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THE LIBRA RY If 
 
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 Copyright by 
 FREDERICK STARR and F. STURGES AI.I.EN. 
 
A ROMAN SOLDIKK. 
 
J U D E A. 
 
 Frank, Pinkie, Jakie, Sammie, and Abraham, — mj' five little Jews 
 from Russia! If we had time to talk with them, and hear their story, 
 they could tell us many strange things that they have seen in Europe, in 
 this country, and on the great ocean. They were born in Russia, but they 
 left their native land because their fathers and mothers, being Jews, had 
 no chance to do well there. In Russia Jews are treated so cruelly and 
 hated so greatly that they are willing to leave their homes and friends, 
 and to come to a country where they know no one, cannot understand 
 the language, and have to work very hard in order to make money 
 enough to keep themselves and their children alive. So to America they 
 came and here they are — my five little Jew boys — doing the best they 
 can. Every day they go to school and learn English and study hard 
 
at their other lessons and are far ahead of many AmericaH boys of 
 their age. When school is out they sel! papers on the street, and so 
 help the family at home. Ours is the only land, the whole world 
 over, where Jews can do well. 
 
 It is a sad thing that the Jews have always had a hard time. They 
 have always, as a race, been troubled and oppressed by other nations. 
 Once they had a beautiful and great city and a loved land, but their 
 beautiful city has been more than once destroyed and their land is 
 to-day owned by a different race, while the Jews themselves are scattered 
 ov er th e whole world. ^ . 
 
 ^^ ^^ ^ ^ 
 
 ^^ ^fe-TI ^ ^\^r^ ^ 
 
 IKHl'. IHK I'RlSONliK KINi;. 
 
 The Jews are one of the oldest races. Their books which tell of 
 their past history are many hundreds of years old. They have had 
 very many enemies. One nation after another has risen up against 
 them. Yet though they have been many times beaten, and though 
 always so cruelly treated, they have never been destroyed completel) . 
 Though now scattered in all parts of the earth they are very many in 
 number. The four greatest nations with whom, long ago, the Jews 
 had most to do, have lost their power,— the Egyptian, the A.ssyrian, the 
 Greek, and the Roman. But though for hundreds of years they have 
 been weak and poor, they have left behind them many pictures, which 
 show us how rich and great they once were. .Strange old pictures these 
 are too and we shall look at some of them. Sometimes they were 
 painted on the inside of tombs, sometimes cut with chisels on solid 
 rock in the desert, sometimes carved on the walls of grand palaces, 
 sometiriies painted on vases of beautiful forms. Some of these pictures 
 are thousands of years old, but they show us to-day just how those 
 
 6 
 
THE JEWISH HIOH PRIEST. 
 
 old-time folk lived and acted. The Jews themselves did not make 
 pictures. It was against their laws, but Jews were sometimes put into 
 the pictures of these other peoples. 
 
 I wish we might have known a little Jew boy of the old, old, time. 
 He could tell us more interesting tales than Pinkie or Frank. He 
 could take us up to their beautiful city of Jerusalem at the time of their 
 great feast. There at the Temple we might see the High Priest. He 
 was beautifully dressed. His clothing was mostly of fine linen woven 
 
into beautiful patterns and 
 designs. It consisted of a pair 
 of linen breeches, a long undercoat 
 that came nearly to his ankles, a shorter 
 overcoat of linen of most brilliant colors, 
 of purple and scarlet, which was tied at the 
 waist by a girdle of gold, blue, purple and scarlet. 
 Between these two coats, the upper of which was 
 called the Ephod, there was a robe of plain blue 
 woolen cloth, which was bordered and fringed 
 with blue and red and crimson, and hung with 
 little bells of gold that tinkled as the priest 
 walked. Hanging over the breast of the Ephod 
 was a breastplate of gold and precious stones, the 
 stones, twelve in number, each symbolizing one 
 of the twelve tril)es into which the Jews were 
 divided. This beautiful breastplate was looped 
 at the corners by golden chains attachetl to onyx stones upon the priest's 
 shoulders. Upon his head the priest wore a bonnet and a mitre of linen, 
 bound around the bottom vvith a blue ribbon bearing a golden band on 
 which were the words meaning" Holiness to the Lord," in Hebrew letters. 
 At evening our little Jew boy would sit by his father's side, while he 
 would tell him the story of the many wars his people had carried on 
 in years gone by. He would tell him of the time when Joseph, sold by 
 his brethren into bondage, went down into Egypt, of the famine, and 
 how the brothers were sent down to the land of Pharaoh to gret corn. 
 
 A HKANCH 
 iVf BEARING OLIVER 
 
He would tell of the terrible suffering of the Jews in Egypt at the 
 time of Moses and how by God's help they were led out from the land 
 of bondage, — up into the Promised Land. He would tell of the time 
 when the Jews were led away captive into Babylon ; of Daniel and his 
 
 JEWISH CAP'llVKS BUlLl.llNti M<_)UNDS. 
 
 bravery, and of the three faithful Jews who were cast into the fiery 
 furnace. Our little few would hear all the dear old Bible stories and 
 in addition he would hear fuller stories of some things than we read 
 in the Bible. His father would tell him of the great cities of Assyria. 
 He would describe the war that the Jewish king Jehu waged against the 
 
 9 
 
 f 
 
Assyrian king Shalmaneser. At the close of this war the poor Jewish 
 king was totally beaten and was made to pay a great sum of money as 
 tribute and was led in a long procession to Shalmaneser's honor. In an 
 old Assyrian city, carved on a black stone obelisk, there is a picture, now 
 more than twenty-seven hundred years old, in which we see this pro- 
 cession. It shows us King Shalmaneser dressed in his royal robes. 
 Behind him are two servants. On the wall in front of him is a picture 
 of a circle with a pair of bird's wings. This is meant to represent the 
 
 SPARROW UF IHE BIBLE. 
 
 chief god of Assyria. In front of the king there are three persons. 
 Two of them are servants of the king, but the third one, who is just 
 in front of Shalmaneser, is the poor Jewish king, Jehu. He is bowing 
 down and kissing the ground to show that he is conquered and is now 
 ready to serve the Assyrians. Notice the strange characters above 
 and below the picture. It is Assyrian writing. The Jews had a good 
 (leal of trouble with the Assyrians and quite often appear in their old 
 pictures. Not only Jewish kings were taken away by the Assyrians, 
 but many hundreds of men and women, and even boys and girls, were 
 taken away from Judea and were harshly treated in the strange land 
 to which they were brought. In one of the palace wall-pictures we see 
 how captive Jews were kept at work, day after day, carrying heavy 
 baskets of earth upon their backs up to the tops of great mounds of 
 earth, which they were made to build as foundations for fine buildings. 
 Our picture showing the captive Jews building these mounds is drawn 
 and colored a good deal like those made by the Assyrians themselves 
 
 lO 
 
AkAUlAN WUMEN GRINDING CORN AND MAKING BREAD 
 
 on the walls of their great stone houses. The little Jew boys probably 
 had a hard time, too, and were much laughed at and abused by the beys 
 of the Assyrians. 
 
