D Vfez GDpyright)J"._ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT, ANCIENT CIVILIZATION AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN HISTORY BY ARTHUR MAYER WOLFSON, Ph.D. PRINCIPAL OF THE JULIA RICHMAN HIGH SCHOOL NEW YORK, N. Y. Author of "Essentials in Ancient History" AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO s^ t^ Copyright, igi6. BY ARTHUR MAYER WOLFSON All rights reserved 10^ PPR 18 1916 'l;I,A420836 PREFACE The purpose of this book is indicated on the title page. It is written to meet the needs of classes which can devote only a brief amount of time to the study of Ancient History before taking up the study of Medieval and Modern History. The "Committee of Five" of the American Historical Association recommends "that if it seems wise to omit any detailed study of ancient history and to give three years substantially to the other three blocks, the teacher, while omitting all detail, may still attempt to give his pupils some idea of the growth of the ancient nations, and some idea of their achievements and their quali- ties." With this aim in view, only such details of the political history of antiquity have been here included as are necessary for an understanding of ancient civiUzation. Furthermore, only such elements of the life of the people of antiquity have been empha- sized as are necessary for a thorough comprehension of the his- tory of Western Europe in modern times. The book is written especially for the use of pupils in the first or second year of the high school course. The point of view of boys and girls fifteen or sixteen years old has therefore been kept in mind in the selection of details and in the wording and arrange- ment of the text ; and also in the choice of maps and illustrations. The maps are adequate for making clear the geographical refer- ences in the text. Several large pictures have been made to illus- trate the text — an object seldom attained by the illustrations in ancient histories. These pictures are carefully designed to arouse the imagination of the readers, and to assist them in real- izing the conditions of life in ancient times. Acknowledgment is due to Mr. Morris C. Deshel, teacher of history in the DeWitt Clinton High School, for his assistance in getting together the material for this textbook, and for the preparation of the references given under the Search Topics. For helpful criticisms, also, the author's thanks are due to the history teachers in the DeWitt Clinton High School and in the Julia Richman High School. ARTHUR M. WOLFSON. City of New York. CONTENTS Chapter I. The Time Before History Began i Chapter II. The History of the Ancient East 9 Chapter III. Greek Contributions to Civilization 30 Chapter IV. The Spread of Ancient Civilization Into the West 61 Chapter V. The Transition from Ancient to Modern Civiliza- tion 97 MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS Restoration of the Roman Forum Frontispiece Village of Lake Dwellers . The Ancient World . . . Egyptian Market Scene . Phoenicia and Palestine . . Persians Bringing Tribute Ancient Greece Greek Festival . . . . . 5 8 17 23 27 38 53 PAGE 63 68 Early Tribes of Italy . . . The Roman Empire .... The City of Rome during the later Empire 79 On a Roman Road ..... 92 Life in a Germanic Forest . . 103 Europe about 580 108 Mohammedan Dominions . . 114 Charlemagne's Empire ... 119 ANCIENT CIVILIZATION CHAPTER I THE TIME BEFORE HISTORY BEGAN Ask yourself as you begin reading this book what is the first thing in life that you can remember. Probably the event hap- pened not more than ten or twelve years ago. Your ^j^^ sources father and mother cannot go back in memory more than of our three or four times as many years as that ; and practically ^^"^ ^ ^^ no man or woman alive to-day can recall things that happened a hundred years ago. And yet, at the very beginning of this book, you must imagine that your memory extends over thou- sands and thousands of years, for the beginning of man's history belongs to a time as long ago as that. Our knowledge of the story of man's existence on earth has been gathered slowly. Here and there in all parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, a few bones of men and of animals, a few spearheads and arrowheads, a few fragments of clothing and cooking utensils have been found. From these, and from the rude pictures which men scratched on stones thousands of years ago, we have been able to piece together a record which carries back the story of man's life those thousands of years. We have learned something about his method of making himself shelter and clothing, something about the way he fought with the wild animals of the forest, something about the way he gathered his food and fed and reared his children. We know the steps by which, from a condition like that of a wild animal, he climbed up to the place which he occupies on earth to-day. The first men who lived on earth were little better than wild animals. They spent their time hunting for berries and roots and nuts in the forests. They had neither clothing nor shelter 2 THE TIME BEFORE HISTORY BEGAN except that which nature furnished them. All day long they picked their way through underbrush, over and under fallen The first trees, across brooks and through marshes and mud-holes, liv^ed^n° hunting their food. Sometimes they watched great herds earth of wild oxen or of elephants plunging through the forest. At any moment they might be attacked by wolves or bears, or by the great clumsy animals, long since disappeared off the face of the earth, which were even larger than the modern elephant and rhinoceros. When the sun set, they sought shelter in the branches of trees or in caves in the hillsides or on the sea shore and waited for daylight to come. They had neither tools nor weapons except their rude clubs, and the stones which they picked up at need. Occasionally, by watching at drinking places and runways through the underbrush, they were able to catch small animals. They ate the flesh of these animals raw. They did not know how to make a fire, nor how to fashion into tools the sticks and stones which they found. But even the first men who lived on earth had three things that were denied to the lower animals. First of all they had Nature's brains capable of development. They could think things three gifts out for themselves and teach their children, so that each ° °^ ^ generation became wiser and more skillful than the last. Second, they had hands adapted to delicate operations. Study your own hand; compare it with the hand of a monkey. Think of the difference it would make if you had five fingers instead of four fingers and a thumb. Imagine holding a knife or a needle and working with it under these conditions, and you will under- stand the advantage which man has over beasts. Third, man had a set of vocal organs which made it possible for him to de- velop a spoken language with which to express his emotions and his thoughts. These three things are the instruments with which men carved out their entire future and raised themselves, generation after generation, higher and higher above the brutes. Sooner or later — we have no record of the exact passage of time — man discovered the use of fire. Perhaps he first learned THE USE OF FIRE 3 its uses by observing tlie effects of forest fires kindled by lightning, or by noting the changes brought about by hot lava from volcanoes. Certainly sometime, long, long ago, he The use of learned how to start his own fires by rubbing two ^^^ sticks together or by striking one stone against another. Imagine the scene in the forest. Slowly the hunter kindles his fire. First it is a pile of smoldering leaves, then sticks and chips are added to the blaze. Finally it is a roaring flame. Men and women and children huddle around it. The flesh of some wild animal' is roasted. Far into the night, the group con- tinues its feasting, singing, and yelling. By this time, men had also learned to make tools — hammers, knives, axes, and spearheads — of stone. Often they used the smooth stones which they found in the forest or on The inven- the hillside without any attempt to change them; but some- ^^°"^ °^ *°°^^ times they chipped them till the edges were sharp, or bound them with twigs or with strips of skin to wooden handles and kept them for future use. . With such tools men had an enormous advantage over the lower animals. Now they could kill their prey by attacking at a distance; they could fight successfully with beasts much stronger than man. In the hillside caves and in the mud banks along the rivers in England, France, Germany, and Switzerland, for the last seventy- five years the scholars of Europe have been finding The cave evidences of the life of men who made the first rude imple- ™®° ments of stone. Can you picture to yourself the life of one of these early cave men? There he sits at the mouth of his cave with his wife and his children about him. He is making himself a spearhead or an axhead, or he is cutting up the carcass of a reindeer or of a wild ox which he has killed in the forest. While he works, his wife is scraping hides, making them ready for clothing or sewing them together with a needle of bone and with thongs made of hide or of plant fibers. Deep in the cave are all sorts of litter — bones of animals killed in the chase, broken hammers and chisels and spearheads, and tattered skins. On the walls of the cave are scratched pictures of the reindeer, the 4 THE TIME BEFORE HISTORY BEGAN buffalo, the boar, and the mammoth — animals which the cave man hunted. When night came, if the day's hunting was good, the cave man kindled his fire and roasted the flesh of the animals which he had killed. When he and his family were gorged with food, they crept into the cave and slept, protected from the attacks of wild animals by the smoldering fire which burned through the night. These were the men of what we call the Rough Stone Age. Hundreds of years passed and great changes took place in the The Polished continents of Europe and Asia and Africa before man ad- Stone Age vanced into the next stage — the period which we call the PoHshed Stone Age. The men of the Rough Stone Age had made their tools of stone by chipping the edges. They had used the bones or tusks of animals without fashioning them for special uses. The men of the Polished Stone Age learned the trick of grinding and drilling. They polished the surfaces and the edges of their knives and their hatchets. They drilled holes in their axheads and their needles; they made harpoons and fishhooks of ivory and of bone. They chopped down trees and used them for building houses. They made canoes, or dugouts, by burning out the centers of logs. They succeeded in taming some of the wild animals. They learned how to cultivate edible grasses — wheat, oats, and barley — and how to spin the fibers of flax into thread which they wove into cloth. The men of the Polished Stone Age were organized into groups of families which recognized a common ancestor. Such groups are commonly known as clans. The people of a clan lived to- gether in a village under a chief who governed them in times of peace and led them in war. In many parts of Europe, and in valleys of rivers in Asia and in Africa, we find evidences of the life which the men of the The lake Polished Stone Age lived. In some places their houses dwellers were bmlt of turf or of clay; in others they were bmlt of wood. At the bottom of lakes in Switzerland, for instance, many thousands of piles — stripped trunks of trees — have been found driven into the mud. Among these piles there were heaps Village of Lake Dwellers 6 THE TIME BEFORE HISTORY BEGAN of rubbish — stone implements and fragments of pottery, rem- nants of furniture and clothing — from which we gather the story of the life of the lake dwellers. Their houses were built on the piles and could be reached from the shore only by crossing the water. The lake dwellers had canoes for this purpose, but some of their villages were also connected with the shore by a long causeway or bridge built on piles. In front of the houses were platforms where tlie women o.it while grinding wheat, oats, or barley into flour, or spinning flax and weaving it into cloth. They prepared the food for the house- hold in bowls and dishes of pottery, using knives and ladles made of stone. In the. pastures and woodlands along the shores of the lake the boys took care of herds of cattle and goats and sheep. Oxen were used as beasts of burden. They drew great clumsy carts with solid wooden wheels. Men were no longer dependent upon wild animals alone for their food and their clothing. They had domestic animals which helped them to carry their burdens and which furnished tliem with meat. They had crops of grain and of flax. These men had advanced a long way on the road to civili- zation, but they lacked a knowledge of how to use one of the The first use greatest gifts of nature — they knew nothing of the value of metals Qf metals, of copper, tin, iron, and lead. No one knows just when or where men first began to use these metals. Some- time, at least five or six thousand years ago, perhaps even much earlier, some one discovered that much better tools could be made out of copper than out of stone. That discovery was really the beginning of our present civilization. Later on, men melted copper and tin together and thus made bronze, which was harder than copper, and better suited for weapons and other utensils. Still later iron, gold and silver, and other metals came into use. Only one thing more was necessary: that was that men should keep regular written records of their doings; when that was done, the real history of the world began. TOPICS AND REFERENCES TOPICS AND REFERENCES Suggestive Topics. — d) Compare the tools and utensils in your own home with those used by primitive man. (2) Describe the way a baby learns to talk and compare it with the way prehistoric man probably developed his language. (3) Was the American Indian whom the English settlers found, more highly civilized than the men described in this chapter? (4J Why are the domestic animals considered a sign of civilization? (5) Examine the stones in the road on your way to school and imagine how you would convert 'tiiem into hammers, axes, knives, and other tools. (6) Why did the lake dwellers build their houses on piles in the water rather than along the shore? Search Topics. — (i) An Account of a Visit to a Collection of Primi- tive Tools. — (2) The Life of the Cave Men. Sollas, Ancient Hunters, pp. 142-148; Clodd, Primitive Man, pp. 48-60. — (3) The Way Savages Make Fire. Tylor, Anthropology, pp. 260-264; Clodd, Primitive Man, pp. 48-50. — (4) The Lake Dwellers. Clodd, Primitive Man, pp. 131-145. — (5) Wo.man's Share in Primitive Clxture. Mason, Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, pp. 276-282. General Reading. — Edward Clodd, The Story of Primitive Man, Appleton, 1895. O. T. Mason, Woman's Slmre in Primitive Culture, Appleton, 1894. W. J. Sollas, Ancient Hunters, Macmillan, 191 1. E. B. Tylor, Anthropology, Appleton, 1 88 1. !□□ CHAPTER II THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST From the very earliest period of which we have any record, the people who lived in the valleys of rivers have made the most rapid progress. If you think of the difference in natural ^j^^ g^eue of resources between the land along the banks of rivers and ancient civil- the land in the highlands or deserts, you will understand ^^^ '"" why. Furthermore, the men who live in warm or temperate climates have always had larger chances than those who live in regions which are either too hot or too cold. It is not at all surprising, therefore, to find that the oldest civilizations in the world were developed in the valleys of southern Asia, north'ern Africa, and southern Europe. If you look at a map of the Eastern Hemisphere you will see a great sweep of country stretching west from the Plateau of Iran to the Atlantic Ocean, bound together by numerous natural highroads and by several inland seas. In the eastern part of this region lies the valley of the twin rivers Tigris and Euphrates. In the lower part of this valley, crops of grain grew in abun- dance, and herds of cattle fed on the grass five or six thousand years ago. The rivers made traveUng easy; consequently trade and commerce flourished, and the comforts of civilized life fol- lowed in their path. West of the Euphrates valley lies the desert of Arabia, and west of that is the narrow strip of land called Syria, which borders on the sea. At its northern end this strip connects with the valley of the Euphrates and thus it forms the natural high- road between that region and the valley of the Nile. The valley of the Nile, in Egypt, is one of the most fertile coun- tries in the world. Once a year the river floods the fields and makes them ready for bounteous harvests. The climate is mild 9 lO THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST and invariable, the air is clear and dry, the sun shines almost every day in the year. Since the Nile valley had all these ad- vantages, it was destined by nature to become the seat of one of the earliest known civilizations in the world. No one has been able to determine exactly how far back the written records of the countries in the valley of the Nile and in The begin- ^^^ valley of the Tigris-Euphrates extend. One thing, ning of however, is certain : the history of these countries can be ^ °^^ traced back at least five or six thousand years. In the earliest historical period, in both regions, the people were divided into a number of small tribes. Each tribe believed itself descended from a common ancestor, and had its own religion. Each had its own chief and lived in a small village or town and cultivated grain and herded cattle in the neighboring fields. Wars for revenge and for conquest were constant. First one tribe and then another gained the upper hand. Sometimes two or three tribes united against a common enemy. In the end, some chief more powerful than any of the others gained control over a number of tribes and assimied the title and powers of a king. The earliest fixed date in history is the year 4241 B.C. In that year the ^Egyptians who lived in the region of the Nile The history Delta adopted a calendar in which the length of the year of ancient was fixed by the time which it takes the earth to revolve ^^^ around the sun. Previous to that time, men had reckoned time by observing the phases of the moon. But the moon calendar does not divide the year evenly. So the Egyptians, six thousand years ago, determined to divide the year into twelve months of 30 days each and added five feast days to make the year complete. Since then the only real improvement in the calendar has been the introduction of the leap year. At the time of the introduction of the solar calendar, Egypt was divided into two kingdoms. One of them embraced the land in the region of the Delta; the other, the land in the middle course of the stream farther to the south. Some six or seven hundred years later, all of Egypt was united into a single kingdom MAN IN THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES VALLEY ll with its capital at Memphis, situated about one hundred miles from the sea. For a thousand years and more, Memphis remained the capital of Egypt. It would be useless for us to attempt to study all the wars and all the changes which took place in the kingdom during these hundreds and hundreds of years. At the end of this long period, the kings of Egypt established themselves in a new capital halfway up the river, in a city called Thebes. The new kings of Egypt were warriors and conquerors. They made their way across the Isthmus of Suez into Syria. They fought with the people from the valley of the Tigris-Euphrates. They con- quered the tribes who inhabited the African deserts and moun- tains near Egypt. Sometimes they were conquered in turn. Whenever new land was conquered, merchants and traders en- tered, and the arts and crafts of Egypt were spread. The history of Egypt as an independent country lasted for three thousand five hundred years. In 525 B.C., the land was conquered by the Persians, and from that day to this the valley of the Nile has always been governed by some foreign nation — Persian, Macedonian, Roman, Arabian, Turkish, or English. The history of the people who inhabited the valley of the Tigris- Euphrates is much more compUcated than that of Egypt. At the very dawn of history, in the region nearest the Per- „ •^ , . 1 Man in the sian Gulf, a race called Sumenans developed the arts of xigris-Eu- civilization. More than six thousand years ago, they had Pirates learned how to write and how to keep a record of their doings. They tilled their fields and tended their flocks. They carried on trade with the neighboring peoples and sailed their ships on the Persian Gulf. Sometime about 4000 B.C. the Sumerians were conquered by a horde of barbarians from Arabia. These invaders, whom we call Babylonians, established themselves in little towns and vil- lages, and lived by cultivating the land. Later on the towns made war on one another. In the end, the city of Babylon be- came the most important of the cities and its ruler became the 12 THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST ruler of all the land. The name of just one of these kings should be remembered — Hammurabi — who lived about 2000 B.C. He built great irrigating canals for the benefit of the farmers, and encouraged trade and industry throughout the land. He established a regular system of government and issued an elab- orate code of laws. These laws are not unlike the Laws of Moses, which were made for the government of the Hebrews after they entered the Promised Land. For nearly a thousand years, the kings of Babylon ruled the people in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. Then they were con- quered by the Assyrians, a fierce, cruel race of hunters and war- riors who lived on the slopes of the mountains east and north of the Tigris. Nineveh was their chief city. After they had sub- jugated the Babylonians, they carried their wars north, east, and west, until all the peoples from the Caspian Sea to the Mediter- ranean and even the Egyptians wei*e conquered. In 606 B.C., the kingdom of the Assyrians was destroyed. In that year, an army made up of Medes and Persians and Baby- lonians captured the city of Nineveh and destroyed it. Most of the advantages of the conquest fell to the Babylonians, but the rule of the Babylonians lasted only a few years. In 538 B.C., they were conquered by Cyrus, the great king of the Persians, of whom we shall hear more later on. The history of the kings and rulers of Egypt and of Babylonia and Assyria is of very little importance. It is the life of the The life of people — their language and their literature, their daily the people jjfg g^^d customs, their agriculture and their manufactures, their art and science and religion — that we must try to under- stand. For three or four thousand years, men and women in both countries cultivated the land, carried on trade and com- merce, transacted business with each other,' and traveled into distant lands. In the end, the people of both countries were conquered, but even to this day the things which they did four or five thousand years ago are still remembered because the Egyptians and Babylonians and Assyrians were the first nations to rise from barbarism to civilization. From them the later EGYPTIAN AND BABYLONIAN WRITING 1 3 civilized nations learned many of the things which are part of the life which we are living to-day. Practically everything that we know about the Egj^tians and the Babylonians and Assyrians we have learned from two sources. In both countries there was a system of writing; and Egyptian and records of the history of the country, and of the life of the Babylonian people were copied into books. Besides, in both countries ^" ^^^ there are still remains of buildings — temples and palaces and monuments — from which we learn much about the life of the people. On the walls of these ruins are lengthy inscriptions which tell of the acts of the kings and nobles while they were alive. The writing and the books of the Egyptians and the Baoy- lonians were altogether different from the writing and the books of to-day. The Egyptians used a system of picture writing which we call hieroglyphics. Thus the sign T^ stood for the word man, the sign %^ stood for woman, (^ for sun, and y^^^ for moon. Later on these signs were used to express syllables and even the letters which correspond to the letters of the alphabet which we use to-day. With these signs the Egyptians carved their stories on the walls of their temples and other buildings, or wrote them on rolls of paper made from the papyrus reed which grew along the banks of the Nile. These rolls of papyrus were the only books which the Egyptians had. The writing of the Babylonians and Assyrians is much more difficult to understand than that of the Egyptians. Originally it also was a form of picture writing, but the picture signs were gradually changed till they became a group of wedge-shaped characters, each group standing for a syllable. This kind of writing is known as cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing. Like the Egyptians, the Babylonians and Assyrians carved their in- scriptions on the walls of their buildings. They also made thousands and thousands of records on clay tablets or clay cylinders with a sharp-pointed writing instrument. The tablets W. Anc. Civ. — 2 14 THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST and cylinders were then baked until they became as hard- as modern bricks. These were the books of the Babylonians and Assyrians. They were preserved in people's houses; they were kept as records by merchants and traders; they were stored by the thousands in libraries just as we keep large collections of books to-day. For hundreds and hundreds of years, after the destruction of the Egyptian and the Babylonian and Assyrian kingdoms, no one was able to read the records of these ancient peoples. Then, about a hundred years ago, a Frenchman discovered a great stone tablet since called the Rosetta Stone because it was found near the modern town of Rosetta in Eg5^t. On this an inscription was written in hieroglyphics and in Greek, which led to the un- derstanding of the ancient Egyptian writing. In a similar way, scholars discovered a method of reading the Babylonian writing. As a result, we can, to-day, interpret once more the records preserved on the ruined walls of the buildings, and in the Egyptian and Babylonian books. In consequence, we know a great deal about these ancient peoples; about the way they made their living, about their home life and their government, about their religion and their science, about their influence on the rest of the world. In both Egypt and Babylonia, there were various social classes. First of all, there was the king and the members of the royal Social family. The king was regarded by the people as a being The Royal ^^^ above ordinary mortals. He was the representative of family the gods on earth. In Egypt, the pharaoh, as the king was called, was addressed by his subjects as the "Good God" or the "Great God." He was the chief of the army. His very word was law. He lived in a magnificent palace with his wives and sons and daughters. Hundreds of courtiers and servants and slaves waited upon him. All taxes were paid to his treasurers. His governors and tax gatherers were to be found in every city and province. When he died a great pyramid or some other imposing monument was erected in which the people deposited his earthly remains. NOBLES AND PRIESTS 1 5 Just below the king and the royal family, there were numerous nobles who served the king in the army and assisted him in ruling the people. They were the owners of most of the Nobles and land. This land was cultivated for them by slaves and P"ests hireUngs, or was rented out in small parcels to farmers who paid rent in grain and cattle and other produce of the fields. On a level with the nobles were the chief members of the priest- hood. They, too, possessed extensive landed estates from which they drew revenues for the building and maintenance of the temples which were erected for the worship of the gods. The priests were the teachers, as well as the servants of the gods. They kept the temple records and were the chief men of science. They were the principal physicians. They were the custodians of the tombs, and kept the records of the dead. A third class of Egyptian society was made up of the merchants and shopkeepers, independent landholders, and skilled craftsmen. These men were in comparatively comfortable circum- Merchants stances. They led peaceful, uneventful lives. Their and farmers homes were not as magnificent as those of the priests and the nobles, but they had plenty of food to eat and comfortable clothing to wear. The great mass of the people, however, were hard working, ill- fed, and ill-clothed workmen. They tilled the fields of the nobles, or spent long weary hours in the shops. Their houses were the rudest hovels. Men and women and children went bareheaded and barefooted. Their only clothing was a pair of rough cotton drawers for the men and a simple cotton shirt for the women. Their daily food consisted of a few onions and beans and coarse cakes of wheat or of barley. Oc- casionally they were able to vary this diet with a bit of dried fish or with apples or dates or figs. They worked from sunrise to ^ sunset and often far into the night. These are the men who built the great Egyptian and Babylonian temples and palaces and tombs. They knew the lash of the whip of the taskmaster, for they were constantly beaten at their work. "It was the stick that built the pyramids, dug the canals, won the victories 1 6 THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST for the conquering pharaohs, and made Egypt a great manu- facturing nation, " we are told. Slaves were the lowest class in ancient, as well as in modern, society. Usually slaves were captives taken in war; but a man or woman might be sold into slavery if he failed to pay his debts. The treatment of the slaves depended upon the character of the master; sometimes their lot was easy; more often it was extremely hard. They were used as household servants, to take care of the goods of their masters, or to work in the fields. The large majority of the people in both Egypt and Baby- lonia were engaged in farming. Each spring, thousands of men Industry and and women plowed the fields with a plow which consisted commerce ^f g^ sharpened stick fastened to a rude handle. The seed was then scattered in the furrows by hand. During the summer there was plenty of labor — the cattle, the sheep, and the swine had to be tended. In fall, the crops were cut with hand sickles and gathered into the barns. Here wheat, barley, and oats were thrashed and winnowed, and stored for the winter. Perhaps in books or in one of the great museums you have seen