the laws, or violating the ancient constitution, they obtained changes or additions to it, one after another, until they had acquired a due influence in the conduct of affairs and became fully a match for the patricians. It was a new lesson to mankind, and one that has had great influence on the good order of society in all later times.

5. The religious system of that great people was conducted with as much worldly prudence as all their other affairs. Their religious ceremonies were, in great part, derived from the Etruscans. They were conducted with much pomp by state officers, appointed for the purpose, embodying all the superstitions of the time, and embracing comparatively little of the lofty sentiment that was so prominent in Greece. Their religion was an affair of state, and intimately connected with the political working of the government. The gravest public business was made to depend on the flight of birds, on omens and accidents, and on the appearance of the entrails of the animals offered in the sacrifices. An artful use of these circumstances enabled the officers in power to compass many political ends. Their original gods were those of Greece, adapted to their purposes and national character; but they readily adopted the divinities of all the nations they conquered. Their religion was in a high degree cool and calculating.

The preceding observations apply especially to the periods of Greece and Rome when their peculiarities were most fully developed in the days of their greatest glory. Though always more or less characteristic, in later times they melted more or less into one another, or were toned down and transformed by decay and a rising spirit of innovation. Especially were they displaced by Christianity.

SECTION VII.

GREECE AND ROME.

1. We are now prepared to return to the year

500 B. C.—and follow events in chronological order, with a fair appreciation of their import. Just before the close of the last century, Darius Hystaspes, the king of Persia, sent an army into Europe, to the north of Greece, to chastise the Scythians, and it conquered Thrace. The Greek colonies in Asia Minor, which had been recently added to the Persian empire, became restive under foreign control, and when the Persian army returned home, 500—organized a rebellion and took and burned the city of Sardis, the ancient capital of Lydia. They were assisted by the European Greeks; but the vast resources of Persia soon enabled Darius to take vengeance on them, and Miletus was besieged and destroyed. Darius summoned the Grecian states to offer their submission, but Athens and Sparta sent back a defiance. Darius thereupon gathered a large armament and prepared to invade 495—Greece, which he commenced by the conquest of Macedon. But a tempest destroyed his ships and 20,000 men, and the expedition returned to Persia. In the same year the Roman plebeians obtained their first success against the patricians, by which the debts of the poor plebeians to the wealthy patricians were cancelled and Tribunes of the People appointed.

490—This year the glory of Greece broke forth. Darius having sent another and larger army into Greece, it advanced on Athens and encamped at Marathon, within twenty-two miles of the city. The Persian host was said to number from 100,000 to 200,000 men. The Athenians had but 10,000 citizens, but armed 20,000 slaves, and the city of Platæa sent them 1,000 troops. Miltiades, the very able Athenian general, marched out and, taking a good position, offered battle. It was the 20th of September. The little army of the Greeks obtained a complete victory and the Persians returned home in confusion. The great services of Miltiades were rewarded with imprisonment, on a frivolous charge, and he died there of his wounds.

485—Darius Hystaspes, the Persian king, died while preparing a still larger armament for the invasion of Greece.

484—An insurrection in Egypt completely subdued by the Persians.

480—Xerxes, king of Persia, invaded Greece with a million soldiers. The battle at the pass of Thermopylæ was fought by a thousand Spartans under Leonidas, their king, and all but one slain. The Persian fleet was beaten the same day by Themistocles, the Athenian admiral. Xerxes soon advanced on Athens, which was abandoned by its inhabitants and burned by the Persians. Soon after, Themistocles fought the Persian navy again at Salamis and totally destroyed it. Xerxes, leaving a large army in Greece, returned to Asia.

479—The battle of Platæa ended the Persian invasion. The allied Greek army numbered 70,000, under Pausanias, the Spartan king; the Persians 300,000. The Persians are said to have had 200,000 slain, and their army was totally routed. Another victory was gained on the coast of Asia Minor the same day, and the last remnants of the Persian fleet destroyed.

478—Athens was rebuilt and surrounded with walls from the treasures of the conquered Persians. This was the age of great men in Greece. Phidias, her greatest sculptor, flourished at this time. The Persians, at the time of their first invasion, brought a piece of marble to commemorate the victory of which they were confident. The Greeks caused Phidias to produce out of it a statue of Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, and set it up on the field of Marathon.

478—Themistocles died in banishment about this time, and Aristides of old age. Both were leading statesmen and generals of Athens during the Persian war.

470—Socrates, the most eminent philosopher of all ancient times, was born this year.

”—The death of Xerxes by assassination occurred this year.

466—Cimon, son of Miltiades, was now the great man of Athens. He was soon superseded by Pericles. From 480 B. C. to 430 was the golden period of Athens. She was pre-eminent politically, conducting the war of the Grecian allies against Persian supremacy on the western shores of Asia and in the Mediterranean sea. Republican liberty was everywhere predominant. The greatest writers, painters and sculptors lived in this period or immediately after it. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, philosophers; Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, tragic poets; Zeuxis and Apelles, painters; and Phidias in sculpture, were a few among the many great names which are found in or immediately following this period.

457—Cincinnatus was made dictator at Rome. During this period the Romans laid the foundation of their dominion over all Italy by waging successful war with the Etruscans and Samnites, the most vigorous and powerful of their opponents.

450—The Decemvirate was appointed at Rome. They were ten magistrates empowered to produce a more perfect code. It was called the “Laws of the Twelve Tables.” The plebeians about this time succeeded in wresting important privileges from the patricians, which more equally balanced the different powers of the state.

2. Athens was the centre of civilization, and Greek culture and ideas were penetrating all the nations in her vicinity. Rome was rapidly developing and Carthage was at the summit of her glory. She had control of much of the Spanish or Iberian peninsula. Persia, after absorbing all the old monarchies of the east, was declining. The “march of empire” was distinctly defining its “westward course.”

It was about the middle of this century that Herodotus, the “Father of History,” was rising to fame, and a few years later Xenophon, the Greek general and historian, was born. Thucydides, another historian, dates from this period. The great career of history now fairly commenced.

443—Herodotus emigrated from Halicarnassus, in Asia, to Greece.

431—The Peloponnesian war, a bitter contest between Athens and Sparta, commenced. It lasted twenty-three years, and was again revived, ending in the conquest of Athens by Sparta. This war was followed, after some time, by the rise of the power of Thebes, under their famous general, Epaminondas, who broke the power of Sparta. Thebes sunk into insignificance after his death, and Philip of Macedon commenced the subjugation of all Greece. He was followed by Alexander the Great, who, in return for the loss of republican liberty, rendered Greece illustrious by conquering the Persian empire, and imbuing all the Eastern World with its philosophy and arts. For all these great events one hundred years were required.

429—The death of the illustrious Pericles occurred in this year.

”—Plato, the disciple of Socrates, and, in some points, superior to him in mental discipline, was born.

420—About this time Alcibiades, the nephew of Pericles, became prominent in Athenian affairs. He had brilliant powers, but little principle.

406—The battle of Ægospotamos, gained by Lysander the Spartan, broke the power of Athens.

404—Athens was taken by Lysander, its walls demolished, and the government of the “Thirty Tyrants” established by the Spartans. Alcibiades, banished from Athens, was assassinated by the Persians, at the instigation of the Spartans.

401—Occurred the battle of Cunaxa, in Babylonia, between Cyrus, the brother of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, and that king. Cyrus, who had been governor, or satrap, in Asia Minor, gathered a large army including more than 10,000 Greeks. Cyrus was killed and his own army defeated, but the Greeks repelled all assaults. Their generals having been decoyed into the power of the Persians, on the plea of making terms with them, were treacherously slain. The army appointed other commanders, chief among whom was Xenophon, afterward the celebrated historian, and they made good their return to Greece. It was finely described by Xenophon, and known as the “Retreat of the Ten Thousand.”

400—Socrates taught doctrines too pure and high-toned for his countrymen to understand, and was condemned to drink poison, as a dangerous man and despiser of the gods, in the 70th year of his age. The Athenians soon repented it.

396—The capital of Veii, taken by the Romans, ended the contest with the Etruscans.

389—Rome was conquered and, except the capitol, destroyed, by the Gauls under Brennus. The barbarians soon retired and the city was rebuilt.

384—Aristotle, the most learned of the Grecian philosophers, was born at Stagira, in Macedon. He laid the foundation of scientific study, and was the tutor of Alexander the Great.

371—Epaminondas defeated the Spartans at Leuctra, and

362—again at Mantinea, where he was killed.

360—Philip became king of Macedon, and soon began to undermine the liberties of Greece in a very artful way.

357—The “Sacred War” against the Phocians, who had plundered the temple of Apollo, at Delphi, commenced.

356—Birth of Alexander the Great. Rutilius, the first plebean dictator at Rome.

349—Death of Plato, the brightest light of Grecian philosophy. He systematized and enlarged the doctrines of Socrates.

338—Occurred the battle of Chaeronea between Philip and the allied Athenians and Thebans. The Greeks were totally defeated and their liberty lost. Demosthenes, the most celebrated orator of the Greeks, spent his whole life and his magnificent eloquence in the effort to rouse the Greeks against Philip; but Philip was too crafty and the Greeks too little accustomed to act in concert. For nearly a hundred years the states of Greece had been exhausted by wars among themselves, and they were too weary of fighting to make the necessary effort against so powerful and skillful an adversary.

336—Philip was assassinated on the eve of an expedition against Persia, as chief of the Grecian states. This popular idea consoled them for the loss of liberty. Alexander succeeded his father.

335—Thebes rebelled against Alexander, and he took and destroyed that ancient city.

334—Alexander carried out the project of his father and invaded the Persian empire. The battle of the Granicus, his first great victory, took place this year.

333—Darius, the Persian king, was again thoroughly defeated in the battle of Issus. Damascus, in Syria, was taken and Tyre besieged by Alexander.

332—Tyre was taken and finally destroyed, and Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile, founded.

331—A final battle at Arbela, in Assyria, overthrew the Persian Empire. Darius escaped, but was murdered by Bessus, one of his officers. Four years were spent by the Greeks in subduing the wild tribes on the eastern border of the Empire, and settling the government of these vast conquests.

327—Alexander invaded India and was constantly triumphant till his soldiers refused to go farther from home. They had grown tired of conquering, and Alexander reluctantly returned to Babylon to consolidate his government.

323—Alexander died of a fever, the result of excessive drinking. He left no heir, and his generals divided his empire.

322—The Samnites obtained a temporary success by surprising a Roman army in a narrow defile of the mountains called the Candine Forks, and subjected it to a humiliating capitulation. The Romans never bowed before misfortune or defeat. They prosecuted the war with invincible resolution until the Samnite power was wholly broken, a contest, in all, of about 50 years, which was soon followed by the complete subjugation of the whole peninsula.

3. In this year died the two greatest Grecians, Demosthenes, the orator, by suicide; and Aristotle, by old age. On the death of Alexander, Demosthenes aroused the Athenians to make a stand for their liberties. Few of the Grecian states joined them and they were totally defeated by Antipater, the governor appointed by Alexander. Demosthenes avoided punishment by taking poison. The Achaian League, about forty years after, maintained the liberties of Greece for fifty years or more, which then fell before the invincible Romans. For many years all the eastern world was in confusion from the struggles of competitors for the Empire of Alexander. Ptolemy established himself soon and firmly in Egypt, and Seleucus, after various

312—Reverses, obtained full possession of the eastern parts of the empire, Babylonia, Assyria and Persia. This year is called the era of the Seleucidæ. Asia Minor and Greece were a scene of the greatest confusion for seventy years, so far as rulers were concerned. But nearly all these were Greeks, and Greek culture and philosophy exerted a wide spread influence. In the end it became fully evident that the want of genius in the Greek mind to organize, and steadiness in Greek character to sustain, settled institutions was absolute. They had, at different times, men of the greatest ability, but when they passed away their plans and institutions perished with them. The acute and accomplished Greeks were ever children in the science of government, and the advent of Rome alone, whose special skill was in government, saved the world from irretrievable anarchy or fatal despotism.