 But the Jews were not ahvays in slavery or kept as prisoners in 
 foreign lands. The father of the Jews was Abram. You remember 
 how he left the land where he had been brought up, at God's command. 
 " The Lord said unto Abram, ' Get thee out of thy country, and from 
 thy. kindred and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will shew 
 thee : and I will make of thee a great nation.' " So he went away to a 
 new country, and God was with him and blessed him. One time, liowever, 
 a famine came upon the land, and he went down, to Egypt and lived there 
 until the bad seasons were past and he could go back to Canaan. Canaan 
 was the land which God gave to him, and the land where Isaac and Jacob 
 and Joseph lived. It was the land to which the Jews returued from Egypt 
 after their bondage there. It was there that they built Jerusalem, where 
 the Temple was and where the High Priest lived. It was a lovely land 
 — a land of mountains, to be sure, where they could raise sheep and 
 goats, but wheat and vines and fruits could be raised, too. Olives grew 
 there and the vineyards were loaded with grapes. The mountains were 
 overgrown with cedars and pines. The Jews themselves always called it 
 "a land flowing with milk and honey." There was no great number of 
 wild animals there. To be sure, once in a while a bear or a lion would 
 come in and capture a sheep or a lamb. David says that he kept his 
 father's sheep in the wilderness, and "when there came a lion or a bear 
 and took a lamb out of the flock I went out after him and smote him 
 and delivered the lamb out of his mouth." So, too, Sampson, as he 
 
 II 
 
passed near the vine- 
 yards of Timnah, seized 
 a lion that came out 
 roaring against him, and 
 tore him. But there 
 were few such wild 
 beasts. Birds there were 
 in plenty, — great eagles 
 in the mountain heights, 
 and little sparrows every- 
 where so plenty that two 
 were sold for a farthing 
 in the market places. It 
 must have been a nice 
 country for boys to play in. There were 
 brooks to wade, bees' nests to rob, hills 
 to clamber over, trees to climb ; and no 
 doubt the little Hebrew boys loved to do 
 kll these things then just as our boys do 
 now. Then they shot with bows and 
 arrows, and slung stones Parties of boys 
 at a brookside would fill their pouches with 
 smooth stones, and then with their stick 
 slings — not like the slingshots, or even like the cord slings, that oui boys 
 have — they would practice slinging stones at a mark and would gain great 
 skill. How lucky it was that David had been on such expeditions with his 
 boy friends ! But the boys in Judea were not always at play. No, indeed ; 
 they were often set to watch sheep, or sent on long, long errands. They 
 had to pull weeds, too, and help in the fields at sowing time, and were 
 often among the gleaners at harvest. There were good fields in Canaan 
 
 I 2 
 
 MYRRH PLANT AND TARES. 
 
LOCUST OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 in the olden time. Wheat was the great crop. Farmers had to look 
 out carefully for tares in their fields, the most troublesome and dangerous 
 of weeds. At first, when the wheat is just starting, the tares can be 
 picked out if there are but few of them in the field, and many a little Jew 
 boy in the old time was set to weeding out the tares in the wheat field. 
 The wheat and tares looked so much alike that he had to be very 
 careful or he would pull up the good wheat. Terrible stuff tares were, 
 for their seeds, if mixed with wheat and ground up into flour, caused 
 terrible pain and even death to those who ate it. 
 
 There is one plant often mentioned in the Bible which, perhaps, 
 grew in Canaan formerly, though it does not now, the myrrh plant. 
 Myrrh was very much prized by the Jews, and was obtained from a small, 
 thorny tree. The trunk was bruised with stones, and the sap ran out and 
 gummed as it dried. This gum smells very sweet and burns with a 
 pleasant perfume. It was among the precious things which the wise men 
 from the East brought with them as gifts, when they came to see the 
 Christ in his manger cradle. 
 
 The men and bnys worked in the fields to get the wheat, but it was 
 the women to whom its grinding into fiour was left. Our picture shows 
 women of the present day in the East grinding corn, but we may be suVe 
 that in the olden time they looked just the same. The grinding was 
 done between two heavy, flat, round stones. To the upper one there 
 were two handles, or one, — o^enerally two. The women, taking hold of 
 these, would turn the upper stone around and around, and the wheat 
 which was put between the two stones would be ground to Hour. The 
 flour, mixed up into dough, was rolled out into a thin cake on a smooth 
 stone, and then baked on a hot, Hat stone. 
 
 But some years there would be no grist to grind. Great swarms of 
 
EGYPTIAN POTTER. 
 
 locusts would come up like clouds, darkening the sky as they flew, and 
 would settle down on the corn (wheat) by millions. They would eat 
 every blade, and when they were gone the fields behind them looked as 
 if swept by fire. The locusts were a kind of large grasshopper, and 
 when they had eaten all there was in one field' they would leap up into 
 the air and fly away to new pastures. Moses called up such a flight of 
 locusts into Egypt at God's command. " The East wind brought them, 
 and they covered the whole face of the Earth, so that the land was 
 darkened, and they did eat every herb of the land and all the fruit of 
 the trees, which the hail had left, and there remained not any green 
 thing, either tree or herb of the field, through all the land of Egypt." 
 Never quite so bad in Canaan, perhaps, but still terrible sometimes was 
 the destruction caused by the locusts. 
 
 While very many of the men of the old Jews were farmers or 
 vinedressers, or else raisers of sheep and goats, there were also many who 
 lived in the cities and villages and followed various trades and kinds of 
 business. There were men who wove cloth, men who made fine gold 
 and brass wares, and workers in ]jrecious stones. There were men who 
 
 14 
 
sold slaves and lent money One very common business was the making 
 of pots and jars. The potter, taking a lump of clay, would set it on his 
 " wheel," which was just a round table set on an axis so that it could 
 turn around fast. Then setting the table to whirling he would mould 
 'the clay into all sorts of forms. Our picture is not of an old Jewish 
 potter, but the kind of wheel and the way of using are probably the 
 same. Think what a delight it must have been to the little Jew boys 
 when they had b<-en sent on errands, or when on their way to school, to 
 stop and watch the potter at his work, smoothing the rough lump of clay 
 to shape and form, and turning out a handsome jar! 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 THE GODDESS NISHEM. 
 
 One of the lands in which the Jews often lived, sometimes as 
 captives of war, sometimes as slaves, and sometimes because they had 
 been driven away from their own country by peril or famine, was Egypt. 
 To the land of Egypt, Abram, the father of the Jewish people, went 
 when there was a famine in Canaan, and there he dwelt for some time. 
 To the land of Egypt, many years later, Joseph of Bethlehem and his 
 wife Mary, with the mfant Jesus, fled for safety from the cruelty of Herod, 
 the Jewish king. Egypt was a most wonderful land. Its people were 
 wise and rich, and built beautiful cities before almost any other people in 
 the world. The country lay along a 
 
 i/reat river, the Nile, which 
 
 IS- 
 
 the 
 
 VULTURE. 
 