pictures of Eg)^ptians or Babylonians in workshops. Im- agine the life of these people. In the towns, the houses of the merchants and nobles were fairly comfortable; but the homes of the workmen were miserable, dirty, one-story huts. Men and women and children slept and ate and did their work in one room. In the market place, in the center of the town or on the banks of the river, cattle from the country were herded and killed by the butchers and offered for sale. Food of all kinds — vege- tables, grain, fruit, and fish — was piled in great baskets, and men and women handled it and shouted and quarreled with the owners trying to get the best bargains they could. Clothing of wool and linen and cotton was displayed against the walls of buildings or hung on racks in front of the shops. Under gaudy colored awnings, merchants who had traveled in far countries offered costly jewels and works of gold and silver to the richer Egyptian Market Scene 17 1 8 THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST citizens who were able to pay the price. Objects made of ivory and curious woods gathered in India or in the heart of Africa were also displayed. In the side streets were confectioners and bakers and barbers and sandal makers. Carpenters and masons and woodworkers stood in the market place waiting for jobs. Here and there, all over the city, were wine shops and restaurants where merchants gathered and made bargains over their food and drink. From early morning to sunset, the city was alive with the noise and bustle of trade. Day after day, boats on the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates departed carr5dng cargoes Consigned to other cities on the river or to cities in distant lands. Across the Red Sea and the Medi- terranean, out into the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, ven- turesome sailors and merchants pursued their voyages in quest of products which the king and his nobles were willing to buy. Across the deserts and mountains of Africa and of Asia caravans wended their way carrying silks and jewels, gold and silver and ivory. Out in the country, the king and his nobles hunted the lion and the rhinoceros, and all sorts of smaller game. At night the cities were often gay with lanterns. In the houses of the well-to-do people there was feasting and singing and dancing. In Babylonia and Egypt, in earliest times, each province and each city had its own gods. Their great temples were built on Ancient re- ^^^^^ overlooking the city, or in a specially reserved section ligious across the river. In later times the chief gods were recog- nized as rulers over the entire country; the king was their chief representative on earth. Most of these gods were per- sonifications of the forces of nature and the heavenly bodies — the sun which warms the land and makes it fruitful, the moon, the stars, and the planets. Each god had his own temple in which the priests offered sacrifices of animals or of the fruits of the earth. In both Egypt and Babylonia, the sun god was the chief deity. One of his names in Egypt was Osiris. According to the legend, he was the god who had reclaimed the land from savagery and had given the people their laws. But his wicked TEMPLES OF THE GODS 1 9 brother, Set, the God of darkness, was jealous of his power and killed him and threw his body into the Nile. Isis, the goddess of the moon, the faithful wife of Osiris, sought and found the body of her husband and restored it to life. Once more Set at- tacked his brother Osiris and forced him to retire to the Land of the Dead. Osiris and Isis had a son, Horus. When he grew up he killed Set, the slayer of his father, and thereafter, Horus ruled as god of the Land of the Living, and Osiris ruled as god of the Land of the Dead. In Babylonia, the chief god was Marduk. He, too, was god of the sun. Beside him there were numberless other deities associated with the moon, the stars, and the planets. The Babylonian priests were especially interested in the movements of the heavenly bodies, because they believed that these move- ments were influenced by the will of the gods. They watched the rising and the setting of the stars and the planets, the eclipses and comets; they believed that these things affected the lives of people; they read the fate of mortals in the stars. Egyptian temples were enormous structures covering many acres of ground. The high outer walls were pierced by one or two small gateways which led into a great courtyard, Temples of open to the sky, which the people were allowed to enter. *^® sods Beyond it, only those engaged in the religious ceremonies might go. The real temple consisted of a series of massive pillars some- times covering hundreds of square feet. At the end of these pillars was the small, dark Holy of Holies — the dwelling place of the god. Every morning and every evening, the priests pro- ceeded to the Holy of Holies and made proper sacrifices, and offered up prayers to the god. The Babylonian temple was altogether different in construc- tion. Inside the courtyard was a great stepped pyramid some- times several hundred feet high. Along the steps of this pyramid wound the processions of the priests bearing the sacrifices to the gods. At the very top was the altar where the priests ad- ministered their rites in full view of the multitude assembled below. 20 THE fflSTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST The ancient Egyptians believed that the god Osiris ruled over the Land of the Dead. In his presence every soul of a departed Life after Egyptian must appear on judgment day to give an account death ^f j^jg jjfg^ g^^ before this judgment day, the soul had to take a long journey through the region ruled over by Set, the wicked god of darkness. Here were all sorts of pitfalls; and all sorts of monsters guarded the way. Only the protection of the servants of Osiris, and the prayers and sacrifices of the living, could save the soul from destruction. Furthermore, the soul, to enjoy eternal bliss in the kingdom of Osiris, must be rejoined by the body. If the body was destroyed, the soul must wander forever between heaven and earth. That is why the Egyptians took such care of the bodies of their dead. Weeks and weeks were spent in embalming. Then the bodies were wrapped in narrow strips of linen, gummed and saturated with spices and other preservatives. In this way, the Eg3^tians prepared their mummies, hundreds of which are in existence to-day. When the process was over, the bodies were placed in elaborate wooden or stone coffins and carried to the City of the Dead. In the coffins all sorts of religious emblems, charms, and amulets were placed, to protect the soul during its wanderings on the journey to the Land of the Dead. Such precautions as these, however, were taken only for the richest and most important Egyptians. The poor man had to be content with much less elaborate preparations for his funeral, such as was fitting to his station in life. Among the religious emblems placed in the coffin of the richest and most important people was included a copy of the Book of the Dead. This book contained prayers and passwords, hymns, and incantations, which the soul must use on its journey to the land of the blest. It described the judgment of Osiris. It con- tained the answers that the soul must make when it appeared before Osiris on judgment day. The Book of the Dead is the most interesting book which has come down to us from the ancient Egyptians. It is a sort of Pilgrim's Progress written four thousand years ago. The EGYPTIAN AND BABYLONIAN LITERATURE : .21 Egyptian priests wrote hundreds of other rehgious poems and other books on religion. Indeed, religion was the chief sub- ject of Egyptian literature, but there were books on Egyptian and other subjects — tales of love and adventure, not unlike Babylonian those in The Arabian Nights, books on arithmetic, ^ ®^^ ^^^ geometry, surveying, navigation, and surgery, and books which told of the adventures and good deeds of the nobles and kings. The Babylonians and Assyrians, too, wrote thousands of books. In all the important cities in the Tigris-Euphrates valley there were temple libraries in which these books written on clay tablets were stored. They contain the laws and the histories of the Babylonian and Assyrian kings. For instance, there is the Code of Hammurabi which has already been mentioned, and the record of his deeds. Religious books were also common in Babylonia. Like those of the Egyptians, they contain prayers, hymns, and incantations- to ward off evil spirits. The Baby- lonian priests also wrote books on astrology and astronomy^ and stories of the adventures of the gods. There were books on arithmetic, geography, botany, and zoology, and books about agriculture, mining, and trade. Most interesting of all were two long poems, one of which told of the creation of the earth by the god Marduk, while the other described the adventures of the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh. One of these adventures included the story of a great flood sent by the gods. This story is very much hke the story of Noah which is told in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of the book of Genesis; therefore it is easy to get an idea of what the book was like. In Babylonia, because stone was scarce, even the great palaces and temples were built of bricks. But the walls were briUiantly colored, and sometimes plated with thin slabs of bronze Architecture or gold. In Assyria, although there was plenty of stone, ^^^ ^^^ the architects followed the example of Babylonia and built their palaces and temples of brick. The walls were then covered with slabs of stone which were ornamented with sculpture and with inscriptions. The sculpture of the Assyrians was especially in- 2 2 , THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST teresting. Some of the reproductions of their Hons and tigers and other wild animals are very hfe-Hke. The Eg3^tian builders and sculptors were much more clever than the Babylonians and Assyrians. Indeed, the ancient Egyptians were among the greatest builders the world has ever seen. Study the reproductions and pictures of their tombs and temples in a museum — the great pyramids for instance. Re- member that these enormous buildings were erected almost five thousand years ago. Look at the reproductions of the great Egyptian temples, which covered acres and acres of ground, and contained hundreds of massive pillars. Study the carving and the painting which decorated the walls. Examine the pictures which decorate the mummy cases, and the great statues of the gods and kings and sphinxes. These columns and carvings and paintings have existed for years almost un- numbered, and yet they are fresh and interesting to-day. Great as were the achievements of the Egyptians and Baby- lonians and Assyrians, their influence on later European civiliza- The land of tion would have been no greater than that of the ancient Syria peoples of China and of India, if there had not been a sea- faring people to carry their influence to the west. The natural meeting place between Egypt and Babylonia and Assyria was the narrow strip of territory lying between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian desert. This land is com- monly known as Syria. For hundreds of years it was the battle ground of the nations. First one people and then another con- quered it, always leaving something in the way of arts and civilization behind. On the coast, looking out over the Mediterranean, were a number of cities inhabited by a race of sailors and merchants Phoenician called the Phoenicians. Just when these cities were settled commerce nobody knows. It used to be said that the Phoenicians were the first people to sail their ships on the waters of the Mediterranean; but in recent years discoveries have been made which seem to prove that even before the days of the Phoenicians, a race of men from the island of Crete was trading among the PHCENICIAN COMMERCE 23 islands and along the coast. The story of the Cretans will, how- ever, be told in the next chapter; meanwhile there are a few facts about the Phoenicians that ought to be known. The two chief cities of Phoenicia were Sidon and Tyre. These two cities reached the height of their glory about 1000 years be- fore the birth of Christ. Into their market places the goods- of Baby- lonia and Egypt, and of the islands and the coasts of the Mediterranean, were constantly making their way. Read the twenty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel in the Bible in order to get some idea of the extent of this trade. The "cedars from Lebanon" and the "oak of Bashan," "fine linen with broidered work from Egypt," "blue and purple dyes from the isles," "silver, iron, tin and lead" from Spain, "horses and mules" from Armenia, "emeralds, purple, and broidered work and fine linen and coral and agate" from Syria, "wheat and honey and oil" from Palestine, precious stones of trade. Ranging from the plateau of Iran to the islands of the Atlantic, these traders of ancient times gathered their raw materials, con- verted them into finished products, and sold them again at an advanced price. They were the greatest sailors of antiquity. Their ships were propelled by oars and by sails. When the wind was favorable the oarsmen rested; when the wind failed or blew from the wrong quarter, the sail was furled and the oars were again put into use. In this way, journeys which carried them from one end of the Mediterranean to the other were accom- plished in two or three weeks. On land the Phoenicians traveled in caravans. They crossed the mountains and the deserts, and Phcenicia and Palestine spices and gold and from Arabia, were only a few of the articles ^4 THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST made their way into the heart of Asia and of Africa. Wherever men were willing to buy or to sell they were not afraid to go. The Phoenicians established themselves in colonies all over the ancient world. They had settlements in Cyprus and the Phoenician ^gean islands, in Sicily and Sardinia and Corsica, in colonies northern Africa and in southern Europe as far west as the peninsula of Spain. Carthage in northern Africa and Gades (Cadiz) in Spain were the most famous of these colonies. Each colony was a trading station where the finished products of Egypt and Babylonia and Syria were bartered for the raw ma- terials of the natives. Thus the Phoenicians spread the results of Egyptian and Babylonian civilization all over the known world. The nearest neighbors of the Phoenicians were the' Hebrews. Originally, the Hebrews were a race of wandering shepherds on The the edge of the Arabian desert. About 2000 B.C., under Hebrews ^^le leadership of Abraham, the first of the patriarchs, they migrated into the country south and east of the river Jordan. Here, for some five hundred years, they tended their flocks and obeyed the orders of the heads of their families, men like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, whom we call patriarchs. Later they wandered south into EgjqDt where they dwelt in the land of Goshen on the borders of the Red Sea. Then came the time when the Pharaohs "set over them taskmasters to afflict them with burdens," and the people clamored for relief. Under the leadership of Moses they escaped from Egypt and wandered once more in the desert until they finally came into the Promised Land. For two or three centuries more, in scattered communities, under leaders called Judges^ the Hebrews fought with their neighbors until they were finally united as a single nation under a king. The first king of the Hebrews was Saul, a mighty warrior, who lived about 1000 B.C. David, "the sweet singer of Israel" suc- ceeded him and was, in turn, succeeded by his son, Solomon, the greatest king of the Hebrews. Solomon extended the borders of his kingdom till it included all of Syria except Phoenicia. He THE IDEA OF ONE GOD 25 built the great temple at Jerusalem. He opened up for his people wide opportunities for trade. Soon after the death of Solomon, the land was again divided into the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel, and war with the neighboring nations began. In 722 B.C., the kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians and the people were scattered never to be united again. In 586 B.C., the kingdom of Judah was destroyed. The people were carried off into the "Babylonian Captivity" where they remained for a number of years. Then they were allowed to return to Jerusalem, but they remained a subject nation and never established their political freedom again. The Persians, the Macedonians, and the Romans were successively their masters. Time and again they revolted, but each time the revolt was suppressed. Finally, in 70 a.d., the city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the people were scattered all over the world. The Hebrews would have been one of the least important nations of antiquity if it had not been for one thing. They produced nothing in the way of art, science, industry, or The idea of commerce that left a trace upon the history of the world. °°® ^°^ They were a race of shepherds and farmers. Their cities were small and unimportant. They erected no great buildings like those of the Egyptians or Babylonians. They had no trade Hke that of the Phoenicians. And yet, when Abraham came into Syria he brought with him an idea which was destined to change the history of the world. The God of the ancient Hebrews was Jehovah. They believed that He alone was Creator and Ruler of the universe. To Him the people offered prayers and sacrifices. He put his command on Abraham: "Walk before me and be perfect" and ever after the people held Him up as a great moral ideal. Often, in suc- ceeding generations, "the children of Israel remembered not the Lord their God"; they "built altars for all the host of heaven, the sun, the moon, and the planets"; they "dealt with famiKar spirits and wizards " ; they used "divinations and enchantments"; but the idea of Jehovah, the Creator of the universe and the 26 THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST God of loving kindness, persisted. There were always patriarchs and prophets to call the people back to their ideal. In the end, the worship of Jehovah triumphed. Sacrifices became an abomina- tion; righteousness, love, and charity were acknowledged as the only proper way in which to worship God. Thus the ideal of the Hebrews became the ideal upon which the prevailing religions of the western world have been constructed. About the year 550 B.C., the peoples of Egypt and Babylonia and Assyria and all the other peoples of western Asia were con- Coming of quered by the Medes and Persians, a hill people who lived the Persians [y^ |-}^g highlands east of the Tigris River. They began their career of conquest under Cyrus in 553 B.C. In less than fifty years they had extended their empire until it reached from the Mediterranean to the Indus River, from the Persian Gulf to the Black and Caspian seas — a region almost as large as the present United States. Fifty years later, under the great king Darius, this enormous empire was organized as no empire had ever been organized be- Or anization ^°^^- '^^^ entire territory was divided into some twenty of their provinces called satrapies. In each province there were three empire officers: (i) a satrap or governor, (2) a general, and (3) a secretary. In addition, Darius sent out regular messengers to see that his ofl&cers did their duty, and to make regular reports to him. In various parts of the empire there were great roads for the convenience of the king's armies and messengers. Men from every country of antiquity were to be found on them. There were Persian soldiers and officials, Babylonian and Phoenician traders, farmers and shepherds from Asia Minor and Armenia, Jews, Egyptians, and Greeks. Great caravans with precious stones and spices from India and Arabia passed others coming with grain and cattle from the north. Travelers and idlers and peasants, men of every sort and condition, mingled on these roads. The ancient world of the East was a-mixing, the civiliza- tion of twenty-five centuries had finally reached its height. The height of Persian power marks the end of the period of FOUR THOUSAND YEARS OF HISTORY 27 ancient oriental civilization. The Persians tried to extend their em- pire westward into Greece. But the Greeks had already developed a newer and better civilization, and the attempt of the Persians failed. Nevertheless the Persians deserve to be remembered because they held back the invasion of the northern barbarians and because they were the first people to develop an empire controlled by military and civil leaders responsible to the king. Persian Sunjiicxs Bkixging Tribute to the King Bas-relief from Persepolis In the year 500 B.C., the world had already passed through three or four thousand years of history. Since that time less than two thousand five hundred years have passed. In ^out thou- 500 B.C., the men of Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, and Persia sand years had already learned most of the arts of civihzation. Many ° ^ of the most important discoveries in the life of man had already been made. In all these countries, there were great cities with beautiful palaces and temples, adorned with sculpture and paint- ing, fitted with rugs and fine furniture, and filled with magnifi- cent ornaments made of ivory and silver and gold. 28 THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT EAST Thousands of men and women were able to read and write. They kept careful records of their doings — their history, their business, and their social life. They studied history and science and literature. They devoted themselves to the worship of their gods. Merchants and manufacturers engaged in industry and trade. They made articles of gold and silver and ivory; they fashioned beautiful vases of pottery and glass; they wove cloth of silk, wool, linen, and cotton, and dyed it with many beautiful colors. They made implements of bronze and iron, and sold them at home and abroad. The rivers and seas were dotted with ships laden with all kinds of produce. The roads were thronged with soldiers and mer- chants and pilgrims. Even the mountains and waste places were visited by caravans of men with donkeys and camels bearing metals and precious stones to the great markets of Babylon and Nineveh and Thebes and Tyre and Jerusalem. In the fields, along the banks of the rivers, there were crops of wheat and barley and oats, and orchards of fruit. There were all sorts of domestic animals — dogs and horses and donkeys, cattle and sheep and hogs. There were carefully planned canals for irrigation, and great barns and storehouses in which the crops were thrashed and stored. In 500 B.C., the lands and peoples east of the Mediterranean had already fulfilled the greater part of their destiny. From that day to this they have made but little progress. The newer and more modern civilization belongs to the peoples of southern and western Europe — Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and England — and it is to the history of these countries that our attention must now be turned. TOPICS AND REFERENCES Suggestive Topics. — (i) Compare the life of people in the river valleys in the United States with that of those in mountain regions and see whether the statements made at the beginning of this chapter are true. (2) Why is the history of the kings and rulers of Egypt and Babylonia less important to TOPICS AND REFERENCES ' 29 us than the history of our own presidents? (3) What improvements have been made in agriculture since the days of the ancient Egyptians and Baby- lonians? How long ago were these improvements made? (4) Does the description of the market place in this chapter remind you of anything that you have ever seen? (5) Draw a map of the regions described in this chapter and show the natural highways along which merchants and traders would travel? (6) Why is Egypt often called "the gift of the Nile? " Search Topics. — (i) The Code of Hammurabi. Davis, Readings in Ancient History, Vol. i, No. 20. — (2) The Egyptian and Babylonian Systems of Writing. Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, pp. 334-342; Sayce, Babylonians and Assyrians, pp. 208-230. — (3) Babylonian Trade and Commerce. Sayce, Babylonians and Assyrians, pp. 151-167; Goodspeed, History of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 353-355. — (4) Egyptian Burial Customs. Herodotus, Bk. H, Chaps. 85-90; Breasted, History of Ancient Egyptians, pp. 36-37; Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, pp. 306-327. — (5) The Babylonian Story of the Creation and the Flood. Botsford, Source Book, pp. 33-38; Goodspeed, History of Babylonians and Assyrians, pp. 31, 116, 117. — (6) Phcenician Methods of Trade. Rawlinson, Phcenicia, pp. 153-164; Seignobos, Llistory of Ancient Civilization, pp. 80-84. General Reading. — Chas. Seignobos, History of Ancient Civilization, Scribner, 1906. J. H. Breasted, A History of the Anctent Egyptians, Scribner, 1908. Adolf Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, Macmillan, 1894. G. S. Good- speed, A History of the Babylonians a?id Assyrians, Scribner, 1902. A. H. Sayce, Babylonians and Assyrians, Scribner, 1899. George Rawlinson, The Story of Phoenicia, Putnam, 1890. George Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, 4 Vols., Murray, 1859. W. S. Davis, Readings in Ancient History, Vol. I, Allyn & Bacon, 1912. G. W. & L. S. Botsford, Source Book of Ancient His- tory, Macmillan, 1912. W. Anc. Civ. — 3 CHAPTER III GREEK CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVILIZATION Thus far the story of ancient civilizations has been told only of Egypt and western Asia previous to the year 500 B.C. But the Land of the peoples of southern Europe had also been steadily develop- Greeks jj^g their own civilization for at least fifteen hundred or two thousand years before that. A glance at the map will show that southern Europe consists of three great peninsulas which extend far out into the Mediter- ranean Sea. The easternmost of these peninsulas is Greece. Greece itself is connected with Asia by a series of hundreds of islands which dot the ^Egean Sea. These islands lie so near together that a sailor can easily journey from Asia to Europe without once losing sight of land. Crete, the largest of the islands, is located at the southern end of the iEgean. From Crete, the sailor who was willing to venture out across the open water could easily make his way to Egypt where he would find the oldest cities in the world. The ancient Babylonians and Egyptians journeyed almost alto- gether upon the rivers, or on roads which ran through the low- lands. But the people of Greece were forced to travel by sea, for Greece is a hilly country with no great rivers and very few open extended plains. No part of the peninsula is more than twenty- five or thirty miles from the sea. Consequently, in most cases, it wg,s easier to get from one place to another by sailing in and out among the bays and islands than by traveling across the hiUs. Babylonia and Egypt were great open agricultural countries. The majority of the people in both countries devoted themselves to raising cattle and grain. Greece, on the other hand, was al- most altogether unsmted for agriculture. Here and there in the 30 EXCAVATIONS IN GREECE AND THE ISLANDS 3 1 peninsula were small areas suitable for farming, but most of the people in the regions which were at all thickly populated, were forced to make their living by engaging in trade. This was espe- cially true in the southern part, where, as we shall see later, most of the development of Greece took place. On the hillsides, oHve trees and grape vines grew in profusion and consequently olive oil and wine were the staple articles of trade. Grain and cattle had to be imported and even then many of the people had to emigrate to other regions of the Mediterranean to find new places to live. Previous to the year 1870, it was commonly supposed that the earliest Greek civilization was borrowed from Egypt and Baby- lonia, and that the Phoenicians were the agents who brought Excavations this civilization to Greece. In the last generation, how- ^^^ ^^^ ever, the story of the early Greeks has been completely islands retold. Many scholars have devoted themselves to studying the excavations in Asia Minor and Greece and the islands, and to-day it is known that Greek civilization is an independent development almost as old as that of the Egyptians and Babylonians. First the remains of Troy, a city in Asia Minor, were discovered. Later, the cities of Tiryns and Mycenae in Greece were unearthed. Since 1900, the ruins of a famous city in Crete, called Cnossus (or Knossos), have been explored. As a result, it is now known that the earliest civilization in the ^Egean region was developed in the island of Crete. From Crete it spread to the other islands and to the mainland and ultimately came into contact with the civilization of Egypt and the other lands of the east. The Tanglewood Tales of Hawthorne tell the story of Theseus who was sent with eight other youths and nine maidens as a sacrifice to the Cretan Minotaur. The adventure of q^^^^ ^^g Theseus was most dramatic. He and his companions were forerunner saved because Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, ° ^^^^^ learned to love Theseus and helped him so that he was able to kill the dread Minotaur. For many generations this story was regarded as a work of Greek fancy without a kernel of truth. Since the discoveries 32 GREEK CIVILIZATION at Cnossus, however, historians have come to believe that there is at least an element of fact in the legend. In very ancient times, thej-e was undoubtedly a great ruler on the island who held dominion over the people of the ^gean region and even over some of the mainland of Greece. The sacrifice of Theseus and his companions probably represents the tribute which the people of the mainland were forced to pay to the king of Crete. Step by step the palace of this king has been excavated. For thousands of years it was buried under the ground. It con- sisted of great open courts and long corridors, of an almost end- less number of sleeping rooms, living rooms, and audience chambers, of store closets and servants' quarters. It was as large as the great Egyptian and Babylonian palaces. No wonder the Greeks thought of it as a labyrinth, accustomed as they were to houses much smaller in size. In this palace the king and his family lived surrounded by courtiers and servants. Life in the palace, as shown in pictures Cretan painted on the walls over three thousand years ago, was civilization highly interesting. Sometimes there were great religious festivals. Sometimes there were receptions of ambassadors, bringing rich presents to the king. Sometimes there were games not unlike modern bull fights, in which young men and young women took part. The dress of the men was comparatively simple. They wore