300—The Roman plebeans completed their struggle for constitutional liberty by acquiring a share in the priestly office, which was essential to the full value of their other victories over the patricians, and the Roman constitution was complete. It was maintained very fairly for more that one hundred and fifty years, when the spoils of their conquests corrupted the virtue of the citizens and produced the internal disorder that, about a century later still brought about the establishment of the Roman Empire. Yet the forms of government, municipal and other regulations, and the administration of justice, though often interfered with in particular cases, were so well settled on sound principles, and secured so uniformly the welfare of society, that they were preserved longest from general ruin, and revived first in more modern times. Greek thought and culture, and Roman law remained indestructible.

290—The Samnites, Sabines and Gauls, being all defeated, Rome was virtually mistress of Italy, although the Grecian cities on the eastern coast remained to be subdued. They had little strength in themselves against a power so warlike, and invited Pyrrhus, the king of

281—Epirus, to their assistance. He twice defeated the Roman consuls, but they inflicted on him so much loss that they vainly offered him battle immediately after, and rejected all his overtures to treat for peace. He was at length vanquished and obliged to abandon Italy to the Republic.

4. The Romans soon subdued all opposition and began to look about for other lands to conquer.

264—The Carthaginians, on the opposite coast of Africa, had become a colossal power, and sought to establish their control over Sicily—not an easy task, since it had many colonies of Greeks whose national spirit and bravery did not desert them. In this year a call for assistance from a plundering band who had captured a Greek city, a part of whom had also invited Carthaginian aid, brought Rome and Carthage in conflict. The Carthaginians were enraged at this interference with an island which they had long intended to make their own, and raised an immense army to drive out the intruders. The Romans defeated the army and took Agrigentum, one of the best strongholds of the Carthaginians on the island.

260—The Carthaginians were masters of the sea, and the Romans had little knowledge of naval affairs. Taking a Carthaginian vessel which had been driven ashore for a model, they, in a short time, created a fleet and worsted their enemies on their own special element.

256—The Romans again defeated the Carthaginians in a sea fight near the island of Lipara.

255—The Romans determined to carry the war into Africa, and fitting out a large fleet, inflicted a still heavier loss on the Carthaginian armaments, landed in Africa and defeated an immense army. The Carthaginians sued for peace, but the terms proposed by Regulus, the Roman general, were so severe that they resolved to continue the war. A Grecian general, Xanthippus, took command of their army and totally defeated the Romans, taking Regulus prisoner, and destroying or 248—capturing all his army but 2000. The Romans lost three fleets by storms, but conquered once in a sea fight, and defeated an army in Sicily. The Carthaginians again sought peace, but the Romans would not abate their first terms, and continued the war until the 240—Carthaginians, completely humbled, accepted the severe alternative of submission or destruction. The temple of Janus, the god of war, never shut but in time of absolute peace, was now closed for the second time since the building of the city.

The people, whose special occupation was war, soon grew tired of peace, and carried on various conflicts with the Gauls settled at the foot of the Alps in the 227—north of Italy. They invaded Illyria, on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea, whose people were very troublesome pirates. This war was again renewed with a more complete defeat of the Illyrians. They had before this subdued Sardinia and Corsica.

219—The Carthaginians pursued their conquests in Spain, and the celebrated Hannibal took Saguntum, which 218—brought on the second Punic war, as the war with Carthage was termed.

217—Hannibal, with great celerity, crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps—having first completed the conquest of Spain—and defeated the Romans in the battle of Ticinus, and again at Trebia.

217—The Achaian confederacy, now in the height of its glory in maintaining the liberties of Greece, united all the Greeks in a confederacy under the influence of Philip, king of Macedon, with the hope of arresting the power and ambition of Rome.

216—Hannibal inflicted a dreadful defeat on the Romans near the Thrasymenean Lake. The Romans were greatly alarmed, and made Fabius Maximus dictator, whose habit of refusing a pitched battle, wearing out his adversary by skirmishes and cutting off his supplies, is called “The Fabian Policy.” This plan is, by maneuvering and delay, to wear out and destroy an invader in detail without peril of defeat in battle. The Romans kept armies in Spain to prevent the Carthaginians from sending reinforcements to Hannibal.

215—At the close of this year Fabius resigned his dictatorship and the consuls appointed to succeed him abandoned his policy. They offered battle to Hannibal at Cannæ and the army was annihilated. 40,000 Romans were slain on the field. These defeats had destroyed the flower of their fighting population, but Roman courage and resolution always rose with defeat. They did not despair, but raised a fresh army and put Fabius again at its head, against whom the talents of Hannibal were vain. They fomented disturbances in Greece to keep Philip, King of Macedon at home, and besieged Syracuse in Sicily, which had joined the Carthaginians,

212—for three years, and then took it by stratagem. Archimedes, a celebrated mathematician of Syracuse, who had protracted the siege by his ingenious and powerful engines was killed in the sack of the city. Soon 210—after the whole island was subdued and remained a Roman province.

206—Asdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, general of the Carthaginian forces in Spain, crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps to reinforce Hannibal, but was defeated by the Romans and slain before Hannibal knew of his march.

202—Scipio, who had conquered in Spain, led an army into Africa, Hannibal being considered too formidable to attack, though his forces were very small. Scipio put 40,000 Numidians, allies of Carthage, to the sword, besieged the neighboring cities and defeated a large Carthaginian army. Hannibal was now called home to defend the metropolis. He fought a battle with raw 201—troops, at Zama, and was defeated—20,000 Carthaginians being slain. The Carthaginians begged for peace, Hannibal declaring that the war could not be protracted. The Roman terms left them little but their city. Such was the fruit of inflexible resolution.

5. The Romans are an example of a people, who, from first to last, had one clearly defined end, to which everything else was subservient. They formed their state for conquest, and that idea controlled the Kingdom, the Republic and the Empire. They were much wiser than the Spartans, for, devoting themselves to war, they meant to secure and enjoy all the fruits of conquest, and they did all that was possible to promote the prosperity of their people that they might produce warriors in abundance; but they relied mainly on actual war for discipline. They were constantly exercised in the art in the field and the orderly and sensible instinct of the race made discipline a matter of course. They were sometimes defeated when they encountered unfamiliar difficulties, or by the mistakes of their leaders, but never abandoned a purpose once adopted and never sued for peace.

Morally, the object they set before them was entirely unjustifiable, according to the standard of national rights accepted in our day. But such a conception never entered the minds of men in the ancient times. It is the fruit of modern civilization alone. The Romans, and many a nation after them, must work out the destructive consequences of that doctrine that “Might makes Right” before the universal sense of mankind would recoil from it. It was the accepted doctrine of the ancients, and has not yet disappeared from the world.

197—Sicily, Spain and Carthage were conquered, and Roman valor looked around for opportunities of winning fresh laurels. Philip of Macedon, an ambitious prince, threatened the Athenians, who implored help from Rome. An army immediately proceeded to Greece, penetrated into Macedonia, and completely defeated Philip at Cynocephalæ.

6. The Romans were now the mightiest people in the civilized world. Their obstinate contests with the vigorous nations of the West had often perilled the existence of their state, and a people of ordinary stamina and persistence would not, at the best, have risen above the rank of the Etruscans and Samnites, nor have made Rome greater than Syracuse or Carthage. They, however, matured and grew into an invincible power, whose solid and stately grandeur struck the intelligent but unpractical Greeks with admiration, and all the old peoples of the East with awe.

The Romans were not without admiration for the ancient valor and the graceful culture of the Greeks. When, two hundred and fifty years before, the Romans revised their laws, under the Decemvirate, they sent to Athens to obtain models from that republic. Athens was now treated by them with much consideration, and finally became the University City of the Empire. When Roman influence became paramount after the battle of Cynocephalæ they did not at once proceed with brutal force against the land of Beauty and Art, but took it under their protection, and proclaimed the full liberty of the Grecian States. It filled the Greeks with transport, and for some time Rome played the noble and dignified part of a disinterested protector; but when the Achaians, under their excellent and talented leader Philopœmen, sought to realize the fact of liberty, the Romans abandoned that pretence and made Greece a Roman province. Thus the whole of Europe that was sufficiently civilized to maintain a settled government was ruled by the Roman Republic. The period of rude and restless valor among the Greeks was past. The stage of cultivation they had reached inclined them to the quiet and elegant refinements of the scholar, and they readily received the Roman rule which suppressed the turbulence of ambitious adventurers and suffered no oppression but their own. The Romans represented the strength of the male element in human nature, the Greeks the grace of the female. They now coalesced, were married, so to speak, and the product of their union was, in the course of ages, modern civilization, which, when mature, was to share the eminent qualities of both.

7. The broken fragments of Alexander’s immense empire in Western Asia and Egypt were all that now stood between Rome and the mastery of the world. The Roman people were too well convinced that it was their grand destiny to achieve universal dominion to hasten prematurely the conquest of the primitive home of civilization. They watchfully waited until the course of events should throw the dominions of the Seleucidæ and the Ptolemys into their hands, without offending the majesty of the republic by an undignified violence and haste.

190—Antiochus the Great, who now reigned over the empire of the Seleucidæ, with true Grecian imprudence, became ambitious of conquests in Europe. He invaded Greece 191—and was defeated at Thermopylæ by the Romans and driven into Asia. The younger Scipio, brother of the conqueror of Hannibal, followed and totally defeated 189—him at Magnesia, in Asia Minor. He purchased peace by the loss of all the fruits of his ambition, but was left in possession of the Syrian kingdom. The failure to destroy so powerful an enemy appears to have brought on the two Scipios the rebuke of the republic, the conqueror of Carthage having aided his brother in the war. They were condemned to a heavy fine, which Scipio Africanus refused to pay and went into 183—exile, where he died. His death occurred in the same year that Hannibal, pursued by the vengeance of the Romans for having aided Antiochus, committed suicide by taking poison to avoid falling into their hands; and in this year also Philopœmen, the last patriotic hero 170—of Greece, was slain by his enemies. Perses, king of Macedon, revolted, and, after some successes, was finally overthrown under the walls of Pydna and dethroned.

168—The Carthaginians could not altogether forget their ancient greatness, and having displeased the Romans by some independence of action, it was resolved to 148—destroy their city. With the courage of despair they set the Romans at defiance, and defended themselves with a resolute bravery that engaged the lively sympathies of all after times for their painful fate. For two years they maintained the combat against their pitiless foes, who could pardon everything but rivalry in their 146—sweeping ambition, and then perished in the ruins of their once glorious metropolis. A revolt of the Achaians was punished, in the same year, by the destruction of the splendid city of Corinth, in Greece.

140—The embers of independence in Spain broke forth in war, which was checked by the assassination of Viriathes, a patriotic chieftain of great ability, and 133—quenched in blood by the self-destruction of the citizens of Numantium. About the same time the republic acquired the kingdom of Pergamus, covering the richest parts of Asia Minor, by the will of Attalus, its king, who, on his death, bequeathed it to Rome. This led, in a few years, to contests with the neighboring Asiatic sovereigns, and resulted, in about half a century, in the conquest and reduction into the state of Roman provinces of all Western Asia.

SECTION VIII.

DECAY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.

1. But while Rome was thus steadily advancing to universal dominion, great and unfortunate changes were taking place in its internal constitution. The spoils of Carthage and the east, rich in accumulations of the industry, commerce and art of two thousand years, flowed into Rome and was gathered into the hands of those in power; the equilibrium between the plebeans and the patricians was lost; the selling of captives taken in war filled Italy with slaves; and the inequality of conditions produced the most disastrous consequences.

133—The eldest son of a noble house, the Gracchi, undertook to stem the torrent that was sweeping away the ancient barriers of the constitution, and to raise the people from the misery into which the increase of patrician wealth and power and the innumerable multitudes of slaves had plunged them. In the year in which Numantia fell and Spain was thoroughly subdued, Tiberius Gracchus was slain in a tumult, produced by the patricians, who determined that his project should not succeed. He had attempted to revive the old agrarian law, by which the landed possessions of the republic were shared among the people as well as the patricians, which would have rescued the plebeans from poverty and oppression; but the patricians were too powerful and too violent. He was removed by assassination.

