I r' f OUTLINES OF HISTORY; ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES AND MAPS EMBRACING PART I,_JLNCIENT HISTORY, i PART II._JIODEEN HISTORY. PART ffl._OUTLINES OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. BY MAKCIUS WILLSOlSr, i\ AUTHOR OF "AMERICAN HISTORY," "HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES," ETC. (Kbition. NEW YORK: IVISON & PHINNEY, 178 FULTON STREET; (SUCCESSORS OF NEWMAN A IVISON, AND MARK H. NEWMAN uis Napoleon king of Holland. Confederation of the Rhine. Battles of Jena and Auerstadt. V11I. 1807, Treaty of Tilsit. IX. 1808, Events in Spain. Beginning of the Peninsular War. X. 1809, War with Austria. Battle of Wagram. Napoleon's divorce from Josephine. XI. 1810, Busaco and Torres Vedras. XII. 1811, Badajoz and Albuera. XIII. 1812, Russian Campaign. Smolensko Borodino Moscow. American War. XIV. 1813, General coalition against Napoleon. Lutzen Bautzen Lei psic. XV. 1814, Capitulation of Paris. Abdication of Napoleon. XVI. 1815, Napoleon's return from Elba. Battle of Waterloo Page 475503. SECTION II. FROM THE FALL or NAPOLEON TO THE PRESENT TIME. 1. The Psriod of Peace : 1815 1820. I. Treaties of 1815. II. England. III. France Page 50ft 512. 2. Revolutions in Spain, Portugal. Naples. Piedmont. Greece. France. Belgium, and Po- land: 1820-1831 Page 512550. 3. English Reforms. French Revolution of 1848. Revolution in the German States, Prussia, and Austria. Revolution in Italy. Hungarian War. Usurpation of Louis Napoleon : 18311852 Page 550562. GENERAL GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL VIEWS, ILLUSTRATED BY THE FOLLOWING MAPS. 1. Ancient Greece 564 2. Athens and its Harbors 566 3. Islands of the ^Egean Sea 568 4. Asia Minor 570 5. Persian Empire 572 6. Palestine 574 7. Turkey in Europe 576 8. Ancient Italy 578 9. Roman Empire 580 10. Ancient Rome 582 11. Chart of the World 584 12. Battle Grounds of Napoleon, &,c 586 J3. France, Spain, and Portugal 588 14. Switzerland, Denmark, &c 590 15. Netherlands. (Holland and Belgium).. 592 16. Great Britain and Ireland 594 17. Central Europe 596 18. United States of America 598 NOTE. For the Index to the Geographical and Historical Note*" see end of the volume. CONTENTS. PART III. OUTLINES OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY [OMITTED IN THE SCHOOL EDITION.] CHAPTER I. THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. I. Scriptural account of the Creation. II. Geological History of the Earth. III. Unity of the Human Race. IV. Institution of a Sabbath. V. The Origin of Discord. VI. Coincidences between Sacred and Profane History. VII. Traditions of the Deluge. VIII. Ancient Chronology Page 601-625. CHAPTER II. EAELT EGYPTIAN, ASSYRIAN, AND BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION. I. Exclusive policy of the Early Egyptians. II. Character of the testimony of Herodotus. III. The three great Egyptian dynasties. IV. Egyptian History from Menes to Joseph. V. 'ian Hieroglyphics. VI. The Early Inhabitants of Egypt. VII. Dwellings and Public ifices of the Egyptians. VIII. Egyptian Sculptures and Paintings. IX. Astronomical Knowledge. X. Mechanical Science XL Art of Weaving. XII. Working of Metals XIII. Science of Medicine. XIV. Literary attainments. XV. Division into Castes. XVI. Re- ligion. XVII. Materials of Assyrian History. XVIII. Assyrian Civilization, Page 625648. CHAPTER III. CHARACTER AND EXTENT OF CIVILIZATION DURING THE FABULOUS PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY, I. Grecian Mythology. II. Legends of the Heroic Age. III. Early Grecian Chronology. IV. Interpretation of the Grecian Fables. V. Religion of the Early Greeks. VI. Belief in a Future State. VII. Grecian form of Government. VIII. Geographical Knowledge. IX. Astronomy and Commerce. X. Dwellings and occupations of the people. XI. Manners. XII. Domestic Relations.-XIIl. The Israelites Page 648-666. CHAPTER IV. CHARACTER AND EXTENT OF CIVILIZATION DURING THE UNCERTAIN PERIOD OK GRECIAN HISTORY. I. Changes in Grecian Politics. II. National Councils. III. Public Festivals. IV. Grecian Colonization. V. Progress of Arts and Literature. VI. The Eleusinian Mysteries. CHAPTER V. THE GLORY AND THE FALL OF GREECE. 1 Closing Period of Grecian History. II. The Persian Wars. III. Battle of Platsea. IV. Im- portance of the Persian overthrow. V. The Age of Pericles. VI. Full development of iho democratic character of Grecian Institutions. VII. Cultivation of Rhetoric and Oratory. VIII. Historians, poets, and orators. IX. The Drama. X. Causes of the downfall of Athens 777. Page 689-710 CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST PERIOD OF ROMAN HISTORY: FROM THE FOUNDING OF ROME TO THE CONQUESTS OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE. L Authenticity of Early Roman History II. History of Regal Rome. III. Results of Criticism. IV. Constitutional History of Early Rome. V. Plebeian and Patrician contests. VI. Re- ligious Notions of the Romans. VII. Mode of Living, Social Condition, &c., under the Kings Page 710 727. 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. THE SECOND PERIOD OF ROMAN HISTORY: EXTENDING FROM THE CONQUESTS OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA. I. Political character of the closing period of the Republic. II. Moral and Social Condition of the people. III. Roman Literature. IV. The Arts. V. The Historical Prophecies Page 727 740. CHAPTER VIII. THE ROMAN EMPIRE. L Power and Majesty of Rome and her Caesars II. Foreign Policy. III. Internal condition of the Roman World in the Age of the Antonines. IV. The slaves of the Romans. V. Ro- man citizens. VI. Taxation. VII. The Roman Army. VIII. Religion of the Romans during the Empire. IX. Social Morality of the Romans. X. Outward appearances of general prosperity in the Age of the Antonines. XI. The Silver Age of Roman Literature. XII. Greek Literature during the Silver Age. XIII. Roman History after the Age of the Antonines. XIV. Increasing causes of decline Page 740764. CHAPTER IX. THE MIDDLE AGES. L Unity of character in ancient civilization. GREAT DIVERSITY OF THE ELEMENTS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. I. Elementary principles derived from the Roman Empire. II. The Chris- tian Church. III. The Barbarian World. IV. Unsettled condition of individuals. V. Of Governments and States. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS ARISING OUT OF THE ELEMENTS ENUMER- ATED. I. Impulses towards an escape from barbarism. II. Influences of the Church. III. The two-fold influences of Feudalism. IV. General insurrection of the cities. V. Effects of their enfranchisement. VI. Effects of the Crusades. ATTEMPTS AT CENTRALIZATION OF POWER. 1. Attempt at Theocratic organization. II. Attempts at Democratic organiza- tion. III. Attempts at a union of the various elements of society. IV. Successful attempts at Monarchical organization. V. Moral and intellectual changes in the fifteenth century. VI. Revival of Literature. VII. Inventions. VIII. Discoveries Page 764786. CHAPTER X. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. THE REFORMATION. I. The causes that led to the Reformation. II. Progress and extent of the Reformation. HI. Character of the Reformation. IV. Effects of the Reformation Page 786 802. CHAPTER XI. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. I. The contest that naturally followed the Reformation. II. Partial suppression of the Reformation in England, one cause of the English Revolution. III. The existence of free institutions in England, a second cause. IV. Resistance to mon- archy, and its overthrow, in England. V. Restoration of monarchy, and renewal of the contest. VI. Concluding event of the Revolution Page 802816. CHAPTER XII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. I. The French Revolution what is necessary to a correct under- standing of it. II. Growth and character of the French Monarchy and Nobility. III. Origin of the Third Estate, or Commons. IV. Character and position of the Galilean Church. V. Peculiarities of early French Legislation. VI. Relations between the ruling orders and the people during the century preceding the Revolution. VII. Causes of the development and spread of Free Principles. VIII. Louis XVI. The First Act in the Drama of the Revo- lution. Progress of the Revolution. IX. Change in its character. X. Termination, and Results Page 816845. PART I. ANCIENT HISTORY, CHAPTER I. THE EARLY AGES OF THE WORLD, PRIOR TO THE COMMENCE- MENT OF GRECIAN HISTORY. ANALYSIS. 1. THE CREATION. The earth a chaotic mass. Creation of light. Separation of land and water. 2. Vegetable life. The heavenly bodies. Animal life. 3. God's blessing on his works. Creation of man. Dominion given to him. Institution of the sabbath. 4. AN- TEDILUVIAN HISTORY. The subjects treated of. 5. The earth immediately after the deluge. The inheritance given to Noah and his children. 6. The building of Babel. [Euphrates. Geo- graphical and historical account of the surrounding country.] Confusion of tongues, and dis- persion of the human family. 7. Supposed directions taken by Noah and his sons. 8. EGYPT- IAN HISTORY. Mis'raim, the founder of the Egyptian nation. [Egypt.] The government established by him. Subverted by Menes, 2400 B. C. 9. Accounts given by Herod' otus, Jose- phus, and others. [Memphis and Thebes. Description of.] Traditions relating to Menes His great celebrity. [The Nile.] 10. Egyptian history from Menes to Abraham. The erection of the Egyptian pyramids. [Description of them.] Evidences of Egyptian civilization during the time of Abraham. 11. The Shepherd Kings in Lower Egypt Their final expulsion, 1900 B. C. Joseph, governor of Egypt. [Goshen.] Commencement of Grecian history. 12. ASIA- TIC HISTORY. [Assyria. Nineveh.] Ashur and Nimrod. [Babylon.] The worship of Nim- rod. 13. Conflicting accounts of Ninus. Assyria and Babylon during hla reign, and that of hia successor. 14. Account of Semir amis. Her conquests, &c. [Indus R.] The history of Assy- ria subsequent to the reign of Semir' amis. 1. THE history of the world which we inhabit commences with the first act of creation, when, in the language of Moses, the earliest sacred historian, " God created the heavens and the earth." We are told that the earth was " with- out form, and void" a shapeless, chaotic mass, shrouded in a man- tle of darkness. But " God said, let there be light ; and there was light." At the command of the same infinite power the waters rolled together into their appointed places, forming seas and oceans ; and the dry land appeared. 2. Then the mysteries of vegetable life began to start into being ; beautiful shrubs and flowers adorned the fields, lofty trees waved in the forests, and herbs and grasses covered the ground with verdure. 12 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I. The stars, those gems of evening, shone forth in the sky ; and two greater lights were set in the firmament, to divide the day from the night, and to be " for signs, and for seasons, and for days and for years." Then the finny-tribes sported in " the waters of the seas," the birds of heaven filled the air with their melody, and the earth brought forth abundantly " cattle and creeping things," and " every living creature after its kind." 3. And when the Almighty architect looked upon the objects of creation, he saw that " all were good," and he blessed the works of his hands. Then he " created man a in his own image ;" in the like- ness of God, "male and female created hq them;" and he gave them " dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This was the last great act of creation, and thus God ended the work which he had made ; and having rested from his labors, he sanctified a sabbath or day of rest, ever to be kept holy, in grateful remem- brance of Him who made all things, and who bestows upon man all the blessings which he enjoys. 4. The only history of the human family from the creation of IL ANTEDI- Adam t the time of the deluge, b a period of more than LUVIAN ms- two thousand years, is contained in the first six chap- >RY ' ters of the book of Genesis, supposed to have been written by Moses more than fourteen hundred years after the flood. The fall of our first parents from a state of innocence and purity, the transgression of Cain and the death of Abel, together with a gen- ealogy of the patriarchs, and an account of the exceeding wicked- ness of mankind, are the principal subjects treated of in the brief history of the antediluvian world. ^ ^, 5. When Noah and his family came forth from the ark, "after the deluge had subsided, the earth was again a barren waste ; for the waters had prevailed exceedingly, so that the hill- tops and the moun- tains were covered; and every fowl, and beast, and creeping thing and every man that had been left exposed to the raging flood, had been destroyed from the earth. Noah only remained alive, and they that had been saved with him in the ark ; and to him, and his three sons, whose names were Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the whole earth was now given for an inheritance. 6. About two hundred years after the flood, we find the sons of Noah and their descendants, or many of them, assembled on the a. 5411 B. C. b. 3155 B. C. CHAP. L] EARLY AGES. 13 banks of the Euphrates, 1 in a region called the " Land of ghmar," and there beginning to build a city, together with a tower, whose top, tm^j boasted, should reach unto heaven. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men in their pride and impiety were building ; and he there confounded the language of the workmen, that they might not understand one an- other ; and thus the building of the tower, which was called Babel, was abandoned, and the people were scattered abroad over the whole earth. 7. It is generally supposed that Noah himself, after this event, journeyed eastward, and founded the empire of China ; that Shem was the father of the nations of Southern Asia ; that Ham peopled Egyp^ ; and that the descendants of Japheth migrated westward and settled in the countries of Europe, or, as they are called in Scripture, the " Isles of the Gentiles." 8. Soon after the dispersion of mankind from Babel, it is supposed that Mis' raim, one of the sons of Ham, journeyed into Egypt, 8 where he became the founder of the most ancient and renowned nation of antiquity. The government es- tablished by him is believed to have been that of an aristocratic 1. The Euphrates, the most considerable river of Western Asia, has its sources in the table lands of Armenia, about ninety miles from the south-eastern borders of the Black Sea. The sources of the Tigris are in the same region, but farther south. The general direction of both rivers is south-east, to their entrance into the head of the Persian Gulf. (See Map, p. 15.) So late as the age of Alexander the Great, each of these rivers preserved a separate course to the sea, but not long after they became united about eighty miles from their mouth, from which point they have ever since continued to flow in a single stream. Both rivers are navigable a considerable distance, both have their regular inundations ; rising twice a year first in De- cember, in consequence of the autumnal rains; and next from March till June, owing to the melting of the mountain snows. The Scriptures place the Garden of Eden on the banks of the Euphrates, but the exact site is unknown. We learn that soon after the deluge, the country in the vicinity of the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates, where stood the tower of Babel, was known as the Land of Shinar : afterwards the empire of Assyria or Babylon flourished here ; and still later, the country between the two rivers was called by the ancient Greeks, Mesopotamia, a compound of two Greek worda, (mesos and potamos,) signifying "between the rivers." In ancient times the banks of both rivers were studded with cities of the first rank. On the eastern bank of the Tigris stood Nineveh; and on both sides of the Euphrates stood the mighty Babylon, "the glory of king- doms," and "the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency." Lower Mesopotamia, both above and below Babylon, was anciently intersected by canals in every direction, many of which can still be traced ; and some of them could easily be restored to their original condition. (See Map, p. 15.) 2. Ancient EGYPT, called by the Hebrews Mis' raim, may be divided into two principal por- tions ; Upper or Southern Egypt, of which Thebes was the capital, and Lower Egypt, whose capital was Memphis. That portion of Lower Egypt embraced within the mouths or outlets of the Nile, the Greeks afterwards called the Delta, from its resemblance to the form of the Greek letter of that name. (A) Ancient Egypt probably embraced all of the present Nubia, and perhaps a part of Abyssinia. Modern Egypt is bounded on the north by the Mediterra- 14 AXCIEXT HISTORY. [PABT I priesthood, whose members were the patrons of the arts and sciences ; and it is supposed that the nation was divided into three distinct classes, the priests, the military, and the people ; the two former holding the latter and most numerous body in subjection. After this government had existed nearly two centuries, under rulers whose names have perished, Menes, a military chieftain, is supposed to have subverted the ancient sacerdotal despotism, and to have estab- lished the first civil monarchy, about 2400 years before the Christian era. Menes was the first Pharaoh, a name common to all the kings of Egypt. 9. Upon the authority of Herod' otus 1 and Josephus, 2 to the first king, Menes, is attributed the founding of Memphis, 8 probably the most ancient city in Egypt. Other writers ascribe to him the build- ing of Thebes 4 also ; but some suppose that Thebes was built many uean, on the east by the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea, on the south by Nubia, and on the west by the Great Desert and the province of Barca. The cultivated portion of Egypt, embraced mostly within a narrow valley of from five to twenty miles in width, is indebted wholly to the annual inundations of the Nile for its fertility; and without them, would soon become a barren waste. The river begins to swell, in its higher parts, in April ; but at the Delta no increase occurs until the beginning of June. Its greatest height there is in September, when the Delta is almost entirely under water. By the end of November the waters leave the land altogether, having deposited a rich alluvium. Then the Egyptian spring commences, at a season corresponding to our winter, when the whole country, covered with a vivid green, bears the aspect of a fruitful garden. (Map, p. 15.) 1. Herod' otus the earliest of the Greek historians: born 484 B. C. 2. Josephtis a celebrated Jewish historian : born at Jerusalem, A. D. 37. 3. Memphis, a famous city of Egypt, whose origin dates beyond the period of authentic his- tory, is supposed to have stood on the western bank of the Nile, about fifteen miles south from the apex of the Delta the point whence the waters of the river diverge to enter the sea by different channels. But few relics of its magnificence now occupy the ground where the city once stood, the materials having been mostly removed for the building of modern edifices. At the time of our Saviour, Memphis was the second city in Egypt, and next in importance to Alexandria, the capital ; but its decay had already begun. Even in the twelfth century of the Christian era, after the lapse of four thousand years from its origin, it is described by an Orien- tal writer as containing "works so wonderful that they confound even a reflecting mind, and such as the most eloquent would not be able to describe." (Map, p. 15.) 4. The ruins of Thebes, " the capital of a by-gone world," are situated in the narrow valley of the Nile, in Upper Egypt, extending about seven miles along both banks of the river. Here are still to be seen magnificent ruins of temples, palaces, colossal statues, obelisks, and tombs, which attest the exceeding wealth and power of the early Egyptians. The city is supposed to have attained its greatest splendor about fifteen hundred years before the Christian era. On the east side of the river the principal rums are those of Carnac and Luxor, about a mile and a half apart. Among the former are the remains of a temple dedicated to Ammon, the Jupiter of the Egyptians, covering more than nine acres of ground. A large portion of this stupendous structure is still standing. The principal front to this building is 368 feet in length, and 148 feet in height, with a door-way in the middle 64 feet high. One of the halls in this vast building covers an area of more than an acre and a quarter ; and its roof, consisting of enormous slabs of stone, has been supported by 134 huge columns. The roof of what is supposed to have been the sanctuary, or place from which the oracles were delivered, is composed of three blocks of granite, painted with clusters of gilt stars on a blue ground. The entrance to this room was marked by four noble obelisks, each 70 feet high, three of which are now standing. At Lrjxor CHAT. I.] EARLY AGES. 15 centuries later. Menes appears to have been occupied, during most of his reign, in wars with foreign nations to us unknown. According to numerous traditions, recorded in later ages, he also cultivated the arts of peace ; he protected religion and the priesthood, and erected temples ; he built walls of defence on the frontier of his kingdom and he dug numerous canals, and constructed dikes, both to draw off MAP ILLUSTRATIVE OF EARLY HISTORY. are to be seen the remains of a magnificent palace, about 800 feet in length by 200 in width. On each side of the doorway is a colossal statue, measuring 44 feet from the ground. Fronting these statues were two obelisks, each formed of a single block of red granite, 80 feet in height, and beautifully sculptured. A few years ago one of these obelisks was taken down, and con- veyed, at great expense, to the city of Paris, where it has been erected in the Place de la Con- corde. Among the ruins on the west side of the river, at Medinet Abou, are two sitting colossal figures, each about 50 feet in height, supported by pedestals of corresponding dimensions. On the same side of the river, in the mountain-range that skirts the valley, and westward of tho ruins, are the famous catacombs, or burial-places of the ancient inhabitants, excavated in tho lolidrock. (J\lap,p.lZ.) 16 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT 1. the waters of the Nile 1 for enriching the cultivated lands, and to prevent inundations. His name is common in ancient records, while many subsequent monarchs of Egypt have been forgotten. Monu- ments still exist which attest the veneration in which he was held by his posterity. 10. From the time of Menes until about the 21st century before Christ, the period when Abraham is supposed to have visited Egypt,* little is known of Egyptian history. It appears, however, from hieroglyphic inscriptions, first interpreted in the present century, and corroborated by traditions and some vague historic records, that the greatest Egyptian pyramids 8 were erected three or four hundred years before the time of Abraham, and eight or nine hundred years before the era of Moses, showing a truly astonishing degree of power and grandeur attained by the Egyptian monarchy more than four thousand years ago. "When Abraham visited Egypt he was re- 1. The JVYZe, a large river of eastern Africa, is formed by the junction of the White River and the Blue River in the country of Sennaar, whence the united stream flows northward, in a very winding course, through Nubia and Egypt, and enters the Mediterranean through two mouths, those of Rosetta and Damietta, the former or most westerly of which has a width of about 1800 feet ; and the latter of about 900. The Rosetta channel has a depth of about five feet in the dry season, and the Damietta channel of seven or eight feet when the river is lowest. Formerly the Nile entered the sea by seven different channels, several of which still occasionally serve for canals, and purposes of irrigation. During the last thirteen hundred miles of its course, the Nile receives no tributary on either side. The White river, generally regarded as the true Nile, about whose source no satisfactory knowledge has yet been obtained, is supposed to have its rise in the highlands of Central Africa, north of the Equator. ( Map, p. 15.) 2. The pyramids of Egypt are vast artificial structures, most of them of stone, scattered at irregular intervals along the western valley of the Nile from Meroe, (Mer-o-we) in modern Nubia, to the site of ancient Memphis near Cairo. (Ki-ro.) The largest, best known, and most celebrated, are the three pyramids of Ghizeh, situated on a platform of rock about 150 feet above the level of the surrounding desert, near the ruins of Memphis, seven or eight miles south-west from Cairo. The largest of these, the famous pyramid of Cheops, is a gigantic struc- ture, the base of which covers a surface of about eleven acres. The sides of the base corre- spond in direction with the four cardinal points, and each measures, at the foundation, 746 feet. The perpendicular height is about 480 feet, which is 43 feet 9 inches higher than St. Peters at Rome, the loftiest edifice of modern times. This huge fabric consists of two hundred and six layers of vast blocks of stone, rising above each other in the form of steps, the thickness of which diminishes as the height of the pyramid increases, the lower layers being nearly five feet in thickness, and the upper ones about eighteen inches. The summit of the pyramid appears to have been, originally, a level platform, sixteen or eighteen feet square. Within this pyramid several chambers have been discovered, lined with immense slabs of granite, which must have been conveyed thither from a great distance up the Nile. The second pyramid at Ghizeh is coated over with polished stone 140 feet downwards from the summit, thereby removing the inequalities occasioned by the steps, and rendering the surface smooth and uniform. Herod' o- tus states, from information derived from the Egyptian priests, that one hundred thousand men were employed twenty years in constructing the great pyramid of Ghizeh, and that ten years had been spent, previously, in quarrying the stones and conveying them to the place. The re- maining pyramids of Egypt correspond, in their general character, with the one described, with the exception that several of them are constructed of sun-burnt brick. No reasonable doubt now exists that the pyramids were desigaed as the burial places of kings. a. 2077 B. C. CHAP. I] EARLY AGES. 17 ceived with the hospitality and kindness becoming a civilized nation ; and when he left Egypt, to return to his own country, the ruling monarch dismissed him and all his people, " rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." 1 1. Nearly a hundred years before the time of Abraham's visit to Egypt, Lower Egypt had been invaded and subdued* by the Hyc' sos, or Shepherd Kings, a roving people from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, probably the same that were known, at a later period, in sacred history, as the Philistines, and still later as the Phoanicians. Kings of this race continued to rule over Lower Egypt during a period of 260 years, but they were finally expelled, b and driven back to their original seats in Asia. During their dominion, Upper Egypt, with Thebes its capital, appears to have remained under the government of the native Egyptians. A few years after the expulsion of the Shepherd Kings, Joseph was appointed governor or regent of Egypt, under one of the Pharaohs ; and the family of Jacob was settled d in the land of Goshen. 1 It was during the resi- dence of the Israelites in Egypt that we date the commencement of Grecian history, with the supposed founding of Argos by In' achus, 1856 years before the Christian era. 12. During the early period of Egyptian history which we have described, kingdoms arose and mighty cities were found- ed in those regions of Asia first peopled by the imme- diate descendants of Noah. After the dispersion of mankind from Babel, Ashur, one of the sons of Shem, remained in the vicinity of that place ; and by many he is regarded as the founder of the Assyrian empire, 2 and the builder of Nineveh. 8 But 1. "The land of Goshen lay along the most easterly branch of the Nile, and on the east side of it ; for it is evident that at the time of the Exode the Israelites did not cross the Nile. (Hale's Analysis of Chronology, i. 374.) "The 'land of Goshen' was between Egypt and Canaan, not far from the Isthmus of Suez, on the eastern side of the Nile." (See Map, p. 15.) (Cockaync't Hist, of the Jews, p. 7.) 2. The early province or kingdom of ASSYRIA is usually considered as having been on the eastern bank of the river Tigris, having Nineveh for its capital. But it is probable that both Nineveh and Babylon belonged to the early Assyrian empire, and that these two cities were at times the capitals of separate monarchies, and at times united under one government, whose territories were ever changing by conquest, and by alliances with surrounding tribes or nations. 3. The city of Nineveh is supposed to have stood on the east bank of the Tigris, opposite the modern city of Mosul. (See JHap, p. 15.) Its site was probably identical with that of the pre- sent small village of Nunia, and what is called the " tomb of Jonah ;" which are surrounded by vast heaps of ruins, and vestiges of mounds, from which bricks and pieces of gypsum are dug out, with inscriptions closely resembling those found among the ruins of Babylon. Of the early history of Nineveh little is known. Some early writers describe it as larger than Babylon ; but little dependence can be placed on their statements. It is believed, however, a. 2159 B. C. b. 1900 B. C. c. W72 B. C. d. 1863 B. C. 2 !8 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! others 1 ascribe this honor to Nimrod, a grandson of Ham, who, as they suppose, having obtained possession of the provinces of Ashur, built Nineveh, and encompassing Babel with walls, and rebuilding the desert- ed city, made it the capital of his empire, under the name of Babylon, 9 that the walls included, besides the buildings of the city, a large extent of well-cultivated gar- dens and pasture grounds. In the ninth century before Christ, it was described by the prophet Jonah as "an exceeding great city of three days' journey," and as containing "more than six score thousand persons that c'ould not distinguish between their right hand and their left." It is generally believed that the expression here used denoted children, and that the entire popu- lation of the city numbered seven or eight hundred thousand souls. Nineveh was a city of great commercial importance. The prophet Nahum thus addresses her: "Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven." (iii. 16.) Nineveh was besieged and taken by Arbaces the Mede, in the eighth century before Christ ; and in the year C12 it fell into the hands of Ahasuerus, or Cyaxares, king of Media, who took great "spoil of silver and gold, and none end of the store and glory, out of all her pleasant furniture," making her "empty, and void, and waste." (Map, p. 15.) 1. According to our English Bible (Genesis, x. 11), "rfshur went forth out of the land of Shi- nar (Babylon) and builded Nineveh." But by many this reading is supposed to be a wrong translation, and that the passage should read, "From that land he (Nimrod) went forth into Ashur, (the name of a province,) and built Nineveh." ("De terra ilia egressus est Assur et zedificavit Nineveh." (See Anthon's Classical Dictionary, article Assyria. See, also, the subject examined in H ale's Analysis of Chronology, i. 450-1.) 2. Ancient Babylon, once the greatest, most magnificent, and most powerful city of the world, stood on both sides of the river Euphrates, about 350 miles from the entrance of that stream into the Persian Gulf. The building of Babel was probably the commencement of the city, but it is supposed to have attained its greatest glory during the reign of the Assyrian queen, Semir'- amis. Different writers give different acccounts of the extent of this city. The Greek historian Herod' otus, who visited it in the fourth century before Christ, while its walls were still standing and much of its early magnificence remaining, described it as a perfect square, the walls of each side being 120 furlongs, or fifteen miles in length. According to this computation the city embraced an area of 225 square miles. But Diodorus reduces the supposed area lo 72 square miles ; equal, however, to three and a half times the area of London, with all its suburbs. Some writers have supposed that the city contained a population of at least five millions of people. Others have reduced this estimate to one million. It is highly improbable that the whole of the immense area inclosed by the walls was filled with the buildings of a compact city. The walls of Babylon, which were built of large bricks cemented with bitumen, are said to have been 350 feet high, and 87 feet in thickness, flanked with lofty towers, and pierced by 100 gates of brass. The two portions of the city, on each side of the Euphrates, were connected by a bridge of stone, which rested on arches of the same material. The temple of Jupiter Belus, supposed to have been the tower of Babel, is described by Herod' otus as an immense structure, square at the base, and rising, in eight distinct stories, to the height of nearly 600 feet. Herod'- otus says that when he visited Babylon the brazen gates of this temple were still to be seen, and that in the upper story there was a couch magnificently adorned, and near it a table of solid gold. Herod 'otus also mentions a statue of gold twelve cubits high, supposed to have been the "golden image" set up by Nebuchadnezzar. The site of this temple has been identified as that of the ruins now called by the Arabs the " Birs Nimroud," or Tower of Nimrod. Later writers than Herod' otus speak of a tunnel under the Euphrates subterranean banquet- ing rooms of brass and hanging gardens elevated three hundred feet above the city ; but as Herod' otus rs silent on these points, serious doubts have been entertained of the existence of these structures. Nothing now remains of the buildings of ancient Babylon but immense and shapeless masses of ruins; their sites being partly occupied by the modem and meanly built town of Hillah, on the western bank of the Euphrates. This town, surrounded by mud walls, contains a mixed Arabian and Jewish population of six or seven thousand souls. (Map, p. 15.) CHAP. I.] EARLY AGES. 1$ about 600 years after the deluge, and 2555 years before the Chris- tian era. After his death, Nimrod was deified for his great actions, and called Belus : and it is supposed that the tower of Babel, rising high above the walls of Babylon, but still in an unfinished state, was consecrated to his worship. 13. While some believe that the monarch Ninus was the son of Nimrod, and that Assyria and Babylon formed one united empire under the immediate successors of the first founder ; others regard Ninus as an Assyrian prince, who, by conquering Babylon, united the hitherto separate empires, more than four hundred years after the reign of Nimrod ; while others still regard Ninus as only a per- sonification of Nineveh-* During the reign of Ninus, and also during that of his supposed queen and successor, Semir' amis, the boundaries of the united Assyrian and Babylonian empires are said to have been greatly enlarged by conquest ; but the accounts that are given of these events are evidently so exaggerated, that little re- liance can be placed upon them. 14. Semir' amis, who was raised from an humble station to be- come the queen of Ninus, is described as a woman of uncommon courage and masculine character, the main object of whose ambition was to immortalize her name by the greatness of her exploits. Her conquests are said to have embraced nearly all the then known world, extending as far as Central Africa on the one hand, and as far as the Indus, 1 in Asia, on the other. She is said to have raised, at one time, an army of more than three millions of men, and to have em- ployed two millions of workmen in adorning Babylon statements wholly inconsistent with the current opinion of the sparse population of the world at this early period. After the reign of Semir' amis, which is supposed to have been during the time of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, little is known of the history of Assyria for more than thirty generations. 1. The river Indus, or Sinde, rises in the Himmaleh mountains, and running in a soulh-w*- erly direction enters the Arabian Sea near the western extremity of Hindostan. a. Niebuhr's Ancient Hist. i. 55. 20 ANCIENT HISTORY. PART L CHAPTER II. THE FABULOUS AND LEGENDARY PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY : ENDING WITE THE CLOSE OF THE TROJAN WAR, 1183 B. C. ANALYSIS. 1. Extent of Ancient Greece. Of Modern Greece. The most ancient name of the country. 2. The two general divisions of Modern Greece. Extent of Northern Greece. Of the Morea. Whole area of the country so renowned in history. 3. The general surface of the country. Its fertility. 4. Mountains of Greece. Rivers. Climate. The seasons. Scenery. Classical associations. 5. GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY, the proper introduction to Grecian history. 6. Chaos. Earth, and Heaven. The offspring of Earth and U' ranus. [U ' ran us ; the Titans : the Cyclopes.] 7. U' rauua is dethroned, and is succeeded by Sat' urn. [The Furies: the Giants: and the Melian Nymphs. Venus. Sat' urn. Jupiter. Nep'tune. Pluto.] 8. War of tho Titans against Sat' urn. War of the Giants with Jupiter. The result. New dynasty of the gods. 9. The wives of Jupiter. [Juno.] His offspring. [Mer'cury. Mars. Apol'lo. Vul'can. Diana. Miner' va.] Other celestial divinities. [Ceres. Ves'ta.] 10. Other deities not included among the celestials. [Bac' chus. Iris. Hebe. The Muses. The Fates. The Graces.] Monsters. [Harpies. Gor'- gons.] Rebellions against Jupiter. [Olym'pus.] 11. Numbers, and character, of the legends of the gods. Vulgar belief, and philosophical explanations of them. 12. EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE. The Pelas'gians. Tribes included under this name. 13. Character and civilization of the Pelas'gians. [Cyclopean structures. Asia Minor.] 14. FOREIGN SETTLERS IN GREECE. Reputed founding of Ar'gos. [Ar'gos. Ar'- ?olis. Oceanus. In' achus.] The accounts of the early Grecian settlements not reliable. 15. The founding of Athens. [At' tica. Ogy'ges.] The elements of Grecian civilization attributed to Cecrops. The story of Cecrops doubtless fabulous. 16. Legend of the contest between Min- er' va and Nep'tune. 17. Cran'aus and Amphic'tyon. Dan'aus and Cad' mus. [Boeotia. Thebes.] 18. General character of the accounts of foreign settlers in Greece. Value of these tra- ditions. The probable truth in relation to them, which accounts for the intermixture of foreign with Grecian mythology. [^Egean Sea.] 19. The HELLENES appear in Thessaly, about 1384 B. C., and become the ruling class among the Grecians. 20. Ilellen the son of Deucalion. The several Grecian tribes. The Julian tribe. 21. The HEROIC AGE. Our knowledge of Grecian history during this period. Character and value of the Heroic legends. The most important of them. [1st. Hercules. 2d. Theseus. 3d. Argonaiitic expedition. 4tb. Theban and Ar'golic war.] 22. The Argonautic expedition thought the most important. Probably a poetic fiction. [Samothrace. Euxine Sea.] Proba- bility of naval expeditions at this early period, and their results. [Minos. Crete] 23. Opet- vng of the Trojan war. Its alleged causes. [Troy. Lacedae'mon.] 24. Paris, the flight of Helen, the war which followed. 25. Remarks on the supposed reality of the war. [The fable of Helen.] 26. What kind of truth is to be extracted from Homer's account. COTEMPORARY HISTORY. 1. Our limited knowledge of cotemporary history during this period. Rome. Europe. Central Western Asia. Egyptian History. 2. The conquests of Sesos' tris. [Libya. Ethi6pia. The Gauges. Thracians and Scythians.] The columns erect- ed by Sesos' tris. 3. Statues of Sesostris at Ipsam' boul. Historical sculptures. 4. Remarks on the evidences of the existence of this conqueror. The close of his reign. Subsequent Egyptian history. 5. The Israelites at the period of the commencement of Grecian history. Their situation after the death of Joseph. Their exodus from Egypt, 1648 B. 0. 6. Wander- ing in the wilderness. Passage of the Jordan. [Arabia. Jordan. Palestine.] Death of CHAP. 1L] GRECIAN HISTORY. '21 Israel during the time of Joshua and the ciders. 7. Israel ruled by judges until the time of Saul. The Israelites frequently apostatize to idolatry. [Mdabites. Canaanites.] S. Their deliverance from the Mid' iauites and Am' alekites. [Localities of these tribes.] 9. De- liverance from the Philistines and Am' monites. [Localities of these tribes.] Samson, Eli, and Samuel. Saul anointed king over Israel, 1110 B. C. 10. Closing remarks. 1. GREECE, which is the Roman name of the country whose his- i GEOOKAPHI- * orv we nex * P rocee d to narrate, but which was called OAL DESCUIP- by the natives Hel' las, denoting the country of the [ON * Hellenes, comprised, in its most flourishing period, nearly the whole of the great eastern peninsula of southern Europe extending north to the northern extremity of the waters of the Grecian Archipelago. Modern Greece, however, has a less extent on the north, as Thes' saly, Epirus, and Macedonia have been taken from it, and annexed to the Turkish empire. The area of Modern Greece is less than that of Portugal ; but owing to the irregularities of its shores, its range of seacoast is greater than that of the whole of Spain. The most ancient name by which Greece was known to other nations was Ionia, a term which Josephus derives from Ja- van, the son of Japhet, and grandson of Noah : although the Greeks themselves applied the term Zones only to the descendants of the fabulous /' on, son of Xuthus. 2. Modern Greece is divided into two principal portions : North- ern Greece or Hel' las, and Southern Greece, or Mor6a anciently called Peloponnesus. The former includes the country of the an- cient Grecian States, Acarnania, JEtolia, Locris, Phocis, Doris, Bceotia, Eubce'a, and At'tica; and the latter, the Peloponnesian States of E' lis, Achaia, Cor' inth, Ar' golis, Laconia, and Messenia; whose localities may be learned from the accompanying map. The greatest length of the northern portion, which is from north-west to south-east, is about two hundred miles, with an average width of fifty miles. The greatest length of the Morea, which is from north to south, is about one hundred and forty miles. The whole area of the country so renowned in history under the name of Greece or Hel' las, is only about twenty thousand square miles, which is less than half the area of the State of Pennsylvania. 3. The general surface of Greece is mountainous ; and almost the only fertile spots are the numerous and usually narrow plains along the sea-shore and the banks of rivers, or, as in several places, large basins, which apparently once formed the beds of mountain lakes. The largest tracts of level country are in western Hel' las, and along the northern and north-western shores of the Morea. 22 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAST L 4. The mountains of Greece are of the Alpine character, and are remarkable for their numerous grottos and caverns. Their abrupt summits never rise to the regions of perpetual snow. There are no navigable rivers in Greece, but this want is obviated by the numerous gulfs and inlets of the sea, which indent the coast on every side, and thus furnish unusual facilities to commerce, while they add to the Variety and beauty of the scenery. The climate of Greece is for the most part healthy, except in the low and marshy tracts around the shores and lakes. The winters are short. Spring and autumn are rainy seasons, when many parts of the country are inundated ; but during the whole summer, which comprises half the year, a cloud in the sky is rare in several parts of the country. Grecian scenery is unsurpassed in romantic wildness and beauty ; but our deepest inter- est in the country arises from its classical associations, and the ruins of ancient art and splendor scattered over it. 5. As the Greeks, in common with the Egyptians and other East- ern nations, placed the reign of the gods anterior to the race of mortals, therefore Grecian mythology 1 forms the most appropriate introduction to Grecian history. 6. According to Grecian philosophy, first in the order of time came Chaos, a heterogeneous mass containing all the seeds of nature ; then " broad-breasted Earth," the mother of the gods, who produced U' ranus, or Heaven, the mountains, and the barren and billowy sea. Then Earth married U' ranus 3 or Heaven, and from this union came a numerous and powerful brood, the Titans 3 and the Cyclopes,* and the gods of the wintry season, Kot' tos, Briareus, and Gy' ges, who had each a hundred hands, supposed to be personifications of the kail, the rain, and the snow. 1. MYTHOLOGY, from two Greek words signifying a " fable" and a " discourse? is a system of myths, or fabulous opinions and doctrines respecting the deities which heathen nations have supposed to preside over the world, or to influence its affairs. 2. U' ranus, from a Greek word signifying " heaven," or " sky," was the most ancient of all the gods. 3. The Titans were six males Oceanus, Coios, Crios, Hyperion, Japetus, and Kronos, or Sat' urn, and six females, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemos' yne, Phce'be, and Tethys. Oceanus, or the Ocean, espoused his sisterTethys, and their children were the rivers of the earth, and the three thousand Oceanides or Ocean-nymphs. Hyperion married his sister Theia, by whom he had Aurora, or the morning, and also the sun and moon. 4. The CyclSpes were a race of gigantic size, having but one eye, and that placed in the centre of the forehead. According to some accounts there were many of this race, but according to the poet Hesiod, the principal authority in Grecian mythology, they were only three in num- ber, Brori tes, Ster' opes, and Ar' ges, words which signify in the Greek, Thunder, Lightning, ad the rapid Blame. The poets converted them into smiths the assistants of the fire-god Vulcan. The Cyclopes were probably personifications of the energies of the "powers of the air." HEATHEN DEITIES- 24 ANCIWT HISTORY. [PART I. 7. The Titans made war upon their father, who was wounded by Sat' urn, 1 the youngest and bravest of his sons. From the drops of blood which flowed from the wound and fell upon the earth, sprung the Furies, 2 the Giants, 3 and the Melian nymphs ; 4 and from those which fell into the sea, sprung Venus, 5 the goddess of love and beauty. U'ranus or Heaven being dethroned, Sat' urn, by the consent of his brethren, was permitted to reign in his stead, on condition that he would destroy all his male children : but Rhea his wife concealed from him the birth of Jupiter, 6 Nep' tune, 7 and Pluto. 8 1. Sat' urn, the youngest but most powerful of the Titans, called by the Greeks, Kronos, & word signifying "Time," is generally represented as an old man, bent by age and infirmity, holding a scythe in hia right hand, together with a serpent that bites its own tail, which is an emblem of time, and of the revolution of the year. In his left hand he has a child which he raises up as if to devour it as time devours all things. When Sat' urn was banished by his son Jupiter, he is said to have fled to Italy, where he employed himself in civilizing the barbarous manners of the people. His reign there was so beneficent and virtuous that mankind have called it the golden age. According to Hesiod, Sat' urn ruled over the Isles of the Blessed, at the end of the earth, by the " deep eddying ocean." 2. The Furies were three goddesses, whose names signified the "Unceasing," the "Envier," and the " Blood-avenger." They are usualy represented with looks full of terror, each brand- ishing a torch in one hand and a scourge of snakes in the other. They torment guilty con- sciences, and punish the crimes of bad men. 3. The Giants are represented as of uncommon stature, with strength proportioned to their gigantic size. The war of the Titans against Sat' urn, and that of the Giants against Jupiter, are very celebrated in mythology. It is believed that the Giants were nothing more than the ener- gies of nature personified, and that the war with Jupiter is an allegorical representation of some tremendous convulsion of nature in early times. 4. In Grecian mythology, all the regions of earth and water were peopled with beautiful fe- male forms called nymphs, divided into various orders according to the place of their abode. The Melian nymphs were those which watched over gardens and flocks. 5. Vemts, the most beautiful of all the goddesses, is sometimes represented as rising out of the sea, and wringing her locks, sometimes drawn in a sea-shell by Tritons sea-deities that were half fish and half human and sometimes in a chariot drawn by swans. Swans, doves, and sparrows, were sacred to her. Her favorite plants were the rose and the myrtle. 6. Jupiter, called the "father of men and gods," is placed at the head of the entire system of the universe. He is supreme over all : earthly monarchs derive their authority from him, and his will is fate. He is generally represented as majestic in appearance, seated on a throne, with a sceptre in one hand, and thunderbolts in the other. The eagle, which is sacred to him, is standing by his side. Regarding Jupiter as the surrounding ether, or atmosphere, the numer- ous fables of thia monarch of the gods may be considered allegories which typify the great gen- erative power of the universe, displaying itself in a variety of ways, and under the greatest diversity of forms. 7. Nep'tune, the "Earth-shaker," and ruler of the sea, is second only to Jupiter in power. He is represented, like Jupiter, of a serene and majestic aspect, seated in a chariot made of a Bhell, bearing a trident in his right hand, and drawn by dolphins and sea-horses ; while the tritons, nymphs, and other sea-monsters, gambol around him. 8. Pluto, called also Hades and Or' cus, the god of the lower world, is represented as a man of a stern aspect, seated on a throne of sulphur, from beneath which flow the rivers Lethe or Oblivion, Phleg' ethon, Cocy'tus, and Ach'eron. In one hand he holds a bident, or sceptre with two forks, and in the other the keys of hell. His queen, Pros' erpine, is sometimes seated by him. He is described by the poets as a being inexorable and deaf to supplication, and an CHAP. II.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 25 8. The Titans, informed that Sat' urn had saved his children, made war upon him and dethroned him ; but he was restored by his son Jupiter. Yet the latter afterwards conspired against his father, and after a long war with him and his giant progeny, which lasted ten full y^ears, and in which all the gods took part, he drove Sat' urn from the kingdom, and then divided, between himself and his brothers Nep'tune and Plato, the dominion of the universe, taking heaven as his own portion, and assigning the sea to Nep'tune, and to Pltito the lower regions, the abodes of the dead. With Jupiter and his brethren begins a new dynasty of the gods, being those, for the most part, whom the Greeks recognised and worshipped. 9. Jupiter had several wives, both goddesses and mortals, but last of all he married his sister Juno, 1 who maintained, permanently, the dignity of queen of the gods. The offspring of Jupiter were numerous, comprising both celestial and terrestrial divinities. The most noted of the former were Mer'cury, 2 Mars, 3 Apol'lo,* Vul'can, 8 object of aversion and hatred to both gods and men. From his realms there is no return, and all mankind, sooner or later, are sure to be gathered into his kingdom. As none of the goddesses would marry the stern and gloomy god, he seized Pros' erpine, the daughter of Ceres, while she was gathering flowers, and opening a passage through the earth, carried her to his abode, and made her queen of his dominions. 1. Juno, a goddess of a dignified and matronly air, but haughty, jealous, and inexorable, is represented sometimes as seated on a throne, holding in one hand a pomegranate, and in the other a golden sceptre, with a cuckoo on its top ; and at others, as drawn in a chariot by pea- cocks, and attended by I' ris, the goddess of the rainbow. The many quarrels attributed to Jupiter and Juno, are supposed to be physical allegories- Jupiter representing the ether, or upper regions of the air, and Juno the lower strata hence their quarrels are the storms that pass over the earth : and the capricious and quick-changing temper of the spouse of Jove, is typical of the ever-varying changes that disturb our atmos- phere. 2. Mcr' cury, the confident, messenger, interpreter, and ambassador of the gods, was himself the god of eloquence, and the patron of orators, merchants, thieves and robbers, travellers and Bhepherds. He is said to have invented the lyre, letters, commerce, and gymnastic exercises. His thieving exploits are celebrated. He is usually represented with a cloak neatly arranged on his person, having a winged cap on his head, and winged sandals on his feet. In his hand be bears his wand or staff, with wings at its extremity, and two serpents twined about it. 3. Jl/ars, the god of war, was of huge size and prodigious strength, and his voice was louder than that of ten thousand mortals. He is represented as a warrior of a severe and menacing air, dressed in the style of the Heroic Age, with a cuirass on, and a round Grecian shield on his arm. He is sometimes seen standing in a chariot, with Bellona his sister for a charioteer. Terror and Fear accompany him ; Discord, in tattered garments, goes before him, and Anger and Clamor follow. 4. dpol'lo, the god of archery, prophecy, and music, is represented in the perfection of manly strength and beauty, with hair long and curling, and bound behind his head ; his brows are wreathed with bay: sometimes he bears a lyre in his hand, and sometimes a bow, with a gold- en quiver of arrows at his back. 5. Vul' can was the fire-god of the Greeks, and the artificer of heaven. He was born lame, and his mother Juno was y> shocked at the sight that she flung him from Olym'pus. He forged the thunderbolts of Jupiter, also the arras of gods and demi-gods. He is usually repre- sented as of ripe age, with a serious countenance and muscular form. His hair hangs in curls 26 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I. Diana, 1 and Miner' va. a There were two other celestial divinities, Ceres 3 and Ves'ta, 4 making, with Juno, Nep'tune, and Pluto, twelve in all. 10. The number of other deities, not included among the celestials, was indefinite, the most noted of whom were Bac' chus, 6 I'^is, 6 Hebe, 7 the Muses," the Fates, 9 and the Graces; 10 also Sleep, Dreams, and Death. There were also monsters, the offspring of the gods, pos- sessed of free will and intelligence, and having the mixed forms of on his shoulders. He generally appears at his anvil, in a short tunic, with his right arm bare, and sometimes with a pointed cap on his head. 1. Diana, the exact counterpart of her brother Apol'lo, was queen of the woods, end the goddess of hunting. She devoted herself to perpetual celibacy, and her chief joy was to speed like a Dorian maid over the hills, followed by a train of nymphs, in pursuit of the flymor game. She is represented as a strong, active maiden, lightly clad, with a bow or hunting spear in her hand, a quiver of arrows on her shoulders, wearing the Cretan hunting-shoes, and attended by a hound. 2. Miner' va, the goddess of wisdom and skill, and, as opposed to Mars, the patroness and teacher of just and scientific warfare, is said to have sprung, full armed, from the braui of Ju- piter. She is represented with a serious and thoughtful countenance ; her hair hangs in ring- lets over her shoulders, and a helmet covers her head : she wears a long tunic or ni^le, and bears a spear in one hand, and an aegis or shield, on which is a figure of the Gorgon's head, in the other. 3. Ceres was the goddess of grain and harvests. The most celebrated event in her history is the carrying off of her daughter Pros' erpine by Pluto, and the search of the goddess after her throughout the whole world. The form of Ceres is like that of Juno. She is represented bear- ing poppies and ears of corn in one hand, a lighted torch iu the other, and wearing on her head a garland of poppies. She is also represented riding in a chariot drawn by dragona, and dis- tributing corn to the different regions of the earth. 4. Ves' ta, the virgin goddess who presided over the domestic hearth, is representec 1 *r a long flowing robe, with a veil on her head, a lamp in one hand, and a spear or javelin in the other. In every Grecian city an altar was dedicated to her, on which a sacred fire was kept constantly burning. In her temple at K,ome the sacred fire was guarded by six priestesses, called the Vestal Virgins. 5. Bac' cftiiK, the god of wine, and the patron of drunkenness and debauchery, is represented as an effeminate young man, with long flowing hair, crowned with a garland of vine leaves, and generally covered with a cloak thrown loosely over his shoulders. In one hand he holds a goblet, and in the other clusters of grapes and a short dagger. 6. 1' ris, the "golden winged," was the goddess of the rainbow, and special messenger of the king and queen of Olympus. 7. The blooming Hebe, the goddess of Youth, was a kind of maid-servant who handed around the nectar at the banquets of the gods. 8. The Muses, nine in number, were goddesses who presided over poetry, music, and all the liberal arts and sciences. They are thought to be personifications of the inventive peters of the mind, as displayed in the several arts. 9. The Fates were three goddesses who presided over the destinies of mortals: 1st, Clotho, who held the distaff; 2d, Lach' esis, who spun each one's portion of the thread of life ; and 3d, At' ropos, who cut off the thread with her scissors. "Clotho and Lach' esis, whose boundless sway, With At' ropos, both men and gods obey !" HESIOD. 10. The Oraces were three young and beautiful sisters, whose names signified, respectively, Splendor, Joy, and Pleasure. They are supposed to have been a symbolical representation of all that is beautiful and attractive. They are represented as dancing together, or standing with their anus entwined. CHAP. II] GRECIAN HISTORY. 27 animals and men. Such were the Har'pies; 1 the Gorgons; 8 the winged horso Peg' asus ; the fifty, or, as some say, the hundred head- ed dog Cer'berus; the Cen'taurs, half men and half horses; the Ler' nean Ily' dra, a famous water serpent ; and Scyl' la and Charyb'- dis, fearful sea monsters, the one changed into a rock, and the other into a whirlpool on the coast of Sicily, the dread of mariners. Many rebellious attempts were made by the gods and demi-gods to dethrone Jupiter ; but jby his unparalleled strength he overcame all his enemies, and holding his court on mount Olyrn' pus, 3 reigned su- preme god over heaven and earth. 11. Such is the brief outline of Grecian mythology. The legends of the gods and goddesses are numerous, and some of them are of exceeding interest and beauty, while others shock and disgust us by the gross impossibilities and hideous deformities which they reveal. The great mass . of the Grecian people appear to have believed that their divinities were real persons ; but their philosophers explained the legends concerning them as allegorical representations of general physical and moral truths. The Greek, therefore, instead of wor- shipping nature, worshipped the powers of nature personified. 12. The earliest reliable information that we possess of the country denominated Greece, represents it in the possession of m EARLIEST a number of rude tribes, of which the Pelas' gians were INHABITANTS the most numerous and powerful, and probably the most ' F GREECK - ancient. The name Pelas' gians was also a general one, under which were included many kindred tribes, such as the Dol' opes, Cha- ones, and Grse' ci ; but still the origin and extent of the race are in- volved in much obscurity. 13. Of the early character of the Pelas' gians, and of the degree of civilization to which they had attained before the reputed found- ing of Ar' gos, we have unsatisfactory and conflicting accounts. On the one hand they are represented as no better than the rudest bar- barians, dwelling in caves, subsisting on reptiles, herbs, and wild fruits, and strangers to the simplest arts of civilized life. Other and more reliable traditions, however, attribute to them a knowledge of 1. The Har'pies were three-winged monsters who had female faces, and the bodies, wings, and claws of birds. They are supposed to be personifications of the terrors of the storm de- mons riding upon the wind, and directing its blasts. 2. The Gordons were three hideous female forms, who turned to atone all whom they fixed their eyes upon. They are supposed to be personifications of the terrors of the sea. 3. Olympus is a celebrated mountain of Greece, near the north-eastern coast of Thessaly. To the highest summit in the range the name Olympus was specially applied by the poets. It was the fabled residence of the goda; and hence the name "Olym'pus" was frequently used for " Heaven." 28 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I agriculture, and some little acquaintance with navigation; while there is a strong probability that they were the authors* of those huge structures commonly called Cyclopean, 1 remains of which are still visible in many parts of Greece and Italy, and on the western coast of Asia Minor. 8 14. Ar'gos, 3 the capital of Ar'golis, 4 is generally considered the iv. FOREIGN most anc i ent c ity f Greece ; and its reputed founding SETTLERS IN by In' achus, a son of the god Oceanus, 5 1856 years be- GREECE. f ore j^e (3h r i s tian era, is usually assigned as the period of the commencement of Grecian history. But the massive Cyclo- pean walls of Ar' gos evidently show the Pelas' gic origin of the place, in opposition to the traditionary Phoenician origin of In' achus, whose very existence is quite problematical. And indeed the ac- counts usually given of early foreign settlers in Greece, who planted colonies there, founded dynasties, built cities, and introduced a 1. The Cyclopean structures were works of extraordinary magnitude, consisting of walls and circular buildings, constructed of immense blocks of stone placed upon each other without cement, but so nicely fitted as to form the most solid masonry. The most remarkable are cer- tain walls at Tir' yns, or Tiryn' thus, and the circular tower of At' reus at Mycena, both cities of Ar'golis in Greece. The structure at Mycena is a hollow cone fifty feet in diameter, and as many in height, formerly terminating in a point ; but the central stone and a few others have been removed. The Greek poets ascribed these structures to the three Cyclopes Brontes, Ster'- cpes, and Jlr' ges, fabulous one-eyed giants, whose employment was to fabricate the thunder- bolts of Jupiter. (See Cyclopes, p. 22.) 2. Asia Minor, (or Lesser Asia,) now embraced mostly in the Asiatic portion of Turkey, comprised that western peninsula of Asia which lies between the waters of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. (See Map, No. IV.) 3. Ar' gos, a city of southern Greece, and anciently the capital of the kingdom of Ar'golis, is situated on the western bank of the river In' achus, two miles from the bottom of the Gulf of Ar' gos, and on the western side of a plain ten or twelve miles in length, and four or five in width. The eastern side of the plain is dry and barren, and here were situated Tir' yns, from which Her' cules departed at the commencement of his " labors," and Mycena, the royal city of Agamem' non. The immediate vicinity of Ar' gos was injured by excess of moisture. Here, near the Gulf, was the marsh of Ler' na, celebrated for the Ler' nean Hy' dra, which Her' cules Blew. But few vestiges of the ancient city of Ar' gos are now to be seen. The elevated rock on which stood' the ancient citadel, is now surmounted by a modern castle. The town suffered much during the revolutionary struggle between the Greeks and Turks. The present popula- tion is about 3,000. (See Map, No. I.) 4. Ar'golis, a country of Southern Greece, is properly a neck of land, deriving its name from its capital city, Ar' gos, and extending in a south-easterly direction from Arcadia fifty-four miles into the sea, where it terminates in the promontory of Scil' laeum. Among the noted places in Ar' golis have been mentioned Ar' gos, Mycenae, Tir' yns, and the Ler' nean marsh. Nemea, in the north of Ar' golis, was celebrated for the JVemean lion, and for the games instituted there in honor of Nep' tune. Naiiplia, or Napoli di Romani, which was the post and arsenal of ancient Ar' gos during the best period of Grecian history, is now a flourishing, enterprising, and beautiful town of about 16,000 inhabitants. (See Map, No. I.) 5. Oceanus. (See "The Titans," p. 22) In' achus was probably only a river, personified into the founder of a Grecian state. a. Thirwall's Greece i. p. 52; Anthon's Classical Diet., articles Pelasgi and Ar' gos ; also Heeren's Manual of Ancient History, p. 119. CHAP. H] GRECIAN HISTORY. 29 knowledge of the arts unknown to the ruder natives, must be taken with a great degree of abatement. 15. Cecrops, an Egyptian, is said to have led a colony from the Delta to Greece about the year 1556 B. C. Two years later, proceeding to At' tica, 1 which had been desolated by a deluge a cen- tury before, during the reign of Og' yges,' he is said to have-founded, on the Cecropian rock, a new city, which he called Athens, 3 in honor of the Grecian goddess Athe' na, whom the Romans called Miner' va. To Cecrops has been ascribed the institution of marriage, and the introduction of the first elements of Grecian civilization ; yet, not only has the Egyptian origin of Cecrops been doubted, but his very existence has been denied, a and the whole story of his Egyptian col- ony, and of the arts which he is said to have established, has been attributed, with much show of reason, to a homesprung Attic fable. 16. As a part of the history of Cecrops, it is represented that in his days the gods began to choose favorite spots among the dwellings of men for their residences; or, in other words, that particular deities began to be worshipped with especial homage in particular cities ; and that when Miner' va and Nep' tune claimed the homage of At' tica, Cecrops was chosen umpire of the dispute. Nep' tune asserted that he had appropriated the country to himself before it had been claimed by Miner' va, by planting his trident on the rock of the Acrop' olis of Athens ; and, as proof of his claim, he pointed 1. At' tica, the most celebrated of the Grecian States, and the least proportioned, in extent, of any on the face of the earth, to its fame and importance in the history of mankind, is situ- ated at the south-eastern extremity of Northern Greece, having an extent of about forty-five miles from east to west, and an average breadth of about thirty-five. As the soil of At' tica was mostly rugged, and the surface consisted of barren hills, or plains of little extent, ita produce was never sufficient to supply the wants of its inhabitants, who were therefore compelled to look abroad for subsistence. Thus the barrenness of the Attic soil rendered the people indus- trious, and filled them with that spirit of enterprise and activity for which they were so dis- tinguished. Secure in her sterility, the soil of At' tica never tempted the cupidity of her neigh- bors, and she boasted that the race of her inhabitants had ever been the same. Among the advantages of At' tica may be reckoned the purity of its air, the fragrance of its shrubs, and the excellence of its fruits, together with its form and position, which marked it out, in an emi- nent degree, for commercial pursuits. Its most remarkable plains are those of Athens and Mar' athon, and its principal rivers the Cephis' sus and Ilys' sus. (See Map, No. I.) 2. Og' yges is fabled to have been the first king of Athens and of Thebes also. It is also said that in the time of Og' yges happened a deluge, which preceded that of Deucalion ; and Og' yges is said to have been the only person saved when Greece was covered with water. 3. Athens. (See Map No. II. and description.) a. "Notwithstanding the confidence with which this story (that of Ctecrops) has been repeated in modern times, the Egyptian origin of Cecrops is extremely doubtful." Tkirwall i. p. 53. " The story of his leading a colony from Egypt to Athens is entitled to no credit."" The whole series of Attic kings who are said to have preceded Theseus, including perhaps Theseus himself, are probably mere fictions." Anthon's Clas. Diet., article " Cecrops." 30 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L to the trident standing there erect, and to the salt spring which had issued from the fissure in the cliff, and which still continued to flow. On the other hand, Miner' va pointed to the olive which she had planted long ago, and which still grew in native luxuriance by the side of the fountain which, she asserted, had been produced at a later period by the hand of Nep' tune. Cecrops himself attested the truth of her assertion, when the gods, according to one account, but, according to another, Cecrops himself, decided in favor of Miner' va, who then became the tutelary deity of Athens. 17. Cran'aus, the successor of Cecrops on the list of Attic kings, was probably a no less fabulous personage than his predecessor ; and of Amphic' tyon, the third on the list, who is said to have been the founder of the celebrated Amphictyonic council, our knowledge is as limited and as doubtful as of the former two. a About half a century after the time of Cecrops, another Egyptian, by name Dan' aus, is said to have fled to Greece with a family of fifty daughters, and to have established a second Egyptian colony in the vicinity of Ar' gos ; and about the same time, Cad' mus, 1 a Phoenician, is reported to have led a colony into Boeotia, 2 bringing with him the Phoenician alphabet, the basis of the Grecian, and to have founded Cad' mea, which after- wards became the citadel of Thebes. 3 1. There is no good reason for believing that Cad' mus was the founder of Thebes, as his his- tory is evidently fabulous, although there can be little doubt that the alphabet attributed to him was originally brought from Phoenicia. (See Thirwall, i. p. 107.) We may therefore ven- ture to dismiss the early theory of Cad' mus, and seek a Grecian origin for the name of the sup- posed founder of Thebes. 2. B king's daughter, Medea, who was an enchantress, fallen in love with Jason, and defeated the plans of her father for his destruction. After a long return voyage, filled with marvellous adventures, most of the Argonauts reached Greece in safety, where Her' cules, in honor of the expedition, instituted the Olym' pic games. Some have supposed this to have been a piratical expedition ; others, that it was undertaken for the purpose of discovery, or to secure some commercial establishment on the shores of the Euxine, while others have regarded the legend as wholly fabulous. Says Grote, u I repeat the opinion long ago expressed, that the process of dissecting the story, in search of a basis of fact, is one altogether fruitless." Orote^s Hist, of Greece, \. 243. 3. The following are said to have been the circumstances of the Theban and Jlr' golic war. After the death of CE' dipus, king of Thebes, it was agreed between his two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, that they should reign alternately, each a year. Eteocles, however, the elder, after his first year had expired, refused to give up the crown to his brother, when the latter, fleeing to Ar' gos, induced Adras' tus, king of that place, to espouse his cause. Adraa' tus marched an army against Thebes, led by himself and seven captains ; but all the leaders were slain before the city, and the war ended by a single combat between Eteocles and Polynices, in which both brothers fell. This is said to have happened twenty-seven years before the Trojan war. Ten years later the war was renewed by the Epig' onoi, descendants of those who were killed in the first Theban war. Some of the Grecian states espoused the cause of the Ar' gives, and others aided the Thebans ; but in the end Thebes was abandoned by its inhabiU ants, and plundered by the Ar' gives. 34 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAET L which Thebes is said to have been plundered by the confederate Greeks. 22. Of these events, the Argonautic expedition has usually been thought of more importance than the rest, as having been conducted against a distant country, and as presenting some valid claims to our belief in its historical reality. But we incline to the opinion, that both the hero and the heroine of the legend are purely ideal personages connected with Grecian mythology, that Jason was per- haps no other than the Samothracian 1 god or hero Jasion, a the pro- tector of mariners, and that the fable of the expedition itself is a poetic fiction which represented the commercial and piratical voy- ages that began to be made, about this period, to the eastern shores of the Euxine. 2 It is not improbable that voyages similar to that rep- resented to have been made by the Argonauts, or, perhaps, naval expeditions like those attributed to Minos, s the Cretan 4 prince and lawgiver, may first have led to hostile rivalries between the inhabitants of the Asiatic and Grecian coasts, and thus have been the occasion of the first conflict between the Greeks and the Tro- jans. 13 23. The Trojan war, rendered so celebrated in early Grecian his- 1. Samotfir&ce (the Thracian Samoa, now Samothraki,) is an island in the northern part of the IE.' gean Sea, aboiit thirty miles south of the Thracian coast. It was celebrated for the mys- teries of the goddess Cyb' ele, whose priests ran about with dreadful cries and bowlings, beat- ing on timbrels, clashing cymbals, and cutting their flesh with knives. (See Map No. III.) 2. The Euxine (Pon'tus Euxinus) is now called the Black Sea. It lies between the south- western provinces of Russia in Europe, and Asia Minor. Its greatest length, from east to west, is upwards of 700 miles, and its greatest breadth about 400 miles. Its waters are only about one-seventh part less salt than the Atlantic a fact attributable to the saline nature of the bot- tom, and of the northern coast. The Euxine is deep, and singularly free from rocks and shoals. (See Map No. V.) 3. Minos is said, in the Grecian legends, to have been a son of Jupiter, from whom he learned those laws which he delivered unto men. It is said that he was the first among the Greeks who possessed a navy, and that he conquered and colonized several islands, and finally perished in an expedition against Sicily. Some regard Minos simply as the concentration of that spirit of order, which, about his time, began to exhibit, in the island of Crete, a regular system of laws and government. He seems to be intermediate between the periods of mythol ogy and history, combining, in his person, the characteristics of both. 4. Crete (now called Candia) is a large mountainous island in the Mediterranean Sea, 80 miles south-east from Cape Matapan in Greece 160 miles in length from east to west, with a breadth averaging about 20 miles. Crete was the reputed birth-place of Jupiter, " king of gods and men." The laws of Minos are said to have served as a model for those of Lycur' gus ; and the wealth, number, and flourishing condition of the Cretan cities, are repeatedly referred to by Homer. (See Map No. III.) a. ThirwalPs Greece, i. 77-79. b. According to Herod' otus, i. 2, 3, the abduction of Hel' en, the cause of the Trojan war, was in retaliation of the abduction of Medea by Jason in the Argouautic expedition. But Herod'- otus goes farther back, and attributes to the Phosnicians the first cause of contention between the Asiatics and the Grecians, in carrying away from Ar' gos, lo, a priestess of Jiino. CHAP. IL] GRECIAN HISTORY. 