CYRUS.--In the sixth century B.C., this famous ruler and conqueror became the founder of an empire which comprised nearly all the civilized nations of Asia. During his reign of thirty years (559-530 B.C.), he annexed to his kingdom the two princ.i.p.al states, LYDIA and BABYLON. The king of Lydia was _Croesus_, whose story, embellished with romantic details, was long familiar as a signal example of the mutations of fortune. Doomed to be burned after the capture of _Sardis_, his capital, he was heard, just when the fire was to be kindled, to say something about _Solon_. In answer to the inquiry of Cyrus, whose curiosity was excited, he related how that Grecian sage, after beholding his treasures, had refused to call him the most fortunate of men, on the ground that "no man can be called happy before his death," because none can tell what disasters may befall him. Cyrus, according to the narrative, touched by the tale, delivered Croesus from death, and thereafter bestowed on him honor and confidence.
There is another form of the tradition, which is deemed by some more probable. Croesus is said to have stood on a pyre, intending to offer himself in the flames, to propitiate the G.o.d _Sandon_, that his people might be saved from destruction; but he was prevented, it is said, by unfavorable auguries.
The subjection of the Greek colonies on the Asia-Minor coast followed upon the subjugation of Lydia. From these colonies, the _Phocoeans_ went forth, and founded _Elea_ in Lower Italy, and Ma.s.silia (Ma.r.s.eilles) in Gaul. The Asian Greek cities were each allowed its own munic.i.p.al rulers, but paid tribute to the Persian master. The conquest of _Babylon_ (538 B.C.), as it opened the way for the return to Jerusalem of the Jewish exiles, enabled Cyrus to establish a friendly people in Judaea, as a help in fortifying his sway in Syria, and in opening a path to _Egypt_. But in 529 he lost his life in a war which he was waging against the _Ma.s.sagetae_, a tribe on the Caspian, allied in blood to the Scythians.
There was a tradition that the barbarian queen, _Tomyris_, enraged that Cyrus had overcome her son by deceit, dipped the slain king"s head in a skin-bag of blood, exclaiming, "Drink thy fill of blood, of which thou couldst not have enough in thy lifetime!"
CAMBYSES.--The successor of Cyrus, a man not less warlike than he, but more violent in his pa.s.sions, reigned but seven years (529-522 B.C.). His most conspicuous achievement was the conquest of EGYPT. One ground or pretext of his hostility, according to the tale of Herodotus, was the fact that Amasis, the predecessor of _Psammeticus III._, not daring to refuse the demand of his daughter as a wife, to be second in rank to the Persian queen, had fraudulently sent, either to Cambyses, or, before his time, to Cyrus, _Nitetis_, the daughter of the king who preceded him, Apries. Defeated at _Pelusium_, and compelled to yield up _Memphis_ after a siege, it is said that Psammeticus, the _Psammenitus_ of Herodotus, the unfortunate successor of the powerful Pharaohs, was obliged to look on the spectacle of his daughters in the garb of working-women, bearing water, and to see his sons, with the princ.i.p.al young n.o.bles, ordered to execution. But this tale lacks confirmation. His cruelties were probably of a later date, and were provoked by the chagrin he felt, and the satisfaction manifested by the people, at the failure of great expeditions which he sent southward for the conquest of _Meroe_, and westward against the _Oasis of Ammon_. His armies perished in the Lybian deserts. Even the story of his stabbing the sacred steer (_Apis_), after these events, although it may be true, is not sanctioned by the Egyptian inscriptions. His attack upon Ammon probably arose, in part at least, from a desire to possess himself of whatever lay between Egypt and the Carthaginian territory. But the Phoenician sailors who manned his fleet refused to sail against their brethren in Carthage. _Cambyses_ a.s.sumed the t.i.tle and character of an Egyptian sovereign. The story of his madness is an invention of the Egyptian priests.