 Strangest river in the world. This river, 
 for one thousand miles from its mouth, 
 has no streams emptying into it. The 
 country along that whole distance has no 
 water except what it gets from the Nile, 
 as there is no rain there. At one time 
 
 •5 
 
of the year, the rain of the region where 
 the Nile rises, and the snows melting off 
 the mountains of that district, cause the 
 river to rise. It grows larger and larger, 
 swelling until it floods the whole land of 
 Kgypt with its water. Only such places 
 as are built on mounds above the river's 
 reach are left untouched by the water. 
 Then the river's water goes down, down, 
 down, and no more water comes until the 
 next year. There was once a little Jew 
 boy who lived in Egypt, and was brought 
 up in the king's palace. lie had been 
 found by the king's daughter in an ark 
 of bulrushes floating among the reeds and rushes at the river's edge. 
 You know the story so well that we need not tell it here. He must 
 have seen many strange things in that royal home, and on the streets 
 of the beautiful city. ' The Egyptians were great builders, and their 
 mighty buildings — the pyramids, the sphynx, the temples, obelisks, 
 statues, and rock tombs — still remain, some of them thousands of 
 years old, and show us what sort of people the Egyptians were. 
 In the pictures, cut into rock and painted on the walls of their 
 tombs and temples, they show almost everything they did ; so that, 
 although they have been so long dead, we know almost as much of how 
 the Egyptians dressed and ate, played and worked, as the boy Moses 
 himself did. Of course, their clothes were different from ours. They 
 were suited to a very warm climate. The poorer people wore very little 
 clothinsjf at all. The richer ones dressed with a g-ood deal of care. All 
 the men in Egypt had their heads shaved so that there was no hair there 
 at all, but all wore wigs. Boys' heads were shaved, too, but a few locks of 
 hair were left. Usually there were two of these locks, one on each side 
 of the head, just in front of the ear, and these were strangely twisted 
 
 i6 
 
KGYPTIAN KING AND QUEEN. 
 
 and hung down as curls. Pharaoh's daughter probably had Moses' head 
 shaved in just that way. Pharaoh hhnself probably usually wore a wig 
 of black hair, but sometimes he would wear over it a head-dress of fine 
 white linen. Sometimes the Egyptian king would wear his crown. 
 This was unlike any crowns they make now. Egypt was divided into 
 two parts. Upper and Lower Egypt, and there was a crown for each of 
 them. Sometimes the king wore one, sometimes the other, sometimes 
 both of these crowns, as they were made so that one could be put on 
 over the other. When the king was offering sacrifice to his gods, he 
 wore a curious striped head-dress of linen, which came down in two 
 points, over his shoulders in front and hung down between his shoulders 
 behind. The queen wore a head-dress of fine linen, but her hair hung 
 down at both sides of her head in front of it, and was curiously 
 
 done up behind. The dresses of the king 
 and queen were a good deal alike. They 
 were made of fine linen, with the sleeves short 
 and very full. Girdles, often of bright colors 
 
 17 
 
and strangely adorned, were worn around the waist. Both men and 
 women usually wore sandals on their feet. These were made of stalks 
 or rushes, woven, or of leather. They were sometimes flat, sometimes 
 turned up at the ends. They were fastened on to the foot by thongs 
 or narrow straps. Sometimes on the king's sandals were painted pictures 
 of prisoners taken in war, to show that he trod upon his enemies. 
 
 HIPPOPOTAMUS HUNT. 
 
 Egyptian gentlemen were very fond of hunting, and used lassos to 
 capture gazelles and wild o.xen. Nets and traps were made for catching 
 some beasts. There were formerly great herds of antelope, and oxen, 
 and wild goats in Egypt. Men of wealth used to have tame lions 
 around their houses, and with these to help them would go out to hunt 
 such animals. The largest animal that they hunted in Egypt was 
 the hippopotamus. It lived in the waters of Southern Egypt, and used 
 to come up out of the water into the wheat fields and do great damage 
 to the crops. Probably they used to send men out into the field to 
 make a great noise on drums and by shouting, and so scare them away, 
 just at they do now in Ethiopia. In the olden time it was considered 
 great sport to go out to hunt and capture them. There is an old picture 
 
 i8 
 
that shows us how it was done. The picture is broken some, and it is 
 not quite the kind of a picture that we would make now. In it we see a 
 gentleman standing in a boat. He has a spear with a large sharp point. 
 This point is fastened to the shaft in such a way that it will easily come 
 off from it. A stout rope is attached to the point, passes along the 
 shaft, and goes over a notch at its upper end, and is fastened to a reel 
 held in the man's left hand. When the spear was hurled at the animal, 
 the point stuck i,:;to him and the shaft came off. The hippopotamus dove 
 
 GENTLEMAN FISHING. 
 
 into deep water, and as he dove the rope was let out from the reel. The 
 animal in the picture has been struck three times, and the man is about to 
 throw his fourth spear. His son stands near by with a fifth one ready for 
 him. After the poor beast had been struck a number of times he would be 
 so weak from the loss of blood that a servant could noose him, and he 
 would be dragged out on to the shore. Not only were four-footed animals 
 hunted and trapped in Egypt, but also many kinds of birds. Large nets 
 that opened and shut were used in catching flying birds. Throwing- 
 sticks of very heavy wood were used to kill birds on the wino^. Although 
 the Egyptians killed so many animals they were quite fonclGf pets, and 
 kept a great many different kinds. They v»ere especially fond of dogs 
 and cats, and if a pet dog or cat were sick they nursed it most carefully. 
 
 19 
 
EGYPTIANS PLOWING AND SOWING SEED. 
 
 If it died, all the people in the house would mourn, and would have their 
 eyebrows shaved off as a sign of grief. The men were quite as fond of 
 fishing as our boys are nowadays. Only very poor men were fishermen 
 by trade, but gentlemen of wealth used to go fishing for fun a great deal. 
 When the Nile rose and overflowed its banks, much of the water was 
 caught in tanks, and dammed up in pools, and would remain there when 
 the river had gone down. This water often contained a great many fish. 
 
 A strange old picture shows us a gentleman, dressed 
 in his fine clothes, sitting in his easy chair, fi.shing in 
 such a pool. He has a very short pole and two lines 
 and hooks. He seems to enjoy himself, and is certainly 
 having a very easy time. I^oor men unless fishermen 
 by business, had no time for such amusements, but 
 hired themselves out to work in the field. The soil 
 in Egypt is as fertile as any in the world. When the 
 River Nile overflows it is full of very fine ijiud, and 
 this is left over the fields when the water goes down, 
 and is a wonderfully rich soil. Scarcely had the 
 water gone before the laborers began to plow and 
 break the ground and sow the seed. The plows 
 
 WATF.R-CARRIER. 
 
were very poor wooden affairs but they were good enough, as 
 the ground was soft and fine. A very small kind of oxen were 
 used to draw the plow. In the picture we see the wooden plow 
 and small cattle, also, how little clothing poor men wore, and the 
 wigs on their heads. Other men often followed after the plowman, 
 and broke up the lumps of dirt with queer wooden hoes. In such 
 work in old Egypt there were always " overseers " to direct the work- 
 
 men, and to see that they kept at work. In our picture there is such 
 an overseer, and also a man sowing seed. After the seed was sown they 
 did a strange thing. Instead of harrowing the ground, as we do, to cover 
 up the seed, they turned a flock of goats into the field, and drove them 
 around and around until they had trodden in the seed. As there is no 
 rain in Egypt, the fields and orchards had to be very carefully watered. 
 The water was taken from the river or from the tanks which had been 
 filled when the river was high. It was carried by men in buckets hung 
 to the end of a pole that they carried across their shoulders, and was 
 emptied into little channels or tubes running through the fields. J n 
 Egypt, wheat and barley grew rapidly, and before long the grain was 
 ready for the harvest. The wheat was cut just below the ear, and was 
 carried to some part of the field where a smooth, round place had been 
 cleaned and swept for a threshing floor. The wheat was brought from 
 the fields in wicker baskets on the backs of asses. Some of it was 
 placed OP the threshing floor, and oxen were driven around over it and 
 
 21 
 
WINE-PRESS. 
 