a single linen garment belted in at the waist with a sash of brilliant color. The clothes of the women were extremely • modern. They were elaborately embroidered and of exceeding fineness, with flounces and ruffles and plaitings and shirrings and fine stitches. Men and women alike wore jewelry — rings, brace- lets, necklaces, and earrings of silver and gold. The common people lived in the simplest of houses. Their life was much less attractive than that of the king and his court. They devoted themselves to farming and to manufacture just as the Egyptians and Babylonians did. They were carpenters and masons and sculptors and painters, makers of pottery, and of gold, silver, and bronze ornaments and utensils. They were MYCEN^AN CIVILIZATION 33 weavers and dyers of cloth. Many of them were shipbuilders and sailors. A thousand years before the coming of the Phoe- nicians, the Cretans were already sailing far out on the Mediter- ranean Sea. Their ships landed on the coasts of Egypt and Syria and Asia Minor. They had trading stations in Cyprus and the ^gean islands. They had colonies in Greece and southern Italy and Sicily two thousand or more years before the birth of Christ. In prehistoric times, the mainland of Greece was covered with forests; wild beasts and men of the Stone Age roamed over it. These men were probably of the same race as the people Mycenaean of the islands. As the Cretans developed their civiliza- civilization tion, they extended it gradually to the mainland. Consequently, we find, especially in the southern part of the peninsula, in the ruins of two very ancient cities — Tiryns and Mycenae — evi- dences of a civilization similar to that of Crete. The palaces at Tiryns and Mycenae were smaller than that of Cnossus. The life of the kings and their courtiers was less magnificent. There was less trade and less manufacture. Still the names of Tiryns and Mycenae are worth remembering because these two cities were discovered and excavated fifteen or twenty years earlier than Cnossus and their discovery led the way to the excavations in Crete. These earliest inhabitants of Greece and the islands were a small, dark-skinned people averaging scarcely five feet, four inches in height. Sometime between 2000 and 1500 B.C., Barbarian another race of men, larger, taller, and fairer, made their 'invaders way into the peninsula from the north. These invaders were rude barbarians. Men and women alike were dressed in the skins of wild animals or in the hides of cattle or sheep. They were huntsmen and shepherds and warriors. They lived in rude mud huts or in tents made of skins. They knew almost nothing of agriculture, and certainly nothing of trade. Step by step, they forced their way down into the pen- insula, conquering the earlier inhabitants and making themselves masters of the land. 34 GREEK CIVILIZATION These were the times celebrated in the Greek legends. No one any longer thinks of the legends as history, but they are im- The Trojan portant because they give us a picture of the life which ^^^ this race of conquerors led. The most famous of the legends is the story of the Trojan War. We are told in this story that sometime in the age when Mycenae was the greatest city on the mainland, Paris, a son of the Trojan king, Priam, came to Greece to visit Menelaus, king of Sparta. At the end of his visit, Paris was guilty of an act of extreme treachery. He carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus, the most beautiful woman in Greece. All Greece sprang to arms in re- venge. For ten years the siege of Troy went on, until the city fell into the hands of the Greeks and was destroyed. The chief hero of the siege of Troy, or Ilios as the Greeks called it, is Achilles, whose deeds are celebrated in the Iliad of Homer. Besides the Iliad, Homer wrote another poem called the Odyssey in which he described the wanderings of Ulysses (Odysseus), another of the Greek heroes, after the war. The Iliad and the Odyssey are two of the greatest poems in all the world's literature. They give us a wonderful picture of the times in which they were written — sometime between looo and 700 B.C. Chief among the people of the Homeric age were the tribal chiefs, or kings, as they were called. In times of peace, they People of ^^^ ^^ their halls, entertaining the principal men of the tribe Homer's and judging the people. When time hung heavy, they went out to hunt, or engaged in athletic sports: boxing, wrestling, or running foot races. In war, they maintained themselves by plunder; in peace, they lived on the produce of their fields and their flocks. About the king the chief men, the elders of the tribe, were gathered. When they met in council, they indulged freely in criticism and debate. If the elders felt that the king was wrong, they seldom spared his feeUngs; and yet, if the king was strong, he heeded the advice of his council or disregarded it, as he pleased. From time to time, the mass of warriors in the tribe was called PEOPLE OF HOMER'S TIME 35 together to listen to the plans of the king and his council. Often there was much ' noise and confusion, and sometimes heated argument among the leaders. In the end, if the warriors ap- proved, they shouted their approbation; if they disapproved, they howled and clashed their arms in hate and derision. Most of the tribesmen were shepherds and small farmers. On the lands of the king there were, in the words of Homer," tall trees blossoming, pear trees and pomegranates and apple trees with bright fruit, and sweet figs and olives in bloom"; but the poor man had little more than a few pigs, a cow or a goat, and a few half tilled acres of wheat or barley or oats. Perhaps one man in a hundred devoted himself to manufacture or trade. There were armorers and shipwrights and smiths and builders, and occasional workers in silver and gold. The magnificence of the age of Cretan civiUzation no longer existed in the land. The closest bonds among men were the ties of kinship. Next to the gods, a man's father stood highest in his respect. Be- tween brother and brother, there existed the strongest of obliga- tions. In case of injury, especially in case of death, all male relations were expected to take up the quarrel and carry it on until the injury had been properly avenged. Next to his own family, the tribesman was bound to care for the stranger. "For he thought it great blame in his heart that a stranger should stand long at hie gates." For days at a time, the visitor might accept hospitality, and when he departed, if he was pleasing to the lord of the house, he was sent on his way with gifts. The women were as highly esteemed as the men. They mingled freely with their husbands and brothers; they were allowed the greatest freedom; their counsel and advice was fre- quently sought. Yet their primary duties were purely domestic. Even the highest busied themselves with the simplest household affairs, "grinding yellow grain on the millstone," or "weaving webs and turning yarn as they sit. " The daughter of the king went out with her hand maidens, "taking the goodly raiment to 36 GREEK CIVILIZATION the river to wash," while her mother rested "by the hearth, with her hand maidens, spinning yarn of sea-purple stain." The gods who, it was believed, dwelt on snow-capped Mount Olympus in northern Greece presided over the destinies of these Gods of an- early Greeks. Zeus, "the cloud gatherer," "father of cient Greece gofjg and men, " presided when the gods gathered in council. When he was angry he hurled his thunderbolts from heaven; when he was pleased he sent his earthly children gentle showers of rain. His wife was the goddess Hera whose queenliness and splendor outshone that of all her companions. She was the protectress of married women. She was jealous, and easily stirred to anger when gods or men failed to respect her. Apollo and Artemis were twin brother and sister. The former was god of the sunlight; he bestowed the blessings of springtime and summer; men prayed to him in the days of their sick- ness; he was patron of music, poetry, and art. Everything con- / sidered, he was the most lovable of all the gods. Artemis, his sister, was the fair maiden goddess whose emblem the Greeks found in the moon. She loved the cool depths of the forest, where, surrounded by nymphs and other wood-maidens, she en- joyed herself in hunting wild animals and in bathing in the clear pools and streams. Athena was goddess of wisdom and favorite child of Zeus. She sprang, full grown and full armed, from the head of her father. To those whom she favored she was exceedingly gentle; but those who opposed her, she pursued without mercy, often • driving them to their death. Ares, the war god, was son of Zeus and Hera. He was patron of men going into battle. He gloried in strife and destruction. His emblems were the spear and the torch. His brother Hephaes- tus was god of fire. He was ugly and lame and unattractive. He was worshiped especially by workers in metal; he was known as the blacksmith of the gods. Hephaestus was married to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Aphrodite was worshiped especially by youths and maidens who sought each other in marriage. She was also god- THE ACH.EANS AND DORIANS 37 dess of gardens and flowers and of all things which are just spring- ing into life. Besides these eight, there were four others who sat in the council of the gods. Poseidon was god of the seas and Hermes was god of commerce. Hestia was goddess of the household and Demeter was patroness of cultivated things growing in the fields. Frequently one god or another descended from Olympus and temporarily took on the shape of a man. To the Greeks, the gods were very much less dreadful than they had been to the Baby- lonians and Egyj^tians. Men and gods were much more inti- mate, and worship was much simpler. An interesting feature of the Greek religion was the belief in oracles as a means of discovering the will of the gods. The chief of these oracles was sacred to Apollo. Once upon a time, so the Greeks said, Apollo had wandered on earth. At Delphi, in the mountains of central Greece, he had slain a dread monster and in commemoration of this his worshipers erected a shrine there. Here, over a cleft in the rocks, a priestess sat and received the words of the god. Men from all parts of Greece and the islands came to this oracle at Delphi to consult their patron. Thousands of men and women for centuries believed without question that in this way Apollo made known his will to the dwellers on earth. In the Iliad and the Odyssey Homer constantly refers to the Greeks as the Achaeans. These Achaeans were probably the earliest of the conquering tribes that invaded Greece from The Achaeans the north. They were followed in later centuries by a andDonans second race of conquerors called the Dorians who seem to have driven the Achaeans before them out into the islands of the ^gean and even into Asia Minor beyond. This period of Greek history is, however, very vague. Even the dates are by no means certain. All that we know is that when written records begin, the Greeks were living on the main- land and in the islands and on the coast of Asia Minor across the ^gean Sea. THE CITY STATE 39 In both Egypt and Babylonia, you remember, the country was originally divided into numerous small provinces each of which acknowledged some tribal leader or king as its chief. The city Later these provinces were united into one nation under a ^*^*® single king. In Greece, owing to the character of the country, the people were never united. From the beginning to the end of Greek history, the country was divided into a number of districts not much larger than the average county in the United States. In each of these divisions, there were two or three cities, and each city had its own independent government. In some cities a majority of the people were active citizens ; in others a tribal king and his nobles controlled the city's affairs. From time to time, one or another city conquered its neighbors, but the conquest was never permanent, and the story of Greece is therefore the story of the development of these city states. The Greek city must not be confused with the modern idea of a city. Frequently the city itself consisted only of a small center . of population — the homes of the artisans and merchants, the market place, the citadel, and the temples of the gods. Besides that it included several miles of outlying country where most of the people lived. Therefore, the actual city was often almost abandoned except when men came to the market place to trans- act their business or to participate in elections, or to the temples to take part in festivals in honor of the gods. The government of Greek cities varied according to the char- acter of the people. In Homeric times, Greece was governed by a number of tribal chiefs or kings — Agamemnon, Menelaus, Odysseus, and others ■ — assisted by a council of nobles. The common people were allowed to take only a minor part. This form of government persisted in some cities, notably in Sparta, throughout Greek history. In most of the cities, however, the government became democratic. All the citizens, at least all the citizens of importance, met in assemblies and elected their officers and took an active part in making the laws. The reason for this difference can be easily understood if it is remembered that cities like Sparta never developed into com- 40 GREEK CIVILIZATION mercial centers. The people were landholders and farmers who either cultivated their own fields or rented them out to others. Athens and ^^ Sparta, for instance, the people were a race of soldiers Sparta con- who devoted their lives to fighting rather than to busi- ness. Consequently the citizens were accustomed to obey their superiors and to )deld their rights to those who were set over them as lords. If all the Greeks had been like the Spartans, we should not be studying Greek history. Sparta contributed practically nothing to the world's civilization. Except for the fact that the Spartans were the chief enemies of the Athenians in the later wars among the Greeks, even the name of their city might have been for- gotten long ago and lost from the history of the world. The story of Athens and of a number of other Greek cities is different. They were great commercial centers. Their citizens were manufacturers and merchants and traveled over all the ancient world. Each man was equal to his neighbors and democ- racy in government naturally followed. The people developed ^ the art and the literature which have made Greece famous ever since. Even in Homeric times, as we have already learned, the Greeks were settling in the islands of the ^gean and on the coast of Asia Greek Minor beyond. This early colonization was very much colonization ^j].g g^ continuation of the migration which brought the Achseans and Dorians into the peninsula. The cities that were founded on the islands and on the coast of Asia Minor were as advanced in civilization as the cities on the mainland when regu- lar written records of Greek history begin. Later on, after Greece was thoroughly settled and all the main cities were founded, another period of colonization started. The main reason for this second period of colonization is un- doubtedly that the people of the older cities were eager to establish new centers of trade. Here and there, in all parts of the Mediterranean, the Greeks found excellent opportunities to exchange their finished products — pottery and weapons, cloth- ing, furniture, and household utensils — for the raw products COMPARED WITH MODERN COLONIZATION 4 1 of the barbarians who lived on the borders of the sea. There were gold, silver, copper and iron, timber, grain, and cattle to be gathered, and trading ships went wherever these could be found. Besides, there were rich lands in many parts of -the Medi- terranean which tempted those Greeks who preferred to live their lives as farmers, and to those lands many hundreds and thousands of people gradually made their way. Then, there were numbers of men in Athens, Corinth, Sparta, and other cities who were dis- contented with the way they were governed, and they, too, were eager to leave the home city to seek their fortunes in new lands. The conditions were similar to the conditions in England, Hol- land, and France which led so many people to cross the Atlantic three hundred years ago. The Greek colonies were not so compared very different from those which were founded at Jamestown, with modem Boston, New Amsterdam, and Quebec. The Greek colo- ^° °°^^^ *°^ nies, too, were founded by merchants and farmers and men dis- contented with the home government. They grew and flourished just as the colonies in America did. In one respect the Greek colonies were different, however, from those of England, Holland, and France. Once the Greeks left the mother city, they became independent; they owed no al- legiance and no duties to the city of their birth. They were still bound to it by ties of sentiment and sympathy; they frequently called themselves exiles, but they governed themselves as they pleased. If you look at a map of the Mediterranean basin as it was peopled about 550 B.C., you will see how widely the Greeks were scattered. There were at least fifty or sixty Greek cities on the shores of the Black Sea. Byzantium (modern Constantinople), on the Bosporus, was a Greek city. The whole coast of Asia Minor, the northern shore of the ^Egean, the island of Sicily, and the coast of Gaul (modern France) were dotted with Greek colonies. There were Greek colonies on the northern coast of Africa. Indeed, from the eastern end of the Black Sea to the Strait of Gibraltar, Greek cities were scattered with compara- tively only a few miles between. 42 GREEK CTVILIZATION Between 550 and 500 B.C., as has already been stated, the people of the eastern Mediterranean countries were conquered by the Greek Persians. The Greek cities in Asia Minor were included history jj^ |-.]^a^t conquest. In 490 B.C., the Persians began an in- vasion of Europe with the purpose of conquering Greece. A great fleet of warships and transports gathered in the conquered cities of Asia Minor and made its way across the ^Egean Sea. The Persian soldiers landed at Marathon scarcely thirty miles from the city of Athens. What chance of success had the Athe- nians against this conquering host? Still, undaunted, they ad- vanced bravely into battle. The Persian army was defeated, and Greece, for the time being, was saved from invasion. The secret of the victory at Marathon is simple: the Athenians won because they were better trained than the Persians. Ten years later, the Persians returned to the attack. Troops were gathered in almost every part of their great empire in Asia and Africa. This huge army, which a noted historian calls "a regular swarm of locusts which descended on Greece to devour her," crossed the Hellespont, entering the peninsula from the north. A great fleet followed along the coast. At a narrow mountain pass called Thermopylae, a band of de- voted Spartans held off the whole Persian army for three days until attacked in the rear by a detachment sent around a secret way on information given by a traitor. The Spartans perished to the last man, but the battle of Thermopylae has ever since been one of the most noted events in history. This handful of Greek patriots taught the world for all time how men might die. After the battle of Thermopylae, central Greece was overrun by the Persians and Greek liberty seemed to be lost. Fortunately the fleet of the Greeks was still unconquered. The ships gathered in a small bay protected by the island of Salamis and waited for the Persians to attack. One morning, the Persian fleet attempted to enter the harbor and the great naval battle began. Ship after ship was destroyed by the Greeks as it came in. The flower of the Persian fleet was destroyed. The hopes of the Persians were blasted. They had staked their fortunes on one battle and they GREEK fflSTORY 43 had lost. Some of the Persian army which remained in Greece made one more attempt the next year to retrieve their losses but they were completely defeated and almost annihilated at Platsea. After the Persian wars were over, Athens became the chief city of Greece. For fifty years or more, it was the leader of a great confederacy, called the Confederacy of Delos, which in- cluded many of the cities on the mainland and most of the islands in the ^Egean Sea. For thirty years, the fortunes of the city were guided by Pericles, perhaps the most noted man in Greek history. Athenian sea captains and soldiers and merchants were to be found in most of the islands and in many neighboring cities. About 450 B.C., Athens reached the height of its glory. Its market place was crowded with merchants. Its great temples and public buildings were marvels of beauty. Its artists and poets and philosophers were producing works which the world has never forgotten. But Athens had one great rival,' the city of Sparta. In 431 B.C., the two cities began to make war on each other. This war lasted nearly thirty years (431 B.C.-404 B.C.) until Athens was com- pletely humbled. The city lost all its island possessions, but remained the chief center of Greek civilization, the home of every- thing that was best in the life of the ancient Greeks. In 338 B.C., the Greeks were conquered by the Macedonians, who invaded the peninsula from the north. The king of the Macedonians was Philip. His son was Alexander the Great. Under Alexander, the Greeks joined with the Macedonians, in- vaded the Persian empire, and carried Greek civilization into all the lands of the east (336-323 B.C.). Alexander's great empire broke to pieces almost immediately, after his death. Thenceforth, the lands of the eastern Mediterra- nean were ruled by descendants of Alexander's generals until they were conquered by the Romans in the second century before the birth of Christ. Life in ancient Athens is t3^ical of the best that Greek civili- zation produced. Try to put yourself in the place of a traveler entering the Piraeus, or port of Athens, about the year 350 B.C. 44 GREEK CIVILIZATION You have probably arrived in a merchant vessel fitted with square sails, and with some fifteen or twenty oars to each side. Pirseus the ^^^ journey has been long and tedious because during port of part of the trip the sailors have been compelled to drive Athens ^-^^ ^j^-p g^g^jj^g^ |-]^g ^ijj,^^ ^[ii^ ^l^gjj- Q^j-g, The nights have usually been spent at anchor because the captain was afraid to venture across the open water in the dark. Suppose that you have come from the northern coast of the Black Sea. The cargo of the ship consists of hides and wool and copper and grain. Perhaps you stopped long enough at Byzantium to gather some bales of carpets and rugs. You may even have loaded some spices and drugs there from Arabia and the lands still farther to the east. In the harbor about you are all sorts of queer vessels: short and dumpy fishing boats with square brown or yellow sails and eight or ten great clumsy oars to a side, merchant vessels which have arrived from Africa, Asia Minor, or Italy, pleasure boats, with red or purple or parti-colored sails, belonging to wealthy Athenians, and great, long, narrow war vessels, called triremes, fitted with three banks of oars. At the docks there is great noise and apparent confusion. Half- naked men are loading and unloading the ships. Farther along are the shipyards where the ships are built and repaired. Back from the shore are the warehouses and markets where you can find everything from emeralds and pearls and spices to lum- ' ber and tallow and hides. The Piraeus was the busiest part of Athens. It had a few in- teresting buildings, but except for these and the busy fife of the merchants and sailors it could have offered little for the visitor to see. The sailors and merchants belonged to all races and lands. There were Greeks and Italians and Egyptians and Phoenicians and Ethiopians. The houses were poor and uncomfortable, the streets muddy and offensively dirty. There were wine shops and cook shops in which the sailors gathered, but ex- cept for the warehouses and wholesale markets, there were very few respectable places where merchants could stop. THE ROAD TO ATHENS 45 Back to Athens from the Piraeus ran a broad road, five miles long, enclosed between two high walls. "The straight highroad is swarming with traffic; clumsy wagons are bringing down The road to marble from the mountains; other wains are headed toward Athens Athens with lumber and bales of foreign wares. Countless donkeys laden with panniers are being flogged along. A great deal of carrying is done by half-naked sweating porters. " To the traveler going east along this road the city of Athens gradually came into view, surrounded on all sides by hills and mountains gleaming in the sunlight, for Athens is famous for its climate. All summer long the air is clear and comparatively cool. There are soft, gentle breezes blowing from the JEge&n. Only in winter there may be a fair supply of rain, a little frost, and still less snow. The city itself was enclosed by a wall. The streets ran in all directions, most of them scarcely wider than alleys or paths. In the center of the city rose a great rock, the Acropolis, about 1000 feet long, 500 feet wide, and 350 feet high. This was the chief fortress of the city and the site of most of the great pubUc buildings. Let us suppose we are ancient Athenians. First, we will make our way to the market place where most of the buying and selling in Athens is done. It is the middle of the morning and Market crowds of citizens are gathered there. There are hardly place any women among them, only a few slave girls and a few ^" ^ °^^ market women, for the ladies of Athens very rarely venture out of the house. ■ On the outskirts of the open square are beautiful marble build- ings — temples and assembly-rooms and covered promenades 01 porticoes — where the men gather to transact their private business and the business of the city, or to exchange the news of the day. In the center of the market place are numerous booths and stalls made of boards, or covered with awnings where all sorts of articles are offered for sale. Fish, olive oil, wine, bread, fruit, and vegetables are the chief articles of traffic; but one may buy clothing, furniture, household utensils, pottery, weapons, or jewelry as well. 46 GREEK CIVILIZATION Not all of the crowd is buying and selling. The market place is the general meeting place of the Athenians and the men of the town go there to meet their friends and to discuss politics and religion and philosophy, to arrange for dinner parties and great public festivals, or just simply to idle away their time. In the streets off the market place and out on the road to the Piragus, the poorer Athenians and the slaves of rich masters are working in factories, making cloth, leather, pottery, furniture, or armor, or preparing stones for buildings, or gathering together the wine and olive oil which later will be sold in the city or sent to the Piraeus to be carried to Asia Minor, Italy, or Egypt for sale. These factories are comparatively small rooms or open spaces where ten or a dozen workmen are gathered together. They work under the eyes of their master or under the direction of an overseer. Practically everything is made by hand. At noon the business day of the well-to-do Athenian was over. . In the factories and out on the farms, the poorer classes and the tr • slaves continued their labor, but the richer Athenians re- Homes m ' ancient turned to their homes. The houses were comparatively Athens simple. The poor man's house consisted of only one, two, or three rooms. Even the finest houses had none of the conven- iences to which we are accustomed. Sometimes the house had one or two narrow windows opening on the street, sometimes it was two stories high, but usually it presented a plain wall to the passer-by. Inside the door a narrow passage led into an open court, sur- rounded on the sides by a row of pillars upon which an awning was stretched to offer shade from the sun. In the center of the court was the family altar or a fountain. Leading out from the court were sleeping rooms and work rooms of the master and other men of the family. Beyond the main court was a dining room, and back of that another court reserved exclusively for the women of the house. Greek ' men and women sometimes sat down to meals together, but when strangers were present the women always remained in their own quarters. If the master was very wealthy, the house might be built of THE WAY PEOPLE DRESSED ' 47 marble, otherwise it was made of stucco or common stone. In the courts and the dining room a few wall paintings and statues might be found. The furniture was extremely simple, consist- ing of a few chairs, benches, couches, and one or two tables on which bronze or pottery lamps were placed. In each of the sleeping rooms was a bed and a few hooks for clothing. If the wardrobe of the master or mistress was elaborate, the surplus clothes were stored in a wooden chest. In summer the houses were cool and comfortable, but in winter they must have been very cold. The Athenians had no stoves or furnaces. Their only method of heating was an open bowl or brazier of burning charcoal which they carried from room to room. Neither the men nor the women of Athens were troubled by changing fashions. The dress of both sexes was very much alike. Both wore an under garment or tunic which reached from .j-j^g ^ the shoulders to the knees. This garment was regularly people belted in at the waist. The texture and cut of the tunic varied. ' The rich man and woman wore fine cotton, linen, or wool, dyed in various colors and draped in ample folds. The poor man's tunic was made of coarse, brown material, was much shorter and scantier and had no ornamentation at all. Over the tunic, both men and women wore a generous oblong woolen shawl, draped around the body according to the taste of the owner. This shawl was frequently fastened at the shoulder by gold or silver or jeweled pins. It was never worn when working, but was reserved for street wear and for formal occa- sions, and so was usually taken off in the house. Children were dressed like their elders, except that they very rarely wore anything but the tunic. In hot weather the younger children were frequently allowed to play about with very little clothing at all. This simple costume of ancient Athenians was not monotonous. In those days men and women alike were fond of brilliant colors in dress; they did not wear the blacks, dark blues, grays, and browns which are so common on our streets. White was the dominant tone of an Athenian crowd, relieved by bright dashes W. Anc. Civ. —4 4^ GREEK CIVILIZATION of red, blue, yellow, and purple. At carnival times and on days of public celebrations, even the older men were dressed in tunics gaily embroidered in bright colors, with outer shawls of brilliant violet, purple, or red. And on the day of a wedding! Behold the bride in her flowing