DARIUS (521-485 B.C.).--For a short time, a pretender, a Magian, who called himself _Smerdis_, and professed to be the brother of Cambyses, usurped the throne. Cambyses is said to have put an end to his own life. After a reign of seven months, during which he kept himself for the most part hidden from view, Smerdis was destroyed by a rising of the leading Persian families. Darius, the son of Hystaspes, of the royal race of the _Achaemenidae_, succeeded. He married _Atossa_, the daughter of Cyrus. The countries which composed an Oriental empire were so loosely held together that the death of a despot or the change of a dynasty was very likely to call forth a general insurrection. Darius showed his military prowess in conquering anew various countries, including Babylon, which had revolted. He made Arabia tributary, and spread the bounds of his vast empire as far as India and in North Africa. A mighty expedition which he organized against the Scythians on the Lower Danube failed of the results that were hoped from it. The barbarians wasted their own fields, filled up their wells, drove off their cattle, and fled as the army of Darius advanced. He returned, however, with the bulk of his army intact, although with a loss of prestige, and enrolled "the Scyths beyond the sea" among the subjects of his empire. His armies conquered the tribes of _Thrace_, so that he pushed his boundaries to the frontiers of Macedonia. The rebellion of the Greek cities on the Asia-Minor coast he suppressed, and harshly avenged. Of his further conflicts with the Greeks on the mainland, more is to be said hereafter. He had built _Persepolis_, but his princ.i.p.al seat of government appears to have been _Susa_. He did a great work in organizing his imperial system. The division into _satrapies_--large districts, each under a _satrap_, or viceroy--was a part of this work. He thus introduced a more efficient and methodical administration into his empire,--an empire four times as large as the empire of a.s.syria, which it had swallowed up.
GOVERNMENT.--Persia proper corresponded nearly to the modern province of _Farsistan_ or _Fars_. The Persian Empire stretched from east to west for a distance of about three thousand miles, and was from five hundred to fifteen hundred miles in width. It was more than half as large as modern Europe. It comprised not less than two millions of square miles. Its population under Darius may have been seventy or eighty millions. He brought in uniformity of administration. In each satrapy, besides the satrap himself, who was a despot within his own dominion, there was at first a commander of the troops, and a secretary, whose business it was to make reports to the GREAT KING. These three officers were really watchmen over one another. It was through spies ("eyes" and "ears") of the king that he was kept informed of what was taking place in every part of the empire. At length it was found necessary to give the satraps the command of the troops, which took away one important check upon their power. There was a regular system of taxation, but to this were added extraordinary and oppressive levies. Darius introduced a uniform coinage. The name of the coin, "daric," is probably not derived from his name, however. Notwithstanding the government by satraps, local laws and usages were left, to a large extent, undisturbed. Great roads, and postal communication for the exclusive use of the government, connected the capital with the distant provinces. In this point the Persians set an example which was followed by the Romans. From _Susa_ to _Sardis_, a distance of about seventeen hundred English miles, stretched a road, along which, at proper intervals, were caravansaries, and over which the fleet couriers of the king rode in six or seven days. The king was an absolute lord and master, who disposed of the lives and property of his subjects without restraint. To him the most servile homage was paid. He lived mostly in seclusion in his palace. On great occasions he sat at banquet with his n.o.bles. His throne was made of gold, silver, and ivory. All who approached him kissed the earth. His ordinary dress was probably of the richest silk. He took his meals mostly by himself. His fare was made up of the choicest delicacies. His seraglio, guarded by eunuchs, contained a mult.i.tude of inmates, brought together by his arbitrary command, over whom, in a certain way, the queen-mother presided. His chief diversions were playing at dice within doors, and hunting without. _Paradises_, or parks, walled in, planted with trees and shrubbery, and furnished with refreshing fountains and streams, were his hunting-ground. Such inclosures were the delight of all Persians. In war he was attended with various officers in close attendance on his person,--the stool-bearer, the bow-bearer, etc. In peace, there was another set, among whom was "the parasol-bearer,"--for to be sheltered by the parasol was an exclusive privilege of the king,--the fan-bearer, etc. There were certain privileged families,--six besides the royal clan of the _Achaemenidae_, the chiefs of all of which were his counselors, and from whom he was bound to choose his legitimate wives. When the monarch traveled, even on military expeditions, he was accompanied by the whole varied apparatus of luxury which ministered to his pleasures in the court,--costly furniture, a vast retinue of attendants, of inmates of the harem, etc.