2. 121—Twelve years later his brother, Caius Gracchus, attempted the same thing and was likewise slain. This point was vital to the internal liberties of Rome. The failure of the Gracchi announced the overthrow of the constitution; and, after seventy years of civil anarchy and the murderous conflict of rival factions, the empire was found the only refuge against the ruin of the state. Vigorous Rome, who could govern all the world but herself, must have a master, and became the prey of the strongest. It is a melancholy history, a sad conclusion for a people whose strength and grandeur of character had made them masters of the world, but a perfectly legitimate result of the immoral principle that lay at the foundation of the state. That principle legalized the doctrine of force, or robbery on the grandest scale. They carried it out with great consistency and skill, with all the ability of a race eminently sagacious and steady in the pursuit of an end. The conservative force that dwelt in their organization, so instinctively and exceptionally wise, and the power of religious faith, strong in a hardy and simple people, however weakened by pagan ignorance and superstition, long maintained the integrity of their institutions—but Greek culture, too imperfect not to culminate in skepticism, came in to confuse their moral sense at the same time that boundless wealth flowed into their hands to corrupt their manners, that slavery assumed gigantic proportions to demoralize labor, and the conquest of the world relieved them from the severe discipline that might not, otherwise, have left them the leisure to become deeply vicious.

The sternness of even Roman character was unequal to the heavy strain and virtue gave way. The native vigor of the race made them as excessive in unrestrained passion as wise in council and invincible in war. The cruelty and rapacity that were common in the civil wars of the Republic, and under many of the early emperors, educated giants in crime, and only the Roman spirit in the army, and the vigorous organization everywhere maintained through the institutions established in the subject world by Roman law, could have held its vast dominions together. Rome had vitality and sense to govern others, even in the midst of civil war.

3. From the death of the Gracchi to the consulship 107—Of Marius, Rome was in a tumult of corrupt intrigue, which rendered easy the usurpation and inhuman cruelty of Jugurtha, king of Numidia. Marius, a plebian of the lowest rank, became consul. He was unequaled at once as a general and a tyrant. He conquered 106—Jugurtha, who was brought to Rome and starved in prison. In the same year Cicero, the great Roman orator, was born.

A vast horde of Cimbri and Teutons from northern 105—Europe, invaded Gaul and defeated several Roman consuls.

100—Marius led an army against these barbarians and defeated them, more than 100,000 being slain or made prisoners. He was equally successful in a second engagement. During the war 200,000 barbarians were slain and 90,000 taken prisoners. A revolt of the slaves was put down about the same time with circumstances of extreme cruelty. More than a million of these unfortunates were slain or thrown to wild beasts for the amusement of the Roman populace.

4. 100—In this year Julius Cæsar, one of the greatest men of any time, and virtual founder of the Roman Empire, was born. His supreme ability put an end to civil dissention and saved society from total ruin.

90—The Italian allies revolted against Rome. They claimed the privileges of Roman citizenship, which the Senate refused. A war of three years followed and half a million of men perished, when, having conquered them, the Senate granted their first request.

88—Mithridates, king of Pontus, talented and ambitious, sought to drive the Romans out of Asia and Greece, and warred with them for twenty-five years. Sylla procured the banishment of his rival, Marius, and conducted the war against Mithridates.

86—Marius regained power in the absence of Sylla and slaughtered his enemies, the patricians, without mercy, but soon after died.

83—Sylla, after obliging Mithridates to sue for peace, hastened to Rome, conquered his enemies, and slew more than 6,000 Roman citizens in revenge.

81—Sylla caused himself to be made perpetual dictator 77—But after three years resigned and soon after died from the effects of his vices. Civil war was continued for a time in Spain and Italy, but finally put down by Pompey, 70—the greatest general of the patrician party.

The war of the gladiators—men trained to fight in the theatres for the amusement of the populace—broke out under an able leader, Spartacus, who, collecting an army of 120,000 gladiators, endangered Rome itself, but 70—he was conquered by Crassus. Spartacus was defeated and killed. It was the inhuman oppression of the patricians that produced all these dreadful conflicts.

65—Pompey and Crassus, by paying court to the people, were made consuls. Pompey proceeded to Asia and made war on Mithridates, who was again formidable, 63—whom he defeated and slew in battle. He subdued nearly all western Asia, visiting Jerusalem, and treating the Jews with kindness. He also cleared the Mediterranean of pirates, who had always infested it.

62—A dangerous conspiracy of Cataline, a patrician of the most corrupt morals, at the head of the depraved young nobility of the time, would have been successful but for the ability and eloquence of Cicero, who was consul. Cataline and his fellow conspirators were taken and slain.

59—Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus formed the first “Triumvirate,” and divided the rule of the world between them. Cæsar was the head of the popular party. He 57—took Gaul as his government. Here he spent eight years in his “Gallic wars,” showing unparalleled talents as a general, training his army to become invincible in battle, and completely subduing the fierce Gauls. He 55—entered Britain and laid the foundation of civilization there, thus carrying the march of empire to its farthest bounds in Europe.

5. 49—He was ordered to return and lay down his authority by the Roman Senate, headed by Pompey, who was now his enemy. They were the rival champions of the two parties in the state, the people and the patricians, whose quarrels had so long filled Rome with tumult and slaughter. The tribunes in Cæsar’s interest interposed a veto, which the Roman Constitution authorized them to do. The Senate voted to suspend the Constitution, which really terminated the Roman Republic, Jan. 7, B. C. 49. Cæsar at once crossed the river Rubicon, the boundary of his government, and marched his army on Rome. Pompey and the aristocratic party fled in haste, leaving the public treasure behind. In sixty days Cæsar had possession of all Italy. Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain were next conquered from the officers of Pompey, when he returned to Rome, and was created dictator by his party. He treated all his enemies with clemency. Pompey had gone into Greece, 48—where he gathered a large army. Cæsar followed with his veteran legions, and defeated him in the battle of Pharsalia in Thessaly. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was treacherously slain, to the great indignation of Cæsar, who would shed no blood but in necessary battle. Thus he became sole master of the world.

In a conflict with the Egyptians in Alexandria Cæsar set on fire their fleet, he being attended by but few troops, and the conflagration extended to the Alexandrian Library, filled with inestimable treasures of ancient literature, which were destroyed, to the great loss of future generations. Cæsar soon subdued Egypt, 47—defeated Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, and returned to Rome.

46—He soon passed into Africa, where he defeated his enemies. The celebrated Cato, an inflexible enemy of Cæsar, committed suicide rather than submit to him. In Spain he soon after defeated the sons of Pompey, the last of his foes in arms. He rebuilt Carthage and 45—Corinth. He projected many great public works and useful reforms. The whole power of Roman sovereignty 44—was formally conferred on him by the people, when he was suddenly assassinated by a band of senators and certain conspirators, who imagined it possible to restore the ancient Republic. His nephew, Augustus, succeeded him soon after.

43—The eminent Cicero, never a friend to Cæsar, was assassinated by the connivance of Augustus.

42—The republican and aristocratic conspirators were defeated by Augustus and Antony at Philippi, in Greece. Brutus and Cassius, the republican leaders, and assassins of Cæsar, were slain. The second “Triumvirate,” composed of Augustus, Antony and Lepidus, having acquired possession of all the powers of the state, ruthlessly murdered thousands of their political enemies. They soon grew jealous of each other, and fought and intrigued for eleven years, Augustus, with great prudence, firmly settling himself in Rome, and Antony becoming the slave of the beautiful and infamous Cleopatra, queen of Egypt.

31—At length, at the battle of Actium, Antony was defeated, and soon after both Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. Egypt became formally a Roman province, and Augustus absolute emperor of the world.

SECTION IX.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

1. B. C. 28—In this year Augustus, having fully consolidated his power, was formally recognized emperor. During all the contests of factions, and when Rome was itself in the throes of revolution, the subjection of all the provinces to the imperial city, and whoever was in power there, was rigorously maintained. The inhabitants were protected from invasion, and if they were often oppressed by Roman governors, it was far less than under their native rulers, and, in general, they were not desirous of a change. Roman law and order, and the power of appeal from great injustice to the Roman senate or emperor, maintained a state of generally tranquil prosperity, only disturbed by the contests of rivals for the control of the imperial city and its power.

A long period of almost absolute quiet followed the establishment of the empire, which gave Rome and Italy great satisfaction, after nearly a hundred years of civil war. It is called the “Augustan Age,” when industry and commerce, literature and the arts, reached their highest development.

The Roman Empire and the Christian era commenced nearly together. During the thirty years that followed the battle of Actium, which secured to Augustus the sole control of the civilized world, by the defeat of his last rival, Antony, he was occupied in organizing the vast machinery of his government, and centralizing all the parts of the administration in his own person. For near three hundred years Western Asia and Greece had been a scene of violent commotion. Rival adventurers were constantly seeking to reconstruct the empire of Alexander. Some of these had the genius and the good fortune to succeed, in part at least, and swayed a powerful scepter over a large region during their own lives, and, in some instances, their dominions were held together for several generations. But there was no sufficient base for a strong and permanent government. There was no stable element on which to rest it. The Greeks were brave, intelligent and enterprising, and no Asiatic people could withstand a Greek army under Greek leaders; but the Greeks were too restless, too easily carried away by enthusiasm for a new leader or a new idea to be capable of upholding an empire.

2. Thus, Asia and Greece had been a vast battle field, and the battles served no general interest and founded no permanent state. The Greeks grew tired of supporting the claims of each new aspirant, who returned their favor by depriving them of liberty, and the whole eastern world readily submitted to the Romans, under whom there was, at least, a prospect of civil order. Augustus, then, had little trouble in settling the affairs of the whole empire, and, about thirty years after the battle of Actium, finding the entire world quietly content and the administration everywhere in fair working order, directed the gates of the temple of Janus to be closed, and a census to be made of all his subjects. At this time Jesus Christ was born and the Christian era commenced.

The Roman Empire under Augustus was the culmination of the ancient and pagan civilization. It had great vitality, and strength enough to rule the world four hundred years longer; but it had also fatal weaknesses. We have seen that the existence of the empire originated in the inability of the old society to free itself from the vices which long and great prosperity had developed. It had no purifying element strong enough to drive out the disease which its moral weakness had allowed to fasten on it. It was, in fact, based on wrong and could not but perish. Its fall was only a question of time. Its ferocious valor and contempt of the rights of nations broke down the very virtue that was essential to the stability of society. The Romans were robbers on a grand scale, and it was very natural that, when there were no more foreign nations to slay and plunder, the citizens should fall to cutting each others throats and robbing their neighbors. As this would lead to the immediate ruin of society and the state, the empire, which gave them an absolute master, was a necessity.

3. But a full comprehension of the moral laws on which society, institutions and states are founded, was the last to be gained. Most modern nations have not yet attained it, notwithstanding that Christianity has so long stated the principles with clearness and force.

The common mind of humanity could master them only by growth through thousands of years and innumerable experiences. The object of all earthly experience is to develop the value of the _individual man_; and the object of society, of institutions and of government, is to protect the rights and to favor the development of _each man_ of the race. When this end is fully secured, history will have solved its problem. As the commencement of the Christian era was the turning point of history in some most important respects, it is proper to glance back and forward over the state of this problem, and the relation of Christianity to it, before proceeding with the general course of events.

At first men were like children, with everything to learn; and, like children, they learned one thing at a time; and they also made an addition to their common stock of knowledge at every remove of the centre of growth. In Asia and Egypt the general lesson was industry and obedience, while the Jews, on the western shore, more or less assisted by the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks, labored at the development of a pure religion which culminated in Christianity. The removal of the centre to Greece added mental and artistic culture, and the further westward journey to Rome gave them a new class of most important ideas concerning public organization, law and order.

4. If each of these lessons had been perfect in themselves the addition made by Christianity, which defined the relations between men, the law of human rights and the doctrines essential to the stability and purity of society, would have enabled mankind to build up satisfactory institutions and a complete civilization from the Roman period. But the elementary lessons were very incomplete. The Asiatics became very superstitious; the Greeks could teach men the _art_ of thinking, or exercising their minds, but they could not find the true starting point; they did not discover what subjects it was useful, and what it was useless, to reason upon; and wasted a good part of the thought of their times on profitless questions. Their failure to obtain a clear and valuable result from philosophy made men skeptical and contributed much to the decline of civilization in the time of the Roman empire. The Romans built their whole structure of law and order on _force_ and a wholesale violation of the rights of mankind, and the minds of men became greatly confused. The doctrine of the Epicurean philosophers—“Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die”—a despair of working out the problem of life to a satisfactory answer, became the most popular in the empire. The splendor and glory of Oriental, Grecian and Roman civilization seemed to end in degrading servility and superstition, in the endless and absurd speculations of so-called philosophers, and in the vast brutal tyranny of the emperors. The east failed of a pure religion that was generally accepted. Greek philosophy did not have science to guide her thought, and Rome could not be just as well as strong.