35 tory *y the poems of Homer, 1 is represented to have been under- taken about the year 1173 before the Christian era, by the confed- erate princes of Greece, against the city and kingdom of Troy," situated on the western coast of Asia Minor. The alleged caus<3S of this war, according to the Grecian legend, were the following: Hel' en, the most beautiful woman of her age, and daughter of Tyn'- daru ; king of Lacedge'mon, was sought in marriage by all the princes of Greece ; when Tyn' darus, perplexed with the difficulty of choosing one without displeasing all the rest, being advised by the sage Ulys' ses, bound the suitors by an oath that they would approve of the uninfluenced choice of Hel' en, and would unite together to defend her person and character, if ever any attempts were made to carry her off from her husband. Menelaus became the choice of Hel' en, and soon after, on the death of Tyn' darus, succeeded to the vacant throne of Lacedas' mon. 3 24. After three years, Paris, son of Priam king of Troy, visited the court of Menelaus, and taking advantage of the temporary ab- sence of the latter, he corrupted the fidelity of Hel' en, whom he induced to flee with him to Troy. Menelaus, returning, prepared to avenge the outrage. . He assembled the princes of Greece, wh ; combining their forces under the command of Agamem' non, brother of Menelaus, sailed with a great armament to Troy, and after a siege of ten years finally took the city by stratagem, and razed it to the ground. (1183 B. C.) Most of the inhabitants were slain or take* prisoners, and the rest were forced to become exiles in distant lands. 1. Homer, the greatest and earliest of the poets, often styled the father of poetry, was prob- abij au Asiatic Greek, although seven Grecian cities contended for the honor of his birth. No circumstances of his life are known with any certainty, except that he was a wandering- poet, and blind. The principal works of Homer are the Iliad and the Od' yssey, the former at which relates the circumstances of the Trojan war ; and the latter, the history and wanderings of Ulys' ses after the fall of Troy. 2. Troy, the scene of the battles described in the Iliad, stood on a rising ground between th small river Simois (now theDumbrek) and the Seaman' der. (now the Mendere,) on the coast of Asia Minor, near the entrance to the Hel' lespont. New Ilium was afterwards built on the spot now believed to be the site of the ancient city, about three miles from the sea. (See Map No. III. and No. IV.) 3. iMcedae,' mon, or Spar' ta, the ancient capital of Laconia, was situated in a plain of COR- siderable extent, embracing the greater part of Laconia, bounded on the west by the mountain chain of Taygetus, and on the east by the less elevated ridge of mount Thornax, between whiofc flows the Eurotas, on the east side of the town. In early times Spar' ta was without walls, Ly- cur'gus having inspired his country men with the idea, that the real defence of a town consisted solely in the valor of its citizens ; but fortifications were erected after Sparta became subject to despotic rulers. The remains 01 Spar' ta are about two miles nor ih-east of the modern tow* of Mistro. (See Map No. I.) 36 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I. 25. Such is, in brief, the commonly-received account of the Tro- jan war, stripped of the incredible but glowing fictions with which the poetic genius of Homer has adorned it. But although the reality of some such war as this can hardly be questioned, yet the causes which led to it, the manner in which it was conducted, and it? issue, being gathered, even by Homer himself, only from traditional legends, which served as the basis of other compositions besides the Iliad, are involved in an obscurity which we cannot hope to penetrate. The accounts of Hel' en are various and contradictory, and so connected with fabulous beings with gods and goddesses as clearly to assign her to the department of mythology ; while the real events of the war, if such ever occurred, can hardly be separated from the fictions with which they are interwoven. 1 26. But although little confidence can be placed in the reality of the persons and events mentioned in Homer's poetic account of the siege of Troy, yet there is one kind of truth from which the poet can hardly have deviated, or his writings would not have been so ac- ceptable as they appear to have been to his cotemporaries ; and that is, a faithful portraiture of the government, usages, religious no- tions, institutions, manners, and general condition of Grecian society, during the heroic age. a 1. Thus the most ancient account of Hel' en is, that she was a daughter of the god Ju- piter, hatched from the egg of a swan ; and Homer speaks of her in the Iliad as " begotten of Jupiter." When only seven years of age, such were her personal attractions, that Theseus, king of Athens, having become enamored of her, carried her off from a festival at which he aaw her dancing ; but her brothers recovered her by force of arms, and restored her to her family. After her marriage with Menelaus, it is said that Jupiter, plotting a war for the pur- pose of ridding the earth of a portion of its overstocked inhabitants, contrived that the beauty of Hel' en should involve the Greeks and Trojans in hostilities. At a banquet of the gods, Dis- cord, by the direction of Jupiter, threw into the assembly a golden apple, on which was in- scribed, "The apple for the Fair one," (Trj Ka\rj rd /^Aoj/,) or, as in Virgil, Pulcherrima me habeto, "Let the most beautiful have me." The goddesses Juno, Miner' va, and Venus, claim- ing it, Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, was made the arbiter. He awarded the prize to Venus, who had promised him the beautiful Hel' en in marriage, if he would decide in her favor. Venus (the goddess of love and beauty) caused Paris and Hel' en to become mutually enamored, and afterwards aided the Trojans in the war that followed. Homer represents the heroes as performing prodigies of valor, shielded and aided by the gods ; and the gods them selves as mingling in the strife, and taking part with the combatants. The goddess Miner' va an unsuccessful competitor for the prize which Paris awarded to her rival Venus, planned th, stratagem of the wooden horse, which concealed within its side a band of Greeks, who, borno with it into the city, were thus enabled to open the gates to their confederates without. a. " Homer was regarded even by the ancients as of historical authority." " Truth was his object in his accounts and descriptions, as far as it can be the object of a poet, and even in s. greater degree than was necessary, when he distinguishes the earlier and later times or ages. He is the best source of information respecting the heroic age." Heeren's Politics of Greece, p. 82. CHAP. II,] EGYPTIAN HISTORY. 3t COTEMPORARY HISTORY. 1. During the period of early Grecian history which we have passed over in the present chapter, our knowledge of the cotempo- rary history of other nations is exceedingly limited. Rome had not* yet a beginning : all Europe, except the little Grecian peninsula, was in the darkness of barbarism : in Central "Western Asia we in- deed suppose there existed, at this time, large cities, and the flour- ishing empires of Assyria and Babylon; but from them we can gather no reliable historic annals. In north-eastern Africa, indeed, the Egyptian empire had already attained the meridian of its glory ; but of the chronological detail of Egyptian history during this pe- riod we know comparatively nothing. What is known relates prin- cipally to the conquests of the renowned Sesos' tris, an Egyptian monarch, who, as nearly as can be ascertained, was cotemporary with Oth' uiel, the first judge of Israel, and with Cecrops, the sup- posed founder of Athens, although some modern authors place his reign a hundred years later. 8 - This monarch is said to have achieved many brilliant conquests as the lieutenant of his father. After he came to the throne he made vast preparations for the conquest of the world, and raised an army which is said to have numbered six hun- dred thousand foot and twenty-four thousand horse, besides twenty- seven thousand armed chariots. He conquered Lib' ya 1 and Ethiopia,* after which, entering Asia, he overran Arabia, subdued the Assyrians and Medes, and even led his victorious hosts beyond the Ganges :* 1. Lib' ya is the name which the Greek and Roman poets gave to Africa. In a more re- stricted sense, however, the name was applied to that part of Africa, bordering on the Mediter- ranean, which lies between Egypt on the east and Tripoli on the west, the most important part of which territory is embraced in the present Barca. 2. Ancient Ethiopia comprised, principally, the present countries of Nubia and Abyssinia, south of Egypt. 3. The Ganges, the sacred river of the Hindoos, flowing south-east through the northr a. The era of the accession of Sesos' tris, may be placed at 1565 B. C.; that of Oth' niel at 1564 ; and the supposed founding of Athens at 1558, the latter two in accordance with Dr. Hales. In Rollin the date for Sesos' tris is 1491 ; Hereen "about 1500" ; Russell's Egypt, 1308; Mure, " between 1400 and 1410"; Gliddon's Egypt, 1565; and Champolion Figeac (making Sesos' tris the same as Ramses IV., at the head of the 19th dynasty), 1473. Eusebius, followed by Usher and Playfair, supposes that Sesos' tris was the immediate successor of the Pharaoh wh was drowned in the Red Sea; while Marsham, followed by Newton, attempts to identify him with the Shishak of Scripture who invaded Judea a difference, according to various systems of chronology, of from 500 to 800 years. Mr. Bryant endeavors to prove that no such person ever existed. ,.{ ,. Since the interpretation of the hieroglyphics, however, the principal ground of dispute on this subject among the learned, appears to be, whether the Sesos' tris so renowned in history wa the same aa Ramses III., the fourteenth king of the 18th dynasty, or the same as Ramses IV, the first king of the 19th dynasty, there being a difference between the two of about a hundred years. *8 ANCIENT HISTORY. \Fj&x L he is also said to have passed over into Europe, and to have ravaged the territories of the Thracians and the Scythians, 1 when scarcity of provisions stopped the progress of his conquests. That the fame of kis deeds might long survive him, he erected columns in the countries through which he passed, on which was inscribed, " Sesos' tris, king of kings, and lord of lords, subdued this country by the power of his arms." Some of these columns were still to be seen in Asia Minor in the days of Herod' otus. 3. The deeds and triumphs of Sesos' tris are also wrought, in sculpture and in painting, in numerous temples, and on the most celebrated obelisks, from Ethiopia to Lower Egypt. At Ipsamboul, 2 in Nubia, is a temple cut out of the solid rock, whose front or fa- ade is supported by four colossal figures of exquisite workmanship, each sixty feet high, all statues of Sesos' tris, the faces of which bear a perfect resemblance to the figures of the same king at Mem' phis. The walls of the temple are covered with numerous sculptures on his- torical subjects, representing the conquests of this prince in Africa. Among them are processions of the conquered nations, carrying the riches of their country and laying them at the feet of the conqueror ; and even the wild animals of the desert antelopes, apes, giraffes, and ostriches are led in the triumphs of the Egyptians. 4. Were it not for the many similar monumental evidences of the reign of this monarch, which have been recently discovered, corrobo- rative of the deeds which profane authors attribute to him, we might fee disposed to regard Sesos' tris as others have done, as no more than a mythological personification of the Sun, the god of day, " the giant that rejoiceth to run his course from one end of heaven to the other." But with such an amount of testimony bearing on the sub- ject, we cannot doubt the existence of this mighty conqueror, al- though probably his exploits have been greatly exaggerated by the vanity of his chroniclers ; and it is not improbable that the deeds of several monarchs have been attributed to one. After the return f Sesos' tris from his conquests, he is said to have employed his time to the close of his reign, in encouraging the arts, erecting teni- eastern part of Hindostan, enters the Bay of Bengal, through a great number of mouths, near Calcutta. 1. Thrace, a large tract of country now embraced in Turkey in Europe, and bordering on the Propontis, or sea of Marmora, extended from Macedonia and the JE' gean Sea on the south-west, to the Euxine on the north-east. North of the Thracians, extending along the Euxine to the river Danube, was the country of the Scythians. 2. Ipsamboul) so celebrated for its well-known excavated temples, is in the northern part of Nubia, on the western bank of the Nile. CHAP. II.] IHE ISRAELITES. 39 pies to the gods, and improving the revenues cf his kingdom. After his time we know little of the history of Egypt until the reign of Pharaoh-Necho, in the beginning of the seventh century, who is re- markable for his successes against Jerusalem. 5. At the period which we have assigned, somewhat arbitrarily, for the commencement of Grecian history, 1856 years before the Christian era, Joseph, the son of the patriarch Jacob, was governor over Egypt ; and his father's family, by invitation of Pharaoh, had settled in Goshen, on the eastern borders of the valley of the Nile. This is supposed to have been about three centuries before the time of Sesos' tris. On the death of Joseph, the circumstances of the de- scendants of Jacob, who were now called Israelites, were greatly changed. " A king arose who knew not Joseph ;" a and the children of Israel became servants and bondsmen in the land of Egypt. Two hundred years they were held in bondage, when the Lord, by his servant Moses, brought 15 them forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, after inflicting the most grievous plagues upon their oppressors, and destroying the pursuing hosts of Pharaoh in the Ked Sea. (1648 B. C.) 6. Forty years the Israelites, numbering probably two millions of souls, c wandered in the wilderness on the north-western confines of Arabia, 1 supported by miraculous interposition ; for the country was then, as now, " a land of deserts and of pits, a land of drouth and of the shadow of death, a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt ;" d and after they had completed their wander- ings, and another generation had grown up since they had left Egypt, they came to the river Jordan, 2 and passing through the bed of the 1. Arabia is an extensive peninsula at the south-western extremity of Asia, lying immediately east of the Red Sea. It is mostly a rocky and desert country, inhabited by wandering tribes of Arabs, the descendants of Ishmael. They still retain the character given to their ancestor. The desert has continued to be the home of the Arab ; he has been a man of war from his youth ; " his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him." (Gen. xvi. 12.) 2. The river Jordan (See Map, No. VI.) rises towards the northern part of Palestine, on the western slope of Mount Hermon, and after a south course of about forty miles, opens into the sea of Galilee near the ancient town of Bethsaida. After passing through this lake or sea, which is about fifteen miles long and seven broad, and on and near which occurred so many striking scenes in the history of Christ, it pursues a winding southerly course of about ninety miles through a narrow valley, and then empties its waters into the Dead Sea. In this river- valley was the dwelling of Lot, "who pitched his tents toward Sodom" (Gen. xiii. 11, 12) ; and " in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea," occurred the battle of the " four kings with five." (Gen. xv.) The Israelites passed the Jordan near Jericho (Josh. iii. 14-17) ; the prophets Elijah a. Paraphrased by Josephus as meaning that the kingdom had passed to another dynasty. b. 1648, B.C. c. They had 603,550 men, above 20 years of age, not reckoning Levites. EKNlus, xxxviii. 26. d. Jeremiah, ii. 6. 40 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I. stream, which rolled back its waters on their approach, entered the promised land of Palestine. 1 The death of Moses had left the gov- ernment in the hands of Joshua. And " Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for his chosen people. " a 7. From the time of the death of Joshua to the election of Saul as first king of Israel, which latter event occurred about seventy years after the supposed siege of Troy, Israel was ruled by judges, who were appointed through the agency of the priests and of the divine oracle, in accordance with the theocratic form of government established by Moses. After the death of Joshua, however, the Is- raelites often apostatized to idolatry, for which they were punished by being successively delivered into the hands of the surrounding na- tions. First they were subdued by the king of Mesopotamia, 1 * after which the Lord raised up Oth'niel to be their deliverer (1564 B. C.) , a second defection was punished by eighteen years of servitude to the king of the M6abites,' J from whom they were delivered by the eater- find Elisha afterwards divided the waters to prove their divine mission (2 Kings, xi. 8) ; the leper Naaman was commanded to wash in Jordan and be clean (2 Kings, iv. 10) ; and it is thia stream in which Jesus was baptized before he entered on his divine mission. (Matt. iii. 1G, &c.) The Dead Sea, into which the Jordan empties, is so called from the heaviness and consequent stillness of its waters, which contain one-fourth part of their weight of salts. The country around this lake is exceedingly dreary, and the soil is destitute of vegetation. Sodom and Go- morrah are supposed to have stood in the plain now occupied by the lake, and ruins of the overthrown cities are said to have been seen on its western borders. (Map No. VI.) 1. Palestine, a part of modern Syria, now embraced in Turkey in Asia, lies at the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean Sea ; extending north and south along the coast about 200 miles, and having an extreme breadth of about 80 miles. Though in antiquity the northern part of Palestine was the seat of the Phoenicians, a great commercial people, yet there are now few good harbors on the coast, those of Tyre and Sidon, once so famous, being now for the most part blocked up with sand. The country of Palestine consists principally of rugged hills and narrow valleys, although it has a few plains of considerable extent. There are many streams falling into the Mediterranean, the largest of which is the Orontes, at the north, but none of them are navigable. The river Jordan, on the east, empties its waters into the As- phaltic Lake, or Dead Sea, which lat,ter, about 55 miles in length, and 20 in extreme width, now fills the plain where once stood the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. North of the Dead Sea is the Lake of Gennesareth, or Sea of Galilee, the theatre of some most remarkable mir- acles. (Matthew viii. ; Luke viii. ; and Matthew xix. 25.) The principal mountains of Pales- tine are those of Lebanon, running in ranges nearly parallel to the Mediterranean, and finally connecting with mounts Horeb and Sinai, near the Gulf of Suez. JERUSALEM, the capital City of Palestine or the Holy Land, will be described in a subsequent article. (Secy. 164, McCul- lock; articles Syria, Said, or Sidon, Dead Sea, Lebanon, &c.) (Map No. VI.) 2. The Monbite.f, so called from Moab, the son of Lot (Gen. xix. 37), dwelt in the country on the east of the Dead Sea. (Map No. VI.) a. Joshua, xxiv. 31. b. Numbers, iii. 8. Some think that the country here referred to was in the vicinity of Damascus, and not "beyond the Euphrates," as Mesopotamia would imply. (See Cockayne's Civil Hist, of the Jews, 29-33.) CHAP II.] THE ISRAELITES. 4! prising valor of Elmd. a After his death the Israelites again did evil in the sight of the Lord, and " the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan," 1 under whose cruel yoke they groaned twenty years, when the prophetess Deborah, and Barak her general, were made the instruments of their liberation. The Canaanites were routed with great slaughter, and their leader Sisera slain by Jael, in whose tent he had sought refuge. b 8. Afterwards, the children of Israel were delivered over a prey to the Midianites and Amalekites, 9 wild tribes of the desert, who " came up with their cattle and their tents, as grasshoppers for mul- titude." But the prophet Gideon, chosen by the Lord to be the liberator of his people, taking with him only three hundred men, made a night attack on the camp of the enemy, upon whom such fear fell that they slew each other ; so that a hundred and twenty thou- sand men were left dead on the field, and only fifteen thousand es- caped by flight. In the height of their joy and gratitude, the peo- ple would have made Gideon king, but he said to them, " Not I, nor my son, but JEHOVAH shall reign over you." 9. Again the idolatry of the Israelites became so gross, that the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines 3 and the Ammonites, 4 from whom they were finally delivered by the valor of Jephthah.d At a later period the Philistines oppressed Israel forty years, but the people found an avenger in the prowess of Samson. 6 After the death of Samson the aged Eli judged Israel, but the crimes of his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, whom he had chosen to aid him in the government, brought down the vengeance of the Lord, and thirty thousand of the warriors of Israel were slain in battle by the Philis- 1. The Canaanites, so called from Canaan, one of the sons of Ham (Gen. x. 6-19), then dwelt in the lowlands of the Galilee of the Gentiles, between the sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean. Barak, descending from Mount Tabor (see Map), attacked Sisera on the banks of the river Kishon. (Map No. VI.) 2. The Midianites, so called from one of the sons of Abraham by Keturah, dwelt in western Arabia, near the head of the Red Sea. The Jlmalekites dwelt in the wilderness between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. (Map No. VI.) 3. The Philistines (see Map) dwelt on the south-western borders of Palestine, along the coast of the Mediterranean, as far north as Mount Carrael, the commencement of the Phoenician territories. Their principal towns were Gaza, Gath, Ascalon, and Megiddo, for which see Map. The Israelite tribes of Simeon, Dan, Ephraim, and Manasseh, bordered on their territories. "The whole of the towns of the coast continued in the hands of the Philistines and Phoenicians, and never permanently fell under the dominion of Israel." Cockayne's Hist, of the Jews, p. 44. 4. The Ammonites (see Map) dwelt on the borders of the desert eastward of the Israelite tribes that settled east of the Jordan. a. Judges, iii. 15-30. b. Judges, iv. c. Judges, vl. ; vl. ; viii. d. Judges, x. 7 ; xi. 33. e. Judges, xiii. 1 ; xiv. ; XT. ; xvi. 42 ANCIENT HISTORY [PART I. tines. a The prophet Samuel was divinely chosen as the successor of Eli. (1152 B. C.) His administration was wise and prudent, but in his old age the tyranny of his sons, whom he was obliged to em- ploy as his deputies, induced the people to demand a king who should rule over them like the kings of other nations. With reluct- ance Samuel yielded to the popular request, and by divine guidance, anointed Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, king over Israel. b (1110 B. C.) 10. We have thus briefly traced the civil history of the Israelites down to the period of the establishment of a monarchy over them, in the person of Saul, at a date, according to the chronology which we haye adopted, seventy-three years later than the supposed destruc- tion of Troy. It is, however, the religious history, rather than the civil annals, of the children of Abraham, that possesses the greatest value and the deepest interest ; but as our limits forbid our enter- ing upon a subject so comprehensive as the former, and the one can- not be wholly separated from the other without the greatest violence, we refer the reader to the Bible for full and satisfactory details of the civil and religious polity of the Jews, contenting ourselves with having given merely such a skeleton of Jewish annals, in connection with profane history, as may serve to render the comparative chro- nology of the whole easy of comprehension. a. 1 Sara, iv. 10. b. x. 1. CHAP. III.] GRECIAN HISTORY 43 CHAPTER III. THE UNCERTAIN PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY: EXTENDING FROM THE CLOSE OF THE TROJAN WAR TO THE FIRST WAR WITH PERSIA : 1183 TO 490 B. c. = 693 YEARS. , ANALYSIS. 1. Introductory. 2. Consequences of the Trojan war. 3. THESSA' LIAN CON- QUEST. [i^pirus. Pin'duS. PenCUS.] 4. BCEO'TIAN CONQUEST. .4.) 2. Del' phos, or Del' phi, a small city of Phocis, situated on the southern declivity of Mount Parnas' sus, forty-five miles north-west from Cor' inth, and eight and a half miles from the nearest point of the Corinthian Gulf, was the seat of the most remarkable oracle of the ancient world. Above Del' phi arose the two towering cliffs of Parnas' sus, while from the chasm between them flowed the waters of the Castalian spring, the source of poetical inspiration. Below lay a rugged mountain, past which flowed the rapid stream Plis' tus ; while on both sides of the plain, where stood the little city, arose steep and almost inaccessible precipices. (Map No.L) a. 1068 B. C. b. 752 B. C. c. 682 B. C. 48 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L on the royal prerogatives are almost the only events that fill the meagre annals of Athens for several centuries. 8 - 9. While these changes were occurring at Athens, Laconia, 1 whose capital was Sparta, although often engaged in tedious wars with the Ar' gives, 2 was gradually acquiring an ascendancy over the Dorian states of the Peloponnesus. After the Heraclidse had obtained pos- session of the sovereignty, two descendants of that family reigned jointly at Lacedse' mon, but this divided rule served only to increase the public confusion. Things remained, however, in this situation until some time in the ninth century B. C., when Polydec' tes, one of the kings, died without children. The reins of government then fell into the hands of his brother Lycur' gus, but the latter soon re- signed the crown to the posthumous son of Polydec' tes, and, to avoid the imputation of ambitious designs, went into voluntary exile, although against the wishes of the best of his countrymen. 10. He is said to have visited many foreign lands, observing their institutions and manners, and conversing with their sages to have studied the Cretan laws of Minos to have been a disciple of the Egyptian priests and even to have gathered wisdom from the Brah- mins 3 of India, employing his time in maturing a plan for remedying the evils which afflicted his native country. On his return he ap- plied himself to the business of framing a new constitution for Sparta, after consulting the Delphic oracle, which assured him that " the constitution he should establish would be the most excellent in the world." Having enlisted the aid of the most illustrious citizens, v INSTITU- w ^o *k U P arms to support him, he procured the TIONS OF enactment of a code of laws, by which the form of LYCUB, GUS. goyemmentj the military discipline of the people, the distribution of property, the education of the citizens, and the rules 1. Laconia, situated at the southern extremity of Greece, had Ar' golis and Arcadia on the north, Messenia on the west, and the sea on the south and east. Its extent was about fifty miles from north to south, and from twenty to thirty from east to west. Its principal river was the Eurotas, on the western bank of which was Sparta, the capital ; and its mountains were the ranges of Par' non on the north and east, and of Tayg' etus on the west, which rendered the fertile valley of the Eurotas, comprising the principal part of Laconia, exceedingly diffi- cult of access. The two southern promontories of Lacouia were Malea and Ttenariuin, now called St. Angelo and Matapan. (Map No. I.) 2. The Ar' gives proper were inhabitants of the state and city of Ar'gos ; but the word is often applied by the poets to all the inhabitants of Greece. (Map No. I.) 3. The Brahmins were a class of Hindoo priests and philosophers, worshippers of the Indian god Brama, the supposed creator of the world. They were the only persons who understood the Sanecrit, the ancient language of Hindoostan, in which the sacred books of the Hindoos were written. a. Thirwall, i. p. 175. CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN HISTORY 49 Df domestic life, were to be established on a new and immutable basis. 11. The account which Plutarch gives of these regulations asserts that Lycur' gus first established a senate of thirty members, chosen for life, the two kings being of the number, and that the former shared the power of the latter. There were also to be assemblies of the people, who were to have no right to propose any subject of de- bate, but were only authorized to ratify or reject what might be proposed to them by the senate and the kings. Lycur' gus next made a new division of the lands, for here he found great inequality existing, as there were many indigent persons who had no lands, and the wealth was centred in the hands of a few. 12. In order farther to remove inequalities among the citizens, and, as far as possible, to place all on the same level, he next at- tempted to divide the movable property ; but as this measure met with great opposition, he had recourse to another method for accom- plishing the same object. He stopped the currency of gold and sil- ver coin, and permitted iron money only to be used ; and, to a great quantity and weight of this he assigned but a small value, so that, to remove one or two hundred dollars of this money would require a yoke of oxen. This regulation put an end to many kinds of in- justice, for " Who," says Plutarch, " would steal or take a bribe ; who would defraud or rob, when he could not conceal the booty, when he could neither be dignified by the possession of it, nor be served by its use ?" Unprofitable and superfluous arts were excluded, trade with foreign States was abandoned ; and luxury, losing its sources of support, died away of itself. 13. To promote sobriety, all the citizens, and even the kings, ate at public tables, and of the plainest fare ; each individual being ob- liged to bring in, monthly, certain provisions for the common use. This regulation was designed, moreover, to furnish a kind of school, where the young might be instructed by the conversation of their elders. From his birth, every Spartan belonged to the State ; sickly and deformed infants were destroyed, those only being thought worthy to live who promised to become useful members of the com- munity. The object of Spartan education was to render children expert in manly exercises, hardy, and courageous ; and the principal aim of Lycur' gus appears to have been to render the Spartans a na- tion of warriors, although not of conquerors, for he dreaded the ef- fects of an extension of territory beyond the boundaries of Laconk. 4 50 ANCIENT HISTORY. [P A m I. 14. Lycur'gus left none of his laws in writing ; and some of the regulations attributed to him were probably the results of subsequent legislation. It is even a disputed point in what age Lycur'gus lived, some making him cotemporary with the Heraclidse, and others dating his era four hundred years later, after the close of the Messe- nian wars ; but the great mass of evidence fixes his legislation in the ninth century before the Christian era. It is said that after he had completed his work, he set out on a journey, having previously bound the Spartans by an oath to make no change in his laws until his return, and, that they might never be released from the obliga- tion, he voluntarily banished himself forever from his country, and died in a foreign land. The place and manner of his death are unknown, but Del'phos, Crete, and E'lis, 1 all claimed his tomb. 15. There were three classes among the population of Laconia : the Dorians of Sparta ; their serfs, the Helots ; and the people of the provincial districts. 51 The former, properly called Spartans, were the ruling caste, who neither employed themselves in agricul- ture nor commerce, nor practiced any mechanical art. b The Helots were slaves, who, as is generally believed, on account of their obsti- nate resistance in some early wars, and subsequent conquest, had been reduced to the most degrading servitude. They were always viewed with suspicion by their masters, and although some were occasionally emancipated, yet measures of the most atrocious violence were often adopted to reduce the strength and break the spirits of the bravest and most aspiring, who might threaten an insurrection. 16. The people of the provincial districts were a mixed race, com- posed partly of strangers who had accompanied the Dorians, and aided them in their conquest, and partly of the old inhabitants of the country who had submitted to the conquerors. The provincials were under the control of the Spartan government, in the adminis- tration of which they had no share, and the lands which they held were tributary to the State ; they formed an important part of the 1. Del' phos and Crete have been described. The summit of Mount I' da, in Crete, was sacred to Jupiter. Here also Cyb' ele, the " mother of the gods," was worshipped. (The Mount I' da mentioned by the poets was in the vicinity of ancient Troy.) E' Us was a district of the Peloponnesus, lying west of Arcadia. At Olym'pia, situated on the river Alpheus, in this district, the celebrated Olympic games were celebrated in honor of Jupiter. E' Us, the capital of the district, was situated on the river Peneus, thirty miles north-west from Olym' pia. (Map No. I.) a. Thirwall, i. 129. b. Hill's Institutions of Ancient Greece, p. 153. CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN HISTORY. 51 military force of the country, and, on the whole, had little to com- plain of but the want of political independence. 17. During a century or more after the time of Lycur' gus. the Spartans remained at peace with their neighbors, except a few petty contests on the side of Arcadia and Ar' gos. Jealousies, however, arose between the Spartans and their brethren of Messenia, 1 which, stimulated by insults and injuries on both sides, gave rise to the first Messenian war, 743 years before the Christian era. V r. FIRST MES- After a conflict of twenty years, the Messenians were SENIAN WAB, obliged to abandon their principal fortress of Ithome, 2 and to leave their rich fields in the possession of the conquerors. A few of the inhabitants withdrew into foreign lands, but the principal citizens took refuge in Ar' gos and Arcadia ; while those who remained were reduced to a condition little better than that of the Laconian He- lots, being obliged to pay to their masters one-half of the fruits of the land which they were allowed to till. 18. The Messenian war exerted a great influence on the character and subsequent history of the Spartans, as it gave a full development to the warlike spirit which the institutions of Lycur' gus were so well calculated to encourage. The Spartans, stern and unyielding in their exactions from the conquered, again drove the Messenians to revolt (685 B. C.), thirty-nine years after the termi- vn SECOND nation of the former war. The latter found a worthy MESSENIAN leader in Aristom' enes, whose valor in the first battle struck fear into his enemies, and inspired his countrymen with con- fidence. The Spartans, sending to the Delphic oracle for advice, received the mortifying response, that they must seek a leader from the Athenians, between whose country and Laconia there had been no intercourse for several centuries. . 19. The Athenians, fearing to disobey the oracle, and reluctant to further the cause of the Spartans, sent to the latter the poet Tyr- tae' us, who had never been distinguished as a warrior. His patriotic odes, however, roused the spirit of the Spartans, who, obtaining Do- rian auxiliaries from Corinth, 3 commenced the war anew. The 1. Messtnia was a country west of Laconia, and at the south-western extremity of the Peloponnesus. It was separated from E' lis on the north by the river Neda, and from Arcadia and Laconia by mountain ranges. The Pamisus was its principal river. On the western coast was the deep bay of Py'lus, which has become celebrated in modern history under the name of Navarino (see p.517) the only perfect harbor of Southern Greece. (Map No. I.) 2. Ithome was in Central Messenia, on a high hill on the western side of the vale of the Pamisus. (Map No. I.) 3. Cor' inth was situated near the isthmus of the same name, between the Gulf of Lepan' to 52 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! Messenians, oil the other hand, were aided by forces from Sic' yon 1 and Ar' gos, Arcadia and E' lis, and, in a great battle near the mouth of the Pamisus, 2 in Messenia, they completely routed their enemies. In the third year of the war the Arcadian auxiliaries of the Messe- nians, seduced by bribes, deserted them in the heat of battle, and gave the victory to the Spartans. 20. The war continued, with various success, seventeen years, throughout the whole of which period Aristom' enes distinguished himself by many noble exploits ; but all his efforts to save his country were ineffectual. A second time Sparta conquered (668), and the yoke appeared to be fixed on Messenia forever. Thence- forward the growing power and reputation of Sparta seemed des- tined to undisputed preeminence, not only in the Peloponnesus, but throughout all Greece. 21. At the period of the close of the second Messenian war, Athens, as previously stated, was under the aristocratical govern- ment of a senate of archons-magistrates chosen by the nobility from their own order, who possessed all authority, religious, civil, and military. The Athenian populace not only enjoyed no political rights, but was reduced to a condition but little above servitude ; and it appears to have been owing to the anarchy that arose from ruinous extortions of the nobles on the one hand, and the resistance 7 of the people on the other, that Draco, the most eminent ' of the nobility, was chosen to prepare the first written code of laws for the government of the State. (622 B. 0.) on the north-west, and of ^Egina on the south-east, two miles from the nearest point of the former, and seven from the latter. The site of the town was at the north foot of a steep rock called the Acrop' oils of Cor' inth, 1.33G feet in height, the summit of which is now, as in an- tiquity, occupied as a fortress. This eminence may be distinctly seen from Athens, from which it is distant no less than forty-four miles in a direct line. Cor' inth was a large and populous city when St. Paul preached the Gospel there for a year and six months. (Acts, xviii. 11.) The present town, though of considerable extent, is thinly peopled. The only Grecian ruin now to be seen there is a dilapidated Doric temple. (Map No. I.) " Where is thy grandeur Corinth ? Shrunk from sight, Thy ancient treasures, and thy rampart's height, Thy god-like fanes and palaces ! Oh, where Thy mighty myriads and majestic fair ! Relentless war has poured around thy wall, And hardly spared the traces of thy fall !" 1. Sic' yon, once a great and flourishing city, was situated near the Gulf of Lepan' to, about ten miles north-west from Cor' inth. It boasted a high antiquity, and by some was considered older than Ar' gos. The ruins of the ancient town are still to be seen near the small modern Tillage of Basilico. (Map No. I.) . 2. The Pamisus (now called the Pimatza) was the principal river of Messenia. (Map No. I.) CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN H {STORY. 53 22. The severity of his laws has made his name proverbial. Their character was thought to be happily expressed, when one said of them that they were written, not in ink, but in blood. He attached the same penalty to petty thefts as to sacrilege and murder, saying that the former offences deserved death, and he had no greater punishment for the latter. It is thought that the nobles suggested the severity of the laws of Draco, thinking they would be a convenient instru- ment of oppression in their hands ; but human nature revolted against such legalized butchery, and the system of Draco soon fell into disuse. 23. The commonwealth was finally reduced to complete anarchy, without law, or order, or system in the administration of justice, when Solon, who was descended from the line of Codrus, was raised to the office of first magistrate (594 B. C.), and, by the consent of all parties, was chosen as a general arbiter of their differ- ^ LEGISLA . ences, and invested with full authority to frame a new TION OF constitution and a new code of laws. The almost unlim- ited power conferred upon Solon might easily have been perverted to dangerous purposes, and many advised him to make himself ab- solute master of the State, and at once quell the numerous factions by the exercise of royal authority. And, indeed, such a usurpation would probably have been acquiesced in with but little opposition, as offering, for a time at least, a refuge from evils that had already become too intolerable to be borne. But the stern integrity of Solon was proof against all temptations to swerve from the path of honor, and betray the sacred trust reposed in him. 24. The grievous exactions of the ruling orders had already re- duced the laboring classes, generally, to poverty and abject depend- ence : all whom bad times or casual disasters had compelled to bor- row, had been impoverished by the high rates of interest; and thousands of insolvent debtors had been sold into slavery, to satisfy the demands of relentless creditors. In this situation of affairs the most violent or needy demanded a new distribution of property, as had been done in Sparta ; while the rich would have held on to all the fruits of their extortion and tyranny. 25. But Solon, pursuing a middle course between these extremes, relieved the debtor by reducing the rate of interest, and enhancing the value of the currency, so that three silver minae paid an indebt- edness of four : he also relieved the lands of the poor from all in- cumbrances ; he abolished imprisonment for debt : he restored to 54 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAET L liberty those whom poverty had placed in bondage ; and he repealed all the laws of Draco, except those against murder. He next ar- ranged all the citizens in four classes, according to their landed property ; the first class alone being eligible to the highest civil offices and the highest commands in the army, while only a few of the lower offices were open to the second 'and third classes. The latter classes, however, were partially relieved from taxation ; but in war they were required to equip themselves for military service, the one as cavalry, and the other as heavy armed infantry. 26. Individuals of the fourth class were excluded from all offices, but in return they were wholly exempt from taxation ; and yet they had a share in the government, for they were permitted to take part in the popular assemblies, which had the right of confirming or reject- ing new laws, and of electing the magistrates ; and here their votes counted the same as those of the wealthiest of the nobles. In war they served only as light troops, or manned the fleets. Thus the system of Solon, being based primarily on property qualifications, provided for all the freemen ; and its aim was to bestow upon the commonalty such a share in the government as would enable it to protect itself, and to give to the wealthy what was necessary for re- taining their dignity ; throwing the burdens of government on the latter, and not excluding the former from its benefits. 27. Solon retained the magistracy of the nine archons, but with abridged powers ; and, as a guard against democratical extravagance on the one hand, and a check to undue assumptions of power on the other, he instituted a Senate of Four Hundred, and founded or remodelled the court of the Areop' agus. The Senate consisted of members selected by lot from the first three classes ; but none could be appointed to this honor until they had undergone a strict ex- amination into their past lives, characters, and qualifications. The Senate was to be consulted by the archons in all important mat- ters, and was to prepare all new laws and regulations, which were to be submitted to the votes of the assembly of the people. 28. The court of the Areop' agus, which held its sittings on an eminence on the western side of the Athenian Acrop' olis, was com- posed of persons who had held the office of archon, and was the supreme tribunal in all capital cases. It exercised, also, a general superintendence over education, morals, and religion ; and it could suspend a resolution of the public assembly which it deemed fraught with folly or injustice, until it had undergone a reconsideration. CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN HISTORY. 55 Such is a brief outline of the institutions of Solon, which exhibit a mingling of aristocracy and democracy, well adapted to the char- acter of the age, and the circumstances of the people. They exhibit less control over the pursuits and domestic habits of individuals than the Spartan code, but at the same time they show a far greater re gard for the public morals. 29. The legislation of Solon was not followed by the total extinc- tion of party spirit, and ere long the three prominent factions in the State renewed their ancient feuds. Pisis' tratus, a wealthy kinsman of Solon, who had supported the measures of the latter by his elo- quence and military talents, had the art to gain the favor of the populace, and constitute himself their leader. When his schemes were ripe for execution, he one day drove into the public square, his mules and himself disfigured with recent wounds inflicted by his own hands, but which he induced the multitude to believe had been received from a band of assassins, whom his enemies, the nobility, had hired to murder the friend of the people. An assembly was immediately convoked by his partizans, and the indignant crowd voted him a guard of fifty citizens to protect his person, although warned by Solon of the pernicious consequences of such a measure. 30. Pisis' tratus took advantage of the popular favor which he had gained, and, arming a larger body, seized the Acrop' olis, and made himself master of Athens. But the usurper, satisfied with the power cf quietly directing the administration of government, made no changes in the constitution, and suffered the laws to take their or- dinary course. The government of Pisis' tratus was probably a less evil than would have resulted from the success of either of the other factions ; and in this light Solon appears to have viewed it, although he did not hesitate to denounce the usurpation ; and, rejecting the usurper's offers of favor, it is said that he went into voluntary exile, and died at Sal' amis. 1 (559 B. C.) Twice was Pisis' tratus driven from Athens by a coalition of the opposing factions ; but as the latter were almost constantly at variance with each other, he finally returned at the head of an army, and regained the sovereignty, which he held until his death. Although he tightened the reins of government, yet he ruled with equity and mildness, courting popularity by a generous treatment of the poorer citizens, and gratifying the national pride by adorning Athens with many useful and magnificent works. 1. Sal' amis is an island in the Gulf of ^Egina, iiear the coast of At' tica, and twelve or fifteen mi!es south-west from Athens. (See Map No. I.) 56 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L 31. On the death of Pisis tratus (528 B. C.), his sons Hip'pias, Hippar' chus, and Thes' salus succeeded to his power, and for some years trod in his steps and prosecuted his plans, only taking care to fill the most important offices with their friends, and keeping a stand- ing force of foreign mercenaries to secure themselves from hostile factions and popular outbreaks. After a joint reign of fourteen years a conspiracy was planned to free At' tica from their rule, at the head of which were two young Athenians, Harmodius and Aris- togeiton, whose personal resentment had been provoked by an atro- cious insult to the family of the former. Hippar' chus was killed, but the two young Athenians also lost their lives in the struggle. 32. Hip' pias, the elder of the ruling brothers, now that he had injuries to avenge, became a cruel tyrant, and thus alienated the af- fections of the people. The latter finally obtained aid from the Spartans, and the family of the Pisistratids was driven OF THE from Athens, never to regain its former ascendency ; al- SISTRATIDS. though but a few years after its expulsion, Sparta, re- penting the course she had taken, made an ineffectual effort to restore Hip' pias to the throne of which she had aided in depriving him. Hip' pias then fled to the court of Artapanes, governor of Lyd' ia, 1 then a part of the Persian dominions of Darius, where his intrigues f ; reatly contributed to the opening of a war between Greece and Persia. 2 33. Nearly half a century before this time, Croe'sus, 3 king of Lyd' ia, had conquered the Grecian colonies on the coast of Asia Minor ; but he ruled them with great mildness, leaving them their political institutions undisturbed, and requiring of them little more than the payment of a moderate tribute. A few years later they experienced a change of masters, and, together with Lyd' ia, fell, by conquest, under the dominion of the Persians. But they were still allowed to retain their own form of government by paying tribute to their conquerors 5 yet they seized every opportunity to deliver them- 1. Lyd' ia was a country on the coast of Asia Minor, having Mys'ia on the north, Phryg'ia on the east, and Caria on the south. The Grecian colony of Ionia was embraced within Lyd' ia and the northern part of Caria, extending along the coast. (Map No. IV.) 2. Modern Persia, a large country of Central Asia, extends from the Caspian Sea on the north, to the Persian Gulf on the south, having Asiatic Turkey on the west, and the provinces of Afghanistan and Beloochistan on the east. For the greatest extent of the Persian empire, which was during the reign of Darius Hystas' pes, see the Map No.. V. 3. CrcB' sws, the last king of Lyd' ia, was famed for his riches and munificence. Herod' otus (i. 30-33, and 36, &c.) and Plutarch (life of Solon) give a very interesting account of the visit of the Athenian Solon to the court of that prince, who greatly prided himself on his riches, and vainly thought himself the happiest of mankind. CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN HISTORY. 57 selves from this species of thraldom, and finally the lonians sought the aid of their Grecian countrymen, making application, first to Sparta, but in vain, and next (35. C. 500) to Athens, and the Grecian islands of the .53' gean Sea. 34. The Athenians, irritated at this time by a haughty demand of the Persian monarch, that they should restore Hip'pias to the throne, and regarding Darius as an avowed enemy, gladly took part with the lonians, and, in connection with Euboa' a, 1 fur- xr . IO MO nished their Asiatic countrymen with a fleet of twenty- REVOLT. five sail. The allied Grecians were at first successful, ravaging Lyd' ia, and burning Sar' dis, 3 its capital ; but in the end they were defeated near Eph' esus ; 3 the commanders quarrelled with each other ; and the Athenians sailed home, leaving the Asiatic Greeks divided among themselves, to contend alone against the whole power of Per- sia. Still the Ionian war was protracted six years, when it was ter- minated by the storming of Miletus, 4 (B. C. 494,) the capital of the Ionian confederacy. The surviving inhabitants of this beautiful 1. Eula' a, (now called Neg' ropont',) a long, narrow, and irregular island of the JE' gean Sea, (now Grecian Archipel' ago,) extended one hundred and ten miles along the eastern coast of Bcjeotia and At' tica, from which it was separated by the channel of Euripus, which, at one place, was only forty yards across. The chief town of the island was Chal' cis, (now Neg' ro- pont',) on the western coast. (Map No. I.) a. Sar' dis, the ancient capital of Lyd' ia, was situated on both sides of the river Pactolus, a southern branch of the Her' mus, seventy miles east from Smyr' na. In the annals of Chris- tianity, Sar' dis is distinguished as having been one of the seven churches of Asia. A mis- erable village, called Sart, is now found on the site of this ancient city. (Map No. IV.) 3. Eph,' esus, one of the Ionian cities, was situated on the south side, and near the month of the small river Cays' ter, on the coast of Lyd' ia, thirty-eight miles south from Smyr'na. Here stood a noble temple, erected in honor of the goddess Diana ; but an obscure individ- ual, of the name of Ileros' tratus, burned it, in order to perpetuate his memory by the infamous notoriety which such an act would give him ! The grand council of Ionia endeavored to dis- appoint the incendiary by passing a decree that his name should not be mentioned, but it was divulged by the historian Theopom' pus. A new temple was subsequently built, far surpassing the first, and ranked among the seven wonders of the world. When St. Paul visited Eph' esus, still the cry was, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians" (Acts, xix. 28, 34) ; but the worship of the goddess was doomed speedily to decline, and here St. Paul founded the principal of the Asiatic churches. But war, the ravages of earthquakes, and the desolating hand of time, have com- pleted the ruin of this once famous city. " The glorious pomp of its heathen worship is no longer remembered ; and Christianity, which was there nursed by apostles, and fostered by general councils, until it increased to fulness of stature, barely lingers on in an existence hardly visible." (Map No. IV.) 4. Miletus, the most distinguished of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, and once greatly cele- brated for its population, wealth, commerce, and civilization, was situated in the province of Ciria, on the southern shore of the bay into which the small river Lat' mus emptied, and about thirty-five miles south from Eph' esus. St. Paul appears to have sojourned here a few days ; and here he assembled the elders of the Ephesian church, and delivered unto them an affec- tionate farewell address. (Acts, xx. 15, 38.) Miletus is now a deserted place, but contains the ruins of a few once magnificent structures, and still jears the name of Palat, or the Palaces. rth-we*t of Shechem, near the country of the Philistines. (Map No. VI.) 60 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I a duty which the sacred law assigned to the high-priest alone For this violation of the law the divine displeasure was denounced against him by the prophet Samuel, who declared to him that his kingdom should not continue ; and so disheartened were the people, that the army of Saul soon dwindled away to six hundred men ; but by the daring valor of Jonathan, his son, a panic was spread among the Philistines, and their whole army was easily overthrown. 7. During several years after this victory, Saul carried on a suc- cessful warfare against the different nations that harassed the fron- tiers of his kingdom ; but when Agag, the king of the Amalekites, had fallen into his hands, in violation of the divine command he spared his life, and brought away from the vanquished enemy a vast booty of cattle. For not fulfilling his commission from the Lord, he was declared unfit to be the founder of a race of kings, and was told that the sovereign power should be transferred to another family. 8. David, of the tribe of Benjamin, then a mere youth, was di- vinely chosen for the succession, being secretly anointed for that purpose by Samuel. In the next war with the Philistines he dis- tinguished himself by slaying their champion, the gigantic Groliath of Grath. 1 Saul, however, looked upon David with a jealousy bor- dering on madness, and made frequent attempts to take his life ; but the latter sought safety in exile, and for a while took up his residence in a Philistine city. Returning to Palestine, he sought refuge from the anger of Saul in the dens and caves of the moun- tains 5 and twice, while Saul was pursuing him, had it in his power to destroy his persecutor, but he would not " lift his hand against the Lord's anointed." 9. Aftef the death of Samuel, the favor of the Lord was wholly withdrawn from Saul ; and when the Philistines invaded the country with a numerous army, several of the sons of Saul were slain in battle on Mount Gil' boa, 2 and Saul himself, to avoid falling alive into the hands of his enemies, fell upon his own sword. On the death of Saul, David repaired to Hebron, 3 and, with the support of the tribe of Judah, asserted his title to the throne ; but the north- ern tribes attached themselves to Ishbosheth, a son of Saul ; " and 1. Gaih, a town of the Philistines, was about twenty-five miles west from Jerusalem. (Map No. VI.) 2. Mount Oil' boa is in the southern part of Galilee, a short distance west of the Jordan (Map No. VI.) 3. Hebron, a town of Judah, was about twenty miles south of Jerusalem. (Map No. VI.) CHAP III] JEWISH HISTORY. 61 there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David ; but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker." The death of Ishbosheth, who fell by the hands of two of his own guards, removed the obstacles in the way of a union of the tribes, and at Hebron David was pub- licly recognized king of all Israel. 10. After all the conquests which the Israelites had made in the land of promise, there still remained large portions of Palestine of which they had not yet gained possession. On the south-west were the strongholds and cities of the Philistines ; and bordering on the north-western coast was the country of the Phoanicians, whose two chief cities were Tyre 1 and Sidon. 2 Joppa 3 was the only Mediter- ranean port open to the Israelites. Even in the very heart of Pal- estine, the Jeb'usites, supposed to have been a tribe of the wan dering Hyk' sos, possessed the stronghold of Jebus, or Jerusalem, 4 on Mount Zion, after David had become king of " all Israel," But 1. Tyre, long the principal city of Phoenicia, and the commercial emporium of the ancient world, stood on a small island on the south-eastern or Palestine coast of the Mediterranean, about forty miles north-east from Mount Carmel. The modern town of Siir, (Soor,) with fifteen hundred inhabitants, occupies a site opposite the ancient city. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, represent Tyre as a city of unrivalled wealth, " a mart of nations," whose " mer- chants were princes, and her traffickers the honorable of the earth." (Isaiah, xxiii. 3, 8.) After the destruction of the old city by Nebuchadnezzar, New Tyre enjoyed a considerable de- gree of celebrity and commercial prosperity ; but the founding of Alexandria, by diverting the commerce that had formerly centred at Tyre into a new channel, gave her an irreparable blow, and she gradually declined, till, in the language of prophecy, her palaces have been levelled with the dust, and she has become " a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." (Ezek. xxvi. 5.) The prophet Ezekiel has described, in magnificent terms, the glory and the riches of Tyre. (See Ezek. xxvii.) (Map No. VI.) 2. Sidon, (now called Said,) was situated near the sea, twenty-two miles north of Tyre, of which it was the parent city, and by which it was early eclipsed in commercial importance. The modern town contains four or five thousand inhabitants. The site of the ancient city is supposed to have been about two miles farther inland. Sidon is twice spoken of in Joshua as the " great Sidon" (Josh. xi. 8, and xix. 28) ; and in the time of Homer there were " skillful Sidonian artists" (Cowper's II. xxiii. 891). In the division of Palestine, Sidon fell to the lot of Asher ; but we learn from Judges, (i. 31,) corroborated also by profane history, that it never came into the actual possession of that tribe. In the time of Solomon there were none among the Jews who had " skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians." (1 Kings, v. 6.) The mod- ern town of Said, the representative of the ancient city, is on the north side of a cape extending into the Mediterranean. (Map No. VI.) 3. Jop' pa, (now called Jaffa, a town of about four thousand inhabitants,) stands on a tongue of land projecting into the Mediterranean, and rising from the shore in the form of an am- phitheatre, thirty-two miles north-west from Jerusalem. The " border before Joppa" was in- cluded in the possessions of the tribe of Dan (Josh. xix. 46). In the time of Solomon it ap- pears to have been a port of some consequence. Hiram, king of Tyre, writing to Solomon, says, " We will cut wood out of Lebanon s.s much as thou shall need ; and we will bring it thee in floats by sea to Jop' pa, and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem." (Map No. VI.) 4. Jerusalem, first known as the city of the Jeb' usites, is in the southern part of Palestine, nearly intermediate between the northern extremity of the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, and thirty-two miles east from Jaf fa. (See farther description p. 164.) 62 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! David, having resolved upon the conquest of this important city, which its inhabitants deemed impregnable, sent Joab, his general, against it, with a mighty army ; " and David took the stronghold of Zion ;" and so pleased was he with its situation, that he made it the capital of his dominions. 1 1. After the defeat of the Jeb' usites, David was involved in war with many of the surrounding nations, whom he compelled to be- eome tributary to hire, as far as the banks of the Euphrates. Among these were most of the States of Syr' ia, 1 on the north-east, with Damas' cus, 3 their capital, and also the E' domites, on the south- eastern borders of Palestinff. It was. in the last of these wars, dur- ing the siege of Rab' bah, 3 the Ammonite capital, that David pro- voked the anger of the Lord by taking Bath' sheba, the wife of Uriah, to himself, and exposing her husband to death. The re- mainder of David's life was full of trouble from his children, three of whom, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah, died violent deaths the latter two after they had successively rebelled against their father. David died after a troubled but glorious reign of forty years, after having given orders that his son Solomon should succeed him. 12. By the conquests of David the fame of the Israelites had spread into distant lands, and SolDmon obtained in marriage the daughter of the king of Egypt. So celebrated was the wisdom of Solomon, that the queen of Sheba a came to visit him from a dis- 1. Ancient Syr' ia embraced the whole of Palestine and Phoenicia, and was bounded on the east by the Euphrates and the Arabian desert. Syv' ia is called in Scripture Aram, and the inhabitants Aramaeans. The term Syr' ia is a corruption or abridgment of Assyria. (Map No. V.) 2. Damas' cus, one of the most ancient cities of Syr' ia, existed in the time of Abraham, two thousand years before the Christian era. (See Gen. xiv. 15.) It was conquered by David, but freed itself from the Jewish yoke in the time of Solomon, when, becoming the seat of a new principality, it often harassed the kingdoms both of Judah and Israel. At later periods it fell successively under the power of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. As a Roman city it attained great eminence, and it appears conspicuously in the history of the Apostle Paul. (Acts, ix.) It is now a large and important commercial Mohammedan city, containing a population of more than a hundred thousand inhabitants. The city is situated in a pleasant plain, watered by a river, the Syriac name of which was Pharphar, on the eastern side of the Anti-Lib' anus mountains, a hundred and fifty miles north-east from Jerusalem. (Map No. VI.) 3. Rabbah, (afterwards called Philadelphia by the Greeks, when it was rebuilt by Ptolemy Philadelphia,) was about thirty miles north-east from the northern extremity of the Dead Sea, at the source of the brook Jabbok. Extensive ruins, at a place now called Amman, consisting of the remains of theatres, temples, and colonnades of Grecian construction, mark the site of the Ammonite capital. The ancient city is now without an inhabitant, but the excellent water found there renders the spot a desirable halting-place for caravans, the drivers of which use the ancient temples and buildings as shelter for their beasts, literally fulfilling the denunciation a. The queen of Sheba is supposed by some to have come from Southern Arabia, but is more generally thought to have been the queen of At yssinia, which is the firm belief of the Aby- sinians to this day. Kino's Palestine CBAP. III.] JEWISH HISTORY. 63 tant country, and the most powerful princes of the surrounding na- tions courted his alliance. With Hiram, king of Tyre, the chief city of the Phoenicians, and the emporium of the commerce of the Eastern world, he was united by the strictest bonds of friendship. Seven years and a half was he occupied in building, at Jerusalem, a magnificent temple to the Lord. He also erected for himself a pal- ace of unrivalled splendor. A great portion of his immense wealth was derived from commerce, of which he was a distinguished patron. From ports on the Red Sea, in his possession, his vessels sailed to Ophir, some rich country on the shores of the Indian Ocean. By the aid of Phoenician navigators he also opened a communication with Tar' shish, in western Europe, while the commerce between Central Asia and Palestine was carried on by caravans across the desert. 13. But even Solomon, notwithstanding all his learning and wis- dom, was corrupted by prosperity, and in his old age was seduced by his numerous " strange wives" to forsake the God of his fathers. He became an idolater : and then enemies began to arise up against him on every side. A revolt was organized in E'dom: 1 an inde- pendent adventurer seized Damascus, and formed a new Syrian king- dom there ; and the prophet Ahijah foretold to Solomon that the kingdom of Israel should be rent, and that the dominion of ten of the twelve tribes should be given to Jeroboam, of the tribe of Eph- raim, although not till after the death of Solomon. 14. Accordingly, on the death of Solomon, when Rehoboam his son came to the throne, the ten northern tribes chose Jeroboam for their king ; and Israel and Judah, with which latter was united the tribe of Benjamin, became separate kingdoms. The separation thus effected is called " The Revolt of the Ten Tribes." (990 B. C.) The subsequent princes of the kingdom of Israel, as the Ten Tribes were called, were all idolaters in the sight of the Lord, although from time to time they were warned of the consequences of their idolatry by the prophets Elijah, Elisha, Hosea, Amos, Jonah, and others. The history of these ten tribes is but a repetition of calamities and revolutions. Their seventeen kings, excluding two of Ezekiel : " I will make Kabbah of the Ammonites a stable for camels, and a couching place for flocks." (Ezekiel, "xxv. 5.) (Map No. VI.) 1. The E' domites, inhabitants of Idumea, or E' dom, dwelt, at this time, in the country south and south-east of the Dead Sea. During the Babylonian captivity the E' domites took posses- sion of the southern portion of Judea, and made Hebron their capital. They afterwards em- braced Judaism, and their territory became incorporated with Judea. although in the tim< of our Saviour it still retained the nam of Idumea. (Map No. VI.) 64 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAET I. pretenders, belonged to seven different families, and were placed on the throne by seven sanguinary conspiracies. At length Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, invaded the country ; and Samaria, 1 its capital, after a brave resistance of three years, was taken by storm. The ten tribes were then driven out of Palestine, and carried away captive into a distant region beyond the Euphrates, 719 years before the Christian era. With their captivity the history of the ten tribes ends. Their fate is still unknown to this day, and their history remains un- written. 15. After the revolt of the ten tribes, Rehoboam reigned seven- teen years at Jerusalem, over Judah and Benjamin, comprising what was called the kingdom of Judah. During his reign he and his subjects fell into idolatry, for which they were punished by an in- vasion by Shishak, king of Egypt, who entered Jerusalem and car- ried off the treasures of the temple and the palace. We find some of the subsequent kings of Judah practising idolatry, and suffering the severest punishments for their sins : others restored the worship of the true God ; and of them it is recorded that " God prospered their undertakings." 16. At the time when Shalmanezer, the Assyrian, carried Israel away captive, the wicked Ahaz was king over Judah. He brought the country to the brink of ruin, but its fall was arrested by the death of the impious monarch. The good Hezekiah succeeded him, and, aided by the advice of the prophet Isaiah, commenced his reign with a thorough reformation of abuses. He shook off the Assyrian yoke, to which his father Ahaz had submitted by paying tribute. Sennacherib, the son and successor of Shalmanezer, determining to be revenged upon Judah, sent a large army against Jerusalem (711 B. C.) ; but " the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote, in the camp of the Assyrians, a hundred and fourscore and five thousand men." The instrument by which the Lord executed vengeance upon the Assyrians, is supposed by some to have been the pestilential simoom of the desert ; for Isaiah had prophesied of the king of As- syria : "Thus saith the Lord; behold, I will send a blast upon him." a 17. It is interesting to find an account of the miraculous destruc- tion of the Assyrian army in the pages of profane history. Senna- 1. Samdria, (now called Sebustieh,) the capital of the kingdom of Israel, stood on Mount Sameron, about forty miles north from Jerusalem. (Map No. VI.) a. Isaiah, xxxvii. 6, 7. CHAP. III.] JETV/SH HISTORY. 65 cherib was at this time marching against Egypt, whose alliance had been sought by Hezekiah, when, unwilling to leave the hostile power of Judah in his rear, he turned against Jerusalem. It was natural, therefore, that the discomfiture which removed the fears of the Egypt- ians, should have a place in their annals. Accordingly, Herod' otus gives an account of it, which he had learned from the Egyptians themselves ; but in the place of the prophet Isaiah, it is an Egyptian priest who invokes the aid of his god against the enemy, and pre- dicts the destruction of the Assyrian host. 18. Herod' otus relates that the Egyptian king, directed by the priest, marched against Sennacherib with a company composed only of tradesmen and artizans, and that " so immense a number of mice infested by night the enemy's camp, that their quivers and bows, together with what secured their shields to their arms, were gnawed in pieces ;" and that, " in the morning the enemy, finding themselves without arms, fled in confusion, and lost great numbers of their men." Herod' otus also relates that, in his time, there was still standing in the Egyptian temple of Yulcan a marble statue of this Egyptian king, having a mouse in his hand, and with the inscription : " Learn from my fortune to reverence the gods." a 19. Hezekiah was succeeded on the throne of Judah by his son Manas' seh, who, in the early part of his reign, revelled in the gross- est abominations of Eastern idolatry. Being carried away captive to Babylon by Sardanapalus, the Assyrian king, he repented of his sins, and was restored to his kingdom. The brief reign of his son A' mon was corrupt and idolatrous. The good Josiah then succeeded to the throne. His reign was an era in the religious government of the nation ; but during an invasion of the country by Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, he was mortally wounded in battle. Jerusalem was soon after taken, and Jehoahaz, who had been elected to the throne by the people, was deposed, and carried captive to Egypt, where he died. 20. Not long after this, during the reign of Jehoiakim, the Egypt- ian monarch, pursuing his conquests eastward against the Babylo- nians, was utterly defeated by Nebuchadnez' zar near the Euphrates, an event which prepared the way for the Babylonian dominion over Judea and the west of Asia. Pursuing his success westward, Nebuchadnez' zar came to Jerusalem, when the king, Jehoiakim, submitted, and agreed to pay tribute for Judah ; but as he rebelled a. Herod' otus, Book II. p. 141. 4 66 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAET L after three years, Nebuchadnez' zar returned, pillaged Jerusalem, and carried away certain of the royal family and of the nobles as hostages for the fidelity of the king and people. (B. C. 605.) Among these were the prophet Daniel and his companions. Je- choniah, the next king of Judah, was carried away to Babylon, with a multitude of other captives, so that " none remained save the poorest people of the land." 21. The throne in Jerusalem was next filled by Zedekiah, who joined some of the surrounding nations in a rebellion against Nebu- chadnez' zar ; but Jerusalem, after an eighteen months' siege, whose miseries were heightened by the horrors of famine, was taken by storm at midnight. Dreadful was the carnage which ensued. Zede- kiah, attempting to escape, was made prisoner ; and the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon. Nearly all the wretched inhabitants were made companions of his exile. Jerusalem was burned, the temple levelled with the ground, and the very walls destroyed. (586 B. C.) 22. Thus ended the kingdom of Judah, and the reign of the house of David. Seventy years were the children of Israel detained in captivity in Babylon, reckoning from the time of the first pillag- ing of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnez' zar, a period that had been de- clared in prophecy by Jeremiah, and which was distinguished by the visions of Nebuchadnez' zar, the prophetic declarations of Daniel, Belshazzar's feast, and the overthrow of the kingdom of Babylon by the Medes and Persians. The termination of the Captivity, as had been foretold by the prophets, was the act of Cyrus, the Persian, immediately after the conquest of Babylon. (536 B. C.) 23. The edict of Cyrus permitted all Jews in his dominions to return to Palestine, and to rebuild the city and temple of Jerusalem. Only a zealous minority, however, returned, and but little progress had been made in the rebuilding of the temple, when the work was altogether stopped by an order of the next sovereign ; but during the reign of Darius Hystas' pes, Zerub' babel, urged by the prophets Hag' gai and Zechariah, obtained a new edict for the restoration of the temple, and after four years the work was completed, 516 years before the Christian era. The temple was now dedicated to the worship of Jehovah, the ceremonies of the Jewish law were restored, and never again did the Jews, as a people, relapse into idolatry. CHAP. Ill] PERSIAN HISTORY. 