ARMY AND NAVY.--The arms of the footman were a sword, a spear, and a bow. Persian bowmen were skillful. Persian cavalry, both heavy and light, were their most effective arm. The military leaders depended on the celerity of their hors.e.m.e.n and the weight of their numbers. It is doubtful whether they employed military engines. They were not wholly ignorant of strategy. Their troops were marshaled by nations, each in its own costume, the commander of the whole being in the center of the line of battle. The body-guard of the king was "the Immortals," a body of ten thousand picked footmen, the number being always kept intact. The enemies of the Persians, except in the case of rebels, were not treated with inhumanity. In this regard the Persians are in marked contrast with the Semitic ferocity of the a.s.syrians. Their navies were drawn from the subject-peoples. The _trireme_, with its projecting prow shod with iron, and its crew of two hundred men, was the princ.i.p.al, but not the only vessel used in sea-fights.
LITERATURE AND ART.--A Persian youth was ordinarily taught to read, but there was little intellectual culture. Boys were trained in athletic exercises. It was a discipline in hardy and temperate habits. Etiquette, in all ranks of the people, was highly esteemed. The Persians, as a nation, were bright-minded, and not deficient in fancy and imagination. But they contributed little to science. Their religious ideas were an heirloom from remote ancestors. The celebrated Persian poet, _Firdousi_, lived in the tenth century of our era. His great poem, the _Shahnameh_, or Book of Kings, is a storehouse of ancient traditions. It is probable that the ancient poetry of the Persians, like this production, was of moderate merit. Of the Persian architecture and sculpture, we derive our knowledge from the ma.s.sive ruins of _Persepolis_, which was burned by Alexander the Great, and from the remains of other cities. They had learned from a.s.syria and Babylon, but they display no high degree of artistic talent. They were not an intellectual people: they were soldiers and rulers.
LITERATURE--Works mentioned on pp 16, 42; _Encycl. Brit.,_ Art. Persia; Vaux, Persia from the Monuments (1876); Noldeke, _Aufsdtze zur persischen Geschichte_ (1887); Justi, _Geschichte trans_ (1900); Markham, _General Sketch of the History of Persia_ (1874).
RETROSPECT.
In Eastern Asia the _Chinese nation_ was built up, the princ.i.p.al achievement of the Mongolian race. Its influence was restricted to neighboring peoples of kindred blood. Its civilization, having once attained to a certain stage of progress, remained for the most part stationary. China, in its isolation, exerted no power upon the general course of history. Not until a late age, when the civilization of the Caucasian race should be developed, was the culture of China to produce, in the mingling of the European and Asiatic peoples, its full fruits, even for China herself. _India_--although the home of a Caucasian immigrant people, a people of the Aryan family too--was cut off by special causes from playing an effective part, either actively or pa.s.sively, in the general historic movement.