robes which rival the colors of the rainbow. Her veil is of shimmering cloth of silver, her hair is scented with per- fumes from Arabia. She is decorated with rings and bracelets and earrings, set with emeralds, rubies, and pearls. She is radiantly happy and beautiful. The groom is dressed in gar- ments scarcely less briUiant. His tunic is embroidered in purple. His outer garments are of flame-colored linen or wool. His dark locks are encircled by a wreath of leaves and of flowers. His sandals are bound with straps of red leather and with buckles of gold. He is handsome and manly and engaging. He is typical of his city and the life of his times. The meals of the Athenian were ordinarily very simple. The poor man's diet consisted almost altogether of bread, or barley Athenian porridge, and olive oil and wine. Sometimes he added a meals little honey and fruit. The rich man's table was more elaborate; but even he had nothing like the variety to which we ^ are accustomed in modern times. The staple articles of food for all classes were bread, wine, olive oil, and perhaps honey. In the evening the wealthier citizens might have in addition, fish, fowl, vegetables, fruit, and sweetmeats. Wine served the ancient Athenian in place of tea and coffee._ Olive oil and honey were substitutes for our butter and sugar, and meat was rarely used. If you walked the streets of ancient Athens you would con- stantly be running into half-naked youngsters. Even the children Education °^ well-to-do families were allowed to play in the dust and of boys and the dirt and the puddles, until they were seven or eight ^^"^ ^ years old. Leapfrog, hide and seek, and ball games were in progress in every street and alley. There were no kindergar- tens or play-grounds to take care of the younger girls and boys. At seven, the boys began their regular schooling, but the girls were educated at home. Ordinarily girls learned a little about EDUCATION OF BOYS AND GIRLS 49 reading and writing, but much more about cooking, sewing, embroidering, spinning, and weaving, for their business in Ufe was altogether connected with making a home. Athenian women were almost never seen in public. As a rule, they married very early, when they were fifteen or sixteen years old. After that they were engaged in raising a family and taking care of their husband's interests at home. For the boys, there were regular schools in all parts of Athens. Each boy, at least of the wealthier classes, had a pedagogue, a slave who accompanied his charge everywhere out-of-doors. He carried his master's books and writing tablets, helped him with his lessons, and kept the boy out of mischief when the regular schoolmaster was not at hand. School began early in the morning and lasted till sundown. The boys sat on rude low benches, scratching their lessons on wax tablets and reciting their tasks in concert. The master sat in a high chair surveying the scene. There was plenty of noise and confusion, and flog- gings were frequent. The Athenians did not " Spare the rod and spoil the child." The course of study consisted of reading, writing, and music and possibly a little arithmetic. Later on the boys learned to recite extracts from Homer and the other poets by heart. " Learn- ing to sing, " we are told, " is probably the most important item, for every boy and man ought to be able to bear his part in the great chorals which are a notable element in most religious festivals: besides, a knowledge of singing is a great aid in appre- ciating lyric poetry, or the choruses in tragedy, and in learning to declaim." In the afternoon, the boys went to the teacher of gymnastics. Here they learned running, jumping, wrestling, and discus throw- ing and elementary military maneuvers. Their bodies were developed until they were ready to enter the ranks of militia when they were eighteen years old. Athenian education was thus designed to accomplish three purposes. First of all, every male citizen must be sufficiently intelligent to read and write and understand the laws and the 50 GREEK CIVILIZATION literature of his city. Second, he must know enough music to participate in the great pubUc festivals — the religious proces- sions and the great dramas which are given in the open-air theater. And third, he must develop his body until he is able to serve in the army and defend his city from attack. While the boys were with their physical training teachers, heir fathers and elder brothers were in the gyinnasium. The The gymna- market place was the general meeting place of the Athe- sium nians in the morning, but in the late afternoon, all the men of the city, especially those of the wealthier classes, repaired to the gymnasium. This was not a building, but an open park for recreation very much like the parks in our modern cities. There were three such parks in Athens with great open grass spaces and leafy bowers adorned with statues of nymphs and fauns and satyrs. In the parks were bubbling fountains and pools for swimming and walks and deep shaded woodlands. Scattered here and there were fields for running, jumping, wrestling, and discus and javelin throwing. Groups of elderly men might be seen walking or sitting in the shade of the woods talking politics, philosophy, poetry, and religion. But the majority of the visi- tors were interested in athletics. The Greeks were worshipers of manly vigor and manly beauty. To be wise and learned was greatly to be admired, but the hero of Athens was the young man with graceful limbs and perfect body who excelled in running, jumping, wrestling, and javelin casting. His name was in the mouth of every man in the city. His praises were told in song and in story. Next to him even the poet and the philosopher were forced to accept second rank. So far we have found but little in tlie life of ancient Athens which distinguishes it especially from that of the other centers Government *^^ civilization which existed three or four thousand years by the ago. But there was one thing that marks the city among peop e ^j^ ^j^g others which we have studied. Athens was governed by the people; all the others were governed by kings. Every citizen of Athens, rich or poor, was a member of the as- sembly. Every citizen was eligible to hold the highest ofi&ce of GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE 5 1 state. There were old, noble families in Athens, there were plenty of r-ich and distinguished citizens; but neither family tradition nor wealth gave any man anything but social promi- nence. A poor man might occupy a place of great importance; no political privileges went with social position or wealth. And yet it must not be imagined that every resident of Athens was a voter. No slave could ever become a citizen, for instance; and there were thousands of foreigners in the city, merchants and traders who had settled there to carry on business, who were not allowed to share in settling the affairs of state. There were no naturalization laws such as we have at present. No one who was not born in Athens and of Athenian parents had any share in the government; therefore the privilege of citizenship was very much restricted. The assembly generally met once every week or ten days. The meeting place was an open field near the Acropolis. There were no seats or benches for the members. Every man stood or squatted on the ground. At one end of the meeting place there was a raised platform for the presiding officer and his assistants, and a sort of pulpit for the speakers. Laws and decrees were pre- pared by a Council of Five Hundred, the members of which were chosen by lot. The meeting was far from orderly. The people shouted and hooted and applauded the speakers according to their feelings. But when the time for voting arrived, the assembly settled , down and recorded its will. The vote of the majority was binding. The minority was trained to accept its defeat. Nearly all the officers of the city were chosen by lot. There were hundreds of officers and nearly every citizen sooner or later held some office. Practically every Athenian was trained to participate in the government. Thus Athens was the first democracy in the history of civilization and has served ever since as a model of what a government by the people can be. In ancient Athens, indeed in every city in Greece, practically every one accepted the same religion. The gods who dwelt on Olympus were still thought of vaguely as the rulers of the destinies of men. That does not mean that all people had 52 GREEK CIVILIZATION exactly the same religious ideas. Ignorant men and women were extremely superstitious. They believed in all sorts of signs Religious ^^^ omens. For them, the howling of the wind was a festivals sign of evil. For them there were soothsayers and witches games ^j^^ foretold the future by studying the entrails of animals offered as sacrifices. They trembled at the thunder and lightning because they were afraid of the anger of the gods. At the other extreme were the few atheists who denied the gods entirely and lived their lives without thought of the influence of the divine powers. But the vast majority of enUghtened people accepted the teachings of their fathers. They thought of the gods as remote influences which governed the lives of men; but they troubled themselves very little about relations with the powers on high. They offered sacrifices to Zeus and to Athena, for instance, not because they were frightened or because they thought that these gods interfered in the affairs of men in the way that is described in the Iliad and the Odyssey, but because good manners prescribed that this was the proper thing to do. Religion for most of the people was a matter of family pride and pride in their city. Men and women took part in private and public worship because that was the custom. Honesty, truth, righteousness, and love of one's neighbor had nothing to do with religion. Public and private worship were celebrations very much like our modern birthday parties and like our celebrations of Memorial Day and Fourth of July. At every family meal, and on numerous other family occasions, the father offered sacrifices and prayers to the gods of the house- hold. Ten or fifteen times a year the entire population of the city took part in a festival in honor of one or another of the gods. At such times there were feasts, sports, processions, and pageants fixed by custom similar to our celebrations of Christmas and New Year and Thanksgiving, in which men and women and boys and girls mingled, largely for the purpose of having a good time. Two festivals in Athens are especially worth remembering. Once every four years, in midsummer, all the people engaged in a round of rejoicing in honor of the goddess Athena. For seven days Greek Festival— a Procession in the Parthenon 53 54 GREEK CIVILIZATION there was a succession of contests in music and poetic recitations and athletics, at which prizes were given. On the eighth day, thousands of people joined in an elaborate procession. A new robe was carried to the shrine of the goddess on the Acropolis, where prayers were offered and sacrifices made. This festival is known as the Panathenjea. Once a year, in March, the Athe- nians took part in another festival in honor of the god Dionysus, the patron god of their vines. This was really a festival of the spring planting. For three days there was feasting and drinking and all sorts of mummery very much like that which takes place in modern times during a carnival. Then, on the fourth day, very early in the morning, thousands of people hurried to the theater to watch the production of the dramas which were written in celebration of the day. The theater of Dionysus in Athens was a great open-air theater which seated 25,000 or 30,000 people, half the adult population The theater of the city. In the early days, the performance consisted in Athens Qf dancing and choral singing in honor of the god Dionysus, and there was no regular stage. Later on individual parts were added to the performance until, bit by bit, regular tragedies and comedies were evolved. At one end was a stage for the actors; below the stage was a space for the chorus ; beyond that the seats for the audience were arranged tier above tier. The actors wore masks which contained concealed megaphones so that all the people could hear them. There was no acting and no scenery such as we have in our modern theaters. The chief characters recited their parts without any attempt at bodily action. The chorus filled out the story with dancing and chanting. For the tragedies the subjects were chosen from the stories of the heroes of Greek legends. They represented great conflicts in which men and women suffered punishment because they were guilty of actions contrary to the will of the gods. Nearly all the trag- edies written for production in the theater of Dionysus have been lost and forgotten; but a few, written by three of the greatest poets of Athens, are stUl preserved. The Prometheus Bound of ^schylus, the Antigone of Sophocles, and the Iphigenia THE THEATER IN ATHENS 55 of Euripides have been translated into every language of western Europe, and these three authors are regularly counted among the greatest poets that the world has ever produced. Except per- haps the stories and poems of the Bible, the poems of Homer, and the plays of Shakespeare, nothing else in literature has had such a great influence upon the lives of people in modern times. These dramas have been read and studied by scholars in every civilized country of the world. All morning long the people in the theater of Dionysus listened to tragedies. They wept and groaned when the hero suffered; they shouted for joy when he triumphed. At noon there was a lull in the performance; but in the afternoon the actors came out on the stage again for the performance of comedies. In the beginning, comedy in Athens was little more than a vaudeville show — clowns and professional athletes and mummers did their best to entertain the crowd. But by 450 B.C., comedy had risen to a plane almost as high as that of tragedy. The plays were carefully constructed. Regular dialogue and a chorus were developed, and the actors were diligently trained for their parts. From 425 B.C. to 385 B.C., the afternoon performances in the theater of Dionysus were devoted almost exclusively to the works of the comic poet Aristophanes. His plays dealt with all the topics of the time. His characters discussed religion, pohtics, philosophy, and education. He made fun of the most important men of the city. He attacked the leaders of the Assembly who were constantly trying to induce the people of Athens to go to war. He opposed the teachings of the philosophers and men who were advocating a new system of education. His plots were very modern in spite of the fact that he wrote his plays over two thousand years ago. The Greeks were also extremely fond of other kinds of poetry. They prized the Iliad and the Odyssey greatly. They paid almost equal honor to the lyric poets, men and women who wrote verses in praise of love and beauty, and patriotism, and devotion to the gods. The greatest of these poets was a woman named Sappho who lived in the island of Lesbos about the year 600 b.c. Her 56 GREEK CIVILIZATION " poems glorified the love of men and women and their feeling for the beauties of nature. Next to her the Greeks honored the name of Pindar, who lived one hundred years later. He told of the glories won in athletic contests and of the good deeds of the rulers. His poems were sung at almost every music festival in Athens, and poets have copied his style ever since. Athens was also the home of the chief Greek historians. Herod- otus, who is called "the father of history," lived in the city about History and 45© B.C. He was born in Asia Minor and spent a number philosophy Qf years traveling in Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, and the Greek colonies. After the Persian wars were over, he wrote a narrative describing the lives and customs of the nations who took part in the struggle, and a history of the wars. Many parts of the book are as interesting as a boys' book of adventure. His description of life in Egypt (Bk. II), for instance, and his history of the Persian invasion of Greece (Bk. VIII), are especially good. The successor of Herodotus as a writer of history was Thucyd- ides, who told the story of the great struggle between Athens and Sparta. His work is less entertaining than that of He- rodotus, but his narrative is much more accurate, and therefore much more like a modern history. Everything that he tells us we can accept as definitely ascertained fact. The third great Athenian historian was Xenophon, who lived from 431 B.C. to 355 B.C. In his younger days he took part in an expedition which penetrated into the heart of Persia. When the expedition met with disaster, he conducted "The Retreat of the Ten Thousand." Later on he wrote a thrilling account of the expedition, the Anabasis, which is still read by every boy and girl who takes up the study of Greek. The style of the story is simple, and the account of the expedition most interesting. Besides the Anabasis, Xenophon wrote a history of Greece from the point where Thucydides concluded his narrative, and several other books as well. The story of Greek literature has now been almost concluded. Greek literature is distinctly modern in character. Greek poets, Greek historians, and Greek story tellers have served as models in HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 57 every country in western Europe from the days of the glory of Athens down to the present time. Poets and story tellers and historians still study them as models, and Greek literature will probably last to the end of civilization. In one other respect the people of ancient Athens were ex- tremely modern. They loved to inquire into the " why and where- fore" of everything that happened. They were not content to accept things on faith. They were "lovers of the vision of truth. " They flocked about their great teachers, eager to learn. They were interested in man and his surroundings, his religion, his politics, and his morals; and they would listen for hours to men who could satisfy their curiosity about the relation of human beings to each other, and about the causes of life. Three names of such teachers or philosophers (lovers of knowl- edge) ought to be remembered: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Socrates lived in the most glorious period of Athenian history (469-399 B.C.). He devoted his days to showing his pupils that man learns most by studying his own experiences. His motto was "Know thyself, " and he asked question after question to discover whether men understood the real meaning of such words as justice, virtue, courage, beauty, and temperance. He did not devote any of his time to writing, but like the best of modern teachers, he trained a number of young men to Uve better and happier lives. Plato was the greatest pupil of Socrates. After the death of his master, he spent a number of years in travel and then settled down in Athens as a teacher. We know more about him than about his master because he devoted much time to writing. He developed his philosophy in a series of Dialogues in which Socrates was the chief speaker. He explained hfe to his pupils on the theory that the most important thing is not what we do or say, but what we think of things. Just as Plato was the greatest pupil of Socrates, so Aristotle was the "mind of Plato's school." Plato, we are told, had the soul of a poet. He loved the spiritual, the beautiful, and the good. But Aristotle, when he grew up, developed into a hard-headed, practical teacher. He spent his days studying and arranging 58 GREEK CIVILIZATION everything that men had discovered about the earth and its creatures. His writings are a series of textbooks on the sciences — astronomy, zoology, botany, and psychology, — on government, sociology, and economics, on the writing of prose and poetry; in short, on all things which engaged the attention of men. Aristotle was not interested in abstract questions; he devoted his life to studying facts. In consequence, his writings were used and are still used by hundreds of school masters. Even to this day, many boys in Europe and America study his writings and arrange their knowledge according to the method laid down in his books. Aristotle was not as deep a thinker as Plato, but his influence has been many times greater because his writings have been much more easily understood. Greek life and government and literature have all influenced our modern life very profoundly. But in nothing does the world owe so much to ancient Athens as in the field of art. The Greek iart Greeks began by copying their buildings from those of earlier civilized nations, but they ended by developing a style all their own. On the Acropolis in Athens, during the height of the city's glory, there was probably the most beautiful group of buildings that has ever existed in the history of the world. Chief among these was the Parthenon, the temple of the goddess Athena, which has served as a model for thousands of structures erected in Europe and America. Every one has seen pictures of the Parthenon and of other Greek temples. Every large city in' America has at least half a dozen buildings modeled after Greek temples. A close examination of the scheme of their structure, their columns, and their ornaments will reveal the reason why no modern architect has ever been able to improve upon the Greek style. In every part of Greece, on the street corners, in the market places, in public gardens, and in the temples, were wonderful statues made of marble and of bronze. The walls of the temples and other public buildings were decorated with sculptured orna- ments, figures of gods and men and animals so lifelike and so beautiful that artists have studied them as models ever since. GREEK CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVILIZATION 59 The visitor in Greece in the year 300 B.C. would have seen all these sculptures in their^ perfection. He would have seen the work of Phidias, who is recognized as the world's greatest sculptor, on the walls of the Parthenon and in the giant statue of Athena on the Acropolis. He would have seen the statue of the Venus of Melos, and of Hermes and the young Dionysus. To-day the originals or copies of these statues and sculptures can still be seen in museums. Most of them are badly scarred or broken, but in spite of that, no sculptors in all the world's history have produced work which excels that which was done in Athens when Phidias and his successors were alive. For all these reasons, Greece has often been called the most modern of all ancient countries. Except for their religion and their habits and customs and their lack of knowledge of science, these men of Athens who lived over two thousand years ago Qj-eek con- were not so very different from those who live in America tributions to to-day. They had the same love of freedom and the same right to share in the government. They believed just as earnestly that every free man is entitled to an education. They were just as eager for knowledge; they were just as intelligent; they had the same love of athletics and the same pride in cleanliness of body as we have to-day. Indeed there are very many people who believe that the world has gone backward in its appreciation of poetry and philosophy and architecture and sculpture, that the average citizen of Athens in the year 300 B.C. was a better judge of art and literature than the average man in New York or Chicago to-day. TOPICS AND REFERENCES Suggestive Topics. — (i) Would Greek history have been different if the islands had been west of Greece? Why? (2) Read the story of the Minotaur in Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales and see how much history you can gather from it. (3) How does the position of women in Homeric times compare with their position now? (4) Why did Sparta contribute practically nothing to Greek civilization? (5) Do you see any connection between the victory of the Greeks over the Persians and the development of later Greek civilization? (6) Compare the Greek ships in the harbor of Piraeus with those 6o GREEK CIVILIZATION in the harbor of New York. (7) Why did the people in Athens have so much more leisure than people in modern times? (8) Would you have liked to go to school in ancient Athens? (9) Do you enjoy the stories of the Greek heroes told in the Iliad and the Odyssey? Why? (10) Write a description of a building in your city which is modeled after a building in ancient Greece. Search Topics. — (i) The King's Palaces in Crete. Hawes & Hawes, Crete, the Forerunner of Greece, pp. 46-75. — (2) Visit of Ulysses to the Ph^.acians. Odyssey (Butcher & Lang), Books V and VI. — (3) The De- feat OF THE Persians by the Greeks. Herodotus (Rawlinson), Vol. iii, Book VI, Chapters 90-122; Davis, Readings in Ancient History, Vol. I, pp. 151-158, 165-175, 185-190. — (4) Athenian Shipping and Trade. Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, pp. 79-81 ; Gulick, Life of the Ancient Greeks, pp. 235- 238. — ■ (5) Greek Religious Games. Gulick, Life of the Ancient Greeks, pp. 100-105; Mahaffy, Old Greek Life, pp. 76-80. — (6) The Education of Greek Boys and Girls. Gulick, Life of the Ancient Greeks, pp. 72-89; Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, pp. 155-174. — (7) The Life of Women AND Girls in Ancient Athens. Gulick, Life of the Ancient Greeks, pp. 119-126; Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, pp. 155-174. — (8) A Day in the Theatre of Dionysus. Gulick, Life of the Ancient Greeks, pp. 63-64; 112- 115; Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, pp. 224-235. — (9) Inside a Greek House. Mahaffy, Old Greek Life, Chapter III; Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, Chapter V. — (10) A Description of the Acropolis in Athens. Gulick, Life of the Ancient Greeks, pp. 48-56; Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, PP- 31-38. General Reading. — Chas. Seignobos, History of Ancient Civilization, Scribner, 1906. C. H. & H. B. Hawes, Crete, The Forerunner of Greece, Harper, 1911. S. H. Butcher & A. Lang, The Odyssey of Homer, Macmillan, 1881. T. G. Tucker, Life in Ancient Athens, Macmillan, 1914. C. B. Gulick, The Life of the Ancient Greeks, Appleton, 1902. J. P. Mahaffy, Old Greek Life, Appleton, 1889. W. S. Davis, Readings in Ancient History, Vol. I, AUyn & Bacon, 1912. G. W. & L. S. Botsford, Source Book of Ancient History, Mac- millan, 1912. F. W. Fling, Source Book of Greek History, Heath, 1907. . CHAPTER IV THE SPREAD OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION INTO THE WEST The history of civilization has been a history of westward movements. From the time of the earhest records down to the present century the spread of culture has been steadily from gpread of east to west. In the second chapter of this book we learned civilization of the origins of organized governments and of the be- ginnings of trade and commerce and art and literature in the basin of the Tigris-Euphrates and in the valley of the Nile, The dominion of the eastern nations was over by the year 500 B.C. From that time on for some 300 or 350 years the chief center of ancient civilization was Athens in Greece. Even while Athens was at the height of its glory, however, a rude, uncultivated race of warriors in Italy was slowly growing in power. This race was ultimately to conquer and rule the entire Mediterranean basin and the lands to the east and north. The peninsula of Italy extends southeastward from the main- land of Europe for some six or seven hundred miles. It lies almost exactly in the middle of the Mediterranean, and, with The Italian the island of Sicily, it practically divides the sea into two pemnsula great inland lakes. In many respects, Italy is geographically different from Greece. Its coasts are much less indented. The surrounding seas are almost entirely devoid of small islands. Then, too, while the mountains of Greece run in all directions and divide the land into a number of comparatively small, isolated regions, the mountains of Italy are regular and divide the peninsula into three well-defined parts. In the north, between the Alps and the Apennines, is an exten- sive valley drained by the river Po. This valley is rich and fertile, but for many centuries the Apennines served as a barrier, 61 62 ROMAN CIVILIZATION and in ancient times the Po valley was not reckoned as a part of Italy at all. It was inhabited by a race similar in language and customs to those who lived north and west of the Alps. These people were known as the Gauls. The Apennines join the Alps near the source of the Po and extend eastward till, some forty or fifty miles from the Adriatic, they turn southeast and follow the coast almost down to the "heel of the boot." Thus they divide Italy proper into two parts. East of the mountains, the land was barren and forbidding. There were no harbors of any size. In the west and south, the land was much more favorable to agriculture and grazing. Three or four good harbors were open to the traders who came from ' Phoenicia and Gr.eece. When the history of Italy opens, the land west of the moun- tains was inhabited by three races — the Etruscans, the Italians, Races in and the Greeks. ancient The Etruscans lived in the valley of the Arno. At ^ one time they seem to have overrun the peninsula as far south as the Bay of Naples. These Etruscans developed the earliest civilization in Italy. Their farms were watered by irriga- tion canals; their cities were drained by well-built sewers. They constructed excellent roads and erected majestic buildings. They traded with the Greeks and Phoenicians. They possessed a written language; but for us most of their history is a mystery, because thus far no man has been able to decipher what they wrote. The Italians lived in the plains south of the Tiber and in the hill country eastward. The tribes just south of the river were known as Latins. Those in the hills were called Sabines, Sam- nites, and Umbrians. In earliest times these Italians were shepherds and farmers — rude, uncultivated people who learned the graces of civilized life slowly from their Etruscan neighbors and from the Greek traders who had settled in the southern part of the peninsula (see page 41). The entire territory of the Latins was not more than thirty or forty miles square, but the land was fertile and the people were BEGINNINGS OF ROME 63 Early Tribes of Italy industrious. In the lowlands were fields of wheat and oats and barley. On the hills, flocks of sheep and goats roamed under the watchful eyes of their owners. The people, according to tradi- tion, lived in thirty towns or villages, each on a hill or on a group of hills. One of these towns was Rome, situated on the Tiber about fifteen miles from its mouth. Imagine a cluster of two or three hundred round, thatched huts each consisting of one room. Beginnings and a few dozen wooden or stone houses, perched on the °^ ^ome tops of the steep hills