67 [III. ROMAN HISTORY.] 24. Having thus brought the events of Jewish history down to the time of the commencement of the wars between Greece and Persia, we again turn back to take a view of the cotemporary history of such other nations as had begun to acquire historical importance during the same period. Our attention is first directed to Rome to the rise of that power which was destined event- ually to overshadow the world, Rome is supposed to have been found- ed 753 years before the Christian era, about the time of the abolition of the hereditary archonship in Athens twenty years before the commencement of the first war between Sparta and Messenia, and about thirty years before the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judaa. But the importance of Roman history demands a connected account, which can better be given after Rome has broken in upon the line of history we are pursuing, by the reduction of Greece to a Roman province ; and as we have already arrived at a period of correspond- ing importance in Persian affairs, we shall next briefly trace the events of Persian history down to the time when they became min- gled with the history of the Grecians. [IV. PERSIAN HISTORY.] 25. In the course of the preceding history of the Jews we have had occasion to mention the names of Shalmenesar, Sennacherib, and Sardanapalus, who were the last three kings of the united empire of Assyria, whose capital was Nine- veh. Not long after Sardanapalus had attacked Judah, and carried away its king Manas' seh into captivity, the governors of several of the Assyrian provinces revolted against him, and besieged him in his capital, when, finding himself deserted by his subjects, he destroyed his own life. (671 B. C.) The empire, which, during the latter part of the reign of Sardanapalus, had embraced Media, Persia, Babylo- nia, and Assyria, was then divided among the conspirators. 26. Sixty-five years later, the Medes and Babylonians, with joint forces, destroyed Nineveh (B. C. 606),* and Babylon became the capi- tal of the reunited empire. The year after the destruction of Nine- veh, Nebuchadnez' zar, a name common to the kings of Babylon, as was Pharaoh to those of Egypt, made his first attack upon Jerusa- lem (B. C. 605), rendering the Jews tributary to him, and carrying away numbers of them into captivity, and among them the prophet Daniel and his companions. Nineteen years later (B. C. 586), he a. Clinton, I 269. Grote, iii. 255, Note, says, " During the last ten years of the reign of Cywc- ares" : and Cyaxares, the Mede, reigned from 636 to 595. 68 ANCIENT HISTORY [PART I destroyed the very walls of Jerusalem and tlie temple itself, and carried away the remnant of tlie Jews captive tc Babylon. 27. Soon after the conquest of Judea, Nebuchadnez' zar resolved to take vengeance on the surrounding nations, some of whom had solicited the Jews to unite in a confederacy against him, but had af- terwards rejoiced at their destruction. These were the Am' monites, Moabites, E'domites, Arabians, Sidonians, Tyr'ians, Philistines, Egyptians, and Abyssin' ians. The subjugation of each was par- ticularly foretold by the prophets, and has been related both by sacred and profane writers. In the war against the Phoenicians, after a long siege of thirteen years he made himself master of insular Tyre, the Phoenician capital (B. C. 571), and the Tyr'ians became subject to him and his successors until the destruction of the Chal- dean monarchy by Cyrus. a 28. In the war against Egypt (B. C. 570), Nebuchadnez' zar laid the whole country waste, in accordance with previous predictions of the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The prophecy of Ezekiel, that, after the desolations foretold, " there shall no more be a prince of the land of Egypt," has been verified in a remarkable manner ; for the kings of Egypt were made tributary, and grievously oppressed, first by the Babylonians, and next by the Persians ; and since the rule of the latter, Egypt has successively been governed by foreigners by the Macedonians, the Romans, the Mamelukes, and lastly, by the Turks, who possess the land of the Pharaohs to this day. 29. It was immediately after his return from Egypt that Nebu- chadnez' zar, flushed with the brilliancy of his conquests, set up a golden image, and commanded all the people to fall down and wor- ship it. (B. C, 569.) Notwithstanding the rebuke which his impiety >ceived on this occasion, after he had adorned Babylon with mag- 'cent works, again the pride of his heart was exhibited, for as he \ed in his palace he said, in exultation, " Is not this great Baby- hat I have built for the head of the kingdom, by the might of wer, and for the honor of my majesty ?" But in the same at he had spoken he was struck with lunacy, and all his glory ' from him. Of his dreams, and their prophetic interpreta- \niel, we shall have occasion to speak, as the predictions are T verified in the progress of history. statement that it was the inland town that was reduced by Nebuchadnez'- >f the inhabitants had previously withdrawn to an island, where they built to be erroneous. See Grote's Greece, iii. 266-7. CHAP. Ill] PERSIAN HISTORY. 69 30. Not long after the reign of Nebuchadnez' zar, we find Bel- shaz' zar, probably a grandson of the former, on the throne of Baby- lon. Nothing is recorded of him but the circumstances of his death, which are related in the fifth chapter of Daniel. He was probably slain in a conspiracy of his nobles. (B. C. 553.) In the meantime, the kingdom of Media 1 had*risen to eminence under the successive reigns of Phraor' tes, Cyax' ares, and Asty' ages, 8 the for- mer of whom is supposed to be the Ahasuerus mentioned in the book of Daniel. a While some writers mention a successor of Asty' ages, Cyax' ares II., who has been thought to be the same as the Darius of Scripture, others assert that Asty' ages was the last of the Me- dian kings. In accordance with the latter and now generally-received account, Cyrus, a grandson of Asty' ages, but whose father was a Persian, roused the Persian tribes against the ruling Medes, defeated Asty' ages, and transferred the supreme power to the Persians. (558 B. C.)* 31. Cyrus the Great, as he is often called, is generally considered the founder of the Persian empire. Soon after his accession to the throne his dominions were invaded by Croe' sus, king of Lydia ; but Cyrus defeated him in the great battle of Thymbria, and after- wards, besieging him in his own capital of Sardis, took him prisoner, and obtained possession of all his treasures. (B. C. 546.) The sub- jugation of the Grecian cities of Asia Minor by the Persians soon followed. Cyrus next laid siege to Babylon, which still remained an independent city in the heart of his empire. Babylon soon fell be- neath his power, and it has been generally asserted that he effected the conquest by turning the waters of the Euphrates from their chan- nel, and marching his troops into the city through the dry bed of the stream ; but this account has been doubted, while it has been thought quite as probable that he owed his success to some internal revolu- tion, which put an end to the dynasty of the Babylonian kings. (B. C. 536.) The prophetic declarations of the final and utter de- 1. Media, the boundaries of which varied greatly at different times, embraced the country immediately south and south-west of the Caspian Sea, and north of the early Persia. ( Map No. V.) 2. These kings were probably in a measure subordinate to the ruling king at Babylon. a. Daniel, ix. 1. Kale's Analysis, iv. 81. b. Niebuhr's Lect. on Ancient Hist. i. 135. Grote's Greece, iv. 183. c. The accounts of the early history of Cyrus, as derived from Xen' ophon, Herod' otus, Ctesias, &c., are very contradictory. The account of Herod' otus is now generally preferred, as con- taining a greater proportion of historical truth than the others. Grote calls the Cyropoe' dia of Xen' ophon a " philosophical novel." Niebuhr says, " No rational man, in our days, can look upon Xen 1 ophon's history of Cyrus in any )ther light than that of a romance." 79 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I. struction of Babylon, which was eventually to be made a desolate waste a possession for the bittern a retreat for the wild beasts of the desert and of the islands to be filled with pools of water and to be inhabited no more from generation to generation, have been fully verified. 32. In the year that Babylon was taken, Cyrus issued the famous decree which permitted the Jews to return to their own land, and to rebuild the city and temple of Jerusalem events which had been foretold by the prophet Isaiah more than a century before Cyrus was born. Cyrus is supposed to have lived about seven years after the taking of Babylon directing his chief attention to the means of increasing the prosperity of his kingdom. The manner of his death is a disputed point in history, but in the age of Strabo his tomb bore the inscription : " man, I am Cyrus, who founded the Persian empire : envy me not then the little earth which covers my remains." 33. Camby'ses succeeded his father on the throne of Persia. (530 B. C.) Intent on carrying out the ambitious designs of Cyrus, lie invaded and conquered Egypt, although the Egyptian king was aided by a force of Grecian auxiliaries. The power of the Persians was also extended over several African tribes : even the Greek col- ony of Cyrenaica 1 was forced to pay tribute to Camby' ses, and the Greek cities of Asia Minor remained quiet under Persian governors ; but an army which Camby' ses sent over the Libyan desert to sub- due the little oasis where the temple of Jiipiter Am' mon 2 was the centre of an independent community, was buried in the sands ; and another army which the king himself led up the Nile against Ethiopia, came near perishing from hunger. The Persian king would have attempted the conquest of the rising kingdom of Car- thage, but his Phoenician allies or subjects, who constituted his naval power, were unwilling to lend their aid in destroying the indepen- dence of their own colony, and Camby' ses was forced to abandon the project. 34. On the death of Camly'ses (B. C. 521), one Smer' dis, an 1. Cyren&ica, a country on the African :oast of the Mediterranean, corresponded with the western portion of the modern Barca. It Tas sometimes called Pentap' nlis, from its having five Grecian cities of note in it, of which Cyrene was the capital. (See p. 95, also Map No. V.) 2. The Temple of Jupiter Jim' mon was situated in what is now called the Oasis of Siwah, a fertile spot in the desert, three hundred miles south-west from Cairo. The time and the cir- cumstances of the existence of this temple are unknown, but, like that of Delphi, it was famed for its treasures. A well sixty feet deep, which has been discovered in the oasis, is supposed to mark the site of the temple. CHAP. III.] PERSIAN HISTORY. 71 impostor, a pretended son of Cyrus, seized the throne ; but the Per- sian nobles soon formed a conspiracy against him, killed him in his palace, and chose one of their own number to reign in his stead. The new monarch assumed the old Median title of royalty, and is known in history as Darius, or Darius Hystas' pes. Babylon having revolted, he was engaged twenty months in the siege of the city which was finally taken by the artifice of a Persian nobleman, who pretending to desert to the enemy, gained their confidence, and having obtained the command of an important post in the city, opened the gates to the Persians : Darius put to death three thou- sand of the citizens, and ordered the one hundred gates to be pulled down, and the walls of the proud city to be demolished, that it might never after be in a condition to rebel against him. The favor which this monarch showed the Jews, in permitting them to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, has already been mentioned. 35. The attention of Darius was next turned towards the Scyth- ians, 1 then a European nation, who inhabited the country along the western borders of the Euxine, from the Tan' ais or Don 2 to the north- ern boundaries of Thrace. 3 Darius indeed overran their country, but without finding an enemy who would meet him in battle ; for the Scythians were wise enough to retreat before the invader, and deso- late the country through which he directed his course. When the supplies of the Persians had been cut off on every side, and their strength wasted in useless pursuit, they were glad to seek safety by a hasty retreat. 36. The next important events in the history of Darius we find connected with the revolt, and final subjugation, of the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, an account of which has already been given. Still Darius was not a conqueror like Cyrus or Camby' ses, but seems to have aimed rather at consolidating and securing his empire, than 1. Scythia is a name given by the early Greeks to the country on the northern and western borders of the Euxine. In the time of the first Ptolemy, however, the early Scythia, together with the whole region from the Baltic Sea to the Caspian, had changed its name to Sarmatia, while the entire north of Asia beyond the Himalaya mountains was denominated Scythia. (Map Nos. V. and IX.) 2. The Don (anciently Tan' ais), rising in Central Russia, flows south-east until it approaches within about thirty-six miles of the Volga, when it turns to the south-west, and enters the north-eastern extremity of the Sea of Azof (anciently Palug Mceotis). (Map No. IX.) 3. Thrace, embracing nearly the same as the modern Turkish province of Rumilia, was bounded on the north by the Haemus mountains, on the east by the Euxine, on the south by the Propon' tis and the JE' gean Sea, and on the west by Macedonia. Its principal river was the Hebrus (now Maritza), and its largest towns, excepting those in the Thracian Chersonesu*, (see p. 96.) were Hadrianopolis and Byzantium. (Map No. III. and IX.) 72 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I. at enlarging it. The dominions bequeathed him by his predecessors comprised many countries, united under one government only by their subjection to the will and the arbitrary exactions of a common ruler ; but Darius first organized them into one empire, by dividing the whole into twenty satrapies or provinces, and assigning to each its proper share in the burdens of government. 37. Under Darius the Persian empire had now attained its great- est extent, embracing, in Asia, all that, at a later period, was con- tained in Persia proper and Turkey ; in Africa, taking in Egypt as far as Nubia, and the coast of the Mediterranean as far as Barca ; and in Europe, part of Thrace and Macedonia thus stretching from the JE' gean Sea to the Indus, and from the plains of Tartary 1 to the cataracts of the Nile. Such was the empire against whose united power a few Grecian communities were to contend for the preserva- tion of their very name and existence. The results of the contest may be learned from the following chapter. (See Map No. VII.) 1. Tartary is a name of modern origin, applied to that extensive portion of Central Asia which extends eastward from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean. CHAP. IV.J GRECIAN HISTORY. 73 CHAPTER IV. THE AUTHENTIC PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY. SECTION I. GR*-&> HISTORY FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST WAR WITH PERSIA TO THE ES TABLISHMENT OF PHILIP ON THE THRONE OF MACEDON : 490 TO 360 B. c. = 130 YEARS. ANALYSIS. FIRST PERSIAN WAR. 1. Preparations of Darius for the conquest of Greece. Miirdonius. Instruction of the Persian fleet. [Mount A' thos.] Return of Mardonius. 2. Re- newed p>op; i aiions of Dari us. Heralds sent to Greece. Their treatment by the Athenians and Spartans. YU'a. (Map No. I.) CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 91 ance, to the first rank in power among the Grecian States. Al- though Athens joined Thebes in the beginning of the contest, yet she afterwards took the side of the Spartans. At Teg' yra, 1 Pe- lop' idas defeated a greatly superior force, and killed the two Spartan generals ; at Leuc' tra, 3 Epaminon' das, with a force of six thousand Thebans, defeated the Lacedaemo'nian army of more than double that number. (B. C. July 8, 371.) Epammon' das afterwards in- vaded Laconia, and appeared before the very gates of Sparta, where a hostile force had not been seen during five hundred years ; and at Mantinea he defeated the enemy in the most sanguinary contest ever fought between Grecians. (B. C. 362.) But Epaminon' das fell in the moment of victory, and the glory of Thebes perished with him. A general peace was soon after established, on the single condition that each State should retain its respective possessions. 41. Four years after the battle of Mantinea the Grecian States again became involved in domestic hostilities, known as the Sacred War, the second in Grecian history to which that epi- VIIL SECOND thet was applied. 3 - During the preceding war, the Pho- SACRED WAR. cians, 3 although in alliance with Thebes by treaty, had shown such a predilection in favor of Sparta, that the animosity of the Thebans was roused against their reluctant ally, and they availed themselves of the first opportunity to show their resentment. The Phocians having taken into cultivation a portion of the plain of Del' phos, which was deemed sacred to Apollo, the Thebans caused them to be accused of sacrilege before the Amphictyon' ic council, which con- demned them to pay a heavy fine. The Phocians refused obedience, and, encouraged by the Spartans, on whom a similar penalty had been imposed for their treacherous occupation of the Theban citadel, took up arms to resist the decree, and, under their leader, Philome- lus, plundered the sacred treasures of Del' phos to obtain the means for carrying on the war. 1. Ttg' yra was a small village of Boeotia, near the northern shore of the Copaic Lake. (Map No. I.) 2. Leuc' tra (now Lefka) was a small town of Bceotia, about ten miles south-west from Thebes, and four or five miles from the Corinthian Gulf. It is now only a heap of ruins. (Map No. I.) 3. Phocis was a small tract of country, bounded on the north by Thes' saly, east by Bceotia, south by the Corinthian Gulf, and west by Locris, JStolia, and Doris. (Map No. I.) a. The first sacred war was carried on against the inhabitants of the town of Cris' sa, on th northern shore of the Corinthian Gulf, in the time of Solon. The Crisseans were charged witk extortion and violence towards the strangers who passed through their territory on their way to the Delphic sanctuary. " Cris' sa was razed to the ground, its harbor choked up, and its fruitful plain turned into a wilderness." Thirwall, i. 152. 92 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT I. 42. The Thebans, Locrians, 1 Thessalians, and nearly all the States of Northern Greece, leagued against the Phocians, while Athens and Sparta declared in their favor, but gave them little active as- sistance. At first the Thebans, confident in their strength, put their prisoners to death, as abettors of sacrilege ; but Philomelus retaliated so severely upon some Thebans who had fallen into his power, as to prevent a repetition of the crime. After the war had continued five years, a new power was brought forward on the theatre of Grecian history, in the person of Philip, who had recently established himself on the throne of Mac' edon, and whom some of the Thessalian allies of Thebes applied to for aid against the Pho- cians. The interference of Philip forms an important epoch in Grecian affairs, at which we interrupt our narrative to trace the growth of the Macedonian monarchy down to the time when its history became united with that of its southern neighbors. SECTION II. GRECIAN HISTORY FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PHILIP ON THE THRONE OF MAC' EDON TO THE REDUCTION OF GREECE TO A ROMAN PROVINCE : 360 TO 146 B. c. = 214 YEARS. ANALYSIS. 1. Geographical account of Macedonia. 2. Early history of Macedonia. Gre- cian rulers. PHILIP OF MAC' EDON. 3. Philip's residence at Thebes. 4. His usurpation of the kingdom of Mac' edon. His wars with the Illyr' ians and other tribes. His first efforts against the Phocians. 5. Philip reduces Phocis. Decree of the Amphictyon' ic council against Phocis. Growing influence of Philip. 6. The ambitious projects of Philip. [Illyr'ia. Epirus. Acar- nania.] 7. Rupture between Philip and the Athenians. [Chersoaesus.] Devotion of the orator JEs' chines to Philip. [Amphis' sa.] Philip throws off the mask. [Elateia.] 8. Thebes and Athens prepare to oppose him. Dissensions. 9. The masterly policy of Philip. The con- federacy against him dissolved by the battle of Chaeronea. [Chaeronea.j 10. Philip's treatment of the Thebans and the Athenians. General congress of the Grecian States, and death of Philip. 11. ALEXANDER succeeds Philip. He quells the revolt against him. His cruel treatment of the Thebans. 12. Servility of Athens. Preparations of Alexander for his career of Eastern conquest. 13. Results of his first campaign. [Gran' icus. Halicarnasyus.] 14. He resumes his march in the spring of 333. Defeats Darius at Is' sus. [Cappadocia. Cilic' ia. Is'sus.^ Results of the battle. Effect of Alexander's kindness. 15. Reduction of Palestine. [Gaza.] Expedition into Egypt. [Alexandria.] Alexander returns and crosses the Euphrates in search of Darius. 16. The opposing forces at the battle of Arbela. [Arbela. India.] 17. Results of the battle, and death of Darius. 18. Alexander's residence at Babylon. His march beyond 1. The Locrians proper inhabited a small territory on the northern shore of the Corinthian Gulf, west of Phocis. There were other Locrian tribes north-east of Phocis, whose territory bordered on the Euboa' an Gulf. (Map No. I.) CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 93 the Indus. [Hyphasis R.]-19. His return to Persia. [Persian Gulf. Gedr&sia.] His meas- ures for consolidating his empire. 20. His sickness and death. 21. His character. 22. As judged of by his actions. The results of his conquests. [Seleiicia.] 23. Contentions that followed his death. 24. Grecian confederacy against Maced6nian supremacy. Sparta and Thebes. Athens is finally compelled to yield to Antip' ater. 25. Cassan' der's usurpation. Views and conquests of Antig' onus. Final dissolution of the Macedonian empire. [Ip' sus. Phryg' ia.] 26. The four kingdoms that arose on the ruins of the empire. Those of Egypt and Syria the most powerful. 27. The empire of Cassan' der. Usurpation of Demetrius. Character of his government. The war carried on against him. 28. Unsettled state of Mac' edon, Greece, and Western Asia. 29. Celtic invasion of Mac' edon. [Adriat 1 ic. Pannonia.] 30. Second Celtic invasion. The Celts are repelled by the Ph6cians. Death of Brennus, their chief. 31. Antig'- onus, son of Demetrius, recovers the throne of his father. Is invaded by Pyr'rhus, king of Epirus. 32. Pyr'rhus marches into Southern Greece. Is repulsed by the Spartans. He enters Ar' gos. His death. 33. Remarks on the death of Pyr' rhus. Ambitious views of Antig' onus 34. THE ACHJE'AN LBAGUE. Aratus seizes Sicyon, which joins the league. 35. Aratua rescues Corinth, which at first joins the league. Conduct of Athens and Sparta. 36. Antig'- onus II. 37. League of the ^Etolians, who invade the Messenians. [jEtolia.] Defeat of Ara- tus. General war between the respective members of the two leagues. 38. Results of this war. The war between the Romans and Carthaginians. Policy of Philip II. of Mac' edon. 39. He enters into an alliance with the Carthaginians. His defeat at Apollonia. [Apollonia.] 40. He causes the death of Aratus. Roman intrigues in Greece. 41. Overthrow of Philip's power. The Romans promise independence to Greece. 42. Remarks on the sincerity of the promise. Treatment of the ^Etolians. Extinction of the Macedonian monarchy. [Pyd' na.] 43. Unjust treatment of the Achae' ans. Roman ambassadors insulted. 44. The Achae' an war, and reduction of Greece to a Roman province. Remarks of Thirwall. 45. Henceforward Grecian history is absorbed in that of Rome. Condition of Greece since the Persian wars. In ihe days of Strabo. COTEMPORARY HISTORY. 1. Cotemporary annals of other nations : Persians Egyptians. HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 2. Rebuilding of the second temple of Jerusalem. The Jews during the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes. Nehemiah's administration. 3. Judea a part of the sat' rapy of Syria. Judea after the division of Alexander's empire. Judea invaded by Ptolemy Soter. 4. Judea subject to Egypt. Ptolemy-Philadelphus. The Jews place themselves under the rule of Sj ria. 5. Civil war among the Jews. Antiochus plunders Jerusalem. Attempts to establish the Grecian polytheism. 6. Revolt of the Mac' cabees. 7. Continuation of the war with Syria. [Bethoron.] Death of Judas Maccabeus. 8. The Syrians become masters of the country. Prosperity of the Jews under Simon Maccabeus. 9. The remaining history of the Jews. 10. GRECIAN COLONIES. Those of Thrace, Mac' edon, and Asia Minor. Of Italy, Sicily, and Cyrenaica. 11. MAGNA GR.ECIA. Early settlements in western Italy and in Sicily. [Cumaj. Neap'olis. Nax'os. Gela. Messana. Agrigen' turn.] 12. On the south-eastern coast of Italy. History of Syb' aris, Crotona, and Taren' turn. [Description of the same.] 13. First two centuries of Sicilian history. [Him' era.] Gela and Agrigen' turn. The despot Gelo. 14. Grow- ing power of Syracuse under his authority. 15. The Carthaginians in Sicily defeated by Gelo. [Panor' mus.] 16. Hiero and Thrasybiilus. [,j western world and India. The navigation of the Gulf, especially along the Arabian coast, * tedious and difficult, owing to its numerous islands and reefs. The Bahrein islands, near f *e Arabian shore, are celebrated for their pearl fisheries, which yield pearls of the value of more than a million dollars annually. (Map No. V.) 3. Gedrdsia, corresponding to the modern Persian province of Mekran, is a sandy and barren region, extending along the shore of the Indian Ocean from the river Indus to the moutu of the Persian Gulf. (Map No. V.) 1-02 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L tracted in the marshes of Assyria, and which suddenly terminated his life in the thirty-third year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign. (B. 0. May, 324.) 21. The character of Alexander has afforded matter for much discus- sion, and is, to this day, a subject of dispute. At times he was guilty of remorseless and unnecessary cruelty to the vanquished, and in a fit of passion he slew the friend who had saved his life ; but on other occasions he was distinguished by an excess of lenity, and by the most noble generosity and benevolence. His actions and char- acter were indeed of a mixed nature, which is the reason that some have regarded him as little more than a heroic madman, while others give him the honor of vast and enlightened views of policy, which aimed at founding, among nations hitherto barbarous, a solid and flourishing empire. 22. If we are to judge by his actions, however, rather than by his supposed moral motives, he was, in reality, one of the greatest of men ; great, not only in the vast compass and persevering ardor of his ambition, which " wept for more worlds to conquer," but great in the objects and aims which ennobled it, and great because his adven- turous spirit and personal daring never led him into deeds of rash- ness ; for his boldest military undertakings were ever guided by sagacity and prudence. The conquests of Alexander were highly beneficial in their results to the conquered people ; for his was the first of the great monarchies founded in Asia that contained any ele- ment of moral and intellectual progress that opened a prospect of advancing improvement, and not of continual degradation, to its subjects. To the commercial world it opened new countries, and new channels of trade, and gave a salutary stimulus to industry and mercantile activity : nor were these benefits lost when the empire founded by Alexander broke in pieces in the hands of his successors ; for the passages which he opened, by sea and by land, between the Euphrates and the Indus, had become the highways of the commerce of the Indies ; Babylon remained a famous port until its rival, Seleu'- cia, 1 arose into eminence ; and Alexandria long continued to receive and pour out an inexhaustible tide of wealth. 1. Selcu' cia, built by Seleu' cus, one of Alexander's generals, was situated on the western bank of the Tigris, about forty-five miles north of Babylon. Seleu' cus designed it as a free Grecian city ; and many ages after the fall of the Macedonian empire, it retained the charac- teristics of a Grecian colony, arts, military virtue, and the love of freedom. When at the height of its prosperity it contained a population of six hundred thousand citizens, governed by a senate of three hundred nobles. CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 103 23. The sudden death of Alexander left the government in a very unsettled condition. As he had appointed no successor, several of his generals contended for the throne, or for the regency during the minority of his sons ; and hence arose a series of intrigues, and bloody wars, which, in the course of twenty-three years, caused the destruction of the entire family of Alexander, and ended in the dis- solution of the Macedonian empire. 24. When intelligence of the death of Alexander reached Greece, the country was already on the eve of a revolution against Antip '- ater ; and Demosthenes, still the foremost advocate of liberty, now found little difficulty in uniting several of the States with Athens hi a confederacy against Macedonian supremacy. Sparta, however, was too proud to act under her ancient rival, and Thebes no longer ex- isted. Antip' ater attempted to secure the straits of Thermop' ylso against the confederates, but he was met by Leos' thenes, the Athe- nian general, and defeated. Eventually, however, Antip' ater, having received strong reinforcements from Mac' edon, attacked the confeder- ates, and completely annihilated their army. Athens was compelled to abolish her democratic form of government, to receive Macedonian garrisons in her fortresses, and to surrender a number of her most famous orators, including Demosthenes. The latter, to avoid falling into the hands of Antip' ater, terminated his life by poison. 25. Antip' ater, at his death, left the government in the hands of Polysper' chon, as regent during the minority of a son of Alexander j but Cassan' der, the son of Antip' ater, soon after usurped the sover- eignty of Greece and Mac' edon, and, for the greater security of his power, caused all the surviving members of the family of Alexander to be put to death. Antig' onus, another of Alexander's generals, had before this time overrun Syria and Asia Minor, and his am- bitious views extended to the undivided sovereignty of all the coun- tries which had been ruled by Alexander. Four of the most powerful of the other generals, Ptol' emy, Seleu' cus, Lysim' achus, and Cas- san' der, formed a league against him, and fought with him the famous battle of Ip' sus, 1 in Phryg' ia, a which ended in the defeat and death of Antig' onus, the destruction of the power which he had raised, and the final dissolution of the Macedonian empire, three hundred and one years before the Christian era. 1. Ip' sus was a city of Phryg' ia, near the southern boundary of Galatia, bul its exact lo- cality is unknown. (Map No. IV.) 2. Phryg' ia was the central province of western Asia Minor. (Maps Nos. IV. and V.) 104 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I 26. A new partition of the provinces was now made into four in- dependent kingdoms. Ptol'emy was confirmed in the possession of Egypt, together with Lib' ya, and part of the neighboring territories of Arabia ; Seleu' cus received the countries embraced in the east- ern conquests of Alexander, and the whole region between the coast of Syria and the Euphrates ; but the whole of this vast empire soon dwindled into the Syrian monarchy : Lysim' achus received the northern and western portions of Asia Minor, as an appendage to his kingdom of Thrace ; while Cassan' der received the sovereignty of Greece and Mac' edon. Of these kingdoms, the most powerful were Syria and Egypt ; the former of which continued und^r the dynasty of the Seleu' cidae, and the latter under that of the Ptol' emies, until both were absorbed in the growing dominion of the Roman empire. Of the kingdom of Thrace under Lysim' achus, we shall have occa- sion to speak in its farther connection with Grecian history. 27. Cassan' der survived the establishment of his power only four years. After his death his two sons quarrelled for the succession, and called in the aid of foreigners to enforce their claims. Deme- trius, son of Antig' onus, having seized the opportunity of inter- ference in their disputes, cjit off the brother who had invited his aid, and made himself master of the throne of Mac' edon, which was en- joyed by his posterity, except during a brief interruption after his death, down to the time of the Roman conquest. Demetrius possessed in addition to Mac' edon, Thes' saly, At' tica, and Breotia, together with a great portion of the Peloponnesus ; but his government was that of a pure military despotism, which depended on the army for support, wholly independent of the good will of the people. Aim- ing to recover his father's power in Asia, he excited the jealousy of Seleu' cus, king of Syria, who was able to induce Lysim' achus, of Thrace, and Pyr' rhus, king of Epirus, to commence a war against him. The latter twice overran Macedonia, and even seized the throne, which he held during a few months, while Demetrius was driven from the kingdom by his own rebellious subjects ; but his son Antig' onus maintained himself in Peloponnesus, waiting a favorable opportunity of placing himself on the throixe of his father. 28. During a number of years Mac' edon, Greece, and Western Asia, were harassed with the wars excited by the various aspirants to power. Lysim' achus was defeated and slain in a war with Se- leu' cus ; and the latter, invading Thrace, was assassinated by Ptol' emy Cerau' nus, who then usurped the government of Thra e CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 105 and Mac' edon. In this situation of affairs, a storm, unseen in the distance, but which had long been gathering, suddenly burst upon Mac' edon, threatening to convert, by its ravages, the whole Grecian peninsula into a scene of desolation. 29. A vast horde of barbarians of the Celtic race had for some time been accumulating around the head waters of the Adriat' ic,* making Pannonia 3 the chief seat of their power. Influenced by hopes of plunder, rather than of conquest, they suddenly appeared on the frontiers of Mac' edon, and sent an embassy to Cerau' nus, offering peace if he were willing to purchase it by tribute. A haughty defiance from the Macedonian served only to quicken the march of the invaders, who defeated and killed Cerau' nus in a great battle, and so completely routed his army that almost all were slain or taken. (B. C. 280.) The conquerors then overran all Mac' edon to the borders of Thes' saly, and a detachment made a devastating inroad into the rich vale of the Peneus. The walled towns alone, which the barbarians had neither the skill nor the patience to reduce by siege, held out until the storm had spent its fury, when the Celts, scattered over the country in plundering parties, having met with some reverses, gradually withdrew from a country where there was little left to tempt their cupidity. 30. In the following year (279 B. C.) another band of Celts, esti- mated at two hundred thousand men, under the guidance of their principal Brenn or chief, called Bren' nus, overran Macedonia with little resistance, and passing through Thessaly, threatened to extend their ravages over southern Greece ; but the allied Grecians, under the Athenian general, Cal'lipus, met them at Thermop' ylse, and at first repulsed them with considerable loss. Eventually, however, the secret path over the mountains was betrayed to the Celts as it had been to the Persian army of Xerxes, and the Grecians were forced to retreat. A part of the barbarian army, under Bren' nus, then marched into Phocis, for the purpose of plundering Delphi; but their atrocities roused against them the whole population, and they found their entire march, over roads mountainous and difficult, 1. The Adriat' ic or Hadriatic (now most generally called the Gulf of Venice) is that large arm of the Mediterranean sea which lies between Italy and the opposite shores of lllyr' ia, Epirus, and Greece. The southern portion of the gulf is now, as anciently, called the Ionian sea. The Adriat' ic derived its name from the once flourishing sea-port town of A' dria north of the river Po. The harbor of A' dria has long been filled up by the mud and other deposits brought down by the rivers, and the town is now nineteen miles inland. (Map No. VIII.) 2. Pannonia, afterwards a Roman province, was north of lllyr' ia, having the Danube for ite northern and eastern boundary. (Map No. VIII & IX.) 106 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I. beset with enemies burning for revenge. The invaders also suffered greatly from the cold and storms in the defiles of the mountains. It was said that the gods fought for the sacred temple, and that an earthquake rent the rocks, and brought down huge masses on the heads of the assailants. Certain it is that the invaders, probably acted upon by superstitious terror, were repulsed and disheartened. Bren' nus, who had been wounded before Delphi, is said to have killed himself in despair ; and only a remnant of the barbarians regained their original seats on the Adriat' ic. 31. After the repulse of the Celts, Antig' onus, the son of Deme- trius, was able to gain possession of the throne of Mac' edon, but he found a formidable competitor in Pyr' rhus, king of Epirus, who re- solved to add Mac' edon, and, if possible, the whole of Greece to his own dominion. Pyr' rhus had no sooner returned from his famous expedition into Italy, of which we shall have occasion to speak in Roman history, 3 - than he seized a pretext for declaring war against Antig' onus, and invaded Macedonia with his small army, (274 B. C.) the remnant of the forces which he had led against Rome, but which he now strengthened with a body of Celtic mercenaries. When Antig' onus marched against him, many of his troops, who had little affection or respect for their king, went over to Pyr' rhus, whose celebrated military prowess had won their admiration. 32. Antig' onus then retired into Southern Greece, whither he was followed by Pyr' rhus, who professed that the object of his expe- dition was merely to restore the freedom of the cities which were held in subjection by his rival; but when he reached the borders of Laconia he laid aside the mask, and began to ravage the country, and made an unsuccessful attempt to surprise Sparta, which was lit- tle prepared for defence. He then marched to Ar' gos, whither he had been invited by one of the rival leaders of the people, but he found Antig' onus, at the head of a strong force, encamped on one of the neighboring heights. Pyr' rhus gained entrance into the city by night, through treachery, but at the same time the troops of Antig'- onus were admitted from an opposite quarter the citizens arose in arms, and a fierce struggle was carried on in the streets until day- light, when Pyr' rhus himself was slain (272 B. C.) by the hand of an Ar'give woman, who, exasperated at seeing him about to kill her son, hurled upon him a ponderous tile from the house-top. The greater part of the army of Pyr' rhus, chiefly composed of Macedonians, a. See page 149. CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 107 then went over to their former sovereign, who soon after gained the throne of Mac' edon, which he held until his death. 33. The death of Pyr' rhus forms an important epoch in Grecian history, as it put an end to the struggle for power among Alexander's successors in the West, and left the field clear for the final contest between the liberty of Greece and the power of Mac' edon, which was only terminated by the ruin of both. When Antig' onus re- turned to Mac' edon, its acknowledged sovereign, he cherished the hope of ultimately reducing all Greece to his sway, little dreaming that the power centered in a recent league of a few Achae' an cities was destined to become a formidable adversary to his house. 34. The Achce' an League comprised at first twelve towns of Achaia, which were associated together for mutual safety, forming a little federal republic all the towns having an equality IIL ACH ^' ^ of representation in the general government, to which LEAGUE. all matters affecting the common welfare were intrusted, each town at the same time retaining the regulation of its own domestic policy. The Achae' an league did not become of sufficient political importance to attract the attention of Antig' onus until about twenty years after the death of Pyr' rhus, when Aratus, an exile from Sic' yon, at the head of a small band of followers, surprised the city by night, and without any bloodshed delivered it from the dominion of the tyrants who, under Macedonian protection, had long oppressed it with despotic sway. (251 B. C.) Fearful of the hostility of Antig'onus, Aratus induced Sic' yon to join the Achae' an league, and although its power greatly exceeded that of any Achae' an town, it claimed no superiority of privilege over the other members of the confederacy, but obtained only one vote in the general council of the league ; a precedent which was afterwards strictly adhered to in the admission of other cities. Aratus received the most distinguished honors from the Achae' ans, and, a few years after the accession of Sic' yon, was placed at the head of the armies of the confederacy. (B. C. 246.) 35. Corinth, the key to Greece, having been seized by a stratagem of Antig' onus, and its citadel occupied by a Macedonian garrison, was rescued by a bold enterprise of Aratus, and induced to join the league. (243 B. C.) Other cities successively gave in their adhe- rence, until the confederacy embraced nearly the whole of Pelopon- nesus. Although Athens did not unite with it, yet Aratus obtained the withdrawal of its Macedonian garrison. Sparta opposed the league induced Ar' gos and Corinth to withdraw from it and by 103 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I. her successes over the Achae' ans, eventually induced them to call in the aid of the Macedonians, their former enemies. 36. Antig'onus II., readily embracing the opportunity of restor ing the influence of his family in Southern Greece, marched against the Lacedaemonians, over whom he obtained a decisive victory, which placed Sparta at his mercy. But he used his victory moder- ately, and granted the Spartans peace on liberal terms. On his death, which occurred soon after, he was succeeded on the throne of Mac' edon by his nephew and adopted son, Philip II., a youth of only seventeen. 37. The ^Etolians, 1 the rudest of the Grecian tribes, who had acquired the character of a nation of freebooters and pirates, had at this time formed a league similar to the Achae' an, and counting on the inexperience of the youthful Philip, and the weakness of the Achae' ans, began a series of unprovoked aggressions on the sur- rounding States. The Messenians, whose territory they had invaded by way of the western coast of the Peloponnesus, called upon the Achae' ans for assistance, but Aratas, going to their relief, was attack- ed unexpectedly, and defeated. Soon after, the youthful Philip was placed at the head of the Achae' an League, when a general war be- gan between the Macedonians, Achae' ans, and their confederates, on the one side, and the jEtolians, who were aided by the Spartans and E' leans, on the other. 38. The war continued four years, and was conducted with great cruelty and obstinacy on both sides ; but Philip and the Achae' ans were on the whole successful, and the JEtolians and their allies be- came desirous of peace, while new and ambitious views more eagerly inclined Philip to put an end to the unprofitable contest. At this time the Carthaginians and Romans were contending for mastery in the second Punic war, and Philip began to view the struggle as one in which an alliance with one of the parties would be desirable, by opening to himself prospects of future conquest and glory. By siding with the Carthaginians, who were the most distant party, and from whom he would have less to fear than from the Romans, he hoped to be able eventually to insure to himself the sovereignty of all Greece, and to make additions to Macedonia on the side of Italy. He therefore proposed terms of peace to the .ZEtolians ; and a treaty 1. JEtdlia was a country of Northern Greece, bounded on the north by Thes' saly, on the east by Doris, Phocis, and Locris, on the south by the Corinthian Gulf, and on the west by Acarnania. It was in general a rough and mountainous country, although some of the valley* were remarkable for their fertility. (Map No. I.) CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 109 was concluded at Naupac' tus, which left all the parties in the war In the enjoyment of their respective possessions. (217 B. C.) 39. After the great battle of Can' nae, a which seemed to have ex- tinguished the last hopes of Rome, Philip sent envoys to Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, and concluded with him a treaty of strict alliance. He next sailed with a small fleet up the Adriat' ic, and while besieging Appollonia, 1 a town in Illyr' ia, was met and defeated by the Roman praetor, M. Valerius, who had been sent to succor the Illyr 'ians. (215 B. C.) Philip was forced to burn his ships, and retreat over land to Macedonia, leaving his baggage, and the arms of many of his troops, in the enemy's hands. Such was the unfortunate issue of his first encounter with the Roman soldiery. 40. Soon after his return to Macedonia, finding Aratus in the way of his projects against the liberties of Southern Greece, he contrived to have the old general removed by slow poison ; a crime which filled all Greece with horror and indignation. In the mean- time, the Romans, while recovering ground in Italy, contrived to keep Philip busy at home, by inciting the JEtolians to violate the recent treaty, and inducing Sparta and E' lis to join in a war against Mac'edon. Still Philip, supported for awhile by the Achae'ans, under their renowned leader, Philopoe' men, maintained his ground, until, first, the Athenians, no longer able to protect their fallen for- tunes, solicited aid from the Romans ; and finally, the Achse' ans themselves, being divided into factions, accepted terms of peace. 41. Philip continued to struggle against his increasing enemies, until, being defeated in a great battle with the Romans, b he pur- chased peace by the sacrifice of the greater part of his navy, the payment of a tribute, and the resignation of his supremacy over the Grecian States. At the celebration of the Isth' mian games at Corinth the terms of the Roman senate were made known to the Grecians, who received, with the height of exultation, the proclama- tion that the independence of Greece was restored, under the au- spices of the Roman arms. (f6 B. C.) 42. Probably nothing was farther from the intention of the Roman senate than to allow the Grecian States to regain their ancient power and sovereignty, and it was sufficient to damp the joy of the more 1. J3poll6nia was situated on the northern side of the river Aous (now Vojutza) near its mouth. Its ruins still retain the name of Pollini. ApollonSa was founded by a colony from Corinth and Corcyra, and, according to Strabo, was renowned for the wisdom of its laws. a. See p. 158. b. Battle of Cynocephalae, 197 B. C. Se p. 161. 110 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! considerate that the boon of freedom which Rome affected to bestow was tendered by a master who could resume it at his pleasure. At the first opportunity of interference, therefore, which opened to the Romans, the jEtolians, who had espoused the cause of Antiochus, king of Syria, the enemy of Rome, were reduced to poverty and de- prived of their independence. At a later period Per' seus, the suc- cessor of Philip on the throne of Mac' edon, being driven into a war by Roman ambition, finally lost his kingdom in the battle of Pyd' na, 1 in which twenty thousand Macedonians were slain, and ten thousand taken prisoners, while the Roman army, commanded by Lucius jEmil'ius Paulus, lost scarcely a hundred men. (168 B. C.) The Macedonian monarchy was extinguished, and Per' seus himself, a wanderer from his country, was taken prisoner in an island of the jE'gean, and conveyed to Rome to grace the triumph of the con- queror. 43. Soon after the fall of Per' seus, the Achae' ans were charged with having aided him in the war against Rome, and, without a shadow of proof, one thousand of their worthiest citizens, among whom was the historian Polyb' ius, were sent to Rome to prove their innocence of this charge before a Roman tribunal. (167 B. C.) Here they were detained seventeen years without being able to obtain a hearing, when three hundred of the number, the only surviving remnant of the thousand, were finally restored to their country. The exiles returned, burning with vengeance against the Romans ; other causes of animosity arose; and when a Roman embassy, sent to Corinth, declared the will of the Roman senate that the Achae' an League should be reduced to its original limits, a popular tumult arose, and the Roman ambassadors were publicly insulted. 44. War soon followed. The Achae' ans and their allies were de- feated by the consul Mum' mius near Corinth, and that city, then the richest in Greece, after being plundered of its treasures, was con- signed to the flames. The last blow to the liberties of the Hellenic race had been struck, and all Greece, a.s far as Epirus and Macedo- nia, now become a Roman province, under the name of Achaia. (146 B. C.) " The end of the Achse' an war," says Thirwall, " was the last stage of the lingering process by which Rome enclosed her victim in the coils of her insidious diplomacy, covered it with the 1. Pyd' na was a city near the south-eastern extremity of Macedonia, on the western shore of the Thermaic Gulf, (now Gulf of Saloniki.) The ancient Pydna is now called Kidros. Dr. Clarke observed here a vast mound of earth, which he considered, with much probability, as marking the site of the great battle fought there by the Romans and Macedonians. (Map No. I.) CHAP. VI.] JEWISH HISTORY. 1 1 1 slime of her sycophants and hirelings, crushed it when it began to struggle, and then calmly preyed upon its vitals." 45. We have now arrived at the proper termination of Grecian history. Niebuhr has remarked, that, " as rivers flow into the sea, so does the history of all the nations, known to have existed pre- viously in the regions around the Mediterranean, terminate in that of Rome." Henceforward, then, the history of Greece becomes in- volved in the changing fortunes of the Roman empire, to whose early annals we shall now return, after a brief notice of the cotemporary history of surrounding nations. With the loss of her liberties the glory of Greece had passed away. Her population had been gradu- ally diminishing since the period of the Persian wars ; and from the epoch of the Roman conquest the spirit of the nation sunk into de- spondency, and the energies of the people gradually wasted, until, no later than the days of Strabo, 1 Greece existed only in the remembrance of the past. Then, many of her cities were desolate, or had sunk to insignificant villages, while Athens alone maintained her renown for philosophy and the arts, and became the instructor of her conquer- ors ; large tracts of land, once devoted to tillage, were either barren, or had been converted into pastures for sheep, and vast herds of cattle; while the rapacity of Roman governors had inflicted upon the sparse population impoverishment and ruin. COTEMPORARY HISTORY: 490 TO 146 B. C. 1. Of the cotemporary annals of other nations during the authentic period of Grecian history, there is little of importance to be nar- rated beyond what will be found connected with Roman affairs in a subsequent chapter ; although the Grecian cities of Italy, Sicily, and Cyrenaica, considered not as dependent colonies of the parent State, but as separate powers, will require some further notice. Of the history of the Medes and Persians we have already given the most interesting portion. Of Egyptian history little is known, beyond what has been narrated, until the beginning of the dynasty of the Ptolemies (301 B. C.,) and of the events from that period down to the time of Ro- man interference in the affairs of Egypt, we have room for only occa- sional notices, as connected with the more important L HISTORY histories of other nations. Of the civil annals of the OF THE JKWS - Jews we shall give a brief sketch, so as to continue, from a preced- 1. Strabo was a celebrated geographer, born at Amasia in Pontus, about the year 54 B. C. 112 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! ing chapter, the history of Judea down to the time when that country became a province of the Roman empire. 2. It has been stated that the rebuilding of the second temple of Jerusalem was completed during the reign of Darius Hystas'pes, about twenty-five years before the commencement of the war between the Greeks and Persians. During the following reign of Xerxes, the Jews appear to have been treated by their masters with respect, and also during the early part of the reign of Artaxerx' es Longimanus, who had taken for his second wife a Jewish damsel named Esther, the niece of the Jew Mor' decai, one of the officers of the palace. The story of Haman, the wicked minister of the king, is doubtless familiar to all our readers. After the Jews had been delivered from the wanton malice of Haman, Nehemiah, also an officer in the king's palace, obtained for them permission to rebuild the walls of the holy city, and was appointed governor over Judea. "With the close of the administration of Nehemiah the annals embraced in the Old Testament end, and what farther reliable information we possess of the history of the Jews down to the time of the Roman conquest is mostly derived from Josephus. 3. After Nehemiah, Judea was joined to the satrapy of Syria, al- though the internal government was still administered by the high- priests, under the general superintendence of Persian officers the people remaining quiet under the Persian government. After the division of the vast empire of Alexander among his generals, Judea, lying between Syria and Egypt, and being coveted by the monarchs of both, suffered greatly from the wars which they carried on against each other. At one time the Egyptian monarch, Ptol' emy Soter, having invaded the country, stormed Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, when the Jews, from superstitious motives, would not defend their city, and transported a hundred thousand of the population to Egypt, apparently, however, as colonists, rather than as prisoners. 4. During the reigns of Ptol' emy Soter, Ptol' emy Philadel' phus, Ptol' emy Euer' getes, and Ptol' emy Philop' ater, Judea remained subject to Egypt, but was lost by Ptol' emy Epiph' anes. Ptol' emy Philadel' phus, by his generous treatment of the Jews, induced large numbers of them to settle in Egypt. He was an eminent patron of learning, and caused the septuagint translation of the scriptures tc> be made, and a copy to be deposited in the famous library which he es- tablished at Alexandria. On the accession of Ptol' emy Epiph' anes to the throne, (204 B. C.) at the age of only five years, Antioclms CHAP. IV.] JEWISH HISTORY. 113 r the Great, king of Syria, easily persuaded the Jewd to place them- selves under his rule, and in return for their confidence in him he conferred such favors upon Jerusalem as he knew were best calculated to win the hearts of the people. 5. Antiochus Epiph' anes, the successor of Antiochus the Great, having invaded Egypt, a false rumor of his death was brought to Jerusalem, whereupon a civil war broke out between two factions of the Jews who had long been quarrelling about the office of the higli- priesthood. The tumult was quelled by the return of Antiochus, who, exasperated on learning that the Jews had made public rejoic- ings at his supposed death, marched against Jerusalem, which he plundered, as if he had taken it by storm from an enemy. ( 169 B. C.) He even despoiled the temple of its holy vessels, and carried off the treasures of the nation collected there. Two years later he attempted to carry out the plan of reducing the various religious systems of his empire to one single profession, that of the Grecian polytheism. He polluted the altar of the temple put a stop to the daily sacrifice to the great festivals to the rite of circumcision burned the copies of the law and commanded that the temple itself should be convert- ed into an edifice sacred to the Olympian Jvipiter. 6. These acts, and the insolent cruelties with which they were ac- companied, met with a fierce and desperate resistance from the brave family of the Mac' cabees, a or Asmoneans, who, under their heroic leader Judas, first fled to the wilderness, and the caves of the moun- tians, where they were joined by numerous bands of their exasperated countrymen, who, ere long, began to look upon Judas as an instru- ment appointed by heaven for their deliverance. Thoroughly ac- quainted with every impregnable cliff and defile of his mountain- land, Judas was successful in every encounter in which he chose to engage with the Syrians : by rapid assaults he made himself master of many fortified places, and within three years after the pollution of the temple he had driven out of Judea four generals at the head of large and regular armies. He then went up to Jerusalem, and although a fortress in the lower city was still held by a Syrian garri- son, he restored the walls and doors of the temple, caused the daily sacrifice to be renewed, and proclaimed a solemn festival of eight days on the joyful occasion. a. The appellation of Mac' cabees was given them from the initial letters of the text displayed on their standard, which was, Mi Chamoka Baalim, Jahoh I " Who is like unto thee among the gods, O Lord !" from Exod. xv. 11. 8 114 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! 7. The war with Syria continued during the brief reign of the youthful son of Antiochus Epiph' anes, and was extended into the subsequent reign of Demetrius Soter, (B. C. 162,) who sent two powerful armies into Judea, the first of which was defeated in the defile of Bethoron, 1 and its general slain. Another army was more successful, and Judas himself fell, after having destroyed a multi- tude of his enemies ; but his body was recovered, and he was buried in the tomb of his fathers. " And all Israel mourned him with a great mourning, and sorrowed many days, and said, How is the mighty fallen that saved Israel." 8. After the death of Judas a time of great tribulation followed; the Syrians became masters of the country, and Jonathan, the brother of Judas, the new leader of the patriotic band, was obliged to retire to the mountains, where he maintained himself two years, while the cities were occupied by Syrian garrisons. Eventually, during the changing revolutions in the Syrian empire itself, Jonathan was en- abled to establish himself in the priesthood, and under his adminis- tration Judea again became a flourishing State. Being at length treacherously murdered by one of the Syrian kings, (B. 0. 143,) his brother Simon succeeded to the priesthood, and during the seven years in which he judged Israel, general prosperity prevailed through- out the land. " The husbandmen tilled the field in peace, and the earth gave forth her crops, and the trees of the plain their fruits. The old men sat in the streets ; all talked together of their blessings, and the young men put on the glory and the harness of war." 9. The remaining history of the Jews, from the time of Simon down to the formation of Judea into a Roman province, is mostly occupied with domestic commotions, whose details would possess little interest for the general reader. The circumstances which placed Judea under the sway of the Romans will be found detailed in their connection with Roman history. 10. Before the beginning of the "authentic period" of Grecian history, various circumstances, such as the desire of adventure, com- n. GRECIAN mercial interests, and, not unfrequently, civil dissensions COLONIES, at home, led to the planting of Grecian colonies on many distant coasts of the Mediterranean. Those of Thrace, Mac' edon, and Asia-Minor, were ever intimately connected with Greece proper, in whose general history theirs is embraced ; but the Greek cities 1. Bethdron was a village about ten miles north-west from Jerusalem. CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN COLONIES. 115 of Italy, Sicily, and Cyrenaica, were too far removed from the drama that was enacting around the shores of the jE'gean to be more than occasionally and temporarily affected by the changing fortunes of the parent States. Nevertheless, a brief notice of those distant settle- ments that eventually rivalled even Athens and Sparta in power and resources, cannot be uninteresting, and it will serve to give the reader more accurate views, than he would otherwise possess, of the extent and importance of the field of Grecian history. 11. At an early period the shores of southern Italy and Sicily were peopled by Greeks; and so numerous and powerful did the Grecian cities in those countries become, that the whole were comprised by Strabo and others under the appellation Magna IIL MAGNA Grcecia or " Great Greece" an appropriate name for a GR^CIA. region containing many cities far superior in size and population to any in Greece itself. The earliest of these distant Grecian settle- ments appear to have been made at Ciimae, 1 and Neap' olis, a on the western coast of Italy, about the middle of the eleventh century. Nax' os, 3 on the eastern coast of Sicily, was founded about the year 735 B. C. ; and in the following year some Corinthians laid the foundation of Syracuse. Gela, 4 on the western coast of the island, and Messana 6 on the strait between Italy and Sicily, were foundeC 1. CumE, a city of Campania, on the western coast of Italy, a short distance north-west from Neapolis, and about a hundred and ten miles south-east from Rome, is supposed to have been founded by a Grecian colony from Eubos' a about the year 1050 B. C. Cumse was built on a rocky hill washed by the sea ; and the same name is still applied to the ruins that lie scattered around its base. Some of the most splendid fictions of Virgil relate to the Cumaean Sibyl, whose cave, hewn out of solid rock, actually existed on the top of the hill of Cumae. (Map No. VIII.) 2. Weap' olis, (a Greek word meaning the new city,) now called Naples, was founded by a colony from Cumae. It ia situated on the north side of the Bay of Naples, in the immediate vicinity of Mount Vesuvius, one hundred and eighteen miles south-east from Rome. (Map No. VIII.) 3. JVaz'cs was north-east from Mount ^Etna, and about equi-distant from Messana and Cat' ana. Nax 1 os was twice destroyed ; first by Dionysius the Elder, and afterwards by the Siculi ; after which Tauromenium was built on its site. The modern Taormina occupies the Bite of the ancient city. (Map No. VIII.) 4. Gela wus on the southern coast of Sicily, a short distance from the sea, on a river of the same name, and about sixty miles west from Syracuse. On the site of the ancient city stands the modern Terra Nova, (Map No. VIII.) 5. Messana, still a city of considerable extent under the name of Messina, was situated at the north-eastern extremity of the island of Sicily, on the ttrait of its own name. It was re- garded by the Greeks as the key of the island, but the circumstance of its commanding position always made it a tempting prize to the ambitious and powerful neighboring princes. It under- went a great variety of changes, under the power of the Syracusans, Carthaginians, and Ro- mans. It was treacherously seized by the Mamertini, (see p. 152) who slew the males, and took the wives and children as their property, and called the city Mamertina. Finally, a portion of the inhabitants called in the aid of the Romans, and thus began the first Punic war. C265 B. C.) 116 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L soon after. Agrigen' turn, 1 on the south-western coast, was founded about a century later. 12. In the meantime the Greek cities Syb' aris, Crotona,' and Taren' turn, 4 had been planted, and had rapidly grown to power and opulence, on the south-eastern coast of Italy. The territorial do- minions of Syb' aris and Crotona extended across the peninsula from sea to sea. The former possessed twenty-five dependent towns, and ruled over four distinct tribes or nations. The territories of Crotona were still more extensive. These two Grecian States were at the maximum of their power about the year 560 B. C. the time of the accession of Pisis' tratus at Athens ; but they quarrelled with each other, and the result of the fatal contest was the ruin of Syb' aris, 510 B. C. At the time of the invasion of Italy by Pyr'rhus, (see p. 149.) Crotona was still a considerable city, extending on both sides of the ./Esarus, and its walls embracing a circumference of twelve miles. Taren' turn was formed by a colony from Sparta about the year 707, soon after the first Messenian war. No details of its his- tory during the first two hundred and thirty years of its existence "The modem city has a most imposing appearance from the sea, forming a fine circular sweep about two miles in length on the west shore of its magnificent harbor, from which it rises in the form of an amphitheatre ; and being built of white stone, it strikingly contrasts with the dark fronts that cover the forests in the background." (Map No. VIII.) 1. Jigrigeri turn was situated near the southern shore of Sicily, about midway of the island. Next to Syracuse it was not only one of the largest and most famous cities of Sicily, but of the ancient world ; and its ruins are still imposingly grand and magnificent. The modern town of Qirgenti lies adjacent to the ruins, from which it is separated by the small river Arcagas. (Map No. VHI.) 2. Syb' aris was a city of south-eastern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf. Crotona was about seventy miles south of it. Pythogoras resided at Crotona during the latter years of his life ; and Milo, the most celebrated athlete of antiquity, was a native of that. city. The Sybarites were noted for the excess to which they carried the refinements of luxury and sensuality. The events which led to the destruction of Syb' aris, about 510 B. C., are thus related. A democratical party, having gained the ascendancy at Syb' aris, expelled five hundred of the principal citizens, who sought refuge at Crotona. The latter refusing, by the advice of Pytha- goras, to give up the fugitives, a war ensued. Milo led out the Crotoniats, ten thousand in number, who were met by three hundred thousand Syb' arites ; but the former gained a com- plete victory, and then, marching immediately to Syb' aris, totally destroyed the city. (Map No. VIII.) 3. Taren' turn, the emporium of the Greek towns of Italy, was an important commercial city near the head of the gulf of the same name. It stood on what was formerly an isthmus, but which is now an island, separating the gulf from an inner bay fifteen or sixteen miles in circumference. The early Tarentiues were noted for their military skill and prowess, and for the cultivation of literature and the arts ; but their wealth and abundance so enervated their minds and bodies, and corrupted their morals, that even the neighboring barbarians, who had hated and feared, learned eventually to despise them. The Tarentines fell an easy prey to the Romans, after Pyrrhus had withdrawn from Italy. (See p. 150.) The modern town of Tor unto, containing a population of about eighteen thousand inhabitants, occupies the site of the ancient city. (Map No. VIII.) CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN COLONIES. 1 17 are known to us ; but in the fourth century B. C. the Tarentmes stand foremost among the Italian Greeks. 13. During the first two centuries after the founding of Nax' os in Sicily, Grecian settlements were extended over the eastern, southern, and western sides of the island, while Him' era 1 was the only Gre- cian town on the northern coast. These two hundred years were a period of prosperity among the Sicilian Greeks, who did not yet ex- tend their residences over the island, but dwelt chiefly in fortified towns, and exercised authority over the surrounding native popula- tion, which gradually became assimilated in manners, language, and religion, to the higher civilization of the Greeks. During the sixth century before the Christian era, the Greek cities in Sicily and southern Italy were among the most powerful and flourishing that bore the Hellenic name. Gela and Agrigen' turn, on the south side of Sicily, had then become the most prominent of the independent Sicilian governments ; and at the beginning of the fifth century we find Gelo, a despot, or self-constituted ruler of the former city, sub- jecting other towns to his authority, and finally obtaining possession of Syracuse, which he made the seat of his empire, (485 B. C.) leaving Gela to be governed by his brother Hiero, the first Sicilian ruler of that name. 14. Gelo strengthened the fortifications and greatly enlarged the limits of Syracuse, while, to occupy the enlarged space, he dis- mantled many of the surrounding towns, and transported their inhab- itants to his new capital, which now became, not only the first city in Sicily, but, according to Herod' otus, superior to any other Helle- nic power; for we are told that when, in 481 B. C., the Corinthians solicited aid from Gelo to resist the invasion of Xerxes, the Syracu- sans could offer twenty thousand heavy armed soldiers, and, in all, an army of thirty thousand men, besides furnishing provisions for the entire Grecian host so long as the war might last ; but as Gelo de- manded to be constituted commander-in-chief of all the Greeks in the war against the Persians, the terms were not agreed to. 15. During the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, a formidable Car- thaginian force under Hamil' car, said to consist of three hundred thousand men, landed at Panor' mus, s a Carthaginian sea-port on the 1. Him' era was on the northern coast of Sicily, near the mouth of the river of the same name, one hundred and ten miles north-west from Syracuse. The modern town of Termini, at the mouth of the river Leonardo, occupies the site of the ancient city. (Map No. VIII.) a. Panor' mtts, supposed to have been first settled by Phoenicians, was in the north-western 118 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L northern coast of the island, and proceeded to attack the Greek city of Him' era. (480 B. C.) Gelo, at the head of fifty-five thousand men, marched to the aid of his brethren ; and in a general battle which ensued, the entire Carthaginian force was destroyed, or com- pelled to surrender, Hamil' car himself being numbered among the slain. The victory of Him' era procured for Sicily immunity from foreign war, while at the same time the defeat of Xerxes at Sal' amis dispelled the terrific cloud that overhung the Greeks in that quarter. 16. On the death of Gelo, a year after the battle of Him' era, the government fell into the hands of his brother Hiero, a man whose many great and noble qualities were alloyed by insatiable cupidity and ambition. The power of Hiero, not inferior to that of Gelo, was probably greater than that of any other Grecian ruler of that period. Hiero aided the Greek cities of Italy against the Carthagi- nian and Tyrrhenian fleets ; he founded the city of JEt' na, 1 and added other cities to his government. He died after a reign of ten years, and was succeeded by his brother Thrasybdlis, whose cruelties led to his speedy dethronement, which was followed, not only by the extinction of the Gelonian dynasty at Syracuse, but by an extensive revolution in the other Sicilian cities, resulting, after many years of civil dissensions, in the expulsion of the other despots who had relied for protection on the great despot of Syracuse, and the establish- ment of governments more or less dernocratical throughout the island. 17. The Gelonian dynasty had stripped of their possessions, and banished, great numbers of citizens, whose places were filled by for- eign mercenaries ; but the popular revolution reversed many of these proceedings, and restored the exiles ; although, in the end, adherents of the expelled dynasty were allowed to settle partly in the territory of Messana, and partly in Kamarina. 2 After the commotions at- tendant on these changes had subsided, prosperity again dawned on part of Sicily, and had a good and capacious harbor. It early passed into the hands of the Carthaginians, and was their stronghold in Magna Graecia. It is now called Palermo, and is the capital city and principal sea-port of Sicily, having a population of about one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. It is built on the south-west side of the Bay of Palermo, in a plain, which, from its luxuriance, and from its being surrounded by mountains on three sides, has been termed the " golden shell," conca d> oro. (Map No. VIII.) 1. JEt' na, first called Jnessus, was a small town on the southern declivity of Mount MV na, near Cat' ana. The ancient site, now marked with ruins, bears the name Castro. (Map No. VIII.) 2. Kamarina was on the southern ccast, about fifty miles south-west from Syracuse, and twenty miles south-east from Gela. CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN COLONIES. 119 Sicily, and the subsequent period of more than fifty years, to the time of the flder Dionysius, has been described as by far the best and happiest portion of Sicilian history. 18. At the time of the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war, 431 B. C., Syracuse was the foremost of the Sicilian cities in power and resources. Agrigen' turn was but little inferior to her, while in her foreign commerce and her public monuments the latter was not sur- passed by any Grecian city of that age. In the great Peloponnesian struggle, the Ion 7 ic cities of Sicily, few in number, very naturally sympathized with Athens, and the Dorian cities with Sparta ; and in the fifth year of the war we find the Ion' ic cities soliciting Athens for aid against Syracuse and her allies. Successive expeditions were sent out by Athens, and soon nearly all Sicily was involved in the war, when at length, in 424 B. C., a congress of the Sicilian cities decided upon a general peace among themselves, to the great dissat- isfaction of the Athenians, who were already anticipating important conquests on the island. 