_Egypt_, from 1500 to 1300 B.C., was the leading community of the ancient world. But civilization in Egypt, at an early date, crystallized in an unchanging form. The aim was to preserve unaltered what the past had brought out. The bandaged mummy, the result of the effort to preserve even the material body of man for all future time, is a type of the leaden conservatism which pervaded Egyptian life. The pre-eminence of Egypt was lost by the rise of the Semitic states to increasing power. _Semitic_ arms and culture were in the ascendant for six centuries (1300 to 700 B.C.). _Babylonia_ shares with Egypt the distinction of being one of the two chief fountains of culture. From Babylonia, astronomy, writing, and other useful arts were disseminated among the other Semitic peoples. It was a strong state even before 2000 B.C. Babylon was a hive of industry, and was active in trade, a link of intercourse between the East and the West. But this function of an intermediate was discharged still more effectively by the _Phoenicians_, the first great commercial and naval power of antiquity. _Tyre_ reached the acme of its prosperity under _Hiram_, the contemporary of _Solomon_, about 1000 B.C. Meantime, among the Hebrew people, the foundations of the true religion had been laid,--that religion of monotheism which in future ages was to leaven the nations. Contemporaneously, the _a.s.syrian Monarchy_ was rising to importance on the banks of the Tigris. The appearance, "in the first half of the ninth century B.C., of a power advancing from the heart of Asia towards the West, is an event of immeasurable importance in the history of the world." The _Israelites_ were divided. About the middle of the eighth century B.C., both of their kingdoms lost their independence. a.s.syria was vigorous in war, but had no deep foundation of national life. "Its religion was not rooted in the soil, like that of Egypt, nor based on the observation of the sky and stars, like that of Babylon." "Its G.o.ds were G.o.ds of war, manifesting themselves in the prowess of ruling princes." The main instrument in effecting the downfall of a.s.syria was the _Medo-Persian_ power. Through the _Medes_ and _Persians_, the Aryan race comes forward into conspicuity and control. One branch of the Iranians of Bactria, entering _India_, through the agency of climate and other physical influences converted their religion into a mystical and speculative pantheism, and their social organization into a caste-system under the rule of a priesthood. The Medes and Persians, under other circ.u.mstances, in contact with tribes about them, turned their religion into a dualism, yet with a monotheistic drift that was not wholly extinguished. The conquest of Babylon by _Cyrus_ annihilated Semitic power. The fall of _Lydia_, the conquest of _Egypt_ by _Cambyses_, and the victories of _Darius_, brought the world into subjection to Persian rule.
The dates of some of the most important historical events in this Section are as follow Menes, the first historic king of Egypt....... about 4000 B.C.
Accession of Ramses II. to the Egyptian throne...... 1340 B.C.
Rise of the Babylonian kingdom................ about 4000 B.C.
Reign of Hiram at Tyre, and of Solomon........ about 950 B.C.
a.s.syrian captivity: downfall of Israel............... 722 B.C.
Fall of Nineveh...................................... 606 B.C.
Babylonian captivity: downfall of Judah.............. 586 B.C.
Reign of Cyrus begins................................ 559 B.C.
Fall of Lydia: capture of Sardis..................... 546 B.C.
Fall of Babylon...................................... 538 B.C.
Reign of Darius begins............................... 521 B.C.
BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION.--In the history of _Western Asia_ we discern the beginnings of civilization and of the true religion. In the room of useless and destructive tribal warfare, great numbers are banded together under despotic rule. CITIES were built, where property and life could be protected, and within whose ma.s.sive walls of vast circ.u.mference the useful arts and the rudiments of science could spring up. Trade and commerce, by land and sea, naturally followed. Thus nations came to know one another. Aggressive war and subjugation had a part in the same result. The power of the peoples of western Asia, the guardians of infant civilization, availed to keep back the hordes of barbarians on the north, or, as in the case of the great Scythian invasion (p. 47), to drive them back to their own abodes.
DEFECTS OF ASIATIC CIVILIZATION.--But the civilization of the Asiatic empires had radical and fatal defects. The development of human nature was in some one direction, to the exclusion of other forms of human activity. As to knowledge, it was confined within a limit beyond which progress was slow. The _geometry_ of Egypt and the _astronomy_ of Babylon remained where the necessity of the pyramid-builders and the superst.i.tion of the astrologers had carried them. Even the art of war was in a rudimental stage. In battle, huge mult.i.tudes were precipitated upon one another. There are some evidences of strategy, when we reach the campaigns of Cyrus. But war was full of barbarities,--the destruction of cities, the expatriation of ma.s.ses of people, the pitiless treatment of captives. _Architecture_ exhibits magnitude without elegance. Temples, palaces, and tombs are monuments of labor rather than creations of art. They impress oftener by their size than by their beauty. _Statuary_ is inert and ma.s.sive, and appears inseparable from the buildings to which it is attached. _Literature_, with the exception of the Hebrew, is hardly less monotonous than art. The religion of the Semitic nations, the _Hebrews_ excepted, so far from containing in it a purifying element, tended to degrade its votaries by feeding the flame of sensual and revengeful pa.s.sion. What but debas.e.m.e.nt could come from the worship of Astarte and the Phoenician El?