overlooking the river, and you will have a picture of the beginning of the city which in later centuries was to rule the ancient Mediterranean world. W. Anc. Civ. — 5 64 ROMAN CIVILIZATION Just below the hills of Rome, the river was shallow, and travelers and herdsmen wandering north and south through Italy used this spot as a crossing. Undoubtedly they stopped to trade and barter with the Romans, and thus the city gradually grew in importance until it was chief among the Latin towns. "Not without good reason," says the Roman historian Livy, "did gods and men select this place for founding a city: these most healthful hills, this convenient river, equally adapted to inland and maritime trade, near to the sea and yet not exposed to danger from foreign fleets — a situation in the center of Italy ; a situa- " tion adapted by nature to become the greatest city in the world." The city of Rome, so the legend tells us, was founded by Romulus in 753 B.C. But this date is practically worthless. Pe le of There is evidence in the ruins of old buildings that the ancient town was much older than that. Until 509 B.C., so the Rome legend continues, the city was ruled by Romulus and his successors; then the kings were driven out, and the patricians, the aristocrats of the city, established a republic governed by two consuls, a senate made up of the elders of the patrician families, and an assembly in which all the men of the city took part. Even in 509 B.C., Rome was still a small town inhabited almost altogether by a race of farmers and shepherds. A few of the people were workers in metal and builders and weavers and makers of pottery; but on the whole the city was the home of a group of farmers who pastured their flocks and tilled their fields in the lowlands and returned to the hills at night to avoid the fevers and the wild beasts of the marshes along the banks of the river. The city proper was located on a group of seven hills, among which the Palatine, the Aventine, and the Capitoline were the most important. The first was the aristocratic quarter of the city; the second was the home of the plebeians, the poorer people and the foreigners; the third, corresponding to the Acropolis at Athens, was the seat of the government, the site of the city's chief temples, and the citadel. THEIR RELIGION 65 The religion of these early Romans was such as one might expect to find among a race of farmers and shepherds. They made sacrifices to the powers of nature: the wind, the sun, Their the warmth of summer, and the cold of winter. But the religion Roman also worshiped a number of gods who were the presiding geniuses of his race: Jupiter, the ruler of gods and men, who caused the people to prosper or to suffer; Mars, who brought victory or defeat in war; Vesta, the patroness of all domestic virtues. Each of the gods and goddesses had his or her own group of priests or priestesses. In addition there was a special body of soothsayers, or augurs, whose duty it was to consult the ■ gods through such signs as the flight of birds and the entrails of sacrificed animals in order that the citizens might not sin against their will. Besides the national gods, each Roman family had its own household gods called Lares and Penates, who represented the honor of the family and to whom the Roman owed allegiance almost before the gods of the state. Among the free inhabitants of Rome, the patricians alone had full rights of citizenship. Other men in the city could vote and could hold property, but only the patricians could hold the ^^^^ ^ city chief offices of state. They claimed that they alone were state like descendants of the original founders of the city. The rest of ^ ^°^ the population, the plebeians, were small farmers or artisans who had migrated into Roman territory for protection or had been conquered as the Roman city state expanded. Later on, when they grew richer and more numerous, the plebeians made a great fight for equal rights with the patricians. This fight lasted over two centuries. By the year 300 B.C., the distinction between patrician and plebeian had practically dis- appeared. Still, the equalization of the two orders did not reach down to the lowest ranks of society. Throughout Roman his- tory, the poorer plebeians, the small farmers and the workmen of the city, had very little share in the government. They could vote but they could not hold offices, and therefore the Roman re- public was not such a government as ours, — in which all classes have equal rights and privileges, and all men may aspire to hold 66 ROMAN CIVILIZATION office, — but a government in which a comparatively few citi- zens monopoHzed all the honors of state. There is an old saying, "Rome was not built in a day." Hun- dreds of years had to pass before Rome became the greatest city Conquest of in the world. In the year 509 B.C., Rome was merely the Italy chief town in Latium, the country of the Latins. It took nearly two hundred and fifty years before Italy was conquered. Time and again hostile armies penetrated into Latin territory and even to the very walls of Rome. Every year Roman armies were organized and marched out against one or another of their foes. From the foothills and mountain passes of the Apennines and from the plains of southern Italy came news of battles and sieges. Often the Roman armies were beaten, but the people were dogged and determined; they absolutely refused to acknowledge defeat. Consequently, one tribe after another was conquered, till, in 275 B.C., not one independent city was left in Italy from the Apennines to the Greek territory along the southern coast. Rome was mistress of the entire peninsula from the Apennines on the north to the southern sea. But the conquest of Italy was only a beginning. Beyond the peninsula were other lands, rich and prosperous, whose people The war carried on trade with all parts of the known world. Across with the Mediterranean, for instance, on the promontory where age Africa approaches nearest to Sicily, was a city called Car- thage which had been settled by Phoenician traders five or six hundred years before. While the Romans were extending their power over Italy, the Carthaginians had made themselves masters of the trade of the western Mediterranean. When Rome finally conquered the Greek cities of southern Italy, the Carthaginians ■ were trading in every part of the Mediterranean. All of north- western Africa, the coasts of Spain, and the islands near it, were subject to their dominion. Only the Greek cities in Sicily had escaped their influence, and now these cities, too, were in danger of falling into their hands. So the Greek cities of Sicily appealed to the Romans, and war between Rome and Carthage began. The history of the three Punic wars (Punic is from the Latin CONQUEST OF THE ANCIENT WORLD 67 word for Carthaginian or Phoenician) is perhaps the most interest- ing story in Roman history. It is full of accounts of deeds of brav- ery, of great sea fights and land battles. It includes the story of the career of Hannibal, who, with Alexander and Julius Caesar, is reckoned as one of the three great military heroes of antiquity. Its climax is the battle of Zama, which was fought in northern Africa near the city of Carthage in 202 B.C. On the eve of this battle the Roman and Carthaginian soldiers in their camps felt that the crisis in the history of the ancient world had come. In the words of the Roman historian Livy, "Before the following night, they said, they would know whether Rome or Carthage was to give laws to the world; not Africa nor Italy, but the whole world was to be the prize of victory." The Carthaginians were defeated, and Rome became mistress of the western Mediterra- nean world. The Punic wars are important because they mark the begin- ning of the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean basin. When these wars began, the Romans were still an agricultural people. When they ended, Roman ships, instead of those of the Cartha- ginians, were trading in all the cities of the ancient Mediterranean world. In 199 B.C., three years after the battle of Zama, a Roman army crossed the Adriatic and began a campaign against the king of Macedonia. This was the beginning of the wars against conauest of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean: Macedonians, the ancient Greeks, Syrians, and Egyptians. "These wars," according ^""^ to Livy, "are not to be compared to the war with Carthage, either in danger to the Roman state or in the abilities of the commanders, or in the valor of the soldiers, but are, perhaps, more remarkable on account of the renown of the former kings and the ancient fame of the nations." They lasted approximately 150 years. When they were over, the Roman republic was in control of an em- pire greater in extent than that of the Assyrians or the Persians. It stretched from the Euphrates River to the Atlantic Ocean; it included every country bordering on the shores of the Mediter- ranean Sea. 70 ROMAN CIVILIZATION Meanwhile the Roman armies were gradually making their way northward and westward into the lands of the barbarians. First, Rome carried her conquests north into the Po valley and extended her dominions to the foothills of the Alps. It took the imperial city almost a century to establish peace among the half civilized tribes of Sardinia, Corsica, Spain, and northern Africa; but when the work was finally accomplished, the benefits of Roman civiliza- tion made all the bloodshed and tribulations worth while. The valley of the Rhone River, too, was conquered; and, in 58 B.C., Julius Caesar, the greatest^ general in Roman history, marched his armies into the .heart of Gaul (modern France). For six years he fought one battle after another. Those of you who are studying Latin know something about his campaigns. When the wars were over, the Roman dominion extended north- ward to the English Channel and to the banks of the Rhine. The campaigns of Caesar are among the most important in the history of the world. Down to his time, the world's civilization The Romans ^^^ confined to the Mediterranean basin and the lands of in central the east; by his campaigns, central Europe was opened, "'^"^^ and the culture of centuries was introduced into the west- ern lands beyond the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. The conquests of Caesar, therefore, are the first link in the chain which binds the ancient to the modern world. After the death of Julius Caesar, still more territory was added to the Roman empire. First the lands south of the Danube were conquered. Then, "the whole extent of Germany was traversed by our army;" says a Roman historian, "nations were conquered almost unknown to us by name. In short, what had never before been hoped for, much less attempted, was accomplished; the Roman army carried its standards to the distance of the Elbe." But this territory was lost by the Romans in 9 A.D., and they never again succeeded in getting a foothold beyond the Rhine. Nevertheless, they did extend their domin- ions into the island of Britain and into the region north of the Danube where the modern Hungarians and Roumanians live. Thus, when the Roman empire was at its greatest extent, about THE CITIZENS OF ROME * 7 1 the year 120 a.d., it stretched from Scotland to the African desert, from the Atlantic Ocean to the highlands beyond the Tigris River. In 509 B.C., and for nearly five hundred years thereafter, Rome was a republic, but not such a republic as that which exists in the United States to-day. Even in Rome itself by no The citizens means all the people were citizens. But the Romans were °^ Rome more liberal in allowing foreigners to obtain the privilege of citizenship than the Athenians had been. Consequently, the number of voters grew constantly larger, and the conquered peoples of Italy were willing to accept the Romans as their rulers. Citizens had the right of voting and of holding ofl&ce; they alone had the full protection of the laws. All others depended for their peace and safety upon the protection which the Romans were willing to give. Among the citizens of the repubhc, there were at least three classes. In the first rank were the nobles, those who held the chief ofifices of government. In theory, .any citizen might T^ree be elected to any position in the gift of the city, but as a classes of matter of fact only the members of a very few old families " ^^^"^ €ver were honored in this way. For generation after generation, sons followed their fathers in the chief offices; only on rare occa- sions did a member of a non-noble family succeed in being elected to one of the chief offices of state. Next in order after the nobles came the rich merchants, bank- ers and capitalists. These men created most of the wealth and carried on most of the trade for which Rome became famous, but they were rarely leaders in the army or holders of office Once in a while, one of their number was elected to an important position. But the nobles resented the success of such a "new man" and did their best to prevent him from advancing. If he succeeded in spite of this opposition, his sons and grandsons gradually became identified with the governing class; in other words, they became nobles in their turn. The vast majority of the Romans were, of course, just common people — small farmers and shopkeepers and workmen who had 72 ROMAN CIVILIZATION the privilege of taking part in the assemblies but who never thought of offering themselves as candidates for any office of state. By no means all citizens of Rome dwelt in the city or in its immediate vicinity. As the neighboring tribes were conquered, Roman some of the people were admitted to citizenship. Besides, military very early in Roman history, a custom was adopted of ' ° ° ^ planting military posts or colonies in the neighborhood of Rome's enemies. The members of these colonies settled in the country, cleared farms for themselves, and gradually became permanent residents in districts many miles from the city of their birth. There were Roman colonies all over Italy. The colonists had all the rights of Roman citizens; they could vote in the as- semblies, they could even hold office, but as a matter of fact they seldom made use of their privileges because it was too difficult to get to the city where the meetings of the assemblies and the elec- tions took place. The important thing to remember, however, is that the Romans were the first people in the history of the world to extend the privilege of citizenship to people who lived outside the border of the original territory which they occupied. By the end of the period which we are studying, there were Roman citizens in all parts of Italy and even in lands beyond the sea. Practically all the tribes in Italy which were not admitted to Ronian citizenship were allowed to retain their own form of government. They elected their own officers and made Italian allies their. own laws. They did not even have to pay taxes to their conquerors. These tribes were called allies. Only two things were required of them: they must not enter into agree- ments with each other or with outside nations, and they must furnish soldiers to fight in the armies which were sent out against the enemies of Rome. In the lands outside the peninsula of Italy, a new system of government was established. In Sicily and Sardinia and Corsica, People in the in Spain and northern Africa, in Macedonia and Greece provinces ^j^(j Agjg^ Minor, in Gaul and Britain, indeed in every part of the empire outside of Italy, the Romans created provinces. The people in these provinces, except in the case of a few indi- THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 73 viduals, were neither allies nor Roman citizens. They were not allowed to serve in the armies. They had no share in the Roman government. They had no right of self-government. Instead they, were obliged-to pay tribute and to obey the orders of a Roman governor who commanded a standing army which was stationed in the province. The governor made all the laws for the province and collected the taxes in any way that he saw fit. In consequence, the people were often cruelly treated and very much oppressed. For almost five hundred years (509 B.C.-27 B.C.), as we have just learned, the government of Rome was a republic. The body of citizens — at least those near enough to the city The Roman to attend the meetings of the assemblies — elected the republic officers and took part in making the laws. The Romans never worked out a system of representative government such as that with which we are familiar. Every man had to attend the meetings of the assemblies or lose his vote. In theory, all the laws of Rome were passed by the assemblies; as a matter of fact most of the laws were made by a body of some 300 nobles called the senate. According to the Roman law the senate was not a lawmaking body at all. It was merely an advisory council made up mostly of men who had held offices in the republic, but the influence of these men was so great that what the senate decided was best for the city the assemblies ratified and gave the sanction of law. The chief officers of the republic were the two consuls. They were the chief executives; they commanded the armies in Italy and presided over the meetings of the assemblies. They were elected annually, but were rarely chosen to succeed themselves. Besides the consuls there were a number of other officers elected by the people, whose names we need not try to remember. About the Roman government under the republic these three things should be kept in mind: (i) the assembhes which made the laws and elected the officers were made up of all the Roman citizens who cared to attend; (2) the senate composed of nobles really determined what laws were to be made; the assemblies 74 ROMAN CIVILIZATION merely carried out its will; (3) the chief officers, the two con- suls and their assistants, were elected by the assemblies, but after they were elected they consulted the will of the senate and not the will of the people. The government by the people was therefore much more important in law than in fact. The Roman army, as we have already learned, fought its way from the city on the banks of the Tiber eastward to the banks The Roman of the Tigris River, westward to the Atlantic Ocean, and army northward to the highlands of Scotland. In its beginning, the army was a sort of citizen militia. Each man in Rome might be called on any summer to march out under the consuls against the enemies of the city. Every soldier had to furnish his own arms and equipment. Every one served without pay. Later on, when the campaigns lasted longer, men were regularly en- rolled in the army and were forced to serve for two or three years. By that time the soldiers received regular pay. All through the history of the republic every man, in theory, was subject to military service, but as a matter of fact the armies were regularly recruited from among the poorer classes. The class of nobles and rich merchants furnished the officers only, or else served in the cavalry. When the city of Rome began its long fight against Carthage (264 B.C.), the system of government described in the last para- Effect of graphs was working wonderfully well. It was serving Roman con- admirably for the government of the city and of the Latin ques s territory. The nobles and common people alike were loyal to their city. They were unselfish in their service in the army and happy in their life on their farms. The Roman citizens, scattered through the peninsula, were proud of their ancestors and of the privilege of being reckoned as members of the assem- blies even though they seldom travelled to Rome to vote. The Italian allies were contented. Rome allowed them so much freedom of action that they were rarely disloyal to the republic and cheerfully furnished their share of troops. One hundred and fifty years later, when the Roman armies had conquered most of the people Hving along the shores of the EFFECT OF ROMAN CONQUESTS 75 Mediterranean, everything was changed. The government, especially of the provinces which had been created, was far from perfect. The governors .were unreasonable and cruel. They showed contempt for the laws and customs of the people. They made arrests, cast people into prison, and executed them as they pleased. They gathered huge fortunes at the expense of the provincials; they forced rich men to pay them enormous sums of money; they plundered the treasuries of Greek and Asiatic cities; they removed statues and jewels from the temples and carried them off to Rome. At the end of their term of one year in ofiEice, many of them returned to the city rich enough to live in luxury for the rest of their lives. The people in Sicily and Africa, in Greece and Asia Minor, had no affection for their masters. Meanwhile the people in Italy had deteriorated. Constant war had gradually drawn off the best and most vigorous men of the population. Soldiering became a regular profession. Instead of enlisting for short terms of service, men entered the army for life. Besides that, during the Punic wars when Italy was in- vaded by Hannibal, thousands of farms were ruined; men and women abandoned the country and sought safety in the towns. Add to these conditions the fact that after the conquest of Sicily and Sardinia and of northern Africa it was cheaper to import grain than to raise it in Italy, and you will understand why great tracts of land which once had been cultivated by small farmers were turned over to great land proprietors who used them for sheep ranges and extensive olive plantations which were tended by slaves. Thousands of slaves were sent to Italy as the result of the wars. There is a story that 10,000 men and women were sold in one day in one of the principal slave markets. To own a thousand or fifteen hundred slaves was not uncommon, and a man who had only two or three slaves was considered poor. Consequently there was little work left for freemen to do in the country, and they and their families drifted into the towns. Before the Punic wars Rome was still a small city; when the wars were over it completely covered the seven hills. 76 ROMAN CIVILIZATION The old republican government Had ceased to be a model. The consuls and their assistants, instead of being honest, self-sacrificing Decline of officials, were frequently corrupt politicians who secured the Roman their offices by giving the people bribes. Naturally, the repu ic senate was no better because, as you remember, it was made up of the same class of men. The common people had ceased to take pride in their city. The few small farmers who still lived in the country practically never attended the assembhes, and the workmen and idlers in the city were interested only in securing a high price for their votes. For one hundred and nineteen years longer (146 B.C.-27 B.C.), the republican government continued in existence, but these were years of frequent civil war and revolution. At first, a sincere attempt was made to reform the constitution, to restore the old order of things when the common people and the nobles had worked side by side for the glory and honor of the republic. In 133 B.C., a young man named Tiberius Gracchus tried to reestablish the old Roman agricultural system under which each citizen had devoted himself to farming, by redistributing the land in Italy, but the nobles who held the land refused to give up their possessions, and Tiberius Gracchus was killed. Ten years later, Gaius Gracchus, his younger brother, tried to break down the political power of the nobles by offering additional privileges to the great merchant class of the city, but he, too, was killed in a riot, and the nobles continued their rule. Meanwhile conditions in the provinces and even in Italy were steadily growing more unbearable. Civil war and revolutions Civa wars became more and more frequent. In no B.C., Rome was and revo- iorced to make war on Jugurtha, a king of a tributary " ^°°^ people in northern Africa. In that war, Marius, the son of a poor Roman laborer, who had risen from the ranks in the army, became the hero of the Roman people. He succeeded in putting down the revolt in northern Africa, and, in loi B.C., he drove back a horde of German barbarians who had penetrated into the Roman provinces and were threatening an invasion of Italy. THE END OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 77 Marius was hailed as the greatest man in the empire. During the next ten or fifteen years he took up the cause of the common people and fought their battles against the nobles, who were led by a man named Sulla. First Marius and then Sulla succeeded in gaining control of the government, but neither man was able to bring peace and quiet to the empire for any length of time. After the death of Marius and Sulla a young man named Pompey succeeded in getting control of the Roman armies, but Pompey was not strong enough to manage the empire by himself. In 60 B.C., he joined forces with Crassus and Julius Caesar. This political alliance is known as the First Triumvirate; the three men divided the honors and power of the Roman republic among them and for ten years they controlled the fortunes of the Roman state. In 49 B.C., the alliance was broken. Caesar had been building up a great miUtary power for himself in Gaul, and he marched his soldiers into Italy and made war on Pompey. Pompey was forced to flee into Greece and Macedonia, where his army was defeated. A few months later he himself was murdered on the banks of the Nile and Caesar became the head of the Roman empire for the time. Cffisar did his best to restore order and quiet, but there were still men in Rome who refused to admit that the old Roman republic was dead. In 44 B.C., Caesar was murdered by a ^^^ ^^^ ^^ band of conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius, who hoped the Roman to reestablish the rule of the senate, but a group of three ^^^^ men, Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius, formed a Second Triumvirate and took up the work which Caesar had begun. In 42 B.C., Cassius and Brutus were defeated in battle; Lepidus dropped out of the Triumvirate; and soon after, a struggle be- tween Antony and Octavius began. In 31 B.C., Antony and Octavius met in a naval battle off the promontory of Actium on the west coast of Greece; Octavius was the victor, and four years later, in 27 B.C., he returned to Rome and assumed the powers of an emperor under the title of Augustus, which he continued to hold for the rest of his life. yS ROMAN CIVILIZATION The form of government which Augustus established lasted for several centuries. Under it, absolute power was vested in one Establish- T^SiTi. He made all the laws for the government of the ment of the empire; he levied the armies and appointed their com- empire manders; his representatives collected all the taxes and carried out all the laws. Directly or indirectly he appointed all the governors of provinces. They held office during his pleasure and were responsible only to him. As long as he lived, he was sole master of the Roman dominions. When he died, in theory, the senate chose his successor. In fact, the choice was nearly always dictated either by the emperor him- self or by the army. The army was now the most important factor in the government of the empire. Not that the rule of the army was ordinarily oppressive. In all the vast territory governed by the emperor there were less than 400,000 soldiers, and nearly all of these were stationed in remote parts of the empire to keep back the hordes of barbarians, wild tribes of the African desert, half-civilized Germans and Britains, and mountain tribes of the east. In Rome itself, there were only 10,000 soldiers — picked troops who accompanied the emperor on journeys and watched over his personal estates. These were the men who ordinarily selected the emperors, though in later times even the armies in the provinces took part in making the choice. The chief thing to remember about the government of the empire is that the distinction between Rome and Italy and the provinces gradually ceased to exist. All parts of the empire shared with Rome in the benefits of the imperial system; Rome was merely the capital; everywhere from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, from the North Sea to the African desert, all men were treated practically alike. Suppose we try now to picture to ourselves the life of the Roman empire when conditions were at their best. In studying The imperial the story of Greek civilization, we needed very little "*y- besides a description of the city of Athens; to under- stand the civilization of the Roman empire we shall have to make a journey all over the Roman world. THE IMPERIAL CITY 79 We shall begin by visiting the capital. We have come, let us suppose, from some distant part of the empire, — from Alexan- dria in Egypt or Antioch in Syria, — and have landed at Ostia, at the mouth of the river Tiber, and have made our way up the river eighteen miles in a boat. We disembark at the wharves which The City of Rome during the Later Empire lie at the foot of the Aventine and take the street which skirts this hill and the Palatine into the Forum, the center of all the life of Rome. The street is called the Via Sacra (Sacred Street) because it leads up to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill. Along the Via Sacra and into the ternple of Jupiter all the processions in honor of great Roman victories wended their way. 8o ROMAN CIVILIZATION We pass the great Circus Maximus, and the palaces of the emperors which are situated on top of the Palatine hill. Just before we enter the Forum, on our right, we see the Col- The Forum . . , . osseum, which, with the Circus Maximus, is the chief place of amusement in Rome. On our left is the little round temple of Vesta. In this temple six noble virgins for generation after generation have kept the sacred hearth fire of the city burning. No man except the high priest of the city may ever enter this temple, and no married woman may serve at its shrine. In the nine hundred years since the traditional founding of the city, we find that Rome has undergone many changes. Originally, it will be remembered, Rome was a village of mud huts and simple stone and wood houses; now, about 150 A.D., it is a great city of 1,500,000 or 2,000,000 inhabitants. In the old days, the Forum was the market place and the gathering place of the citizens; now it is the center of the government of the empire. It is crowded with magnificent buildings, temples, and monuments erected in honor of emperors, heroes, and gods. Just beyond the temple of Vesta we see the temple of Castor and Pollux, and beyond that the Basilica or Law Court built by Julius Caesar. This is the largest and most imposing building in the Forum. It is not only a law court but also a meeting place for merchants and bankers. In its corridors, and in the cor- ridors of the Basilica of ^milius on the opposite side of the Forum, we see these men engaged in planning the great business transactions of the Roman