19. A few years later, (417 B. C.,) a quarrel broke out between the neighboring Sicilian cities Selinus and Eges' ta, 1 the latter of which, although not of Grecian origin, had formerly been in alliance with Athens. Selinus was aided by the Syracusans ; and Eges' ta applied to Athens for assistance, making false representations of her own resources, and enlarging upon the dangers to be apprehended from Syracusan aggrandizement as a source of strength to Sparta, The Athenian Nic' ias, most earnestly opposed any farther interven- tion in Sicilian affairs ; but the counsels of Alcibiades prevailed, and in the summer of 415 B. C., the largest armament that had ever left a Grecian port sailed on the most distant enterprize that Athens had ever undertaken, under the command of three generals, Nic' ias, Lam' achus, and Alcibiades ; but the latter was recalled soon after the fleet had reached Cat' ana, 1 on the eastern coast of the island. 1. Selinus was a flourishing city of more than thirty thousand inhabitants, on the southern shore of the western part of the island. Its ruins may still be seen near what is called Torre di Pollv.ce. Eges' ta, called by the Romans Segesta, was on the northern coast, near the modern Alcamo. Selinus and Eges' ta were engaged in almost continual wars with each other. After the Athenian expedition the Egestans called to their assistance the Carthaginians, who took, plundered, and nearly destroyed Selinus ; but Eges' ta, under Carthaginian rule, expe- rienced a fate but little better. (Map No. VIII.) 2. Cat' ana, now Catania was at the southern base of Mount JEf na, thirty-two miles north from Syracuse. The distance from the city to the summit of the mountain was thirty miles. Catania has been repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes, and by torrents of liquid fire from the neighb* ring volcano ; but it has risen like the fabled phoenix, more splendid from its ashes, 120 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! 20. From Cat' ana Nic' ias sailed around the northern coast to Eges' ta, whence he marched the land forces back through the island to Cat' ana, having achieved nothing but the acquisition of a few in- significant towns, while the Syracusans improved the time in making preparations to receive the invaders. At length, about the last of October, Nic' ias sailed with his whole force to Syracuse defeated the Syracusans in the battle which followed and then went into winter quarters at Nax' os ; but in the spring he returned to his former station at Cat' ana, soon after which he commenced a regular siege of Syracuse. 21. In a battle which was fought on the grounds south of the city, towards the river Aniipus, Lam' achus was slain, although the Athe- nians were victorious. Nic' ias continued to push forward his suc- cesses, and Syracuse was on the point of surrendering, when the ar- rival of the Spartan general Gylip'pus at once changed the fortune of war, and the Athenians were soon shut up in their own lines. 22. At the solicitation of Nic' ias a large re enforcement, commanded by the Athenian general Demosthenes, was sent to his assistance in the spring of 413; but at the same time the Spartans reenforced Gylip' pus, and, in addition, sent out a force to ravage At' tica. During the summer many battles, both on land and in the harbor of Syracuse, were fought by the opposing forces, in nearly all of which the Syracusans and their allies were victorious ; and, in the end, the entire Athenian force in Sicily, numbering at the time not less than forty thousand men, was destroyed. " Never in Grecian history," says Thucyd' ides, " had ruin so complete and sweeping, or victory so glorious and unexpected, been witnessed." 23. Soon after the termination of the contest between the Athe- nians and Syracusans, the Carthaginians again sought an opportunity of invading the island, and established themselves over its entire western half; but they were ably resisted by Dionysius the Elder, " tyrant of Syracuse," who was proclaimed chief of the republic about 405 B. C. ; and it was owing to his exertions that any part of the island was saved from falling into the hands of the enemy It was at length agreed that the river Him' era 1 should form the limit between the Grecian territories on the east and the Carthagi- and is still a beautiful city. The streets are paved with lava ; and houses, palaces, churches, and convents, are built of it. Remains of ancient temple?, aqueducts, baths, &C., are numer- ous. The environs are fruitful, and well cultivated. (Map No. VIII.) 1. The river Him' era here mentioned, now the Salso, falls into the Mediterranean on the southern coast, to the west of Gela. (Map No. VIII.) CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN COLONIES. 121 nian dependencies on the west ; but the peace was soon broken by the Carthaginians, who, amid the civil dissensions of the Greeks, sought every opportunity of extending their dominion over the entire island. 24. Subsequently the aspiring power of Carthage was checked by Timoleon, and afterwards by Agath' ocles. The former, a Corinthian by birth, having made himself master of the almost deserted Syra- cuse, about the year 340 B. C., restored it to some degree of its former glory. He defeated the Carthaginians in a great battle, and established the affairs of government on so firm a basis that the whole of Sicily continued, many years after his- death, in unusual quiet and prosperity. Agath' ocles usurped the sovereignty of Syra- cuse by the murder of several thousand of its principal citizens in the year 317 B. C. He maintained his power twenty-eight years. Having been defeated by the Carthaginians, and being besieged in Syracuse, with a portion of his army he passed over to Africa, where he sustained himself during four years. In the year 306 he con- cluded a peace with the Carthaginians. He died by poison, 289 B. C., leaving his influence in Sicily and southern Italy to his son-in-law, the famous Pyr' rhus, king of Epirus. After the death of Agath'- ocles, the Carthaginians gained a decided ascendancy in Sicily, when the Romans, alarmed by the movements of so powerful a neighbor, and being invited over to the assistance of a portion of the people of Messana, commenced the first Punic war, (265 B. C.,) and after a struggle of twenty -four years made themselves masters of the whole of Sicily, nearly a hundred years before the reduction of Greece itself to a Roman province. 25. On the northern coast of Africa, within the district of the modern Barca, the important Grecian colony of Cyrenaica 1 was planted by Lacedaemonian settlers from Thera, 3 an 1Yt island of the JE'gsen, about the yoar 630 B. C. Its CYBENA'IOA. chief city, Cyrene, was about ten miles from the sea, having a sheltered port called Apollonia, itself a considerable town. Over the Libyan tribes between the borders of Egypt and the Great Desert, the Cyreneans exercised an ascendancy similar to that which Carthage possessed over the tribes farther westward. About the year 550 B. C., one of the neighboring Libyan kings, finding the Greeks rapidly encroaching upon his territories, declared himself 1. Cyrendico, see p. 70. 3. Thera, now Santorim, belonged to the clustd called the Sporades. (Map No. IIL) 122 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I subject to Egypt, when a large Egyptian army marched to his assist- ance, but the Egyptians experienced so complete a defeat that few of them ever returned to their own country. We find that the next Egyptian king, Amasis, married a Cyrenean. 26. Soon after the defeat of the Egyptians, the tyranny of the Cyrenean king, Agesilaus, led to a revolt among his subjects, who, being joined by some of the neighboring tribes, founded the city of Bar'ca, about seventy miles to the westward of Gyrene. In the war which followed, a great battle was fought with the allies of Bar' ca, in which Agesilaus was defeated, and seven thousand of his men were left dead on the field. The successor of Agesilaus was deposed from the kingly office by the people, who, in imitation of the Athenians, then established a republican government, (543 B. C.,) under the di- rection of Demonax, a wise legislator of Mantinea. But the son of the deposed monarch, having obtained assistance from the people of Samos, regained the throne of Cyrene, about the time that the Per- sian prince Camby' ses conquered Egypt. Both the Cyrenean and the Barcan prince sent their submission to the great conqueror. Soon after this event the Persian satrap of Egypt sent a large force against Bar' ca, which was taken by perfidy, and great numbers of the in- habitants were carried away into Persian slavery. 27. At a later period, Cyrene and Bar' ca fell under the power of the Carthaginian - they subsequently formed a dependency of Egypt ; and in the year 76 B. C., they were reduced to the condition of a Roman province. Cyrene was the birth-place of the poet Callim'- achus ; of Eratos' thenes the geographer, astronomer, and mathema- tician ; and of Carneades the sophist. Cyrenean Jews were present at Jerusalem on the day of pentecost : it was Simon, a Cyrenean Jew, whom the soldiers compelled to bear the Saviour's cross ; and Christian Jews of Cyrene were among the first preachers of Chris- tianity to the Greeks of Antioch. (Matthew, xxvii. 32 : Mark, xv. 21 : Acts, ii. 10 : vi. 9 : xi. 20.) CHAE V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 123 CHAPTER V. ROMAN HISTORY: FROM THE FOUNDING OF ROME, 753 B. O, TO THE CONQUESTS OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE, 146 B. C. = 607 YEARS. SECTION I. EARLY ITALY: ROME UNDER THE KINGS: ENDING 510 B. c. ANALYSIS. 1. ITALY names and extent of. 2. Mountains, and fertile plains. 3. Climate. 4. Principal States and tribes. 5. Our earliest information of Italy. Etruscan civilization. [The Etruscans. The Tiber.] 6. Southern Italy and Sicily colonized by Greeks. The rise of Rome, between the Etruscans on the one side and the Greeks on the other. 7. Sources and character of early Roman history. 8. The Roman legends, down to the founding of Alba. [Lavin'ium Latium. Alba.] 9. The Roman legends continued, down to the saving of Rom' ulus and Remus. 10. To the death of Amu'lius. 11. Auguries for selecting the site and name of a city. 12. The FOUNDING OF ROME. [Description of Ancient and Modern Rome.] 13. Stratagem of Romulus to procure wives for his followers. [Sabines.] 14. WAR WITH THE SABINES. Treachery and fate of Tarpeia. 15. Reconciliation and union of the Sabines and Romans. Death of Tullius. [Laurentines.] 16. The intervening period, to the death of Rom' ulus. Death of Rom' ulus. 17. Rule of the senators. Election of NUMA, the 2d king. His institutions, and death. [Janus.] 18. Reign of TUL' LIUS HOSTIL' ius, the 3d king, and first dawn of historic truth. 19. Legend of the Horatii and Curiatii. 20. Tragic death of Horatia. Submission, treachery, and removal of the Albans. Death of TuT lius. 21. The reign of AN' cus MAR' TIUS, the 4th king. [Ostia.] 22. TARQUIN THE ELDER, the 5th king. His origin. Unanimously called to the throne. [Tarquin' ii.] 23. His wars. His public works. His death. 24. SER'VIUS TUL' LIUS, the 6th king. Legends concerning him. Wars, &c. 25. Division of the people into centuries. Federal union with the Latins. Administration of Justice, &c. 26. Displeas- ure of the patricians, and murder of Servius. 27. The reign of TARQUIN THE PROUD, the 7th king. His reign disturbed by dreams and prodigies. 28. The dispute between Sextus, his brothers, and Collatinus. How settled. [Ardea Collatia.] 29. The story of Lucretia, and banishment of the Tarquins. 1. ITALY, known in ancient times by the names Hespena, Ausonia, Satur' nia, and (Enotria, comprises the whole of the central penin- sula of southern Europe, extending from the Alps in a i. ITALT. southern direction nearly seven hundred and seventy miles, with a breadth varying from about three hundred and eighty miles in north- ern Italy, to less than eighty near its centre. 2. The mountains of Italy are the Alps on its north-western bound- ary, and the Apennines, which latter pass through the peninsula nearly in its centre, and send off numerous branches on both sides. They are much less rugged than the Alps, and abound in rich forests and 124 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! pasture land. But though for the most part mountainous, Italy has some plains of considerable extent and extraordinary fertility. Of these the most extensive, and the richest, is that of Lombardy in the north, watered by the river Po and its numerous branches, embrac- ing an area of about two hundred and fifty miles in length, with a breadth varying from fifty to one hundred and twenty miles, and now containing a vast number of cities. The next great plain stretches along the western coast of central Italy about two hundred miles, from the river Arno in Tuscany, to Terracina, sixty miles south-east from Rome. Although this plain was once celebrated for its fertility, and was highly cultivated and populous, it is now comparatively a desert, a consequence of the prevalence of malaria, which infects these districts to such an extent as to render them at certain portions of the year all but uninhabitable. The third great plain (the Apii- lian) lies along the eastern coast, towards the southern extremity of the peninsula, and includes the territory occupied by the ancient Darmians Peucetians, and Messapians. A great portion of this plain has a sandy and thirsty soil, and is occupied mostly as pasture land in winter. The plain of Naples, on the western coast, is highly fer- tile, and densely peopled. 3. The climate of Italy is in general delightful, the excessive heats of summer being moderated by the influence of the mountains and the surrounding seas, while the cold of winter is hardly ever extreme. In the Neapolitan provinces, which lie in the latitude of central and southern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, snow is rare, and the finest fruits are found in the valleys throughout the winter. At the very southern extremity of Italy, which is in the latitude of Richmond, Virginia, the thermometer never falls to the freezing point. From a variety of circumstances it appears that the climate of Italy has undergone a considerable change, and that the winters are now less cold than formerly ; although probably the summer- heat was much the same in ancient times as at present. 4. The principal States of ancient Italy were Cisal'pine Gaul, Etrnria, Um-'bria, Picenum, Latium, Campania, Sam'nium, Apulia, Calabria, Lucania, and Brutiorum A' ger, the situation of which, together with the names of the principal tribes that inhabited them, may be learned from the map of Ancient Italy accompanying this volume. (See Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 5. The earliest reliable information that we possess of Italy rep- resents the ca untry in the possession of numerous independent tribes, CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 125 many of which, especially those in the southern part of the peninsula, were, like the early Grecians, of Pelas' gic origin. Of these tribes, the Etrurians or Etrus' cans, 1 inhabiting the western coasts above the Tiber," were the most important ; as it appears that, before the founding of Rome, they had attained to a considerable degree of power and civilization ; and two centuries after that event they were masters of the commerce of the western Mediterranean. Many works of art attributed to them still exist, in the walls of cities, in vast dikes to reclaim lands from the sea, and in subterranean tunnels cut through the sides of hills to let off the lakes which had formed in the craters of extinct volcanoes. 6. It appears that during the height of Etrus' can power in Italy, the southern portions of the peninsula, together with Sicily, first began to be colonized by Grecians, who formed settlements at Cumse and Neap' olis, as early as the tenth or eleventh century before the Christian era, and at Taren' turn, Crotona, Nax' os, and Syracuse, in the latter part of the eighth century; and such eventually be- came the number of the Grecian colonies that all southern Italy, in connection with Sicily, received the name of Magna Grecia. (See p. 115.) But while the old Etrurian civilization remained nearly stationary, fettered, as in ancient Egypt, by the sway of a sacerdotal caste, whose privileges descended by inheritance, and while the Greek colonies were dividing and weakening their power by allowing to every city an independent sovereignty of its own, there arose on the western coast, between the Etrus' cans on the one side and the Greeks on the other, the small commonwealth of Rome, whose power ere long eclipsed that of all its rivals, and whose dominion was des- tined, eventually, to overshadow the world. 1. The Etrbrians, or Etrus' cans, were the inhabitants of Etruria, a celebrated country of Italy, lying to the north and west of the Tiber. They were farther advanced in civilization than any of their European cotemporaries, except the Greeks, but their origin is involved in obscurity, and of their early history little is known, as their writings have long since perished, and their hieroglyphic inscriptions on brass are utterly unintelligible. (Maps Nos. VIH. and X.) 2. The river Tiber, called by the ancient Latins fibula, and by the Greeks Tkymbris, the most celebrated, though not the largest river of Italy, rises in the Tuscan Apennines, and has a general southerly course about one hundred and thirty miles until it reaches Rome, when it turns south-west, and enters the Mediterranean by two months, seventeen miles from Rome, terminating in a marshy pestiferous tract. Its waters have a yellowish hue, being discolored by the mud with which they are loaded. Anciently the Tiber was capable of receiving vessels of considerable burden at Rome, and small boats to within a short distance of its source, but the entrance of the river from the sea, and its subsequent navigation, have become so difficult, that the harbor of Ostia at its mouth has long been relinquished, and Civita Vecchia is now the port of Rome, althougl at the distance of thirty-six miles north, with which it is connected merely by a road. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 126 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT L 7. What historians have related of the founding of Rome, and of the first century, at least, of its existence, has been drawn from numerous traditionary legends, known, from their character, to be mostly fabulous, and has therefore no valid claims to authenticity. Still it is proper to relate, as an introduction to what is better known, the story most accredited by the Romans themselves, and contained in their earliest writings, while at the same time we express the opinion that it has little or no foundation in truth. a 8. The Roman legends state that, immediately after the fall of Troy, .ZEneas, a celebrated Trojan warrior, escaping from his devoted country, after seven years of wanderings arrived on the western coast of Italy, where he established a colony of his countrymen, and built the city of Lavin' ium. 1 From Latinus, a king of the country, whom he had slain in battle, and whose subjects he incorporated with his own followers, the united people were called Latini or Latins, and their country Ldtium? After the lapse of thirty years, which were occupied mostly in wars with neighboring tribes, the Latins, now in- creased to thirty hamlets, removed their capital to Alba, 3 a new city which they built on the Alban Mount, and which continued to be the head of the confederate people during three centuries. 9. The old Roman legends go on to state, that, at an uncertain date, Procas, king of Alba, left two sons at his death, and that Numitor the elder, being weak and spiritless, suffered Amulius the younger to wrest the government from him, to murder the only son, and to consecrate the daughter of his brother to the service of the temple, in the character of a vestal virgin. But the attempts of Amulius to remove all claimants of the throne were fruitless, for Syl' via, the daughter of Numitor, became the mother of twin sons, 1. Lavin' ium, a city of Latium, was about eighteen miles south of Rome. The modern village of Practice^ about three miles from the coast, is supposed to occupy the site of the ancient city. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 2. Ancient Latium extended from the Tiber southward along the coast about fifty miles, to the Circaean promontory. It was afterwards extended farther south to the river Liris, and at a still later period to the Vulturnus. The early inhabitants of Latium were the Latins, (also a general term applied to all the inhabitants of Latium,) Rutulians, Hernicians, and Volscians. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 3. Alba appears to have been about fifteen miles south-east from Rome, on the eastern shore of the Alban lake, aad on the western declivity of the Alban Mount. The modern villa of Palazzuolo is supposed to mark the site of the ancient Alban city. ( Map No. X.) a. "The Trojan legend is doubtless a home sprung fable, having not the least historical truth, nor even the slightest historical importance." Niebuhr's Rom. Hist., i. p. 107. " Niebuhr has shown the early history of Rome to be unworthy of credit, and made it impos- sible for any one to revive the old belief." Anthon's Clas. Diet. ; article Rome. CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 127 Rom' ulus and Remus, by Mars, the god of war. Amiilius ordered that the mother and her babes should be drowned in the Tiber ; but while Syl' via perished, the infants, placed in a cradle of rushes, float- ed to the shore, where they were found by a she wolf, which carried them to her den, and nursed them as her own offspring. 10. After awhile the children were discovered by the wife of a shepherd, who took them to her cottage on the Palatine hill, where they grew up with her twelve sons, and being the stoutest and bravest of the shepherd lads, they became their leaders in every wild foray, and finally the heads of rival factions the followers of Rom' ulus being called Quinctil' ii, and those of Remus Fabii. At length Remus having been seized and dragged to Alba as a robber, the secret of the royal parentage of the youths was made known to Rom' ulus, who armed a band of his comrades and rescued Remus from danger. The brothers then slew the king Amiilius, and the people of Alba again became subject to Numitor. 11. Rom' ulus and Remus next obtained permission from their grandfather to build a city for themselves and their followers on the banks of the Tiber ; but as they disputed about the location and name of the city, each desiring to call it after his own name, they agreed to settle their disputes by auguries. Each took his station at midnight on his chosen hill, Rom' ulus on the Pal'atine, and Remus on the Av' entine, and there awaited the omens. Remus had the first augury, and saw six vultures flying from north to south ; but scarcely were the tidings brought to Rom' ulus when a flock of twelve vultures flew past the latter. Each claimed the victory, but the party of Rom' ulus, being the stronger, confirmed the authority of their leader. 12. Rom' ulus then proceeded to mark out the limits of the city by cutting a furrow round the foot of the Pal' atine hill, which he inclosed, on the line thus drawn, with a wall and ditch. n . FOUNDING But scarcely had the walls begun to rise above the sur- OF ROME. face, when Remus, still resenting the wrong he had suffered, insult- ingly leaped over the puny rampart, and was immediately slain, either by Rom' ulus or one of his followers. His death was regard- ed as an omen that no one should cross the walls but to his destruc- tion. Soon the slight defences were completed, and a thousand rude huts marked the beginning of the " eternal city RoME," 1 within whose 1. See description of Rome page 582 and Map. No. X. < : : ..< '_'. .. . :;=;:^.^A 128 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L limits strangers from every land, exiles, and even criminals, and fugitives from justice, found an asylum. The date usually assigned for the founding of the city is the 753d year before the Christian era. 13. But the Romans, as we must now call the dwellers on the Pal' atine, were without wives ; and the neighboring tribes scorn- fully declined intermarriages with this rude and dangerous horde. After peaceful measures had failed, Rom' ulus resorted to stratagem. He proclaimed a great festival ; and the neighboring people, es- pecially the Lat' ins and Sabines, 3 came in numbers, with their wives and daughters, to witness the ceremonies ; but while they were intent on the spectacle, the Roman youths rushed in, and forcibly bore off the maidens, to become wives of the captors. 14. War followed this outrage, and the forces of three Latin cities, which had taken up arms without concert, were successively defeated. At last the Sabine king, Titus Tatius, brought a power- iii WAR ^ armv against Rome, which Rom' ulus was unable to WITH THE resist in the open field, and he therefore retreated to SA BINES. fa e c j tv ^ wn fl e k e f or tified and garrisoned the Capitoline hill, over against the Pal 7 atine on the north, intrusting the command of it to one of his most faithful officers. But Tarpeia, the daughter of the commander, dazzled by the golden bracelets of the Sabines, agreed to open a gate of the fortress to the enemy on condition that they should give her what they bore on their left arms meaning their golden ornaments. Accordingly the gate was opened, but the traitress expiated her crimes by her death ; for the Sabines over- whelmed her with their shields as they entered, these also being carried on their left arms. To this day Roman peasants believe that in the heart of the Capitoline hill the fair Tarpeia is still sitting, bound by a spell, and covered with the gold and jewels of the Sa- bines. 15. The Sabines next tried in vain to storm the city, and Rom'- ulus made equally fruitless attempts to recover the fortress which he had lost. While both parties thus maintained their positions, the Sabine women, now reconciled to their lot, and no longer wishing for revenge, but for a reconciliation between their parents and husbands, rushed in between the combatants, and by earnest supplications in- 1. The territory of the Sabines lay to the north-east of Rome. At the time when its limits were most clearly defined it was separated from Latium on the south by the river Anio, from Etroria by the Tiber, from Umbria by the river Nar, and from Picenum on the east by the Apennines. (Maps Nos. VUI. and X.) CHAP.V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 129 duced them to agree to a suspension of hostilities, which terminated in a treaty of peace. The Sabines and Romans were henceforth to form one nation, having a common religion, and Rom' ulus and Tatius were to reign jointly. Not long after, Tatius was slain by some Laurentines 1 on the occasion of a national sacrifice at Lavin'- ium, and henceforward Rom' ulus ruled over both nations. 16. At this point in Roman history, remarks Niebuhr, the old Roman legend, or poetic lay, is suspended until the death of Rom'- ulus ; while the intervening period has been filled by subsequent writers with accounts of Etrus' can wars, which find no place in the ancient legend, and which are probably wholly fictitious. Just before the death of Rom' ulus, who is said to have ruled thirty-seven years, the poetic lay is resumed. It relates that, while the king was reviewing his people, the sun withdrew his light, and Mars, descending in a whirlwind and tempest, bore away his perfected son in a fiery chariot to heaven, where he became a god, under the name of Quirinus. a (B. C. 716.) 17. The legend further relates that after the death of Rom'ulus, the chosen senators, or elders of the people, who were also called patres, or fathers, retained 'the sovereign power in their iv. NUMA. hands during a year ; but as the people demanded a king, it was finally agreed that the Romans should choose one from the Sabine part of the population. The election resulted in the choice of the wise and pious Numa Pompil' ius, who had married the daughter of Tatius. After Numa had assured himself by auguries that the gods approved of his election, his first care was to regulate the laws of landed property, by securing the hereditary possession of land to the greatest possible number of citizens, thereby establishing the most permanent basis of civil order. He then regulated the ser- vices of religion, pretending that he received the rituals of the law from the goddess Egeria : he also built the temple of Janus ; a and 1. The Laurentines were the people of Lauren' turn, the chief city of Latium, Lauren' turn was eighteen miles south from Rome, on the coast, and near the spot now called Paterno. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 2. Janus was an ancient Italian deity, whose origin is traced back to India. He was repre- sented sometimes with two faces looking in opposite directions, and sometimes with four. Hfe was the god of the year, and also of the day, and had charge of the gates of heaven through a. Niebuhr deals severely with those writers who, in attempting to deduce historic truth from this poetical fiction, have made the supposition that, instead of an eclipse, there was a, tempest, and that the senators themselves tore Rom' ulus to pieces, (See Niebuhr, i. 127-6 also SchmiU' Rome, p. 20.) 9 130 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAUT i. after a quiet and prosperous reign of forty-two years he fell asleep full of days and peaceful honors. (673 B. C.) The legend adds that the goddess Egeria, through grief for his loss, melted away in tears into a fountain. 18. The death of Numa was followed by another interregnum, after which the young and warlike Tullus Hostilius was chosen king. A gleam of historic truth falls upon his reign, and the v . TULLUS purely poetic age of Roman story here begins to disap- HOSTILIUS. pear in our confidence that such a king as Tullus Hostilius actually existed, and that during his reign the Albans became united with the Romans. Still, the story of the Alban war, and of subsequent wars during the life of Tullus, retain much of legendary fiction, des titute of historic certainty. 19. A tradition of the Alban war, preserved by the early poets, relates, that when the armies of Rome and Alba were drawn up against each other, their leaders agreed to avert the battle by a combat between three twin brothers on the one side, and three on the other, whose mothers happened to be sisters, although belonging to different nations. The Roman brothers were called Horatii, and the Albans Curiatii. Meeting in deadly encounter between the two armies, two of the Horatii fell, but the third, still unwounded, re- sorted to stratagem, and, pretending to flee, was followed at unequal distances by the wounded Curiatii, when, suddenly turning back, he overcame them in succession. 20. A mournful tragedy followed. At the gate of the city the victor was met by his sister Horatia, who, having been affianced to one of the Curiatii, and now seeing her brother exultingly bearing off the spoils of the slain, and, among the rest, the embroidered cloak of her betrothed, which she herself had woven, gave way to a burst of grief and lamentation, which so incensed her brother that he slew her on the spot. For this act he was condemned to death, but was pardoned by the interference of the people, although they ordered a monument to be raised on the spot where Horatia fell. By the terms of an agreement made before the combat the Albans were to submit to the Romans ; but not long after this event they showed evidence of treachery, when, by order of Tullus, their city which the sun passes ; and hence all gates and doors on earth were sacred to him. January, the first month in the religious year of the Romans, was named after him. His temples at Borne were numerous, and in time of war the gates of the principal one were open, but in time of peace they were closed to keep wars within. CHAP V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 131 was levelled to the ground, and the people were removed to the Caelian hill, adjoining the Pal' atine on the east. After a reign of thirty-two years, Tullus and all his family are said to have been killed by lightning. (642 B. C.) 21. We find the name of Ancus Martius, said to have been a grandson of Numa, next on the list of Roman kings. He is rep- resented both as a warrior, and a restorer of the ordi- ^ ANCUS nances and rituals of the ceremonial law, which had fallen MARTIUS. into disuse during the reign of his predecessor. He subdued many of the Latin towns founded the town and port of Ostia 1 built the first bridge over the Tiber and established that principle of the Roman common law, that the State is the original proprietor of all lands in the commonwealth. The middle of his reign is said to have been the era of the legal constitution of the plebeian order, and the assignment of lands to this body out of the conquered territories. He is said to have reigned twenty-four years. 22. The fourth king of Rome was Tarquinius Priscus, or Tarquin the Elder. The accounts of his reign are obscure and conflicting. By some his parents are said to have fled from Corinth to Tarquin' ii,* a town of Etruria, where Tarquin was born : by others yii. TARQUIN he is said to have been of Etruscan descent ; but Niebuhr THE ELDER. believes him to have been of Latin origin. Having taken up his residence at Rome at the suggestion of his wife Tanaquil, who was celebrated for her skill in auguries, he there became distinguished for his courage, and the splendor in which t he lived ; and his liber- ality and wisdom so gained him the favor of the people that, when the throne became vacant, he was called to it by the unanimous voice of the senate and citizens. (617 B. C.) 23. Tarquin is said to have carried on successful wars against the Etrus' cans, Latins, and Sabines, and to have reduced all those people under the Roman dominion ; but his reign is chiefly memorable on account of the public works which he commenced for the security and improvement of the city. Among these were the embanking of 1. Os~ tie, the early port and harbor of Rome, once a place of great wealth, population, and importance, was situated on the east side of the Tiber, near its mouth, fifteen miles from Rome. Os' tia, which still retains its ancient name, is now a miserable village of scarcely a hundred inhabitants, and is almost uninhabitable, from Malaria ; the fever which it engenders carrying off annually nearly all whom necessity confines to this pestilential region during the hot season. The harbor of Os' tia is now merely a shallow pool. (Maps N- >9. VIII. and X.) 2. Tarquin' it, one of the most powerful cities of Etruria, was about fi rty miles north-west from Rome, on the left bank of the river Marta, several miles from its mouth. The ruins of Turchina mark the site of the ancient city. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 132 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT L the Tiber ; the sewers, which yet remain, for draining the marshes and lakes in the vicinity of the capital ; the porticos around the market-place, the race-course of the circus, and the foundations of the city walls, which were of hewn stone. It is said that Tarquin, after a reign of thirty-eight years, was assassinated at the instigation of the sons of Ancus Martius, who feared that he would secure the suc- cession to his son-in-law Servius Tullius, his own favorite, and the darling of the Roman people. (579 B. C.) 24. Notwithstanding the efforts of the sons of Ancus Martius, the senate and the people decided that Servius should rule over them. The birth of this man is said, in the old legends, to have vm SERV ius been very humble, and his infancy to have been attended TULLIUS. with marvellous omens, which foretold his future greatness. Of his supposed wars with the revolted Etrus' cans nothing certain is known ; but his renown as a law-giver rests on more substantial grounds than his military fame. 25. The first great political act of his reign was the institution of the census, and the division of the people into one hundred and ninety- three centuries, whose rights of suffrage and military duties were regulated on the basis of property qualifications. The several Latin communities that had hitherto bean allied with the Romans by treaty he now incorporated with them by a federal union ; and to render that union more firm and lasting, he induced the confederates to unite in erecting a temple on Mount Aventine to the goddess Diana, and there unitedly to celebrate her worship. He also made wise regulations for the impartial administration of justice, prohibited bondage for debt, and relieved the people from the oppressions with which they already began to be harassed by the higher orders. 26. His legislation was received with displeasure by the patricians ; and when it was known that Servius thought of resigning the crown, and establishing a consular form of government, which would have rendered a change of his laws difficult, a conspiracy was formed for securing the throne to Tarquinius, surnamed the Proud, a son of the former king, who had married a daughter of Servius. The old king Servius was murdered by the agents of Tarquin, and his body left exposed in the street, while his wicked daughter Tullia, in her haste to con- gratulate her husband on his success, drove her chariot over her father's corpse, so that her garments were stained with his blood. (535 B. G.) 27. The reign of Tarquinius Superbus, or the Proud, was distill- CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 133 guished by a series of tyrannical usurpations, which made his name odious to all classes ; for although he at first gratified his supporters by diminishing the privileges of the plebeians, or the Ix TABQUnf common people, he soon made the patricians themselves TDE PROUD. feel the weight of his tyranny. The laws of Servius were swept away the equality of civil rights abolished and even the ordinances of religion suffered to fall into neglect. But although Tarquin was a tyrant, he exalted the Roman name by his successful wars, and alliances with the surrounding nations. In the midst of his successes, however, he was disturbed by the most fearful dreams and appalling prodigies. He dreamed that the sun changed its course, rising in the west ; and that when the two rams were brought to him for sac- rifice, one of them pushed him down with its horns. At one time a serpent crawled from the altar and seized the flesh which he had brought for sacrifice : a flock of vultures attacked an eagle's nest in his garden, threw out the unfledged eaglets upon the ground and drove the old birds away ; and when he sent to Delphi to consult the oracle, the responses were dark and fearful. 28. The reverses threatened were brought upon him by the wick- edness of Sextus, one of his sons. It is related that while the Ro- mans were besieging Ardea, 1 a Rutulian city, Sextus, with his brothers Titus and Aruns, and their cousin Collatinus, happened to be disputing, over their wine, about the good qualities of their wives, when, to settle the dispute, they agreed to visit their homes by sur- prise, and, seeing with their own eyes how their wives were then em- ployed, thus decide which was the worthiest lady. So they hastily rode, first to Rome, where they found the wives of the three Tar- quins feasting and making merry. They then proceeded to Collatia, 8 thi residence of Collatinus, where, although it was then late at night, they found his wife Lucretia, with her maids around her, all busy working at the loom. On their return to the camp all agreed that Lucretia was the worthiest lady. 29. But a spirit of wicked passion had seized upon Sextus, and a few days later he went alone to Collatia, and being hospitably lodged in his kinsman's house, violated the honor of Lucretia. Thereupon 1. Jirdea, a city of Latium, and the capital of the Rutulians, was about twenty-four miles outh from Rome, and three miles from the sea. Some ruins of the ancient city are still visible, and bear the name of Ardea. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 2, Colldtia, a town of Latiura, was near the south bank of the river Anio, twelve or thirteen miles east from Rome. Its rubis may still be traced on a hill which has obtained the name of (Maps No* VIII. and X.) 134 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PABT L she sent in haste for her father, and husband, and other relatives, and having told them of the wicked deed of Sextus, and made them swear that they would avenge it, she drew a knife from her bosom and stabbed herself to the heart. The vow was renewed over the dead body, and Lucius Junius Brutus, who had long concealed patri- otic resolutions under the mask of pretended stupidity, and thus saved his life from the jealousy of Tarquin, exhibited the corpse to the people, whom he influenced, by his eloquence, to pronounce sen- tence of banishment against Tarquin and his family, and to declare that the dignity of king should be abolished forever. (510 B. C.) SECTION II. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, FROM THE ABOLITION OF ROYALTY, 610 B.O., TO THE BEGINNING OF THE WARS WITH CARTHAGE: 263 B. C. = 247 YEARS. ANALYSIS. L Royalty abolished. The laws of Servius reestablished. CONSULS elected. 2. Aristocratic character of the government. The struggle between the patricians and ple- beians begins. 3. Extent of Roman territory. 4. Conspiracy in favor of the Tarquins. ETRUS^ CAN WAR. 5. Conflicting accounts. Legend of the Etrus' can war. [Clusium.] 6. The storj of Mutius Scaev' ola. 7. Farther account of the Roman legend. The probable truth. 8. Hu- miliating condition of the plebeians after the Etrus can war. 9. Continued contentions. The office of DICTATOR. 10. Circumstances of the first PLEBEIAN INSURRECTION. [Volscians.] 11. Confusion. Withdrawal of the Plebeians. [Mons Sacer.] 12. The terms of reconciliation. Office and power of the TRIBUNES. 13. League with the Latins and Hernicians. 14. VOL- SCIAN AND ^EQUIAN WARS. Contradictory statements. [^Equians. Corioli.] Proposal of Coriolanus. 15. His trial exile and war against the Romans. 16. The story of Cincinatus. 17. The public lands and the fate of Spurius Cassius. 18. Continued demands of the people. Election and office of THE DECEM' VIRS. 19. The laws of the decem' virs. 20. The decem'- virs are continued in office their additional laws and tyranny. 21. The story of Virginia. 22. Overthrow of the decem' virs, and death of Appius. 23. Plebeian innovations. The office of CENSORS. 24. Rome, as viewed by the surrounding people. Circumstances that led to the WAR WITH VEIL [Situation of Veii.] 25. Destruction of Veii, and extension of Roman territory. 26. GALLIC INVASION. Circumstances of the introduction of the Gauls into Italy. [Cisalpine Gaul.] 27 The Roman ambassadors. Conduct of Brennus. 28. The Romans defeated by the Gauls. General abandonment of Rome. [The Allia. Roman Forum.] 29. Entrance of the Gauls into the city. Massacre of the Senators. Rome plundered and burned. 30 Vain at- tempt* to storm the citadel. The Roman legend of the expulsion of the Gauls. The more probable account. [The Venetians.] 31. The rebuilding of Rome. 32. Renewal of the PLK- BKIAN AND PATRICIAN CONTESTS. Philanthropy and subsequent history of Manlius. 33. Con- tinued oppression of the plebeians. 34. Great reforms made by Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sex- tus. The office of PR *:TOR. 35. Progress of the Roman power. The Samnite confederacy [The Samnites.] 36. FIRST SAMNITE WAR. [Cap'ua.] League with the Samnites. Latin war. 37 SECOND SAMNITE WAR. Defeat of the Romans, and renewed alliance. [Caudine CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 135 Forks.] 38. The senate declares the treaty void. Magnanimity of Pontius. 39. The THIRD SAMNITE WAR. Fate of Pontius. [Um'bria.] 40. WAR WITH THE TARENTINKS AND PYR' RHUS. 41. First encounter of Pyr'rhus with the Romans. 42. Pyr' rhus attempts negotiation. His second battle. 43. Story of the generosity of Fabricius, and magnanimity of Pyr'rhus. Pyr' rhus passes over to Sicily returns, and renews the war is defeated and abandons Italy, Roman supremacy over all Italy. [Rubicon. Arnua. Tuscan Sea.] 44. Alliance with Egypt. Sicilian affairs. Widening circle of Roman history. 1. As narrated at the close of the previous section, royalty was abolished at Rome, after an existence of two hundred and forty years. The whole Roman people took an oath that whoever should express a wish to rule as king should be declared an outlaw. The laws of Servius were reestablished, and, according to the code which he had proposed, the royal power was in- trusted to two consuls, 8 - annually elected. The first chosen were Butus and Collatinus. 2. From the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the downfall of mon- archy, is dated the commencement of what is called the Roman Republic. Yet the government was at this time entirely aristo- cratical ; for all political power was in the hands of the nobility, from whom the consuls were chosen, and there was no third party to hold the balance of power between them and the people. Hence arose a struggle between these two divisions of the body politic ; and it was not until the balance was properly adjusted by the in- creased privileges of the plebeians, and a more equal distribution of power, that the commonwealth attained that strength and influence which preeminently exalted Rome above the surrounding nations. 3. The territory possessed by Rome under the last of the kings is known, from a treaty made with Carthage in the first year of the Republic, to have extended at least seventy miles along the coast south of the Tiber. Yet all this sea-coast was destined to be lost to Rome by civil dissensions and bad government, before her power was to be firmly established there. a. The consuls had at first nearly the same power as the kings ; and all other magistrates were subject to them, except the tribunes of the people. They summoned the meetings of the senate and of the assemblies of the people they had the chief direction of the foreign affairs of the government they levied soldiers, appointed most of the military officers, and, in time of war, had supreme command of the armies. In dangerous conjunctures they were armed with absolute power by a decree of the senate that " they should take care that the republic receives no harm." Their badges of office were the toga prtBtexta, or mantle bordered with purple, and an ivory sceptre ; and when they appeared in public they were accompanied by twelve officers called lictors, each of whom carried a bundle of rods, (fas'ces,) with an axe (securis) placed in the middle of them ; the former denoting the power of scourging, or of ordinary punishment, and the latter, the power of life and death. 136 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART I. 4. The efforts of Tarquin to recover the throne gave rise to a con- spiracy among some of the younger patricians who had shared in the tyrant's extortions. Among the conspirators were the sons of Brutus ; and the duty of pronouncing their fate devolved upon the consul their father, who, laying aside parental affection, and acting the part of the magistrate only, condemned them to death. The 11. ETRUS'CAN cause of the Tarquins was also espoused by the Etrus'- WAR. cans, to whom they had fled for protection, and thus a war was kindled between the two people. 5. The accounts of the events and results of this war are exceed- ingly conflicting. The ancient Roman legend relates that when Porsenna, king of Clusium, 1 the most powerful of the Etrus' can princes, led an overwhelming force against Home, the Romans were at first repulsed, and fled across a wooden bridge over the Tiber ; and that the army was saved by the valor of Horatius Codes, who alone defended the pass against thousands of the enemy, until the bridge was broken down in the rear, when he plunged into the stream, and, amid a shower of darts, safely regained the opposite shore. 6. It is farther related, that when Porsenna had reduced Rome to extremities by famine, a young man, Mutius Scaev' ola, undertook, with the approbation of the Senate, to assassinate the invading king. Making his way into the Etrus' can camp, he slew one of the king's attendants, whom he mistook for Porsenna. Being disarmed, and threatened with torture, he scornfully thrust his right hand into the flame, where he held it until it was consumed, to show that the rack had no terrors for him. The king, admiring such heroism, gave him his life and liberty, when Scaev' ola warned him, as a token of grati- tude, to make peace, for that three hundred young patricians, as brave as himself, had conspired to destroy him, and that he, Scsev' ola, had only been chosen by lot to make the first attempt. 7. The Roman legend asserts that Porsenna, alarmed for his life, offered terms of peace, which were agreed upon. And yet it is known, from other evidence, that the Romans, about this time, surrendered their city, and became tributary to the Etrus' cans ; and it is prob- able that when, soon after, Porsenna was defeated in a war with the Latins, the Romans embraced the opportunity to regain their inde- pendence. 8. It was only while the attempts of the Tarquins to regain the 1. Clusium, now Chiusi, was a town of Etriiria, situated on the western bank of the river Clanis, a tributary of the Tiber, about eighty-five miles north-west from Rome. (Map No. VIII.) CHAB.V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 137 throne excited alarm, and the Etrus' can war continued, that the gov- ernment under the first consuls was administered with justice and moderation. When these dangers were over, the patricians again began to exert their tyranny over the plebeians, and as nearly all the wealth of the State had been engrossed by the former, the latter were reduced to a condition differing little from the most abject slavery. A decree against a plebeian debtor made not only him, but his children also, slaves to the creditor, who might imprison, scourge, or otherwise maltreat them. 9. The contentions between the patricians and plebeians were at length carried to such an extent, that in time of war the latter re- fused to enlist ; and as the consuls, for some cause now unknown, could not be confided in, the plebeians were induced to consent to the creation of a dictator, who, during six months, had m . OFFICE OF supreme power, not only over patricians, plebeians, and DICTATOR. consuls, but also over the laws themselves. Under a former law of Valerius the people had the right of appeal from a sentence of the consul to a general assembly of the citizens ; but from the decision of the dictator there was no appeal, and as he was appointed by the Senate, this office gave additional power to the patrician order. a 10. During a number of years dictators continued to be appointed in times of great public danger ; but they gave only a temporary calm to the popular dissensions. It was during a war with the Vol- sciaus 1 and Sabines that the long-accumulating resentment of the plebeians against the patricians first broke forth in open j v . PLEBEIAN insurrection. An old man, haggard and in rags, pale INSURRECTION. and famishing, escaping from his creditor's prison, and bearing the marks of cruel treatment, implored the aid of the people. A crowd gathered around him. He showed them the scars that he had re- ceived in war, and he was recognized as a brave captain who had fought for his country in eight and twenty battles. His house and farm-yard having been plundered by the enemy in the Etrus' can war, 1. The Volscians were the most southern of the tribes that inhabited Latium. Their terri- tory, extending along the coast southward from Antium about fifty miles, swarmed with cities filled with a hardy and warlike race. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) a. The office of dictator had existed at Alba and other Latin towns long before this time. The authority of all the other magistrates, except that of the tribunes, (see p. 138,; ceased us BOOB as the dictator was appointed. He had the power of life and death, except per- haps in the case of knights and senators, and from his decision there was no appeal ; but for any abuse of his power he might be called to account after his resignation or the expiration of his term of office. At first the dictator was taken from the patrician ranks only ; but about the year 356 B. C. it was opened by C. Marcius to the plebeians also. See Niebuhr's Rome, i. 270 138 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L famine had first compelled him to sell his all, and then to borrow ; and when he could not pay, his creditors had obtained judgment against him and his two sons, and had put them in chains. (495 B. C.) 11. Confusion and uproar spread through the city. All who had been pledged for debt were clamorous for relief ; the people spurned the summons to enlist in the legions ; compulsion was impossible, and the Senate knew not how to act. At length the promises of the consuls appeased the tumult ; but finally the plebeians, after having been repeatedly deceived, deserted their officers in the very midst of war, and marched in a body to Mons Sacer, 1 or the Sacred Mount, within three miles of Rome, where they were joined by a vast mul- titude of their discontented brethren. (493 B. C.) 12. After much negotiation, a reconciliation was finally effected on the terms that all contracts of insolvent debtors should be can- celled ; that those who had incurred slavery for debt should recover their freedom ; that the Valerian law should be enforced, and that two annual magistrates, (afterwards increased to five,) called trib- v. TRIBUNES unes * whose persons were to be inviolable, should be OF THE chosen by the people to watch over their rights, and pre- PLE - ven t; anv a k uses of authority. It will be seen that the power of the tribunes, so humble in its origin, eventually acquired a preponderating influence in the State, and laid the foundation of monarchical supremacy. 15 13. During the same year that the office of the tribunes was created, a perpetual league was made with the Latins, (493 B. C.) and seven years later with the Hernicians, who inhabited the north- eastern parts of Latium, both on terms of perfect equality in the contracting parties, and not, as before, on the basis of Roman supe- 1. The Mons Sacer, or " Sacred Mountain," is a low range of sandstone hills extending along the right bank of the Anio, near its confluence with the Tiber, about three miles from Rome. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) a. The tribunes of the people wore no external marks of distinction ; but an officer called arator attended them, to clear the way and summon people. Their chief power at first con- sisted in preventing, or arresting, by the word veto, " I forbid," any measure which they thought detrimental to the interests of the people. b. After the plebeians had withdrawn to the " Sacred Mount," the Senate despatched an embassy of ten men, headed by Menenius Agrippa, to treat with the insurgents. Agrippa ia said, on this occasion, to have related to the people the since well-known fable of the Belly and the Members. The latter, provoked at seeing all the fruits of their toil and care applied to the use of the belly, refused to perform any more labor ; in consequence of which the whole body was in danger of perishing. The people understood the moral of the fable, and were ready to enter upon a negotiation. CHAP. VI.] ROMAN HISTORY. 139 riority. These leagues made with cities that were once subject to the Romans, show that the Roman power had been greatly dimin- ished by the plebeian and aristocratic contentions in the early years of the Republic. 14. In the interval between these treaties, occurred important wars with the Volscians and ./Equians. 1 The historical VI> VOLSCIAN contradictions of this period are so numerous, that little AND MQVI- reliance can be placed on the details of these wars ; but AN A it is evident that the Volscians and ^Equians were defeated, and that Caius Marcius, a Roman nobleman, acquired the surname of Coriola- nus from his bravery at the capture of the Volscian town of Corioli 3 and that Lucius Quinctius, called Cincinnatus, acquired great dis- tinction by his conduct of the war against the ^Equians. Coriolanus belonged to the patrician order, and was an enemy of the tribunes ; and it is related that when, during a famine, a Sicilian prince sent a large supply of corn to relieve the distresses of the citizens, Coriola- nus proposed in the Senate that the plebeians should not share in the subsidy until they had surrendered the privileges which they had acquired by their recent secession. 15. The rage of the plebeians was excited by this proposition, and they would have proceeded to violence against Coriolanus, had not the tribunes summoned him to trial before the assembly of the peo- ple. The senators made the greatest efforts to save him, but the commons condemned him to exile. Enraged by this treatment, he went over to the Volscians was appointed a general in their armies and, after defeating the Romans in several engagements, laid siege to the city, which must have surrendered had not a deputation of Roman matrons, headed by the wife and the mother of Coriolanus, prevailed upon him to grant his countrymen terms of peace. It is said that on his return to the Volsciaus he lost his life in a popular tumult ; but a tradition relates that he lived to a very advanced age, and that he was often heard to exclaim, " How miserable is the con- dition of an old man in banishment." 16. It is related that during the war with the JEquians the enemy had surrounded the Roman consul in a defile, where there was neither forage for the horses nor food for the men. In this extremity, the 1. The JZquians dwelt principally in the upper valley of the Anio, north of that stream, and between the Sabines and the M arsi. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 2. Corioli is supposed to have been about twenty-two or twenty-three miles south-east from Rome. A hill now known by the name of Monte Oiove, is thought, with some degree of prob- ability, to represent the site of thia ancient Volscian city. (Map No. X.) i40 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! Senate and people chose Cincinnatus dictator, and sending in haste to inform him of his election, the deputies found him at work in his field, dressed in the plain habit of a Roman farmer. After he had put on his toga, or cloak, that he might receive the message of the Senate in a becoming manner, he was saluted as dictator, and con- ducted into the city. He soon raised an army, surrounded the enemy, and took their whole force prisoners, and at the end of sixteen days, having accomplished the deliverance of his country, resigned his power, and returned to the peaceful pursuits of private life. a 17. The first acquisitions of territory made by the Romans appear to have been divided among the people at large ; but of late the con- quered lands had been suffered to pass, by connivance, occupation, or purchase, chiefly into the hands of the patricians. The complaints of th plebeians on this subject at length induced one of the consuls, Spurius Cassius, to propose a division of recently-conquered lands into small estates, for the poorer classes, who, he maintained, were justly entitled to their proportionate share, as their valor and labors had helped to acquire them. But while this proposition alarmed the Senate and patricians with danger to their property, the motives of Cassius appear to have been distrusted by all classes, for he was charged with aiming at kingly power, and, being convicted, was ig- nominiously beheaded, and his house razed to the ground. (458 B. C.) 18. Still the people continued to demand a share in the conquered lands, now forming the estates of the wealthy, and, as the only way of evading the difficulty, the Senate kept the nation almost constantly involved in war. During thirty years succeeding the death of Cas- sius, the history of the Republic is occupied with desultory wars waged against the jEquians and Volscians, and with continued strug- gles between the patricians and plebeians. At length the tribunes succeeded in getting their number increased from five to ten, when the Senate, despairing of being able to divert the people any longer from their purpose, consented to the appointment of ten persons, vii. THE hence called decent virs, who were to compile a body of DECEMvias. l aws f or the commonwealth, and to exercise all the pow- ers of government until the laws should be completed. (451 B. C.) 19. After several months' deliberation, this body produced a code a. It should be remarked here, that the story of Cincinnatus formed the subject of a beauti- ful poem, to the substance of which most writers have given the credit of historical authen- ticity, although Niebuhr has shown that the truth of the legend will not stand the test of criticism. (See Niebuhr, vol. ii. pp. 125-6. and Arnold's Rome, i. pp. 131-5, and notes.) CHAP.V.] ROMAN HISTORY. Ul , of laws, engraven on ten tables, which continued, down to the time of the emperors, to be the basis of the civil and penal jurisprudence of the Roman people, though almost concealed from view under the enormous mass of additions piled upon it. The new constitution aimed at establishing the legal equality of all the citizens, and there was a show of dividing the great offices of State equally between patri- cians and plebeians, but the exact character of the ten tables cannot now be satisfactorily distinguished from two others that were sub- sequently enacted. 20. After the task of the decemvirs had been completed, all classes united in continuing their office for another year ; and an equal num- ber of patricians and plebeians was elected ; but the former appear to have sought seats in the government for the purpose of overthrow- ing the constitution. The decemvirs now threw off the mask, and enacted two additional tables of laws, by which the plebeians were greatly oppressed, for, among the laws attributed to the twelve tables, we find that although all classes were liable to imprisonment for debt, yet the pledging of the person affected plebeians only, that the latter were excluded from the enjoyment of the public lands, that their intermarriage with patricians was prohibited, and that consuls could be elected from the patrician order only. Moreover, the de- cemvirs now refused to lay down the powers of government which had been temporarily granted them, and, secretly supported by the patricians, ruled without control, thus establishing a tyrannical oli- garchy. 21. At length a private injury accomplished what wrongs of a more public nature had failed to effect. Appius Claudius, a leading decemvir, had fallen in love with the beautiful Virginia, daughter of Virginius, a patrician officer ; but finding her betrothed to another, in order to accomplish his purpose he procured a base dependant to claim her as his slave. As had been concerted, Virginia was brought before the tribunal of Appius himself, who, by an iniquitous decision, ordered her to be surrendered to the claimant. It was then that the distracted father, having no other means of preserving his daughter's honor, stabbed her to the heart in the presence of the court and the assembled people. (448 B. C.) 22. A general indignation against the decemvirs spread through the city ; the army took part with the people ; the power of the decem- virs was overthrown ; and the ancient forms of government were re- stored ; while additional rights were conceded to the commons, by 142 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L giving to their votes, in certain cases, the authority of law. Appius, having been impeached, died in prison, probably by his own hand, before the day appointed for his trial. 23. Other plebeian innovations followed. After a difficult strug- gle the marriage law was repealed, (B. C. 445,) and two years later military tribunes, with consular powers, were chosen from the ple- beian ranks. One important duty of the consuls had been the taking of the census once in every five years, and a new distribution of the people, at such times, among the different classey or ranks, according to their property, character, and families. But the patricians, un- willing that this power should devolve upon the plebeians, stipulated that these duties of the consular office should be disjoined from the military tribuneship, and conferred upon two new officers of patrician vm. OFFICE birth, who were denominated censors ; a and thus the OF CENSORS, long-continued efforts of the people to obtain, from their own number, the election of officers with full consular powers, were defeated. 24. But while dissensions continued to mark the domestic councils of the Romans with the appearance of divided strength and wasted energies, the state of affairs presented a different aspect to the sur- rounding people. They saw in Rome only a nation of warriors that had already recovered the strength it had lost by a revolutionary change of government, and that was now marching on to increased dominion without any signs of weakness in the foreign wars it had to maintain. Veii, 1 the wealthiest and most important of the Etruscan cities, had long been a check to the progress of the Romans north of the Tiber, and had often sought occasion to provoke hostilities with ix. WAR the young republic. At length the chief of the people WITH VEIL O f y^ij p u t to death the Roman ambassadors ; and the Roman Senate, being refused satisfaction for the outrage, formally resolved that Veii should be destroyed. 25. The Etruscan armies that marched to the rolief of Veii were 1. Vkii, numerous remains of which still exist, was about twelve miles north from Rome, ai a place now known by the name oiVInsola Farnese. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) a. An important duty of the censors was that of inspecting the morals of the people. They had the power of inflicting various marks of disgrace upon those who deserved it, such as ex- cluding a senator from the senate-house depriving a knight of his public horse if he did not take proper care of it ; and of punishing, in various ways, those who did not cultivate their grounds properly those who lived too long unmarried and those who were of dissolute mor- als. They had charge, also, of the public works, and of letting out the public lands. The offv-e of censor was esteemed highly honorable. In allusion to the severity with which Cato the Elder discharged its duties, he is commonly styled, at the present day, " Cato the Censor." CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 143 repeatedly defeated by the Roman legions, and the people of Veil were finally compelled to shut themselves up in their city, which was taken by the Roman dictator, Camillus, after a blockade and siege of nearly ten years. (396 B. C.) The spoil taken from the con- quered city was given to the army, the captives were sold for the benefit of the State, and the ornaments and images of the gods were transferred to Rome. The conquerors also wreaked their vengeance on the towns which had aided Veii in the war, and the Roman territory was extended farther north of the Tiber than at any previous period. 26. But while the Romans were enjoying the imaginary security which these successful wars had given them, they were suddenly as- sailed by a new enemy, which threatened the extinction of the Ro- man name. During the recent Etruscan wars, a vast horde of barba- rians of the Gallic or Celtic race had crossed the Alps Xi GALLIO from the unknown regions of the north, and had sat down INVASION. in the plains of Northern Italy, in the country known as Cisalpine Gaul. 1 Tradition relates that an injured citizen of Clusinm, an Etruscan city, went over the mountains to these Gauls, taking with him a quantity of the fruits and wines of Italy, and promised these rude people that if they would leave their own inhospitable country and follow him, the land which produced all these good things should be theirs, for it was inhabited by an un warlike race ; where- upon the whole Gallic people, with their women and children, crossed the Alps, and marched direct to Clusium. (391 B. C.) 27. Certain it is that the people of Clusium sought aid from the Ro- mans, who sent three of the nobility to remonstrate with the Brennus, or chieftain of the Gauls, but as the latter treated them with derision, they forgot their sacred character as ambassadors, and joined the Clusians in a sally against the besiegers. Immediately Brennus ordered a retreat, that he might not be guilty of shedding the blood of ambassadors, and forthwith demanded satisfaction of the Roman senate ; and when this was refused he broke up his camp before Clusium and took up his march for Rome at the head of seventy thousand of his people. 28. Eleven miles from the city, on the banks of the Al' ia, 1 a battle 1. Cisalpine Gaul, meaning "Gaul this side of the Alps," to distinguish it from " Gaul be- yond the Alps," embraced all that portion of Northern Italy that was watered by the river Po and its numerous tributaries, extending south on the Adriatic coast to the river Rubicon, and oil the Tuscan coast to the river Macra. (Map No. IX.) 2. The M' ia, now the jJio, was a small stream that flowed into the Tiber from the east, about ten miles north-east from Rome. (Map No. X.> i44 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT I. f * f" f - +"t was fought, and the Romans, forty thousand in number, were defeat- ed. (390 B. C.) Brennus meditated a sudden march to Rome to con- summate his victory, but his troops, abandoning themselves to pillage, rioting, and drunkenness, refused to obey the voice of their leader, and thus, the attack being delayed, the existence of the Roman na- tion was saved. The defeat on the Al' ia had rendered it impossible to defend the city, but a thousand armed Romans took possession of the capitol and the citadel, and laying in a store of provisions deter- mined to maintain their post to the last extremity, while the mass of the population sought refuge in the neighboring towns, bearing with them their riches, and the principal objects of their religious venera- tion. But while the rest of the people quitted their homes, eighty priests and patricians of the highest rank, deeming it intolerable to survive the republic and the worship pf the gods, sat down in the Forum, 1 in their festal robes, awaiting death. 29. Onward came the Gauls in battle array, with horns and trumpets blowing, but finding the walls deserted, they burst open the gates and entered the city, which they found desolate and death-like. They marched cautiously on till they came to the Forum, where, in solemn stillness, sat the aged priests, and chiefs of the senate, look- ing like beings of another world. The wild barbarians, seized with awe at such a spectacle, doubted whether the gods had not come down to save the city or to avenge it. At length a Gaul went up to one of the priests and gently stroked his white beard, but the old man indignantly repelled the insolence by a stroke of his ivory sceptre. He was cut down on the spot, and his death was the signal of a general massacre. Then the plundering commenced : fires broke out in several quarters ; and in a few days the whole city, with the ex- ception of a few houses on the Pal' atine, was burnt to the ground. 1 (390 B. C.) 30. The Gauls made repeated attempts to storm the citadel, but in vain. They attempted to climb up the rocks in the night, but the cackling of the sacred geese in the temple of Jtino awoke Mar- cus Man'lius, who hurled the foremost Gaul headlong down the 1. The Roman Forum was a large open space between the Capitoline and Pal' atine hills, sur- rounded by porticos, shops, &c., where assemblies of the people were generally held, justice administered, and public business transacted. It is now a mere open space strewed for the most part with ruins, which, in the course of centuries, have accumulated to such an extent as to raise the surface from fifteen to twenty feet above its ancient level. Seep. 582. a. Different writers have given the date of. the taking of Rome by the Gauls, from 388 to i.C. CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 145 precipice, and prevented the ascent of those who were mounting after him. At length famine began to be felt by the garrison. But the host of the besiegers was gradually melting away by sickness and want, and Brennus agreed, for a thousand pounds of gold, to quit Rome and its territory. According to the old Roman legend, Ca- mil' lus entered the city with an army while the gold was being weighed, and rudely accosting Brennus, and saying, " It is the custom of us Romans to ransom our country, not with gold, but with iron," ordered the gold to be carried back to the temple, whereupon a bat- tle ensued, and the Gauls were driven from the city. A more proba- ble account, however, relates that the Gauls were suddenly called home to protect their own country from an invasion of the Venetians. 1 According to Polybius this great Gallic invasion took place in the same year that the " peace of Antalcidas" was concluded between the Greeks and Persians. (See p. 89.) 31. The walls and houses of Rome had now to be built anew, and so great did the task appear that the citizens clamored for a removal to Veii ; but the persuasion of Camil' lus, and a lucky omen, in- duced them to remain in their ancient situation. Yet they were not allowed to rebuild their dwellings in peace, for the surrounding na- tions, the Sabines only excepted, made war upon them ; but their attacks were repelled, and one after another they were made to yield to the sway of Rome, which ultimately became the sovereign city of Italy. 32. Soon after the rebuilding of the city the old contests between the patricians and plebeians were renewed, with all their former vio- lence. The cruelties exercised towards helpless credit- xi. PLEBEIAN ors appear to have aroused the sympathies of the patrician ^j^ 1 Man' lius, the brave defender of the capitol, for he sold TESTS. the most valuable part of his inheritance, and declared that so long as a single pound remained no Roman should be carried into bondage for debt. Henceforward he was regarded as the patron of the poor, but for some hasty words was thrown into prison for slandering the government, and for sedition. Released by the clamors of the mul- titude, he was afterwards accused of aspiring to kingly authority ; and the more common account states that he was convicted of treason, and sentenced to be thrown headlong from the Tarpeian rock, the scene of his former glory. But another account states that, being I. The Venetians were a people of ancient Italy who dwelt north of the mouths of the Po, around the head-waters of the Adriatic. (Map No. VIII.) 10 146 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! in insurrection, and in possession of the capitol, a treacherous slave hurled him down the precipice. 