The great empires did not a.s.similate the nations which they comprised. They were bound, but not in the least fused, together.
Persia went farther than any other empire in creating a uniform administration, but even the Persian Empire remained a conglomerate of distinct peoples.
ORIENTAL GOVERNMENT.--The government of the Oriental nations was a despotism. It was not a government of laws, but the will of the one master was omnipotent. The counterpart of tyranny in the ruler was cringing, abject servility in the subject. Humanity could not thrive, man could not grow to his full stature, under such a system. It was on the soil of Europe and among the Greeks that a better type of manhood and a true idea of liberty were to spring up.
DIVISION II. EUROPE.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.--The Alps, continued on the west by the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian mountains, and carried eastward to the Black Sea by the Balkan range, form an irregular line, that separates the three peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and Greece from the great plain of central Europe. On the north of this plain, there is a corresponding system of peninsulas and islands, where the Baltic answers in a measure to the Mediterranean. This midland sea, which at once unites and separates the three continents, is connected with the Atlantic by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar, and on the east is continued in the Aegean Sea, or the Archipelago, which leads into the h.e.l.lespont, or the Strait of the Dardanelles, thence onward into the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, and through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azoff beyond. From the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean the Mediterranean is parted by a s.p.a.ce which is now traversed by a ca.n.a.l. The irregularity of the coast-line is one of the characteristic features of the European continent. Especially are the northern sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean indented by arms of the sea; and this, along with the numerous islands, marks out the whole region as remarkably adapted to maritime life and commercial intercourse.
ITS INHABITANTS.--Europe was early inhabited by branches of the _Aryan_ race. The cradle or primitive seat of the Aryan family --from which its two main divisions, the European and the Asiatic, went forth--is not known. It is a matter of theory and debate. We find the _Graeco-Latin_ peoples on the south, the more central nations of _Celtic_ speech, the more northern _Teutons_, and in the north-east the _Slavonians_. But how all these Aryan branches are mutually related, and of the order and path of their prehistoric migrations, little is definitely known. The _Celts_ were evidently preceded by _non-Aryan_ inhabitants, of whom the _Basques_ in Spain and France are a relic. The _Celtiberians_ in Spain, as the name implies, were a mixture of the _Celts_ with the native non-Aryan _Iberians_. The _Greeks_ and the _Italians_ had a common ancestry, as we know by their languages; but of that common ancestry neither Greeks nor Latins in the historic period retained any recollection; nor can we safely affirm, that, of that earlier stock, they alone were the offspring.
"All the known Indo-European languages," writes Professor Whitney, "are descended from a single dialect, which must have been spoken at some time in the past by a single limited community, by the spread and emigration of which--not, certainly, without incorporating also bodies of other races than that to which itself belonged by origin--it has reached its present wide distribution." "Of course, it would be a matter of the highest interest to determine the place and period of this important community, were there any means of doing so; but that is not the case, at least at present." "The condition of these languages is reconcilable with any possible theory as to the original site of the family." "One point is established, that "the separation of the five European branches must have been later than their common separation from the two Asiatic branches," the Iranians and Indians." (Whitney"s _The Life and Growth of Language_, pp. 191, 193.)
SECTION I. GRECIAN HISTORY.