5. It was only in modern times that these lessons were made complete. The discoveries in Geography, in Astronomy, in Natural Philosophy, in Chemistry, in Geology, made men acquainted with the structure of the universe, the properties and the laws of matter, and corrected the extravagances of the ancient speculative philosophy. For want of science, Greek thought wandered about in an unreal world and lost a good part of its labor. A long experience under the control of this, corrected thought was required to construct a science of Government that should supply what was wanting to Roman jurisprudence, and Christianity itself could not be rightly understood while so many false theories and wrong practices prevailed.

But the ancient times were as essential to the building up of the modern as the modern to the completion of the ancient. It was the renewed study of the Greek classics, of Roman law, and of the original teachings of Christianity, under more favorable circumstances, and after many new experiences for a thousand years, that gave birth to all our later improvements in religion, in government and in science. The Asiatic Jews gave us in Christianity, a pure and simple worship, and a system of public morality so perfect that no society has yet been able to embody it completely in practice, although it is now recognized, very generally, as the highest conceivable standard, to be constantly aimed at and conformed to as far as possible; the Greek Philosopher, Aristotle, gave us the first notions of science, and Roman law formed the base of modern legal practice.

6. The difficulties of progress are very great. It is not easier for nations to unlearn what they have learned amiss in their youth, than for individuals. No nation that has matured institutions has ever yet thoroughly reformed them. The best and most clear sighted minds discover their defects and show what is to be remedied; but the force of habit and the veneration men feel for what is old, offer so much resistance to complete reforms that it has been necessary to establish and build up institutions on new principles on fresh ground. So all the light and power of science, of the reformed religion, of a more complete system of law, the greater intelligence of the masses of men and the activity of commerce and trade did not suffice to do for modern Europe what has been done with ease in America. But Europe furnished the ideas which America worked out; and the sight of those principles embodied in institutions that greatly improved the condition of mankind has reacted on Europe, and bids fair, in time, to produce a novelty in human experience—a complete regeneration of old nations and governments. When Greece rose to power it subjected but lightly, and only superficially transformed, the nations of Asia; Rome absorbed them both, and Christianity gave its simple and noble lessons to them all. But the slight influence of Greece, Rome and Christianity on the old nations of western Asia is shown in the rise and permanence of Mohammedanism, so inferior, in all respects, to Christianity. After a career of more than twelve hundred years, it still rules many more millions than were contained in all the Roman Empire in its most prosperous days.

7. But the power of a progressive civilization constantly increases, and will, by and by, be equal to the thorough reform of even crystalized China. Without America, Europe would be still struggling with the incipient stages of reform. With it, she has gone far toward correcting the imperfections which existed one hundred years ago, and will presently complete the process. With these general observations, we proceed to examine the influence of Christianity on the old civilization.

SECTION X.

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.

1. It was developed on the western borders of Asia, and was the completion or perfect development of the system of religion existing among the Jews from a very early period. Soon after Abraham, the father and grand patriarch of the Jews, had given his descendants the outlines of the system, they were led, by circumstances, to Egypt, and remained there for many generations. When they left Egypt, it was under the leadership of one of the greatest of the world’s great men, who had been heir apparent of the Egyptian throne, and was consequently versed in all the mysterious wisdom of the priesthood of that country. That he became wiser than they is evident from the history of his contest with them before the king when endeavoring to gain his consent to the migration of his people from the country. Instructed in all the celebrated “wisdom of the Egyptians,” together with the reflections and additions of forty solitary years as a shepherd in Arabia, he produced a remarkable system of mingled theology and legislation which has come down as a sacred record to our day.

2. The Jews were, nine hundred years afterwards, transported as a nation to Babylon, remained there for more than two generations, and received such light as the Babylonian priests and Persian magi were able to give them. The conquest of Asia by the Greeks and the vicinity of Judea to commercial Tyre, furnished them all the aid these nations could give in the line of religious suggestion. A Jew produced, in the early days of the Roman Empire, the simple, yet sublime teachings of Christianity. It had the comprehensiveness and directness requisite to give it authority as a universal religion. In few, but plain and convincing words, it laid down the principles of human rights and of divine law. It defined the nature and stated the sanctions of virtue in the clearest terms; tore away every covering from vice and denounced without fear the favorite ambitions and follies of men. It seems almost incredible that such a system should have had its origin even among a people like the Jews, and at the time when the Roman Empire represented the highest civilization of the world.

3. The Jews, as a nation, however, rejected and bitterly persecuted it, and the Romans, who were, on principle, extremely tolerant of all foreign religions, soon became extremely hostile. It was humble, unostentatious, very simple in all its forms, carefully refrained from all interference with established government, and presented many new and consoling truths, with great force. It would have seemed that it had only to speak to gain a hearing and take a leading place at once in the work of the future. The few unprejudiced among the great, and thousands of the poor and oppressed whom the cruel power of the Romans had deprived of nationality, property and personal liberty, and many whose minds recoiled from the vices, crimes and skepticism of the age, heard and embraced it with joy. But it rebuked with most severity the ambitions, the injustice and the love of luxury that were most prevalent in that age and that were most distinctly Roman. It was peculiarly severe against all other systems of religion, and that formed the strongest barrier against its immediate spread over the pagan world at large. It was, therefore, persecuted with the greatest rigor for three hundred years.

4. But persecution called public attention to it and won it sympathy, and it continually spread beneath the surface of society. The brutal features of Roman character were gradually softened; very gradually, indeed, for Roman manners and morals were an Augean stable which it was a more than herculean task to cleanse; but after a time, the gigantic crimes of a Marius, a Sylla, a Nero, or Domitian became impossible, and the horrors of the theatre, where gladiators killed each other and men were thrown to wild beasts for the amusement of the populace, became rare. Atrocious crimes awakened a disgust that showed a different view and a new standard of judgment in the community. Christianity created a purer moral atmosphere even in Rome, and while it was persecuted with the utmost barbarity.

5. It is then no matter of surprise that Christianity did not at once meet with general acceptance, and did not fully reconstruct Roman society and manners. The marvel is that it could be produced at all by an age to whose whole spirit it was so absolutely contrary. It was the doctrine of peace proclaimed among nations who knew no occupation so glorious as war; whose institutions all rested on conquest; whose dominant race—admired as much as feared—was the very genius and embodiment of martial force arrayed against the independence of all nationalities by an organization the most complete. It proclaimed the _rights_ of _man_ and the equality of all classes and persons before the Divine Law, to a people who had plunged in a common ruin Carthage and Corinth, the Republics of Greece, and the absolute rulers of monarchical Asia. It scorned equally gorgeous ceremonies of worship, the subtleties of an imperfect philosophy and pride of place and power.

It is not possible to imagine a greater contrast to all the modes of habit and thought prevalent in those times. The most sensual of all races it exhorted to spirituality, to the most cruel and insolent it preached meekness and forbearance. It placed the slave to whom the recognized laws of war left no rights, beside the master who gloried in setting his foot on the neck of the prostrate; and recognized as equals the great and the small, the ignorant and the wise, the bond and the free.

We cannot be surprised that it did not obtain immediate currency, that it was everywhere scorned and cast out, that it aroused unheard of persecutions, and that it could only obtain, a triumph when the old Roman inflexibility and fierceness had died out of its degenerate children, and the spirit of the ancient world was burned out in the hot fires of its own passions. Character does not change in a day, and the ruling impulses of a race can be modified only by slow degrees. Such is the supreme law which has ruled all history.

6. From all these causes Christianity was slow in penetrating society and moulding institutions; but it spread so extensively that a clear sighted emperor at length found it politic to profess Christianity in order to gain the support of so large and vigorous an element against his rivals in power. Constantine was victorious and proceeded to make Christianity the state religion. It had maintained its growth by its real superiority and ever after remained the most powerful and productive among the influences that aided the progress of mankind. It was actively aggressive and had made the barbarians who overthrew Rome converts to the faith before the invasion, and thus broke the force and diminished the disastrous effects of that event. In after times, no sooner did a barbarian tribe appear and establish itself in any part of the old empire than Christianity commenced the work of teaching and proselyting, which aided much in restoring order and repairing ruin. Had Christianity preserved its purity its usefulness and power would have been much greater.

7. But as it gained in numbers and in position it lost internal strength. Both Oriental and Greek philosophy tainted its simple doctrines and introduced in various forms the hurtful speculations so dear to the ancients; and when it became the court religion the simplicity of its ceremonies was gradually replaced by the pomp and splendor of pagan worship. Constantine and his successors in the empire assumed the virtual headship of the church, called councils and packed them for political purposes, and pronounced for or against supposed heresies. The offices of the church became the rewards of ambition and gradually a hierarchy, or regular gradation, was established in the priesthood, and both faith and manners came to be strangely in contrast with their original simplicity. Yet, Christianity, aping the forms and infected with the superstitions of paganism, and become the tool of the aspiring, was still alive with a youthful vigor by which she eased the fall of the old civilization, and was abundant in valuable service for the civilization yet to be.

SECTION XI.

THE SERVICES OF GREAT MEN TO MANKIND.

1. It is difficult for us to comprehend the embarrassments which a want of diffused information presented to the progress of the ancient days. With no books, or, at best, but very few, with little or no record of the past, or the distant present, but what confused, distorted and uncertain tradition and rumor could give, with almost no _instruments_ of thought and education, it would seem natural that they should fall into a hopeless barbarism. That they raised themselves so far out of a condition so low and so helpless, that they created so many instruments for _us_, is a proof of the wonderful capacity for advancement that lies in humanity, and a prophecy of stupendous things yet in store for mankind.

2. One of the most important elements of their progress lay in their _great men_. It is indispensable that a man, to become great, or famous, by exercising a wide influence, should represent in a large, well defined and successful way, the general tendency and aspiration of his times. He must unite a clear perception of these tendencies in his mind, with the power to give them adequate expression in his words or deeds. He must be so far ahead of his times as to be able to clearly work out what is lying unexpressed in the general mind, but not so far ahead that it cannot come into sympathy and co-operation with him; else he will not be recognized as great. Great men are a summary of their times, or of the people they dwell among; they gather its tendencies to a point and express the undefined desire of that period. Their value for later times is that they represent the spirit of their race at that time in a form to make a striking impression, and those who have the good fortune to represent the qualities of the best races, or of nations at the most important stage of their history, become the general exemplars of mankind; teaching in a forcible and striking way the lessons which have been wrought out in the experience of a whole people for ages.

3. The poets are the first of these great men of whom history gives us any account, except, perhaps, the heroes whose deeds they sung, which are more or less uncertain, because they clothed the common tradition of their times in an imaginative and fictitious dress. The poets Homer and Hesiod had great influence on early Greece. They summed up its theology and the history of its admired heroes, and gave expression to the early thought and literary turn of that people.

Their legislators came next. They gave expression to the genius of their people in institutions and laws. Lycurgus arranged the Spartan state into a military school. His laws remained in force more than five hundred years. Solon was the legislator of Athens and his laws were much admired for their wisdom and justice. The Greeks could think more wisely than they could act. Lycurgus organized the warlike spirit in Greece as well as Sparta. The small Grecian states, determined to keep Sparta and each one of the other states from destroying their individual liberties, were trained by the necessity of combating the vigorous military organization of Sparta to great ability in war.

Under Pericles, a republican statesman of Athens, nearly a century later than Solon, the full glory of the Grecian genius shone forth. He encouraged his countrymen to give the support to art and literature that produced the famous master pieces which have made Greece illustrious and influential to this day.