 trod out the grain from the husks. The men who drove the oxen around 
 and around upon the threshing floor used to sing threshing songs to the 
 oxen. Now and then they would put in some new grain to be trodden. 
 Men then separated the chaff from the grain with wooden shovels and 
 put the grain up into sacks which were carried on n.en's backs to the 
 granary to be stowed away. These granaries were somewhat bee-hive 
 shaped buildings, and had a little door above and one below. The men 
 coming in with the grain climbed on ladders to the upper hole and 
 emptied the sacks of grain into it. When wheat was wanted, the lower 
 door could be opened and out it would pour. It was probably in such 
 granaries as these that Joseph had the corn of the seven years of plenty 
 stowed away, for use during the seven years of famine. In Egypt, nowa- 
 days they have a different way of threshing, and use a norej. This is a 
 threshing machine drawn by oxen. It consists of a wooden frame- 
 work with round iron plates set in it. A driver sits upon a seat on 
 
 the machine, which is drag^cred around 
 over the grain. The grain is cut with a 
 long stalk, as we cut it. The weight of 
 the instrument and the iron plates not 
 only shake out the grain but cut the straw 
 at the same time. While they did not use 
 this norej in old Egypt, it is likely that it 
 was in use among the Jews. But wheat 
 ("corn") and barley were not the only 
 crops of the old Egyptians. They had, 
 also, orchards and vineyards, very pro- 
 ductive and very well kept. The grape- 
 vines were carefully trained over trellises, 
 
 ^;RANARIES. 
 
 22 
 
./ 
 
 / 
 
 smzji 
 
 ^■:\ 9 
 
 
 RRICK-MAKING IN EGYPT. 
 
 which were often beautifully painted and ornamented. The Doys 
 of Egypt were often hired to spend much time in the orchards 
 and vineyards to shout at the birds and to stone them with slings, to 
 keep them from destroying the fruit. When fruit-picking time came, 
 monkeys were sent up into the trees and vines to gather the grapes 
 and tigs. Great quantities of wine was made from these grapes 
 and it was pressed out in a bag twisted by sticks at the end, 
 turned by men. The juice as it was squeezed out ran into a tub or vat 
 below. In our picture of this wine-pressing, as also in the pictures of 
 water-carriers an"d brick-makintr, we have shown you something in coloringf 
 much like the old Egyptian pictures themselves We would not, perhaps, 
 think that the colors were natural, but the paints themselves are certainly 
 very good, for they have remained bright these many hundreds of 
 years. Perhaps the hardest labor among the Egyptians was the 
 making of brick out of clay. Only the very poorest were made to work 
 at this, and usually it was left to captives taken in war or to slaves. The 
 lews of Moses' time were made to make bricks under the direction of 
 
 23 
 
cruel taskmasters. The clay was 
 dug with rude wooden hoes, 
 loaded into vessels or baskets 
 and taken to the moulder. He 
 had a wooden box into which he 
 packed clay until the mould was 
 full. He then smoothed the clay 
 on the top, shook out the brick, 
 and left it to dry. Other men 
 came, loaded the dried brick 
 into loops at the ends of carry- 
 ing poles, and carried them 
 where they were needed. 
 Everywhere one might see 
 the taskmasters, who allowed 
 no rest to the toilers. You 
 remember how angry Moses 
 was at seeing their cruelty ? 
 The Jews in that time had a 
 hard lot. 
 
 The Egyptians were ter- 
 rible heathen. Unlike the' 
 Jews, who believed in one true 
 God, the Egyptians had many objects to which they prayed and made 
 sacrifices, — a great many gods and goddesses. They worshiped the Sun 
 and the River Nile. They worshiped their kings. They worshiped 
 hundreds of strange idols of beings like men and women, but with 
 all sorts of peculiarities. Some of their gods they worshiped, because 
 they were good and could help them ; and others because they 
 thought they were bad and could hurt them. Everywhere in Egypt 
 they worshiped cats, and dogs, and cows ; and in some parts they 
 thought that frogs, and goats, and hippopotamuses, were gods. One of 
 their gods, named Nubte, was generally represented in the pictures and 
 carvings as a being with a man's body and a beast's head — sometimes 
 with a hawk's head besides. He was usually considered rather bad, but 
 still might sometimes be useful, and was supposed to teach the king how 
 to shoot with a bow and arrow. Rameses III., one of the kings, is thus 
 represented as being taught how to shoot by this god Nubte. One 
 goddess in whom they believed had a great many forms. She was 
 supposed to have for her especial charge and duty the guardianship of 
 
 THE GOD NUBTE AND THE KING. 
 
 24 
 
the kine. One of her names was Nishem. 
 
 o ^ 
 
 woman with a cap and iwo ostrich feathers. 
 
 She is usually pictured as a 
 Often, however, she is in the 
 form of a vulture with outspread wings, hovering over a king as if to 
 protect him. (See headpiece to this chapter.) One of the most horrid 
 looking of the gods of Egypt is the one called Bes. In the paintings 
 he is made as a short, deformed man, with a curly beard and a head-dress 
 of feathers. He was probably the god of death, of destruction, and of 
 war. 
 
 The Egyptians were for a long time quite a peaceful people, but as 
 they gained wealth and 
 power they were forced to 
 learn war to protect them- 
 selves, and they became 
 great warriors at one time. 
 When they went to battle 
 there were among them 
 bowmen, who drew the 
 arrow to the head and sent 
 it with great force against 
 the foe, slingers of stones, 
 throwers of darts or jave- 
 lins, and brandishers of 
 swords. But the most 
 interesting part of their 
 army was the war chariot. 
 This consisted of a wooden 
 framework covered with 
 leather. There were two 
 wheels. The chariots 
 were drawn by two horses 
 and usually two men rode 
 in them ; one as driver, 
 
 BES. 
 
 warrior. Both 
 
 the other as warrior. Both of them wore 
 helmets made of cloth and wadded thick, so that a heavy blow upon 
 the head would not be felt. The warrior was clad in an armor of metal. 
 The whole upper part of his body was encased in a close-fitting coat 
 or jacket of overlapping metal plates. In his hand he held his bow and arrow 
 ready for use. The driver was not always clad in metal, but might wear 
 a thick wadded coat of cloth. At the side of the chariot hung the quiver 
 and bow-case In the quiver there were two spears and many arrows. 
 The bow-case was of leather, and intended to keep the bow out of the 
 
 25 
 
WAR CHARIOT. 
 
 sun when it was not in use. The horses were harnessed queerly. The 
 pole from the cart had a yoke near the end On this yoke hung two 
 small saddles, one of which fitted upon the back of each horse. They 
 were then held in place by girth straps. A breastband passed in front 
 of each horse. There was but one trace for each, both on the inside. 
 Such chariots were much used in the Egyptian army. When Moses led 
 the Jewish people out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, away 
 from the hard brick-making, up. toward their own dear land, there were 
 many of these chariots in uhe host that pursued after them. The 
 Lord opened a way for the Jews through the Red Sea, and they passed 
 over in safety. But "the waters returned and covered the chariots and 
 the horsemen, even all the host of Pharaoh that went in after them into 
 the sea ; there remained not so much as one of them." 
 
 26 
 
A PIECE OF DECORATIUN ON THE WALL OF AN ASSYRIAN PALACE 
 
 NIESOPOTAMIA. 
 