3 - (384 B. C.) 33. The plebeians mourned the fate of Man' lius, but his death was a patrician triumph. The oppression of the plebeians now in- creased, until universal distress prevailed : debtors were every day consigned to slavery, and dragged to private dungeons ; the number of free citizens was visibly decreasing ; those who remained were re- duced to a state of dependence by their debts, and Rome was on the point of degenerating into a miserable oligarchy, when her decline was arrested by the appearance of two men who changed the fate of their country and of 'the world. 34. The authors of the great reform in the constitution were Li- cinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius. Confining themselves strictly to the paths permitted by the laws, they succeeded, after a struggle of five years against every species of fraud and violence, in obtaining for the plebeians an acknowledgment of their rights, and all possible guarantees for their preservation. (376 to 371 B. C.) The history of the struggle would be too long for insertion here. As on a former occasion, it was only in the last extremity, when the people had taken up arms, and gathered together upon the Aventine, that the patrician senate yielded its sanction to the three bills brought forward by Licinius. The first abolished the military tribuneship, and gained for the plebeians a share in the consulship : the second regulated the shares, divisions, and rents, of the public lands : the third regulated the rate of interest, gave present relief to unfortunate debtors, and secured personal freedom against the rapacity of creditors. To save xii. OFFICE something from the general wreck of their power, the OF PRAETOR, patricians stipulated that the judicial functions of the consul should be exercised by a new officer with the title of Prcetor* chosen from the patrician order ; yet within thirty -five years after the passage of the laws of Licinius, not only the prsetorship, but the dictatorship also, was opened to the plebeians. 35. The legislation of Licinius freed Rome from internal dissen- sions, and gave new development to her strength and warlike ener 1. Thepraitors were judicial magistrates, officers answering to the modern chief-justice o chancellor. The modern English forms of judicial proceedings in the trial of causes are mostl; taken from those observed by the Roman praetors. At first but one praetor was chosen ; after wards, when foreigners became numerous at Rome, another praetor was added to administe justice to them, or between them and the citizens. In later times subordinate judges, callei provincial praetors, were appointed to administer justice in the provinces. a. See Niebuhr, i. 275. CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 147 gies. Occasionally the Gauls came down from the north and made inroads upon the Roman territories, but they were invariably driven back with loss ; while the Etrus' cans, almost constantly at war with Rome, grew less and less formidable, from repeated defeats. On the south, however, a new and dangerous enemy appeared in the Sam- nite 1 confederacy, now in the fulness of its strength, and in extent of territory and population far superior to Rome and her allies. 36. Cap' ua, a a wealthy city of Campania, having obtained from Rome the promise of protection against the Samnites, xm FIBgT the latter haughtily engaged in the war, and with a larger SAMNITE army than Rome could muster invaded the territory of Campania, but in two desperate battles were defeated by the Ro- mans. Two years later the Samnites proffered terms of peace, which were accepted. (341 B. C.) A league with the Samnites ap- pears to have broken the connection that nad long existed between Rome and Latium, and although the latter was willing to submit to a common government, and a complete union as one nation, yet the Romans, rejecting all compromise, haughtily determined either that their city must be a Latin town, or the Latins be subject to Rome. The result of the Latin war was the annexation of all Latium, and of Campania also, to the territory of the Republic. (338 B. C.) 37. The Samnites were alarmed at these successes, and Roman encroachments soon involved the two people in another war. The Samnites lost several battles, but under their able general Pontius they effectually humbled the pride of Rome. The armies of the two Roman consuls, amounting to twenty thousand men, XIV 8ECOND while passing through a narrow defile call the Caudine SAMNITE Forks, 3 were surrounded by the enemy, and in this situa- WAR ' tion, unable either to fight or to retreat, were obliged to surrender. (321 B. C.) The terms of Pontius were that the Roman soldiers should be allowed to return to their homes, after passing under tho 1. The Samnites dwelt at the distance of about ninety miles south-east from Rome, their territory lying between Apulia on the east and Campania and Latium on the west. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 2. Cap' ;ea. the capital of Campania, was about three miles from the left bank of the rirer Vultur' nus, (now Vulturno,) about one hundred and five miles south-east from Rome. The remains of its ancient amphitheatre, said to have been capable of containing one hundred thousand spectators, and some of its tombs, &c., attest its ancient splendor and magnificence. Two and a half miles from the site of the ancient city, is the modern city of Cap' ua, on the 'eft bank of the Vulturno. ( Map No. VIII.) 3. The Caudine Forks were a narrow pass in the Samnite territory, about thirty-five miles north-east from the Cap' ua. The present valley of Jlrpaia, (or Forchia di Arpaia,) not far from Benevento, is thought to answer to this pass. 148 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT L yoke; that there should be a renewal of the ancient equal alliance between Rome and Samnium, and a restoration of all places that had been dependent upon Samnium before the war. For the fulfil- ment of these stipulations the consuls gave their oaths in the name of the republic, and Pontius retained six hundred Roman knights as 38. But notwithstanding the recent disaster, and the hard fate that might be anticipated for the hostages, the Roman senate imme- diately declared the peace null and void, and decreed that those who had sworn to it should be given up to the Samnites, as persons who had deceived them. In vain did Pontius demand either that the whole army should be again placed in his power, or that the terms of capitulation should be strictly fulfilled ; but he showed magna- nimity of soul in refusing to accept the consuls and other officers whom the Romans would have given up to his vengeance. Not long after, the six hundred hostages were restored, but on what conditions is unknown. 39. The war, being again renewed, was continued with brief inter- vals of truce, during a period of thirty years ; and although the Sam- xv THIRD n ^ es were a * times aided by Umbrians, 1 Etrus'cans, SAMNITE and Gauls, the desperate valor of the Romans repeatedly WAR. triumphed over all opposition. The last great battle, which occurred fifty-one years from the commencement of the first Samnite war, and which decided the contest between Rome and Samnium, has no name in history, and the place where it was fought is unknown, but its importance is gathered from the common statement that twenty thousand Samnites were left dead on the field and four thousand taken prisoners, and that among the latter was Pontius himself. (B. C. 292.) He was led in chains to grace the triumph of the Roman general, but the senate tarnished its honor by ordering the old man to execution. (291 B. C.) One year after the defeat of Pontius, the Samnites submitted to the terms dictated by the conquerors. (290 B. C.) 40. The Samnite wars had made the Romans acquainted with the Grecian cities on the eastern coast, and it was not long before they xvi. WAR f un( l a pretext for war with Taren' turn, the wealthiest WITH THE of the Greek towns of Italy. The Tarentines, abandoned * ES ' to ease and luxury, had often employed mercenary Gre- 1. Urn' bria, the territory of the Umbrians, was east of Etruria, on the left bank of the Tiber, and north of the Sabine territory. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) CHAP. V.] ROMAJ* HISTORY. 149 cian troops in their wars with the rude tribes by which they were surrounded, and now, when pressed by the Romans, they again had recourse to foreign aid, and applied for protection to Pyr' rhus, king of Epirus, who has previously been brought under our notice in con- nection with events in Grecian history. (See p. 106.) 4 1 . Pyr' rhus, ambitious of military fame, accepted the invitation of the Tarentines, and passed over to Taren' turn at the head of an army of nearly thirty thousand mea, having among his forces twenty elephants, the first of those animals that had been seen in Italy. In the first battle, which was fought with the consul Laevinus, seven times was Pyr' rhus beaten back, and to his elephants he was finally indebted for his victory. (280 B. C.) The valor and military skill of the Romans astonished Pyr' rhus, who had expected to encounter only a horde of barbarians. As he passed over the field of battle after the fight, and marked the bodies of the Romans who had fallen in their ranks without turning their backs, and observed their counte- nances, stern even in death, he is said to have exclaimed in admira- tion : " With what ease I could conquer the world had I the Ro- mans for soldiers, or had they me for their king." 42. Pyr' rhus now tried the arts of negotiation, and for this pur- pose sent to Rome his friend Cineas, the orator, who is said to have won more towns by his eloquence than Pyr' rhus by his arms ; but all his proposals of peace were rejected, and Cineas returned filled with admiration of the Romans, whose city he said, was a temple, and their senate an assembly of kings. The war was renewed, and in a second battle Pyr' rhus gained a dearly-bought victory, for he left the flower of his troops on the field. " One more such victory," he replied to those who congratulated him, " and I am undone " (279 B. C.) 43. It is related that while the armies were facing each other the third time, a letter was brought to Fabricius, the Roman consul and commander, from the physician of Pyr' rhus, offering, for a suitable reward, to poison the king, and that Fabricius thereupon nobly in- formed Pyr' rhus of the treachery that was plotted against him. When the message was brought to Pyr' rhus, he was astonished at the generosity of his enemy, and exclaimed, " It would be easier to turn the sun from his course than Fabricius from the path of honor." Not to be outdone in magnanimity he released all his prisoners without ransom, and soon after, withdrawing his forces, passed over into Sicily, where his aid had been requested by the 150 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT L Greek cities against the Carthaginians. (276 B. C. See p. 1 2 1 .) Re- turning to Italy after an absence of three years, he renewed hostili- ties with the Romans, but was defeated in a great battle by the consul Curius Dentatus, after which he left Italy with precipitation, and sought to renew his broken fortunes in the Grecian wars. The de- parture of Pyr' rhus was soon followed by the fall of Tar en' turn, and the establishment of Roman supremacy over all Italy, from the Rubicon 1 and the Arnus, 2 on the northern frontier of Umbria and Etruria, to the Sicilian straits, and from the Tuscan 3 sea to the Adriat' ic. 44. Sovereigns of all Italy, the Romans now began to extend their influence abroad. Two years after the defeat of Pyr' rhus, Ptol' emy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, sought the friendship and alliance of Rome by embassy, and the Roman senate honored the proposal by sending ambassadors in return, with rich presents, to Alexandria. An interference with the affairs of Sicily, soon after, brought on a war with Carthage, at this time a powerful republic, superior in strength and resources to the Roman. From this period the Roman annals begin to embrace the histories of surrounding nations, and the circle rapidly enlarges until all the then known world is drawn within the vortex of Roman ambition. SECTION III. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CARTHAGINIAN WARS, 263 B. C , TO THE REDUCTION OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE TO THE CONDITION OF ROMAN PROVINCES: 146 B. C. = 117 YEARS. ANALYSIS. 1. Geographical account of CARTHAGE. [Tunis.] 2. African dominions of Carthage. Foreign possessions. Trade. [Sardinia. Corsica. Balearic Isles. Malta.] 3. Circumstances of Roman interference in the affairs of Sicily. 4. Commencement of the FIRST PUNIC WAR. The Carthaginians driven from Sicily. The Romans take Agrigentum. 5. The Carthaginians ravage Italy. Building of the first Roman fleet. First naval encounter with the 1. The Rubicon, which formed in part the boundary between Italy proper and Cisalpine Gaul, is a small stream which falls into the Adriat 1 ic, eighteen or twenty miles south of Rav- enna. (Map No. VIII.) 2. The river rfrnus (now the Arno) was the boundary of Etruria on the north until the time of Augustus. On both its banks stood Florentia, the modern Florence ; and eight miles from its mouth, on its right bank, stood Piste, the modern Pisa. (Map No. VIII.) 3. The Tuscan Sea was that part of the Mediterranean which extended along the coast of Etruria, or Tuscany. (Map No. VIII.) CHAP. V.j ROMAN HISTORY. 151 Carthaginians. 6. Roman design of carrying the war into Africa. Second defeat of the Car- thaginians. 7. Regulus invades the Carthaginian territory. His first successes, and final de- feat. [Hermaean promontory. Clypea.] 8. Roman disasters on the sea. Reduction of the Roman fleet. Roman victory in Sicily. 9. Regulus is sent to Rome with proposals of peace. His return to Carthage, and subsequent fate. 10. Subsequent events of the war. Conditions of the peace, and extension of the Roman dominion. 11. General peace. Circumstances that led to the ILLYR'IAN WAR. [fllyr'ians.] 12. Re- sults of the war. Gratitude of the Greeks. WAR WITH THE GAULS. [Clastidium.] 13. Ham'- ilcar's designs upon Spain. His enmity to the Romans. [Spain.] 14. Progress of the Cartha- ginians in Spain. Hannibal's conquests there. Roman embassy to Carthage. [Saguutum. Iberus. Catalonia.] 15. Opening of the SECOND PUNIC WAR. Plans of the opposing generals. Hannibal's march to Italy. Battles on the Ticinus and the Trebia, [Gaul. Marseilles. Turin. Ticinus. Nu- midia. R. Po. Trebia.] 16. Battles of Trasimenus and Cannae. [Trasimenus. Cannae.] 17. Defection from the cause of Rome. Courage, and renewed efforts, of the Romans. 18. Hanni- bal at Capua. Successful tactics of Fabius Maximus. Hasdrubal. Fall of Syracuse. [Metaurus. Archimedes.] 19. Scipio carries the war into Africa. His successes. Recall of Hannibal, from Italy. [Utica.] 20. Confidence of the Carthaginians in Hannibal. Battle of Zama. The terms of peace. Triumph of Scipio. [Zama.] 21. The distresses which the war had brought upon the Romans. Their unconquerable spirit, and renewed prosperity. 22. State of the world favorable to the advancement of the Roman republic. 23. A GRECIAN WAR. 24. SYRIAN WAR. Terms of the peace. Disposal of the conquered provinces. [Magnesia. Pergamus.] 25. The fate of Hannibal and Scipio. 26. Reduction of Greece. THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. Relations of the Carthaginians and Romans since the battle of Zama. 27. Condition of Carthage. Roman armament. Demands of the Romans. 28. The exasperated Carthaginians prepare for war. 29. Events and results of the contest. Destruction of Carthage, 146 B. C. 1. Carthage, believed to have been founded by a Phoenician colony from Tyre in the ninth century before the Christian era, was situated on a peninsula of the northern coast of Africa, about , ' ., ,. T . . . I. CARTHAGE. twelve miles, according to Livy, north-east irom the modern city of Tunis, 1 but, according to some modern writers, only three or four miles. Probably the city extended over a great part of the space between Tunis and Cape Carthage. Its harbor was southward from the city, and was entered from what is now the Gulf of Tunis. 2. The Carthaginians early assumed and maintained a dominion over the surrounding Libyan tribes. Their territory was bounded on the east by the Grecian Cyrenaica; their trading posts ex- tended westward along the coast to the pillars of Hercules; and among their foreign possessions may be enumerated their depen- 1. Tunis is about four miles from the sea, and three miles south-west from the ruins of ancient Cartbage. Among these ruins have been discovered numerous reservoirs or large cisterns, and the remains of a grand aqueduct which brought water to the city from a distance of at least fifty miles. According to Strabo, Tunis, or Tunes, existed before the foundation of Carthage. The chief events in the history of Tunis are its numerous seiges and captures. (See pp. 335-510. Map No. VIIL) 152 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L dencies in south-western Spain, in Sicily, and in Sardinia, 1 Corsica, 3 the Balearic Isles, 3 and Malta. 4 It is believed that they carried on an extensive caravan trade with the African nations as far as the Niger ; and it is known that they entered into a commercial treaty with Rome in the latter part of the sixth century ; yet few details of their history are known to us previous to the beginning of the first Carthaginian war with Syracuse, about 480 B. C. 3. At the time to which we have brought down the details of Ro- man history, the Mamertines, a band of Campanian mercenaries, who had been employed in Sicily by a former king, having estab- lished themselves in the island, and obtained possession of Messana, by fraud and injustice, quarrelled among themselves, one party seek- ing the protection of Carthage, and the other that of Rome. The Greek towns of Sicily were for the most part already in friendly al- liance with the Carthaginians, who had long been aiming at the com- plete possession of the island ; and the Romans did not hesitate to avail themselves of the most trifling pretexts to defeat the ambitious designs of their rivals. 4. The first Punic a war commenced 263 years B. C., eight years ii. FIRST after the surrender of Taren' turn, when the Romans PUNIC WAR. ma d e a descent upon Sicily with a large army under the 1. Sardinia is a hilly but fertile island of the Mediterranean, about one hundred and thirty miles south-west from the nearest Italian coast. At an early period the Carthaginians formed settlements there, but the shores of the island fell into the hands of the Romans in the interval between the first and second Punic wars, 237 B. C. The inhabitants of the interior bravely de- fended themselves, and were never completely subdued by the Roman arms. (Map No. VIII.) 2. Corsica lies directly north of Sardinia, from which it is separated by the strait of Bonifacio, ten miles in width in the narrowest part. Some Greeks from Phocis settled here at an early period, but were driven out by the Carthaginians. The Romans took the island from the latter 231 B. C. (Map No. VIII.) 3. The Balearic Isles were those now known as Majorca and Minorca, the former of which is one hundred and ten miles east from the coast of Spain. By some the ancient Ebusus, now /pica, is ranked among the Baleares. The term Balearic is derived from the Greek word ballein, "to throw, 1 ' alluding to the remarkable skill of the inhabitants in using the sling. At an early date the Phoenicians formed settlements in the Baleares. They were succeeded by the Carthaginians, from whom the Romans, under Q. Metellus, conquered these islands 123 B. C. (Map No. IX.) 4. Malta, whose ancient name was Melita, is an island of the Mediterranean, sixty miles south from Sicily. The Phoenicians early planted a colony here. It fell into the hands of the Carthaginians about four hundred years before the Christian era, and in the second Punic war it was conquered by the Romans, who made it an appendage of their province of Sicily. See also p. 469. (Map No. VIIL) a. The term Punic means simply " Carthaginian." It is a word of Greek origin, phoinikes, in its sense of purple, which the Greeks applied to Phoenicians and Carthaginians, in allusion to the famous purple or crimson of Tyre, the parent city of Carthage. The Romans, adapting the word to the analogy of the Latin tongue, changed it to Punicus, whence the English word Punic. CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 153 command of the consul Claudius. After they had gained possession of Messana, in the second year of the war, Hiero, king of Syracuse, the second of the name, deserted his former allies and joined the Romans, and ere long the Carthaginians were driven from their most important stations in the island, although their superior naval power still enabled them to retain the command of the surrounding seas, and the possession of all the harbors in Sicily. The Carthaginians fortified Agrigentum, a place of great natural strength ; yet the Ro- mans besieged the city, which they took by storm, after defeating an immense army that had been sent to its relief. (262 B. C.) 5. But while the Sicilian towns submitted to the Roman arms, a Carthaginian fleet of sixty ships ravaged the coast of Italy ; and the Romans saw the necessity of being able to meet the enemy on their own element. Unacquainted with the building of large ships, they must have been obliged to renounce their design had not a Cartha- ginian ship of war been thrown upon the Italian coast by a storm From the model thus furnished a hundred and thirty ships were built within sixty days after the trees had been felled. The Cartha- ginians ridiculed the awkwardness and clumsiness of their structure, and thought to destroy the whole fleet in a single encounter ; but the Roman commander, having invented an elevated draw-bridge, with grappling irons, for the purpose of close encounter and boarding, boldly attacked the enemy, and took or destroyed forty-five of the Carthaginian vessels in the first battle, while not a single Roman ship was lost. (260 B. C.) 6. After the war had continued eight years with varied success, in- volving in its ravages not only Sicily, but Sardinia and Corsica also, a Roman armament of three hundred and thirty ships, intrusted to the command of the consuls Regulus and Manlius, was prepared for the great enterprise of carrying the war into Africa. But the Car- thaginians met these preparations with equal efforts, and under their two greatest commanders, Hanno and Hamil' car, went out to meet the enemy with three hundred and fifty ships, which carried no less than a hundred and fifty thousand men. In the engagement that followed, the rude force of the Romans, aided by their boarding bridges, overcame all the advantages of naval art and practice. Again the Carthaginians were defeated, more than thirty of their ships being sunk, and sixty-four, with all their crews, taken. (256 B C.) 7. Regulus proceeded to Africa, and landing on the eastern coast 154 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAET 1. of the Hermsean promontory 1 took Clyp' ea 2 by storm, conquered Tunis, received the submission of seventy-four towns, and laid waste the country to the very gates of Carthage. An embassy sued for peace in the Roman camp ; but the terms offered by Regulus were little better than destruction itself, and Carthage would probably have perished thus early, had not foreign aid unexpectedly come to her assistance. All of a sudden we find Xanthip'pus, a Spartan general, with a small body of Grecian troops, among the Carthagi- nians, promising them victory if they would give him the conduct of the war. A presentiment of deliverance pervaded the people, and Xanthip' pus, after having arranged and exercised the Carthaginian army before the city, went out to meet the greatly superior forces of the Romans, and gained a complete victory over them. (255 B. C.) Regulus himself was taken prisoner, and, out of the whole Roman army, only two thousand escaped, and shut themselves up in Clyp'ea. Of Xanthip' pus nothing is known beyond the events connected with this Carthaginian victory. 8. A Roman fleet, sent to bring off the garrison of Clyp' ea, gained a signal success over the Carthaginians near the Hermaean promon- tory, but on the return voyage, while off the southern coast of Sicily, was nearly destroyed by a tempest. Another fleet that had laid waste the Libyan coast experienced a similar fate on its return, a hundred and fifty ships, and the whole booty, being swallowed up in the waves. The Romans were discouraged by these disasters, and for a time abandoned the sea to their enemies, the senate having at one time decreed that the fleet should not be restored, but limited to sixty ships for the defence of the Italian coast and the protection of transports. Still the war was continued on the land, and in Sicily the Roman consul Metellus gained a great victory over the Cartha- ginians near Panor' mus, killing twenty thousand of the enemy, and taking more than a hundred of their elephants. (250 B. C.) This was the last great battle of the first Punic war, although the contest was continued in Sicily, mostly by a series of slowly-conducted siege?, eight years longer. 9. Soon after the defeat at Panor' mus, the Carthaginians sent an embassy to Rome with proposals of peace. Regulus was taken from 1. The Hermann promontory, or " promontory of Mercury," is the same as the modern Cape JBon, usually called the northern cape of Africa, at a distance of about forty-five miles north- east from the site of Carthage. (Map No. VIII.) 2. Clyp' ea, now rfklib' ia, was situated on the peninsula which terminates in Cape Bon, a hort distance south from the cape. (Map No. VIII.) CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 155 his dungeon to accompany the embassy, the Carthaginians trusting that, weary of his long captivity, he would urge the senate to accept the proffered terms ; but the inflexible Roman persuaded the senate to reject the proposal and continue the war, assuring his countrymen that the resources of Carthage were already nearly exhausted. Bound by his oath to return as a prisoner if peace were not con- cluded, he voluntarily went back to his dungeon. It is generally stated that after his return to Carthage he was tortured to death by the exasperated Carthaginians. But although his martyrdom has been sung by Roman poets, and his self-sacrifice extolled by orators, there are strong reasons for believing that he died a natural death. a 10. The subsequent events of the first Punic war, down to within a year of its termination, were generally unfortunate to the Romans; but eventually the Carthaginian admiral lost nearly his whole fleet in a naval battle. (241 B. C.) Again the Carthaginians, having exhausted the resources of their treasury, and unable to equip another fleet, sought pea,ce, which was finally concluded on the con- ditions that Carthage should evacuate Sicily, and the small islands lying between it and Italy, pay three thousand two hundred talents of silver, and restore the Roman prisoners without ransom. (B. C. 240.) Sicily now became a Roman province ; Corsica and Sardinia were added two years later ; and the sway of Rome was extended over all the important islands which Carthage had possessed in the Mediterranean. 1 1. Soon after the termination of the first Punic war, Rome found herself at peace with all the world, and the temple of Janus was shut for the second time since the foundation of the city. IIL 1LLY a'- But the interval of repose was brief. A war soon broke IAN WAR - out with the Illyr' ians, 1 which led the Roman legions, for the first time, across the Adriat' ic. (229 B. C.) The Illyr' ians had com- mitted numerous piracies on the Italian coasts, and when ambassa- dors were sent to demand reparation, Teu' ta, the Illyr' ian queen, told them that piracy was the national custom of her subjects, and she could not forbid them what was their right and privilege. One of the ambassadors thereupon told her that it was the custom of the 1. The Illyr' ians were inhabitants of Ulyr' ia or Illyr' icum, a country bordering on the Adriat' ic sea, opposite Italy, and bordered on the south-east by Epirus and Macedonia, (jl/op No. VHL) a. Ntebuhr, B. iii. p. 275, and iv. 70. 156 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAET L Romans to do away with bad customs ; and so incensed was the queen at his boldness that she procured his assassination. 1 2. The Illyr' ians, after successive defeats, were glad to conclude a peace with the Romans, and to abandon their piracies, both on the Italian and Grecian coasts. (228 B. C.) Several Greek communi- ties showed themselves grateful for the favor ; a copy of the treaty was read in the assembly of the Achaean league ; and the Corinthians conferred upon the Romans the right of taking part in the Isthmian games. Roman encroachments on the territory of the Gauls next iv WAR brought on a war with that fierce people, and a vast swarm WITH THE of the barbarians poured down upon Italy, and advanced GAULS. irresistibly as far as Clusium, a distance of only three days' journey from Rome. (226 B. C.) After four years continu- ance the war was ended by a great victory gained over the Gauls by Claudius Marcellus, at Clastid' ium, 1 where the noted Gallic leader, Viridomarus, was slain. (222 B. C.) 13. While Rome was thus engaged, events were secretly ripening for another war with Carthage. Hamil' car, the soul of the Cartha- ginian councils, and the sworn enemy of Rome, had turned his eyes to Spain, u with the view of forming a province there which should compensate for the loss of Sicily and Sardinia. " I have three sons," said this veteran warrior, " whom I shall rear like so many lion's- whelps against the Romans." When he set out for Spain, where Carthage then had several colonies, he took his son Hannibal, then only nine years of age, to the altar, and made him swear eternal enmity to Rome. 14. In a few years the Carthaginians gained possession of all the south of Spain, and Hamil' car being dead, the youthful Hannibal, who proved himself the greatest general of antiquity, was appointed to the command of their armies. The rapid progress of his Spanish conquests alarmed the Romans. When the people of Sagun' turn, 8 1. Claitid' ium, (now Chiasteggio,} was in that part of Cisalpine Gaul called Liguria. south of the river Po, and a short distance south-east from the modern Pavia. (See Pavia, Map No. VIII.) 2. Spain, (consisting of the present Spain and Portugal,) called by the Greeks Iberia, and by the Romans Hispania, embraced all the great peninsula in the south-west of Europe. The divisions by which it is best known in ancient history are those of Tarraconensis, Lusitania^ and B&tica, which were made during the reign of Augustus, when, for the first time, the country was wholly subdued by the Romans. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Sagun' turn was built on a hill of black marble in the east of Spain, about four miles from the Mediterranean, and fifteen miles north-east from the modern Valencia. Half way up the hill are still to be seen the ruins of a theatre, forming an exact semi-circle, and capable of accommodating nine thousand spectators. Other ruins are found in the vicinity. The oastlo or CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 157 a Grecian city on the eastern coast, found themselves exposed to his rage, they applied to Rome for aid ; but the ambassadors of the latter power, who had been sent to remonstrate with Hannibal, were treated with contempt ; and Sagun' turn, after a siege of eight months, was taken. (219 B. C.) Hannibal then crossed the Iberus, 1 and invaded the tribes of Catalonia, 2 which were in alliance with Rome. A Roman embassy was then sent to Carthage with the preposterous demand that Hannibal and his army should be delivered up as satis- faction for the trespass upon Roman territory ; and when this was refused, the Roman commissioners, according to the prescribed form of their country, made the declaration of war. Both parties were already prepared for the long-anticipated contest. (218 B. C.) 15. The plan of Hannibal, at the opening of the second Punic war, was to carry the war into Italy ; while that of the Roman con- suls, Publius Scipio and Seinpronius, was to confine it to Spain, and to attack Carthage. Hannibal quickly passed over the v . SECOND Pyrenees, and rapidly traversing the lower part of Gaul, 3 PUNIC WAE - though opposed by the warlike tribes through which his march lay, and avoiding the army of Scipio, which had landed at Marseilles, 4 crossed the Alps at the head of nearly thirty thousand men, and had taken Turin 5 by storm before Scipio could return to Italy to oppose citadel on the top of the hill haa been successively occupied by the Sagun' tines, Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, and Spaniards. Along the foot of the hill has been built the modern town of Murviedro, now containing a population of about six thousand inhabitants. (Map No. XIII.) 1. Iberus, now the Ebro, rises in the north of Spain, in the country of the ancient Cantabri, and flows with a south-eastern course into the Mediterranean sea. Before the second Punic war this river formed the boundary between the Roman and Carthaginian territories ; and, in the time of Charlemagne, between the Moorish and Christian dominions. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Catalonia is the name by which the north-eastern part of Spain has long been known, and it is now a province of modern Spain. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Gaul embraced nearly the same territory as modern France. When first known it was divided among the three great nations of the Belgae, the Celtae, and the Aquitani, but the Romans called all the inhabitants Gauls, while the Greeks called them Celts. The Celts proper inhabited the north-western part of the country, the Belgae the north-eastern and eastern, and the Aquitani the south-western. The divisions by which Gaul is best known in ancient history are Lugdunensis, Belgica, Aquitania, and Narbonensis, called the "Four Gauls," which were established by the Romans after the conquest of the country by Julius Caesar. As far back as we can penetrate into the history of western Europe, the Gallic or Celtic race occupied nearly all Gaul, together with the two great islands north-west of the country, one of which, (England and Scotland) they called Alb-in, " White Island," and the other (Ireland) they called Er-in, * Isle of the West." (Map No. XIII.) 4. Marseilles, anciently called Massila, was originally settled by a Greek colony from Phocis. It is now a large commercial city, and sea port of the Mediterranean, situated in a beautiful plain on the east side of the bay of the Gulf of Lyons. (Map No. XIII.) 5. Turin, called by the Romans Augusta Taurinorum, now a large city of north-western Italy, is situated on the northern or western side of the river Po, eighty miles south-west of Milan. (Map No. VIII.) 158 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAST L his progress. In a partial encounter on the Ticinus 1 the Roman cavalry was beaten by the Spanish and Numidian horsemen, 2 and Scipio, who had been severely wounded, retreated across the Po 3 to await the arrival of Sempronius and his army. Soon after, the entire Roman army was defeated on the left bank of the Trebia, 4 when the hesitating Gauls at once espoused the cause of the victors. (218 B. C.) 16. In the following year Hannibal advanced towards Rome, and Sempronius, falling into an ambuscade near Lake Trasimenus, 6 was slain, and his whole army cut to pieces. (217 B. C.) In another campaign, Hannibal, after passing Rome, and penetrating into southern Italy, having increased his army to fifty thousand men, de- feated the consuls jEmilius and Varro in a great battle at Cannse. 8 (216 B. C.) The Romans, whose numbers exceeded those of the enemy, lost, in killed alone, according to the lowest calculation, more than forty-two thousand men. Among the slain was j33milius, one of the consuls. 17. The calamity which had befallen Rome at Cannae shook the allegiance of some of her Italian subjects, and the faith of her allies; many of the Grecian cities, hoping to recover their inde- pendence, made terms with the victors ; Syracuse deserted the cause of Rome ; and Philip of Mac' edon sent an embassy to Italy and formed an alliance with Hannibal. (See p. 109.) But the Romans did not despond. They made the most vigorous preparations to carry on the war in Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, and Africa, as well as in Italy : they formed an alliance with the Grecian States of .ZEtolia, and thus found sufiicient employment for Philip at home, and in the 1. The Ticinus, now Ticino, enters the Po from the north about twenty miles south-west from Milan. Near its junction with the Po stood the ancient city of Ticinum, now called Pavia. (Map No. VIU.) 2. Numidia was a country of northern Africa, adjoining the Carthaginian territory on tho west, and embracing the eastern part of the territory of modern Algiers. (Map No. IX.) 3. The river Po, the Erid' anus or Padus of the ancients, rises in the Alps, on the confines of France ; and, flowing eastward, receives during its long course to the Adriat' ic, a vast num- ber of tributary streams. It divides the great plain of Lombardy into two nearly equal parts. (Map No. VIII.) 4. The Trebia is a southern tributary of the Po, which enters that stream near the modern city of Piazenza, (anciently called Placentia) thirty-five miles south-east from Milan. (Map No. VIII.) 5. Lake Trasimenus, (now called Perugia,) was in Etruria, near the Tiber, eighty miles north from Rome. (Map No. VIII.) 6. Cannes, an ancient city of Apulia, was situated near the river Aufldus (now Ofanto) five or six miles from the Adriat' ic. The scene of the great battle between the Romans and Cartha- ginians is marked by the name of campo di sangue, " field of blood ;" and spears, heads of lances, and other pieces of armor, still continue to be turned up by the plough. (Map No. VIII.) CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 159 end reduced him to the hurailating necessity of making a separate peace. 1 8. From the field of Cannae Hannibal led his forces to Cap' ua, which at once opened its gates to receive him, but his veterans were enervated by the luxuries and debaucheries of that licentious city. In the meantime Fabius Maximus had been appointed to the com- mand of the Roman army in Italy, and by a new and cautious system of tactics by avoiding decisive battles by watching the motions of the enemy, harassing their march, and intercepting their con- voys, he gradually wasted the strength of Hannibal, who at length summoned to his assistance his brother Has' drubal, who had been contending with the Scipios in Spain. Has' drubal crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps with little opposition, but on the banks of the Metaurus 1 he was entrapped by the consuls Livius and Nero, his whole army was cut to pieces, and he himself wag slain. (B. C. 207.) His gory head, thrown into the camp of Hannibal, gave the latter the first intelligence of this great misfortune. Before this event the ancient city of Syracuse had been taken by storm by the Romans, after the siege had been a long time protracted by the me- chanical skill of the famous Archimedes. a 19. At length the youthful Cornelius Scipio, the son of Publius Scipio, having driven the Carthaginians from Spain, and being elected consul, gained the consent of the senate to carry the war into Africa, although this bold measure was opposed by the age and experience of the great Fabius. Soon after the landing of Scipio near Utica, 8 Massinis/ sa, king of the Numidians, who had previously 1. The Metaurus, now the Metro, was a river of Umbria, which flowed into the Adriat' ic. The battle was fought on the left bank of the river, at a place now occupied by the village of Fossombronc. (Map No. VIII.) 2. The city of Utica stood on the banks of the river Bagrada, (now the Mejerdah,) a few miles north-west from Carthage. Its ruins are to be seen at the present day near the port of Farina. (Map No. VIII.) a. Archimedes, the most celebrated mathematician among the ancients, was a native of Syra- cuse. He was highly skilled in astronomy, mechanics, geometry, hydrostatics, and optics, in all of which he produced many extraordinary inventions. His knowledge of the principle of specific gravities enabled him to delect the fraudulent mixture of silver in the golden crown of Hiero, king of Syracuse, by comparing the quantity of water displaced by equal weights of gold and silver. The thought occurred to him upon observing, while he was injhe bath, that he displaced a bulk of water equal to his own body. He was so highly excited by the dis- covery, that he is said to have run naked out of the bath into the street, exclaiming eureka ! " I have found it." His acquaintance with the power of the lever is evinced by his famous declaration to Hiero : "Give me where I ma*-- i:and, and I will move the world." At the time of the siege of Syracuse he is said to have fired the Roman fleet by means of immense reflect- 160 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! been in alliance with the Carthaginians, went over to the Romans, and aided in surprising and burning the Carthaginian camp of Has'- drubal, still another general of that name. Both Tunis and Utica were next besieged ; the former soon opened its gates to the Romans, and the Carthaginian senate, in despair, recalled Hannibal from Italy, for the defence of the city. (202 B. C.) 20. Peace, which Hannibal himself advised, might even now have been made on terms honorable to Carthage, had not the Carthagi- nians, elated by the presence of their favorite hero, and confident of his success, obstinately resisted any concession. Both generals made preparations for a decisive engagement, and the two armies met on the plains of Zama j 1 but the forces of Hannibal were mostly raw troops, while those of Scipio were the disciplined legions that had so often conquered in Spain. Hannibal showed himself worthy of his former fame ; but after a hard-fought battle the Romans pre- vailed, and Carthage lost the army which was her only reliance. Peace was then concluded on terms dictated by the conqueror. Car- thage consented to confine herself to her African possessions, to keep no elephants in future for purposes of war, to give up all prisoners and deserters, to reduce her navy to ten small vessels, to undertake no war without the consent of the Romans, and to pay ten thousand talents of silver. (202 B. C.) Scipio, on his return home, received the title of Africanus, and was honored with the most magnificent triumph that had ever been exhibited at Rome. 21. The second Punic war had brought even greater distress upon the Roman people than upon the Carthaginians, for during the six- teen years of Hannibal's occupation of Italy the greater part of the Roman territory had lain waste, and was plundered of its wealth, and deserted by its people ; and famine had often threatened Rome itself; while the number of the Roman militia on the rolls had been reduced by desertion, and the sword of the enemy, from two hundred and seventy thousand nearly to the half of that number. Yet in their greatest adversity the Roman people had never given way to despair, nor shown the smallest humiliation at defeat, nor manifested the least design of concession ; and when the pressure of war was removed, this same unconquerable spirit rapidly raised Rome to a state of prosperity and greatness which she had never at- tained before. 1. The city of Zama, the site of which is occupied by the modern village of Zowarin, was about a hundred miles southwest from Carthage. (Map No. VIII.) CHAP. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 161 22. The state of the world was now highly favorable for the ad- vancement of a great military republic, like that of Rome, to univer- sal dominion. In the East, the kingdoms formed from the fragments of Alexander's mighty empire were either still engaged in mutual wars, or had sunk into the weakness of exhausted energies; the Grecian States were divided among themselves, each being ready to throw itself upon foreign protection to promote its own immediate interests ; while in the West the Romans were masters of Spain ; their colonies were rapidly encroaching on the Gallic provinces ; and they had tributaries among the nations of Northern Africa. 23. The war with Carthage had scarcely ended when an embassy from Athens solicited the protection of the Romans against the power of Philip II. of Mac' edon ; and war being unhesitatingly V i. A GRK- declared against Philip, Roman diplomacy was at once CIAN WAK - plunged into the maze of Grecian politics. (B. C. 201.) After a war of four years Philip was defeated in the decisive battle of Cynoceph' alae, (B. C. 197,) and forced to submit to such terms as the conquerors pleased to dictate ; and at the Isthmian games the Greeks received with gratitude the declaration of their freedom under the protection of Rome. When, therefore, a few years later, the jEtolians, dissatisfied with the Roman policy, invited Antiochus of Syria into Europe, and that monarch had made himself master of Eubce' a, a plausible pretext was again offered for Roman inter- ference : and when the ^Etolians had been reduced, Antiochus driven back, and Greece tranquillized upon Roman terms, an Asiatic war was open to the cupidity of the Romans. 24. After a brief struggle, Antiochus, completely overthrown in the general battle of Magnesia, 1 (B. C. 191,) purchased a peace by surrendering to the Romans all those portions of Asia VII . 8yR i AN Minor bounded on the east by Bithyn'ia, Galatia, Cap- WAR - padocia, and Cilic'ia, a pledging himself not to interfere in the affairs of the Roman allies in Europe giving up his ships of war, and paying fifteen thousand talents of silver. The Romans now erected the conquered provinces, with the exception of a few Greek maritime towns, into a kingdom which they conferred upon Eumenes, their 1. JHagnlsia, (now Manisa,) a city of Lydia, was situated on the southern side of the river Hermus, (now Kodus,) twenty-eight miles north-east from Smyrna. The modern Manisa i one of the neatest towns of Asia Minor, and contains a population of about thirty thousand inhabitants. There was another Magnesia, now in ruins, fifty miles south-east from Smyrna. (Map No. IV.) a. See Map of Asia Minor, No. VI. 11 162 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT L ally, a petty prince of Per' gamus, 1 while to the Rhodians, also their allies, they gave the provinces of Lye' ia and Caria. a 25. Soon after the close of the second Punic war, Hannibal, having incurred the enmity of some of his countrymen, retired to Syria, where he joined Antiochus in the war against Rome. A clause in the treaty with the Syrian monarch stipulated that Hannibal should be delivered up to the Romans ; but he avoided the danger by seeking refuge at the court of Prusias, king of Bithyn' ia, where he remained about five years. An embassy was finally sent to de- mand him of Prusias, who, afraid of giving offence to the Romans, agreed to give him up, but the aged veteran, to avoid falling into the hands of his ungenerous enemies, destroyed himself by poison, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. The same year witnessed the death of his great rival and conqueror Scipio. (B. C. 183.) b The latter, on his return from carrying on the war against Antiochus, was charged with secreting part of the treasure received from the Syrian king. Scorning to answer the unjust accusation, he went as an exile into a country village of Italy, where he soon after died. 26. The events that led to the overthrow of the Macedonian monarchy, and the reduction of Greece to a Roman province, have vni. THIRD been related in a former chapter. Already the third PUNIC WAR. Punic war was drawing to a close, and the same year that Greece lost her liberties under Roman dominion, witnessed the destruction of the miserable remains of the once proud republic of Carthage. During the fifty years that had elapsed since the battle of Zama, the conduct of the Carthaginians had not afforded the Ro- mans any cause whatever for complaint, and amicable relations be- tween the two people might still have continued ; but the expediency of a war with Carthage was a favorite topic of debate in the Roman senate, and it is said that, of the many speeches which the elder Cato made on this subject, all ended with the sentence, delenda est Car- tkago, " Carthage must be destroyed." 27. Carthage, still a wealthy, but feeble city, had long been har- assed by the encroachments of Massinis' sa, king of Numid' ia, who 1. The Per' gamus here mentioned, the most important city of Mysia, was situated in the southern part of that country, in a plain watered, by two small rivers which united to form the Caicus. (Map No. IV.) a. See Map of Asia Minor, No. VI. b. Some of the ancients placed the death of Hannibal one or two years later. The dates of Scipio's death vary from 183 to 187. c. See p. 110. OHAP.V.J ROMAN HISTORY. 163 appears to have been instigated to hostile acts by the Romans ; and although Massinis' sa had wrested from Carthage a large portion of her territory, yet the Romans, seeking a pretext for war, called Car- thage to account for her conduct, and without waiting to listen to expostulation or submission, sent an army of more than eighty thousand men to Sicily, to be there got in readiness for a descent upon the African coast. (149 B. C.) At Sicily the Carthaginan ambassadors were received by the consuls in command of the army, and required to give up three hundred children of the noblest Carthaginian families as hostages ; and when this demand had been complied with the' army crossed over and landed near Carthage. The Carthagi- nians were now told that they must deliver up all their arms and munitions of war ; and, hard as this command was, it was obeyed.* The perfidious Romans next demanded that the Carthaginians should abandon their city, allow its walls to be demolished, and remove to a place ten miles inland, where they might build a new city, but without walls or fortifications. 28. When these terms were made known to the Carthaginian senate, the people, exasperated to madness, immediately put to death all the Romans who were in the city, closed the gates, and, for want of other weapons, collected stones on the battlements to repel the first attacks of the enemy. Hasdrubal, who had been banished be- cause he was an enemy of the Romans, was recalled, and unexampled exertions made for defence : the brass and iron of domestic utensils were manufactured into weapons of war, and the women cut off their long hair to be converted into strings for the bowmen and cordage for the shipping. 29. The Romans had not anticipated such a display of courage and patriotism, and the war was prolonged until the fourth year after its commencement. It was the struggle of despair on the part of Carthage, and could end only in her destruction. The city was finally taken by Scipio jEmilianus, the adopted son of the great Africanus, when only five thousand citizens were found within its walls, fifty thousand having previously surrendered on different occa- sions, and been carried away into slavery. Hasdrubal begged his life, which was granted only that he might adorn the triumph of the Roman general ; but his wife, reproaching him for his cowardice, threw herself with her children into the flames of the temple in a. " Roman commissioners were sent into the city, who carried away two thousand cata- pults, and two hundred thousand suits or armor." 164 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART! which she had taken refuge. The walls of Carthage were levelled to the ground, the buildings of the city were burned, a part of the Carthaginian territory was given to the king of Numid' ia, and the rest became a Roman province. (146 B. C.) Thus perished the republic of Carthage, after an existence of nearly eight hundred years, like Greece, the victim of Roman ambition. We give below a description of Jerusalem, which was omitted by mistake in its proper place. Jerusalem, a famous city of southern Palestine, and long the capital of the kingdom of Judah, is situated on a hill in a mountainous country, between two small valleys, in on of which, on the west, the brook Gihon runs with a south-eastern course, to join the brook Kedron in the narrow valley of Jehoshaphat, east of the city. The modern city, built about three hundred years ago, is entirely surrounded by walls, barely two and a-half miles in circuit, and flanked here and there with square towers. The boundaries of the old city varied greatly at different times ; and they are so imperfectly marked, the walls having been wholly destroyed, that few facts can be gathered respecting them. The interior of the modern city is divided by two valleys, intersecting each other at right angles, into four hills, on which history, sacred and profane, has stamped the imperishable names of Zion, Acra, Bezeiha, and Moriah. Mount Zion, on the south-west, the " City of David," ia now the Jewish and Armenian quarter : Acra, or the lower city, on the north-west, is the Christian quarter ; while the Mosque of Omar, with it sacred enclosure, occupies the hill of Moriah, which was crowned by the House of the Lord built by Solomon. West of the Christian quarter of the city is Mount Calvary, the scene of the Saviour's crucifixion ; and on the eastern side of the valley of Jehoshaphat is the Mount of Olives, on whose western slope are the gardens of Gethsemane, enclosed by a wall, and still in a sort of ruined cultivation. A little west of Mount Zion, and near the base of Mount Cal- vary, is the pool of Gihon, near which *' Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king over Israel." South of Mount Zion is the valley of Hinnom, watered by the brook Gihon. A short distance up the valley of Jehoshaphat, and issuing from beneath the walls of Mount Moriah, is " Siloa's brook, that flow'd Fast by the oracles of God." Jerusalem and its suburbs abound with many interesting localities, well authenticated as the scenes of events connected with the history of the patriarchs, and the sufferings of Christ ; but to hundreds of others shown by the monks, minute criticism denies any claims to our respect. Considered as a modern town, the city is of very little importance : its population is about ten thousand, two-thirds of whom are Mohammedans : it has no trade no industry whatever nothing to give it commercial importance, except the manufacture, by the monks, of shells, beads, and relics, large quantities of which are shipped from the port of Jaffa y jior Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Jerusalem is generally believed to be identical with the Salem of which Melchisedek waa king in the time of Abraham. When the Israelites entered the Holy Land it was in the possession of the Jebusites ; and although Joshua took the city, the citadel on Mount Zion waa held by the Jebusites until they were dislodged by David, who made Jerusalem the metropolis of his kingdom. OHAP. VL1 ROMAN HISTORY. 165 CHAPTER VI. ROMAN HISTORY: FROM THE CONQUEST OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE, 146 B. 0., TO THBJ COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN EKA. ANALYSIS. 1. Situation of SPAIN AFTER THE FALL OF CARTHAGK. [Oeltiberians. Lust- tanians.] 2. Character, exploits, and death of Viriathus. 3. Subsequent history of the Lusitft- nians. War with the Numan' tians. [Numan' tia.] 4. SERVILE WAR IN SICILY. Situation of Sicily. Events of the Servile war. 5. DISSENSIONS OF THE GRACCHI. Corrupt state of society at Rome. 6. Country and city population. 7. Efforts of the tribunes. Character and efforts of Tiberius Gracchus. Condition of the public lands. 8. The agrarian laws proposed by Tiberius. 9. Opposed by the nobles, but finally passed. Triumvirate appointed to enforce them. Disposition of the treasures of At' talus. 10. Circumstances of the death of Tiberius. 11. Continued opposition of the aristocracy tribuneship of Caius Gracchus and circumstances of his death. 12. Condition of Rome after the fall of the Gracchi. 13. Profligacy of the Ro- man senate, and circumstances of the first JUOURTHINE WAR. 14. Renewal of the war with Jugurtha. Events of the war, and fate of Jugurtha. [Mauritania.] 15. GERMANIC INVASION. [Cimbri and Teu' tones.] Successive Roman defeats. [Danube. Noreja.] 16. Marius, ap- pointed to the command, defeats the Teu' tones. [The Rhone. Aix.] 17. The Cimbri. Great- ness of the danger with which Rome was threatened. 18. THE SOCIAL WAR. 19. FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR. [Pontus. Eu' menes. Per' gamus.] 20. Causes of the Mithridatic war, and successes of Mithridates. CIVIL WAR BETWEEN MA' RIUS AND SYLLA. 22. Triumph of the Marian faction. Death and character of Marius. 23. Continuance of the civil war. Events in the East. Sylla master of Rome. 23. Proscription and massacres. Death of Sylla. 25. The Marian faction in Spain. SERVILE WAR IN ITALY. 26. SECOND AND THIRD MITHRIDATIC WARS. Lucullus. Manil' ius, and the Manil' Ian law. 27. Pompey's successes in the East. Reduction of Palestine. Death of Mithridates. 28. CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE. Situation of Rome at this period. Character and designs of Catiline. Circumstances that favored his schemes. By whom opposed. 29. Cicero elected consul. Flight, defeat, and death of Catiline. 30. THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE. Division of power. 31. Caesar's conquests in Gaul, Germany, and Britain. Death of Crassus. Rivalry between Caesar and Pompey. [The Rhine. Parthia.] 32. Commencement of the CIVIL WAR BETWEEN C.T.SAR AND POMPEY. Flight of the latter. [Raven 1 na.J 33. Caesar's successes. Sole dictator. His defeat at Dyrrach' ium. 34. Battle of Pharsalia. Flight, and death of Pompey. [Pharsalia. Peleu' sium.] 35. Cleopatra. Alexandrine war. Reduction of Pontus. [Pharos.] 36. Caesar's clemency. Servility of the senate. The war in Africa, and death of Cato. [Thapsus.] 37. Honors bestowed upon Caesar. Useful changes reformation of the calendar. 38. The war in Spain. [Munda.] 39. Caesar, dictator for life. His gigantic projects. He is suspected of aiming at sovereign power. 40. Conspiracy against him. His death. 41. Conduct of Brutus. Mark Antony's oration. Its effects. 42. Ambition of Antony. Civil war. SECOND TRIUMVI- RATE. The proscription that followed. 43. Brutus and Cassius. Their defeat at Philippi. [Philippi.j 44. Antony in Asia Minor, at the court of Cleopatra. [Tarsus.] Civil war in Italy. 45. Antony's return. Reconciliation of the rivals, and division of the empire among them. [Brundiisium.] 46. The peace is soon broken. Sextius Pompey. Lep'idus. Antony. 47. The war between Octavius and Antony. Battle of Actium, and disgraceful flight of Antony. 48. Death of Antony and Cleopatra. 49. OCTA' viug SOLE MASTER OF THE ROMAN WORLD. Honors and offices conferred upon him. Character of his government. 50. Success* ful wars, followed by a general peace. Extent of the Roman empire. Birth of the Saviour. 166 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L 1. AFTER the fall of Carthage and the Grecian republics, which were the closing events of the preceding chapter, the attention of the Roman people was for a time principally directed to Spain. When, near the close of the second Punic war, the Car- * AFTER THE thagmian dominion in Spain ended, that country was re- FALL OF garded as being under Roman jurisdiction ; although, CARTHAGE. ? i ,1 T . - L e ,1 T beyond the immediate vicinity of the Roman garrisons, the native tribes, the most prominent of which were the Celtiberians 1 and Lusitanians, 2 long maintained their independence. 2. At the close of the third Punic war, Viriathus, a Lusitanian prince, whose character resembles that of the Wallace of Scotland, had triumphed over the Roman legions in several engagements, and had already deprived the republic of nearly half of her possessions in the peninsula. During eight years he bade defiance to the most for- midable hosts, and foiled the ablest generals of Rome, when the Roman governor Cae' pio, unable to cope with so great a general, treacherously procured his assassination. 3 - (B. C. 140.) 3. Soon after the death of Viriathus the Lusitanians submitted to a peace, and many of them were removed from their mountain fast- nesses to the mild district of Valen' cia, 3 where they completely lost their warlike character ; but the Numan' tians 4 rejected with scorn the insidious overtures of their invaders, and continued the war. Two Roman generals, at the head of large armies, were conquered by them, and on both occasions treaties of peace were concluded with the vanquished, in the name of the Roman people, but after- 1. The Celtiberians, whose country was sometimes called Celtiberia, occupied the greatest part of the interior of Spain around the head waters of the Tagus. 2. The Lusitanians, whose country was called Lusitania, dwelt on the Atlantic coast, and when first known, principally between the rivers Douro and Tagus. 3. The modern district or province of Valencia extends about two hundred miles along the south-eastern coast of Spain. The city of Valencia, situated near the mouth of the river Guadalaviar, (the ancient Tusia,) is its capital. (Map No. XIII.) 4. JYuman' tia, a celebrated town of the Celtiberiaus, was situated near the source of the river Douro, and near the site of the modern village of Chavaler, and about one hundred and twenty-five miles north-east from Madrid. a. Virathus, at first a shepherd, called by the Romans a robber, then a guerilla chief, and finally an eminent military hero, aroused the Lusitanians to avenge the wrongs and injuries in- flicted upon them by Roman ambition. He was unrivalled in fertility of resources under defeat, skill in the conduct of his troops, and courage in the hour of battle. Accustomed to a free life in the mountains, he never indulged himself with the luxury of a bed : bread and meat were his only fo 3d, and water his only beverage; and being robust, hardy, adroit, always cheerful, and dreading no danger, he knew how to avail himself of the wild chivalry of his countrymen, and to keep alive in them the spirit of freedom. During eight years he constantly harassed the Roman armies, and defeated many Roman generals, several of whom lost their lives in battle. His name still lives in the aongs and legends of early Spain. CHAP. VI] ROMAN HISTORY. 167 wards rejected by the Roman senate. Scip' io jSSmilianus, at the head of sixty thousand men, was then sent to conduct the war, and laying siege to Numan' tia, garrisoned by less than ten thousand men, he finally reduced the city, but not until the Numan' tians, worn out by toil and famine, and finally yielding to despair, had de- stroyed all their women and children, and then, setting fire to their city, had perished, almost to a man, on their own swords, or in the flames. (B. C. 133.) The destruction of Numan' tia was followed by the submission of nearly all the tribes of the peninsula, and Spain henceforth became a Roman province. 4. Two years before the fall of Numan' tia, Sicily had become the theatre of a servile war, which merits attention principally on ac- count of the view it gives of the state of the conquered countries then under the jurisdiction of Rome. The calamities which usually follow in the train of long-continued war had swept away n> SERV ILK most of the original population of Sicily, and a large WA *. portion of the cultivated lands in the island had been added, by con- quest, to. the Roman public domain, which had been formed into large estates, and let out to speculators, who paid rents for the same into the Roman treasury. In the wars of the. Romans, and indeed of most nations at this period, large numbers of the captives taken in war were sold as slaves ; and it was by slave labor the estates in Sicily were cultivated. The slaves in Sicily were cruelly treated, and as most of them had once been free, and some of high rank, it is not surprising that they should seek every favorable opportunity to rise against their masters. When once, therefore, a revolt had broken out, it spread rapidly over the whole island. Seventy thou sand of the slaves were at one time under arms, and in four success- ive campaigns four Roman praetorian armies were defeated. The most frightful atrocities were perpetrated on both sides, but the re- bellion was finally quelled by the destruction of most of those who had taken part in it. (B. C. 133.) 5. "While these events were occuring in the Roman provinces, af- fairs in the capital, generally known in history as the " dissensions of the Gracchi," were fast ripening for civil war. More 3 . . in. DISSEN- than two hundred years had elapsed since the animosi- BION8 OF ties of patricians and plebeians were extinguished by an THE .,1.1 1,1 11 GRACCHI. equal participation m public honors ; but the wealth of conquered provinces, and the numerous lucrative and honorable offices, both civil and military, that had been created, had produced 168 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT L corruption at home, by giving rise to factions which contended for the greatest share of the spoils, while, apart from these, new dis- tinctions had arisen, and the rich and the poor, or the illustrious and the obscure, now formed the great parties in the State. 6. As the nobles availed themselves of the advantages of their station to accumulate wealth and additional honors, the large slave plantations increased in the country to the disparagement of free labor, and the detriment of small landholders, whose numbers were constantly diminishing, while the city gradually became crowded with an idle, indigent, and turbulent populace, attracted thither by the frequent cheap or gratuitous distributions of corn, and by the frequency of the public shows, and made up, in part, of emancipated slaves, who were kept as retainers in the families of their former masters. So long as large portions of Italy remained unsettled, there was an outlet for the redundancy of this growing populace ; but the entire Italian territory being now occupied, the indigent could no longer be provided for in the country, and the practice of colo- nizing distant provinces had not yet been adopted. 7. The evils of such a state of society were numerous and for- midable, and such as to threaten the stability of the republic. Against the increasing political influence of the aristocracy, the tribunes of the people had long struggled, but rather as factious demagogues than as honest defenders of popular rights. At length Tiberius Grac' chus, a tribune, and grandson of Scipip Africanus, one of the noblest and most virtuous among the young men of his time, commenced the work of reform by proposing to enforce the Liciniau law, which declared that no individual should possess more than five hundred jugers, a (about two hundred and seventy-five acres) of the public domain. This law had been long neglected, so that numbers of the aristocracy now cultivated vast estates, the occupancy of which had perhaps been transmitted from father to son as an in- heritance, or disposed of by purchase and sale ; and although the republic still retained the fee simple in such lands, and could at any time legally turn out the occupants, it had long ceased to be thought probable that its rights would ever be exercised. 8. The law of Tiberius Grac' chus went even beyond strict legal jus- tice, by proposing that buildings and improvements on the public lands should be paid for out of the public treasury. The impression has generally prevailed that the Agrarian laws proposed by Tiberius a. A juger was nearly five-ninths of our acre. CHAP. VI] ROMAN HISTORY. 169 Grac' chus were a direct and violent infringement of the rights of private property ; but the genius and learning of Niebuhr have shown that they effected the distribution of public lands only, and not those of private citizens ; although there were doubtless instances where, incidentally, they violated private rights. 9. When the senators and nobles, who were the principal land- holders, perceived that their interests were attacked, their exaspera- tion was extreme ; and Tiberius, whose virtues had hitherto been ac- knowledged by all, was denounced as a factious demagogue, a disturber of the public tranquillity, and a traitor to the conservative interests of the republic. When the law of Tiberius was about to be put to the vote in the assemblies of the people, the corrupt nobles engaged Octavius, one of the tribune's colleagues, to forbid the proceedings ; but the people deposed him from the tribuneship, and the agrarian law was passed. A permanent triumvirate, or committee of three, consisting of Tiberius Grac' chus, his brother Cams, and Ap' pius Clau' dius, was then appointed to enforce the law. About the same time a law was passed, providing that the treasures which At' talus, king of Per' gamus, had recently bequeathed to the Roman people, should be distributed among the poorer citizens, to whom lands were to be assigned, in order to afford them the means of purchasing the necessary implements of husbandry. a 10. At the expiration of the year of his tribuneship, Tiberius offered himself for reelection, conscious that unless shielded by the sacredness of the office of tribune, his person would no longer be safe from the resentment of his enemies. After two of the tribes had voted in his favor, the opposing party declared the votes illegal, and the disputes which followed occupied the day. On the following morning the people again assembled to the election, when a rumor was circulated that some of the nobles, accompanied by bands of armed retainers, designed to attack the crowd and take the life of Tiberius. A tumult ensued, and a false report was carried to the senate, then in session, that Tiberius had demanded a crown of the people. The senate seized upon this pretext for violent interference ; but when the consul refused to disturb the people in. their legal as- sembly, the senators rose in a body, and, headed by Scip' io Nasica, a. In 133 B. C. Af talus Philometer bequeathed his kingdom and all his treasures to the Ro- man people. At' taliu was one of the worst specimens of Eastern despots, and took great delight in dispatchirg his nearest relatives by poison. The Romans had long looked upon his kingdom as their property, and his will was probably drawn up by Roman dictation. 170 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PART L and accompanied by a crowd of armed dependants, proceeded to the assembly, where a conflict ensued, in which Tiberius and about three hundred of his adherents were slain. (B. C. 132.) 1 1. Notwithstanding this disgraceful victory, and the persecutions that followed it, the ruling party could not abolish the triumvirate which had been appointed to execute the law of Tiberius. During ten years, however, little was accomplished by the popular party, owing to the powerful opposition of the aristocracy ; but after Caius Grac' chus, a younger brother of Tiberius, had been elected tribune, the cause of the people received a new impulse ; an equitable division of the public lands was commenced, and many salutary reforms were made in the administration of the government. But, at length, Caius being deprived of the tribuneship by false returns and bribery, and his bitter enemy Opim' ius having been elected consul by the aristocratic faction, and afterwards appointed dictator by the senate, the followers of Caius were driven from the city by armed violence, and three thousand of their number slain. (B. C. 120.) The head of Caius was thrown at the feet of Opim r ius, who had offered for it a reward of its weight in gold. a 12. Thus ended what has been termed the " dissensions of the Gracchi;" and with that noble family perished the freedom of the republic. An odious aristocracy, which derived its authority from wealth, now ruled the State : the tribunes, becoming rich themselves, no longer interposed their authority between the people and their Oppressors ; while the lower orders, reduced to a state of hopeless subjection, and despairing of liberty, became factious and turbulent, and ere long prepared the way, first for the tyranny of a perpetual dictatorship, and lastly for the establishment of a monarchy on the ruins of the commonwealth. 13. The profligacy and corruption of the senate were manifest in the events that led to the Jugur' thine war, which began to embroil a. Tiberius and Caius Grac chus, though of the noblest origin, and of superior natural en- dowments, are said to have been indebted more to the judicious care of their widowed mother Cornelia, than to nature, for the excellence of their characters. This distinguished Roman matron, the daughter of Scip' io Africanus the Elder, occupies a high rank for the purity and excellence of her private character, as well as for her noble and elevated sentiments. The fol- lowing anecdote of Cornelia is often cited. A Campanian lady who was at the time on a visit to her, having displayed to Cornelia some very beautiful ornaments which she possessed, de- sired the latter, in return, to exhibit her own. The Roman mother purposely detained her in conversation until her children returned from school, when, pointing to them, she exclaimed, " There are my ornaments." She bore the untimely death of her sons with great magnanimity, and in honor of her a statue was afterwards erected by the Roman people, bearing for an in- scription the words, " Cornelia, mother of the OroccAz." CHAP. VL] ROMAN HISTORY. 171 the republic soon after the fall of the Grac' chi. The Numid' ian king Micip' sa, the son of Massinis' sa, had divided Iv . JUGUB'- his kingdom, on his death-bed, between his two sons THINE WAR. Hiemp' sal and Adher' bal, and his nephew Jugur' tha ; but the latter, resolving to obtain possession of the whole inheritance, soon murdered Hiemp' sal, and compelled Adher' bal to take refuge in Rome. The senate, won by the bribes of the usurper, decreed a division of the kingdom between the two claimants, giving to Jugur' tha the better portion ; but the latter soon declared war against his cousin, and, having gained possession of his person, put him to death. The senate could no longer avoid a declaration of war against Jugur' tha; but he would have escaped by an easy peace, after coming to Rome to plead' his own cause, had he not there murdered another relative, whom he suspected of aspiring to the throne of Numid' ia. (B. C. 109.) 14. Jugur' tha was allowed to return to Africa; but his briberies of the Roman senators were exposed, and the war against him was begun anew. After he had defeated several armies, Metel' lus drove him from his kingdom, when the Numid' ian formed an alliance with Bac' chus, king of Mauritania, 1 but their united forces were success- ively routed by the consul Marius, formerly a lieutenant in the army of Metel' lus, but who, after obtaining the consulship, had been sent to terminate the war. Eventually the Moorish king betrayed Jugur'- tha into the hands of the Romans, as the price of his own peace and security, (B. C. 106,) and the captive monarch, after gracing the triumph of Marius, was condemned to be starved to death in prison. 