4. Socrates appeared soon after. He was the apostle of thought. His influence in leading men to use direct and effective modes of examination and reasoning was incalculable, and has perhaps had more effect on the world than the victorious career of Alexander or of the Romans. He was followed by Plato, a disciple of his, who pushed out to further results the same principles. He is called the prince of philosophers, and has exerted a world-wide influence. He had not the simplicity and plain directness of Socrates, though his mind was more polished, and he was more learned. Some scholars, however, consider his masterpieces to indicate as powerful a mind as the world has produced. He spent twelve years in travel, and used all the means of education, and study then to be found. His works are still the delight of the most accomplished scholars.

5. Aristotle began his career in the last years of Plato. He was the tutor of Alexander the Great. He followed a different line of study, wrote on logic, or the art of reasoning, on the natural sciences, and introduced method in the exercise of the mind and in study. Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, and many other great writers, artists and sculptors, lived about the same period; and thus Grecians did for the mind what the Romans did for law and government—laid down the fundamental principles which formed the basis of real progress.

The free government of Athens encouraged oratory and the art of persuasion. Demosthenes was the most celebrated orator among the Greeks, and if his state had only been more powerful he would have conquered Philip of Macedon. He was indeed one of the greatest orators of all times. Cicero, among the Romans, was a writer and orator of almost equal merit. They both lived just at the downfall of the liberties of their states, and they spoke with more effect to the times after them than to their contemporaries. If they did not succeed in preserving the liberties of Greece and Rome, they made a great impression, the name of Liberty was consecrated by their noble words, and those who destroyed it made infamous by their burning invectives. When a more favorable time came for restoring it, they lived again in influence, and triumphed by the memory and record of their great patriotism and powerful eloquence.

6. Great conquerors and warriors, in all times, have also been representative men, giving expression and gratification to the warlike spirit of their people, and producing great changes that have been favorable to the real advancement of mankind. The energies they stirred up, and the mingling of nations they produced generally promoted civilization. Alexander the Great displayed the wonderful genius and fertility in resources that was peculiarly Greek. His nation was almost consoled for the loss of their liberties by the conquests to which he led them. He opened to their study unknown regions, and gave their mental genius a broader play and a fuller occupation. They, to such an extent as change was possible with old civilizations, _Hellenized_ the East and prepared the way for the reception of Christianity. Alexander, in three great battles, conquered the great Persian Empire with a small army. He never suffered defeat, and died at thirty-three years of age. Had he lived, he might have done what Hannibal could not do—have crushed the rising power of the Roman republic. It would have been a misfortune, for the Romans did incalculable service to humanity. Greek learning exerted its influence on the East for two hundred and fifty years before its final conquest by the Romans. Alexander did great service to mankind by his military success. Hannibal is an instance of a great man not as fully representative of his own people, perhaps, and whose misfortune it was to have to struggle against a people whose united genius was greater, more inventive, and more patient than his own. The Roman Pompey represented the aristocratic element of his people, and though a great general, hardly deserved to succeed. Julius Cæsar possessed the merciful character and intelligence of the Greek and the prodigious energy and resolution of the Roman. His conquest of Gaul and Britain introduced civilization into the lands that were, five hundred years later, to begin a new career for mankind. His thorough subjection of the Gauls preserved the ancient civilization from the inroads of the vigorous Germans until all was ready for the new order of things. More than any other great man, he may be said to have been representative of the best spirit of his time. Perceiving that the Roman republic was dead, and could not possibly be restored, from the strength of the vices ruling in the state, he repressed its anarchy and set aside its forms, wisely and prudently, with as little bloodshed or cruelty us possible. He thoroughly represented the practical sense and immense vigor of the true Roman. He has been severely reproached for destroying the republic, but the republic virtually fell with the Gracchi, seventy-five years before, and he established the only government that could possibly preserve the Roman state from disorganization.

7. The office of all these, and multitudes of other great men, less representative of the greater qualities of their fellows, or representative of less striking features of their times, has been to sum up the character of their people, and present their special features, _condensed_, for the observation of mankind, and by their position as leaders, to give their times an opportunity for powerful development, as well as to show what mankind are capable of. In this last view they stimulate individuals to aspiration and effort. Millions of men, probably, have had the qualities of Alexander and Cæsar, millions more those of Demosthenes and Cicero, of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and so of all the different classes of great men, but have wanted the opportunities and peculiar stimulants to develop them. Whoever can appreciate them, can, with a favorable balance of faculties to give equally sound judgment, together with equally favorable circumstances, imitate them. Modern times have shown multitudes of men who, their character and talents taken as a whole, have shown themselves far greater than any of the ancients. Culture and the mingling of races will, perhaps, finally make _all_ men greater than the greatest of the ancients.

8. Brutus, one of the murderers of Cæsar, wished to restore the glories of the ancient Roman republic, and thought Cæsar stood in the way. He removed him by violence, and found the difficulties greater than ever. A hundred years of conquest had sapped the virtues of the Roman people, and Brutus killed himself in despair, saying: “O Virtue! thou art but a name!” To Cæsar succeeded Augustus, by a necessity of things. Without Cæsar’s clemency, he deluged Rome with the blood of its citizens. Afterward, however, his rule was less sanguinary, and for thirty years he ruled with mildness, though with despotism. The limited amount of virtue in pagan civilizations wore out; and notwithstanding the intelligence of Greece and the good sense of Rome, the ancient world was obliged to close its career as it began, by absolute monarchy. It remained for the modern world to find, among its more abundant resources, the means of forever preserving itself from decline. Education and purity, science and religion, freedom and fraternity among all races and nations; a knowledge and wisdom not conceived by the ancients, a replacing of war and violence, which are essentially demoralizing, by peaceful means, which shall benefit all and injure none; perfectly free intercourse under the guidance of absolute justice and benevolence; such is the way by which the modern world will work out the problem impossible for the old world to solve. America has gone far toward the goal. In time, all nations will be persuaded to join her in attaining it.

9. Before we proceed with the chronology of the Christian Era we must briefly notice the _one perfect man_, Jesus Christ. To pronounce on the miraculous and divine claims made for his character and deeds would carry us outside of our theme. We can only deal with him as with other historical men, in his historical character and relations. These are extremely remarkable.

That individual sprang, like Socrates, from the poorer classes, and, like him without the advantages of education, produced a system which proved a marvel of perfection, adapted to all times, but most perfectly to the most perfect state of mankind, and consequently growing up with the progress of nations to an ever-increasing influence. Its moral precepts, even in our day, are as far ahead of our civilization as that is behind a perfect condition. This man made an extraordinary impression. In three hundred years, by merely publishing his ideas in a quiet way, which was the only mode the hostility of the Roman rulers would permit, his followers overthrew the prevailing religious systems which had been established as many thousand years, and spread his influence world-wide.

His birth became the commencement of the Era of Humanity. Like Socrates, he went about among the people with a few chosen friends, setting forth his ideas, chiefly in conversation. He did not write; the simple record of his life and a few of his discourses being recorded by his disciples. Again, like Socrates, his life was ended by violence. All the records of that life show that he was as perfect as we can conceive. In no respect does he seem to have wanted any feature of a noble manhood, in any degree, nor to have shared the prejudices or defects of his age. He lived as we may conceive man to live when his mental and moral habits are accurately adjusted and harmonized with his relations and his duties, which he has learned perfectly to appreciate. His public career lasted but three years and a half, and shines in history a beam of light. He inspired his appreciative followers with rapturous admiration, a passionate attachment to his person, and pleasure in obedience to his teachings, stronger than death; and in those whose plans and prejudices he crossed, and whose ambitions he rebuked, a deadly hatred which could only be satisfied with his blood.

10. Immediately after his death his followers commenced to publish and enforce his teachings with great success, and on the outbreak of persecution, without making opposition, they scattered in all directions, proclaiming them with undiminished zeal. Very soon their converts numbered tens of thousands, in all parts of the Roman Empire. Persecution increased their fervor and their numbers, without leading them to revolt or resistance, until, in the course of time, an emperor found it politic to profess Christianity. This high patronage, and the active part the emperors took in the affairs of the church from that time, had the effect to corrupt its simplicity of manners, as the adhesion of Greek philosophers, who imported into its doctrines their crude theories, adulterated its teachings, and much that was quite foreign to its essential character continued associated with its promulgation and institutions for fifteen hundred years, and, indeed, remnants of the same foreign element yet linger in it.

Notwithstanding the embarrassing load which the fantastic distortion of its original simplicity and directness laid upon it, it continued to exert great influence, and seems destined to return, in time, to its original form and purity, and to employ its primitive power to crown the work of civilization.

11. Such is the historical report of the man who introduced into the process of human progress an element of unexampled power. An impartial estimate of the influence of Jesus Christ on history must allow that he is the most important character that has ever appeared among men. The unhappy association of his ideas with the vagaries of an imperfect philosophy and the unwholesome ambitions of power, greatly curtailed their usefulness; but the simple majesty of his character and his discourses could not always be obscured, and the luster of both has never shone more clearly nor exerted more influence than they do in this age.

The course of the history of Christianity will be seen to be intimately connected with every stage of advancement from the time the Roman Empire began to wear out; it was the nucleus which survived its fall, around which the surging waves of invasion raged in vain, and which immediately began the work of reconstruction.

SECTION XII.

THE CHRISTIAN ERA.

4—By some chronological confusion the new era has been made to begin four years before the appearance of the founder of Christianity. When Augustus had settled the whole empire he ordered the temple of Janus to be closed and a census taken of all its inhabitants, which numbered one hundred and twenty millions. On this occasion Jesus Christ was born.

10—A Roman army under Varus was defeated and cut to pieces in Germany. It was the severest defeat the Romans had suffered since the overthrow and death of Crassus, by the Parthians, sixty-three years before.

14—The Emperor Augustus died and was succeeded by his step-son, Tiberius.

29—Jesus Christ was crucified by Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea, at the solicitation, and on the accusation, of the leading Jews.

37—Tiberius died and was succeeded by Caligula. The commencement of the reign of Tiberius was wise and moderate, but he soon became violent and cruel. Caligula was a still greater monster of wickedness.

40—Growing weary of his cruelty he was assassinated by one of his officers, and his uncle, Claudius, was raised to the throne. He was of feeble intellect and became the tool of infamous favorites. He was poisoned by order of his wife, Agrippina.

54—Nero, the son of Agrippina by a former husband, was made emperor at seventeen years of age. He exceeded all description in folly, extravagance and crime. His violence and barbarity fell generally on the patricians and members of his court, but he was esteemed by the common people, as were most of the emperors, who spent vast sums on theatres and spectacles for their amusement. The two bases of the empire were the populace and the army. The emperor was terrible and tyrannical chiefly to the patricians, while the army made him formidable to the provinces and the barbarians. A conflagration which some attributed to the orders 64—of Nero lasted nine days and destroyed the greater part of Rome. Nero cast the blame on the Christians, who had become numerous, and raised a horrible persecution against them.

66—The Jews rebelled and defied the Roman Empire.

68—Nero was dethroned by the Roman senate and army, and committed suicide to avoid punishment for his crimes.

69—Three emperors, Galba, Otho and Vitellius, were placed on the throne in succession, but rebellions were raised against them and all were put to death. Vespasian, then besieging Jerusalem, was proclaimed emperor by his army at the desire of the rulers of the eastern provinces, and, in the same year, overcame all opposition and commenced the first reign since Augustus that was free from disgraceful profligacy and public crime.

70—Titus, the son of Vespasian, captured and destroyed Jerusalem. Vespasian, during a reign of ten years, restored order and prosperity to Rome and the empire, but not without great labor and danger.

79—Titus succeeded as emperor, and was remarkable for his clemency and care for his subjects. During his reign occurred the most fearful eruption of the volcano Vesuvius on record. Herculaneum and Pompeii, two wealthy and flourishing cities, were destroyed, being buried by the ashes. Pliny, an eminent writer, was suffocated while observing the eruption.

81—Titus died, to the great grief and loss of mankind, and was succeeded by his brother, Domitian, who was one of the most infamous rulers that ever desolated the earth. He raised a violent persecution against the Christians for refusing to adore his statues and worship him as a god. Among the victims was his own cousin, Clemens, who had embraced Christianity. He 96—was assassinated by his wife and officers in self-defense, and the senate proclaimed Nerva, a native of Crete, emperor. He was remarkable for his lenity and all the gentle virtues. He was followed, after a reign of two 98—years, by Trajan, whom he had adopted as his colleague and successor, who is said to have been the greatest and most deserving person of his time. He was, by birth, a Spaniard, was wise and successful as a warrior and statesman, and extremely noble as a man. He bridged the Danube and the Euphrates rivers and conquered both the Germans and Parthians on the north and east of the empire. A stain on his memory was the persecution of the Christians.