 In Soutliern Asia, near the head of the Persian Gulf, and around 
 it between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, there lies a district of 
 country called Mesopotamia. To-day it is a desolate and dreary land, 
 mainly low and flat, with little or no wealth or life about it. It was, 
 however, at one time of great importance, and several mighty nations have 
 grown up there. Thousands of years ago it was irrigated or watered 
 by artificial streams led from the rivers, and was one of the richest 
 farming regions of the world. Hundreds of beautiful cities dotted its 
 surface, and life and bustle were everywhere where now is only to be 
 found a scene of desolation, with here and there heaps of sand and rubbish. 
 These heaps of rubbish have been opened, and have been found to 
 contain ruins of grand old cities which fell to decay two thousand years 
 ago. Royal palaces have been found built on great artificial mounds of 
 earth. The halls of these palaces are often lined with slabs of stone 
 covered with elegantly carved pictures of kings and warriors, of 
 tortured prisoners, of gods and goddesses. Long inscriptions in 
 strange letters are carved upon these walls, also, and they tell us what the 
 pictures are about. At the doorways to these halls stand gigantic 
 beasts carved in stone, with heads of men, with wings of birds, with five 
 legs and feet. In some of these palaces they have found many old 
 books — perhaps the oldest in the world. They are very different from 
 any books that you have ever seen, and you would not at first think of 
 their being books at all. They are only little flat sheets of clay upon 
 which words were written with a sharp point. The clay was then baked 
 into a little brick and the "book" was done. More than ten thousand 
 of these little brick books have been found, and from them and the 
 pictured walls men have learned much about Mesopotamia. The first 
 great nation that arose in this region was Chaldea, in the Southern part. 
 
It came to be very powerful, and its last great capital city was Babylon. 
 Later on, a great power named Assyria rose in the North. In it was the 
 famous city Nineveh. Still later, Assyria lost its power, and where old- 
 Chaidea had been there was again a mighty empire with its capital at 
 Dabylon, and this new empire was called Babylonia. Now the people 
 of Chaidea, ^Assyria, and Babylonia were so much alike that we shall 
 speak of all of them together. They all had a great deal to do with 
 the Jews. In fact, Abram, from whom all the Jews descended, lived at 
 one time in the old Chaldean city Ur, and was himself a Chaldee, 
 I suppose He left Ur, and went to Canaan to establish a new 
 nation, — that of the Jews. Later on, when Assyria had grown to 
 be a great power, and the Jews had become a numerous people, 
 there was much trouble between them. 
 
 The Assyrian kings were many of them fond of hunting. In the 
 wall pictures of a palace at Nineveh we have a king in his chariot 
 out lion-hunting. He uses a bow and arrow, and we see that .several 
 shots were necessary to kill the animal. One of the greatest kings for 
 lion-hunting — and he was a great king in other ways, too — was Tiglath- 
 Pileser I., who says on his walls that he " killed one hundred and twenty 
 lions on foot and eight hundred" from his chariot. He was also a 
 hunter of elephants and wild bulls, and he had quite a menagerie of 
 wild animals, and tried to get new and curious kinds from all parts of the 
 world. The king of Egypt sent him a crocodile and some other 
 animals for his collection. 
 
 ASSYRIAN KING LION-HUNTINI 
 
 28 
 
ASSYRIAN KING OFKERING A LIBATION. 
 
 Like so many others of the old-time people whom the Jews knew, 
 the Assyrians and Babylonians had a great many different gods whom 
 they worshiped and to whom they made sacrifice. Such beings were 
 usually made in the pictures with wings, and carried sacred objects of 
 some kind. Thus in a picture of a king on his throne, probably offering 
 wine to a god, we see that the object of worship is represented as a man 
 with wings, carrj'ing a cane in one hand and a basket in tne other. Both 
 the cane and basket were sacred objects. The king is attended by two 
 servants, one of whom is his cup bearer, and the other some sort of guard 
 or attendant. Perhaps one of the favorite gods of the Babylonians was 
 Bel. Bel was one of the three great gods. There were many stories 
 told about him* but perhaps the one that Babylonian boys most liked to 
 hear was that about his fight with the dragon The dragon's name was 
 Tiamat, and she was a very dreadful creature indeed, and did a vast deal 
 of mischief. So the three chief gods, Anu, Ea, and Bel, concluded that 
 she must be destroyed. So Anu made a sword and a bow, and a 
 set of armor which Bel put on and went out to fight the dragon. She 
 expected to have a very easy victory, and so she came out of the sea with 
 a great many of her horrid companions. In the battle that followed, Bel 
 wounded her with his .sword. She was enraged, and rushed toward him 
 
BEI, ANU THE DRAGON. 
 
 with wide opened mouth. At Bel's command a heavy wind rushed in to 
 her, choking and tearing her within so that she fell down helpless, and 
 Bel bound her and the victory was his. Another great god among the 
 Mesopotamian peoples was the " Fish-God," who was half a man and 
 half a fish. In the pictures he is shown as having a fish head over his 
 own. The fish covered his back and reached half way down his body, or 
 in some cases to his feet. Like so many of their gods, he carries the 
 basket and the cane. The old Babylonians called the fish-man Oannes, 
 and told this story about him. The fish-man came up out of the sea and 
 lived among the men of Chaldea, to whom he gave much knowledge. 
 He taught them to build temples, to found cities, to make laws, to care 
 for land. While he spent his days among men, he went back at night 
 into the sea. Among the Assyrians he was called Dagon. This same 
 god, half-man, half-fish, was found among a great many other people in 
 Asia, particularly among those old enemies of the Jews — the Philistines, 
 who had five temples in his honor. One time the Philistines beat the 
 Jews in battle and carried away the holy " Ark of the Lord." They set 
 it in the great temple of Dagon, at Ashdod. It was left there over 
 night. In the morning the image of Dagon was found thrown down 
 
 30 
 
upon the ground. It was set up 
 again, but the next morning it 
 was found not only thrown down 
 but broken. It was a temple of 
 Dagon, where Sampson, after he 
 was bHnded, was made to dance 
 for the amusement of the Phihs- 
 tines, and where by dragging 
 down the pillars of the roof he 
 killed himself and avenged the 
 Jews. 
 
 There are very few parts of 
 the world where men did more 
 beautiful chiseling in stone than 
 in Assyria. All sorts of animals, 
 both wild and tame, were cut in 
 the most lifelike manner. Camels, 
 lions, hounds and horses occur in 
 the wall pictures. We have here 
 one picture that shows how well 
 animal pictures were cut. Two 
 Assyrian horsemen are pursuing 
 an Arabian on camel-back, 
 Though they were so fine cutters 
 of stone, and though they could 
 build such beautiful palaces, there 
 was perhaps never a more cruel 
 people than the Assyrians. In 
 war they were most brutal. In 
 attacking a city they beat in the 
 walls with battering rams, which 
 were long beams of wood, hung 
 by ropes so as to swing back and 
 forth, and tipped with heavy metal 
 heads. The whole thing was put 
 onto wheels, so that it could 
 be moved up ne.xt to the wall. 
 Sometimes they had towers mounted on wheels, and in these towers were 
 soldiers, who could stand on a level with the city walls and fight against 
 the people of the town, when the tower was wheeled up near the walls. 
 
 THE FISH-GOD OR DAGON. 
 