empire. At the north end of the Forum we pause before a great marble platform ornamented with stone or bronze rostra (beaks of ships). For this reason the platform is called the rostra. From it all important announcements and great public speeches are made. This is not the same rostra from which Brutus and Antony delivered the funeral orations made famous in Shakespeare's tragedy of Julius Casar but here similar speeches were made. Just behind the rostra we see a gilded stone column on which are inscribed the names of all the great roads leading out from Rome to all parts of the empire. The name of this pillar is the " Golden RETAIL SECTION OF ROME 8 1 Milestone." From it all distances in the empire are reckoned, and some of these distances run into thousands of miles. The Forum is crowded with other buildings and monuments — statues of emperors and heroes, great stone arches and pillars, but we must continue on our way through the city. We take Retail the street which skirts the Capitoline hill and come out on section the Broad Way (Via Lata) which leads through the ancient ° °™® Campus Martius, once an open field, the mustering ground for Roman armies, now the chief retail business section of the city. Here we visit shops of jewelers and goldsmiths and silversmiths, sellers of tapestries and furniture and fine fabrics and all sorts of luxuries from Alexandria and Antioch, and even from India. The street is filled with rich men and women in flowing robes of scarlet and saffron and blue and purple, buying clothing and ornaments and furniture. Farther up the street we find a large enclosure surrounded by arcades where people are gathered for gossip and various athletic feats. Still farther on we see the great Mausoleum The (tomb) of Augustus, 220 feet high. Turning back and Pantheon crossing the Campus Martius, we arrive at the Pantheon, a great round building erected originally by the son-in-law of Augustus as a temple to all the gods. This building is perhaps the most interesting in the entire city. It represents a method of building original with the Romans. Its roof is constructed in the shape of a dome. Inside are colossal statues of gods. The ceil- ing is made to represent the sky with its stars. After 1900 years of use the building will still be standing when most of the ancient monuments in the city have long fallen into ruin and decay. We have seen scarcely a tenth of Rome's great public buildings. Nothing in modern times can compare with their magnificence. Marble and bronze and even gold and silver were gener- Roman ously used. The walls were covered with elaborate carving building and ornaments and painting, till scarcely a foot of blank space was left. Hundreds of statues and fountains occupied the open spaces in the city. There were baths and amphitheaters and circuses (open air courses for chariot racing). Everything was 82 ROMAN CIVILIZATION built so securely and so lavishly that the ruins of the ancient city are still the marvel of the modern world. The houses of many of the rich nobles and merchants were so magnificent that they almost beggar description. The palaces Houses of ^^ ^^^ emperor and his family occupied almost the entire rich Palatine. The other hills were crowded with houses and ci zens gardens belonging to rich nobles and merchants. Naturally, each of these houses was built to suit the taste of the owner. No two were exactly alike. Yet all of them conformed to a general style of architecture. The outer walls were usually plain and unpretentious, with only a few narrow windows looking out into the street. The streets were narrow and inconvenient, too narrow for wagons and carriages. In fact no horses were allowed on any of the streets of the city except during the night. One entered the house through a vestibule on the street level. A double door ornamented with bronze or ivory admitted the visitor to a passage which led directly into a great open room called the atrium. The room was two or three times as high as those to which we are accustomed. It was lighted by an opening in the center. Underneath was a pool or fountain into which water poured from the roof when it rained. The floor was made of various colored marbles or tiles. The walls were paneled in marble or decorated with paintings. There was very little furni- ture in this room. It was merely the anteroom where guests waited to be called into the reception room of the master, which was farther back in the house. Leading off from the atrium were a number of small rooms used for various household purposes. Back of it was a second, more private portion of the house. This centered about the peristyle, an open court surrounded with marble columns, decorated with statues and wall paintings, and furnished with expensive rugs, chairs, couches, tables, and lamps. In this part of the house were the bedrooms and dining rooms and library and kitchen. Behind it lay an enclosed garden, and perhaps even a private bath house fitted up as magnificently as the residence itself. The house had running water and sometimes even a system of hot-air TENEMENT HOUSES IN ROME 83 heating, though this was by no means always the case. It lacked the modern convenience of lighting. Even the emperor himself had to be content with candles or with open lamps in which he burned oUve oil. These great houses were, of course, the exception just as much as the houses in the finer residential sections of our larger cities are the exception. The vast majority of Romans in the Tenement city lived in small, unpretentious houses or in tenements houses in not unlike the worst tenement houses in modern New York. °™^ These tenements were called islands because they frequently occupied an entire block of the city. They were three or four stories in height. On the ground floor were shops for the sale or manufacture of all sorts of articles: food, clothing, and house- hold utensils. Upstairs the tenements were divided into suites of one or two or three rooms. The corridors were dark and filthy. The houses had no toilet conveniences. Slops and garbage were dumped into the streets. The streets were crowded and dirty. Men, women, and children jostled one another. Street peddlers and beggars stood in the gutters. There was endless noise and confusion. Disastrous fires were frequent. Sometimes one of the older houses collapsed and hundreds of people were killed. Rome had no building laws or tenement house commission. The police did their best to maintain order, but they were more or less helpless in these crowded quarters and were forced to wink at many violations of the laws. One thing more about the outward aspect of the city is worth noting — that is the system of sewers and water supply. In very ancient days, the Romans had found it necessary to sewers and build conduits to drain the marshes which lay between the water seven hills. The greatest Roman sewer, the Cloaca Max- ^"^^^ ima, was constructed in the earliest days of the republic to drain the Forum. It served its purpose all through Roman history. It was so well constructed that it is used even in modern times. Next to its magnificent buildings, perhaps the chief glory of the ancient city was its abundant water supply. Back in the Apennine mountains, forty or more miles from Rome, streams W. Anc. Civ. — 6 84 EOMAN CIVILIZATION and lakes were tapped so that the people might have all the water they wanted both for drinking and for bathing. Stretching for miles across the country were twenty or more aqueducts on huge arches, which brought this water into the city. The most famous of these aqueducts is that of Claudius, parts of which are still to be seen after the lapse of nearly 1900 years. In the ancient city of Rome there were four classes of people. First among these were the nobles, once the rulers of the empire, now the chief assistants of the emperor. From their ranks, The nobles '^ . , t ^^ I most of the governors of the provmces and the officers of the army were chosen. They sat in the senate, to which the em- peror still occasionally turned for advice. They were the leaders of Roman society. They had special seats in the theater, the cir- cus, and the amphitheater. Their wives set the fashion in dress. Next in order came the rich business men — bankers, whole- sale merchants, and large public contractors ^ whose transac- Rich busi- tions were not so very different from those of the Wall ness men Street operators of modern New York. These men were frequently organized into great stock companies with offices in or near the Forum, and with branches in the chief cities in the provinces. They took contracts for public buildings, roads, bridges, and aqueducts all over the empire. They lent money at interest to the emperor and to the governors of provinces. They managed the collection of taxes in Italy and the provinces. They controlled , the trade in grain and in many other com- modities — spices, rugs, jewels, precious metals, and the like. They owned many of the sailing vessels which made regular journeys from Italy to all parts of the Mediterranean. Socially, they were less prominent than the nobles, but the}/ were fre- quently endowed with more wealth. The third class embraced the great mass of the Roman people, the small shopkeepers and mechanics who supplied the needs Common of the people. They were butchers, grocers, and bakers; people carpenters, masons, and metal workers; shoemakers, weavers, and dyers; porters, messengers, and policemen. Add to them thousands of men who had no regular employment and SLAVES 85 you will get some idea of the people of this class. It may surprise you to know that doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, and sculptors were also included among the common people. These were tenement dwellers. They lived on the simplest diet — grain and vegetables, onions, garlic and lentils, olive oil, and an occasional meal of bacon or pork sausage. They drank wine which cost what would now amount to two or three cents a gallon, liber- ally mixed with water. They wore the simplest clothing, a rough tunic, similar to that of the Greek workmen, and the roughest of sandals or shoes. The slaves made up the fourth class of people. Their occu- pations were as numerous as those of the common people. They were clerks, accountants, and messengers in business, work- • r ■ 1 1 , . , , • Slaves men m factories, and stone masons and bricklayers in building. They were dock hands and sailors and porters. Thousands of them were to be found out in the country working pn sheep ranges and farms. They were the sole domestic servants in the houses of rich merchants and nobles. They served as (^octors and teachers and artists. Many of them were better educated than their masters. It is almost impossible for us to get any idea of their numbers; but certainly there were thousands of them in the city of Rome alone. AU classes of people in Rome began the day early. This was due partly to the warm climate of Italy and partly to the fact that night life was difficult owing to the lack of good DaUy life artificial light. Noble, merchant, shopkeeper, and work- "^ Rome man were out of bed and at breakfast very soon after sunrise. Every one followed the custom, still in use in most parts of Europe, pf beginning the day with a very light breakfast. In place of the modern coffee and rolls, the Roman breakfasted on bread and a cup or two of diluted wine. After breakfast the working classes hurried off to their day's labor. The noble and the rich merchant waited at home to re- ceive visitors, men who came seeking social or business engage- ments. A group of them assembled in the great hall or atrium which often was crowded while the master of the house talked 86 ROMAN CIVILIZATION with one individual after another in his private office or recep- tion room. When the reception was over the Roman noble with his attend- ants walked, or was carried in his litter, — an ornamented chair borne by slaves, — to the Forum, to the palace of the emperor, or to the law courts, or perhaps to the office of his banker. He might even go to the Broad Way to make some purchase for him- self or his friends. If the day was a festival, he went to the theater or circus or amphitheater. He was never to be found in a place where men were at work with their hands. Manual labor in the eyes of the Roman was degrading. No one who could escape it ever engaged in work in a shop. Just before noon, the Forum and all other public places were gradually deserted. Even in the workshops, the noise of the hammer, the saw, and the loom ceased. Practically everybody in Rome now ate his luncheon of salad, nuts, fruits, bread, and vegetables, and then lay down for a nap for an hour or two. Later in the afternoon, the whole city was once more alive and stirring. Every one who could go was on his way to the " Baths." There were public bath houses in the city sufficient to accom- modate 65,000 or 75,000 people — great, splendid buildings open to every one who could pay the small price of admission. No matter how poor a man was, no matter how dark and dingy his home, he could spend his afternoon surrounded by luxury just as though he were rich. In the bath he found room after room fitted up with costly marbles and mosaics, gayly painted walls and ceilings, swimming pools, hot and cold water showers, sun parlors, and numerous lounging rooms. All this had been paid for by some emperor or by some rich Roman noble who had bequeathed it to the city for the people's use. When the bath was over, every one went home to dinner. For the poor man this usually consisted of bread and porridge, onions, lentils and garlic, and a cup of cheap diluted wine. The rich man's table was loaded with all kinds of fish, meat, vege- tables, sweetmeats, and fruits. The Roman bill of fare was most elaborate. It lacked one or two modern vegetables; it had no ROMAN WOMEN 87 tea or coffee; but otherwise it was as rich and varied as that of modern times. The Roman woman held a position distinctly superior to that of any other woman in ancient times. Her education was ordi- narily inferior to that of her brother, but she was free from Roman the restraints of the Athenian woman. The Roman girl women usually married when she was fifteen or sixteen years old. To be unmarried at nineteen was to be regarded as an "old maid." When the bride entered the household of her husband she was recognized at once as its mistress. She was given the keys to the storerooms and took charge of the work of the servants. She had control over the early education of her children. She was regarded as her husband's helpmeet and friend. She mingled freely with the men of the family; was present at social and business conferences. She was free to walk the streets at her pleasure. She attended the games and the festivals. She might even engage in business and trade. She was just as bad and just as good as her brother or her husband; we read all sorts of stories about her vices, but we must remember also that many a Roman matron was a " combination of dignity, industry, and practical wisdom," quite as worthy of honor and respect as the women of modern times. We have just learned that the mother took care of the early education of her children. Boys and girls ahke played in the gardens of the great houses or out in the narrow and dirty Roman streets. They had dolls and hoops, tops, stilts, and marbles, education very much like girls and boys of modern times. Their games were just as noisy and boisterous; and poor bewildered nurses told stories of hobgoblins and demons to frighten unruly children just as they have done ever since. When the boys were seven, they were given their satchels and wax tablets, and started on their way to school. There were, however, no women teachers; all classes were taught by men. The girls were taught by their mothers; they learned spinning, weaving, sewing, and household management. Occasionally they might be given a literary education, but in practically all 88 ROMAN CIVILIZATION cases the teaching was done at home. The boys and girls thus educated were of the well-to-do classes. The children of the lower classes received practically no education, or at most were taught only to read and write. In all schools the first lessons were devoted to reading and writing and simple arithmetic. Later on boys might go further and learn Greek poetry and philosophy and science. They might be trained in what the Romans called rhetoric, which corre- sponded to the English courses in our high schools to-day. A few boys who were specially ambitious might even continue their education under college professors in Athens, Alexandria, Antioch, or Massilia (modern Marseilles). These were, of course, only the sons of nobles or rich merchants. The other boys had gone to work. Finally, as a climax to his education, the Roman boy* when he was sixteen or eighteen years old might make a jour- ney through the empire under the guidance of a tutor, very much as the boy now who finishes college makes a trip to Europe before he settles down to work. The Romans, like the Athenians, were extremely fond of festi- vals. Those who know about the life of modern Italy realize Festivals that the people have not outgrown this fondness even in and games modern times. In ancient Rome over one hundred days in the year were devoted to feasting and merrymaking. In the beginning, these festivals were religious celebrations in honor of events in the farmer's calendar — plowing, sowing, and reaping. Think of the origin of our own May Day Hallowe'en, and Thanks- giving, and you will understand how the Roman holidays came about. But the original character of these festivals had been forgotten. They were now merely occasions for riotous fun and elaborate free shows. These free shows were undoubtedly the worst feature of Roman civihzation. Nothing in modern times can give any idea of what they were like. The vulgar exhibitions presented in the Roman theater, the wild excitement of the chariot races in the circus, and the brutal shows in the arena were in vivid contrast with the religious festivals in Athens, and the wonderful tragedies and ROMAN THEATERS 89 comedies that were produced there for the amusement of the people. In their amusements, the Romans as a people were vulgar and coarse and brutal, while the Greeks were exceedingly refined. The Roman theaters were much more elaborate in construction than those in Athens. They were great open semicircular struc- tures, the largest of which accommodated 30,000 or 40,000 Roman people, with the stage at the flattened end. The best plays theaters were poor adaptations of Greek tragedies and comedies, but the people were frequently bored by them, and hissed and hooted at the actors or pelted them with all sorts of missiles when the acting was not to their taste. As a matter of fact, farces, pantomimes, and vaudeville shows were much more popular than the legitimate drama and were much more frequently staged. The chief amusement of the Romans was the chariot races in the circus. The Circus Maximus stood in the hollow between the Palatine and Aventine hills. This great open structure, chariot not unlike the Harvard Stadium in construction, had seats '^^^^^ for 250,000 or 300,000 spectators. For days and weeks be- fore the great races all Rome was in a fever of excitement. Hardly anything else was discussed. Men, women, and children would bet on their favorite colors; the nan;ies of the horses and their drivers were as well known to them as the names of popular baseball teams are in our country to-day. Long before sunrise, on the day of the races, thousands of people from all parts of the city and even from the country streamed intp the gates of the circus and scrambled for the best seats. The lower tiers were reserved for the nobles and wealthy merchants; the boxes for the emperor and his family. Early in the morning, at a signal from the master of ceremonies, the chariots dashed out from their enclosures and the great race of the day began. Seven times around the course the horses gal- loped. Frequently horses and drivers were killed at the turn, but the people were mad with excitement and merely cursed their ill luck. Finally the race was over; blue or green or red or white had gained a victory; hundreds of thousands of sesterces (a 90 ROMAN CIVILIZATION Roman coin equal to four or five cents) had changed hands. Twenty-four times in the day the scene was repeated; nothing in the world's history has ever equalled the excitement of one of these days. The moral effect of the shows in the arena was even worse than that of the chariot races in the circus. Half a dozen times a year, Gladiatorial sometimes oftener, the people of the city were invited to shows attend the gladiatorial shows in the Colosseum, the great amphitheater south of the Forum, which seated 80,000 or 90,000 people. These shows were provided l3y the emperor, or by one of the rich nobles, for the amusement of the crowd. Lions, tigers, elephants, and other wild animals were turned loose in the arena to fight against each other or to battle with men. Fre- quently gladiators, slaves trained for the purpose, fought against each other. Death was often the result. The sight of blood maddened the people. Scores of men and beasts were regularly sacrificed to satisfy this unhealthy craving. The result on the character of the people can easily be imagined. But these, after all, are the least important characteristics of the Romans as far as our interest in their history is concerned. Peace within In spite of their personal vices, they were great soldiers, the empire -^yjgg lawmakers, and wonderful managers of men. In the time of the emperor Augustus, peace and prosperity came to the entire ancient world. "Every man can go where he will," says an old Roman writer, "the harbors are full of ships, the moun- tains are as safe for travelers as the town. The land has put off its old armor of iron and has put on festal garments of peace." In the center of Rome there was a little building known as the Temple of Janus. According to the law of the city, the doors of this temple always stood open as long as Rome was at war. Only twice before the time of Augustus had the doors been closed. Now the temple was closed for years and years at a time. Says the Roman writer, "Each day the world grows better and more wealthy. The roads are open to commerce; the deserts are changed into fruitful places; forests give way to tilled acres. Everywhere are houses, people, cities; everywhere there is life," TRADE AND COMMERCE 91 • Trade and commerce grew rapidly; the seas were crowded with ships bound on long voyages; the roads were crowded with people going on peaceful journeys. Traders sailed beyond Gibral- Trade and tar, where they fancied they could "hear the sun hiss as he commerce sinks into the western waves'." They journeyed to Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Ireland in search of raw materials — cattle, leather, grain, metals, and amber. From Antioch in Syria and Alexandria in Egypt, they brought gorgeous woven fabrics of woolen, linen, and silk. Spices and drugs came from Arabia; from India and the mountains of Asia, gold, silver, and all kinds of precious stones. Great as was this commerce by water, the traffic by land exceeded it many times. The construction of Roman roads was perhaps the most notable achievement of antiquity. Roman They were originally built for military purposes, but in the ^°^^^ ' days of Rome's greatest prosperity they were used mainly for trade. The chief road, the Appian Way, ran southeast through Italy. Another led to the shore opposite Sicily, and in that island there were roads in all directions. Still another skirted the northern coast of Africa. There were roads in Gaul, Spain, and Britain and in every province in the east. The journey from Antioch to Byzantium on the Bosporus (almost 700 miles), for instance, could be made in less than six days. The Roman road was regularly the shortest distance between two cities. It took its way regardless of all obstacles. It cut through hills and mountains; it crossed swamps and rivers and waste places. It was constructed to last through the centuries; some of these roads are still in use after nineteen hundred years. Many of these roads presented lively pictures. Here you found, according to a modern historian, "a merchant with his slaves and his bales; a keen-eyed pedler — probably a Jew — carrying his pack; a troupe of actors or tumblers; a body of gladiators being taken to fight in the amphitheater or market place of some provincial town; a regiment of foot soldiers or a squadron of cavalry on the move; a horseman scouring along with a despatch of the emperor or the senate; a casual traveler coming at a lively trot in his hired gig=" From the foothills on 92 PROVINCIAL CITIES 93 the southern border of Scotland to the highlands beyond the Tigris River, all the lands of the Roman empire were bound to- gether by these great arteries of trade. In every city of the empire the life of Rome was reproduced in miniature. Rome had its 1,500,000 or 2,000,000 inhabitants; Alexandria and Antioch had 500,000; Marseilles and Lyons, Provincial 200,000 or more. Even cities in Britain like London and cities Lincoln were very considerable in size. In every one of these cities there were baths, theaters, amphitheaters, aqueducts, and bridges which rivaled in their architectural beauty the great examples which we have studied in Rome. Every department of art from the veriest knickknacks, finger rings, earrings, hairpins, and mirrors, to great masterpieces, like temples and arches and statues, were represented. Many of the houses and gardens were magnificent; they were filled with costly furniture and all sorts of household utensils just like the houses in Rome. All over the empire one language was spoken by Roman soldiers and officials very much as English is used all over the British em- pire to-day. Even the common people in Italy, Gaul, Spain, -^^^jj^ ^j^^ Africa, and the provinces along the Danube had discarded one lan- their native dialects almost entirely and learned to use Latin ^^^^^ instead. East of the Adriatic, Greek still continued to be spoken, but in all the rest of the empire Latin was the common tongue. As a result five of the great modern languages, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Roumanian, are directly derived from the Latin, and all the other languages of Europe are full of Latin words. Latin hterature is far less interesting than Greek. The Romans were not naturally gifted as writers. They created very little. They had no great dramatists or philosophers. Every- Latin thing that was best in their writing was copied from the literature Greek. And yet the names of the principal Latin authors like Cassar, Cicero, Livy, Virgil, and Horace are far better known than those of the great Greek writers because, for centuries, Roman literature has served as a model of what good writing should be. As a proof of this statement, you need only remember that 94 ROMAN CIVILIZATION thousands of young men and young women in high school and college are still reading Latin books. The Romans also contributed to modern civilization the Roman law. In the beginning, the people of the city were ruled by custom. By common consent there was a well-established Roman law r ■, • i i,- i i • i system oi buymg and sellmg, and rules governmg the con- duct of individuals in their relations to one another. In 450 B.C., these customs were gathered together and embodied in a written code similar to the Code of Hammurabi (see page 12). Thence- forth the actions of the people were controlled by the Law of the Twelve Tables, as this code of laws was called. But this early law was extremely formal; it was designed to fit only the con- ditions which existed in and about the city of Rome. When lands in remote parts of Italy were added to the Roman dominions, especially when the legions conquered territory outside the penin- sula, Roman judges were frequently called upon to decide cases involving altogether new conditions. Therefore, the judges gradually developed an entirely new system of judicial procedure based largely upon the rules of common sense. One judge fol- lowed the rules of another and added something of his own to fit new conditions, until, in the end, a great body of laws was de- veloped which was used all over the empire. From time to time this law was codified. Then it was studied by law students and judges just as our law is studied to-day. This law was so nearly perfect that it fitted all sorts of cases. Long after the Roman empire ceased to exist, people all over Europe still referred to the Roman codes and decisions. Even to-day, in every country in. western Europe except England, the old Roman law is the basis of the law of the land. The great Roman empire, as we shall see in the next chapter, was gradually disrupted, but the fact remains that Roman in- Rome's stitutions and ideals are still an active influence in our tions"to"" everyday life. The Romans, as we have seen, were the first civilization people to unite all the countries of southern and western Europe. They built roads which stretched from one end of the continent to the other. They brought peace and civilization to TOPICS AND REFERENCES 95 Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Italy. They opened trade with the various peoples. They developed a system of law and govern- ment which has been a model for fifteen hundred years or more. Their language is the basis of five of the great modern languages; their literature is still read and used as a model by scholars and writers all over the world. Their buildings were most elabo- rately and most carefully constructed. They discovered the possibility of using rounded arches, domes, and vaults in build- ing. They erected great amphitheaters, aqueducts, sewers, and bridges, many of which are still standing as monuments to their skill. All in all, they were the most practical, the most pains- taking, of the ancient nations. TOPICS AND REFERENCES Suggestive Topics. — (i) Compare the location of Rome with that of Athens. Which city was more advantageously located? (2) It took Rome about 225 years to conquer Italy and about the same time to conquer the rest of the Mediterranean world. How do you account for the rapidity of the later conquests? (3) What difference was there between the colonies estab- lished by Rome and those established by the Greeks? (4) In the time of the Roman republic, what advantages did the people in Italy have over those in the provinces? (5) Why was the government under the emperors better than that under the republic? (6) Compare the business section of Rome with that of Athens. (7) Which city had the better schools, Rome or Athens? (8) Compare the Roman festivals with those of the Greeks. {9) How do you account for the spread of the Latin language? (10) Why are the Roman roads sometimes called the greatest contribution of ancient civilization? Search Topics. — (i) The Legendary History of Rome. Seignobos, History of Roman