117—He was succeeded by Adrian, in whose reign all the Roman laws, or annual edicts of the prætors, were compiled into one body, and law assumed the dignity of a science. He promoted literature, but continued the persecution of the Christians. A rebellion of the 139—Jews was punished with merciless severity. He was followed by Antoninus Pius, who suspended all persecution of Christians, promoted the best interests of all parts of the empire, and introduced, during a prosperous reign of twenty-two years, the most important reforms into every part of the government.

161—Marcus Aurelius, called the Philosopher, succeeded. He carried on a successful war with the Germans, and made the welfare of his subjects his special care, but was seduced, by the pagan philosophers, into a persecution of the Christians. Having discovered his error he stopped it, toward the close of his reign. Commodus, 180—his son, inherited the purple. He also inherited a vicious and cruel disposition, and received a demoralizing education from his mother. He was a monster of vice and cruelty. He was assassinated in 192—his bed by his own family and guards to save their lives. Pertinax reigned three months, but, attempting to restrain the license of the soldiery, he was murdered by them. The soldiers in Rome then proclaimed that the empire was for sale, and a rich merchant, Didius, bought it from them and reigned in Rome two months, 193—when he was also slain by the army. Septimus Severus, an able general, seized the purple which he secured against many rivals, and retained for eighteen years. His vigor alone prevented general anarchy, but he was systematically cruel.

211—Caracalla, his son, succeeded. He was a bloody and atrocious tyrant, supported on the throne only by his soldiers, whose aid he secured by large pay. He was 217—murdered by the commander of his guards, Macrinus, who succeeded in acquiring his place, but was soon 218—murdered by the soldiers. They raised Heliogabalus, a young Syrian priest of fourteen years of age, through the assurance of his female relatives that he was the son of Caracalla, to the purple. He is described as the most cruel and infamous of all the Roman emperors.

222—After four years of horrible crime, he was slain in a mutiny of his guard and his body thrown into the Tiber. Alexander Severus succeeded. He was apparently a secret admirer of Christianity and a model 235—prince. He was murdered by Maximin, a Thracian peasant, who had, by his valor, risen to high command in the army, who seized the reins of power. He was successful in war, but his severity provoked mutiny in 238—various parts of the empire, and he was slain by his own soldiers. Gordian succeeded, a heroic youth of a noble family. He was successful in war, but was murdered 244—by his own prime minister, Philip, an Arabian, who became emperor. He favored the Christians, and reigned five years. In his reign, the thousandth year of the foundation of Rome was celebrated by public 249—games. He was slain in a revolt by Decius, the general of his army, who occupied the throne. He raised a most violent storm of persecution against the Christians, who were despoiled of their goods and driven to caves and deserts. From this time is dated the sect of 250—anchorites, or hermits, who imagined they could acquire superior holiness by abandoning society and devoting themselves to meditation and prayer. The idea appears to have been derived from the Persian Magians, who, in this century restored the ancient dynasty and religion of the Persians, or Parsees, in Persia. During the political and social disorganization that soon commenced the anchorites became numerous, and the system was extensively prevalent for a thousand years to the great injury of active and true Christianity.

251—Decius was slain in a battle with the Goths, who had invaded the empire, and Gallus became emperor.

253—He was put to death by Emilianus, who attempted to seize the reins of government, but the army elected Valerian, governor of Gaul. The empire was invaded by the Goths on the north and the Persians under their king, Sapor, on the east. From this time, it had to 259—fight for its life. Valerian was defeated by Sapor and remained nine years in captivity, Gallienus, his son, becoming emperor. He was extremely incompetent and a multitude of rival claimants for the supreme authority arose in all directions. They were called the “Thirty Tyrants.” One of them, Odenatus, king of Palmyra, in the Syrian desert, defeated Sapor, and Gallienus proclaimed him his colleague. On the death of Odenatus, his wife, Zenobia, assumed the title of “Queen of the East,” conquered Egypt and ruled a wide region with success and splendor. Both Goths 262—and Persians invaded Asia Minor. Gallienus was murdered 268—and Claudius succeeded. He defeated the Goths 270—but died in a pestilence. Aurelian succeeded. He was an able general. He subdued the Germans and 272—Goths, and conquered Zenobia, one of the most remarkable 275—women of history. Aurelian was assassinated by some victims of his severity, and Tacitus, a Roman senator succeeded, but died in seven months, and was followed by Probus. He was a vigorous general, and drove back the barbarians on all sides, but attempting to employ his soldiers in labor on public works, they 282—revolted and murdered him. Carus, the captain of the 283—imperial guard, was raised to the throne. Dying the next year, his sons, Carinus and Numerianus, inherited his authority, but Numerianus was assassinated in a 284—few months by his father-in-law, and Diocletian, said to have been formerly a slave, was proclaimed emperor by the army. This was called “The Era of the Martyrs,” from the long and bloody persecutions against the Christians. This was the tenth general attack on them, and proved to be the last. The barbarians pressing in great force on all sides, Diocletian appointed several colleagues, and their united ability drove the invaders back.

305—Diocletian resigned his power to Galerius, who appointed three associates, making a division of the empire. One of these, Constantius, died in Britain, and was succeeded 306—by his son, Constantine. For a time, there were six emperors, but one was killed, Galerius died, and Constantine conquered the others.

312—Constantine changed the whole character of the empire by embracing Christianity and relying largely on that element for the support of his power, while he disbanded the Pretorian, or royal Guard, which had for two hundred years assumed to make and unmake emperors, and whose example, imitated by the other armies, kept the world periodically disturbed by the disputes and battles of rival claimants to the imperial purple. By the 313—edict of Milan, Constantine abolished all laws unfriendly to Christianity; he restored the authority of the senate and magistrates, and removed his capital from Rome to Constantinople.

324—The pagan element was now so worn and decrepit that no general disorders resulted. Whatever was left rallied under Licinus, who was conquered by Constantine. It appears to have been the strength of the Christian element and its essential hostility to the Roman principle of violent subjugation that produced so many and fierce persecutions. Had it not been for the pressure of barbarians on the empire the prevalence of that system would have preserved society and the state for a thousand years more, as it actually did in the Eastern empire; but every thing that man has the management of must be affected by his limitations, his mistakes and his follies. Christianity needed a better ally, a fresher and purer society, built up by the young blood and better instincts of another and newer people.

Constantine paid great respect to the clergy of the church and took a leading part in its general counsels—a great mistake and a great misfortune.

325—His spiritual supremacy was virtually acknowledged at the council of Nice which he convoked.

330—Constantine died leaving his vast dominions to his three sons, who, in the course of ten years, were reduced to one, Constantius. After a troubled reign of twenty 361—years more, he died, and was succeeded by his cousin Julian, called the “Apostate,” from his renouncing Christianity and laboring to restore the pagan religion. In this he signally failed. He undertook to rebuild the Jewish temple at Jerusalem, without success.

363—He was mortally wounded in an invasion of Persia, and was succeeded by Jovian, who restored imperial favor 364—to the Christian religion. He died after one years reign and Valentinian was elected emperor by the council of ministers and generals. He divided the empire with his brother, Valens, and afterward Rome and Constantinople usually had each an emperor. Valentinian died 375—and was succeeded by his son, Gratian.

378—The Huns appeared in Europe, having wandered from the borders of China, and defeated Valens with dreadful slaughter. Valens himself was among the slain. This was the commencement of the great migrations that finally overwhelmed the Roman Empire of the west.

379—Gratian, left sole emperor, appointed Theodosius, called The Great, his colleague, who subdued the Goths, repelled the Huns, and restored order.

383—Gratian was murdered by the usurper Maximus.

388—Theodosius conquered and put Maximus to death and restored Valentinian II., brother of Gratian, to the throne of the western empire. In a few years the whole 394—empire was reunited by the death of Valentinian. Theodosius soon died, universally lamented, leaving the two empires to his sons, Honorius and Arcadius.

402—Alaric, the Goth, invaded Italy and, though defeated, endangered the safety of Rome.

408—Theodosius II. succeeded to the empire of the east.

410—Alaric again invaded Italy and sacked Rome. Alaric soon after died and his forces were persuaded, by negotiations, to leave Italy, but they permanently established themselves in Spain and Southern Gaul (France). Thus the empire began to fall to pieces.

425—Honorius died and Valentinian III. became emperor.

429—The Vandals soon conquered the Roman provinces in Africa, under their king, Genseric. They extended 440—their conquests to Sicily.

447—Attila, called the “Scourge of God,” appeared at the head of the Huns, and Theodosius made a humiliating treaty with him to save his dominions from desolation.

448—In the next year the Saxons and Angles were invited into Britain by the civilized Romans, to protect them from the Picts and Scots, and laid the foundation of the modern Anglo-Saxon race, and the Franks invaded Gaul laying the foundations of the modern kingdom of France. England received its name from the Angles—France from the Franks.

451—Attila, the Hun, invaded Gaul, and was defeated at 452—Chalons, by the united Romans and Visigoths. Attila then invaded Italy and laid it waste, but died before he 454—had completed the ruin of the empire. Valentinian III. was murdered, and the Vandals from Sicily invaded Italy and sacked Rome.

SECTION XIII.

THE RISE OF MODERN NATIONS.

476—After a succession of puppet emperors in Rome, Odoacer abolished the name and took the title of king of Italy. He was a German in command of the auxiliaries in Roman pay. Thus ended, in disaster and disgrace, the once mighty Roman Empire. Its ruin was gradual and the barbarians who overthrew it had already embraced Christianity, so that the institutions of the church did not share its fall.

486—Clovis, king of the Franks, defeated the Romans and Gauls at the battle of Soissons. The Ostrogoths invaded 492—Italy under Theodoric the Great, deposed Odoacer, and founded a new kingdom.

496—Clovis defeated the invading Germans and embraced 500—Christianity. Clovis next defeated the Burgundians. 507—He subdued the Visigoths and all France was united under one rule. He was of the Merovingian line, or dynasty, of kings, which lasted over two hundred years, during which the remains of Roman civilization and the influence of the church were gradually modifying and penetrating the character of a new and energetic race.

527—Justinian became the ruler of the Eastern or Grecian Empire.

534—His generals waged war with the Vandals in Africa and the Ostrogoths in Italy, and after eighteen years of conflict, succeeded in reconquering part of Italy, which the Greek emperors continued to hold nominally for about three hundred years; the seat of their representative being at Ravenna. He was called an Exarch. Rome itself was left, substantially, to the control of the Christian bishop. When the Lombards founded a kingdom 568—in the north of Italy they were prevented, by the exarch and bishop, from spreading over the southern part; and when the exarch threatened to become too powerful to suit the views of the bishop, he supported the Lombards. Thus the temporal or political power of the popes arose, and they were the politic authors of the “Balance of Power” theory, or system, that has played so large a part in European history. The result has been exceedingly favorable to progress in all directions, since it has secured the independence of states, and a more various and perfect civilization by the development of the special genius of each people. Many circumstances conspired to support this idea, in later times, and render it very prominent and influential.

This gradual advance of the bishop of Rome in political influence associated him with the mighty memories of the “Eternal City,” and suggested the idea of a spiritual empire over all Christendom, which gradually became realized and quite changed the character of Christianity for near 800 years. Hurtful as it ultimately became, by reviving a universal despotism over conscience and freedom of thought, it was long powerful for good by giving a common centre to Europe, broken into fragments as it was by the rise of feudalism. That was disorganizing; this was centralizing, and kept the channels of communication open and the missionary spirit and the elements of a restored learning in activity. Its influence in commencing and carrying forward the crusades, which substantially broke the strength of feudalism, was of immense importance.