 31 
 
More common yet was it in attacking a city to put up ladders against the 
 walls. In the last of our Assyrian pictures — made as all our Assyrian pic- 
 tures are, very nearly like the old carvings themselves — we have an attack 
 upon a walled city. The men of the town are on the walls, defending 
 their city against the assault. The Assyrians are mounting ladders, 
 protecting themselves by round shields and using spears as weapons. 
 Below we see prisoners just taken in battle being led away. Such war 
 prisoners were treated most cruelly by the Assyrians. One king, named 
 Asshur-banipal, built a great heap of the heads of slain enemies. He 
 had the skin of the prince of his enemies torn from his body while he 
 yet lived. .Some of the prisoners he had walled up alive inside of pillars, 
 and others he had thrown upon sharp pointed stakes. It was no 
 uncommon thing for these cruel kings to cut off the hands, feet, ears and 
 noses of prisoners ; to put out their eyes ; to tear out their tongues. 
 They did not always do such things to prisoners, but very often would 
 take them away from their native land and settle them in Assyrian cities, 
 where the)- were allowed to live very much as they did when at home. 
 About twenty-five hundred years ago the king of Babylon had some 
 trouble with the Jews, and going up to Jerusalem he captured it and 
 plundered the Temple. He took some of the Jews back with him to 
 Babylon. The trouble continued, and so in a few years more he had 
 the city spoiled, the Temple completely destroyed, and the people all 
 taken into captivity. For more than fifty years the people lived in 
 
 ASSYRIANS CHASING AN ARABIAN. 
 32 
 
Babylon. They were 
 not treated very 
 badly, but many of 
 them longed for their 
 native land, their 
 loved city, and 
 mourned the destruc- 
 tion of the Temple. 
 The name of the 
 Babylonian king was 
 Nebuchadnezzar, 
 and it was during 
 this time of captivity, 
 when the Jews were 
 all at Babylon, that 
 he set up the great 
 Golden Image and 
 ordered all men to 
 bow down and wor- 
 ship it. Of course 
 the Jews, who did 
 not believe in idols 
 and idol worship, 
 ought not to obey 
 him. The three 
 young men who did 
 not obey him were 
 unhurt, even when 
 thrown into the fiery 
 furnace. At last, 
 when Cyrus became 
 king he allowed all 
 the Jews to go back 
 to their homes. Only fifty tnousand went. The captivity had lasted for 
 seventy years, and almost all who had been brought away were dead, 
 but there may have been old men in that return who remembered 
 being brought in as captives, when they were little boys. The old city 
 of Jerusalem was rebuilt and a new Teijiple was erected. 
 
 ASSYRIANS CAPTURING A FORTRESS. 
 
 33 
 
O R E B C E 
 
 The next really great race with whom the Jews met after the Egyp- 
 tians, Mesopotamians and Persians, were the Greeks. Josephus, a Jewish 
 writer, tells of a most interesting meeting between them. Alexander, 
 king of Macedon, one of the greatest generals that ever lived, with a 
 large army of Macedonians and Greeks, besides hired soldiers that he 
 had joined to himself from the different cities that he had conquered, was 
 on his way to Persia. The High Priest at that time in Jerusalem was 
 named Jaddua. Alexander sent messengers to him asking that he should 
 at once send him soldiers to help him against Darius, the king of Persia, 
 and provisions for his army. He said that if Jaddua would do so he 
 would be his friend. The High Priest replied to the messengers that he 
 could not do so ; that he had promised Darius not to bear arms against 
 him and that he would keep his word. This made Alexander very angry, 
 and he said as soon as he should capture Tyre, "the city he was then 
 attacking, he would go up against Jerusalem and punish the city 
 and the High Priest. In seven months he captured Tyre and then, 
 in two more, Gaza, and at last left for Jerusalem. Jaddua, the High 
 Priest, was in great terror, and he ordered all the people to make prayer 
 and sacrifice unto God to save them. He then said that God had told 
 him in a dream what they should do. He gave orders to the people 
 that they adorn the city as if for a holiday, throw open the city gates 
 and all dress in pure white. He and the other priests dressed in their 
 saci-ed robes, — they in their fine linen, and he in his scarlet and purple 
 and gold. Then as the army of Alexander marched toward the city, a 
 great procession of the Jewish people, all in white, with the High Priest 
 and the other priests at their head, marched slowly down from the city 
 to meet him. When they met, a strange thing happened. Alexander 
 approached the High Priest with respect, saluted him, and then adored 
 the name of God on the golden band of the Priest's head-dress. All 
 
 34 
 
SCENE IN THE WOMEN'S ROOM OF A GREEK HOME. 
 
 the Macedonian army wondered at this, for they had expected to capture 
 the city, kill the people and take much gold from the houses and the 
 Temple. But Alexander told them that he had seen such a priest in 
 a dream, and that he should not harm him. Then he went with the 
 Jews into the city, sacrificed to God in the Temple, and then after doing 
 them much kindness went on his way to Persia. There were many Greek 
 rulers afterward who were not so good to the Jews as Alexander. The 
 whole of that part of the world came so completely under Greek power 
 that the Greek language was spoken by everyone, and every little 
 schoolboy Jew learned to speak and read Greek as if it were his native 
 tongue. 
 
 I do not suppose that very many Jewish boys ever went to Greece. 
 If they did go there they found much to interest them, although the 
 Greek customs would not seem so strange to them as to us. The Greek 
 houses were queerly arranged. The men and women lived quite apart 
 
 35 
 
GREEK WOMEN SWINGING. 
 
 from each other. As you entered the front door you would come to a 
 large room where the men lived almost all the time — where they read 
 and talked, played and worked, and received callers. Back of this were 
 the rooms for women, j^oung girls and little children. Women and girls 
 seldom went onto the streets or made calls. When her husband had no 
 callers, the wife might go into the front rooms to visit with her husband, 
 but would at once retire if anyone came. Yet the women were not so 
 lonely and unhappy as we might think. There were always female 
 slaves around, and the daughters were good company for their mother. 
 There was embroidery and other fancy work to be done Then they, 
 had various amusements and games. There was an open yard for 
 outdoor play in their part of the house, and here they would swing one 
 another or play at see-saw very much as children do nowadays with us. 
 We would think it quite funny to see ladies" playing at such games. 
 Women might go out occasionally to the theatre, or, at certain times of 
 the day, for walks or for shopping. Still they were kept very much at 
 home and by themselves. Women slaves did the hard household work 
 and were sometimes badly treated. These slaves were usually prisoners 
 taken in war by the Greek soldiers and brought home to Greece. They 
 were sold in markets, and whoever bought them owned them just as 
 much as he did a chair or table for which he had paid. Perhaps the 
 happiest time of day to these poor slave girls was the early morning, 
 
 36 
 
when, with jug in hand, they went to the public fountain to get water for 
 the household. They were kept busy all day, and when there was 
 nothing else for them to do they were put to weaving and spinning, and 
 the result of their labor was sold by the master, who thus made much 
 money. 
 
 SLAVE GIRLS AT THE FOUNTAIN. 
 
 It was as warriors that we first spoke of the Greeks. They were 
 brave soldiers. The army of Greece was never such an one as that of 
 Rome, but the Greek soldier was brave, impetuous and fiery. He was 
 lightly clad and carried a spear and a round shield. He wore a helmet 
 with a crest. From boyhood he had been trained in the gymnasium, 
 and his body was well-knit and his movements graceful The Greek 
 soldiers were particularly fond of close hand-to-hand fighting. One of 
 the greatest battles of the world was fought by three hundred Greeks 
 against a million men from Persia. Xerxes, the Persian king, was their 
 leader. It took that vast host seven days to make their landing in 
 Greece. What could a little land like Greece do against such numbers ? 
 But a handful of Spartans, under the lead of Leonidas, took possession 
 
 2,7 
 
of a narrow road passing through the mountains over which the Persian 
 army must march. Here they fought for two days, and so many Persians 
 were killed that the army was frightened and the soldiers would gladly 
 have fled. But on the third day of the fight a traitor showed the 
 Persians a path around which they marched a party of soldiers, surprised 
 the poor Spartans from behind and killed them every one — fighting 
 bravely to the very end. Though the Persians gained the battle they lost 
 many, many men, and finally left Greece unconquered. No wonder that 
 Alexander the Great conquered the world, with such men for soldiers. 
 