People (Fairley), pp. 15-21; Botsford, Story of Rome as Greeks and Romans Tell It, pp. 29-57. — (2) The Punic Wars and their Effect on Roman History. Botsford, Story of Rome as Greeks and Romans Tell It, pp. 104-112, 1 15-122. — (3) The Roman Forum in the Time of Nero. Tucker, Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul, pp. 102-1 10. — (4) The Life of the Common People in Rome. Johnston, Private Life of the Romans, pp. 305-307; Davis, Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome, pp. 194-247. — (5) Roman Festivals and Games. Tucker, Life m the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul, pp. 260-288 ; Johnston, Private Life of the Romans, pp. 227-251; Davis, Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome, pp. 263-268. — (6) Roman Trade and Commerce. Johnston, Private Life of the^ Romans, pp. 307-308, Davis, Influence of Wealth m Imperial Rome, pp. 1 15-122. — 96 ROMAN CIVILIZATION (7) A Roman Emperor of the First Century After Christ. Ferrero, Characters and Events of Roman History, pp. 103-141; Botsford, Story of Rome as the Creeks and Romans Tell It, pp. 267-270. — (8) A Roman House. Preston «& Dodge, Private Life of Romans, Chapter II. — (9) Manners and Customs in the Provinces. Tucker, Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul, pp. 31-48. — (10) Traffic on the Roman Roads. Tucker, Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul, pp. 16-29; Davis, The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome, pp. 95-105. General Reading. — Charles Seignobos, History of the Roman People, edited by William Fairley, Holt, 1902. Charles Seignobos, History of Ancient Civilization, Scribnet", 1906. W. H. Preston and L. Dodge, Private Life of the Romans, Sanborn, 1894. H. W. Johnston, TJie Private Life of the Romans, Scott,' Foresman, 1903. T. G. Tucker, Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul, Macmillan, 1910. W. S. Davis, The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome, Macmillan, 1910. Guglielmo Ferrero, Characters and Events of Roman History, Putnams, 1909. W. S. Davis, Readings in Ancient History, Vol. II, Allyn & Bacon, 1913. G. W. Botsford and L. S. Botsford, The Story of Rome as Greeks and Romans Tell It, Macmillan, 1913. D. C. Munro, Source Book of Roman History, Heath, 1904. CHAPTER V THE TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN CIVILIZATION The conditions which were described in the last chapter belong to the period about one hundred and fifty years after the found- ing of the Roman empire by Augustus. At that time peace weaknesses and prosperity had continued for at least three or four in the generations, and it is well to remember, as we begin to ^^P'""® study the downfall of the Roman dominion, that they were to continue for another one hundred or one hundred and fifty years. Indeed, until the very year in which the barbarians stormed the gates of the capital (410 a.d.), the people in Italy and the prov- inces looked upon Rome as the " Eternal City," destined to be the center of the world for time without end. And yet, even in the time of Rome's greatest prosperity, there were elements of weakness within the empire which were eating away at its heart, sapping its vitality, and slowly, but surely, bringing about its decay. Perhaps the very worst evil within the empire was the existence of slavery. In every province from Egypt to Britain, most of the work in the fields and in the factories was done by men . Slavery and women held in bondage. The rich man counted his slaves by the hundreds and thousands. Even the ordinary well- to-do merchant or shopkeeper had one or two slaves upon whom he depended for all of his work. Of course there never was a time in all Roman history when there were not thousands of free farmers, mechanics, and laborers, and yet the condition of these freemen was growing steadily worse. Even in the days of the Roman republic, the small farmers of Italy found it difficult to compete with their rich neighbors who used only slave labor. The result was that thousands of acres were abandoned, and hundreds of families 97 98 TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION wandered into the cities to live. Here, too, the opportunity for employment was limited, because the slaves did most of the work in the shops. Consequently, the freemen were glad to accept donations of food from rich candidates for office so that they could continue to live. After a time, what had been an occasional practice became a regular custom. From the time of Julius Caesar onward, the government of the city distributed to every freeman who cared to accept it a weekly portion of grain, oil, and wine. The number of paupers in Rome and the other cities of Italy grew larger and larger; the number of self-supporting workmen steadily decreased. The emperor Augustus attempted to arrest the depopulation of Italy, but without any success. In his day the farmers in the provinces were still prosperous, but gradually they, too, were driven out of business by the great land proprietors and wandered into the towns to live. A journey through the- empire about the year 400 a.d. would have revealed to the traveler thousands of untilled acres, once the seat of human habitations, now abandoned to the lairs of wild beasts. Naturally, the population of the empire became smaller. In- stead of larger families such as had been common among farmers, Decline in the number of children decreased; disease and evil living population conditions in the cities carried off thousands of people. Each year, as we shall see later in the chapter, a few barbarians wandered into the empire, but these immigrants by no means made up for the steady loss. The families of the nobles and rich merchants were even smaller than those of the common people. Roman fathers and Excessive mothers refused to be burdened with the care of many luxury children; they were altogether too fond of ease and luxury to be willing to sacrifice their comfort. Untold wealth was squandered on beautiful houses and magnificent gardens. The tastes of the rich grew more and more extravagant. The Roman lady must have her shimmering silken garments and her priceless jewels; she must be surrounded by countless handmaidens and household servants, no matter what they cost. Men vied with THE BURDEN OF TAXATION 99 one another in buying horses and carriages and wonderful statues; their dinner .parties and their trips into the country often cost what amounted to thousands of dollars. And all the time less and less wealth was being produced. Meanwhile the demand for money on the part of the govern- ment grew constantly more urgent. In the days of the emperor Augustus and his immediate successors the administration The burden of public affairs in Italy and the provinces was carefully °^ taxation regulated. The old method of plundering the provinces was abandoned. Just enough money was collected to pay the ex- penses of the officials and to provide for the public improve- ments. We know, for example, how one of the greatest emperors, Trajan, watched the expenditure of every penny and insisted that the people should get full value for the sums that were spent. But there came a time when emperors and officials alike grew careless and extravagant. Imagine what it cost to build all the magnificent buildings, the aqueducts, the roads, and the bridges, which were constructed in all parts of the empire. Think of the salaries of the thousands of Roman officials, the cost of keeping up the army. Remember that the administration had grown careless, that the wealth of the empire was gradually decreasing, and you will understand why the burden of taxation was so great. When merchants and land owners were prosperous, the taxes did not seem oppressive. While the provinces were producing abun- dant raw materials and a surplus of manufactured articles, there was always enough to meet the needs of the government. But when the farms were abandoned and the mines were exhausted, when the factories were closed and trade by land and sea was con- tracted, men had difficulty in finding extra funds to pay the sums demanded. Even the richest citizens did their best to escape tax- ation, and the income of the government decreased every year. With smaller amounts of money at their disposal, the Roman officials gradually lost their hold on the provinces. Not that any of the subject peoples ever thought of revolting, but the con- trol of the emperors was less complete than it had been in the best days of the Roman government, and the empire began to decay. W. Anc. Civ. — 7 lOO. TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION As early as 284 a.d., the emperor Diocletian recognized this condition. He realized that it was practically impossible to Division of supervise the affairs of the entire empire, and consequently the empire ]^g divided his dominions into two parts. He himself took charge of the provinces which extended from the Adriatic to the Tigris River; the western part of the empire he assigned to a colleague, named Maximian. Thenceforth, the division of the empire tended to become permanent. A hundred years later, there was no longer a single empire. In 324 a.d., a new capital was established at Con- stantinople, and thereafter many .of the emperors preferred this city to the ancient capital at Rome. Indeed, long after the western part of the empire had fallen, Roman traditions con- tinued to survive in the east. But we have as yet learned practically nothing of the two prime factors which led directly to the transition from ancient to modern civilization. About the time when the Roman government passed into the hands of Augustus, there arose among the people of Judea a Beginnines g^'sat Teacher and Preacher, Jesus of Nazareth, whom many of Chris- of the Jews proclaimed as the Messiah, or Christ, for whom tianity ^-j^q j-ace had long been waiting. Soon after His death, His disciples, under the leadership of Peter, gathered at Jeru- salem and set to work spreading the gospel of redemption through Christ. To the Romans, at first, the message of the disciples of Christ meant nothing. Before all, Christ had commanded love. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." For centuries, the Roman had thought only of himself and his family. Pride and riches and power alone made a man noble; yet here was a prophet who said to the people, "Go, sell all ye have and give to the poor." "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." To the lowly and the downtrodden in the empire, this new doctrine came as a message of hope. Christianity spread THE PERSECUTIONS lOI with wonderful rapidity. iVt the close of the first century after the birth of Christ there were Christians everywhere along the shores of the Mediterranean. By 150 a.d., there were congre- gations as far east as Arabia, Persia, and India, and as far north as Britain. In another hundred years, the Christians were able to say, "We are but of yesterday, yet we have filled all your places of resort — your cities, islands, fortresses, towns, and mar- kets, even the camps of your armies. We have left you only the temples of gods." In another hundred years, by the year 350 a.d., thousands of men and women, rich and poor, high and low, soldiers and merchants, nobles and slaves, had adopted the new religion. But the triumph of Christianity was not an easy victory. At first, the Romans paid but little attention to the Christians. They were accustomed to all sorts of strange rehgious The perse- practices in the empire and allowed all forms of worship cutions which did not interfere with the proper running of the govern- ment. Very soon, however, the Christians became unpopular. They took no part in the great Roman festivals. They de- nounced the cruelty and selfishness of the people. They de- clared that a slave was as good as his master. They offered no sacrifices to any visible god. Consequently, they were called "atheists" and "haters of mankind," and were blamed for all sorts of misfortunes — fires, plagues, and disasters — which visited the people from time to time. Thus there began a series of persecutions which lasted for nearly two hundred and fifty years. In all that time, in spite of their growing numbers, no Christians were entirely safe in the Roman empire. Wherever they lived they were outcasts from so- ciety. Hundreds of them were cast into prisons ; scores were thrown to the lions in the arena; others were crucified or burned alive. But in spite of all persecutions, more and more people were converted. Christians were to be found everywhere and in all walks of life. They were in the army as leaders of soldiers; Triumph of they were in the palaces of the emperors as ministers of Christianity the emperor himself. At last the government had to acknowledge that persecution I02 TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION would do no good. In 313 a.d., the emperor Constantine issued the declaration: "No man shall be denied the right to attach himself to the rites of Christianity. All exceptions regarding Christianity shall be removed. Every Christian may freely and without molestation pursue and follow that course of worship which to him seems best." Later on, Constantine recognized Christianity as the ofificial religion of the Roman empire, and gradually paganism disappeared from the western world. You remember how the Roman armies entered the land which we now call Germany in the early part of the first century; how Life among ^^^^ were driven back by the Germans and never again the succeeded in getting a foothold beyond the Rhine (see Germans \ page 70). It was these Germans who, in the end, conquered the western part of the Roman empire. In the language of one of Rome's great historians, Tacitus: " They have stern, blue eyes and ruddy hair; their bodies are large and robust. They are not fond of heavy toil or labor; thirst and heat easily overcome them; but from the nature of their soil and climate they are proof against cold and hunger." They lived in the marshes on the border of the North Sea and in the dense unbroken forests inland. They devoted their lives to hunting and fishing, and to war. Of agriculture they knew little or nothing; what little wealth they had was represented by herds of half-wild cattle. Their houses were nothing but rude huts; their clothing was made of the skins of animals or coarsely woven cloths. There were no great cities in Germany, and commerce was almost unknown. The Germans were intensely fond of fighting. "To earn by the sweat of your brow what you may gain by the price of your blood," says Tacitus, "was unworthy of a soldier." "Yet this brave warrior, who in the field braves every danger, becomes in times of peace a listless sluggard. The management of his house and land he leaves to his women, to the old men, and to the infirm of the family; he himself lounges in stupid repose." When not engaged in fighting or hunting, the German de- voted himself to drinking and gambling; quarrels and bloodshed Life in a Germanic Forest 103 I04 TRANSITION TO MODERN CTVTLIZATTON frequently resulted, and many men were willing to stake even their freedom on a throw of the dice. This was the worst vice of the Germans; their greatest virtue was the purity of their family life. Absolute faithfulness to the marriage tie was the pride of every household. Besides, they were great lovers of liberty and every man respected his neighbor's rights. The ancient German religion was similar to that of the early Greek which is described in the poems of Homer (see page 36). Their reli- Their chief god, as might be expected, was the great warrior, gion and Wotan, the father of gods and the ancestor of the chief government j^gj-^gg ^f ^^^ ^^^j^^j^ Next to him in importance was Thor, the god of storms and of thunder, who often hurled his great hammer from heaven in anger and caused the earth to tremble at his wrath. All the gods dwelt together in a great heavenly castle surrounded by the spirits of warriors who had died in battle. . Here there was great feasting and merrymaking and frequent quarrels similar to those of the Greek gods. The government of the Germans was very simple. Some of the tribes elected so-called kings, but most of them were led by chiefs who held their position because they were brave leaders in war. Every important matter was decided in assemblies in which all the fighting men of the tribe took part. When the warriors were in favor of anything they clashed their weapons against their shields as a signal of their vote. In war they fought together in companies of men who belonged to the same family. In the years when the empire was declining, the barbarians were growing steadily in civilization. One tribe united with ,j.jjg another; their numbers increased rapidly; they felt more Germanic and more the need for new lands where they could hunt and invasions ^^-^ ^^^ cultivate the soil. Bit by bit, they encroached on the lands of their more civilized neighbors. At first, they came in small numbers and filled up the vacant fields left unoccupied by the people of the empire. They even enlisted in the Roman armies and fought against their kinsmen who kept pressing in from behind. By the year 350 a.d., BREAKING THE FRONTIER 105 perhaps a majority of the soldiers in the northern provinces were Germans. By that year, too, the Roman province north of the Danube, called Dacia, was completely settled by a race of Germans called the Goths. Everything might still have gone well with the empire as far as these barbarians were concerned. They might have con- tinued to drift in little by little as they accepted Roman civiliza- tion. They might have been absorbed into the older population without serious disturbance but for one thing. About 350 A.D., a new and terrible people from the north, the Huns, began to cross the border between Asia and Europe, driving the Germans before them. The Huns were a yellow-skinned people looking not unlike the modern Chinese. They lived almost entirely on horseback, scarcely descending, we are told, even to sleep. Of agriculture, even of the herding of flocks, they knew practically nothing; they spent their days wandering from place to place, seeking plunder and destroying the works of other men's hands. No army could check them; no soldiers could stand against them. To the Germans and Romans alike their leader Attila was known as the "Scourge of God." In 375 A.D., the dreaded Huns were already pressing into Dacia. In fright and terror, the western tribes of the Goths — Visigoths as they were called — crowded the banks of the Danube Breaking and begged the Roman emperor to allow them to cross the *^® frontier river and place its broad waters between them and their terrible foes. At first the emperor hesitated; then he granted the petition of the Visigoths, and some two hundred thousand warriors and their families crossed the river in boats. Unfortunately for the empire, the Visigoths were ill-treated by the Roman officials. They were robbed of all their treasures; their women and children were insulted; even starvation threatened; and so the warriors resorted to arms. In 378 A.D., the Visigoths and the Romans met in battle at a place not far from Constantinople called Adrianople. The lo6 TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION struggle was short and decisive. The Roman army was defeated; the emperor himself was mortally wounded. The Visigoths for the first time tasted the joy of victory; the " Death of Rome," as a great English historian has called it, had begun. In 395 A.D., the Visigoths chose as their leader a young man named Alaric, to whom war was almost as necessary as the air Alaric, the he breathed. He hated the thought that his people were Visigoth called subjects of the emperor. They had conquered the Romans at Adrianople; why should they not conquer again? Forthwith Alaric resolved on battle. First he moved south into Greece, where he captured and plundered Athens. But he was compelled to withdraw before his conquest was complete. Almost every year thereafter the Visigoths shifted their position in the empire; once they penetrated even into Italy; but they never succeeded in entirely overcoming the Roman armies until the year 410 a.d. All this time Alaric was restless. A voice, it is said, had come to him, saying, "Strive till you reach the city," and he was con- vinced that the "city" must be the capital of the empire itself. In 410 A.D., his destiny was accomplished. The city of Rome was captured. For the first time in 800 years, foreign soldiers were marched into the Forum and encamped in the streets of Rome. Imagine the feeling all over the empire when the news spread that the barbarians had taken the city which for so many hundred years had been the center of the world! For three days and nights Alaric gave up the city to plunder. Then he gathered his forces together and started for southern Italy. Perhaps he intended to cross into Sicily and Africa; but whatever his plans, they were never carried out. Before he finished his preparations, while still a young man, ready to lead his people on to still more glorious deeds, he died. With heavy hearts, his followers buried him in a swift-running stream which makes its way down from the Apennines. Alaric had seen the rich lands of Italy, he had opened them to his followers, but he himself was not to live there. VISIGOTHIC KINGDOM IN SPAIN 107 After the death of Alaric, Italy seems to have lost its attraction for the Visigoths. Perhaps they were filled with some unnamed superstition. At all events, they turned their backs upon visigothic the peninsula and continued their journey westward into kingdom in southern Gaul and Spain. Here they founded a Visigothic ^^^" kingdom, the first independent German dominion created on Roman soil. From this time on, attacks on the Roman empire were fre- quent. One group of barbarians after another poured into the Roman dominions; one western province after another was p^u ^^ ^^^ conquered, till, by the year 450 a.d., seventy five years western after the Visigoths crossed the Danube, only Italy and ^^^"^ Gaul could still be reckoned as parts of the empire. Nothing was left of the ancient glory of the "Eternal City." Even the emperor of the West was nothing but a weakling, subject to the will of his German soldiers, commanded by German chiefs. In 476 A.D., 1230 years after the traditional founding of the city, the last Roman emperor in the west was deposed. In the course of this chapter you will read about later Roman emperors, but it must be remembered that these were rulers in Constantinople, not emperors who governed from Rome. Indeed, the Roman tradition persisted in the eastern part of the ancient Roman dominion almost till the time of the discovery of America; exactly, until the year 1453. The name of the German leader who established himself as ruler of Italy in 476 a.d. is not important. He did his best to bring peace to the peninsula, but his efforts were all in vain, xheodoric In 493 A.D., he was conquered by another German chieftain, the Theodoric, the king of the Ostrogothic (East Gothic) people, ^ ^°^° who came into Italy as a representative of the emperor of the East. Under Theodoric, Italy enjoyed a brief period of peace. The roads in the peninsula and the streets of the cities were once more comparatively safe for merchants. Farmers were encouraged to return to their fields. Even the schools were once more opened and every one breathed a sigh of relief. io8 TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION . But the peace which Theodoric brought to Italy was only a pause in the storm. One year after he died, a new emperor, T fn" n— ^^^^^ Justinian, ascended the throne at Constantinople lawgiver and (527 A.D.). Justinian was a man of exceptional ability. conqueror jj-^ name is chiefly remembered because, under his direction, the old laws of the empire were gathered together and organized into a code. This code is still the basis of the laws which govern the personal relations of practically all the people on the continent of Europe. Justinian was also the last emperor who succeeded in uniting the empire under his personal rule. First he reor- ganized his army, then he sent his soldiers into Africa and into Italy with the intention of driving out the German conquerors who had settled there. The Ostrogoths offered strenuous resist- THE LOMBARDS IN ITALY 109 ance. One city after another was attacked and plundered. Rome, which by this time had become accustomed to foreign invaders, suffered serious damage. Hundreds of ancient buildings and monuments were ruined. All the horrors of war were once more repeated and all the good things accomplished by Theodoric were altogether undone. In the end, the Ostrogoths were driven out of Italy (533 a.d.). For a few years, while Justinian lived, the peninsula was governed by officials sent from Constantinople. But in 568 a.d., j,^^ still another race of Germans, the Lombards, began to Lombards pour into Italy from the north. First they conquered the ^° * ^ lands in the Po valley. Later on they spread farther and farther south till they occupied nearly all the peninsula except Rome and a few cities far to the south. The Lombards have been called the anarchists of the German invasion. They had no such ideals as those of Theodoric. They destroyed thousands of the books and treasures which the Romans had gathered in the course of the centuries. They were cruel and heartless in their dealings with the people. Their coming inaugurated the "Dark Ages" in Italy. Their name has always remained a curse in the land. While Italy and the provinces on the borders of the Mediter- ranean were being plundered by one Germanic people after an- other, the provinces of Gaul and of Britain were also being Roman overrun by barbarians who came from the east. Britain Because thousands of Germans were wandering over the con- tinent of Europe, soon after the year 400 a.d. the Romans were forced to call their soldiers home from the island of Britain, The Romans had been masters of the southern part of Britain for over three hundred years. They had conquered the island as far north as the borders of Scotland. They had built themselves noble houses and gardens; they had filled them with statuary and other beautiful works of art. There were baths and temples and aqueducts in a dozen or more cities. Roads crossed the island in several directions: one running northwest from London to Chester, another northward to the city of York. Along the roads no TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION were beautiful country houses. Agriculture was thriving, and peace and prosperity reigned. To the north and west, however, were savage tribes who con- stantly threatened invasion. A great wall had been built across the island to keep these barbarians in check. No sooner were the Roman soldiers withdrawn than these barbarians began to attack the Britons. Pitiful supplications for assistance were sent across the Channel. "The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians. Thus two modes of death await us; we are either slain or drowned." The Romans could no longer assist them. The fields of the husbandmen were ravaged; the cities were burned and plundered; aqueducts and baths and other beautiful buildings were de- stroyed. "Then all the councilors were so blinded," an old chronicler tells us, "that they sealed the doom of their country by inviting in among them, like wolves into the sheepfold, the fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful both to God and men." These Saxons were German sea rovers who lived in northern Germany just beyond the river Elbe. They, and their kinsmen. The Anglo- ^^^ Angles and Jutes, who lived in the peninsula of Den- Saxon in- mark, gladly accepted the invitation of the Britons. They vasions landed first on the eastern side of the island of Britain in the year 449 a.d. Later, more and more of them crossed the sea in their ships. The northern barbarians of Britain were checked in their conquests, but the German barbarians occupied the land instead. Nearly all the evidences of Roman civilization in Britain were destroyed by the Germans. Whole cities were wiped out and practically forgotten. Fields and meadows once devoted to agri- culture and cattle raising were neglected. The Roman language and law and Uterature disappeared. Apparently, civilization in Britain was set back three or four hundred years. One thing, however, the Germans brought with them which was of the greatest value to future generations; that was the idea of liberty and equahty and the right of the individual to take part in the government, Out of this has grown many of the institutions THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLAND ill which are the cornerstone of EngHsh and American liberty to-day. The conquest of Britain proceeded slowly. The island was not occupied all at once. The Jutes and Angles and Saxons probably crossed the sea in bands of two or three hundred, bring- ing their wives and children. They settled at first in small towns or villages along the east and south coasts. Gradually they made their way inland and took possession of the center of the island, biit they never succeeded in conquering the land in the northern and western parts. Scotland and Wales and Cornwall were still inhabited by Britons two or three hundred years after the con- quest began. At first each band of invaders was independent of all the others. Each Httle village probably made its laws without much regard for its neighbors; there was no central government such as ^j^^ begin- the island had known under the Romans. But a hundred nings of years, more or less, after the beginning of the conquest, ^ the various villages had been united into seven or more Httle kingdoms — Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Kent, East Anglia, North- umbria, and Mercia — and a struggle for supremacy among these various kingdoms began.