622—Mahomet arose in the Arabian peninsula, and his new religion spread with astonishing rapidity. In one hundred 732—years from the death of Mahomet the Saracens had established a vast empire, covering two thirds of the Roman empire, viz.: all of the old Persian empire, Egypt, and all of northern Africa and Spain, and threatened to inundate Europe. They poured a vast army over the Pyrenees into France. This was defeated in a great battle at Tours, by Charles Martel, who founded a new dynasty, replacing the Merovingian, called the Carlovingian, and made France the most powerful, as it became the leading, nation in Europe, for promoting civilization during many centuries.

By this means the center of political influence, “The Star of Empire,” took another step westward. His son, Pepin le Bref, or the Short, caused himself to be 752—crowned king of France by the Roman Pontiff, Stephen II., which added to his own prestige, as it also did to that of the pope. It was a sort of league between the rising temporal and spiritual powers in Europe, and set an example long followed. Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, the son of Pepin, ascended the throne in 771, 771—and by his intelligence, energy, and wise statesmanship, by his encouragement of learning, his organizing talents and his success in conquering and civilizing the seething mass of nationalities in Germany, he may be said to have really founded modern civilization during his long reign of forty-three years. He conquered the Lombard kingdom in Italy, and was crowned by the pope, Adrian I, “Emperor of the Romans,” kneeling at the altar in Rome; but he virtually confirmed the temporal authority of the popes, and associated their influence in all his conquests. He thoroughly broke the spirit of the pagan Saxons, in northwestern Germany, by a war of thirty-three years, carried his conquests east over most of the present Austrian empire, civilizing and bringing the barbarians into the pale of Christendom by the aid of Christian missionaries, and conquered some portions of Spain from the Saracens.

It seemed as if the history of the western Roman Empire, which had fallen three hundred years before, was to be repeated. That was the hope and dream of both Charlemagne and the Roman Pontiff, who joined hands to realize it. This new western emperor had great abilities and the church was very strong. The centre of Europe had so long been within the reach of civilizing influences, and had attained such a point of development in its various nationalities, that they readily accepted permanent institutions, when presented by a power so strong as that of the mighty Frank ruler.

814—But when he died, it was found that there was no other hand strong enough to wield his sceptre. All the memories of the old empire, all the influence of the Christian church, the remains of the Roman organization, and the ripening vigor of new races, which had begun to lay aside their barbarous impulses, were united to aid the vast designs of this great statesman. But the tendencies of the new society, in general, were in a different direction. The Germanic civilization was totally different from the Roman, and had there been a succession of rulers as large minded and strong willed as Charlemagne, they could not have repeated the history of the ancient world. The tendency of the races that overthrew the empire was invincibly against centralization, and instead of a new Roman Empire in western Europe, appeared the Feudal System.

SECTION XIV.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.

1. This system was the direct opposite of centralization. Under it all Christendom broke up into fragments; the king exerted but a loose general control, that continued to decrease for several centuries; and most of the real authority was exerted by the feudal lords from their fortified castles, which, for three hundred years, had been springing up over all the territory conquered from the Romans. It had its true origin in the marked _personal assertion_, the strong _individuality_ of the Teutonic Race, which was, and is, one of its most prominent traits. While in their native barbarous state their armies were formed for their expeditions of foreign conquest, that proved so fatal to the Romans, on the voluntary principle. The prowess and fame of a leader, or chief, drew to him a multitude of warriors, longing for activity and booty. So long as he could lead them to success, to gain their individual ends, they obeyed him. When he failed to reward their ambition they held themselves free to leave him.

2. It was not immense disciplined armies, but innumerable bands, organized in this way, that, through a long course of years, gradually overran Britain, Gaul, Spain and Italy. For four hundred years the civilized world had been accustomed to the control and protection of a distant ruler whose powerful armies rendered resistance vain, and all thought of organization for self-protection against the terrible barbarians was wanting when they were attacked. Each city or region defended itself as well as possible, or submitted at once. The conquerors took what they wanted and passed on to other lands, or spread themselves out over the province. They usually settled in the country parts, fortifying the country seats of the richer inhabitants, or building themselves castles near the larger towns, to hold them in awe. The leader considered himself the owner of the conquered territory, and divided it among his followers, who settled themselves, each in his new domain, as its owner and ruler. The conquered inhabitants were his subjects from whom he took tribute. The conquerors were few in number in proportion to the conquered; but there was little resistance throughout the old Roman provinces. Organization and spirit were wanting to them, and resistance would provoke complete ruin, since the conqueror could easily call to his aid any number of his fellows in return for a share of the spoils. Thus they gave what was demanded and made themselves content with what was left.

The cities paid tribute, the cultivators gave a portion of their harvests to the new rulers. The territory not given to his followers was considered the property of the original leader. In return for the gift each of the recipients of territory was held bound to aid him in his wars, and each larger chief stood in similar relations to the king of his tribe or nation. Out of this grew, at length, what was called the Feudal System, feudal being derived, by some, from the old German words “fee,” salary, and “od,” landed possessions—a payment, or salary, in land, for services rendered, with a certain obligation to the giver.

3. The kings of the Franks—the German nation that conquered Gaul—up to the time of Charlemagne, labored to consolidate their power and rule like the Roman emperors. But the genius of their race and the peculiarities of the situation were both opposed to that purpose. Charles Martel, Pepin, his son, and Charlemagne, his grandson, were all rulers of great vigor, and the last, apparently, succeeded for a time. But the military strength lay only in the scattered feudal chieftains, each of whom sought to build up his own power on his own estates. It was not possible to maintain a strong central government for any length of time, or under an ordinary man. For two hundred years these petty lords grew in strength at the expense of the king. They were still held to him by the necessity of supporting him in war, by a system of checks, which, in time, were increased, and still more enlarged, when the people began to make themselves felt in the twelfth century; but from the fifth to the fifteenth century feudalism was the prevailing system in all the civilized European nations.

4. It was a very rude and violent period, but some of the most happy traits of modern life grew out of it. The isolation of the feudal lord in his fortified chateau or castle, where his wife and children were his only equals, combined with the constant influence of the church, gradually elevated the condition of the woman, the rudeness and violence of the time were modified by the rise of chivalry, which was, in great part, founded on this new respect for the gentler sex, and sympathy for her helpless condition when exposed, without a powerful protector, to unrestrained insolence and passion; and the feudal system held all the elements of society in suspense until the mighty forces—revived learning, the printing press, and a new commerce and industry—were ready to take a prominent part in making it what we now find it—far superior to the old society.

5. Feudalism held men apart, and individually subject to the refining influence of Christian precepts, from the fifth to the ninth century, when the romantic practice of chivalry became popular as a relief from the tedium of isolation, and a channel for the flow of the softer sentiments of respect for woman, of compassion for weakness, and, at the same time, a vent for the martial spirit which the constant conflicts of the time cultivated. The age of chivalry indicates that Christianity was powerfully moulding the character of the new nations. Working on qualities as stern and rude as those of the old Roman of the Republic, its partial control, the beginnings of its power, were manifested in a romantic way. The isolation of feudal life, and a sense of wrong in employing all their energies in unceasing contests of ambition produced the chivalric outbreak and the crusades. The knights of chivalry were feudal lords and gentlemen, trained in all the warlike arts of the period and in all the courtesies which the new influence of female society produced. When starting forth as knight-errants, they were exhorted by the stern feudal warrior to valor, and by the Christian priest to gentleness toward the weak and defenseless, and they made it the business of life to wander about on horseback incased in armor, displaying their warlike accomplishments and combatting petty tyranny. There was little power in the king to right the wrongs of his subjects, and brutal violence in the feudal lords had no other effectual punishment. Chivalry flourished for more than five hundred years; but its most useful days were from 1000 to 1200. It was the first, and seems to later times a somewhat amusing indication of a more humane social state than the world had ever known.

6. The crusades commenced about 1100, the object being to rescue the sepulcher of the founder of Christianity from unbelievers. It first engaged the sympathy of the people at large, then of the feudal nobility and finally interested the ambition of kings. For two hundred years a large part of the best blood of Europe was poured out in Palestine in a vain effort to expel the Saracens from it. The transportation of armaments and supplies to that country from various parts of Europe gradually led to commerce and skill in navigation; so much of ancient civilization and knowledge as still existed in the Eastern, or Greek Empire at Constantinople, was introduced into modern Europe, which at the same time was relieved of its more turbulent and adventurous elements; and a heavy blow was given to the smaller feudal proprietors by the expense incurred in a distant expedition where they died without issue, reduced their families to poverty, or whence they returned penniless to mortgaged estates. It rapidly hastened the movement, begun by other influences, to reduce the number of feudal proprietors, and render government more vigorous over increasingly large territories.

SECTION XV.

THE LIBERTIES OF THE PEOPLE.

1. Between 1000 and 1200 the independent and enterprising spirit—the individualism—that we have seen at the base of European character, and which first produced the Feudal System, began to move among the masses in various ways and laid the foundation for that influence of the People that was afterward to become the most powerful element in political life.

It first presented itself in the development of industrial arts and commerce in cities which obtained, as corporations, the rights, or a part of the rights, of the feudal proprietor, which they proceeded to exercise under the form of Free Cities in Germany, privileged Communes in France and commercial Republics in Italy.

2. A second development, highly favorable some centuries later to the reaction of popular freedom against centralizing despotism in the government, was the religious protest against the claims of the church over freedom of thought. This spirit grew up in Germany, and its first remote beginnings are to be found in the imperial title conferred by the pope on Charlemagne. In the course of time (A. D. 963) that title was inherited by the German rulers who, for a long time, struggled for the control of Italy and a feudal superiority over the popes. This was carried on for two centuries with much acrimony, in which the terms Guelph, the general name of those who supported the side of the popes, and Ghibellines, of those who rallied to the emperor, came to be the watchwords of Germany and Italy. The popes triumphed in this contest, which prevented the establishment of a vast and powerful political despotism, and gave the church a temporal kingdom in a part of Italy, with an immense spiritual empire highly embarrassing to free mental growth. The reaction against this spiritual control produced the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, in which was wrapped up the germ of modern Republicanism.

3. The Crusades loosened the bonds of Feudalism, taught nations and rulers to act together to gain a common object, enlarged the experiences of men immensely, and cultivated and organized the spirit of personal adventure which afterwards expended itself on commerce.

It was at about the crisis of this period (1215, A. D.) that the Magna Charta—the foundation of English constitutional liberty—was produced; that the Hanseatic League and Free Cities began to flourish in Germany; the commercial republics of Venice, Genoa and Florence rose in Italy; and the communal corporations in France sprang up. They were all more or less stimulated by influences growing out of the Crusades, and brought forward the _people_ and their distinct and separate interests and activities into political importance. This was the beginning of an entirely new order of things, which required a new continent for its full development.

4. A first circumstance, above all favorable to the liberties of the people, was the Invention of Printing, producing rapid diffusion of information, the coincident revival of learning and the foundation of modern science. All these, working together with various other agencies, gradually swept away feudalism, checked the towering spiritual tyranny of the church and corrected a crowd of minor evils that embarrassed society, enterprise, and progress in the science of government.

The intermediate stage in this progress appeared like a return to old principles. The dissolution of feudalism left the governments of Europe centralized. The lords inheriting feudal rights had become intolerable despots. For a certain period the authority of the king was the bulwark behind which the people sheltered themselves from the oppressions of their feudal superiors, and they united with him to reduce the feudal nobility to the comparatively harmless condition of the modern aristocracy, whose greatest distinction is social pre-eminence. It left them, indeed, a high, but not overwhelming, position in the body politic, which the growing education and wealth of the middle and lower classes constantly tended to reduce. This change was commencing when America was discovered. The feudal chiefs labored to extend and strengthen their power at the expense of each other, of the king and the people. The increasing activity and importance of commerce, trade and industry required the support of a broad legislation that could not be obtained while nations were broken up into petty lordships, principalities and kingdoms almost independent of each other, and whose rulers were often hostile to or at war with each other; while the support of so many rulers became a heavy burden on the resources of the people. The king represented the nation and was the rallying point of reform. To strengthen him was to promote the larger interests of the country.