 Sparta perhaps produced the bravest soldiers of Greece, but the 
 Greek city of the greatest beauty and wealth was Athens. At Athens, 
 in the springtime each year, for eight days there was a gay festival. 
 Men and boys upon the street were in their best attire. The dress of 
 the Greeks was very simple and neat. Men wore a long linen (or short 
 woolen ) jacket, falling in folds almost to the feet. This was called the 
 chiton, and was apt to be tied at the waist by a girdle. Over the shoul- 
 ders was a large square cloth carefully folded and arranged. This was 
 the himation. Often instead of this himation, which required a good 
 deal of care in its arrangement, a loose cloak called a chlamys was worn. 
 This buttoned over the right shoulder. The young man in the last of 
 our Greek pictures wears a chlamys, while the actors in the comedy 
 picture have on himations. The young man also wears a chiton and has 
 
 GREEK GIRLS ON A SEE-SAW. 
 38 
 
sandals upon his feet and a hat on his head. As we have already said men 
 and boys in the springtime were out in their best clothing for the Festival 
 of the Dionysia. This festival was given in honor of the god Dionysos, 
 the Greek god of wine. The whole eight days were given up to all 
 kinds of sport. Countrymen and boys flocked into Athens by thousands, 
 and the streets were thronged with people. On the street corners were 
 every sort of catch-penny shows. Here there would be a puppet show 
 very much like our Punch and Judy. There would be tumblers showing 
 off their jumps and twistings, or dancers, or men swallowing swords, or 
 trained monkeys performing many funny tricks. We should find the 
 greatest crowds at the theatres. 
 
 ROMAN STAGE SCENE. 
 
 Theatres were built in Greece on a hill side which would be cut 
 away so that seats might be arranged in curved rows rising one behind 
 another. The stage for the actors was in front, so that all the visitors 
 could see the performance. Two different kinds of plays were given at 
 these theatres — tragedies, where great deeds and terrible things were 
 done as if in earnest, and comedies, where everything was in fun and 
 meant to make people laugh. Women might go to tragedies but were 
 not allowed at comedies. Boys could go to both. The men who acted 
 
 39 
 
GREEK STAGE SCENE. 
 
 always wore masks, and in the comedies these were made to be as hideous 
 and comical as they could be. In a comedy, as it was intended that 
 there shoidd be fun and noise and laughter, these strange actors would 
 every now and then throw handfuls of nuts or figs out among the 
 audience, where there would be great scampering and scrambling to get 
 them. Another strange thing about a Greek theatre was, that people 
 might go there early in the morning and stay as long as they chose, 
 eatirtg their meals there if they pleased. At this great festival, during 
 the eight days while the Greeks gave up their time to sport and amuse- 
 ment, I am sorry to say that a great deal of wine was used and very 
 many men got drunk. With all their learning and bravery, their taste 
 for art and beauty, the Greeks were hard drinkers. At the head of this 
 
 40 
 
chapter you will see some of the beautiful vases and urns and wine cups 
 that they used. The little wine cups were usually emptied at one gulp. 
 Those that were in the form of beast heads are made so on purpose, as 
 they can only be set down steadily bottom side up,, and the wine had to 
 be all drunk before the cup could be laid by. 
 
 We have one ancient picture here that is not truly a Greek picture, 
 but a Roman one. We have seen what the actors in a Greek comedy 
 are like. Here we see how they appear in a Roman theatre. Here, 
 too, the idea is to make people laugh by the queer actions and strange 
 appearance of the actors. Queer music they have in this one ! See the 
 player blowing upon two pipes at once ? We shall see how this was 
 dohe later on. 
 
 GREEK WARRIORS. 
 
 The Greeks were very proud of a strong, well-formed body, and 
 they tried in every way to develop it. The gymnasiums were among 
 their most important buildings, and in them not only young men, but 
 men of every age, went daily to practice in running and jumping, in 
 wrestling and in throwing weights. Boys were trained in all these 
 exercises under regular instructors. Each one tried to do his best and 
 30 they made great progress. 
 
 4J 
 
into 
 part 
 the 
 
 Once in four years the 
 famous " Olympian Games " 
 were held at Olympia. As 
 the time drew near for this 
 great festival messengers 
 were sent to eaeh state of 
 Greece to announce its 
 approach. Almost always 
 quarrels were going on 
 between different Greek 
 cities or states, but when- 
 ever these messengers an- 
 nounced the approaching 
 games, all wars had to 
 stop. People came flocking 
 Olympia from every 
 of Greece. During 
 festival all sorts of 
 sports and contests took 
 place. Matches were held 
 in boxing, wrestling and 
 leaping, and there were 
 running races and chariot 
 races. There was the 
 greatest excitement over 
 these contests, and it was 
 held a high honor — the 
 highest honor, in fact, 
 among the Greeks — to win 
 the prize. The prize was 
 only a wreath of olive 
 boughs, but many a man 
 would rather gain that single wreath than a golden crown.- Besides 
 these games in the open race track there were other attractions in 
 a hall where the great speakers, writers and poets of the Greeks read 
 their latest pieces or plays to immense crowds of hearers. So important 
 did the Olympian Games become that five whole days were given up 
 to them. Similar games were held at other places — the Nemeans, the 
 Isthmian and the Pythian Games but nowhere else was there so much 
 of an attraction for the Greeks. 
 
 GREEK YOXTTH WITH CHLAMYS, 
 
 42 
 
ROME. 
 
 We now come to our last set of ancient pictures, and to the last of 
 the four great people whom the Jews knew. The Egyptians, the 
 Mesopotamians, the Greeks, had gone by,, and now the Jews were to 
 suffer at the hands of the Romans. The Egyptians were wise and great 
 builders, the Assyrians and Chaldeans were great hunters and cruel 
 conquerors, the Greeks were great speakers and fine artists, the Romans 
 were great soldiers. Their one thought was war. First they fought 
 with their neighbors in Italy. Having conquered them, they invaded 
 other lands until all the then known world was in their power. Every- 
 where one went he would see Roman soldiers. They conquered Judea 
 and put over it a Roman governor. Pontius Pilate, who condemned 
 Jesus Christ to die on the cross, was a Roman governor. Roman 
 soldiers were so common on the streets of Jerusalem that every little 
 Jew boy knew them and hated them. All Roman young men, except 
 the poorest and lowest, might have to $erve in the army. The Roman 
 soldier's dress consisted of a metal helmet, a breast guard made up of 
 metal strips and plates, similar metal strip guards upon his shoulders, and 
 metal bound straps hanging from his belt to protect him from blows in 
 front. Stout sandals, with thongs covering the larger part of the foot, 
 were worn. A heavy spear weighing several pounds was in his right 
 hand, and a shield was worn upon the left arm. A short sword hung at 
 his right side. (See Frontispiece.) In battle the soldier first hurled his 
 heavy spear at the enemy, and then drawing his sword rushed against 
 him in a hand-to-hand fight. In attacking towns the Romans had — like 
 the Greeks and Assyrians — battering rams and wheeled towers. They 
 had also machines for hurling heavy stones, and others for casting darts 
 and javelins. 
 