15. Soon after the fall of Jugur' tha, Marius was recalled from his command in Africa to defend the northern provinces of Italy against a threatened invasion from immense hordes of the Cim" bri and Teu' tones, 8 - German nations, who, about the year v . GERMANIC 113, had crossed the Danube* and appeared on the east- INVASION 1. Mauritania was an extensive country of Northern Africa, west of Numid' ia, embracing the present Morocco and part of Algiers. (Map No. IX.) 2. The Danube, the largest river in Europe, except the Volga, rises in the south-western part of Germany, in the Duchy of Baden, only about thirty miles from the Rhine, and after a general south-eastern course of nearly eighteen hundred miles, falls into the Black Sea. (Map No. VIII.) a. The barbarian torrent of the dm' bri and Teu' tones appears to have originated beyond the Elbe. The original seat of the Cim' bri was probably the Cimbrian peninsula, so called by the Romans, the same as the modern Jutland, or Denmark. Opinions differ concerning the Teu' tones, some believing them to have been the collective wanderers of many tribes between the Vistula and the Elbe, while others fix their original seats in northern Scandinavia that is, in the north of Sweden and Norway. 172 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PAKT L ern declivities of the Alps, where the Romans guarded the passes into Italy. The first year of the appearance of these unknown tribes, from which is dated the beginning of German history , a they defeated the Roman consul Papir' ius Car' bo, near Noreja, 1 in the mountains of the present Styr' ia. Proceeding thence towards south- ern Gaul they demanded a country from the Romans, for which they promised military assistance in war ; but when their request was re- fused they determined to obtain by the sword what was denied them by treaty. Four more Roman armies were successively vanquished by them, the last under the consuls Man' lius and Cse' pio in the year 105, with the prodigious loss of 80,000 Roman soldiers slain, and 40,000 of their slaves. 16. Fortunately for the Romans, the enemy, after this great vic- tory, turned aside towards the south of France and Spain, while Marius, who had been appointed to the command of the northern army, marching over the Alps towards Gaul, formed a defensive camp on the Rhone. 2 The Germans, returning, in vain tempted Marius to battle, after which they divided into two bands, the Cim'- bri taking up their march for Italy, while the Teu' tones remained opposed to Marius. But when the Teu' tones saw that their chal- lenge for battle was not accepted, they also broke up, and marching past the Romans, jeeringly asked them " if they had any commissions to send to their wives." Marius followed at their side, keeping upon the heights, but when he had arrived at the present town of Aix, 3 in the south of France, some accidental skirmishing at the outposts of the two armies brought on a general battle, which continued two days, and in which the nation of the Teu' tones was nearly annihilated, (B. C. 102,) two hundred thousand of them being either killed or taken prisoners. 1 7. In the meantime the consul Catul' Ius had been repulsed by the Cim' bri in northern Italy, and driven south of the Po. Marius hastened to his assistance, and their united forces now .advanced across the Po, and defeated the Cim' bri in a great battle on the Rau- 1. JVore/fl, or JVoreia, was the capital of the Roman province of JVortcwm. The site of this city is in the present Austrian province of Styria, about sixty miles north-east from Laybach. (Map No. VIII.) 2. The Rhone rises in Switzerland, passes through the Lake of Geneva, and after uniting with the Saone flows south through the south-eastern part of France, and discharges its waters by four mouths into the Mediterranean. (Map No. XIII.) 3. j3zx, called by the Romans rfquce Sextos, is situated in a plain sixteen miles north of Mar- seilles. (Map No. XIII.) a. Kohlrausch's Germany, p. 43 CHAP. VI] ROMAN HISTORY 173 dian plains. 8 - (B. C. 101.) Thus ended the war with the German nations. The danger with which it for a time threatened Rome was compared to that of the great Gallic invasion, nearly three hundred years before. The Romans, in gratitude to their deliverer, now styled Marius the third founder of the city. 1 8. A still more dangerous war, called the social war, soon after broke out betweea the Romans and their Italian allies, caused VI THE by the unjust treatment of the latter, who, forming part of SOCIAL WAR. the commonwealth, and sharing its burdens, had long in vain de- manded for themselves the civil and political privileges that were enjoyed by citizens of the metropolis. The war continued three years, and Rome would doubtless have fallen, had she not, soon after the commencement of the struggle, granted the Latin towns, more than fifty in number, all the rights of Roman citizens, and thus se- cured their fidelity. (90 B. C.) b The details of this war are little known, but it is supposed that, during its continuance, more than three hundred thousand Italians lost their lives, and that many flourishing towns were reduced to heaps of ruins. The Romans were eventually compelled to offer the rights of citizenship to all that should lay down their arms ; and tranquillity was thus restored to most of Italy, although the Samnites continued to resist until they were destroyed as a nation. 19. While these domestic dangers were threatening Rome, an im- portant African war had broken out with Mithridates, king of Pontus. 1 It has been related that in the time of Antiochus the . VII. rlRST Great, king of Syria, the Romans obtained, by conquest MITHRIDATIO and treaty, the western provinces of Asia Minor, most of which they conferred upon one of their allies, Enmenes, king of Per'gamus, and that At' talus, a subsequent prince of Per'gamus, gave back these same provinces, by will, to the Roman people. (See p. 161 and p. 169.) 20. The Romans, thus firmly established in Asia Minor, saw with jealousy the increasing power of Mithridates, who, after reducing the nations on the eastern coasts of the Black Sea, ha'd added to his 1. Pontus was a country of Asia Minor, on the south-eastern coast of the Euxine, having Colchis on the east, and Paphlagonia and Galatia on the west. a. The exact locality is unknown, but it was on a northern branch of the Po, between Ver- celli and Verona, probably near the present Milan. Some say near Vercelli, on the west bank of the Sessites. b. This was done by the celebrated Lex Julia, or Julian law, proposed by L. Julius Caesar. 174 ANCIENT HISTORY. [!>ABT I dominions on the west, Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, a which he claimed by inheritance. Nicomedes, king of Bithyn' ia, disputing with him the right to the latter provinces, appealed to the Roman senate, which declared that the disputed districts should be free States, subject to neither Nicomedes nor Mithridates. The latter then entered into an alliance with Tigranes, king of Armenia, seized the disputed provinces drove Nicomedes from his kingdom defeated two large Roman armies, and, in the year 88, before the end of the social war, had gained possession of all Asia Minor. All the Greek islands of the ^Bgean, except Rhodes, voluntarily sub- mitted to him, and nearly all the Grecian States, with Athens, throwing off the Roman yoke, placed themselves under his protection. Mithridates had received a Greek education, and was looked .upon as a Grecian, which accounts for the readiness with which the Greeks espoused his cause. 21. The Roman senate gave the command of the Mithridatic war to Sylla, a man of great intellectual superiority, but of profligate morals, who had served under Marius against Jugur' tha and the VIIL CIVIL Cim' bri, and had rendered himself eminent by his ser- WAR BE- yices in the social war. The ambitious Marius, though TWEEX MA - ,, . . ~ ,, , , , RIUS AND raore than twenty years the senior ot oylla, had long SYLLA. regarded the latter as a formidable rival, and now he succeeded in obtaining a decree of the people, by which the com- mand was transferred from Sylla to himself. Sylla, then at the head of an army in the Samnite territory, immediately marched against Rome, and entering the city, broke up the faction of Marius, who, after a series of romantic adventures, escaped to Africa. b (88 B. C.) 22. Scarcely had Sylla departed with his army for Greece, to carry on the war against Mithridates, when a fierce contest arose within a. See Map of Asia Minor, No. IV. b. Marius fled first to Ostia, and thence along the sea-coast to Mintur' nae, where he was put on shore, at the mouth of the Liris, and abandoned by the crew of the vessel that carried him. After in vain seeking shelter in the cottage of an old peasant, he was forced to hide himself in the mud of the Pontine marshes ; but he was discovered by his vigilant pursuers, dragged out, and thrown into a dungeon at Mintur' nae. No one, however, had the courage to put him to death ; and the magistrates of Mintur' nae therefore sent a public slave into the prison to kill him ; but as the barbarian approached the hoary warrior his courage failed him, and the Min- tur' nians, moved by compassion, put Marius on board a boat and transported him to Africa. Being set down at Carthage, the Roman governor of the district sent to inform him that unless he left Africa he should treat him as a public enemy. " Go and tell him," replied the wanderer, " that you have seen the exile Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage." In the following year during the absence of Sylla, he returned to Italy. For localities of Pontine Marshes, Liris, and Mintur' n me ^ * n P r ^ va ^ e conference on a small island of the SECOND TRI- Rhine, agreed to settle their differences, and take upon UMVIRATE. th emse i ves the government of the republic for five years thus forming the Second Triumvirate. (B. C. 43.) A cold-blooded proscription of the enemies of the several parties to the compact fol- lowed. Antony yielded his own uncle, and Lep' idus his own brother, while Octavius, to his eternal infamy, consented to the sac- rifice of the virtuous Cicero to satisfy the vengeance of his colleagues. Cicero was betrayed to the assassins sent to dispatch him, by one of his own domestics ; but, tired of life, he forbade his servants to de- fend him, and yielded himself to his fate without a struggle. 43. Brutus and Cassius, at the head of the republican party, had by this time made themselves masters of Macedonia, Greece, and the Asiatic provinces ; and Octavius and Antony, as soon as they had settled the government at Rome, set out to meet them. At CHAP. VI.] ROMAtf HISTOKY. 185 Philip' pi, 1 a town in Thrace, two battles were fought, and fortune, rather than talent, gave the victory to the triumvirs. (B. C. 42.) Both Cassius and Brutus, giving way to despair, destroyed them- selves ; their army was dispersed, and most of the soldiers after- wards entered the service of the victors. Octavius returned with his legions to Italy, while Antony remained as the master of the Eastern provinces. 44 From Greece Antony passed over into Asia Minor, where he caused great distress by the heavy tribute he exacted of the inhab- itants. While at Tarsus, 3 in Cilicia, the celebrated Cleopatra came to pay him a visit; and so captivated was the Roman with the charms and beauty of the Egyptian queen, that he accompanied her on her return to Alexandria, where he lived for a time in indolence, dissipation, and luxury, neglectful of the calls of interest, honor, and ambition. In the meantime a civil war had broken out in Italy ; for the brother of Antony, aided by Fulvia, the wife of the latter, had taken up arms against Octavius ; but it was not until the rebellion had been quelled, and Octavius was everywhere triumphant, that An- tony saw the necessity of returning to Italy. 45. On his way he met at Athens his wife Fulvia, whom he blamed as the cause of the recent disasters, treated her with the utmost con- tempt, and leaving her on her death-bed hastened to fight Augustus. All thought that another fierce struggle for the empire was at hand ; but the rivals had a personal interview at Brundusium, 3 where a re- conciliation was effected. To secure the permanence of the peace, Antony married Octavia, the half-sister of Octavius. A new division of the empire was made ; Antony was to have the eastern provinces beyond the Ionian sea ; Octavius the western, and Lep' idus Africa ; 1. Philip' pi, a city in the western part of Thrace, afterwards included in Macedonia, was about seventy-five miles north-east from the present Saloniki. In addition to the victory gained here by Antony and Octavius, it is rendered more interesting from the circumstance of its being the first place where the Gospel was preached by St. Paul, (see Acts, xvi.,) and also from the Epistle addressed by him to the Philippians. The ruins of the city still retain the name of Filibah, pronounced nearly the same as Philippi. (Map No. I.) 2. Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, was situated on the river Cydnus, about twelve miles from the Mediterranean. It was the birth-place of St. Paul, of Antip' ater the stoic, and of Athen- odorusthe philosopher. It is still a village of some six or seven thousand inhabitants, and some remains of its ancient magnificence are still visible. The visit of Cleopatra to Antony herself attired like Venus, and her attendants like cupids, in a galley covered with gold, whose sails were of purple, the oars of silver, and cordage of silk is finely described in Shakspeare's play of Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. scene 2. (Map No. IV.) 3. Brundusium, now Brindisi, one of the most important cities of ancient Italy, and the port whence the intercourse between Italy and Greece and the East was usually carried on, was situated on ihe coast of Apulia, about three hundred miles south-east from Rome. It once had an excellent harbor, which is now neatf.y filled up. (Map No. VII.) 186 ANCIENT HISTORY. [?AET 1 and soon after, Sextius Pompey, who had long maintained himself in Sicily against the triumvirs, was admitted into the partnership, and assigned Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Achaia. 46. The peace thus concluded was of short duration. Octavius, without any reasonable pretext for hostilities, quarrelled with Sextiua Pompey and drove him from his dominions. Pompey fled to Phrygia, where he was slain by one of Antony's lieutenants. Lep' idus and Octavius next quarrelled about the possession of Sicily ; but Octavius corrupted the soldiers of Lep' idus, and induced them to desert their general, who was compelled to surrender his province to his rival. Antony, in the meantime, had been engaged in an unsuccessful expe- dition against the Parthians; after which, returning to Egypt, he once more became enslaved by the charms of Cleopatra, upon whom he conferred several Roman provinces in Asia. When his wife Oc- tavia set out from Rome to visit him he ordered her to return, and after- wards repudiated her, pretending a previous marriage with Cleopatra. 47. After this insult Octavius could no longer keep peace with him, and as the war had long been anticipated, the most formidable prepa- rations were made on both sides, and both parties were soon in readiness. Their fleets met off the promontory of Ac' tium, 1 in the Ionian sea, while the hostile armies, drawn up on opposite sides of the strait which enters the Ambracian G-ulf, were spectators of the battle. (B. C. 31.) While the victory was yet undecided, Cleopatra, who had accompanied Antony with a large force, overcome with anxiety and fear, ordered her galley to remove from the scene of action. A large number of the Egyptian ships, witnessing her flight, withdrew from the battle ; and the infatuated Antony, as soon as he saw that Cleopatra had fled, apparently losing his self-possession, hastily fol- lowed her in a quick-sailing vessel, and being taken on board the galley of Cleopatra, became the companion of her flight. The fleet of Antony was annihilated, and his land forces, soon after, made terms with the conqueror. 48. Octavius, after first returning to Italy to tranquillize some dis- turbances there, pursued the fugitives to Egypt. Antony endeavored to impede the march of the victor to Alexandria, but seeing all his efforts fruitless, in a paroxysm of rage he reproached Cleopatra with being the author of his misfortunes, and resolving never to fall alive into the hands of his enemy, he put an end to his own life. When 1. The promontory of Ac' tium was a small neck of land at the north-western extremity ol Acamania, at the entrance of the Ambracian Gulf, now Gulf of Arta. CHAP. VI] ROMAN HISTORY. 187 Cleopatra, who had shut herself up in her palace, found that Octa- vius designed to spare her only to adorn his triumph, she caused a poisonous viper to be applied to her arm, and thus followed Antony in death. (B. C. 30.) Egypt, immediately submitted to the sway of Octavius, and became a province of the Roman empire. 49. The death of Antony had put an end to the Triumvirate ; and Octavius was now left sole master of the Roman world. While taking the most effectual measures to secure his power, X v. OCTA- he dissembled his real purposes, and talked of restoring Vlus SOLE the republic ; but it was evident that a free constitution XBE ROMAN could no longer be maintained ; the most eminent citi- WORLD. zens besought him to take the government into his own hands, and at the beginning of the 28th year before the Christian era, the history of the Roman Republic ends. All the armies had sworn allegiance to Octavius ; he was made pro-consul over the whole Roman empire he gave the administration of the provinces to whomsoever he pleased and appointed and removed senators at his will. In the 27th year B. C. the senate conferred upon him the title of AUGUSTUS, or " The Divine," and of Imperator, or " chief governor," for ten years, and gave his name to the sixth month of the Roman year, (August) as that of Julius Caesar had been given to the fifth, and four years later he was made perpetual tribune of the people, which rendered his person sacred. Although without the title of a mon- arch, and discarding the insignia of royalty, his exalted station con ferred upon him all the powers of sovereignty, which he exercised, nevertheless, with moderation, seemingly desirous that the triumvir Octavius should be forgotten in the mild reign of the emperor Augustus. 50. After a series of successful wars in Asia, Africa, and in Spain, and the subjugation of Aquitania, Pannonia, Dalmatia, and Illy' ria, by the Roman arms, a general peace, with the exception of some trifling disturbances in the frontier provinces, was established throughout the vast dominions of the empire, which now extended on the east from the cataracts of the Nile to the plains of Scythia, and on the west from the Libyan deserts and the pillars of Hercules to the German ocean. a The temple of Janus was now closed b for the third time since the foundation of Rome. It was at this auspi- cious period that Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, was born ; and thus, literally, was his advent the herald of " peace on earth, and good will toward men." a. (B. C. 10. Seo Map No. IX.) b. (B. C. 10.) PART II. MODERN HISTORY CHAPTER I. ROMAN HISTORY CONTINUED, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA, TO THE OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS, A. D. 1, TO A. D. 476. SECTION I. ROMAN HISTORY FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE DEATH OF DOMITIAN, THE LAST OF THE TWELVE CAESARS, A. D. 96. ANALYSIS. 1. EARLIER AND LATER HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE COMPARED. 2. The empire at the end of the first century of the Christian era. The feeling with which we hurry over the closing scenes of Roman history. Importance of the history of the " decline and fall " of the empire. Subjects of the present chapter. 3. JULIUS CJESAR. Commencement of the Roman empire. 4. The reign of AUGUSTUS. Rebellion of the Germans. 5. Grief of Augustus at the loss of his legions. The danger of inva- sion averted. 6. The accession of TIBE' RIUS. The selection of future sovereigns. 7. Character of Tiberius, and commencement of his reign. 8. German wars German' icus. 9. Sejanus, the minister of Tiberius. [Capreae.] 10. The death of Sejanus. Death of Tiberius. Cruci- fixion of the Saviour. 11. CALIQ' ULA. His character, and wicked actions. 12. His follies. His extravagance. His death. 13. CLAUDIUS proclaimed emperor. His character. 14. His two wives. His death. 15. Foreign events of the reign of Claudius. 16. NERO. The first five years of his reign. Death of Agrippina, and of Burrhus, Seneca, and Lucan. Conflagration of Rome. 17. Persecutions of the Christians. Nero's extravagances. 18. The provinces pil- laged by him. His popularity with the rabble. Revolts against him. His death. 19. Foreign events of the reign of Nero. [Druids. The Iceni London.] 20. End of the reign of the Julian family. Brief, reign of GALBA. 21. Character, and reign of OTHO. 22. Character, and reign of VITEL' LIUS. Revolt in Syria. 23. Vitel' lius, forced to resist, is finally put to death by the populace. 24. Temporary rule of Domitian. Character, and reign of VESPASIAN. 25. Beginning, and causes of the JEWISH WAR. 26. Situation of Jeru- salem, and commencement of the siege by the Roman army. Expectations of Titus. 27. Prom- ises made to the Jews. Their strange infatuation. 28. The horrors of the siege. 29. Dreadful mortality in the city. The fall of Jerusalem. 30. The number of those who perished, and of those made prisoners. Fate of the prisoners. Destruction of the Jewish nation 31. Comple- tion of the conquest of Britain. The enlightened policy of Agric' ola. [Caledonia.] 32. TITUS succeeds Vespasian. His character. Events of his brief reign. [Vesuvius. Herculaneum. Pompeii.} - 13. DOMITIAN. His character, and the character of his reign. Persecutions. 34. CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 189 Provincial affairs. The triumphs of Domitian. [Moesia. Dacia. Germany.] 35. Death of Domitian. :*6. Close of the reign of the " Twelve Caesars." Their several deaths. Character of the history of the Roman emperors thus far. 37. The city of Rome, and the Roman empire. The beginning of national decay. 1 . As we enter upon the time of the Roman emperors, Roman his- tory, so highly pleasing and attractive in its early stages, and during the eventful period of the Republic, gradually declines in interest to the general reader ; for the Roman people, whose many L EARLIER virtues and sufferings awakened our warmest sympathies, AND LATER 1 J 1 t i A i TI i HISTORY OF had now become corrupt and degenerate ; the liberal in- THE EMP1RK fluences of their popular assemblies, and the freedom of COMPARED. the Roman senate, had given place to arbitrary force ; and although the splendors of the empire continue to dazzle for awhile, hencefor- ward the political history of the Romans is little more than the biographies of individual rulers, and their few advisers and asso- ciates in power, who controlled the political destinies of more than a hundred millions of people. 2. We shall find that, at the end of the first century of the Christian era, the empire, having already attained its full strength and maturity, began to verge towards its decline ; and we are apt to hurry over the closing scenes of Roman history with an instinctive feeling that shrinks from the contemplation of waning glories and national degeneracy. But while the history of the Republican era may exceed in interest that of the " decline and fall " of the empire, yet the latter is of far greater political importance than the former j for, including the early history of many important sects, and codes, and systems, whose influences still exist, it is the link that connects the past with the present the Ancient with the Modern world. The theologian and jurist must be familiar with it in order to under- stand much of the learning and history of their respective depart- ments ; and it deserves the careful preparatory study of every reader of modern European history ; as nearly all the kingdoms of modern Europe have arisen from the fragments into which the empire of the Caesars was broken. We proceed then, in the present chapter, to a brief survey, which is all that our limited space will allow, of, first, the overtowering greatness, and, second, the decline, and final overthrow, in all the west of Europe, of that mighty fabric of em- pire which valor had founded, and enlightened policy had so long sustained, upon the seven hills of Rome. 3. The rule of Julius Caesar, who is called the first of the twelve 190 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET II Csesars, although he was not nominally king, was that of one who pos- ii JULIUS sessed all the essential attributes of sovereignty 5 and OESAR. from the battle of Pharsalia, which decided the fate of the Roman world, might with propriety be dated the commence- ment of the Roman empire, although its era is usually dated at the beginning of the twenty-eighth year before the Christian era, the time of the general acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Augustus. 4. The reign of Augustus continued until the fourteenth year in. AUGUS- a ft er the birth of Christ forty-four years in all, dating TUS. from the battle of Ac' tium, which made Augustus sole sovereign of the empire. After the general peace which followed the early wars and conquests of the emperor, the great prosperity of his reign was disturbed by a rebellion of the Germans, which had been provoked by the extortions of Varus, the Roman commander on the northern frontier. Varus was entrapped in the depths of the German forests, where nearly his whole army was annihilated, and he himself, in despair, put an end to his own life. (A. D. 9.) Awful vengeance was taken upon the Romans who became prisoners, many of them being sacrificed to the gods of the Germans. 5. The news of the defeat of his general threw Augustus into trans- ports of grief, during which he frequently exclaimed, " Varus, restore me my legions !" It was thought that the Germans would cross the Rhine, and that all Gaul would unite with them in the revolt ; but a large Roman army under Tiberius, the son-in-law and heir of Augustus, was sent to guard the passes of the Rhine, and the danger was averted. 6. Augustus, having designed Tiberius for his successor, associated him in his counsels, and conferred upon him so large a share of present power, that on the death of the emperor, Tiberius easily took his place, so that the nation scarcely perceived the change ' of masters. (A. D. 14.) The policy of Augustus in selecting, and preparing the way for, the future sovereign, was suc- cessfully imitated by nearly all his successors during nearly two cen- turies, although the emperors continued to be elected, ostensibly at least, by the authority of the senate, and the consent of the soldiers. 7. Tiberius, a man of reserved character, and of great dissimula- tion, suspicious, dark, and revengeful, but possessing a handsome figure, and in his early years exhibiting great talents and unwearied industry, having yielded with feigned reluctance to the wishes of the senate that he would undertake the government, commenced his CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 191 reign with the appearance of justice and moderation ; but after nine years of dissimulation, his sensual and tyrannical character openly exhibited itself in the vicious indulgence of every base passion, and the perpetration of the most wanton cruelties. 8. The early part of his reign is distinguished by the wars carried on in Germany by his accomplished general and nephew, the virtu- ous German' icus ; but Tiberius, jealous of the glory and fame which German' icus was winning, recalled him from his command, and then sent him as governor to the Eastern provinces, where all his under- takings were thwarted by the secret commands of the emperor, who was supposed to have caused his death to be hastened by poison. 9. The only confidant of Tiberius was his minister Sejanus, whose character bore a great resemblance to that of his sovereign. Secret- ly aspiring to the empire, he contrived to win the heart of Tiberius by exciting his mistrust towards his own family relatives, most of whom he caused to be poisoned, or condemned to death for suspected trea- son ; but his most successful project was the removal of Tiberius from Rome to the little island of Caprese, 1 where the monarch re- mained during a number of years, indulging his indolence and de- baucheries, while Sejanus, ruling at Rome, perpetrated the most shocking cruelties in the name of his master, and put to death the most eminent citizens, scarcely allowing them the useless mockery of a trial. 10. But Sejanus at length fell under the suspicion of the empe- ror, and the same day witnessed his arrest and execution a mem- orable example of the instability of human grandeur. His death was followed by a general massacre of his friends and relations. At length Tiberius himself, after a long career of crime, falling sick, was smothered in bed by one of his officers, at the instigation of the base Calig' ula, the son of German' icus, and adopted heir of the emperor. It was during the reign of Tiberius that Jesus Christ was crucified in Judea, under the prsetorship of Pontius Pilate, the Ro- man governor of that province. 11. Calig' ula, whose real character was unknown to the people, 1. C&prea, now called Capri, is a small island, about ten miles in circumference, on the south side of the entrance to the bay of Naples. It is sun junded on all sides but one by lofty and perpendicular cliffs; and in the centre is a secluded vale, remarkable for its beauty and salubrity. The tyrant was led to select this spot for his abode, as well from its difficulty of ac- cess, as from the mildness and salubrity of its climate, and the unrivalled magnificence of the prospects which it affords. He is said to have built no less than twelve villas in different parts of the island, and to have named them after the twelve celestial divinities. The ruins of one of them the villa of Jove are still to be seen on the summit of a cliff opposite Sorrento. 192 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. received from them an enthusiastic welcome on his accession to the v. CALIG'- throne, {A; D. 37,) but they soon found him to be a ULA. greater monster of wickedness and dissimilation than his predecessor. A detailed description of his wicked actions, which some have attributed to madness, would afford little pleasure to the reader. Not satisfied with mere murder, he ordered all the prisoners in Rome, and numbers of the aged and infirm, to be thrown to wild beasts ; he claimed divine honors, erected a temple, and instituted a college of priests to superintend his own worship 5 and finding the senate too backward in adulation, he seriously contemplated the massacre of the entire body. 12. His follies were no less conspicuous than his vices. For his favorite horse Incitatus he claimed greater respect and rever- ence than were due to mortals : he built him a stable of marble and a manger of ivory, and frequently invited him to the imperial table ; and it is said that his death alone prevented him from con- ferring upon the animal the honors of the consulship ! A fortune of eighteen millions sterling, which had been left by Tiberius, was squandered by Calig' ula, in a most senseless manner, in little more than a year, while fresh sums, raised by confiscations, were lavished in the same way. At length, after a reign of four years, Calig' ula was murdered by his own guards, to the great joy of the senators, who suddenly awoke to the wild hope of restoring the Republic. 13. The illusion soon disappeared, for the spirit of Roman liberty no longer existed. The Praetorian guards, a who had all the power in their own hands, insisting upon being governed by a monarch, proclaimed the imbecile Claudius emperor, at a time when he expected vi. nothing but death ; and their choice was sanctioned by CLAUDIUS, the senate. Claudius was an uncle of the late emperor, and brother of German' icus. He was so deficient in judgment and reflection as to be deemed intolerably stupid 5 he was not destitute of a. The Praetorian guards were gradually instituted by Augustus to protect his person, awe the senate, keep the veterans aud legions in check, and prevent or crush the first movements of rebellion. Something similar to them had existed from the earliest times in the body of armed guides who accompanied the general in his military expeditions. At first Augustus stationed three cohorts only in the capital : but Tiberius assembled all of them, to the number of ten thousand, at Rome, aud assigned them a permanent and well-fortified camp close to the walls of the city, on the broad summit of the Quirinal and Virninal hills. This measure cf Tiberius forever riveted the fetters of his country. The Praetorian bands, soon learning their own strength, and the weakness of the civil government, became eventually the real master* of the empire. Gibbon's Rome, i. 61 ; and Niebuhr, v. 75. CHAP. I.] ROMAN HISTORY. 193 good nature, but unfortunately he was made the dupe of abandoned favorites, for whose crime history has unjustly held him responsible. 14. For a time his wife Messalina, the most dissolute and aban- donecPof women, ruled him at pleasure ; and numbers of the most worthy citizens were sacrificed to her jealousy, avarice, and revenge ; but finally she was put to death by the emperor for her shameless in- fidelity to him. Claudius then married his niece Agrippina. then a widow, and the mother of the afterwards infamous Nero. She was no less cruel in disposition than Messalina ; her ambition was un- bounded, and her avarice insatiable. After having prevailed upon Claudius to adopt as his heir and successor her son Nero, to the exclusion of his own children, she caused the emperor to be poisoned by his physician. (A. D. 54.) As Agrippina had gained the captain of the Prsetorian guards to her interest, the army proclaimed Nero emperor, arid the senate confirmed their choice. 15. Tho foreign events of the reign of Claudius were of greater importance than his domestic administration. Julius Caesar had first carried the Roman arms into Britain in a brief and fruitless in- vasion ; but during the reign of Claudius the Romans began to think seriously of reducing the whole island under their dominion. At first Claudius sent over his general Plau' tus, (A. D. 43,) who gained some victories over the rude inhabitants. Claudius himself then made a journey into Britain, and received the submission of the tribes that inhabited the south-eastern parts of the island ; but the other Britons, under their king Carac' tacus, maintained an obstinate resistance until the Roman army was placed under the command of Ostorius, who defeated Carac' tacus in a great battle, and sent him prisoner to Rome. (A. D. 51.) 16. Nero, the successor of Claudius, was a youth of only seventeen when he ascended the tlirone. (A. D. 54.) He had been nurtured in the midst of crimes, and the Roman world looked upon him with apprehension and dread ; but during five years, while he still remained under the influence of his early instructors, Seneca and Burrhus, he disappointed the fears of all by the mildness of his reign. At length his mother Agrippina fell under the sus- picion of designing to restore the crown to the still surviving son of Claudius; and the emperor caused both to be put to death. After this he abandoned himself to bloodshed, in which he took a savage delight. He' is accused of having caused the death of his able min~ 13 194 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. ister Burrhus by poison ; Seneca a the philosopher, Lucan b the poet, and most of the leading nobles, were condemned on the charge of treason ; and a conflagration in Rome which lasted nine days, and destroyed the greater part of the city, (A. D. 64,) was generally be- lieved to have been kindled by his orders ; and some reported that in order to enjoy the spectacle, he ascended a high tower, where he amused himself with singing the Destruction of Troy. 1 7. In order to remove the suspicions of the people, he caused a report to be circulated that the Christians were the authors of the fire ; and thousands of that innocent sect were put to death under circumstances of the greatest barbarity. Sometimes, covered by the skins of wild beasts, they were exposed to be torn in pieces by de- vouring dogs ; some were crucified : others, wrapped in combustible garments, which were set on fire, were made to serve as torches to illuminate the emperor's gardens by night. Nero often appeared on the Roman stage in the character of an actor, musician, or gladiator ; he also visited the principal cities of Greece in succession, where he obtained a number of victories in the public Grecian games. 18. While he was engaged in these extravagances, the provinces of the empire were pillaged to support his luxuries and maintain his almost boundless prodigalities. To the lower classes, who felt no- thing of his despotism, he made monthly distributions of corn, to the encouragement of indolence ; and he gratified the populace of Rome by occasional supplies of wine and meat, and by the magnificent shows of the circus. Nero was popular with the rabble, which ex- plains the fact that his atrocities and follies were so long endured by the Roman people. At length, however, the standard of revolt was raised in Gaul by Vindex, the Roman governor, and soon after by Galba in Spain. Vindex perished in the struggle ; and Galba a. Seneca, the moral philosopher, was born at Cordova in Spain, in the second or third year of the Christian era; but at an early age he went to reside at Rome. Messalina, who hated him, caused him to be banished to Corsica, where he remained eight years ; but Agrippina recalled him from banishment, and appointed him, in conjunction with Burrhus, tutor to Nero. Burrhus, a man of stern virtue, instructed the prince in military science : Seneca taught him philosophy, the fine arts, and elegant accomplishments. Although Seneca laid down excellent rules of morality for others, his own character is not above reproach. Being ordered by Nero to be his own executioner, he caused his veins to be opened in a hot bath ; but as, at his age, the blood flowed slowly, he drank a dose of hemlock to accelerate his death. b. Lucan, a nephew of Seneca, and also a native of Cordova, was an eminent Latin poet, although he died at the early age of twenty-seven years. Of his many poems, the Pharsalia, or war between Caesar and Pompey, is the only one that has escaped destruction. He incurred the enmity of Nero by vanquishing him in a poetical contest. CHAP. I.J ROMAN HISTORY. 195 would have been ruined had not the Prafetorian guards, under the in- fluence of their commander Otho, renounced their allegiance. With this latter calamity Nero abandoned all hope ; and when he learned that the senate had declared him an enemy to the country, too cow- ardly to kill himself, he sought death by the hands of one of his freedmen, from whom he received a mortal wound. (A. D. 68.) 19. During the greater part of the reign of Nero the empire en- joyed, in general, a profound peace ; the only wars of importance being with the Parthians and the Bf itons. The former were defeated and reduced by Cor' bulo, the greatest general of his time. This virtuous Roman had kept his faith even to Nero ; but .the only re- ward which he received from the emperor for his victories, was death. In Britain, Suetonius Paulinus defeated the inhabitants in several battles, and penetrating into the heart of the country, de- stroyed the consecrated groves and altars of the druids. a After- wards the Iceni, b under the command of their queen Boadic' ea, re- volted, burned London, then a flourishing Roman colony, reduced many other settlements, and put to death, in all, seventy thousand Romans. Suetonius avenged their fate in a decisive battle, in which eighty thousand Britons are said to have perished. The heroic Boadic' ea, rather than submit to the victor, put an end to her life by poison. During the reign of Nero also occurred the famous rebel- lion in Judea, and the beginning of the war which resulted in the destruction of the Jewish nation. 20. With the death of Nero the reign of the Julian family, or the true line of the Caesars, ended ; although six succeeding empe- rors are included in what are usually styled " the twelve Caesars." A series of sanguinary wars, arising from disputed succession, followed. a. The druids were the priests or ministers of religion among the ancient Gauls and Britons. Their chief seat was an island of the Irish Sea, now called Anglesey, which was taken by Sue- tonius after a fanatical resistance. This general cut down the groves of the druids, and nearly exterminated both the priests and their religion. The druids believed in the existence of one Su- preme Being, a state of future rewards and punishments, the immortality of the soul, and its transmigration through different bodies. They possessed some knowledge of geometry, natural philosophy, and astronomy ; they practiced astrology, magic, and sooth-saying ; they regarded the mistletoe as the holiest object in nature, and esteemed the oak sacred ; they abhorred im- ages ; they worshipped fire as the emblem of the sun, and in their sacrifices often immola- ted human victims. They exercised great authority in the government of the State, appointed the highest officers in the cities, and were the chief administrators of justice. On the intro- duction of Christianity into Britain, the druidical order gradually ceased. b. The Iceni inhabited the country on the eastern coast of England. Their chief town was a place now called Caister, about three miles from Norwich. c. London, anciently Londinium, was in existence, as a town of the Trlnobantes, before the Invasionwf Julius Caesar. 196 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET II. At first Galba, then in the seventy-third year of his are, a man of un- blemished personal character, was universally acknowl- edged emperor ; but he soon lost the attachment of the soldiery by his parsimony, while the influence of injudicious favorites led him into unseasonable severities for the suppression of the enor- mous vices of the times. Several revolts against his authority rapidly succeeded each other, and finally, Otho, who had been among the foremost to espouse his cause, finding that Galba refused to nominate him for his successor, procured a revolt of the Praetorian guards in his own favor. After a brief struggle in the streets of Rome, Galba was slain, after a reign of only seven months. 21. While the unworthy Otho, a passive instrument in the hands of a licentious soldiery, remained at Rome, with the title of emperor, immersed in pleasures and debaucheries, Vitel' lius, a IX. OTHO. , , . . , ~ , i i man more vulgar and vicious than Otho, was proclaimed emperor by the legions under his command on the German frontier. A brief but sanguinary struggle followed, and Otho, having sustained a defeat in the north of Italy, fell by his own hand, after a reign of ninety-five days. 22. Vitel' lius, entering Rome in triumph, ordered more than a hundred of the praetorian guards to be put to death ; but he en- x. VITEL'- deavored to win the favor of the populace by large LIUS. donations of provisions, and expensive games and enter- tainments. His personal character was cruel and contemptible. Under the most frivolous pretences the wealthy were put to death, and their property seized by the emperor ; and in less than four months, as stated by historians, this bloated and pampered ruler ex- pended on the mere luxuries of the table a sum equal to about seven millions sterling. But while wallowing in the indulgence of the most debasing appetites, he was startled by the intelligence that the legions engaged in the Jewish war in Syria had declared their general, Vespasian, emperor, and were already on their march towards Rome. 23. As province after province submitted to Vespasian, and his generals rapidly overcame the little opposition they encountered, Vitel' lius in dismay would have abdicated his authority, but the Praetorian guards, 'dreading the strict discipline of Vespasian, com- pelled the wretched monarch to a farther resistance. Rome how- ever easily fell into tbe hands of the conquerors, and Vitel' lius, having retained the sceptre only eight months, was ignominiously CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 197 put to death, and his mangled carcass thrown into the Tiber, amid the execrations of the same fickle multitude that had so recently welcomed his accession to power. (A. D. Dec. 69.) 24. During several months, Domitian, the second son of Vespasian, ruled at Rome in the absence of his father, taking part with the contending factious, committing many acts of cruelty, and already exhibiting the passions and vices which characterized his later years ; but at length the arrival of the monarch elect restored tranquillity and diffused universal joy. (A. D. 70.) Vespasian was ;XL VKSPA- universally known and respected for his virtues, and his * 8IAN - mild and happy reign restored to the distracted empire some degree of its former prosperity. He improved the discipline of the army, enlarged the senate to its former numbers, and revived its authority, reformed the courts of law, and enriched Rome with many noble buildings, of which the Colosseum still remains, in much of ita ancient grandeur the pride and glory of his reign. 25. Three years before his accession to the throne, Vespasian had been sent into Judea by Nero, (A. D. 67,) at the head of sixty thouiand men, to conduct the war against the Jews, who XII . JEWISH had revolted against the Roman power. They had WAR - been driven to rebellion by the execution and tyranny of Florus the Roman governor, and having once taken up arms they were so strangely infatuated as to believe that, although without a regular army, or munitions of war of any kind, they could resist the united force of the whole Roman empire. The war thus commenced was one of extermination, in which mercy was seldom asked or shown by either party 26. While the war raged around Jerusalem, and city after city was taken, and desolated by the massacre of its inhabitants, there were three hostile factions in Jerusalem, afterwards reduced to two, holding possession of different parts of the city, and wasting their strength in cruel conflicts with each other. When Vespasian depart- ed for Rome to assume the royal authority, he left the conduct of the war to his son Titus, who soon after commenced the siege of Je- rusalem, during the time of the feast of the passover, when the city was crowded with people from all Judea. Titus expected that al- though Jerusalem was defended by six hundred thousand men, such a multitude gathered within the walls of a poorly-provisioned city, would occasion a famine that would soon make a surrender inevitable. 27. Although the Jews were promised liberty and safety if they 198 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. would surrender the city ; and Josephus, the future historian of his country, who had been taken prisoner by the Romans, was sent to expostulate with them on the folly of longer resistance \ yet they re- jected all warnings and counsel with scorn and derision ; and although the opposing Jewish factions were embroiled in a civil war, with a strange infatuation both declared their resolution to defend the city to the very last, confident that God would not permit his temple and city to fall before the heathen. 28. The horrors of the siege surpassed all that the pen can de- scribe. When the public granaries had become empty the people were plundered of their scanty stores, so that the famine devoured by houses and by families. At length no table was spread, nor regular meal eaten in Jerusalem. People bartered all their wealth for a meas- ure of corn, and ate it in secret, uncooked, or snatched half baked from the coals. They were often compelled, by torture, to discover their food, or were still more cruelly treated if they had eaten it. Wives would steal the last morsel from their husbands, children from parents, mothers from children ; and there were instances of dead infants being eaten by their parents ; so that the ancient prophecy, in which Moses had described the punishments of the unbelieving Jews, was fulfilled. a 29. At length the dead accumulated so fast that they were left un- buried, and were cast off the walls by thousands down into the val- leys ; and as Titus went his rounds, and saw the putrefying masses, he wept, and, stretching his hands to heaven, called God to witness that this was not his work] By slow degrees one wall after another was battered down ; but so desperate was the defence of the Jews that it was three months after the lower city was taken before the Romans gained possession of the temple, and, in its destruction, com- pleted the fall of Jerusalem. (A. D. 70.) Titus would have saved the noble edifice, but was unable to restrain the rage of his soldiery, and the Temple was burnt. 30. Josephus computes the number of his countrymen who perished during the war at more than one million three hundred thousand, with a total of more than a million prisoners. Thousands of the latter were sent to toil in the Egyptian mines ; but such were their numbers that they were offered for sale " till no man would buy them," and then they were sent into different provinces as pre- a. Deut. xxviii, 56, 57. CHAP. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 199 sents, where they were consumed by the sword, or by wild beasts in the amphitheatres. With the destruction of the holy city and its famous temple Israel ceased to be a nation, and thus was inflicted the doom which the unbelieving Jews invoked when they cried out, " His blood be on us and on our children." 31. Britain had been only partially subdued prior to the reign of Vespasian, but during the two years after the fall of Jerusalem its conquest was completed by the Roman governor Julius Agric' ola, who was justly celebrated for his great merits as a general and a states- man. Carrying his victorious arms northward he defeated the Brit- tons in every encounter, penetrated the forests of Caledonia, 1 and established a chain of fortresses between the Friths of Clyde and Forth, which marked the utmost permanent extent of the Roman dominion in Britain. The fastnesses of the Scottish highlands were ever too formidable to be overcome by the Roman arms. By an enlightened policy Agric' ola also taught the Britons the arts of peace, introduced laws and government among them, induced them to lay aside their barbarous customs, taught them to value the con- veniencies of life, and to adopt the Roman language and manners. The life of Agric' ola has been admirably written by Tac' itus, the historian, to whom the former had given his daughter in marriage. 32. On the death of Vespasian (A. D. 79) his son Titus succeeded to the throne. Previous to his accession the general opinion of the people was unfavorable to Titus, but afterwards his . . , xin. TITUS. conduct changed, and he is celebrated as a just and humane ruler ; and so numerous were his acts of goodness, that his grateful subjects bestowed upon him the honorable title of " benefac- tor of the human race." During his brief reign of little more than two years, Rome and the provinces were in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, only disturbed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius,* 1. Ancient Caledonia comprehended that portion of Scotland which lay to the north of the Forth and the Clyde. A frith is a narrow passage of the sea, or the opening of a river into the sea. Agric' ola penetrated north as far as the river Tay. (See Map No. XVI.) 2. Mount Vesuvius, ten miles south-east from the city of Naples, is the only active volcano at present existing on the European continent. Its extreme height is three thousand eight hundred and ninety feet about two-fifths of that of ^Et' na. Its first known eruption occurred on the 24th of August, A. D. 79, when Herculaneum and Pompeii were buried under showers of volcanic ashes, sand, stones, and lava, and the elder Pliny lost his life, being suffocated by the sulphurous vapor as he approached to behold the wonderful phenomena. It is related (hat, Buch was the immense quantity of volcanic ashes thrown out duriilg this eruption, the whole country was involved in pitchy darkness; and that the ashes fell in Egypt, Syria, and various parts of Asia Minor. Since the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii there have been nearly fifty authenticated eruptions of Vesuvius. 200 MODERISr HISTORY. [PART IL which caused the destruction of Herculaneuin 1 and Pompeii,* (A. D. 79,) and by a great fire at Rome, which was followed by a pestilence. (A. D. 80.) 33. Domitian succeeded his brother without opposition, (A. D. 81,) although the perfidy and cruelty of his character were notorious. xiv. He began his reign by an affectation of extreme virtue, DOMITIAN. k ut was un ^l e long to disguise his vices. There was no law but the will of the tyrant, who caused many of the most eminent senators to be put to death without even the form of trial ; and when, by his infamous vices, and the openness of his debaucheries, he had sunk, in the eyes of his subjects, to the lowest stage of degradation, he caused himself to be worshipped as a god, and ad- dressed with the reverence due to Deity. Both Jews and Christians were persecuted by him, and thousands of them put to death because they would not worship his statues. This is called in ecclesiastical history the second great persecution of the Christians, that under f ero being the first. 34. It was in the early part of this reign that Agric' ola com- pleted the conquest of Britain ; but on the whole the reign of Domi- tian was productive of little honor to the Koman arms, as in Mo3 'sia, 3 and Dacia, 4 in Germany, 5 and Pannonia, the Romans were defeated, 1. Hcrculdneum was close to the sea, south of Vesuvius, and eight miles south-east from the city of Naples. Little is known of it except its destruction. It was completely buried under a shower of ashes, over which a stream of lava flowed, and afterwards hardened. So changed was the aspect of the whole country, and even the outlines of the coast, that all knowledge of the city, beyond its name, was soon lost, when, in 1713, after a concealment of more than six- teen centuries, accident led to the discovery of its ruins, seventy feet below the surface of the ground. 2. Pompeii was fifteen miles south-east from Naples, and was not buried by lava, but by ashes, sand, and stones only, and at a depth of only twelve or fifteen feet above the buildings. It has been excavated much more extensively than Herculaneum disclosing the city walla, streets, temples, theatres, the forum, baths, monuments, private dwellings, domestic utensils, &c., the whole conveying the impression of the actual presence of a Roman town in all the circumstantial reality of its existence two thousand years ago. "The discovery of Pompeii has thrown a strong and steady light on many points connected with the private life and economy of the ancients, that were previously involved in the greatest obscurity.'' 1 The small number of skeletons discovered in Herculaneum and Pompeii render it quite certain that most of the inhabitants saved themselves by flight. 3. JVfe' sifl, extending north to the Danube and eastward to the Euxine, corresponded to the present Turkish provinces of Ser' via and Bulgaria. (Map No. IX.) 4. Dacia was an extensive frontier province north of the Danube, extending east to the Euxine. It embraced the northern portions of the present Turkey, together with Transylvania and; a part of Hungary. (Map No. IX.) 5. The word Germania was employed by the Romans to designate all the country east of the Rhine and north of the Danube as far as the German ocean and the Baltic, and eastward as far as Sarmatia and Dacia. The limits of Germany, as a Roman province, were very indefinite. (Map No. IX.) CHAP. I.] ROMAN HISTORY. 201 and whole provinces lost. In Moe' sia, Doraitian himself was several times defeated, yet he wrote to the senate boasting of extraordinary victories, and the servile body decreed him the honors of a triumph. In a similar manner other triumphs were decreed him, which caused Pliny the younger to say that the triumphs of Domitian were always evidence of some advantages gained by the enemies of Rome. 35. At length, after a reign of fifteen years, Domitian was assassi- nated at the instigation of his wife, who accidentally discovered that her own name was on the fatal list of those whom the emperor designed to put to death. The soldiers, whose pay he had increased, and with whom he often shared his plunder, lamented his fate ; but the senate ordered his name to be struck from the Roman annals, and obliter- ated from every public monument. 36. .The death of Domitian closes the reign of those usually de- nominated " the twelve Caesars," only three of whom, Augustus, Vespasian, and Titus, died natural deaths. Julius Csesar fell under the daggers of conspirators in the very senate-house of Rome. Ti- berius, at the instigation of Calig' ula, was smothered on a sick bed : Calig' ula was murdered in his own palace while attending a theatri- cal rehearsal : Claudius was poisoned, at the instigation of his own wife, by his favorite physician : Nero, by the aid of his freediuan, committed suicide to avoid a public execution : the aged Galba was slain in the Roman forum, in a mutiny of his guards : Otho, on learning the success of his rival Vitel' lius, committed suicide : Vi- tel' lius was dragged by the populace through the streets of Rome, put to death with tortures, and his mangled carcass thrown into the Tiber ; and Domitian was killed in his bed-chamber by those whom he had marked for execution. The heart sickens not more at the recital of these murders than of the crimes that prompted them ; and thus far the history of the Roman emperors is little else than a series of constantly recurring scenes of violence and blood. 37. But as we pass from the city of Rome into the surrounding Roman world, we almost forget the revolting scenes of t|ie capital in view of the still-existing power and majesty of the Roman empire an empire the greatest the world has ever seen and still great in the remembrance of the past, and in the influences which it has be- queathed to modern times. While the emperors were steeped in the grossest sensuality, and Rome was a hot-bed of infamy and crime, the numerous provincial governments were generally administered with ability and success ; and the glory of the Roman arms was 202 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL sustained in repelling the barbarous hordes that pressed upon the frontiers. But national valor cannot compensate for the want of national virtue : the soul that animated the Republic was dead ; the spirit of freedom was gone ; and national progress was already be- ginning to give place to national decay. SECTION II. ROMAN HISTOKY FROM THE DEATH OF DOMITIAN, A. D. 96, TO THE ESTAB- LISHMENT OF MILITARY DESPOTISM, AFTER THE MUADER OF ALEXANDER SEVE 7 RUS, A. D. 235 = 139 YEARS ANALYSIS. 1. NERVA. His character, reign, and death. [Um' bria.] 2. TRAJAN. His character, and character of his reign. Remarkable words attributed to him. 3. His wars and conquests. His death. [Ctes' iphon. Trajan's column.] 4. Persecutions of the Christians during the reign of Trajan. The proverbial goodness of Trajan's character. 5. Accession of ADRIAN. His peaceful policy. General administration of the government. His visit to the provinces. 6. Revolt of the Jews. Results of the Jewish war. Defences in Britain. [Solway Frith. River Tyne.] 7. Doubtful estimate of Adrian's character and reign. His ruling passions. 8. Accession of TITUS ANTONI' NUS. 9. His character, and the character of his reign. 10. MARCUS AURK' LIUS ANTONI' NUS. Verus associated with him. 11. War with the Parthians. With the Germans. Remarkable deliverance of the Roman army. 12. Character of the five preceding reigns. The evils to which an arbitrary government is liable. Illustrated In the annals of the Roman emperors. 13. Accession of COM' MODUS. Beginning of his gov- ernment. 14. The incident which decided his fluctuating character. His subsequent wicked- ness. 15. His debaucheries and cruelties. His death. 16. The brief reign of PERTINAX. 17. Disposal of the empire to DID'IUS JULIA' NUS. 18. Dangerous position of the new ruler. 19. His competitors. [Dalmatia.] Successes of SEPTIM'IUS SEVE' RUS, and death of Julianus. 20. Dissimulation of Severus. He defeats Niger at Issus in Asia. His continued duplicity. Overthrow and death of Albinus. [Lyons.] 21. Subsequent reign of Severus. His last illness and death. [York.] 22. CARACAL' LA and Geta. Death of the latter. Character, reign, and death of Caracal' la. Brief reign of MACRI' NUS. 23. Accession of ELAOABA' LUS. 24. His character and follies. Circumstances of his death. 25. ALEXANDER SEVE' RUS. His attempts to reform abuses. Character of his administration. His death. His successor. 1. Domitian was succeeded by Nerva, who was a native of Um'- bria, 1 but whose family orignally came from Crete. He was the first Roman emperor of foreign extraction, and was chosen by the senate on account of his virtues. His mild and equitable administration forms a striking contrast to the sanguinary rule of Domitian ; but his excessive lenity, which was his greatest fault, encouraged the profligate to persevere in their accustomed 1. Um' bria was a country of Italy east of Etriiria and north of the Sabine territory. The ancient Um' brians were one of the oldest and most numerous nations of Italy. (Map No. VIII, CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 203 peculations. At length the excesses of his own guards convinced him that the government of the empire required greater energy than he possessed, and he therefore wisely adopted the excellent Trajan as his successor, and made him his associate in the sovereignty. Nerva soon after died, (A. D. 98,) in the seventy-second year of his age, having reigned but little more than sixteen months. 2. Trajan, who was by birth a Spaniard, proved to be one of Rome's best sovereigns ; and it has been said of him that he was equally great as a ruler, a general, and a man. After he had made a thorough reformation of abuses, he re- stored as much of the free Roman constitution as was consistent with a monarchy, and bound himself by a solemn oath to observe the laws ; yet while he ruled with equity, he held the reins of power with a strong and steady hand. No emperor but a Trajan could have used safely the remarkable words attributed to him, when, giving a sword to the prefect of the Praetorian guards, he said, " Take this sword and use it ; if I have merit, for me ; if otherwise, against me." 3. In his wars, Trajan, commanding in person, conquered the Dacians, after which he passed into Asia, subdued Armenia, took Seleucia and Ctes'iphon, 1 the latter the capital of the Parthian kingdom, and sailing down the Tigris displayed the Roman standards for the first time on the waters of the Persian Gulf, whence he passed into the Arabian peninsula, 'a great part of which he annexed to the Roman empire. But while he was thus passing from kingdom to kingdom, emulating the glory of Alexander, and dreaming of new conquests, he was seized with a lingering illness, of which he died in Cilicia, in the twentieth year of his reign. (A. D. 117.) His ashes were conveyed to Rome in a golden urn, and deposited under the famous column which he had erected to commemorate his Dacian victories. 8 - 1. Ctes' iphon was a city of Parthia, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite to and three miles distant from Seleucia. a. Trajan's column, which is still standing, is the most beautiful mausoleum ever erected to departed greatness. Its height, not including the base, which is now covered with rubbish, is one hundred and fifteen feet ten inches ; and the entire column is composed of twenty-four great blocks of marble, so curiously cemented as to seem one entire stone. It is ascended on the inside by one hundred and eighty-five winding steps. The noblest ornament of this pillar was a bronze statue of Trajan, twenty-five feet in height, representing him in a coat of arms, holding In the left hand a sceptre, and in the right a hollow globe of gold, in which, it has been assert- ed, the ashes of the emperor were deposited. The column is now surmounted by a statue of St. Peter, which Sixtus V. had the bad taste to substitute in place of that of Trajan. On the external face of the column is a series of bas-reliefs, running in a spiral course up Ihe shaft, representing Trajan's victories, and containing two thousand five hundred human figures. 204 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL 4. The character of Trajan, otherwise just and amiable, is stained by the approval which he gave to the persecution of Christians in the eastern provinces of the empire ; for although he did not directly promote that persecution, he did little to check its progress, and al- lowed the enemies of the Christians to triumph over them. Still, the goodness of his character was long proverbial, inasmuch as, m later times, the senate, in felicitating the accession of a new emperor, were accustomed to wish that he might surpass the prosperity of Augustus and the virtue of Trajan. 5. Whether Trajan, in his last moments, adopted his relative Adrian as his successor, or* whether the will attributed to him was forged by the empress Plotina, is a doubtful point in history ; but Adrian succeeded to the throne with the unanimous dec- III. ADRIAN. . ,. , ... . . , . -GJA^ i laration of the Asiatic armies in his favor, whose choice was immediately ratified by the senate and people. His first care was to make peace with the surrounding nations ; and in order to preserve it he at once abandoned all the conquests made by his pre- decessor, except that of Dacia, and bounded the eastern provinces by the river Euphrates. He diminished the military establishments, lowered the taxes, reformed the laws, and encouraged literature. He also passed thirteen years in visiting all the provinces of the empire, inspecting the administration of government, repressing abuses, and erecting and repairing public edifices. 6. During his reign occurred another war with the Jews, who, in- censed at the introduction of Roman idolatry into Jerusalem, were excited to revolt by an impostor who called himself Bar-C6chab, (the son of a star,) and who pretended to be the expected Messiah. Two hundred thousand devoted followers soon flocked to the Jewish stand- ard, and for a time gained important advantages ; but Severus, after- wards emperor, being sent against them, in a sanguinary war of three years' duration he accomplished the almost total destruction of the Jew- ish nation. More than five hundred thousand of the misguided Jews are estimated to have fallen by the sword during this period ; and those who survived were " scattered abroad among all the nations of the earth." In Britain, Adrian repaired the frontier fortresses of Agric'- ola as a bulwark against the Caledonians, and erected a second wall, from the Soiway Frith 1 to the Tyne, 8 remains of which are still visible. 1. Solway Frith, the north-eastern arm of the Irish sea, divides England from Scotland. (Map No. XVI.) 2. The Tync, an important river in the north of England, enters the sea on the eastern coast, at the southern extremity of Northumberland county. {Map No. XVI.) CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY 205 7. Although the general tenor of the reign of Adrian deserved praise for its equity and moderation, yet his character had some dark stains upon it ; and the Romans of a later age doubted whether he should be reckoned among the good or the bad princes. He al- lowed a severe persecution of the Jews and Christians; he was jealous, suspicious, superstitious, and revengeful; and although in general he was a just and able ruler, he was at times an unrelenting and cruel tyrant. His ruling passions were curiosity and vanity ; and as they were attracted by different objects, his character as- sumed the most opposite phases. 8. Adrian, a short time previous to his death, (A. D. 138,) adopted for his successor, Titus Antoninus, surnamed Pius, on 1V . TITUS condition that the latter should associate with him, in ANTONI' NUS. the empire, Marcus Aurelius, and the youthful Verus. Antoninus, immediately after his accession, gave one of his daughters in mar- riage to Marcus Aurelius, afterwards called Marcus Aurelius Anto- ninus ; but while he associated the worthy Aurelius in the labors of government, he showed no regard for the profligate Verus. 9. During twenty-two years Antoninus governed the Roman world with wisdom and virtue, exhibiting in his public life a love of re- ligion, peace and justice ; and in his private character goodness, amiability, and a cheerful serenity of temper, without affectation or vanity. His regard for the future welfare of Rome is manifest in the favor which he constantly showed to the virtuous Aurelius : the latter, in return, revered the character of his benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as a sovereign, and, after his death, regulated his own administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor. 10. On the death of Antoninus, (A. D. 161,) the senate, distrust- ing Verus on account of his vices, conferred the sover- y MARCUS eignty upon Marcus Aurelius alone ; but the latter im- AURELIUS mediately took Verus as his colleague, and gave him his ANTONI' NUB. daughter in marriage ; and notwithstanding the great dissimilarity in the characters of the two emperors, they reigned jointly ten years, until the death of Verus, (A. D. 171,) without any disagree- ment ; for Verus, destitute of ambition, was content to leave the weightier affairs of government to his associate. 1 1. Although Aurelius detested war, as the disgrace of humanity and its scourge, yet his reign was less peaceful than that of his pre decessor ; for the Parthians overran Syria ; but they were eventually repulsed, and some of their own cities captured. During five years 206 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL Aurelius, in person, conducted a war against the German tribes, without once returning to Rome. During the German war occurred that remarkable deliverance of the emperor and his army from danger, which has been related both by pagan* and Christian writers. It is said that the Romans, drawn into a narrow defile, where they could neither fight nor retreat, were on the point of perishing by thirst, when a violent thunder-storm burst upon both armies, and fche lightning fired the tents of the barbarians and broke up their eamp, while the rain relieved the pressing wants of the Romans. Many ancient fathers of the Church ascribed the seasonable shower to the prayers of the Christian soldiers then serving in the imperial army ; and we are told by Eusebius that the emperor immediately gave to their division the title of the " Thundering Legion," and henceforth relaxed his severity towards the Christians, whose perse- cution he had before tolerated. 12. The reigns of Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Atonines, comprised a happy period in the annals of the Roman empire. These monarchs observed the laws, and the ancient forms of civil administration, and probably allowed the Roman people all the free- dom they were capable of enjoying. But under an arbitrary gov- ernment there is no guarantee for the continuance of a wise and equitable administration ; for the next monarch may be a profligate sensualist, an imbecile dotard, or a jealous tyrant; and he may abuse, to the destruction of his subjects, that absolute power which others had exerted for their welfare. The uncertain tenure by which the people held their lives and liberties under despotic rule, is fully illustrated in the dark pictures of tyranny which the annals of the Roman emperors exhibit. The golden age of Trajan and the An- tonines had been preceded by an age of iron ; and it was followed by a period of gloom, of whose public wretchedness, the shortness, and violent termination, of most of the imperial reigns, is sufficient proof. 13. Com' modus, the unworthy son of Aurelius, succeeded to the vi. COM/- throne on the death of his father, (A. D. 180,) amidst MODUS, the acclamations of the senate and the armies. During three years, while he retained his father's counsellors around him, he ruled with equity and moderation ; but the weakness of his mind and the timidity of his disposition, together with his natural indo- lence, rendered him the slave of base attendants ; and sensual indul- gence and crime, which others had taught him, finally degenerated into a habit, and became the ruling passions of his soul. CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 207 14. A fatal incident decided his fluctuating character, and sud- denly developed his dormant cruelty and thirst for blood. In an attempt to assassinate him, the assailant, aiming a blow at him with a dagger, exclaimed, " the senate sends you this." The menace pre- vented the deed ; but the words sunk deep into the mind of Corn'- modus, and kindled the utmost fury of his nature. It was found that the conspirators were men of senatorial rank, who had been in- stigated by the emperor's own sister. Suspicion and distrust, fear and hatred, were henceforth indulged by the emperor towards the whole body of senators : spies and informers were encouraged ; neither virtue nor station afforded any security ; and when Com'- modus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse. He sacrificed a long list of consular senators to his wanton suspicion, and took especial delight in hunting out and exterminating all who had been connected with the family of the Antonines. 15. The debaucheries of Com' modus exceeded, in extravagance and iniquity, those of any previous Roman emperor. He was averse to every rational and liberal pursuit, and all his sports were mingled with cruelty. He cultivated his physical, to the neglect of his mental powers ; and in shooting with the bow and throwing the javelin, Rome had not his superior. Delighting in exhibiting to the people his superior skill in archery, he at one time caused a hundred lions to be let loose in the amphitheatre ; and as they ran raging around the arena, they successively fell by a hundred arrows from the royal hand. He fought in the circus as a common gladiator, and, always victorious, often wantonly slew his antagonists, who were less completely armed than himself. This monster of folly and wicked- ness was finally slain, (A. D. 193,) partly by poisoning and partly by strangling, at the instigation of his favorite concubine Marcia, who accidentally learned that her own death, and that of several officers of the palace, had been resolved upon by the tyrant. 16. On the death of Com' modus the throne was offered to Per'ti- nax, a senator of consular rank and strict integrity, who VII< PER / T1 . accepted the office with extreme reluctance, fully aware NAX - of the dangers which he incurred, and the great weight of responsi- bility thrown upon him. The virtues of Per' tinax secured to him the love of the senate and the people ; but his zeal to correct abuses provoked the anger of the turbulent Praetorian soldiery, who pre- iorred the favor of a tyrant to the stern equality of the laws ; and 208 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL after a reign of three months, Per' tinax was slain in the imperial palace by the same guards who had placed him on the throne. 