THE LAND.--"Greeks" is not a name which the people who bore it applied to themselves. It was a name given them by their kinsfolk, the Romans. They called themselves _h.e.l.lenes_, and their land they called _h.e.l.las_. h.e.l.las, or Greece proper, included the southern portion of the peninsula of which it is a part, the portion bounded on the north by Olympus and the Cambunian Mountains, and extending south to the Mediterranean. Its sh.o.r.es were washed on the east by the Aegean, on the west by the Adriatic, or Ionian Gulf. The length of h.e.l.las was about two hundred and fifty English miles: its greatest width, measured on the northern frontier, or from Attica on a line westward, was about a hundred and eighty miles. It is somewhat smaller than Portugal.
Along its coast are many deep bays. Long and narrow promontories run out into the sea. Thus a great length is given to the sea-coast, which abounds in commodious harbors. The tideless waters are safe for navigators. Scattered within easy distance of the sh.o.r.e are numerous islands of great fertility and beauty. So high and rugged are the mountains that communication between different places is commonly easier by water than by land. A branch of the Alps at the forty-second parallel of lat.i.tude turns to the south-east, and descends to _Toenarum_, the southern promontory. On either side, lateral branches are sent off, at short intervals, to the east and the west. From these in turn, branches, especially on the east, are thrown out in the same direction as the main ridge; that is, from north to south. Little room is left for plains of much extent. _Thessaly_, with its single river, the _Peneus_, was such a plain. There were no navigable rivers. Most of the streams were nothing more than winter-torrents, whose beds were nearly or quite dry in the summer. They often groped their way to the sea through underground channels, either beneath lakes or in pa.s.sages which the streams themselves bored through limestone. The physical features of the country fitted it for the development of small states, distinct from one another, yet, owing especially to the relations of the land to the sea, full of life and movement.
THE GRECIAN STATES.--The territory of Greece included (1) Northern Greece, comprising all north of the Malian (Zeitoum) and Ambracian (Arta) gulfs; (2) Central Greece, extending thence to the Gulf of Corinth; (3) the peninsula of Peloponnesus (Morea) to the south of the isthmus. The country was occupied, in the flourishing days of Greece, by not less than seventeen states.
_Northern Greece_ contained two princ.i.p.al countries, _Thessaly_ and _Epirus_, separated from one another by the _Pindus_. Thessaly was the largest and most fertile of the Grecian states. The _Peneus_, into which poured the mountain streams, pa.s.sed to the sea through a narrow gorge, the famous _Vale of Tempe_. In the mountainous region of _Epirus_ were numerous streams flowing through the valleys. Within it was the ancient _Dodona_, the seat of the oracle. _Magnesia_, east of Thessaly, on the coast, comprised within it the two ranges of _Ossa_ and _Pelion_. _Central Greece_ contained eleven states. _Malis_ had on its eastern edge the pa.s.s of _Thermopylae_. In _Phocis_, on the southern slope of Mount Parna.s.sus, was _Delphi_. _Boeotia_ was distinguished for the number and size of its cities, the chief of which was _Thebes_.
_Attica_ projected from Boeotia to the south-east, its length being seventy miles, and its greatest width thirty miles. Its area was only about seven hundred and twenty square miles. It was thus only a little more than half as large as the State of Rhode Island, which has an area of thirteen hundred and six square miles. Its only important town was _Athens_. Its rivers, the _Ilissus_ and the two _Cephissusses_, were nothing more than torrent courses. In _Southern Greece_ were eleven countries. The territory of _Corinth_ embraced most of the isthmus, and a large tract in Peloponnesus. It had but one considerable city, _Corinth_, which had two ports,--one on the Corinthian Gulf, _Lechoeum_, and the other on the Saronic Gulf, _Cenchreae_. _Arcadia_, the central mountain country, has been called the Switzerland of Peloponnesus. It comprised numerous important towns, as _Mantinea_, _Orchomenus_, and, in later times, _Megalopolis_. In the south-east was _Laconia_, with an area of about nineteen hundred square miles. It consisted mainly of the valley of the _Eurotas_, which lay between the lofty mountain ranges of _Parnon_ and _Taygetus_. "Hollow Lacedaemon" was a phrase descriptive of its situation. _Sparta_, the capital, was on the _Eurotas_, twenty miles from the sea. It had no other important city. _Argolis_, projecting into the sea, eastward of Arcadia, had within it the ancient towns of _Mycenae_ and _Argos_.