 Josephus, the same Jewish writer who tells of the meeting between 
 Alexander and the High Priest, has left us the story of the capture and 
 destruction of Jerusalem under the Roman general Titus. It was one 
 of the most terrible wars that ever took place. The Jews had become 
 tired of their Roman governors, and tried to free themselves from their 
 power. Vespasian was sent against them from Rome. He had a hard 
 
 43 
 
PICTURE FROM THE WALLS OF A HOUSE IN POMPEII. 
 
 time to capture the city of Jotapatra, which was in charge of Josephus, 
 at the head of the Jewish forces. Having captured it and some other 
 towns Vespasian returned to Rome, where he became emperor and sent 
 his son Titus against Jerusalem. The city was surrounded by three 
 walls. The Jews resisted the attack of Titus with great bravery. They 
 knew there would be no mercy for them, if beaten. Little by little the 
 Romans closed in upon the unfortunate city. Terrible battles took 
 place. Walls were battered down by the Romans only to find new 
 walls built within. War towers were built high enough to overlook the 
 city walls, and while they were being built the Jews built the walls yet 
 higher. Finally the outer wall was taken and the Jews were crowded 
 back. Terrible famine was in the city, and many died of hunger. Some 
 Jews threw themselves from the city walls in despair, and so were killed, 
 The temple was finally set on fire, and even within its holy walls a 
 terrible conflict took place. At last, after seven months of siege, the 
 city was taken. All was utterly destroyed, except part of the walls left 
 by Titus to show what a great city it had been. Ninety-seven thousand 
 Jews were taken away captive, and during the war more than one 
 million of them had been killed in Judea. The handsomest young men 
 among the captives were taken to Rome to be dragged behind the 
 chariot of Titus in his great procession. Of the rest, those who were 
 more than seventeen years old were sent to Egypt to work in the mines. 
 Those less than that — all the little Jew boys and girls — were carried 
 away to be sold as slaves. So the beautiful city and its grand Temple 
 were destroyed. Josephus says it had been captured six times before, 
 and once totally destroyed. The Jews, without a home, were scattered 
 over the whole earth. 
 
 44 
 
ROMAN WAR-GALLEY. 
 
 One of our pictures shows us a Roman war ship such as were used 
 in sea battles and in carrying soldiers to war. These galleys were rowed 
 by oars, but had sails also. The rowers were slaves. Each had a single 
 oar and sat as he rowed. The oars were in two or three sets one over 
 the other, and the rowers' seats were of course arranged in such a way 
 that the rowers of the upper oars sat above the others. The 
 oars passed out through small holes in the side of the vessel. The 
 rowers were protected by the side of the vessel, so that they were in 
 no great danger from arrows or spears in a battle. The upper set of 
 oars must have been very long and heavy. The front and stern of the 
 boat, like our vessels nowadays, were very likely be ornamented by 
 some quaint carving— perhaps the head of a bird, a dragon or a human 
 form. In war galleys, like the one in our picture, the front of the ship 
 was usually made with a sharp pointed keel, and was armed with spears, 
 blades, and other weapons which were intended to do great damage to 
 other ships in battle. Notice the man under the shelter at the stern of 
 the boat. He has two very broad paddles for steering the boat. The 
 sails were quite unlike our sails, and the rigging was quite different. 
 
 45 
 
ROMAN GLADIATORS. 
 
 At home, in the city of Rome, the people were very fond of public 
 games and performances at the theatres and in the Coliseum. These were 
 sometimes no more harmful than the games and plays of the old Greeks, 
 but sometimes were most cruel and dreadful. The Coliseum was one of 
 the grandest of the old Roman buildings. It was an oval stone building. 
 In the centre was a great race course or arena. Around this were the 
 seats for the spectators, one row of seats rising behind another. Eighty 
 thousand persons could sit there at one time and watch the sports going 
 on in the arena below. There were special seats of honor for the 
 emperor, and rich men and women. Terrible things were done in that 
 arena. Sometimes there were only chariot races, but at other times 
 captives taken in war would be put in there with a short sword as their 
 only weapon, and made to fight with wild beasts. The men were, of 
 course, often torn to pieces. At other times women and children and 
 old men, whose only crime was that they were Christians and loved and 
 served the true God, would be left to be killed and torn by lions. But 
 the sports in which the cruel Romans most delighted were the gladiator 
 fights. Gladiators were captives of war or slaves, who, to supply 
 amusement for their masters and the Roman people, were made to fight 
 with one another. In our picture we see two gladiators. One of them 
 is playing on a horn, probably giving the signal that the fight is about to 
 begin, or blowing a challenge. Behind him are two men, one holding 
 his shield, the other one his helmet. On the other side we see the 
 second fighter and his two assistants, one holding a helmet, the other a 
 sword. The man between them is probably to give the rules of the fight, 
 
 46 
 
The Romans, like the Greeks, were fond of feasts and music and 
 wine. At their meals they lay down on couches, and usually, after 
 eating, had music and wine. They had no pianos, those are a new thing. 
 But they did have a great many kinds of horns, and flutes and harps. 
 In the picture of a Roman theatre, which we saw before, there was a 
 picture of a player who was blowing upon two pipes at once. Here 
 we have another picture showing how it was done. One pipe is held in 
 each hand and passes through a band over the mouth, which keeps the 
 air from being wasted. 
 
 Our "ancient pictures" 
 from Rome come to us, not 
 from walls of graves and 
 temples, like those of Egypt ; 
 not from royal palaces, like 
 those of Assyria ; not from 
 vases, like those of Greece 
 — but from the walls of 
 houses at Pompeii. In the 
 year 79 — more than eighteen 
 hundred years ago, when 
 Rome was at its greatest 
 power, only nine years after 
 Jerusalem was captured by 
 Titus — a strange thing 
 occurred. The mountain 
 Vesuvius, which no one sup- 
 posed to be a volcano, 
 began to throw out melted 
 rock or lava and a great 
 cloud of fine dust that filled 
 the air like smoke. Many 
 people were killed, and much 
 
 \m//^^"" ':^':^;^' I property was destroyed. At 
 
 A PLAYER ON TWO PIPES. Pompeil SO much of the fine 
 
 dust fell that it completely buried the city. Many people living there 
 were killed by this dust and buried in it. For hundreds of years no 
 one knew but what the city had been destroyed. Finally, however, parts 
 of old buildings were found by digging, and now a large portion of 
 the old city has been brought to sight. Things were most wonderfully 
 preserved. Not only w^re such objects as ornaments of gold and silver 
 
 47 
 
M 
 
 
 ROMAN WINE- WAGON 
 
 found, but also tools of bronze, furniture of various kinds, and even 
 loaves of bread and the dried fruits and candies that the boys and girls 
 of Pompeii used to spend their coppers for. The houses were many 
 of them quite entire except the wooden parts. On the walls of the 
 different rooms the paintings were wonderfully bright and clear. In these 
 house-wall paintings we see many interesting scenes, and one of these 
 shall be our last " ancient picture." It is a wine merchant's wagon. It 
 consists of a light wooden framework upon which is a great skin bag. 
 This has a large opening in front through which the wine is poured 
 into the bag. At the other end is a smaller op*" ling through which the 
 wine is let out into vessels, and which can be tied up with a cord. A 
 slave is bringing some wine jars or amphorae to be filled. These jars 
 were pointed below, so that they could be stuck into the soft earth of the 
 cellar floor. 
 
 Our "ancient pictures" have been chosen only among people with 
 whom the Jews met and by whom they have been oppressed. Jakie and 
 Frank have had to leave their home and come to a strange land ; just so 
 have little Jew boys had to do through all the past. How many strange 
 things little Jews have seen ; how many they do see to-day ; how many 
 they may have to see in vears to come ! 
 
 4« 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 '^IK