- The story of this struggle may be re^d in one of the histories of England. It lasted about two hundred and fifty years. When the struggle was over, Egbert, the king of Wessex, was recognized as overlord of all the Germanic peoples in the island (827 a.d.). Angles and Saxons and Jutes were finally united. The name Anglo-Saxon was appHed to all the conquerors alike. The name Angle-land (England) was adopted as the title of the new king- dom, and the real history of modern England began. Northern Gaul was the last part of the western Roman empire to fall into the hands of the Germans. Just about the time that the Anglo-Saxons were crossing into Britain, another race j^^ Franks of German barbarians, the Franks, were establishing them- in northern selves along the banks of the Rhine from where the city of Cologne now stands to its mouth. The Franks differed from all the other Germanic peoples we have heard of thus far. Instead 112 TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION of wandering from place to place in the empire seeking for plunder, they never abandoned their homes on the banks of the Rhine. They slowly extended their power in all directions, conquering their neighbors and incorporating them into their empire very much as the Romans had done seven hundred and fifty years before. In very early times, the Franks were divided into a number of small tribes loosely united into two federations: the Salian and the Ripuarian Franks. About 480 a.d., Clovis, who traced his ancestry back to a mythical hero, Merovius, was elected chief by one of the Salian tribes. A few years later he was hailed as king by all of the Salians. Then his ambition led him, in 486 a.d., to enter northern Gaul, where the Romans still remained in con- trol. At Soissons, on a tributary of the Seine, he met and totally defeated the Roman army. By that one battle, Clovis added to his dominions all of Gaul north of the river Loire. Twenty-five years longer he ruled over the Franks. In that time he conquered the lands of the upper Rhine and most of the territory in Gaul between the Loire and the Pyrenees, so that on the day of his death he controlled an empire greater than that of any German prince before his time. Under the Franks the old Roman civilization in Gaul and the newer German civilization were united. The people of the Union of province were conquered, but they continued to live in their rT^L^r^ old homes under the rule of the Frankish leaders. They Oermanic _ civilization still spoke the old Latin language and transacted their business under Roman law. Gradually, even the conquerors adopted the customs and the language of the country and intermarried with the earUer inhabitants. The same thing happened in Spain and Italy, so that in the course of two or three hundred years the old Germanic languages were forgot- ten and the newer modern languages, French, Spanish, and Italian, which are descended from the Latin, had taken their place. After the death of Clovis, the Franks continued their conquests until their dominions extended almost from the River Elbe to the MAYORS OF THE PALACE 113 Atlantic Ocean, from the North Sea to the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. But among all the descendants of Clovis there was scarcely a single man worthy of the name of king. The Frankish people were vigorous, but the power of the king steadily declined. In the end, as an old chronicler says, "There was nothing left for the king to do but to be content with his flowing hair and long beard, and to sit on the throne and play the ruler." The real master of the Frankish kingdom was the king's chief minister, the mayor of the palace, as he was called. At first the mayor of the palace was appointed; but in the course of Mayors of time the office descended from father to son. The greatest *^® palace of all the mayors of the palace was Charles Martel (The Hammer), whose fame rests upon the fact that at Tours, in 732 a.d., he rolled back the tide of Mohammedan invasion, which in his time threatened to overwhelm all Europe. Mohammed was born in Arabia in 571 a.d. Until he was forty years old he did nothing to distinguish himself from his fellows. Then, so the story goes, he had a vision in which an angel of Moham- God came to him from heaven and ordered him to preach medamsm the belief in one God. At first he was persecuted and derided, but before he died he was received by all the people of Arabia as the chief prophet of God. Thereafter those who accepted his doc- trines were promised eternal bliss in heaven; those who refused were given over to slaughter without mercy. This is the way that Mohammedanism spread. After the death of Mohammed in 632 a.d., Mohammedanism spread with marvellous rapidity. No one could stand against the Arabian warriors; they were absolutely fearless in battle. Had not Mohammed promised them that those who fell in battle would pass straight to Paradise? In Asia they conquered Syria and Palestine, all of Persia, Armenia, and Turkestan, and even a part of India. In the west, they extended their empire to Egypt, TripoH, and Morocco. In 711 a.d., less than a hundred years after the death of Mohammed, they, crossed into Spain. Here they put an end to the rule of the Visigoths and estabUshed a kingdom which lasted nearly eight hundred years. 114 TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION of Tours Still the tide of Mohammedan conquest rolled onward. In 732 A.D., the armies of the prophet crossed the Pyrenees and ad- The Battle vanced almost to the banks of the Loire. By that time Charles Martel, the mayor of the palace, was ready. In a desperate battle, known as the battle of Tours, the Arabs were defeated and forced to retire south of the Pyrenees. Western Europe was saved to Christianity; the people' of the prophet were confined to the south and the east. Mohammedan Dominions In the time of Charles Martel, every country in western Europe acknowledged the bishop of Rome (the Pope) as the Growth of supreme head of the Christian Church. The church the Christian was the best-organized institution in Europe. It had developed slowly, however, over a period of five or six hundred years. In the years immediately after the death of Jesus, Christian worshipers probably met in each other's houses to pray together, to sing hyinns in praise of God, and to partake of a sacrificial meal in memory of the "Last Supper" mentioned in the New Tes- tament. This is the origin of the service which is still celebrated in Christian churches to-day. Congregations were organized, each under the direction of a chief priest, or bishop, as he was called. He was assisted in the celebration of the service by a group of elders called priests. A THE BISHOP OF ROME AS POPE II5 third set of officers, the deacons, devoted themselves to the care of the poor. These early church officers were zealous mission- aries, and consequently new congregations were organized in neigh- boring villages and towns. Over each of these, one of the priests was placed in authority. He acknowledged the bishop of the parent church as his leader and guide. In this way, the bishop became head over a number of churches, and we have the begin- nings of the modern diocese. All the churches in the Roman empire were, of course, not of equal importance. It was natural that congregations in the large cities should be more highly regarded than those in smaller and less important towns. Hence the bishops of the churches in certain cities were honored above the other bishops, and were called archbishops. To the Bishop of Rome still higher recognition was given. By virtue of their office, the bishops of Rome held that they were primates over all the Christian churches in all the ^j^^ j^j^j^^ world. This claim was based upon the words of Christ of Rome as as given in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew: " Thou ^''^^ art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Since Peter had founded the church at Rome and had acted as its head, according to the Roman claims, the bishops of Rome were his spiritual successors, and as such were entitled to all the consideration which Peter had enjoyed as the first of the Apostles. Several things had augmented the power of the Pope, as the bishop of Rome was called. In the days of the Germanic invasions, when the power of the emperors was declining, there was no one in the western part of the empire equal in dignity and authority to the bishop of Rome. The Christians of Italy and the provinces often turned to him for help and comfort. Sev- eral times he saved the people from the wrath of the barbarians; in a number of cases his missionaries converted entire German nations hke the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity; he frequently succeeded in settling important disputes. Il6 TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION After the fall of the Western Empire, the church of Rome was undoubtedly the greatest agency in Europe for the spread of Orie'n and civilization. This movement was furthered especially by growth of the work of the monks. monasticism ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^-^^ Christians were being fiercely persecuted by the Roman emperors, thousands of believers took refuge in the Egyptian and Syrian deserts, where they lived as hermits, devoting their lives to the service of God. In course of time, a number of these hermits came together and lived under a common rule. This was the beginning of monasticism. In the western part of the empire, especially in the vicinity of Rome, a few Christians who sought to escape persecution took refuge in underground passages called Catacombs, where they fled from their enemies and worshiped in secrecy. Then, too, during the period of the persecutions, occasional bands of religious enthusiasts in western Europe attempted to form societies similar to those founded in Eg}q3t and Syria; but it was not till 529 a.d., long after the persecutions were over, that the first regular monastery was built in the west. In that year, St. Benedict, with a few followers, founded a monastery at Monte Casino in southern Italy and adopted the Benedictine Rule. The Benedictine Rule was the model for all later monastic orders. It bound its members by a vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The monk was allowed to own no personal property; he was never to marry; and he was always to be ready to obey the orders of his abbot without question. The rule of St. Benedict further required that the life of the monk should be spent in work. "To labor is to pray," was the chief motto of the order. Thus the great merit of western monasticism was that it was human. It was organized to make the world better, as well as for the purpose of saving men's souls. For a thousand years the monks were the leaders in Europe in the works of humanity. They journeyed into the farthest cor- ners of Europe, cutting down the forests, draining the swamps, and opening the country to agriculture. They established schools and hbraries and kept alive a knowledge of Latin when BENEFITS OF MONASTICISM I17 not one man in ten thousand, not even among the nobles, could so much as sign his own name. They devoted their Hves to converting the heathen ; they kept open house for Benefits of the traveler; they offered help and comfort to the monasticism weary, the sick, and the poor. In a world in which violence and disorder were common, they were the comforting agents of peace. The invasion of the Germans, as we have already learned, resulted in the destruction of the Roman empire in the west. In its place, by the year 750 a.d., there had grown up a Charles number of German kingdoms, of which that of the Franks ^^'^^^ ^'^^ ^ _ ' his suc- was the greatest and most important. But the traditions cessors of the Roman empire were ever present in the minds of the rulers and the churchmen who were the leaders of the people. Men continued to talk and to think of the glorious days when all Europe was at peace. Even in the darkest days of war and disorder, they continued to look forward to a time when all the world would once more be united and good will would once more be established on earth. Charles Martel was succeeded as mayor of the palace by his two sons. One of these sons, named Pepin, put an end to the curious condition which had so long existed in the Frankish liingdom. In 752 a.d., he deposed the last successor of Clovis and himself assumed the title of king. In doing this he sought and received the approval of the Pope. In return, he offered his assistance in fighting the Lombards, who were attacking the city of Rome. In 756 a.d., the king of the Lombards was defeated by Pepin and forced to give up the cities in northern Italy which he had recently conquered. But Pepin had no ambition to be- come a ruler of lands beyond the Alps; consequently he gave over the government of these cities to the Pope. This was the beginning of the temporal power of the Roman bishops, which lasted till 1870 a.d. In 768 A.D., Pepin was succeeded by his son Charles, com- monly known as Charlemagne, the greatest figure we have yet encountered among the men of the German race. He was W. Anc. Civ. — 8 Il8 TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION a warrior, statesman, organizer, and king, all in one. "Great and powerful as was the realm of the Franks which Charles Charle- received from his father Pepin," says an ancient chronicler, of^thT' *"^ "^^ nevertheless so splendidly enlarged it by his wars, that Franks he almost doubled its dominions." "Charles was a large, robust man of commanding stature and excellent proportions, " the chronicler continues. " He had a fine head of gray hair, and his face was bright and pleasant. His walk was firm, and the whole carriage of his body manly. He took constant exercise in riding and hunting. He also delighted in swimming, in which he was very skillful. "In his eating and drinking he was temperate. The daily service of his table consisted of only four dishes in addition to the roast meat, which the hunters used to bring to the table on spits. While he was dining, he listened to music or reading. " He was ready and fluent in speaking, and able to express him- self with great clearness. He was an ardent admirer of learning, and greatly revered the scholars whom he gathered about him. He himself tried to learn to write, but made but little progress in this art. " Charlemagne was eager to reestablish the ancient Roman em- pire of the west. Like so many other great rulers among the Germans, he dreamed of reviving the ancient glories of Rome. He did his best to encourage the study of Latin literature. He gathered a number of learned men about him and urged the young men of his court to attend the schools which he founded. He built many churches and palaces and public buildings. But in spite of his earnest endeavors, the spirit of the ancient Romans • was dead. His buildings were pitiful examples of architecture compared with those of the best days of the Roman empire, because the people of his kingdom were not interested in art. During his reign he conquered the Saxons, a wild Germanic people of the eastern part of Germany, blood relations of the men who had conquered Britain three hundred years before his time. He carried on the war begun by his father against the Lombards in Italy, and finally reduced them to submission, assuming as CHARLEMAGNE'S CONQUEST 119 his own the iron crown which is said to contain a thin iron band fashioned out of a nail of the True Cross. He fought against the Mohammedans in northern Spain and drove them charie- south of the river Ebro. When he died he was magne's master of an empire which extended from eastern *^°"'i"®^ Germany to the Atlantic Ocean, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, including part of northern Italy and part of northern Spain. \ ■•"'^■"■^'^■' "^ j -^^ /■/ y'^X''^%A^ -^^ 1 n 7 0/8 \ t i o 1^ ME D ITERRAN EAN'^i SEA SCALE OF MILES 50 100 200 300 Charlemagne's Empire Charlemagne made a special effort to govern this territory well. He divided it into a number of units called counties, and placed his representatives in charge. These men were Government , ^, , , , . ,, of Charle- expected to gather the taxes, to take charge of the army, magne's and to see that the laws of Charlemagne were obeyed. In empire _ order to keep in touch with their doings, Charlemagne sent out messengers from time to time to look into the condition of the I20 TRANSITION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION country and to report on the acts of the counts, as the rulers of the counties were called. All this was a feeble attempt to copy the system of the ancient Roman empire. It worked with some measure of success during the lifetime of Charlemagne, but after his death it fell into decay. The most dramatic and the most important event in the life of Charlemagne took place on Christmas day in the year 800 a.d. The Roman ^^ ^^^^ ^^J' ^^ ^ reward for the assistance which he had empire re- rendered in freeing Italy from the power of the Lombards, he was crowned emperor of Rome by the Pope. Charle- magne was the first man in three hundred and twenty-four years to be honored with that title in the ancient city. As he knelt at the altar to receive the crown, the crowd in the church shouted, ''Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, the magnificent, the bringer of peace, who has been crowned emperor by God." "In that shout," says a modern writer, "echoed by the Franks with- out, was pronounced the union, so long in preparation, so mighty in its consequences, of the Roman and the German, of the memo- ries and the civiUzation of the south with the fresh energy of the north, and from that moment modern history begins. " On Christmas day in the year 800 a.d., men thought that at last the ancient Roman empire had been revived. As a matter of fact. The link they were entirely mistaken. The new empire lacked the between an- machinery by which the ancient empire had been adminis- cient and . modern tered; it lacked its unity of language and law. The old civihzation empire had rested on Roman ideals and Roman traditions; it had grown up as a result of centuries of conquest; the new em- pire was thoroughly German; its system of law was German, and its ruler had not a trace of Roman blood. Still, the new empire reawakened in men's minds and hearts the love and admiration of the glories of Roman accomplishments; it revived the mighty traditions of the civilization which Rome had created; and thus it forged the link, never since broken, between the ancient and the modern world. TOPICS AND REFERENCES 121 TOPICS AND REFERENCES Suggestive Topics. — • (i) Compare the effects of slavery in the Roman Empire with its effects in the southern United States. (2) How do you account for the fact that the Eastern Empire continued to exist almost 1000 years after the fall of Rome? (3) Enumerate as many reasons as you can why the Romans persecuted the Christians. (4) Was division of the Empire by Diocletian wise or unwise? Give your reasons. (5) Compare the life of the early Gdrmans with that of the Greeks in Homeric times. (6) Wh>' is the battle of Adrianople often referred to as the beginning of the "Death of Rome? " (7) Compare the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain with the Prank- ish conquest of Gaul. (8) Why did Mohammedanism spread so much more rapidly than Christianity? (9) Why was the Empire founded by Charle- magne, called the "Holy Roman Empire "? Search Topics. — • (i) Causes of the Decline of the Roman Empire. Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages, pp. 17-19; Davis, Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome, pp. 314-335. — (2) The Spread of Christianity. Davis, Readings in Ancient History, Vol. II, pp. 285-291; Sergeant, The Franks, pp. 50-57. — (3) The Story of Alaric, the Visigoth. Hodgkin, Dynasty of Theodosius, pp. 137-168; Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages, pp. 28-32. Ogg, Source Book of Mediceval History, pp. 54-56. — (4) The Battle of Tours. Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages, pp. 126-129; Davis, Readings in Ancient History, Vol. II, pp. 362-364. — (5) The Civilizing Influence of the Monks. Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages, pp. 138-144. — (6) Life Among the Early Germans. Hodgkin, Dynasty of Theodosius, pp. 54-72; Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages, pp. 14-17; Ogg, Source Book of MedicBval History, pp. 19-31. (7) The Conversion of Clovis as Told by Gregory of Tours. Robinson, Readings in European History, Vol. I, pp. 52-55. — (8) The Government of Charlemagne's Empire. Emerton, Introduction to the Middle Ages, pp. 219-222; Ogg, Source Book of Mediceval History, pp. 134-141; Davis, Readings in Ancient. History, Vo\. I, pp. Z11-Z19- — • (9) The Rule of St. Benedict. Ogg, Source Book of Mediceval History, pp. 83-90. General Reading. — ■ E. Emerton, An Introdtiction to the Study of The Middle Ages, Ginn, 1903. T. Hodgkin, The Dynasty of Theodosius, Clarendon Press, 1889. T. Hodgkin, Theodoric The Goth, Putnam, 1891. L. Sergeant, The Franks, Putnam, 1898. W. S. Davis, Readings in Ancient History, AUyn & Bacon, 1913. F. A. Ogg, A Source Book of Mediceval History, American Book Co., 1908. J. H. Robinson, Readings in European History, Ginn, 1904. INDEX Diacritic marlcs: a as in far\ a as in task, sofa; -e.-ch, as in cask, chasm; g as in ice; g as in gem; g as in go; s as in news. The long and short marks used with vowels have their usual meaning. Single italic letters are silent. A'braham, 24, 25. Achse'ans, 37, 40. Aehil'les, 34. Acrop'olis, 45, 54, S8. Ac'tium (-shi-um), battle of, 77. Adriano'ple, battle of, 105, 106. ^e-ge'an islands, 24, 31, 33, 43- ^mil'ius, Basilica of, 80. yles'chy-lus, 54. Agamem'non, 39. Al'aric, 106. Alexan'der the Great, 43, 67. empire of, 43. Alexan'dria, 88, 93. Alps, 61, 62. Amphitheaters in Roman Empire, 81, 90. Anah'asis, work of Xenophon, 56. Angles, no, in. Anglo-Saxons and Christianity, 115. Anlig'o-ne, 54. An'tioeh, 88, 93. An'to-ny, 77. Aphrodi'te, 36, 37. Apol'lo, 36, 37. Ap'ennineg, 61, 62. Ap'pian Way, gi. Aqueducts, Roman, 83-84, 93. Arabia, 8, 11, 113. A 'res, 36. Ariad'ne, 31. Aristoph'a-nes, 53. Ar'istotle (ar'-), 57, 58. Armenia, Mohammedanism in, 113. Army, Roman, 74, 78. Arno River, 62. Ar'temis, 36. Art, in Babylonia, 21, 22. in Egypt, 22. in Greece, 58, 59. in Roman Empire, 81-82, 93. Assembly, in early Greece, 39 in Athens, 50, 51. in Rome, 72-74. among the Germans, 104. Assyr'ians, 12-14, 21. A-the'na, 36, 59. A-the'nians, dress of, 47, 48. education, 48-50. homes, 46, 47. food, 48. Ath'ens, city of, 40-46. captured by Alaric, 106. climate, 45. commerce, 43-46. education, 48-50, 88. festivals, 52-54. government, 50-51. industries, 46. leader of Confederacy of Delos, 43. life in, 43-59- market place, 45-46. Persian wars, 42-43. religion, 51-54- war with Sparta, 43. Athletics in Athenian education, 50. A'trium, 82, 85. At'tila, leader of the Huns, 105. Augurs in Rome, 65. Augus'tus, 77, 81. Av 'en-tine hill, 64. Bab'ylon, 11, 27. Babylo'nia, architecture and art in, 21, 22. classes of society, 14-16. commerce, 18. industries, 16-18. literature, 21. religion, 18, 19. system of writing, 13. 123 124 INDEX "Babylonian Captivity," 25. Babylonians, 11-14. See Babylonia. Ba'shan, 23. Basil'ica, 80. Baths in Roman Empire, 86, 93. Benedic'tine Rule, 116. Ben'edicl, Saint, n6. Bishop, in Christian church, 114, 115- Book of the Dead, 20. Bos'porus, 41. Bridges in Roman Empire, 93. Britain, 70, loi, no. Bru'tus, 77. By-zan'tium (-shi-um), 41, 44. Cae'sar, Julius, 67, 70, 77, 93. Calendar, adopted by Egyptians, 10. Cam'pus Mar'tius (-shi-us), 81. Cap'itoline hill, 64, 79. Car'thage, 24, 66, 67. Carthagin'ians, 66-67. Cassius (kash' i-us), 77. Cas'tor and Pol'lux, temple of, 80. Cat'a combs, 116. Catholic church, 115. Cave men, life of, 3, 4. Chariot races in Rome, 89. Char'le-magne (shar'-), 117-120. Charles Martel', 113, 114, 117. Christianity, 100-102. Church, 114-117. Cic'ero (sis'-), 93. Cir'cus Max'imus, 80. Citizens of Rome, 71-73. Ciau'dius, emperor of Rome, 84. Clo-a'ca Max'ima, 83. Clo'vis, 112-117. Cnos'sus, 31. Co-logne', III. Colonies of ancient Greece, 40, 41. Colonies of Rome, 72. Colosse'um, So, 90. Comedy, Greek, 55. Confederacy of Delos, 43. Con'stantine, emperor, 102. Constantino'ple, 100. Consuls, Roman, 73. Council of Five Hundred, 51. Cras'sus, 77. Crete, early civilization, 30-33. Cu-ne'i-form writing, 13. Cy'prus, 24. Cy'ruSj king of the Persians, 12, 20. Dacia (da'shi-a), settled by Germans, log. Darius, 26. Dark Ages, 109. David, 24. Deacons in Christian church, 115. De'los, confederacy of, 43. Del'phi, 37. De-me'ter, 37. Democracy in Athens, 50, 51. Dialogues of Plato, 57. Diocle'tian (-shan), 100. Diony'sus, festival of, 54, 55. Do'rians, 37, 40. Dress, in Athens, 47. East, ancient history of, 8-29. East Anglia, kingdom of, in. Education, 48-50, 87, 118. Eg'bert, king, in. Egypt, architecture and art, 22. classes of society, 14-16. commerce, 18. early history, 10, n. industries, 16-18. literature of, 20, 21. Mohammedan conquest, 113. religion, 18-20. system of writing, 13. Empire of Charlemagne, 119. Essex, kingdom of, in. Eternal City, 97. Etrus'cans, 62. Euphra'tej River, 9. Eurip'idej, ss- E-ze'ki-el, 23. Festivals, in Athens, 52-54. in Rome, 88. Fire, first used, 2, 3. Fo'rum, Roman, 79-81. Franks, 111-113, 115-118. French language, 93, 112. Ga'de§, 24. Gaul, 41, 62, 70. Germans, 102-104. in Britain, 109-111. in Gaul, 109-111. in Roman Army, 104, 105. - Gibral'tar, 91. Gil'gamesh (gil'-), 21. Gladiatorial shows, 90. Go'shen, 24. Goths, 105. INDEX 125 Grac'^hus, Gaius, 76. Gracchus, Tiberius, 76. Greece, art, 58, 59. assemblies, 39. cities, 39. colonization by, 40, 41. comedy, 55. commerce, 40, 41, 62. conquered by Macedonians, 43. conquered by Rome, 43. early civilization of, 30-33. geography, 30. historians, 56. industries, 30, 31. kings of, 39. in Homer's time, 34-37. invaded by Persians, 42, 43. literature, 54-57. Persian invasions, 42-43, philosophers, 57, 58. poetry, 55, 56. prehistoric Greece, 33-37. religion, 36, 37. states, 39. women, 35. > Greeks, see Greece. in Italy, 62, 66. in Sicily, 66. invade Persian Empire, 43. Gymna'sium, in Athens, 50. Gymnastics in Athenian education, 49- Hammura'bi, King of Babylon, 12. code of, 12, 21. Han'nibal, 67, 75. He'brews, 24-26. Helen of. Troy, 34. Hel'lespont, 42. He-phass'tus {-fes'-), 36. He'ra, 36. Her'mej, 37, 59. Hermits, 116. Herod'otus, historian, 56. Hieroglyph 'ics, 13. Historians, Greek, 56. Ho'mer, 34, 49, 55, 104. Homer'ic Age, 34-40. Hflr'ace, 93. Ho'rus, 19. Houses, in Athens, 46. in Rome, 82, 83. Hungarians, 70. Huns, 105. Il'i-ad, 34, 52, 55. Iphigeni'a, 54. Iran (e-ran'), Plateau of, 9. Isaac, 24. I'sis, 19. Islands, tenements in Rome, S^, Israel, 25. Italian allies, 72, 73. Italy, early history, 62. in the empire, 78. language, 93, 112. physical features of, 61, 62. taxes in, 84. Jacob, 24. Ja'nus, Temple of, 90. Je-ho'vah, 25, 26. Jeru'salem, 25, 28, 100. Jesus of Naz'areth, 100, 114, Ju'dah, 25. Judges, Hebrew leaders, 24. Jugur'tha, 76. Julius Cae'sar, 67, 70 77. 93. Ju'piter, 6s, 79. temple, 79. Justin'ian, 108, 109. Jutes, no. III. Kent, kingdom of, in. Lake dwellers, 4-6. Law, Roman, 94. La'rej and Pena'teg, 65. Latin language, 93. literature, 93. Latins, 62, 63. La'tium (-shi-um), 66. Leb'anon, 23. Lep'idus, 77. Les'bos, island of, 55. Literature, Babylonian, 21. Greek, 54-57- Roman, 93, 94. Liv'y, historian, 64, 67, 93. Lom'bards, 109, 117-119. Ly'ons, 93. Maccdo'nians, 43. Mar'athon, battle of, 42. Mar'duk, 19, 21. Ma'rius, 76, 77. Mark An'tony, 77. Mars, 65. Mar-seilles' (-salz'), 88, 93. 126 INDEX Mauso-Ie'um, 8i. . Maxim'ian, loo. Mayor of the palace, 113, 117. Medeg and Per'sians, 12, 26. Mem'phis, capital of Egypt, 11. Menela'us, 34, 39. Mer'cia (-shi-a), kingdom of, iii. Mero'vius, 112. Metals, first use of, 6. Mi'nos, 31. Min'otaur, 31. Moham'med, 113. Mohammedans and Charlemagne, 119. Mon'asteries, 116. Monks, 116, 117. Monte Casino (mon'ta ka-se'no), 116. Moses, 24. My-ce'nae, 31, 34. Nile, valley of the, 9, 10. Nin'eveh, 12. Nobles in Rome, 84. Northum'bria, kingdom of, iii. Octa'vius, 77, 78. Odys'seus, 34, 39. Od'yssey, 34, 52, 55. Olym'pus, Mount, 36, 51. Oracles, 37. Osi'ris, 18, 19, 20. Os'tia, 79. Os'trogoths, 107-109. Pal'atine hill, 64, 80. Pal'estine, Mohammedanism in, 113. Panathenas'a, festival, 52, 54. Pan-the'on, 81. Papy'rus, 13. Par'is, of Troy, 34. Par'thenon, 58, 59. Pa'triar-ehs, 24. Patri'cians (-shanz), in Rome, 65. Ped'agogue in Athens, 49. Pep'in, 117. Per'iclej, 43. Per'istyle, 82. Persia, early history, 11, 12, 26, 27. invasions of Greece, 42, 43. invaded by Greeks and Macedonians, 43. " Mohammedanism in,^ii3. Persian Empire, 26, 27. Peter, disciple of Jesus, 100, 115. Phar'ao/i, 14. Phid'ias, Greek sculptor, 59. Philip of Macedon, 43. Philosophers of Greece, 57, 58. Phceni'cia (-shi-a), 22-24, 62. Phoenicians, found Carthage, 66. Pin'dar, Greek poet, 56. Pirae'us, 43, 44. Platffi'a, battle at, 43. Pla'to, philosopher, 57. Ple-be'ians in Rome, 64, 65. Poetry, Greek, 55-56- Polished Stone Age, 4, 6. Pom'pey, 77. Pope, the, 114-11S, 117. Por'tuguese language, 93. Po-sd'don, 37. Prehistoric period, 1-7. Pri'am, 34. Priests in Christian church, 115. Primitive man, 1-7. Prome'lhe-ns Bound, 54. Provinces, Roman, 72-73, 75, 78, S Pu'nic Wars, 66, 67. Ripu-a'rian Franks, 112. Roman citizens, 71-73. Roman Empire, 68, 77. decline of, 97-100. division of, 100. government under Augustus, 78. life, 78-95. language, 93. religion, 100-102. roads, 91-93. Roman law, 94, 108. Roman hterature, 93, 94. republic, 71-77. Rome, amusements, 88-90. aqueducts, 84. army, 74, 78. assemblies, 72-74. baths, 86. beginnings of, 63, 64. captured by Visigoths, 106. Christianity in, loi, 102. classes of society, 71, 84-85. colonies, 72. commerce, 84, 91. conquests, 67. education, 87. festivals, 88. food, 86, 87. government, 73. growth of, 61-71. INDEX 127 Rome, houses, 82, 83. islands (tenements), 83. location, 64. Punic Wars, 66-67^ population, 80, 93 provinces, 72, 73, 75, 78, 84. religion, 65. republic, 71-77. senate, 73, 78, 84. sewers, 83. slaves, 75, 8s, 97. society, 71, 84-85. theaters, 89. water supply, 83, 84. women, 87. Rom'ulus, 64. Roset'ta Stone, 14. Ros'tra, 80. Rough Stone Age, 3, 4. Rouma'nians, 70, 93. Sa'bines, 62. Sal'amis, battle of, 42. Sa'lian Franks, 112. Sam'nites, 62. Sappho (saf'o), 55, Sa'trap, 26. Sa'trapies, 26. Sat'yrs, 50. Saul, 24. Saxons, no, in, 118. Schools founded by Charlemagne, 118 Senate, Roman, 73, 78, 84. Ses'terces, 89. Set, Egyptian god, 19, 20. Si'don, commerce of, 23. Slavery, in the East, 16. in Greece, 46, 51. in Rome, 75, 85, 97. Soc'rateg, 57. Soissons (swa-son^'), battle of, 112. Sol'omon, 24, 25. Soph'ocle^, 54. Spanish language, 93, 112. Spar'ta, 39, 40. conquers Athens, 43. Spartans in battle of Thermopylae, 42. Stone Age, 3-6. Sul'Ia, 77. Su-me'rians, 11. Sus'sex, kingdom, ni. Syr'ia, 9, 22. Mohammedanism in, 113. Tac'itus (tas'-), 102. Tenement houses in Rome, 83. Theaters, 54, 55 90. Thebeg, Egypt, 11, 28. Theod'oric, 107, 108. Thermop'ylae, battle of, 42. The'seus, 31. Thor, 104. Thucyd'ideg, historian, 56. Ti'gris-Euphra'tes valley, 11, Tigris River, 9. Ti'ryns, 31. Tools, invention of, 3, 4. Tours (toor), battle of, 114. Tragedies, Greek, 54, 55. Tra'jan, 99. Tri'remeg, 44. Trium'virates, 77. Tro'jan War, 34. Troy, 31,34. Twelve Tables, Law of the, 94. Tyre (tir), commerce of, 23. U-lys'sej, 34. Um'brians, 62. Ve'nus of Me'los, statue of, 59. Ves'ta, goddess, 65. temple of, 80. Vi'a La'ta, street in Rome, 81. Vi'a Sa'cra, street in Rome, 79. Vir'gil, 93. Vij'igoths, 105-107. Wes'sex, kingdom of, in. Western empire, fall of, 107. Women, in Greece, 35. in Rome, 87. among the Germans, 102-103, Wo'tan, 104. Writing, 13. Xen'ophon (zen'-), historian, 56. Za'ma, battle of, 67. Zeus, 36, 52. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper p Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxi Treatment Date: MAY PreservationTechnolc A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESEI 111 Thomson Park Drive