17. Amidst the wild disorder that attended the violent death of the emperor, the Praetorian guards proclaimed that they would dis- pose of the sovereignty of the Roman world to the highest bidder ; and while the body of Per' tinax remained unburied in the streets vui. DID' ins of Rome, the prize of the empire was purchased by a JULIA' NUS. va j n an( j W ealthy old senator, Did' ius Julianus, who, repairing to the Praetorian camp, outbid all competitors, and actually paid to each of the soldiers, ten thousand in number, more than two hundred pounds sterling, or nearly nine millions of dollars in all. 18. The obsequious senate, overawed by the soldiery, ratified the unworthy negotiation ; but the Praetorians themselves were ashamed of the prince whom their avarice had persuaded them to accept ; the citizens looked upon his elevation with horror, as a lasting insult to the Roman name ; and the armies in the provinces were unanimous in refusing allegiance to the new ruler, while the emperor, trembling with the dangers of his position, found himself, although on the throne of the world, scorned and despised, without a friend, and even without an adherent. 19. Three competitors soon appeared to contest the throne with Julianus, Clodius Albinus, who commanded in Britain, Pescen'- ix. SEPTIM'- nius Niger in Syria, and Septim'ius Severus in Dal- lus SEVEEUS. matia 1 and Pannonia. The latter, by his nearness to Rome, and the rapidity of his marches, gained the advance of his rivals, and was hailed emperor by the people : the faithless Praeto- rians submitted without a blow, and were disbanded ; and the senate pronounced a sentence of deposition and death against the terror- stricken Julianus, whose anxious and precarious reign of sixty-five days was terminated by the hands of the common executioner. 20. While Severus, employing the most subtle craft and dissimu- lation, was flattering Albinus in Britain with the hope of being asso- ciated with him in the empire, he rapidly passed into Asia, and after several engagements with the forces of Niger completely defeated them on the plains of Issus, where Alexander and Darius had long before contended for the sovereignty of the world. Such was the 1. Dalm&tia, anciently a part of Illyr' icum, and now the most southern province of the Austrian empire, comprises a long and narrow territory on the eastern shore of the Adriat' ic. After the division of the Roman provinces under Con'stantine and Theodosius, Dalmatia be came one of the most important parts of the empire. CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 209 duplicity of Severus, that even in the letter in which he .announced the victory to Albinus, he addressed the latter with the most friendly salutations, and expressed the strongest regard for his welfare, while at the same time he intrusted the messengers charged with the letter to desire a private audience, and to plunge their dagger to the heart of his rival. It was only when the infamous plot was detected that Albinus awoke to the reality of his situation, and began to make vigorous preparations for open war. This second contest for empire was decided against Albinus in a most desperate battle near Lyons, 1 in Gaul, (A. D. 197,) where one hundred and fifty thousand Romans are said to have fought on each side. Albinus was overtaken in flight, and slain ; and many senators and eminent provincials suf- fered death for the attachment which they had shown to his cause. 21. After Severus had obtained undisputed possession of the em- pire, he governed with mildness : considering the Roman world as his property, he bestowed his care on the cultivation and improve- ment of so valuable an acquisition, and after a reign of eighteen years he could boast, with a just pride, that he received the empire oppressed with foreign and domestic wars, and left it established in profound, universal, and honorable peace. In his last illness, Severus deeply felt and acknowledged the littleness of human greatness. Born in an African town, fortune and merit had elevated him from an humble station to the first place among mankind ; and now, satiated with power, and oppressed with age and infirmities, all his pros- pects in life were closed. " He had been all things," he said, " and all was of little value." Calling for the urn in which his ashes were to be inclosed, he thus moralized on his decaying greatness. " Little urn, thou shalt soon hold all that will remain of him whom the world could not contain." He died at York, 2 in Britain, (A. D. 21 1,) having been called into that country to repress an insurrection of the Caledonians. 1. Lyons, called by the Romans Lugdunum, is situated at the confluence of the rivers Rhone and Saone. The Roman town was at the foot of a hill on the western bank of the Rhone. Ciesar conquered the place from the Gauls : Augustus made it the capital of a prov- ince ; and, being enlarged by succeeding emperors, it became one of the principal cities of the Roman world. It is now the principal manufacturing town of France, containing a population of ubout two hundred thousand inhabitants. (Map No. XIII.) 2. JTorAr, called by the Romans Ebor' acum, is situated on the river Ouse, one hundred and seventy miles N. N. west from London. It was the capital of the Roman province, and .next to London, the most important city in the island. It was successively the residence of Adrian, Sevdrus, Geta and Caracal' la, Gonstan' tins Chlorus, Con' stantine the Great, &c. The modern city can still show many vestiges of Roman power and magnificence. Constan' tius Chlorus, the father of Con' sUmtiue the Great, died here. (Map No. XVI.) 14 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. 22. Severus had left the empire to his two sons Caracal' la arid x. CARA- Greta, but the former, whose misconduct had imbittered CAL' LA. the last days of his father, soon after his accession slew his brother in his mother's arms. His character resembled that of Com' modus in cruelty, but his extortions were carried to a far greater extent. After the Roman world had endured his tyranny nearly six years, he was assassinated while in Syria, at the instiga- XL MAORI'- tio n of Macrinus, the captain of the guards, (A. D. 217,) NUS. W h succeeded to the throne ; but after a reign of four- teen months, Macrinus lost his life in the struggle to retain his power. 23. Bassianus, a youth of fourteen, and a cousin of Caracal' la, had been consecrated, according to the rites of the Syrian worship, to the ministry of high-priest of the sun ; and it was a rebellion of the Eastern troops in his favor that had overthrown the power of Macrinus. Although these events occurred in distant Syria, yet the Roman senate and the whole Roman world received with servile xii. ELAGA- submission the emperors whom the army successively BA' LUS. offered them. As priest of the sun Bassianus adopted the title of Elagabalus, a and on his arrival at Rome established there the Syrian worship, and compelled the grandest personages of the State and the army to officiate in the temple dedicated to the Syrian god. 24. The follies, gross licentiousness, boundless prodigality, and cruelty of this pagan priest and emperor, soon disgusted even the licentious soldiery, the only support of his throne. He established a senate of women, the subject of whose deliberations were dress and etiquette ; he even copied the dress and manners of the female sex, and styling himself empress, publicly invested one of his officers with the title of husband. His grandmother Moa' sa, foreseeing that the Roman world would not long endure the yoke of so contemptible a monster, artfully persuaded him, in a favorable moment of fond- ness, to adopt for his successor his cousin Alexander Severus ; yet, soon after, Elagabalus, indignant that the affections of the army were bestowed upon another, meditated the destruction of Severus, but was himself massacred by the indignant Praetorians, who dragged his mutilated corpse through the city, and threw it into the Tiber, while the senate publicly branded his name with infamy. (A. D. 222.) a. A name derived from two Syrian words, ela a god, and gabal to form : signifying the forming, or plastic god, a proper and even happy epithet for the sun. Gibbon, i. 83. CHAP. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 211 25. At the age of seventeen Alexander Severus was raised to the throne by the Praetorian guards. He proved to be a xm Auzx wise, energetic, and virtuous prince : he relieved the ANDKR SE- provinces of the oppressive taxes imposed by his prede- VERUS - cessors, and restored the dignity, freedom, and authority of the senate ; but his attempted reformation of the military order served only to inflame the ills it was meant to cure. His administration of the government was an unavailing struggle against the corruptions of the age ; and after many mutinies of his troops his life was at length sacrificed, after a reign of fourteen years, to the fierce discon- tents of the army, whose power had now increased to a height so dangerous as to obliterate the faint image of laws and liberty, and introduce the sway of military despotism. Max' imin, the instigator of the revolt, was proclaimed emperor. SECTION III. ROMAN HISTORY FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MILITARY DESPOTISM, AFTER TBS MURDER OF ALEXANDER SEVE' RUS, A. D. 235, TO THE SUBVERSION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS, A. D. 476 = 241 YEARS. ANALYSIS. 1. Earliest account of the Thracian MAX' IMIN. 2. His origin. His history down to the death of Alexander Severus. [The Goths. Alani.] 3. Max 1 imin proclaimed emperor by the army. Commencement of his reign. 4. GOR' DIAN. PUPIE' NUS AND BALBI'- Ntrs. Death of Max' imin. The SECOND GOR' DIAN. 5. German and Persian wars. 6. Sapor, the Persian king. Death of Gor' dian, and accession of PHILIP THE ARABIAN. 7. Insurrections and rebellions. DE' cics proclaimed emperor, and death of Philip. [Verona.] 8. War with the Goths, and death of Decius. Reign of CALLUS ^EMILIA' NUS. Accession of VALE' RIAN. 9. Worthy character of Valerian. Ravages of the barbarians. Spain, Gaul, and Britain. The Persians. [The Franks. The Aleraan' ni. Lombardy.] 10. Valerian taken prisoner. H:s treatment. GALLIK' NUS. 11. Odenatus, prince of Palmyra. He routs the Persians. [Palmyra.] 12. Numerous competitors for the throne. 13. Death of Gallienus, and accession of CLAUDIUS. [Milan.] 14. Character, reign, and death of Claudius. [Sir' mi urn.] 15. QUIN- TILIUS. 10. The reign of AURE' LIAN. His wars. Zenobia. Character of Aurelian. His death. [Tibur. Byzan'tium.] 17. An interregnum. Election of TACITUS. His reign and death. [Bos' porus.] 18. FLO' RIAN. The reign, and death, of PROBUS. [Sarmatia. Van'- dals.] 19. Reign of CA' RUS. His character, and death. NUMK' RIAN AND CARI' NUS. 20. Su- perstition, and retreat, of the Roman army in Persia. Character of Carinus, and death of Numerian. 21. Carinus marches against Diocletian. His death. DIOCLE' TIAN acknowledged emperor. His treatment of the vanquished. 22. The reign of Diocletian, an important epoch. [Copts and Abyssmians.] 23. Division of the imperial authority. 24. The rule of MAXIM' IAN. [Nicomedia.] Of his colleague Constan' tius. Countries ruled by Diocletian, and his colleague Galerius. 25. Important events of the reign of Diocletian. The insurrection in Britain. 26. Revolt in Egypt and northern Africa. [Buiiris and Cop'tos. The Moors/ -27. The war with Persia. [Antioch. 212 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL. Kurdistan.]- -28. Persecution of the Christians. Diocletian's edict against them. 29. Results, and effects of this persecution. 30. Diocletian and Maxim' ian lay down the sceptre, and retire to private life. GALE'RIUS AND CONSTAN' TIUS acknowledged sovereigns. Discord and con- fusion. 31. Death of Constan'tius. CON' STANTINE proclaimed emperor. Six competitors for Ihe throne. Death of Galerius. 32. Conversion of Con' stantine, and triumph of Christianity. 33. Most important events in the reign of Con' stantine. The choice of a new capital. 34. Removal of the seat of government to Byzau' tium, and the changes that followed. Con' stan- tine divides the empire among his three sons and two nephews. His death. 35. Sixteen years of Civil wars. CONSTAN' TIUS II. becomes sole emperor. His reign of twenty-tour years. His death. [The Saxons.] 36. JULIAN THE APOSTATE. His character. Hostility to the Christians. 37. His efforts against Christianity. The result. 38. His attempt to rebuild Jerusalem. 39. Causes of the suspension of the work. 40. Julian's invasion of Persia. His death. 31. The brief reign of Jo' VIAN. 42. VALENTIN' IAN elected emperor. Associates his brother W LENS with him. Final division of the empire. The two capitals. Rome. 43. BARBARIAN INROADS. Picts and Scots. 44. Death of Valentin' ian, and westward pro- gress of the Huns. The Vis' igoths are allowed to settle in Thrace. 45. The Os' trogoths cross the Danube in arms. The two divisions raise the standard of war. Death of Valens. [Adrianople.] 46. GRA' TIAN emperor of the West. THEODO' sius emperor of the East. The Goths. Many of them settle in Thrace, Phrygia, &c. 47. Death of Gratian. VALENTIN' IAN II. His death. Theodosius sole emperor. Death of Theodosius. Division of the empire be- tween HONO' RIUS AND ARCA' Dius. 48. Civil wars. AL' ARIC THE GOTH ravages Greece, and then passes into Italy. [Julian Alps.] 49. Honorius is relieved by Stir icho. [Aa' ta Pollen'- tia.] Rome saved by Stil' icho 50. Raven' na becomes the capital of Italy. Deluge of bar- barians. [Raven' na. Van' dais. Suevi. Burgun' dians.] 51. Italy delivered by Stil' icho. [Florence.] 52. Stil' icho put to death. Massacre of the Goths, and revolt of the Gothic soldiers. 53. Rome besieged by Al' aric. His terms of ransom. 54. The terras finally agreed upon. Rejected by Honorius. [Tuscany.] Al' aric returns and reduces Rome. 55. Pillage of Rome. Al'aric abandons Rome. His death and burial. 56. The Goths withdraw from Italy. The Vis' igoths in Spain and Gaul. Saxons establish themselves in England. 57. The Van' dais in Spain and Africa. VALENTIN' IAN III. CONQUESTS or AT'TILA. [Andalusia. The Huns. Chalons. Venetian Republic.] 58. Extinction of the empire of the Huns. Situ- ation of the Roman world at this period. Rome pillaged by the VAN' DALS, A. D. 455. 59. AVI'TUS. MAJO' RIAN. 60. SEVE' RUS. Van' dal invasions. Expedition against Carthage. 61. Revolutionary changes. Demands of the barbarians, and SUBVERSION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. [Her' uli.] 1. ' Thirty-two years before the murder of Alexander Severus, the emperor Septim' ius Severus, returning from his Asiatic expe- dition, halted in Thrace to celebrate with military games the birth- day of his younger son Geta. Among the crowd that nocked to behold their sovereign was a young barbarian of gigantic stature, who earnestly solicited, in his rude dialect, that he might be allowed to contend for the prize of wrestling. As the pride of discipline would have been disgraced in the overthrow of a B.oman soldier by a Thracian peasant, he was matched with the stoutest followers of the camp, sixteen of whom he successively laid on the ground. His victory was rewarded by some trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist in the troops. The next day the happy bar- barian was distinguished above a crowd of recruits, dancing and ex- ulting after the fashion of his country. As soon as as he perceived that he had attracted the emperor's notice, he ran up to his horse, CHAT. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 213 and followed him on foot, without the least appearance of fatigue, in a long and rapid career. " Thracian," said Severus, with astonish- ment, " art thou disposed to wrestle after thy race ?" " Most wil- lingly, sir," replied the unwearied youth, and almost in a breadth overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers in the army. A gold collar was the prize of his matchless vigor and activity, and he was imme- diately appointed to serve in the horse-guards, who always attended on the person of the sovereign.' a 2. Max'imin, for that was the name of the Thracian, was de- scended from a mixed race of barbarians, his father being a Goth, 1 and his mother of the nation of the Alani. 2 Under the reign of the first Severus and his son Caracal' la he held the rank of centurion ; but he declined to serve under Macrinus and Elagabalus. On the ac- cession of Alexander he returned to court, and was promoted to vari- ous military offices honorable to himself and useful to the nation, but, elated by the applause of the soldiers, who bestowed on him the names of Ajax and Hercules, and prompted by ambition, he con- spired against his benefactor, and excited that mutiny in which the latter lost his life. 3. Declaring himself the friend and advocate of the military order, 1. The Qoths, a powerful northern nation, who acted an important part in the overthrow of the Roman empire, were probably a Scythian tribe, and came originally from Asia, whence they passed north into Scandinavia. When first known to the Romans, a large division of their nation lived on the northern shores of the Euxine. About the middle of the third century of our era they crossed the Dnies' ter, and devastated Dacia and Thrace. The emperor Decius lost his life in opposing them ; after which his successor Gal 1 lus induced them by money, to withdraw to their old seats on the Dnies' ter. (See p. 215.) Soon after this period the Goths appear in two grand divisions ; the Os' trogoths, or Eastern Goths, passing the Euxine into Asia Minor, and ravaging Bythin' ia ; and the Vis' igoths, or Western Goths, gradually pressing upon the Roman provinces along the Danube. About the year 375, the Huns, coming from the East, fell upon the Os' trogoths, and drove them upon the Vis' igoths, who were then living north of the Danube. A vast multitude of the latter were permitted by the emperor Valens to settle in Moe' sia, and on the waste lands of Thrace ; but being soon after joined by their Eastern brethren, they raised the standard of war, carried their ravages to the very gates of Constantinople, and killed Valens in battle. (See p. 228.) It was At' aric, king of the Vis' igoths, who plundered Rome in the beginning of the fifth century. (See p. 231.) The Vis' 1- goths afterwards passed into Spain, where they founded a dynasty which reigned nearly three centuries, and was finally conquered by the Moors, A. D. 711. In the meantime the Os' trogoths had been following in the path of their brethren, and in the year 493 their great king Theod' oric defeated Odoacer, and seated himself on the throne of Italy. (See p. 239.) The Gothic kingdom lasted only till the year 554, when it was overthrown by Nar' ses, the general of Justin' ian. (See p. 241.) From this period the Goths no longer occupy a prominent place in history, except in Spain. 2. The ./4/dnt, likewise a Scythian race, when first known occupied the country between the Volga and the Don. Being conquered, eventually, by the Huns, most of the Alans united with their conquerors, and proceeded with them to invade the limits of the Gothic empire of Italy. a. Gibbon, i. 96. 214 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET IL Max' imin was unanimously proclaimed emperor by the applauding legions, who, now composed mostly of peasants and barbarians of the frontiers, knowing no country but their camp, and no science but that of war, and discarding the authority of the senate, looked upon themselves as the sole depositaries of power, as they were, in reality, the real masters of the Roman world. Max' imin commenced his reign by a sanguinary butchery of the friends of the late monarch ; but his avarice and cruelty soon provoked a civil war, and raised up against him several competitors for the throne. 4. At first the aged and virtuous Gor' dian, pro-consul of Africa, was declared sovereign by the legions in that part of the ' Roman world, but he persisted in refusing the dangerous honor until menaces compelled him to accept the imperial title. At Rome the news of his election was received with universal joy, and confirmed by the senate; but two months after his accession he perished in a struggle with the Roman governor of Mauritania, who still adhered to Max' imin. Two senators of consular dignity, Pu- JIL PUPJE- P^ nus ? (sometimes called Max' imus) and Balbinus, were NUS AND then declared emperors by the senate ; and soon after, " us> Max' imin, while on his march from Pannonia to Rome, was slain in his tent by his own guards. (A. D. 238.) Only a few iv. SECOND days later both Pupienus and Balbinus were slain in GOB' DIAN. a mutiny of the troops. The youthful Gor' dian, grand- son of the former Gor' dian, was then declared emperor. 5. During these rapid changes in the sovereignty of the R'oman world, the empire was involved in numerous foreign wars, which gradually wasted its strength and resources, and hastened its down- fall. On the north, the German nations, and other barbarian tribes, almost constantly harassed the frontier provinces ; while in the east the Persians, after overthrowing the Parthian empire, and establish- ing the second or later Persian empire under the dynasty of the Sassan'idae, (A. D. 226,) commenced a long series of destructive wars against the Romans, with the constant object of driving the latter from Asia. 6. At the time of the accession of the second Gor' dian to the sovereignty of the Roman empire. Sapor, the second prince of the Sas' sanid dynasty, was driving the Romans from several of their Asiatic provinces. The efforts of Gor' dian, who went in person to protect the provinces of Syria, were partially successful ; but while CHAP. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 215 the youthful conqueror was pursuing his advantages, he was supplanted in the affections of his army by Philip the Arabian, the v PHILIP prefect or commander of the Praetorian guards, who caused THE his monarch and benefactor to be slain, (A. D. 244.) ARABIAN - 7. It is not surprising that the generals of Philip were disposed to imitate the example of their master, and that insurrections and rebellions were frequent during his reign. At length a rebellion having broken out in Pannonia, Decius was sent to sup- .. i i i_- i/. i i i VI. DECIUS. press it, when he himself was proclaimed emperor by the fickle troops, and compelled, by the threat of instant death, to submit to their dictation. Philip immediately marched against De- cius, but was defeated and slain near Verona. 1 (A. D. 249.) 8. Several monarchs now succeeded each other in rapid succession. Decius soon fell in battle with the Goths, (A. D. 251,) large num- bers of whom during his reign first crossed the Danube, and deso- lated the Roman provinces in that quarter. Gal' lus, a yii. GAL'- general of Decius, being raised to the throne, concluded LUS - a dishonorable peace with the barbarians, and renewed a violent per- secution of the Christians, which had been commenced by Decius As new swarms of the barbarians crossed the Danube, the pusillani mous emperor seemed about to abandon the defence of VIJI . ^ MILI the monarchy, when .ZEmilianus, governor of Pannonia A'NUS. and Mre' sia, unexpectedly attacked the enemy and drove them back into their own territories. His troops, elated by the victory, pro- claimed their general emperor on the field of battle ; and Gal' lus was soon after slain by his own soldiers. In three months IX . V ALB- a similar fate befel JEmilianus, when Valerian, governor KIAN - of Gaul, then about sixty years of age, a man of learning, wisdom, and virtue, was advanced to the sovereignty, not by the clamors of the army only, but by the unanimous voice of the Roman world. 9. Valerian possessed abilities that might have rendered his admin istration happy and illustrious, had he lived in times more peaceful, and more favorable for the display and appreciation of virtue ; but his reign had not only a most deplorable end, but was marked, through- out, with nothing but confusion and calamities. At this time the Goths, who had already formed a powerful nation on the lower Dan- 1. Ver6na^ a larg and flourishing Roman city of Cisalpine Gaul, still retains its ancient name. It is situated on both sides of the river Adige, sixty-four miles west from Venice. The great glory of Verona is its amphitheatre, one of the noblest existing monuments of the ancient Romans, and, excepting the Colosseum at Rome, the largest extant edifice of its class. It is supposed to have been capable of accommodating twenty thousand spectators. (Mnp No. XVII.) 216 MODERN HISTORY. [P A Rt II. ube and the northern coasts of the Black Sea, ravaged the Roman do- minions on their borders, and penetrating into the interior of Greece, or Achaia, destroyed AT' gos, Corinth, and Athens, by fire and by the sword: the Franks 4 , 1 who had formed a kingdom on the lower Rhine, began to be formidable : the Aleman' ni 3 broke through their boundaries, and advanced into the plains of Lorn' bardy* : Spain, G-aul, and Britain, were virtually torn away from the empire, and governed by independent chiefs; while in the East, the Persians, under their monarch Sapor, fell like a mountain torrent upon Syria and Cappadocia, and almost effaced the Roman power from Asia. 1 0. Valerian in person led the Roman army against the Persians, but, penetrating beyond the Euphrates, he was surrounded and taken prisoner by Sapor, who is accused of treating his royal captive with wanton and unrelenting cruelty, using him as a stepping-stone when he mounted on horseback, and at last causing him, after nine years of captivity, to be flayed alive; and his skin to be stuffed in the form x. GALLIE- f * n6 living emperor dyed in scarlet in mockery of Ntf^ his imperial dignity, and preserved as a trophy in a temple of Persia. Grallienus, the unworthy son of Valerian, receiv- ing the news of his father's captivity with secret joy and open in- difference, immediately succeeded to the throne. (A. D. 259.) 1 1. At the time when nearly every Roman town in Asia had sub- mitted to Sapor, Odenatus, prince of Palmyra,* who was attached 1. The Franks, or " Freemen," were a confederation of the rudest of the Germanic tribes, and were first known to the Romans as inhabiting the numerous islets formed by the mouth of the Rhine ; but they afterwards crossed into Gaul^ and, in the latter part of u,e fifth century, under their leader Clovis, laid the foundation of the French monarchy. (See also p. 255.) 2. The rflemari ni, or " all men," that is, men of all tribes, were also a German confederacy, situated" on the northern borders of Switzerland. They were finally overthrown by Clovis, after which they were dispersed over Gaul, Switzerland, and northern Italy. 3. Lorn' bardy embraced most of the great plain of northern Italy watered by the Po and its tributaries. 4. Palmyra, " The ancient " Tadmor in the wilderness" built by king Solomon, (2. Chron. viii. 4,) was situated in an oasis of the Syrian desert, about one hundred and forty miles north-east from Damascus. The first notice we have of it in Roman history is at the com- mencement of the wars with the Parthians, when it was permitted to maintain a state of inde- pendence and neutrality between the contending parties. Being on the caravan route from the coast of Syria to the regions of Mesopotamia, Persia, and India, it was long the principal em- porium of commerce between the Eastern and Western worlds a city of merchants and fac- tors, whose wealth is still attested by the number and magnificence of its ruins. After the victories of Trajan had established the unquestionable preponderance of the Roman arms, it became allied to the empire as a free State, and was greatly favored by Adrian and the Anto- nines, during whose reigns it attained its greatest splendor. Odenatus maintained its glory, and for his defeat of the Persians the Roman senate conferred on him the title of Augustus, and associated him with Gallienus in the empire; but his queen and successor, the famous Zenobia, broke the alliance with the imbecile Gallienus, annexed Egypt to her do- ' CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 217 to the Roman interest, desirous at least to secure the forbearance of the conqueror, sent Sapor a magnificent present of camels and mer- chandise, accompanied with a respectful, but not servile, epistle ; but the haughty monarch ordered the gifts to be thrown into the Euphra- tes, and returned for an answer that if Odenatus hoped to mitigate his punishments he must prostrate himself before the throne of Sapor with his hands tied behind his back. The Palmyrean prince, reading his fate in the angry message of Sapor, resolved to meet the Persian in arms. Hastily collecting a little army from the villages of Syria, and the tents of the desert, he fell upon and routed the Persian host, seized the camp, the women, and the treasures of Sa- por, and in a short time restored to the Romans most of the prov- inces of which they had been despoiledi 12. The indolence and inconstancy of Gallienus soon raised up a host of competitors for the throne, generally reckoned thirty in all, although the number of actual pretenders did not exceed nineteen. Among these was Odenatus the Palmyrean, to whom the Roman senate had intrusted the command of the Eastern provinces, after associating him with Gallienus. Of all these competitors, several of whom were models of virtue, two only were of noble birth, and not one enjoyed a life of peace, or died a natural death. As one after another was cut off by the arms of a rival, or by domestic treachery, armies and provinces were involved in their fall. During the deplorable reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, the contentions of the imperial rivals, and the arms of barbarians, brought the empire to the very brink of ruin. 1 3. Gallienus, after a reign of nine years, was murdered while he was besieging one of his rivals in Mediolanum ; l (Milan. XI CLAUDIUS A. D. 268 ;) but before his death he had appointed Mar- cus Aurelius Claudius, a general of great reputation, to succeed him, and the choice was confirmed by the joyful acclamations of the army and the people. minions, and assumed the title of " Augusta, Queen of the East." The emperor Aurelian marched against the ill-fated Palmyra with an irresistible force ; the walls of the city were razed to the ground ; and the seat of commerce, of arts, and of Zenobhi, gradually sunk into an obscure town, a trifling fortress, and, at length, a miserable Arab village. 1. Mediol&num, now Milan, was a city of Cisalpine Gaul, one hundred and fifty miles west from Venice, situated in a beautiful plain between two small streams the Olona and Lambra, which unite at San Angelo and form a northern tributary of the Po. Mediolanum was an- nexed to the Roman dominions by Scipio Nasica, 191 B. C. A good specimen of ancient Ro- man architecture may still be seen at Milan, being a range of sixteen beautiful Corinthian columns, with their architrave, before the church at San Lorenzo. (Map No. VII I.) 218 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT II. 14. A succession of better princes now restored for awhile the de- caying energies of the empire. Claudius merited the confidence which had been placed in his wisdom, valor, and virtue; and his early death was a great misfortune to the Roman world. After having overthrown and nearly destroyed an army of three hundred and twenty thousand Goths and Van' dais, who had invaded the em- pire by the way of the Bos' porus, Claudius was cut off by a pesti- lence at Sir' mium, 1 as he was making preparations to march against the famous Zenobia, the " Queen of the East," and the widow and successor of Odenatus. 15. Quintil'ius, the brother of Claudius, was proclaimed emperor xii. QUIN- by the acclamations of the troops ; but when he learned TIL' lus. that the great army of the Danube had invested Aurelian with imperial power, he sunk into despair, and terminated his life after a reign of seventeen days. 16. The reign of Aurelian, which lasted only four years and nine XIIL AURE- months, was filled with memorable achievements. After LIAN. a Bloody conflict, he put an end, by treaty, to the Gothic war of twenty years' duration ; he chastised and drove back the Aleman' ni, who had traced a line of devastation from the Danube to the Po ; he recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain ; and passing into Asia at the head of a large army, he destroyed the proud monarchy which Zenobia had erected there, and led that unfortunate, but heroic princess, captive to Rome. Being presented with an elegant villa at Tibur, 2 the Syrian queen insensibly sunk into a Roman matron, and her daughters married into the noblest families of the empire. "With great courage and superior military talents, Aurelian possessed many private virtues ; but their influence was impaired by the stern- ness and severity of his character. He fell in a conspiracy of his officers near Byzan' tium, 3 while preparing to carry on a war with Persia. (A. D. March, 275.) 1. Sir' mium was an important city in the south-eastern part of Pannonia, on the northern side of the river Save. Its ruins may be seen near the town of Mitrovitz, in Austrian Slavoniu. 2. Tibur^ now Tivoli, (tee-vo-le) was situated at the cascades of the A' nio, now the Tever- 6ne, eighteen miles north-east from Rome. Its ancient inhabitants were called the Tiburtim, The declivities in the vicinity of Tibur were anciently interspersed with splendid villas, the favorite residences of the refined and luxurious citizens of Rome, among which may be men- tioned those of Sallust, Maecenas, Tibul' lus, Varus, At' ticus, Cassius, Brutus, &c. Here Virgil and Horace elaborated their immortal works. Although the temples and theatres of ancient Tibur have crumbled into dust, its orchards, its gardens, and its cool recesses, still bloom and flourish in unfading beauty. (Map No. X.) 3. Byzan' tium, now Constantinople, a celebrated city of Thrace on the western shore of the Thracian Bos' porus, is supposed to have been founded by a Dorian colony from Meg' ara, led CHAP. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 219 17. On the death of Aurelian, a generous and unlooked-for dis- interestedness was exhibited by the army, which modestly referred the appointment of a successor to the senate. For six months the senate persisted in declining an honor it had so long been unaccus- tomed to enjoy ; and during this period the Roman world remained without a sovereign, without a usurper, and without a sedition. At length the senate yielded to the continual request of the , . . , , , , . ., . . , ,. . ,, xiv. TACITUS. legions, and elected to the imperial dignity Marcus Claudius Tacitus, a wealthy and virtuous senator, who had already passed his seventy-fifth year. Tacitus, after enacting some wise laws, and restoring to the senate its ancient privileges, proceeded to join the army, which had remained assembled on the Bos'porus 1 for the invasion of Persia ; but the hardships of a military life, and the cares of government, proved too much for his constitution, and he died in Cappadocia, after a reign of little more than six months. (A. D. Sept., 275.) 18. Florian, a brother of Tacitus, showed himself unworthy to reign, by assuming the government without even con- xv FLO '_ Suiting the senate. His own soldiers soon after put him BIAN - to death, while in the meantime the Syrian army proclaimed their leader, Probus, emperor. The latter proved to be an XVI PEO /_ excellent sovereign and a great general ; and in the wars BUS - which he carried on with the Franks, Aleman'ni, Sarmatians, 2 Goths, and Van' dais, 3 he gained greater advantages than any of his prede- cessors. In the several battles which he fought, four hundred thou- sand of the barbarians fell ; and seventy cities opened their gates to by Byzas a Thracian prince, about the middle of the seventh century before the Christian era. It was destroyed by the Persians in the reign of Darius : it resisted successfully the arms of Philip of Mac' edon : during the reign of Philip II. it placed itself under Roman sway : it was destroyed, and afterwards rebuilt, by Septim' ius Severus; and in the year 328 A. D., Con'stan- tine made it the capital of the Roman empire. On the subjugation of the western empire by the barbarians, A. D. 476, it continued to be the capital of the eastern empire. It was taken by the crusaders in the year 1204 ; and in 1453 it fell into the hands of the Turks, when the last remnant of the Roman empire was finally suppressed. (Map No. III.) 1. The Bos'porus, (corrupted by modern orthography to Bos' phorus,) is the strait which connects the Euxine or Black Sea, with the Propon' tis or Sea of Marmora. The length of this remarkable channel is about seveuteeen miles, with a width varying from half a mile to two miles. (Map No. VII.) 2. Ancient Sarmdtia extended from the Baltic Sea and the Via' tula to the Caspian Sea and the Volga. European Sarmatia embraced Poland, Lithuania, Prussia, and a part of Russia. Asiatic Sarmatia comprised the country between the Caspian Sea and the river Don. 3. The Van' dais were a people of Germany, and are supposed to have been of Gothic origin. They formed one of the three divisions of the great Slavonian race ; viz., Vandals, An' tea, and Slavonians proper. The Slavonian language is the stem from which have issued the Russian Polish, Bohemian, 4tc. 220 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL him. After he had secured a general peace by his victories, he em- ployed his armies in useful public works ; but the soldiers disdained such employment, and while they were engaged in draining a marsh near Sir' inium, in the hot days of summer, they broke out into a furious mutiny, and in their sudden rage slew their emperor. (A. D. 282.) 19. The legions next raised Cams, prefect of the Praetorian xvii. guards, to the throne. He was full of warlike ambition, CA' RUS. an( j the desire of military glory, and seems to have held a middle rank between good and bad princes. He signalized the beginning of his reign by a memorable defeat of the Sarmatians in Illyr' icum, sixteen thousand of whom he slew in battle. He then marched against Persia, and had already carried his victorious arms beyond the Tigris, when he was killed in his tent, as was NUMERIAN generally believed by lightning. (A. D. 283.) Nume- AND rian, one of the sons of Carus, who had accompanied his CARI'NUS. . , . .. ... , _ , * . .. lather in his eastern expedition, and (Jarinus his elder brother, who had been left to govern Rome, were immediately ac- knowledged emperors by the troops. 20. On the death of Carus, the eastern army, superstitiously re- garding places or persons struck by lightning as singularly devoted to the wrath of heaven, refused to advance any farther ; and the Per- sians beheld with wonder the unexpected retreat of a victorious army. While Carinus remained at Rome, immersed in pleasures, and acting the part of a second Com' modus, the virtuous Numerian perished by assassination. The army of the latter then chose for his successor Diocletian, the commander of the domestic body guards of the late emperor. (A. D. Dec., 285.) 21. Carinus, being determined to dispute the succession, marched with a large army against Diocletian, whom he was on the point of defeating in a desperate battle on the plains of Margus, a small city of Moe' sia, when he was slain by one of his own officers in revenge for some private wrong. The army of Carinus then acknowledged xix. DIOCLE- Diocletian as emperor. He used his victory with mild- TIAX. ness, and, contrary to the common practice, respected the lives and fortunes of his late adversaries, and even continued in their stations many of the officers of Carinus. 22. The reign of Diocletian is an important epoch in Roman history, as it was one of long duration and general prosperity, and is CHAP. I.] ROMAN HISTORY. 221 the beginning of the division of the Roman world into the Eastern and Western empire. The accession of Diocletian also marks a new chronological era, called the " era of Diocletian," or, " the era of martyrs," which was long recognized in the Christian church, and is still used by the Copts and Abyssinians. 1 23. The natural tendency of the eastern parts of the empire to become separated from the western, together with the difficulties of ruling singly over so many provinces of different nations and diverse interests, led Diocletian to form the plan of dividing the imperial authority, and governing the empire from two centres, although the whole was still to remain one. He therefore first took as a colleague his friend and fellow soldier Maxim' ian ; but still the weight of the public administration appearing too heavy, the two sovereigns took each a subordinate colleague, to whose name the title of Caesar was prefixed. 24. Maxim' ian made Milan his capital, while Diocletian held his court at Nicomedia, 3 in Asia Minor. Maxim' ian ruled xx MAXIM '. over Italy and Africa proper ; while his subordinate col- IAN - league, Constan' tius, administered the government of Gaul, Spain, Britain, and Mauritania. Diocletian reserved, for his personal su- pervision, nearly all the empire east of the Adriat' ic, except Panno- nia and Moe' sia, which he conferred upon his subordinate colleague Galerius. Each of the four rulers was sovereign within his own jurisdiction; but each was prepared to assist his colleagues with counsel and with arms; while Diocletian was regarded as the father and head of the empire. 25. The most important events .of the reign of Diocletian were the insurrection of Caravisius in Britain, a revolt in Egypt and throughout northern Africa, the war against the Persians, and a long- continued persecution of the Christians. During seven years, Carau- sius, the commander of the northern Roman fleet, ruled over Britain, and diffused beyond the columns of Hercules the terror of his name. He was murdered by his first minister Alec' tus ; but the latter, soon after, was defeated and slain in battle by Constan' tius ; and after a separation often years, Britain was reunited with the empire. 26. The suppression of a formidable revolt in Egypt was accom- 1. The Copts are Christians descendants of the ancient Egyptians, as distinguished from tho Arabians and other inhabitants of modern Egypt. The Myssinians, inhabitants of Abyssinia, in eastern Africa, profess Christianity, but it has little influence over their conduct. 2. Jficomedia was In Bithyn' ia, at the eastern extremity of the Propon' tU, or Sea of Mar- mora. The modern Is-Mid occupies the site of the ancient city. 222 MODERN HISTORY. plished by Diocletian himself, who took a terrible vengeance upon Alexandria, and utterly destroyed the proud cities of Busiris and Cop' tos. 1 In the meantime a confederacy of five Moorish 2 nations attacked all the Roman provinces of Africa, from the Nile westward to Mount Atlas, but the barbarians were vanquished by the arms of Maxim' ian. 27. Next commenced the war with Persia, which was carried on by Galerius, although Diocletian, taking his station at An' tioch, 3 pre- pared and directed the military operations. In the first campaign the Roman army received a total overthrow on the very ground rendered memorable by the defeat and death of Crassus. In a second campaign Gralerius gained a complete victory by a night attack ; and by the peace which followed, the eastern boundary of the Roman world was extended beyond the Tigris, so as to embrace the greater part of Cardiichia, the modern Kurdistan'. 4 28. The triumphs of Diocletian are sullied by a general perse- cution of the Christians (the tenth and last), which he is said to have commenced at the instigation of Gralerius, aided by the artifices of the priesthood. (A. D. 303.) The famous edict of Diocletian against the Christians excluded them from all offices, ordered their churches to be pulled down, and their sacred books to be burned, and led to a general and indiscriminate massacre of all such as professed the name of Jesus. 1. Four cities of Egypt bore the name of Busiris. The one destroyed by Diocletian was in the Thebais, or southern Egypt, generally called Upper Egypt. Cop' tos was likewise in Upper Egypt, east of the Nile. Its favorable situation for commerce caused it again to arise after its destruction by Diocletian. 2. The Moors, whose name is derived from a Greek word (Mauros) signifying " dark," " ob- scure," are natives of the northern coast of Africa, or, more properly, of the Roman Mauri- tania. The Moors were originally from Asia, and are a people distinct from the native Arabs, Berbers, &c. The modern Moors are descendants of the ancient Mauritanians, intermixed with their Arab conquerors, and with the remains of the Van' dais who once ruled over the country. 3. Jin' tioch, once eminent for its beauty and greatness, was situated in northern Syria, on the left bank of the Oron' tes, (now the Aaszy,) twenty miles from its entrance into the Medi- terranean. An' tioch was the capital of the Macedonian kingdom of Syria ; and about the year 65 B. C. the conquests of Pompey brought it, with the whole of Syria, under the control of the Romans. It was long the centre of an extensive commerce, the residence of the gov- ernor of Syria, the frequent resort of the Roman emperors, and, next to Rome, the most cele- brated city of the empire for the amusements of the circus and the theatre. Paul and Barnabas planted there the doctrines of Christianity ; and " the disciples were called Christians first in An' tioch." Acts, xi. 26. (Map No. VII.) 4. Kurdistan', comprised chiefly within the basin of the Tigris, is claimed partly by Turkey and partly by Persia. It is the country of the Kurds, in whose character the love of theft and brigandage is a marked feature; but, at the same time, when visited by travellers they exercise the most generous hospitality, and often force handsome presents on their departing guests. CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 223 29. During ten years the persecution continued with scarcely miti- gated horrors ; and such multitudes of Christians suffered death that at last the imperial murderers boasted that they had extinguished the Christian name and religion, and restored the worship of the gods to its former purity and splendor. In spite, however, of the efforts of tyranny, the Christian Church survived, and in a few years reigned triumphant in the very metropolis of heathen idolatry. 30. After a reign of twenty years, Diocletian, in the presence of a large concourse of citizens and soldiers who had assembled at Nicbmedia to witness the spectacle, voluntarily laid down the sceptre, and retired to private life ; and on the same day Maxim' ian, accord- ing to previous agreement, performed a similar ceremony at Milan. (May 1st, 305.) Galerius and Constan' tius mvs AND were thereupon acknowledged sovereigns ; and two sub- CONSTAN'- ordinates, or Caesars, were appointed to complete the system of imperial government which Diocletian had established. But this balance-of-power system needed the firm and dexterous hand of its founder to sustain it ; and the abdication of Diocletian was followed by eighteen years of discord and confusion. 31. One year after the abdication of the sovereigns, Constan' tius died at York, in Britain, when his soldiers proclaimed his son Con'- stantine emperor. In a short time the empire was divid- ^^ n OON /_ ed between six sovereigns ; but Con' stantine lived to STANTINK. see them destroyed in various ways ; and, eighteen years after his accession, having overcome in battle Licin' ius, the last of his rivals, he was thus left sole master of the Roman world, whose dominions extended from the wall of Scotland to Kurdistan', and from the Red Sea to Mount Atlas in Africa. Galerius had already died of a loathsome disease, which was considered by many as a punishment from Heaven for his persecution of the Christians. 32. Con' stantine has been styled the first Christian emperor. During one of his campaigns (A. D. 312) he is said to have seen a miraculous vision of a luminous cross in the Heavens, on which was inscribed the following words in Greek, " By this conquer" Certain it is that from this period Con' stantine showed the Christians marks of positive favor, and caused the cross to be employed as the imperial standard : in his last battle with Licin' ius it was the emblem of the cross that was opposed to the symbols of paganism ; and as the latter went down in a night of blood, the triumph of Christianity over the Roman world was deemed complete. 224 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II 33. The most important events in the reign of Con' stantine, after he had restored the outward unity of the empire, were his wars with the Sarmatians and Goths, whom he severely chastised ; his domestic difficulties, in which he showed little of the character of a Christian ; and the establishment, at Byzan' tium, of the new capital of the Ro- man empire; afterwards called Constantinople, from its founder. The motives which led Con' stantine to the choice of a new capital, on a spot which seemed formed by nature to be the metropolis of a great empire, were those of policy and interest, mingled with feel- ings of revenge for insults which he had received at Rome, where he was execrated for abandoning the religion of his forefathers. 34. The removal of the seat of government was followed by an entire change in the forms of civil and military administration. The military despotism of the former emperors now gave place to the despotism of a court, surrounded by all the forms and ceremonies, the pride, pomp, and circumstances, of Eastern greatness : all mag- istrates were accurately divided into new classes, and a uniform sys- tem of taxation was established, although the amount of tribute was imposed by the absolute authority of the monarch. Finally Con'- stantine, as he approached the end of his life, went back to the sys- tem of Diocletian, and divided the empire among his three sons Con' stantine, Constan' tius, and Con' stans, and his two nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. After a reign of thirty-one years Con' stantine the First died at Nicomedia, at the age of sixty-three years. (A. D. 337.) 35. The division of sovereign power among so many rulers in- volved the empire in frequent insurrections and civil wars, until, xxiii. CON- sixteen years from the death of Con' stantine, Constan'- STAN'TIUS n. ^ms, or Constan' tius II., after having seen all his rivals overcome, and several usurpers vanquished, was left in the sole pos- session of the empire. During his reign of twenty-four years he was engaged in frequent wars with the Franks, Saxons, 1 Aleman' ni, and Sarmatians, while the Persians continued to harass the Eastern 1. The Saxons were a people of Germany, whose original seats appear to have been on the neck of the Cimbric peninsula, (now Denmark,) between the Elbe and the Baltic, and embrac- ing the present Sleswick and Holslein. (Map No. XVII.) The early Saxons were a nation of fishermen and pirates ; and it appears that after they had extended their depredations to the coasts of Britain and eastern and southern Gaul, numerous auxiliaries from the shores of the Baltic joined them, and, gradually coalescing with them into a national body, accepted the name and the laws of the Saxons. In the early part of the fifth century, the Saxons were converted to Christianity by the Roman missionaries ; and half a century later they had obtained a per- manent establishment in Britain. CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 225 provinces. While Constan' tius was sustaining a doubtful war in the East, his cousin Julian, whom he had appointed to the command of the Western provinces, with the title of Caesar, was proclaimed emperor by his victorious legions in Gaul. Preparations for civil war were made on both sides ; but the Roman world was saved from the calamities of the struggle by the sudden death of Constan' tius. (A. D. 361.) 36. Julian, commonly called the Apostate, on account of his relaps- ing from Christianity into paganism, possessed many ami- able and shining qualities, and his application to business JTU' LIAN THK was intense. He reformed numerous abuses of his prede- APOSTATt cessor, but, in the great object of his ambition, the restoration of ancient paganism, although he had issued an edict of universal toler- ation, he showed a marked hostility to the Christians, subjecting them to many disabilities and humiliations, and allowing their ene- mies to treat them with excessive rigor. 37. Trained in the most celebrated schools of Grecian philosophy at Athens, Julian was an able writer and an artful sophist, and, employ- ing the weapons of argument and ridicule against the Christians, he strenuously labored to degrade Christianity, and bring contempt upon its followers. In this effort he was partially successful ; but ere long the sophisms of the " apostate emperor" were ably refuted by St. Cyril and others, and the result of the controversy was highly favorable to the increase and spread of the new religion. 38. Not relying upon the weapons of argument and ridicule alone, Julian aimed what he thought would be a deadly blow to Christi- anity, by ordering the temple of Jerusalem to be rebuilt, hoping thus to falsify the language of prophecy and the truth of Revela- tion. But although the Jews were invited from all the provinces of the empire to assemble once more on the holy mountain of their fathers, and every effort was made to secure the success of the under- taking, both by the emperor and the Jews themselves, the work did not prosper, and was finally abandoned in despair. 39. Most writers, both Christians and pagans, declare that the work was frustrated in consequence of balls of fire that burst from the earth and alarmed the workmen who were employed in digging the foundations. Whether these phenomena, so gravely and abun- dantly attested, were supernatural or otherwise, does not affect the authenticity of the prophecy that pronounced desolation upon Jeru- salem. The most powerful monarch of the earth, stimulated by 15 226 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. pride, passion, and interest, and aided by a zealous people, attempt- ed to erect a building in one of his cities, but found all his efforts vain, because " the finger of God was there." a 40. During the same year in ' which Julian attempted the re- building of the temple, he set out with a large army for the con- quest of Persia. The Persian monarch made overtures of peace through his ambassadors ; but Julian dismissed them with the decla- ration that he intended speedily to visit the court of Persia. He marched with great rapidity into the heart of the country, overcom- ing all obstacles, but being led astray in the desert by treacherous guides, his army was reduced to great distress by want of provisions, and he was forced to commence a retreat. At length Jdlian himself, in a skirmish which proved favorable to the Romans, was mortally wounded by a Persian javelin. He died the same night, spending his last moments, like Socrates, in philosophical discourse with his friends. (A. D. 363.) 41. In the death of Julian, the race of the great Con' stantine was extinct ; and the empire was left without a master and without an xxv . heir. In this situation of affairs, Jovian, who had held JO'VIAN. some important offices under Con' stantine, was pro- claimed emperor by the army, which was still surrounded by the Persian hosts. The first care of Jovian was to conclude a dishonor- able peace, by which five provinces beyond the Tigris, the whole of Mesopatamia, and several fortified cities in other districts, were sur- rendered to the Persians. On his arrival at An' tioch, Jovian re- voked the edicts of his predecessor against the Christians. Soon after, while on his way to Constantinople, he was found dead in his bed, having been accidentally suffocated, as was supposed, by the fumes of burning charcoal. (Feb. A. D. 364.) 42. After an interval of ten days, Valentin' ian, the commander of the body guard at the time of Jovian's death, was XXVI VAL- ENTIN' IAN elected emperor. One month later he associated with AND himself, as a colleague in the empire, his brother Valens, upon whom he conferred the government of the Eastern a. The probable explanation of the remarkable incidents attending the attempt of Julian to rebuild the temple, is, that the numerous subterranean excavations, reservoirs, &c., beneath and around the ruins of the temple, which had been neglected during a period of three hundred years, had become filled with inflammable air, which, taking fire from the torches of the work- men, repelled, by terrific explosions, those who attempted to explore the ruins. From a simi- lar cause terrible accidents sometimes occur in deeply-excavated mines. See Milman's Notes on Gibbon ; Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 447. CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 227 provinces, from the lower Danube to the confines of Persia ; while he reserved for himself the extensive territory reaching from the extremity of Greece to the wall of Scotland, and from the latter to the foot of Mount Atlas. This was the final division of the Roman world into the Eastern and Western Empire. The capital of the former was established at Constantinople, and of the latter at Milan. The city of Rome had long been falling into neglect and insignifi- cance. 43. Soon after the period at which we have now arrived, the inroads of the barbarian tribes upon the northern and ^^ VIL eastern frontiers of the empire became more vexatious BARBARIAN and formidable than ever. The Picts and Scots 1 ravaged ^BOABS. Britain ; the Saxons began their piracies in the Northern seas ; the German tribes of the Aleman' ni harassed Gaul ; and the Goths crossed the Danube into Thrace; but during the twelve years of Valentin' ian's reign, his firmness and vigilance repulsed the barba- rians at every point, while his genius directed and sustained the feeble counsels of his brother Valens. 44. About the time of the death of Valentin' ian, (A. D. 375) Valens was informed that the power of the Goths, long the enemies of Rome, had been subverted by the Huns, a fierce and warlike race of savages, till then unknown, who coming from the East, and crossing the Don and the sea of Azof, had driven before them the European nations that dwelt north of the Danube. The Vis' igoths first solicited from the Roman government protection against their ruthless in- vaders ; and a vast multitude of these barbarians, whose numbers amounted to near a million of persons, of both sexes, and all ages, were permitted to settle on the waste lands of Thrace. 45. In the meantime the Os' trogoths, pressed forward by the un- relenting Huns, appeared on the banks of the Danube, and solicited the same indulgence that had been shown to their countrymen ; and when their request was denied they crossed the stream with arms in their hands, and established a hostile camp on the territories of the empire. The two divisions of the Gothic nation now united their forces under their a&e general Frit' igern, and raising the standard 1. The Picts were a Caledonian race, famed for their marauding expeditions into the country south of them. The Scots were also a Caledonian race, who are believed to have come, origin- ally, from Spain into Ireland, whence they passed over into Scotland. The genuine descend ants of the ancient Scotch are believed to be the Gaels, or Highlanders, who speak the Erse or Gaelic language, which differs but little from the Irish. 228 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL of war devastated Thrace, Mac' edon, and Thes' saly, and carried their ravages to the very gates of Constantinople. In a decisive battle fought near Adrianople 1 the Romans were defeated, and Valens him- self was slain. (A. D. 378.) 46. Gratian, the son of Valentin' ian, and his successor in the Western empire, was already on his march to the aid of G&A'TIA'N Valens, when he heard the tidings of the defeat and AND death of his unfortunate colleague. Too weak to avenge THEODO'SIUS. i . p , T . t. i. 1,'Tj. j. 1 his late, and conscious ot his inability to sustain alone the sinking weight of the empire, he chose as his associate Theodo- sius, afterwards called the Great, assigned to him the government of the East, and then returned to his own provinces. Theodosius, by his prudence, rather than his valor, delivered his provinces from the scourge of barbarian warfare. The Goths, after the death of their great leader Frit' igern, were distracted by a multiplicity of counsels ; and while some of them, falling back into their' forests, carried their conquests to the unknown regions of the North, others were allowed to settle in Thrace, Phrygia, and Lydia, where, in the bosom of des- potism, they cherished their native freedom, manners, and language, and lent to the Roman arms assistance at once precarious and dangerous. 47. Five years after the accession of Theodosius, Gratian perished xxix. VAL- m an attempt to quell a revolt of Max' imus, governor ENTIN'IAN IT. O f Britain, who had been joined by the legions of Gaul. Valentin' ian II., who succeeded Gratian, was driven from Italy by the usurper, and forced to take refuge in the court of Theodosius ; but the latter, marching into Italy, defeated and slew Max' imus, and restored the royal exile to his throne. (A. D. 388.) The murder of Valentin' ian by the Gaul Abrogas' tes, and the revolt which he excited, (A. D. 392,) again called for the interference of Theodosius in the affairs of the West. His arms soon triumphed over all oppo- sition ; and the whole empire again came, for the last time, into the , hands of one individual. (A. D. 394.) Theodosius died XXX. HONO * _/ RIUS AND four months after his victory, having previously bestowed ARCA DIUS. U p 0n his youngest son, Honorius, the throne of Milan, and upon the eldest, Arcadius, that of Constantinople. 1. Jldrianople, one of the most important cities of Thrace, stood on the left bank of the rivei Hebrus, now the Maritza, in one of the richest and finest plains of the world, one hundred and thirty-four miles north-west from Constantinople. It was founded by and named after the em- peror Adrian, although in early times a small Thracian village existed there, called Uskadama. It is now the second city in the Turkish empire, containing a population of not less than one hundred thousand soula. (Map No. VII.) CHAP. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 229 48. The civil wars that followed the accession of the new empe- ror were soon interrupted by the more important events of new bar- barian invasions. Scarcely had Theodosius expired, when the Gothic nation, guided by the bold and artful genius of Al'aric, XXXI AL/A _ who had learned his lessons of war in the school of EIC THE Frit' igern, was again in arms. After nearly all Greece GOTH- had been ravaged by the invader, Stil'icho, the able general of Honorius, came to its assistance ; but AF aric evaded him by passing into Epirus, and soon after, crossing the Julian Alps, 1 advanced toward Milan. (A. D. 403.) 49. Honorius fled from his capital, but was overtaken by the speed of the Gothic cavalry, and obliged to shut himself up in the little fortified town of As' ta, 3 where he was soon surrounded and besieged by the enemy. Stil' icho hastened to the relief of his sov- ereign, and suddenly falling upon the Goths in their camp at Pollen'- tia, 3 routed them with great slaughter, released many thousand prison- ers, retook the magnificent spoils of Corinth, Athens, Argos, and Sparta ; and made captive the wife of Al' aric. The Gothic chief, undaunted by this sudden reverse, hastily collected his shattered army, and breaking through the unguarded passes of the Apennines, spread desolation nearly to the walls of Rome. The city was saved by the diligence of Stil' icho ; but the withdrawal of the barbarians from Italy was purchased by a large ransom. 50. The recent danger to which Honorius had been exposed at Milan, induced the un warlike emperor to seek a more secure retreat in the fortress of Raven' na,* which, from this time to the middle of 1. Augustus divided the Alpine chain, which extends from the Gulf of Genoa to the Adriat'- ic, in a crescent form, into seven portions ; of which the Julian range, terminating in Illyr'- icum, is the most eastern. 2. As' ta (now Jlsti) was on the north side of the river Tanarus, (now Tandro) in Liguria, twenty-eight miles south-east from Turin. 3. u The vestiges of Pollen' tia are twenty-five miles to the south-east of Turin." (Gibbon, ii. 221.) "The modern village of Pollenza stands near the site of the ancient city." Cramer'* Italy, i. 28. 4. Raven' na was situated on the coast of the Adriat' ic, a short distance below the mouths of the Po. A '.though originally founded on the sea-shore, in the midst of marshes, in the days of Strabo th marshes had greatly increased, seaward, owing to the accumulation of mud brought dowi by the Po and other rivers. In the latter times of the republic it was the great naval station of the Romans on the Adriat' ic. Augustus constructed a new harbor three miles from the old town, but in no very long time this was filled up also, and, " as early as the fifth or sixth century of the Christian era, the port of Augustus was converted into pleasant gardens; and a lonely grove of pines covered the ground where the Roman fleet once rode at anchor." (Gibbon, ii. 224.) But this very circumstance, though it lessened the naval importance, in- creased the strength of the place, and the shallowness of the water was a barrier against large ships of the enemy. The only means of access inland was by a long and narrow causeway 230 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL the eighth century ; was considered as the seat of government and the capital of Italy. The fears of Honorius were not without founda- tion ; for scarcely had Al' aric departed, when another deluge of bar- barians, consisting of Vandals, 1 Suevi, 8 Burgun' dians, 3 Goths, and Alani, and numbering not less than two hundred thousand fighting men, under the command of Radagaisus, poured down upon Italy. 51. The Roman troops were now called in from the provinces for the defence of Italy, whose safety was again intrusted to the counsels and the sword of Stil' icho. The barbarians passed, without resist- ance, the Alps, the Po, and the Apennines, and were allowed by the wary Stil' icho to lay siege to Florence, 4 when, securing all the passes, he in turn blockaded the besiegers, who, gradually wasted by famine, were finally compelled to surrender at discretion. (A. D. 406.) The triumph of the Roman arms was disgraced by the execution of Radagaisus ; and one-third of the vast host that had accompanied him into Italy were sold as slaves. sereral miles in extent, over an otherwise impassable morass ; and this avenue might be easily guarded or destroyed on the approach of a hostile army. Being otherwise fortified, it was a place of great strength and safety ; and during the last years of the Western empire was the capital of Italy, and successively the residence of Honorius, Valentin' ian, Odoacer, Theod' oric, and the succeeding Gothic monarchs. It is now a place of about sixteen thousand inhabitants, and is chiefly deserving of notice for its numerous architectural remains. (Map No. VIII.) 1. Van' dais, see p. 219. 2. The Suevi were a people of eastern Germany who finally settled in and gave their name to the modern Suabia. 3. The Burgun' dians dwellers in burgs or towns a name given to them by the more nomade tribes of Germany, were a numerous and warlike people of the Gothic or Van' dal race, who can be traced back to the banks of the Elbe. Driven southward by the Gep' idae, they pressed upon the Aleman' ni, with whom they were in almost continual war. They were granted by Honorius, the Roman emperor, the territory extending from the Lake of Geneva to the junction of the Rhine with the Moselle, as a reward for having sent him the head of the usurper Jovinus. A part of Switzerland and a large portion of eastern France belonged to their new kingdom, which, as early as the year 470, was known by the name of Burgundy. Their seat of government was sometimes at Lyons, and sometimes at Geneva. Continually endeavoring to extend their limits, they were at last completely subdued, in a war with the Franks, by the son of Clovis, after Clovis himself had taken Lyons. Their name was for a long time retained by the powerful dukedom, afterwards province of Burgundy, now divided into several departments. 4. Florence, (anciently Florentiaj) is a city of central Italy on the river Arno, (anciently Arnus,) one hundred and eighty-seven miles north-west from Rome. It owes its first distinction to Sylla, who planted in it a Roman colony. In the reign of Tiberius it was one of the principal cities of Italy. In 541 it was almost wholly destroyed by Totila, king of the Goths, but was restored by Charlemagne, after which it was, for a long time, the chief city of one of the most famous of the Italian republics. It is now the capital of the grand-duchy of Tuscany, which comprises the northern part of ancient Etriiria. With a population of one hundred thousand, it bears the aspect of a city filled with nobles and their domestics a city of bridges, churches, and palaces. It has produced more celebrated men than any other city of Italy, or perhaps of Europe ; among whom may be specified Dan' te, Petrarch, Boccacio, Lorenzo de Medici, Galileo, Michael An' gelo, Macchiavelli, the Popes Leo X, and XI., and Clement VII., VIII., and XII. CHAP. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 231 52. Two years after the great victory of Stil' icho, that minister, whose genius might have delayed the fall of the empire, was treach- erously murdered by the orders of the jealous and unworthy Hono- rius. The monarch had soon reason to repent of his guilty rashness. Adopting the counsels of his new ministers, he ordered a massacre of the families of the barbarians throughout Italy. Thirty thousand Gothic soldiers in the Roman pay immediately revolted, and invited Al' aric to avenge the slaughter of his countrymen. 53. Again Al' aric entered Italy, and without attempting the hopeless siege of Raven' na marched direct to Rome, which, during a period of more than six hundred years, had not been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy. After the siege had been protracted until the rigors of famine had been experienced in all their horror, and thousands were dying daily in their houses or in the streets for want of sustenance, the Romans sought to purchase the withdrawal of their invaders. The terms of Al' aric were, at first, all the gold and silver in the city, all the rich and precious movables, and all the slaves of bar- barian origin. When the ministers of the senate asked, in a modest and suppliant tone, " If such, King, are your demands, what do you intend to leave us ?" " YOUR LIVES," replied the haughty conqueror. 54. The stern demands of Al' aric were, however, somewhat re- laxed, and Rome was allowed to purchase a temporary safety by pay- ing an enormous ransom of gold and silver and merchandize. Al' aric retired to winter quarters in Tuscany, 1 but as Honorius and his ministers, enjoying the security of the marshes and fortifications of Raven' na, refused to ratify the treaty that had been concluded by the Romans, the Goth turned again upon Rome, and, cutting off the supplies, compelled the city to surrender. (A. D. 409.) He then conferred the sovereignty of the empire upon At' talus, prefect of the city, but soon deposed him and attempted to renew his nego- tiations with Honorius. The latter refused to treat, when the king of the Goths, no longer dissembling his appetite for plunder and re- venge, appeared a third time before the walls of Rome; treason opened the gates to him, and the city of Romulus was abandoned to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia. 1. Tuscany, after the fall of the Western empire, successively belonged to the Goths and Lombards. Charlemagne added it to his dominions, but under his successors it became in- dependent. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was divided among the famous repub- lics of Florence, Pisa, and Sienna : in 1531 these were reunited Into a duchy which, in 1737, fell into the hands of the house of Austria. In 1801 Napoleon erected it into the kingdom of Etrima : in 1808 it was incorporated with the French empire ; and in 1814 it reverted to Austria. 232 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL 55. The piety of the Goths spared the churches and religious houses, for Al' aric himself, and many of his countrymen, professed the name of Christians ; but Rome was pillaged of her wealth, and a terrible slaughter was made of her citizens. Still Al' aric was un- willing that Rome should be totally ruined ; and at the end of six days he abandoned the city, and took the road to southern Italy. As he was preparing to invade Sicily, with the ulterior design of subju- gating Africa, his conquests were terminated by a premature death. (A. D. 410.) His body was interred in the bed of a small rivulet, 3 - and the captives who prepared his grave were murdered, that the Romans might never learn the place of his sepulture. 56. After the death of AFaric, the Goths gradually withdrew from Italy, and, a few years later, that branch of the nation called Vis' igoths established its supremacy in Spain and the east of Gaul. Toward the middle of the same century, the Britons, finally aban- doned by the Romans, and unable to resist the barbarous inroads of the Picts and Scots, applied for assistance to the Angles 1 and Saxons, warlike tribes from the coasts of the Baltic. The latter, after driv- ing back the Picts and Scots, turned their arms against the Britons, and after a long struggle finally established themselves in the island. 57. During these events in the north and west, the Van' dais, a Gothic tribe which had aided in the reduction of Spain, and whose name, with a slight change, has been given to the fertile province of Andalusia, 3 passed the straits of Gibraltar under the guidance of their chief Gen'- xxxii seric, and, in the course of ten years, completed, in the VALENTIN'- capture of Carthage, the conquest of the Roman prov- IAN in. j nceg O f northern Africa. (A. D. 439.) Honorius was already dead, and had been succeeded by Valentin' ian III., a youth xxxin on ty s ^ x J ears f a o e - I D tne meantime At' tila, justly CONQUESTS called the " scourge of God " for the chastisement of ' LA ' the human race, had become the leader of the Hunuish 3 hordes. He rapidly extended his dominion over all the tribes of Germany and Scythia, made war upon Persia, defeated Theodosius, 1. Jingles. From (hem the English have derived their name. 2. Andalusia, so called from the Van' dais, comprised the four Moorish kingdoms of Seville, Cor' dova, Jaen, and Granada. It is the most southern division of Spain. Trajan and the Senecas were natives of this province. (Map No. XIII.) 3. The Huns, when first known, in the century before the Christian era, dwelt on the western borders of the Caspian sea. The power of the Huns fell with At' tila, and the nation was soon after dispersed. The present Hungarians are descended from the Huns, intermingled with Turkish, Slavonic, and German races. a. The Busentinus, a small stream that washes the walls of Consenlia, now Cosenza. CHAP.!.] ROMAN HISTORY. 233 the emperor of the East, in three bloody battles, and after ravaging Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, pursued his desolating march west- ward into Gaul, but was defeated by the Romans and their Gothic allies in the bloody battle of Chalons. 