5. For these reasons, and from the resistance offered by the feudal institutions, which had existed a thousand years, authority became centralized in the monarch to an extravagant degree, and this at a time when freer institutions were most required by the larger and wiser views of the people. The great usefulness of the Roman Catholic Church in civilizing and educating the modern nations and founding a center or common bond between them, which produced a degree of unity in their progress, had continually added to her power, while the disposition to free thought was ever becoming more pronounced. Thus two despotic forces, each claiming absolute obedience in their respective spheres, were rising in strength to a degree extremely embarrassing to the growing intelligence and increased activities of the commonalty. The traditional authority of the church and the king came, in the course of a hundred years after the discovery of America, to directly oppose the most important interests and instincts of mankind.

6. The progress of the people, as distinct from that of their governments, may then be described as starting in the last great service done for Europe by the church—the organization of the Crusades. The feudal system separated men too much for healthy progress, and this singular display of religious zeal united the various nationalities in a common effort, and stirred up powers that had long slumbered. It was in this period that the adventurous and comprehensive activities of modern life commenced. Wealth had been largely confined to the feudal nobility. It now began to flow out through the general community. The nobles expended vast sums in fitting out princely retinues to lead to the Holy Land, for which their estates were security. They died, or returned penniless, and their lands passed into the hands of the commercial classes, whose successful diligence had made them wealthy. It was the first heavy blow to feudal institutions, and laid the foundation of the power of the people.

Corporations and cities which had obtained the rights of feudal proprietors, employed them for the purposes of self-government, and so used an instrument of despotism to shield and sustain a virtual democracy. With this freedom of action, popular liberty, controlled in a general way by feudal obligations to the prince, king, or emperor, grew fast and strong protected by the growing despotisms of the church and the state. The Hanseatic League, in the north of Germany, was, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, perhaps as wealthy and powerful as any king or emperor in Christendom; and in the sixteenth, the small commercial province of the Netherlands could defy the whole power of Spain, with the wealth of the Indies at her back.

7. The revival of learning, and the invention of the art of printing, gave an immense impulse to this uprising of the people, commenced near three hundred years before; about the same time the Portuguese discovered the way to India by the Cape of Good Hope, Columbus threw open the “Gates of the West,” and the wealth of both Indies flowed in a full stream through the channels of commerce and trade; that is to say, into the hands of the busy and industrious people. All events seemed to conspire to build up a base for the power and development of the commonalty.

This growing intelligence and strength among the masses, with the habit of ruling themselves under feudal forms, made a conflict with the two arrogant despotisms inevitable in the near future. Feudal institutions were still a serious and vexatious embarrassment to freedom of movement, and a very heavy tax on industry, and the only legal way to remove it was by strengthening the central or kingly power, which continued to increase for more than a hundred years; but the conflict with priestly despotism was entered on at once. A vast rebellion against the church commenced, called “The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century,” which embraced nearly all the most enterprising and commercial nations.

SECTION XVI.

THE SITUATION ON THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

1. We have said that great men were a kind of summary of the tendencies of their period; an expression of a wide-spread thought or state of mind, which their fortunate combination of faculties and more favorable circumstances enabled them first to state, or embody, with distinctness; that the great following they obtained, and the extensive influence which enabled them to make great changes, were due to a coincident development in their generation of the same thoughts and tendencies. This explains the existence of _eras_ in all departments of life. Men grow, or progress, silently, from one to the other; when the general progress has reached the suitable point it breaks out in a leader more bold and positive than the rest.

The discovery of America was such an era; and the sudden advance in many ways at about the same time was the result of gradual growth during many centuries. It was shown by the sudden appearance of great men in different spheres. Columbus lived in the midst of a great era. Printing, the use of the compass, the science of astronomy and the successful protest against spiritual despotism all commenced their great career just before, or just after him. The great painters, whose works are now so much esteemed, were all living in 1500. Copernicus discovered the true planetary system in the year Columbus died. Gunpowder, which enabled Cortez to conquer the Mexican Empire, came into general use about the same period. Luther commenced the Reformation, while the first adventurers were creeping, with amazed curiosity, around the shores of the American continent. The foundation of all the sciences was then laid. Correct principles were enunciated for religion, government and thought; and the laws of nature, of human relations and of religious liberty were promulgated almost simultaneously.

2. But not all the European nations, and not _all_ of any one nation, were prepared for this vast advance. The southern part of Germany, and the people in general in southern Europe, resisted what they regarded as a dangerous innovation, and the reform spread only north and west. The close connection instituted by Constantine between church and state, which was renewed under Charlemagne, raised at this time, a long series of religious wars, which contributed to embarrass Protestantism in the same way by the necessity under which it lay, (or supposed it lay,) of seeking the protection of princes. Luther’s reorganized church became the state religion of northern Europe, and fell under government control in Switzerland and Holland. Henry VIII. of England, while yielding, like a true Englishman, to the general tendency of his people, in taking the reformed faith under his protection constituted himself its head.

In the long contest between Catholic and Protestant, it became apparent that full religious liberty was not then possible in Europe; and the more, that a political element was involved in the contest. Free thought naturally led to free institutions, and the leading European governments were, by the breaking up of feudalism, centralized and made more despotic than ever. Thus its tendency to political revolution organized strong governments against it, or prevented its development by the check of governmental supremacy.

3. While this contest was working itself out in the firm establishment of Protestantism under state patronage in northern Europe, and its entire extinction in the stronger and more conservative southern monarchies, the discovery and subjugation of Mexico and Peru, with their wealth of precious metals and tropical productions, together with the trade with the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, passage to which was discovered before the daring venture of Columbus, had greatly enriched Europe. A large part of this wealth passed immediately, or in process of time, into the hands of the people as the result of personal adventure or of the activity of commerce, trade and industry. The maritime regions of northern Germany, Holland and England gathered much of this golden fruit; the maritime republics of Italy fell into decay; and Spain spent its vast treasures in war. It was led to this suicidal policy by various royal marriages which united the German Empire, Spain and the Netherlands under one scepter. This vast ascendancy, united with great wealth, excited the alarm of other nations, and contributed to strengthen the Reformation. The Protestant princes of Germany and the king of France united to reduce this dangerous pre-eminence in order to uphold the existing nationalities of Europe, or the Balance of Power, as it was called. Thus the emperor, Charles V., was led to pour out the treasures of Mexico and Peru to sustain his political aspirations, and his wars turned the wealth of the Indies into the channels of commerce and industry.

His successor, Philip II., still uniting Spain and the Netherlands, undertook to crush the reformed faith in the latter states, and failed in a war of nearly half a century. This vast expense made Spain, the richest country of Europe, the poorest, still to the profit of commerce and the greater strength of Protestant lands. The United Netherlands became free Protestant states and remarkably prosperous.

4. The English people advanced in laying the foundations of a free constitution from the time of the Magna Charta in 1215. They became strongly Protestant, and finally their commons engaged in a contest with the king, Charles I., for the maintenance of popular rights. He resisted to the last extremity, and the commons precipitated a revolution that dethroned and beheaded him, and established a republic. This was premature and expired with the great leader, Cromwell, who had successfully headed it. Royal power was restored, but a few years later was rearranged and so modified as to be suited to the independent but moderate tendencies of the people. A certain part of the English people, however, aspired to more complete liberty than a monarchy could afford them, and passed over the sea to secure freedom of conscience and political enfranchisement in the New World.

With the moderate and steady maintenance of their rights, characteristic of Englishmen, they were governed under charters from the English sovereigns who, for the sake of extending their dominions, allowed them much freedom. European governments could not conform to the demands of progress by loosening the bands of arbitrary rule, and the new colonies became the refuge of such as aspired to more liberal institutions, as well as of adventurers in search of gain. Thus the English colonies became the escape valve of European politics and society, the Appendix of the Reformation, and the Hope of Liberty.

SECTION XVII.

CONCLUSION.

1. We see here again the operation of the constant law that impelled men, or moved the “Star of Empire,” westward. The form of the continents, the character of the surface and the climate, provided a natural and desirable opening only in that direction. The overplus of population, the discontent of some part of the people with existing government, the restlessness of adventurers, or the requirements of trade and commerce produced a migration. The colony, instructed by the experience of the parent state, was free to improve on its institutions. Colonies have almost always prospered more than the mother country. Transplanting seemed to improve both the stock and the institutions. Greece was colonized from Asia, as was Rome; Miletus, Syracuse, and other Greek colonies excelled the mother cities in wealth, and though the free structure of Grecian government allowed a natural development at home and made Athens the metropolis, yet its marvelous genius was nourished and stimulated by the colonies. Carthage was greater and stronger than Tyre, and contended with Rome for the control of the world; the most western nations of Europe were colonized from Rome and Germany, and have taken the lead in later progress, while America has always displayed the lusty, fertile vigor of a young life.

Thus the conformation of the surface of the earth, and the peculiarly fruitful character of a transplanted civilization, have always furnished an escape from the embarrassing fixity of an old state, in the same western direction, and the old and the new unite to establish frequent stages of progress. In this way a continuous growth has been secured that impresses on advancing culture the same unity, from first to last, that we see in the growth and mental development of the individual man.

2. We have seen the aggregation and primary discipline of mankind in the simple but extensive despotisms of western Asia, varied in Palestine by a theocratic system which has produced the world’s great religion, and in Egypt by the predominance of a learned priestly caste. We saw an improvement made in Greece to meet the demands of intellectual development. Their intelligence, however, was a spontaneous outburst, of necessity immature. Two thousand years of training, and the addition of many new elements were required before mind could _rule_ the world; but Greece, by the attractiveness of her art and culture, set men at work on the great problem of politics and life.

Rome followed to organize government and consolidate the civilizations, to ripen their fruit and transmit the seed to a more favorable time, and to new and better races. A complete civilization was impossible without well digested science, which had its remote roots in Greece; and law, which was gradually produced by the grand Roman republic; and a clear understanding of the profound yet simple precepts of Jesus Christ.

3. Western Europe received all the wisdom and experience of the ancient world, and labored well at the grand problem, though she did not completely solve it. She, however, made an immense advance toward it, and her children, rich in her experience, instructed at once by her success and her mistakes, and aided always by her wisdom, found (let us hope) in America the goal of their noblest aspirations. Thus we find the spirit of progress traversing the whole course of human history, constantly advancing through all the confusion of rising and falling states, of battle, siege and slaughter, of victory and defeat; through the varying fortunes and ultimate extinction of monarchy, republic and empire; through barbaric irruption and desolation, feudal isolation, spiritual supremacy, the heroic rush and conflict of the Cross and the Crescent; amid the busy hum of industry, through the marts of trade and behind the gliding keels of commerce; through the bloody conflicts of commons, nobles, kings and kaisers to New and Free America. There the Englishman, the German, the Frenchman, the Italian, the Scandinavian, the Asiatic and the African all meet as equals. There they are free to speak, to think, and to act. They bring their common contributions of character, energy and activity to the support and enlargement of a common country, and the spread of its influence and enlightenment through all the lands of their origin. As America is the common ground on which all the currents and ideas of all the civilizations meet, so also it is the point from which return currents, hastened by lightning and by steam, seek again every quarter of the earth with kindly greetings, to renew the relations broken in the original separation of the races, and to cement, by exchanges mutually profitable, a new and better unity of mankind. As the heart in the human body receives the current of blood from all parts of the system, and, having revitalized it, returns it with fresh elements of strength, so America adopts the children of all lands only to return a manhood ennobled by a sense of its own dignity through the practice of a system of self-government which improves the condition and promotes the interest of each while it produces harm to none.

4. America, then, will colonize Ideas, extensively, when her institutions are thoroughly matured. The process, indeed, commenced with her birth, and her Spirit sails with her ships in every sea and visits all lands. All the past has contributed to the excellence of her foundation, and modern Europe has supplied her with the most desirable building material both of ideas and of men. Without Asia, Greece and Rome, there would have been a very imperfect modern Europe; and without modern Europe, America must have begun at the beginning, with all the lessons, discoveries and discipline of thousands of years to learn. Happily, we seem authorized to believe that, as she concludes the possible great migrations of humanity, she has so well learned the lessons of experience as to have given due flexibility and capacity of improvement to all her institutions, and, when necessary can _reconstruct_ herself _within_ herself. If this be true, she will reach the goal of all progress by furnishing to each individual among her citizens such aid as a state can give to make the most of himself, to reach the fullest expression of his value.