THE ISLANDS.--It must be remembered that the waters between Europe and Asia were not a separating barrier, but a close bond of connection. There is scarcely a single point "where, in clear weather, a mariner would feel himself left in a solitude between sky and water; the eye reaches from island to island, and easy voyages of a day lead from bay to bay." Greek towns, including very ancient places, were scattered along the western coast of Asia Minor, between the mountains and the sh.o.r.e. The Aegean was studded with Greek islands. These, together with the islands in the Ionian Sea, on the west, formed a part of Greek territory.
The princ.i.p.al island near Greece was _Euboea_, stretching for a hundred miles along the east coast of Attica, Boeotia, and Locris. On the opposite side of the peninsula, west of Epirus, was the smaller but yet large island of _Corcyra_ (Corfu). On the west, besides, were _Ithaca_, _Cephallenia_, and _Zacynthus_ (Zante); on the south, the _Oenussae_ Islands and _Cythera_; on the east, _Aegina_, _Salamis_, etc. From the south-eastern sh.o.r.es of Euboea and Attica, the _Cyclades_ and _Sporades_ extended in a continuous series, "like a set of stepping-stones,"
across the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor. From Corcyra and the Acroceraunian promontory, one could descry, in clear weather, the Italian coast. These were all littoral islands. Besides these, there were other islands in the northern and central Aegean, such as _Lemnos_, _Samothrace_, _Delos_, _Naxos_, etc.; and in the southern Aegean, _Crete_, an island mountainous but fertile, a hundred and fifty miles in length from east to west, and about fifteen in breadth, and containing more than two thousand square miles. The Greek race was still more widely diffused through the settlements in and about the western Mediterranean.
THE BOND OF RACE.--The Greeks, or h.e.l.lenes, were not so much a nation as a united race. Politically divided, they were conscious of a fraternal bond that connected them, wherever they might be found, and parted them from the rest of mankind. Their sense of brotherhood is implied in the fabulous belief in a common ancestor named _h.e.l.len_. Together with a fellowship in _blood_, there was a community in _language_, notwithstanding minor differences in dialect. Moreover, there was a common religion. They worshiped the same G.o.ds. They had the same ritual, and cherished in common the same beliefs respecting things supernatural. In connection with these ties of _blood_, of _language_, and of _religion_, they celebrated together great national festivals, like the Olympic games, in which Greeks from all parts of the world might take part, and into which they entered with a peculiar enthusiasm. As the Jews, following the impulses of a holier faith, went up to Jerusalem to celebrate as one family their sacred rites; so the Greeks repaired to hallowed shrines of Zeus or Apollo, a.s.sembling from afar on the plain of Olympia and at the foot of Parna.s.sus.
DIVISIONS OF GREEK HISTORY.
Greek history embraces _three general periods_. The first is the formative period, and extends to the Persian wars, 500 B.C. The second period covers the flourishing era of Greece, from 500 B.C. to 359 B.C. The third is the Macedonian period, when the freedom of Greece was lost,--the era of Philip and Alexander, and of Alexander"s successors.
PERIOD I. is divided into (1) the mythical or prehistoric age, extending to 776 B.C.; (2) the age of the formation of the princ.i.p.al states. PERIOD II. includes (1) the Persian wars, 502-479 B.C.; (2) the period of Athenian supremacy, 478-431 B.C.; (3) the Peloponnesian war, 431-404 B.C., with the Spartan, followed by the Theban ascendency, 404-362 B.C. PERIOD III. includes (1) the reigns of Philip and Alexander, 359-323 B.C.; (2) the kingdoms into which the empire of Alexander was divided.
PERIOD I. GREECE PRIOR TO THE PERSIAN WARS.
CHAPTER I. THE PREHISTORIC AGE.