1 (A. D. 451.) The next year the Huns poured like a torrent upon Italy, and spread their ravages over all Lombardy. This visitation was the origin of the Venetian republic, 2 which was founded by the fugitives who fied at the terror of the name of At' tila. 58. The death of the Hunnic chief soon after this inroad, the civil wars among his followers, and the final extinction of the empire of the Huns, might have afforded the Romans an opportunity of escap- ing from the ruin which impended over them, if they had not been lost to all feelings of national honor. But they had admitted numer- ous bands of barbarians in their midst as confederates and allies ; and these, courted by one faction, and opposed by another, became, ere long, the actual rulers of the country. The provinces were pil- laged, the throne was shaken, and often overturned by seditions ; and two years after the death of At' tila, Rome itself was X xxiv. THE taken and pillaged by a horde of Van' dais from Africa, VAN'DAL^, conducted by the famous Gen' seric, who had been invited across the Mediterranean to avenge the insults which a Roman princess* had received from her own husband. (A. D. 455.) 1. Ch&lons (shah-long) is a city of France, on the river Marne, a branch of the Seine, ninety- five miles east from Paris, and twenty-seven miles soulh-east from Rheirns. It is situated in the middle of extensive meadows, which were formerly known as the Catalauniau fields, (Gibbon, iii. 340.) In the battle of Chalons the nations from the Caspian sea to the Atlantic fought together ; and the number of the barbarians slain has been variously estimated at from one hundred and sixty-two thousand to three hundred thousand. (Map No. XIII.) 2. The origin of Venice dates from the invasion of Italy by the Huns, A. D. 452. The city ia built on a cluster of numerous small islands in a shallow but extensive lagoon, in the north- western part of the Adriat' ic, north of the Po and the Adige, about four miles from the main land. It is divided into two principal portions by a wide canal, crossed by the principal bridge in the city, the celebrated Rialto. Venice is traversed by narrow lanes instead of streets, sel- dom more than five or six feet in width! but the grand thoroughfares are the canals ; and gondolas, or canal boats, are the universal substitute for carriages. Venice gradually became a wealthy and powerful independent commercial city, maintaining its freedom against Charlemagne and his successors, and yielding a merely nominal allegiance to the Greek emperors of Constantinople. Towards the middle of the fifteenth century the re- public was mistress of several populous provinces in Lom'bardy, of Crete and Cyprus of the greater part of southern Greece, and most of the isles of the /Egean sea ; and it continued to engross the principal trade in Eastern products, till the discovery of a route to India by the Cape of Good-Hope turned this traffic into a new channel. From this period Venice rapidly declined. Stripped of independence and wealth, she now enjoys only a precarious existence, and is slowly sinking into the waves from which she arose. (Map No. VIII.) a. Eudox'ia, the widow of Valentin' ian III., had leen compelled to marry Max' imus, the murderer, and successor in the empire, of her late husband, and it was she who invited the Van' dal chief to avenge her wrongs. 234 MODERN HISTORY. [PAST II. 59. After the withdrawal of the Van' dais, which occurred the year of the death of Valentin' ian III., Av' itus, a Gaul, was installed xxxv Emperor by the influence of the gentle and humane AV'ITUS. Theod'oric, king of the Vis' igoths ; but he was soon de- MAJO JUAN. p 0gec j by Ric' imer, the Gothic commander of the barba- rian allies of the Romans. (A. D. 456.) The wise and beneficent Majorian was then advanced to the throne by Hie' imer ; but his virtues were not appreciated by his subjects ; and a sedition of the troops compelled him to lay down the sceptre after a reign of four years. (A. D. 461.) 60. Ric' imer then advanced one of his own creatures, Severus, to the nominal sovereignty; but he retained all the powers of state in his own hands. Annually the Van' dais from Africa, having now the control of the Mediterranean, sent out from Carthage, their seat of empire, piratical vessels or fleets, which s*pread desolation and terror over the Italian coasts, and entered at will nearly every port in the Roman dominions. At length applica- tion for assistance was made to Leo, then sovereign of the Eastern empire, and a large armament was sent from Constantinople to Car- thage. But the aged Gen' seric eluded the immediate danger by a truce with his enemies, and, in the obscurity of night, destroyed by fire almost the entire fleet of the unsuspecting Romans. 61. Amid the frequent revolutionary changes that were occurring in the sovereignty of the Western empire, 8 - Roman freedom and dig- nity were lost in the influence of the confederate barbarians, who formed both the defence and the terror of Italy. As the power of the Romans themselves declined, their barbarian allies augmented their demands and increased their insolence, until they finally insisted, with arms in their hands, that a third part of the lands of Italy should be divided among them. Under their leader Odoacer, a chief of the barbarian tribe of the Her' uli, 1 they overcame the little re- I. Of all the barbarians who threw themselves on the ruins of the Roman empire, it is most difficult to trace the origin of the Her' uli. Their names, the only remains of their language, are Gothic ; and it is believed that they came originally from Scandinavia. They were a fierce people, who disdained the use of armor: their bravery was like madness : in war they showed no pity for age, nor respect for sex or condition. Among themselves there was the same ferocity : the sick and the aged were put to death at their own request, during a solemn festi- val ; and the widow hung herself upon the tree which shadowed her husband's tomb. The Her' uli, though brave and formidable, were few in number, claiming to be mostly of royal blood ; and they seem not so much a nation, as a confederacy of princes and nobles, bound by an oath to live and die together with their arms in their hands. ( Gibbon, iii. 8 ; and Note, 495-6.) a. The remaining sovereigns of the Western empire, down to the time of its subversion were Anthemius, Olyb' rius, Glycei us, Nepos, and Augus' tulus. CHAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 235 sistance that was offered them ; and the conqueror, abolishing the im- perial titles of Caesar and Augustus, proclaimed him- self king of Italy. (A. D. 476.) The Western em- pire of the Romans was subverted : Roman glory had THE WEST- , T! ,., . , , , . ,, ERN EMPIRE. passed away: Roman liberty existed only m the remem- brance of the past : the rude warriors of Germany and Scythia pos- sessed the city of Romulus ; and a barbarian occupied the palace of the Caesars. X ' 236 MODERN HISTORY. [PART H CHAPTER II. HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES: EXTENDING FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS A. D. 476, TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, A. D. 1492 = 1016 TEARS. SECTION I. GENERAL HISTORY, FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS, TO THE BEGINNING OF THE TENTH CENTURY I = 424 YEARS. ANALYSIS. 1. INTRODUCTORY. The period embraced in the Middle Ages. 2. Unin- structive character of its early history. At what period its useful history begins. 3. Extent of the barbarian irruptions. The Eastern Roman empire. Remainder of the Roman world. 4. The possessions of the conquerors toward the close of the sixth century. The changes wrought by them. Plan of the present chapter. 5. THE MONARCHY OF THE HER' ULI. Its overthrow. G. MONARCHY OF THE OS'TROGOTHS. Theod' oric. Treatment of his Roman and barbarian subjects. 7. General prosperity of his reign. Extent of his empire. The Os' trogoth and Vis' igoth nations again divided. 8. The successors of Theod' oric. The emperor of the East. 9. THE ERA OF JUSTIN' IAN. State of the kingdom. Persian war. 10. Justin' ian's armies. Absence of military spirit among the people 11. Af- rican war. First expedition of Belisarius, and overthrow of the kingdom of the Van' dais. Fate of Gel' imer. His Van' dal subjects. 12. Sicily subdued. Belisarius advances into Italy. Besieged in Rome. 13. The Gothic king Vit'iges surrenders. Final reduction of Italy by Nar' ses. 14. Second war with Persia. Barbarian invasion repelled by Belisarius. Mournful fate of Belisarius. Death and character of Justin' ian. 15. His reign, why memorable. Its brightest ornament. Remark of Gibbon. History of the " Pandects and Code." 16. Subse- quent history of the Eastern empire. Invasion of Italy by the Lombards. 17. THE LOMBARD MONARCHY. Its extent and character. 18. Period of general repose throughout Western Europe. Events in the East. 19. The darkness that rests upon European history at this period. Remark of Sismondi. The dawning light from Arabia. 20. THE SARACEN EMPIRE. History of the Arabians. 21. Ancient religion of the Arabs. Re- ligious toleration in Arabia. [Judaism. The Magian idolatry.] 22. Mahomet begins to preach a new religion. 23. The declared medium of divine communication with him. Declared origin of the Koran. 24. The materials of the Koran. Chief points of Moslem faith. Punishment of the wicked. The Moslem paradise. Effects of the predestinarian doctrine of Mahomet. Practical part of the new religion. Miracles attributed to Mahomet. [Mecca.] 25. Beginning of Mahomet'? preaching. The H egi ra. 26. Mahomet at Medina. [Medina.] Progress of the new religion through out all Arabia. [Mussulman.] 27. The apostasy that followed Mahomet's death. Restoration of religious unity. 28. Saracen conquests in Persia and Syria. [Saracens. Bozrah.] 29. Con- quest of all Syria. [Ernes' sa. Baalbec. Yermouk. Aleppo.] 30. Conquest of Persia, and expiration of the dynasty of the Sassan' idse. [Cadesiah. Review of Persian History.] 31. Conquest of Egypt. Destruction of the Alexandrian library. 32. Death of Omar. Caliphate of Othman. 33. Military events of the reign of Othman. [Rhodes. Tripoli.] Othman's suc- cessors. Conquest of Carthage, and all northern Africa 34. Introduction of the Saracens into Spain. 35. Defeat of Roderic, and final conquest of Spain. [Guadalete. Guadalquiver. Meri- da.] 36. Saracen encroachments in Gaul. Inroad of Abdelrahman. [The Pyrenees.] 37. Over- CHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 237 throw of the Saracen hosts by Charles Martel. Importance of this victory. [Tours. Poictiers.] 38. The Eastern Saiacens at this period. [Hindostan.] Termination of the civil power of the central caliphate. 39. The power that next prominently occupies the field of history. 40. MOMARCUY OF THE FRANKS : its origin. [Tournay. Cambray. Terouane. Cologne.] Clovis. Extent of his monarchy. [Soissons. Paris.] 41. Religious character of Clovis. His barbarities. 42. The descendants of Clovis. Royal murders. Regents. Charles Martel. Pepin, the first monarch of the Carlovingian dynasty. [Papal authority.] 43. The reign, and the character, of Pepin. His division of the kingdom. 44. First acts of the reign of Charle- magne. [The Loire.] The Saxons. Motives that led Charlemagne to declare war against them. [The Elbe.] 45. His first irruption into their territory. [Weser.] History of Witikind. Saxon rebellion. Changes produced by these Saxon wars. 46. Causes of the war with the Lombards. Overthrow of the Lombard kingdom. [Geneva. Pavia.] 47. Charlemagne's expedition into Spain. [Catalonia. Pampeliina. Saragos' sa. Roncesvalles.] 48. Additional conquest*. Charlemagne crowned emperor at Rome. 49. Importance of this event. General character of the reign of Charlemagne. [A5x-la-Chapelle.] His private life. His cruelties. Concluding estimate. 50. Causes that led to the division of the empire of Charlemagne. 51. Invasion of the Northmen. 52. Ravages of the Hungarians. The Saracens on the Mediterranean coasts. Changes, and increasing confusion, in European society. The island of Britain. 53. ENGLISH HISTORY. Saxon conquests. Saxon Heptarchy. 54. Introduction and spread of Christianity. 55. Union of the Saxon kingdoms. Reign of Egbert, and ravages of the Northmen. 56. The successors of Egbert. Accession of Alfred. Slate of the kingdom. 57. Alfred withdraws from public life lives as a peasant visits the Danish camp. 58. Defeats the Danes, and overthrows the Danish power. Defence of the kingdom. 59. Limited sov- ereignty of Alfred. Danish invasion under Hastings. The Danes withdraw. Alfred's power at the lime of his death. 60. Institutions, character, and laws, of Alfred. 1. The "Middle Ages," to which it is impossible to fix accurate limits, may be considered as embracing that dark and x INTEO- gloomy period of about a thousand years, extending from DCCTORY. the fall of the Western empire of the Romans nearly to the close of the fifteenth century, at which point we detect the dawn of mod- ern civilization, and enter upon the clearly -marked outlines of modern history. a 2. The history of Europe during several centuries after the over- throw of the Western Roman empire offers little real instruction to repay the labor of wading through the intricate and bloody annals of a barbarous age. The fall of the Roman empire had carried away with it ancient civilization ; and during many generations, the elements of society which had been disruptured by the surges of barbarian power, continued to be widely agitated, like the waves of the ocean, long after the fury of the storm has passed. It is only when the victors and the vanquished, inhabitants of the same country, had become fused into one people, and a new order of things, new bonds of society, and new institutions began to be developed, that the useful history of the Middle Ages begins. 3. We must bear in mind that it was not Italy alone that was a. " The ten centuries, from the fifth to the fifteenth, seem, in a general point of view, to con- stitute the period of the Middle Ages." HalLam. 238 MODERN HISTORY. [PAJLT IL affected by the tide of barbarian conquest ; but that the storm spread likewise over Gaul, Spain, Britain, and Northern Africa ; while the feeble empire which had Constantinople for its centre, alone escaped the general ruin. Here the majesty of Rome was still faintly rep- resented by the imaginary successors of Augustus, who continued until the time of the crusades to exercise a partial sovereignty over the East, from the Danube to the Nile and the Tigris. The remainder of the Roman world exhibited one scene of general ruin ; for wherever the barbarians marched in successive hordes, their route was marked with blood : cities and villages were repeatedly plundered, and often destroyed ; fertile and populous provinces were converted into deserts ; and pestilence and famine, following in the train of war, completed the desolation. 4. When at length, toward the close of the sixth century, the frenzy of conquest was over, and a partial calm was restored, the Saxons, from the shores of the Baltic, were found to be in possession of the southern and more fertile provinces of Britain : the Franks or Freemen, a confederation of Germanic tribes, were masters of Gaul : the Huns, from the borders of the Caspian Sea, occupied Pannonia ; the Goths and the Lombards, the former originally from northern Asia, and the latter of Scandinavian origin, had established themselves in Italy and the adjacent provinces ; and the Gothic tribes, after driving the Van' dais from Spain, had succeeded to the sovereignty of the peninsula. A total change had come over the state of Europe : scarcely any vestiges of Roman civilization re- mained ; but new nations, new manners, new languages, and new names of countries were everywhere introduced ; and new forms of government, new institutions, and new laws began to spring up out of the chaos occasioned by the general wreck of the nations of the Roman world. In the present chapter we shall pass rapidly over the history of the Middle Ages ; aiming only to present the reader such a general outline, or framework, of its annals, as will aid in the search we shall subsequently make for the seeds of order, and the first rudiments of policy, laws, and civilization, of Modern Europe. 5. After Odoacer, the chief of the tribe of the Her' uli, had con- quered Italy, he divided one third of the ample estates of the nobles ii. THE MON- amon g his followers ; but although he retained the gov- AUCHY OF eminent in his own hands, he allowed the ancient forms IER ULI. Q f a ^ mm j s t ra tion to remain ; the senate continued to sit, as usual ; and after seven years the consulship was restored ; while CHAP. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 239 none of the municipal or provincial authorities were changed. Odoacer made some attempts to restore agriculture in the provinces ; but still Italy presented a sad prospect of misery and desolation. After a duration of fourteen years, the feeble monarchy of the Her' uli was overthrown by the Os' trogoth king, Theod' oric, who, disregarding his plighted faith, caused his royal captive, Odoacer, to be assassinated at the close of a conciliatory banquet. (A. D. 493.) 6. Theod'oric, the first of the Os' trogoth kings of Italy, had been brought up as a hostage at the court of Constantinople. At times the friend, the ally, and the enemy of the imbecile III. MON- monarchs of the Eastern empire, he restored peace to AKCHY OF Italy, and a degree of prosperity unusual under the THE OS'TKO- sway of the barbarian conquerors. Like Odoacer, he in- dulged his Koman subjects in the retention of their ancient laws, language, and magistrates; and employed them chiefly in the ad- ministration of government ; while to his rude Gothic followers he confided the defence of the State ; and by giving them lands which they were to hold on the tenure of military service, he endeavored to unite in them the domestic habits of the cultivator, with the ex- ercises and discipline of the soldier. 7. Theod' oric encouraged improvements in agriculture, revived the spirit of commerce and manufactures, and greatly increased the population of his kingdom, which, at the close of his reign, embraced nearly a million of the barbarians, many of whom, however, were soldiers of fortune and adventurers who had flocked from all the sur- rounding barbarous nations to share the riches and glory which Theod' oric had won. Theod' oric reigned thirty-three years ; and at the time of his death his kingdom occupied not only Sicily and Italy, but also Lower Gaul, and the old Roman provinces between the head of the Adriat' ic and the Danube. If he had had a son to whom he might have transmitted his dominions, his Gothic succes- sors would probably have had the honor of restoring the empire of the West; but on his death, (A. D. 526) the two nations of the Os'- trogoths and the Vis' igoths were again divided ; and the reign of the Great Theod' oric passed like a brilliant meteor, leaving no per- manent impression of its glory. 8. Seven Os' trogoth kings succeeded Theod' oric on the throne of Italy during a period of twenty-seven years. Nearly all met with a violent death, and were constantly engaged in a war with Justin' ian, emperor of the East, who finally succeeded in reducing 240 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. Italy under his dominion. The reign of that monarch is the most brilliant period in the history of the Eastern empire ; and as it fol- lows immediately after the career of Theod' oric in the West, and embraces all that is interesting in the history of the period which it occupies, we pass here to a brief survey of its annals. 9. The year after the death of Theod' oric, Justin' ian succeeded iv THE kis uncle Justin on the throne of the Eastern empire. ERA OF His reign is often alluded to in history as the " Era of JUSTIN' IAN. Jug / tmian Q n ki s access i on ne found the kingdom torn by domestic factions ; hordes of barbarians menaced the fron- tiers, and often advanced from the Danube three hundred miles into the country ; and during the first five years of his reign he waged an expensive and unprofitable war with the Persians. The conclusion of this war, by the purchase of a peace at a costly price, enabled Justin' ian, who was extremely ambitious of military fame, to turn his arms to the conquest of distant provinces. 10. Justin' ian never led his armies in person; and his troops con- sisted chiefly of barbarian mercenaries Scythians, Persians, Her' uli, Van' dais, and Goths, and a small number of Thracians : the citizens of the empire had long been forbidden, under preceding emperors, to carry arms, a short-sighted policy which Justin' ian's timidity and jealousy led him to adopt : and so little of military spirit re- mained among the people, that they were not only incapable of fight- ing in the open field, but formed a very inadequate defence for the ramparts of their cities. Under these circumstances, with but a small body of regular troops, and without an active militia from which to recruit his armies, the military successes of Justin' ian are among the difficult problems of the age. 1 1. Africa, still ruled by the Van' dais, first attracted the military ambition of Justin' ian, although his designs of conquest were con- cealed under the pretence of restoring to the Van'dal throne its legitimate successor, of the race of the renowned Gen' seric. The first expedition, under the command of Belisarius, the greatest gen- eral of his age, numbering only ten thousand foot soldiers and five thousand horsemen, landed, in September 533, about five days' jour- ney to the south of Carthage. The Africans, who were still called Romans, long oppressed by their Van' dal conquerors, hailed Belisa- rius as a deliverer; and Gel' imer, the Van' dal king, who ruled over eight or nine millions of subjects, and who could muster eighty thou- CHAP. IL1 MIDDLE AGES. 241 sand warriors 1 of his own nation, found himself suddenly alone with his Van' dais in the midst of a hostile population. Twice Gel' imer was routed in battle ; and before the end of November Africa was conquered, and the kingdom of the Van' dais destroyed. Gel' imer himself, having capitulated, was removed to Galatia, where ample possessions were given, him. and where he was allpwed to .grow old in peace, surrounded by his friends and kindred, and a few faithful fol- lowers. The bravest of the Van' dais enlisted in the armies of Jus- tin' ian ; and ere long the remainder of the Van' dal nation in Africa, being involved in the convulsions that followed, entirely disappeared. 1*2. Justin' ian next projected the conquest of the Gothic empire of Italy, and its dependencies ; and in the year 535 Belisarius land- ed in Sicily at the head of a small army of seven thousand five hun- dred men. In the first campaign he subdued that island : in the second year he advanced into southern Italy, where the old Roman population welcomed him with joy, and the Goths found themselves as unfavorably situated as the Van' dais had been in Africa ; but, deposing their weak prince, they raised Vit' iges to the throne, who was a great general and a worthy rival of Belisarius. The latter gained possession of Rome, (Dec. 536,) where for more than a year he was besieged by the Goths ; and although he made good his de- fence, almost the entire population of the city in the meantime per- ished by famine. 13. Vit' iges himself was next besieged in Raven' na, and was finally forced to surrender the place, and yield himself prisoner. (Dec. 539.) He was deeply indebted to the generosity of Justin' ian, who allowed him to pass his days in affluence in Constantinople. The jealousy of Justin' ian, however, having recalled Belisarius from Italy, in a few years the Goths recovered their sway ; but it was over a country almost deserted of its inhabitants. At length, in the year 552, Justin' ian formed in Italy an army of thirty thousand men, which he placed under the command of the eunuch Nar' ses, who unexpectedly proved to be an able general, In the following year the last of the Os' trogoth kings was slain in battle, and the empire of Justin' ian was extended over the deserted wastes of the once fer- tile and populous Italy. (A. D. 554.) 1 4. In the East, Justin' ian was involved in a second war with Chosroes, or Nashirvan, the most celebrated Persian monarch of the L. Gibbon, Hi. 03, says one hundred and sixty thousand ; and Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, i. 221, has the same number. See the correction in Milman's Notes to Gibbon. 16 242 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL Sassanid dynasty. Hostilities were carried on during sixteen years (A. D. 540 556) with unrelenting obstinacy on both sides ; but after a prodigious waste of human life, the frontiers of the two empires remained nearly the same as they were before the war. When Jus- tin' ian was nearly eighty years of age he was again obliged to have recourse to the' services of his old general Belisarius, not less age'd than himself, to repel an invasion of the barbarians who had ad- vanced to the very gates of Constantinople. At the head of a small band of veterans, who in happier years had shared his toils, he drove back the enemy ; but the applauses of the people again excited the jealousy and fears of the ungrateful monarch, who, charging his faithful servant with aspiring to the empire, caused his eyes to be torn out, and his whole fortune to be confiscated ; and it is said that the general who had conquered two kingdoms, was to be seen blind, and led by a child, going about with a wooden cup in his hand to so- licit charity. Justin' ian died at the age of eighty-three, after a reign of more than thirty-eight years. (Nov. 565.) The character of Justin' ian was a compound of good and bad qualities ; for al- though personally inclined to justice, he often overlooked, through weakness, the injustice of others, and was in a great measure ruled during the first half of his reign by his wife Theodora, an unprin- cipled woman, under whose orders many acts of oppression and cruelty were committed. 15. The reign of Justin' ian forms a memorable epoch in the his- tory of the world. He was the last Byzantine emperor who, by his dominion over the whole of Italy, reunited in some measure the two principal portions of the empire of the Caesars. But his exten- sive conquests were not his chief glory : the brightest ornament of his reign, which has immortalized his memory, is his famous compi- lation of the Roman laws, known as the " Pandects and Code of Justin' ian." " The vain titles of the victories of Justin' ian," says Gibbon, " are crumbled into dust : but the name of the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting monument." To a commission of ten emiment lawyers, at the head of which was Tribonian, Jus- tin' ian assigned the task of reducing into a uniform and consistent code, the vast mass of the laws of the Roman empire ; and after this had been completed, to another commission of seventeen, at the head of which also was Tribonian, was assigned the more difficult work of searching out the scattered monuments of ancient jurispru- dence, of collecting and putting in order whatever was useful in CHAP. H] MIDDLE AGES. 243 the books of former jurisconsults, and of extracting the true spirit of the laws from questions, disputes, conjectures, and judicial de- cisions of the Roman civilians. This celebrated work, containing the immense store of the wisdom of antiquity, after being lost during several centuries of the Dark Ages, was accidentally brought to light in the middle of the twelfth century, when it contributed greatly to the revival of civilization ; and the digest which Gibbon has made of it is now received as the text book on civil Law in some of the universities of Europe.* 16. The history of the Eastern or Greek empire, during several centuries after Justin' ian, is so extremely complicated, and its an- nals so obscure and devoid of interest, that we pass them by, for sub- jects of greater importance. Three years after the death of Justin'- ian, Italy underwent another revolution. In the year 568, the whole Lombard nation, comprising the fiercest and bravest of the Germanic tribes, led by their king Alboin, and aided by twenty thousand Sax- ons, descended from the eastern Alps, and at once took possession of northern Italy, which, from them, is called Lombardy. The Lombard monarchy, thus established, lasted, under twenty-one kings, during a period of little more than two centuries. 1 7. As the Lombards advanced into the country, the inhabitants shut themselves up in the walled cities, many of which, y THE after enduring sieges, and experiencing the most dread- LOMBARD ful calamities, were compelled to surrender ; but the MONARCHY - Lombard dominion never embraced the whole peninsula. The islands in the upper end of the Adriat' ic, embracing the Venetian League, the country immediately surrounding Raven' na, together with Rome, Naples, and a few other cities, remained under the juris- diction of the Eastern or Greek emperors, or were at times inde- pendent of foreign rule. The Lombards were ruder and fiercer than the Goths who preceded them ; and they at first proved to the Ital- ians far harder task-masters than any of the previous invaders ; but the change from a wandering life exerted an influence favorable to their civilization ; and their laws, considered as those of a barba- rous people, exhibited a considerable degree of wisdom and equality. 18. The period at which we have now arrived, towards the close of the sixth century, exhibits the first interval of partial repose that had fallen upon Western Europe since the downfall of the Roman empire. Some degree of quiet was now settling upon Italy under a. Notes to Gibbon, iii. 151. 244 MODERN HISTORY. [PART JI the rule of the Lombard kings : the Goths were consolidating their power in Spain : a stable monarchy was gradually rising in France, from the union of the Gallic tribes ; and the Saxons had firmly es- tablished themselves in the south of Britain. The only events in the East that attract our notice consist of a series of wars between the Greek emperors and the Persians, during which period, if we are to rely upon doubtful narratives which wear the air of fables, at one time all the Asiatic provinces of the Eastern empire were conquered by the Persians; and subsequently, the whole of Persia, to the frontiers of India, was conquered by the monarchs of the Eastern empire. Eventually the two empires appear to have become equally exhausted ; and when peace was restored (A. D. 628) the ancient boundaries were recognized by both parties. 19. But while a degree of comparative repose was settling upon Europe, a night of darkness, owing to the absence of all reliable documents, rests upon its history, down to the time of Charlemagne. " A century and a half passed away," says Sismondi, " during which we possess nothing concerning the whole empire of the West, except dates and conjectures. " a This obscurity lasts until a new and unex- pected light breaks in from Arabia ; when a nation of shepherds and robbers appears as the depository of letters which had been allowed to escape from the guardianship of every civilized people. 20. Turning from the darkness which shrouds European history in the seventh century, we next proceed to trace the remarkable rise and establishment of the power of the Saracens. In the parched. vr THE san dy, an d, i n great part, desert Arabia, a country SARACEN, nearly four times the extent of France, the hardy Arab, IRE " of an original and unmixed race, had dwelt from time immemorial, in a constant struggle with nature, and enjoying all the wild freedom of the rudest patriarchal state. The descendants of Ishmael the " wild man of the desert" have always been free, and such they will ever remain ; an effect, at once, of their local position, and, as many believe, the fulfilment of prophecy ; and although a few of the frontier cities of Arabia have been at times temporarily subjected by the surrounding nations, Arabia, as a country, is the only land in all antiquity that never bowed to the yoke of a foreign conqueror. 21. The ancient religion of the Arabs was Sabaism, or star -worship, which assumed a great variety of forms, and was corrupted by adora- tion of a vast number of images, which were supposed to have some a. Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, i. 258. CHAP. II] MIDDLE AGES. 245 mysterious affinity to the heavenly bodies. The Arabs had seven temples dedicated to the seven planets : some tribes exclusively re- vered the moon, others the dog star : Judaism* was embraced by a few tribes, Christianity by some, and the Magian idolatry 1 of Persia by others. So completely free was Arabia, each sect or tribe being independent, that absolute toleration necessarily existed ; and numer- ous refugee sects that fled from the persecution of the Roman empe- rors, found in the wild wastes of that country a quiet asylum. 22. About the beginning of the seventh century, Mahom'et or Moham'med, an Arabian impostor, descended from the Sabaean priests of Mecca, where was the chief temple of the Sabaean idola- try, began to preach a new religion to his countrymen. He repre- sented to them the incoherence and grossness of their religious rites, and called upon them to abandon their frail idols, and to acknowl- edge and adore the One true God, the invisible, all good, and all- powerful ruler of the universe. Acknowledging the authenticity both of the Jewish scriptures and the Christian revelation, he pro- fessed to restore the true and primitive faith, as it had been in the days of the patriarchs and the prophets, from Adam to the Messiah. 23. Like Numa of old, Mahom' et sought to give to the doctrines which he taught the sanction of inspired origin and miraculous ap- proval ; and as the nymph Egeria was the ministering goddess of the former, so the angel Gabriel was the declared medium of divine communication with the latter. During a period of twenty-three 1. The Magian idolatry consisted of the religious belief and worship presided over by the Magian priesthood, who comprised, originally, one of the six tribes into which the nation of the Medes was divided. The Magi, or w wise men,' 1 had not only religion, but the higher branches of all learning also, in their charge ; and they practised different sorts of divination, astrology, and enchantment, for the purpose of disclosing the future, influencing the present, and calling the past to their aid. So famous were they that their name has been applied to all orders of magicians and enchanters. Zoroas' ter, who is supposed to have lived about the seventh century before Christ, reformed the Magian religion, and remodelled the priesthood ; and by some he is considered the founder of the order. The Marian priests taught that the gods are the spiritual essences of fire, earth, and water, that there are two antagonistic powers in nature, the one accomplishing good designs, the other evil ; that each of these shall subdue and be subdued by turns, for six thousand years, but that, at last, through the intervention of the still higher and Supreme Being, the evil principle shall perish, and men shall live in happiness, neither needing food, nor yielding a shadow. The great influence of the Magi is well illustrated in the book of Daniel, where Nebuchad- nezzar invoked the aid of the different classes of their order magicians, astrologers, sorcerers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. In the time of the Saviour, the Magian system was not extinct, as we have evidence of in the allusion made to Simon Magus, who boasted himself to be tt some great one." (Acts, viii. 9 xiii. 6, &c.) a. By the term Judaism is meant the religious rites and doctrines of the Jews, as enjoined in the law of Moses. 246 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL years occasional revelations, as circumstances required, are said to have been made to the Prophet, who was consequently never at a loss for authority to justify his conduct to his followers, or for author- itative counsel in any emergency. These revelations, carefully treas- ured up in the memories of the faithful, or committed to writing by amanuenses, (for the Moslems boast that the founder of their religion could neither read nor write,) were collected together two years after the death of the Prophet, and published as the Koran, or Moham/- medan Bible. 24. The materials of the Koran are borrowed chiefly from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and from the legends, traditions, and fables of Arabian and Persian mythology. The two great points of Moslem faith are embraced in the declaration " There is but one God, and Mahom' et is his prophet." The other prominent points of the Moslem creed are the belief in absolute predestina tion, the existence and purity of angels, the resurrection of the body, a general judgment, and the final salvation of all the dis- ciples of the Prophet, whatever be their sins. Wicked Moslems are to expiate their crimes during different periods of suffering, not to exceed seven thousand years ; but infidel contemners of the Koran are to be doomed to an eternity of woe. A minute and appalling description is given of the place and mode of torment, a vast re- ceptacle, full of smoke and darkness, dragged forward with roaring noise and fury by seventy thousand angels, through the opposite ex- tremes of heat and cold, while the unhappy objects of wrath are tor- mented by the hissing of numerous reptiles, and the scourges of hideous demons, whose pastime is cruelty and pain. The Moslem paradise is all that an Arab imagination can paint of sensual felici- ty ; groves, rivulets, flowers, perfumes, and fruits of every variety to charm the senses ; while, to every other conceivable delight, sev- enty-two damsels of immortal youth and dazzling beauty are assigned to minister to the enjoyment of the humblest of the faithful. The promise to every faithful follower of the Prophet, of an unlimited indulgence of the corporeal propensities, constitutes a fundamental principle of the Moham' medan religion. The predestinarian doctrine of Mahom' et led his followers towards fatalism, and exercised a marked influence upon their lives, and especially upon their warlike character ; for as it taught them that the hour of death is determined beforehand, it inspired them with an indifference to danger, and gave a permanent security to their bravery. Mahom' et promised to those OHAP. II.J MIDDLE AGES. 247 of his followers who fell in battle an immediate admission to the joys of paradise. The practical part of the new religion consisted of prayer five times a day, and frequent ablutions of the whole body, alms, fastings, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. 1 Tradition asserts that Mahom' et confirmed by miracles the truth of his religion ; and a mysterious hint in the Koran has been converted, by the traditionists, into a circumstantial legend of a nocturnal journey through the seven heavens, in which Mahom' et conversed familiarly with Adam, Moses, and the prophets, and even with Deity himself. 25. It was in the year 609, when Mahom' et was already forty years old, that he began to preach his new doctrine at Mecca. His first proselytes were made in his own family ; but by the people his pretensions were long treated with ridicule ; and at the end of thir- teen years he was obliged to flee from Mecca to save his life. (A. D. 622.) This celebrated flight, called the Hegira, is the grand era of the Moham' medan religion. 26. Repairing to Yatreb, the name of which he changed to Medi- na, 2 (or Medinet el Nebbi, the city of the Prophet,) he was there re- ceived by a large band of converts with every demonstration of joy; and soon the whole city acknowledged him as its leader and prophet. Mahomet now declared that the empire of his religion was to be es- tablished by the sword : every day added to the number of his prose- lytes, who, formed into warlike and predatory bands, scoured the desert in quest of plunder ; and after experiencing many successes and several defeats, Mahom' et, in the seventh year of the Hegira, with scarcely a shadow of opposition, made himself master of Mecca, whose inhabitants swore allegiance to him as their temporal and spiritual prince. The conquest or voluntary submission of the rest of Arabia soon followed, and at the period of Mahom' et's last pil- grimage to Mecca, in the tenth year of the Hegira, and the year of his death, a hundred and fourteen thousand Mussulmen 3 marched under his banner. (A. D. 632.) 1. Mecca, the birth-place of Mahom' et, and the great centre of attraction to all pilgrims of the Moham' medan faith, is in western Arabia, about forty miles east from the Red Sea. Formerly the concourse of pilgrims to the " holy city" was immense ; but the taste for pil- grimages is now rapidly declining throughout the Moham' medan world. 2. Medina is situated in western Arabia, one hundred miles north-east from iU port of Yembo on the Red Sea, and two hundred and sixty miles north from Mecca. It is surrounded by a wall about forty feet high, flanked by thirty towers. It is now chiefly important as being in posses- sion of the tomb containing the remains of the prophet. 3. The word Mussulman, which is used to designate a follower of Mahom' et, signifies, In the Turkish language, " a true believer." 248 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. 27. Mahom' et died without having formed any organized govern- ment for the empire which he had so speedily established ; and al- though religious enthusiasm supplied, to his immediate followers, the place of legislation, the Arabs of the desert soon began to relapse into their ancient idolatries. The union of the military chiefs of the Prophet alone saved the tottering fabric of Moslem faith from dis- solution. Abubekr, the first believer in Mahom ' et's mission, was declared lieutenant or caliph ; and the victories of his general Khaled, surnamed " the sword of God," over the apostate tribes, in a few months restored religious unity to Arabia. 28. But the spirit of the Saracens 1 needed employment; and pre- parations were made to invade the Byzantine and Persian empires, both of which, from the long and desolating wars that had raged between them, had sunk into the most deplorable weakness. Khaled advanced into Persia and conquered several cities near the ruins of Babylon, when he was recalled, and sent to join Abu Obeidah, who had marched upon Syria. Palmyra submitted : the governor of Boz- rah 2 turned both traitor and Mussulman, and opened the gates of the city to the invaders ; Damascus was attacked, besieged, and finally one part of the city was carried by storm at the moment that an- other portion had capitulated. (Aug. 3d, 634.) Abubekr died the very day the city was taken, and Omar succeeded to the Caliphate. 29. The fall of Ernes' sa, 3 and Baalbec u or Heliop'olis, soon fol- 1. The word Saracen, from sara, " a desert," means an Arabian. 2. Eozrah, was fifty miles south from Damascus, and eighty miles north-east from Jerusalem. Though now almost deserted, the whole town and its environs are covered with pillars and other ruins of the finest workmanship. It is frequently mentioned in Scripture. In Jeremiah, xlix. 13, we read, " For I have sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah shall become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse." (Map No. VI.) 3. Ernes' sa, now Hems, a city of Syria, was on the eastern bank of the Oron'tes, now the Aaszy, eighty-five miles north-east from Damascus. It was the birth-place of the Roman em- peror Elagabalus. (Map No. VI.) 4. Baalbec, or Heliop' olis, the former a Syrian and the latter a Greek word both meaning the "city of the sun," was a large and splendid city of Syria, forty miles north-west from Da- mascus, and about thirty-five miles from the Mediterranean. The remains of ancient architec- tural grandeur in Baalbec are more extensive than in any other city of Syria, Palmyra excepted. It is believed that Baal-Ath, buill by Solomon in Lebanon, (2. Chron. viii. 6,) was identical with Baal-Bee. While under the Roman power it was famed for its wealth and splendor ; and the terms of its surrender to the Saracens sufficiently attest its great resources at that period : two thousand ounces of gold, four thousand ounces of silver, two thousand silken vests, and one thousand swords, besides those of the garrison, being the price demanded and paid to pre- serve it from plunder. Although repeatedly sacked and dismantled, yet the changes that have taken place in the channels of commerce are the principal causes of its decay ; and, judging from its decline during the last century, from five thousand inhabitants to less than two hun- dred, probably the day is not far distant when, like many other Eastern cities, it will cease to be inhabited. (Map No. VI.) OHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 249 lowed that of Damascus. Herac' lius, the Byzantine emperor, made one great effort to save Syria, but on the banks of the Yermouk 1 his best generals were defeated by Khaled with a loss of seventy thousand soldiers, who were left dead on the field. (Nov. 636.) Jerusalem, after a siege of four months, capitulated to Omar, who caused the ground on which had stood the temple of Solomon to be cleared of its rubbish, and prepared for the foundation of a mosque, which still bears the name of the Caliph. The reduction of Aleppo 3 and An- tioch, six years after the first Saracen invasion, completed the con- quest of Syria. (A. D. 638.) 30. In the meantime the conquest of Persia had been followed up by other Saracen generals. In the same year that witnessed the battle of Yermouk, the Persians and Saracens fought on the plains of Cadesiah 3 one of the bloodiest battles on record. Seven thousand five hundred Saracens and one hundred thousand Persians are said to have fallen. The fate of Persia was determined, although the Persian monarch kept together some time longer the wrecks of his empire, but he was finally slain in the year 65 1 , and with him ex- pired the second Persian dynasty, that of the Sassan' idae. 4 31. Soon after the battle of Cadesiah, Omar intrusted to his lieu- 1. The Yermouk, the Hieromax of the Greeks, is a river that empties into the Jordan from the east, seventy-five miles south-west from Damascus. ( Map No. VI.) 2. .lleppo, in northern Syria, is one hundred and ninety-six miles north-east from Damascus, and fifty-five miles east from Autiocb. It is surrounded by massive walls thirty-feet high and twenty broad. It was once a place of considerable trade, communicating with Persia and India by way of Bagdad, and with Arabia and Egypt by way of Damascus ; but the discovery of a passage to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope struck a deadly blow at its greatness, and it is now little more than a shadow of its former self. 3. Cadesiah was on the borders of the Syrian desert, south-west from Babylon. 4. The overthrow of the last of the great Persian dynasties is an appropriate point for a brief review of Persian history. It has been stated that, after the overthrow of the Persian monarchy by Alexander the Great, Asia continued to be a theatre of wars waged by his ambitious successors, until Seleucus, about the year 307 before our era, established himself securely in possession of the countries between the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Oxus, and thus founded the empire of the Seleucida. This empire continued undisturbed until the year 250 B. C., when the Parthians, under drsaces, revolted, and established the Parthian empire of the Jlrsac' idae. The Parthian empire at- tained its highest grandeur in the reign of its sixth monarch, Mithridates I., who carried his arms even fariher than Alexander himself. The descendants of Arsaces ruled until A. D. 226, a period of 480 yeara, when the last prince of that family was defeated and taken prisoner by Ar' deshir Bab' igan, a revolted Persian noble of the family of Sassan, who thus became the founder of the dynasty of the Sassan' idTORY. western side of the island, the kindred tribes of the Angles and Sax- ons, under the common name of Anglo Saxons, established in England seven independent kingdoms, which are known in history as the Saxon Heptarchy. The intricate details, so far as we can learn them, of the history of these kingdoms, are uninteresting and unimportant ; and from the period of the first inroads of the Saxons down to the time of the coronation of Alfred the Great in 872, the chronicles of Britain present us with the names of numerous kings, the dates of many battles, and frequent revolutions attended with unimportant results ; the history of all which is in great part conjectural, and gives us little insight into individual or national character. 54. It appears that about the year 597 Christianity was first intro duced into England by the monk Augustine, accompanied by forty missionaries, who had been sent out by pope Gregory for the con- version of the Britons. The new faith, such as it pleased the church to promulgate, being received cordially by the kings, descended from them to their subjects, and was established without persecution, and without the shedding of the blood of a single martyr. The religious zeal of the Anglo Saxons greatly exceeded that of the nations of the continent ; and it is recorded that, during the Heptarchy, ten kings and eleven queens laid aside the crown to devote themselves to a monastic life. 55. In the year 827 the several kingdoms of the Saxon Hep- tarchy were united in one great State by Egbert, prince of the West Saxons, an ambitious warrior, who exhibits some points of compari- son with his illustrious co temporary Charlemagne, at whose court he had spent twelve years of his early life. The Saxon union, under the firm administration of Egbert, promised future tranquillity to the in- 262 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL habitants of Britain ; but scarcely had a regular government been es- tablished when the piratical Scandinavians, known in France under the name of Normans, and in England by that of Danes, landed in the southern part of the island, and after a bloody battle with Eg- bert at Charmouth in Dorsetshire, made good their retreat to their ships, carrying off all the portable wealth of the district. (A. D. 833.) This was the beginning of the ravages of the Northmen in England ; and they continued to plunder the coasts for nearly two centuries. 56. From the death of Egbert in 838, to the accession of Alfred the Great in 871, the throne of England was occupied by four Saxon princes ; a and the whole of this period, like the corresponding one in French history, is filled with the disastrous invasions of the Danes. b In the course of a single year nine sanguinary battles were fought between the Saxons and their invaders ; and in the last of these bat- tles king Ethelred received a wound which caused his death (871-2.) His brother Alfred, then only twenty-two years of age, succeeded to the throne. He had served with distinction in the numerous bloody battles fought by his brother ; but on his accession he found nearly half the kingdom in the possession of the Danes ; and within six years the almost innumerable swarms of these in- vaders struck such terror into the English, that Alfred, who strove to assemble an army, found himself suddenly deserted by all his war riors. 57. Obliged to relinquish the ensigns of royalty, and to seek shelter from the pursuit of his enemies, he disguised himself under the habit of a peasant, and for some time lived in the cottage of a goatherd, known only to his host, and regarded by his hostess as an inferior, and occasionally intrusted by her with the menial duties of the household. It is said that, as he was one day trimming his ar- rows by the fire-side, she desired him to watch some cakes that were baking, and that when, forgetting his trust, he suffered them to burn, she severely upbraided him for his neglect. Afterwards, retiring with a few faithful followers to the marshes of Somersetshire, he built there a fortress, whence he made occasional successful sallies upon the Danes, who knew not from what quarter the blow came. While his very existence was unsuspected by the enemy, under the a. Ethelwolf, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred. b. As the term Normans was at a later period exclusively appropriated to that branch of the Scandinavians which settled in Normandy, we shall follow the English writers and apply the term Danes to those barbarians of the same family who so long ravaged the English coasts. . It should not be forgotten by the reader that the Saxons also were of Scandinavian origin. CHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 263 disguise of a harper he visited tneir camp, where his musical skill obtained for him a welcome reception, and an introduction to the tent of the Danish prince, Guthrum. Here he spent three days, wit- nessed the supine security of the enemy, thoroughly examined the camp and its approaches, and then went to meet his countrymen, for whom he had appointed a gathering in Selwood forest. a 58. The Saxons, inspired with new life and courage at the sight of their beloved prince, whom they had supposed dead, fell upon the unsuspecting Danes, and cut nearly all of them to pieces. (A. D. 878.) Guthrum, and the small band of followers who escaped, were soon besieged in a fortress, where they accepted the terms of peace that were offered them. Guthrum embraced Christianity ; the greater part of the Danes settled peaceably on the lands that were assigned them, where they soon intermingled with the Saxons ; while the more turbulent spirits went to join new swarms of their countrymen in their ravages upon the French and German coasts. The shores of England were unvisited, during several years, by the enemy, and Alfred employed the interval of repose in organizing the future de- fence of his kingdom. In early life he had visited Italy, and seen the Greek and Roman galleys, which were greatly superior to the Danish unarmed vessels, that were fitted only for transport. Alfred now formed a navy ; and his vessels never met those of the Danes without the certain destruction of the latter. 59. The Danes, however, who had settled in England, still occu- pied the greater part of the country, so that the acknowledged sov- ereignty of Alfred did not extend over any of the countries north- ward of the city of London, and fifteen years after the defeat of Guthrum, Hastings, another celebrated Danish chief, threatened to deprive the English king of the limited possessions which he still re- tained. After having plundered all the northern provinces of France, Hastings appeared on the coast of Kent with three hundred and thirty sail, and spreading his forces over the country, committed the most dreadful ravages. (A. D. 893.) The Danes in the northern parts of England joined him ; but they were everywhere defeated, and eventually Hastings withdrew to his own country, taking back with him the most warlike portion of the Danish population, from the English channel to the frontiers of Scotland, after which the whole of England no longer hesitated to acknowledge the authority of Al- fred, although his power over the Danish population in the northern a. At Brixton, on the borders of the forest, in Wiltshire. Wiltshire is east of Someraet. 264 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II part of the kingdom was still little more than nominal. He died after a reign of twenty-nine years and a-half, having deservedly at- tained the appellation of Alfred the GREAT, and the title of founder of the English monarchy. (A. D. 901.) 60. To Alfred the English ascribe the origin of many of those in- stitutions which lie at the foundation of their nation's prosperity and renown. As the founder of the English navy, he planted the seeds of the maritime power of England : with him arose the grandeur and prosperity of London, the place of the assembling of the national parliament or body of prelates, earls, barons, and burghers, or depu- ties from the English burghs, or associations of freemen : he made a collection of the Saxon laws, to which he added others framed or sanctioned by himself; he reformed the Saxon division of the country into counties and shires ; divided the citizens into corporations of fens and hundreds, with a regular system of inspection and police, in which equals exercised a supervision over equals ; and in the mode which he adopted of settling controversies, we trace the first indica- tions of the glory of the English judiciary -the trial by jury. The cultivation of letters, which had been interrupted at the first inva- sion of the then barbarous Saxons, was revived by Alfred, who was, himself, the most learned man in the kingdom: he founded schools at Oxford the germ of the celebrated university of that name ; and he set aside a considerable portion of his revenues for the pay- ment of the salaries of teachers. The character of Alfred is almost unrivalled in the annals of any age or nation ; and in the details of his private life we cannot discover a vice, or even a fault, to stain or stilly the spotlessness of his reputation. SECTION II. GENERAL HISTORY DURING THE TENTH, ELEVENTH, TWELFTH, AND THIR- TEENTH CENTURIES: A. D. 900 TO 1300 = 400 YEARS. I. COMPLETE DISSOLUTION OF THE BONDS OF SOCIETY. ANALYSIS. 1. Causes of the CONFUSION OP HISTORIC MATERIALS at this period. 2. STATE or THE SARACKN WORLD. [Bagdad. Cor'dova. Khorassan'.] 3. THE BYZ\NTINK KMPIRK. Turkish invasions and conquests. [Georgia.] 4. The divisions of the Carlovingian empire. CONDITION OF ITALY. Berenger duke of Friuli. Prince of Burgundy. Hugh count of Pro- vence. Surrender of the kingdom to Otho. [Friuli. Switzerland. Provence.] 5. Italy under Ihe German emperors. Guelfs and Gnibellines. Dukes, marquises, counts, and prelates. CHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 265 Petty Italian republics. <>. CONDITION OF GERMANY. Its six dukedoms. [Saxony. Thurin 1 gia. Fmnc6nia. Bavaria, Suabia. Lorraine.] Encroachments of the dukes. Reign of Conrad. Henry I. of Saxony. Powers of the Saxon rulers. 7. CONDITION or FRANCE. Charles the Simple. Other princes. Deposition of Charles. [Transjurnne Burgundy. Provence. Bril- tany.] 8. Settlement of the Northmen in France. [Normandy.] Importance of this event 9. The counts of Paris. Hugh Capet. [Rheims.] Situation of France for two hundred and forty years after the accession of Hugh Capet. II. THE FEUDAL SYSTEM ; CHIVALRY; AND THE CRUSADES. 1. Europe in the central period of the Middle Ages. Origin of the FKUDAL SYSTEM. Its duration and importance. 2. Partition of lands by the barbarians who overthrew the Roman empire. Conditions of the allotment. Gradations of the system. 3. Nature of the estates thus obtained. Crown lands how disposed of. The word feud. 4. The feudal system in France. Charlemagne's efforts 10 check its progress. Effects upon the nobility. Growth of the power of the nobles after the overthrow of royal authority. Their petty sovereignties. 5. Condition of the allodial proprietors. They are forced to become feudal tenants. 6. Legal qualities and results that grew out of the feudal system. Reliefs, flne, escheats, aids, ward- ship and marriage. 7. The feudal government in its best state. Its influence on the character of society. General ignorance at this period. Sentiments of independence in the nobility. 8. Rise of CHIVALRY. Our first notices of it. Its origin 9. Its rapid spread, and its good effects. 10. Its spirit based on noble impulses. Extract from Hallam: From James. Cus- toms and peculiarities of chivalry. Who were members of the institution. 11. The profession of arms among the Germans. Education of a knight. The practice of knight-errantry. 12 Extent of chivalry in the llth century. Its spirit led to the crusades. ORIGIN OF THE CRUSADKS. 13. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem. General expectation of the ap- proaching end of the world. 14. Extortion and outrage practiced upon the pilgrims. Horror and indignation excited thereby in Europe. The preaching of Peter the Hermit. [Amiens.] 15. The councils of Placentia and Clermont. [Placeutia and Clermont.] Gathering of the crusaders for the FIRST CRUSADE. 1(3. Conduct and fate of the foremost bauds of the cru- saders. The genuine army of the crusade. [Bouillon.] 17. Conduct of Alexius, emperor of Constantinople. His proposals spurned by the crusaders. 18. Number of the crusaders col- lected in Asia Minor. First encounter with the Turks. [Nice. Bithyn'ia. Roum.] The march to Syria. [Dorilae' um.] 19. The siege and capture of Anlioch. The Persian and Turkish hosts defeated before the town. 21. Civil wars among the Turks. The caliph of Egypt takes Jerusalem. Proposal to unite his forces with the Christians rejected. 21. March of the crusaders to Jerusalem. [Mt. Lib' anus. Trip' oli. Tyre. Acre. Caeaarea.] Transports of the Christians on the first view of the city. Attack, and repulse. 22. Capture of Jerusalem. Acts of veneration and worship. Reception given to Peter the Hermit. His ultimate fate. 23. The new government of Jerusalem. Minor Christian States. Defenceless state of Jerusa- lem under Godfrey. Continued pilgrimages. Orders of knighthood established at Jerusalem. The noted valor of the knights. 24. Continued yearly emigration of pilgrim warriors to the Holy Land. Six principal cru- sades. Their general character. 25. The SECOND CRUSADE. The leading army under Conrad. The army of French and Germans. 26. Jerusalem taken by Saladin. The THIRD CRUSADE. Fate of the German emperor. Successes of the French and Eaglish. Return of Philip, Richard concludes a truce with Saladin. [Ascalon.] 27. Tlie FOURTH CRUSADE, led by Boni- face. The crusaders take Zara, and conquer Constantinople. No benefit to Palestine. [MonU serrat. Zara.] 28. The FIFTH CRUSADK. Partial successes, and ftnnl ruin, of the expedition. [Damietta.] Expedition of the German emperor, Frederic II. Treaty with the sultan, by which Jerusalem is yielded to the Christians. Jerusalem again taken by the sultan, but re- stored. 29. Cotemporary events in northern Asia. TARTAR CONQUESTS in Asia and in Europe. [China. Russia. Kiev. Moscow.] Alarm of the Christian nations of Europe. Recall of the conquering hordes. 30. The Corasmins. They overrun Syria and take Jerusalem, but are finally expelled by the united Turks and Christians. 31. The SIXTH CBUSABK, led by Louis IX., who attacks Eo^pt. The second crusade of Louis. Attack upon Carthage. Result of the expedition. 32. Acre, the last stronghold of the Christians in Syria, taken by the Turks, 1291. Results of the Crusades. 266 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL III. ENGLISH HISTORY. 1. Our last reference to the history of England. The present continuation. 2. Condition of ENGLAND AFTKR THK DEATH OF ALFRED. England during the reign of Ethelred II. Massacre of the Danes- Effects of this impolitic measure. Canute. Recall of Ethelred. Edmund Ironside. Canute sole monarch. 3. Hia conciliatory policy. His vast possessions. Character of his administration of the government. 4. Harold and Hardicanute. The reign of Edward the Confessor. Events that disturbed his reign. Accession of Harold. The NORMAN CONQUEST. [Sussex. Hastings.] 5. Gradual conquest of ali England. William's treatment of his conquered subjects. 6. The feudal system in England. The Doomsday Book. Saxons and Normans. 7. Reigna of William Rufus, and Henry I. 8. Usurpation and reign of Stephen. Henry II. [Plantagenet.] 9. Henry's extensive possessions. REDUCTION OF IRELAND. [His- tory of Ireland.] The troubles of Henry's reign. 10. Reign of Richard, the Lion Hearted. 11. Reign of John, surnamed Lackland. Loss of his continental possessions. Quarrels with the pope: with the barons. Magna Charta. Civil war, and death of John. 12. The long reign of Henry III. His difficulties with the barons. First germs of popular representation. 13. The reign of Edward I. SUBJUGATION OF WALKS. [History of Wales.] 14. Relations be- tween England and Scotland. The princess Margaret. 15. Baliol and Bruce. Beginning of the SCOTTISH WARS. Submission of Baliol. [Dunbar.] 16. William Wallace recovers Scot- land, but is defeated at Falkirk. [Stirling. Falkirk.] Fate of Wallace. 17. Robert Bruce crowned king of Scotland. Edward II. defeated by him. [Scone. Bannockburn.] 18. Northern nations of Europe during this period. Wars between the Moors and Christians in the Spanish peninsula. Final overthrow of the Saracen power in the peninsula. 1. COMPLETE DISSOLUTION OF THE BONDS OF SOCIETY. 1. The tenth century brings us to the central period of what has been denomi- nated the Middle Ages. The history of the known world presents i CONFUSION a g reater confusion and discordance of materials at this OF HISTORIC than at any preceding epoch ; for at this time we have MATERIALS. ne ^her a great empire, like the Grecian, the Persian, or the Roman ; nor any great simultaneous movement, like the mighty tide of the barbarian invasions, to serve as the starting and the re- turning point for our researches, and to give, by its prominence, a sort of unity to cotemporaneous history ; but on every side we see States falling into dissolution ; the masses breaking into fragments ; dukes, counts, and lords, renouncing their allegiance to kings and emperors ; cities, towns, and castles, declaring their independence , and, amid a general dissolution of the bonds of society, we find almost universal anarchy prevailing. 2. In the East, the empire of the caliphs, the mighty colossus of Mussulman dominion, was broken ; the Saracens were no longer ob- jects of terror to all their neighbors, and the frequent SARACEN revolutions of the throne of Bagdad, 1 the central seat WORLD. Q tne re ijgj on O f the prophet, had ceased to have any 1. Bagdad, a famous city of Asiatic Turkey, long the chief seat of Moslem power in Asia, the capital of the Eastern caliphate, and of the scientific world during the " Dark Ages," is situated on the river Tigris, sixty-eight miles north of the ruins of Babylon. Bagdad was founded by the ciliph Al-Mansour, A. D. 763, and is said to have been princi- CIIAP. II] MIDDLE AGES. 267 influence on the rest of the world. About the middle of the eighth century, the Moors of Spain had separated themselves from their Eastern brethren, and made Cor' dova 1 the seat of their dominion ; and little more than two centuries and a half later, (A. D. 1031) the division of the Western Caliphate into a great number of small principalities, which were weakened by civil dissensions, contributed to the enlargement of the Christian kingdoms in the northern part of the peninsula. Soon after the defection of the Moors of Spain, an independent Saracen monarchy had arisen in Africa proper : this was followed by the establishment of new dynasties in Egypt, Khorassan', 8 and Persia ; and eventually, in the tenth century, we find the Caliphate divided into a great number of petty States, whose annals, gathered from oriental writers, furnish, amid a labyrinth of almost unknown names and countries, little more than the chronology of princes, with the civil wars, parricides, and fratricides of each reign. Such was the condition of that vast population, comprising many nations and languages, which still adhered, although under dif- ferent forms, and with many departures from the originals, to the general principles of the mosleui faith. 3. The Byzantine empire still continued to exist, but in weakness and corruption. " From the age of Justin' ian," says Gibbon, " it pally formed out of the ruins of Ctes' iphon. It was greatly enlarged and adorned by the grandson of its founder, the famous Haroun-al-Raschid. It continued to flourish, and to be the principal seat of learning and the arts till 1258, when Hoolaku,' grandson of Gentris Khan, reduced the city after a siege of two months, and gave it up to plunder and massacre. It is said that the number of the slain in the city alone amounted to eight hundred thousand. Since that event Bagdad has witnessed various other sieges and revolutions. It was burnt and plundered by the ferocious Timour A. D. 1401, who erected a pyramid of human heads on its ruins. In 1637 it incurred the vengeance of Amurath IV., the Turkish sultan, who barbarously massacred a large portion of the inhabitant-?. Since that period the once illustrious city, now numbering Jess than a hundred thousand inhabitants, has been degraded to the seat of a Turk- ish pashalic. The rich merchants and the beautiful princesses of the Arabian Tales have all disappeared ; but it retains the tomb of the charming Zobeide, the most beloved of the wives of Haroun-al-Raschid, and can still boast of its numerous gardens and well stocked bazaars. 1. Cor' dova, a city of Andalusia in Spain, is situated on the Guadalquiver, one hundred and eighty-five miles south-west from Madrid. It is supposed to have been founded by the Ro- mans, under whom it attained to great distinction as a rich and populous city, and a seat of learning. In 572 it was taken by the Goths, and in 711 by the Moors, under whom it after- wards became the splendid capital of the "Caliphate of the West;" but with the extinction of the Western caliphate, A. D. 1031, the power and the glory of Cor' dova passed away. Cor' dova continued to be a separate Moorish kingdom until the year A. D. 1236, when it was taken and almost wholly destroyed by the impolitic zeal of Ferdinand II'. of Castile. It has never since recovered its previous prosperity; and its population has diminished since the llth century, from five hundred thousand to less than forty thousand. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Khorassan', (the " region of the sun,") is a province of Modern Persia, at the south-eastern extremity of the Caspian Sea, inhabited by Persians proper, Turkmans, and Kurds. The re- ligion is still Moham' raedan. 268 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL was sinking below its former level : the powers of destruction were more active than those of improvement ; and the calam- BYZANTCNE ities of war were imbittered by the more permanent EMPIRE. ev jj g O f c i y j| an( j ecclesiastical tyranny." 1 It was daily becoming more and more separated from Western Europe ; its re- lations, both of peace and war, being chiefly with the Saracens, who, in the period of their conquests, overran all Asia Minor, and were forming permanent establishments within sight of Constantinople. Toward the close of the tenth century, however, a brief display of vigor in the Byzantine princes, Niceph' orus, Zimisus, and Basil II. , repelled the Saracens, and extended the Asiatic boundaries of the empire as far south as Antioch, and eastward to the eastern limits of Armenia; but twenty-five years after the death of Basil (1025) his effeminate successors were suddenly assaulted by the Turks or Turcomans, a new race of Tartar barbarians of the Mussulman faith, whose original seats were beyond the Caspian Sea, along the northern boundaries of China. During the first invasion of the Turks, under their leader Togrul, (1050) one hundred and thirty thousand Christians were sacrificed to the religion of the prophet. His suc- cessor, Alp Arslan, the u valiant lion," reduced Georgia 1 and Arme- nia, and defeated and took captive the Byzantine emperor Romanus Diog' enes ; and succeeding princes of the Turkish throne gathered the fruits of a lasting conquest of all the provinces beyond the Bos'- porus and Hellespont. 4. Turning to the West, to examine the condition of the three great divisions of the empire of the Carlovingians Italy, Germany, and Gaul, we find there but the wrecks of former greatness. In Italy, the dukes, the governors of provinces, and the leaders of iv CONDI- arm ^ es ) were possessed of far greater power than the TION OF reigning monarch. Having for a long period perpetu- ITALY. a ^ e( j t k e i r Dignities in their families, they had become in fact petty tyrants over their limited domains ; ever jealous of the royal authority, and dreading the loss of their privileges, they con- 3. Georgia is between the Caspian and the Black Sea, having Circassia on the north and Ar- menia on the south, This country was annexed to the Roman empire by Pompey, in the year 65 B. C. During the 6th and 7th centuries it was a theatre of contest between the Greek em- pire and the Persians. In the 8th century a prince of the Jewish family of the Bagrat' ides es- tablished there a monarchy which, with few interruptions, continued in his line down to the commencement of the 19th century. In 1801 the emperor Paul of Russia declared himself, at the request of the Georgian prince, sovereign of Georgia. a. Gibbon, iv. 4. CHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 269 spired against their sovereign as often as he showed an inclination to rescue the people from the oppressive exactions of their masters. In the early part of the tenth century they arose against Berenger, duke of Fritili, 1 who had been proclaimed king, and offered the crown to the prince of Bur' gundy, who during two years united the government of Italy to that of Switzerland. 8 (923-925.) Soon abandoning him, the turbulent nobles elevated to the throne Hugh, count of Provence ;* and finally Italy, exhausted by the animosities and struggles of the aristocracy, made a voluntary surrender of the kingdom to Otho the Great, the Saxon prince of Germany, who, in the year 962, was crowned at Milan with the iron crown of Lom'- bardy, and at Rome with the golden crown of the empire. 5. During several succeeding centuries the German emperors were nominally recognized as sovereigns of the greater part of Italy ; but as they seldom crossed the Alps, their authority was soon reduced to a mere shadow. The pretensions of the court of Rome were op- posed to those of the German princes ; and during the quarrels that arose between the Guelfs and Ghibellines, 4 the former the adherents of Rome, and the latter of Germany Italy was thrown into the greatest confusion. While some portions were under the immediate jurisdiction of the German emperor, a large number of the dukes, marquises, counts, and prelates, residing in their castles which they 1. FriMi is an Italian province at the head of the Adriat' ic, and at the north-eastern ex- tremity of Italy. 2. Switzerland, anciently calfed Helvetia, is an inland and mountainous country of Europe, having the German States on the north and east, Italy on the south, and France on the west, Julius Caesar reduced the Helvetians to submission 15 years B. C.; after which the Romans founded in it several flourishing cities, which were afterwards destroyed by the barbarians. In the beginning of the 5th century the Burgun' dians overran the western part of Switzerland, and fixed their seals around the lake of Geneva, and on the b>nks of the Rhone and the Saone. Fifty years later the Aleman 1 ni overran the eastern part of Switzerland, and a great part of Germany, overwhelmine the monuments of Roman power, and blotting out the Christianity which Rome had planted. At the close of the fifth century the Aleman' ni were overthrown by Clovis ; the first Burgun' diau empire fell A. D. . r 35 ; and for a long period afterward Hel- vetia formed a part of the French monarchy. The partition of the dominions of Charlemagne threw Switzerland into the German part of the empire. In the year 1307 the three forest cnntons, Uri, Schwytz, and Unterwalden, entered into a confederacy against the tyranny of the Austrian house of Hapsburg, then at the head of the German empire. Other cantons from time to time joined the league, or were conqnered from Austria; but it was not till the time of Napoleon that all the present existing cantons were brought into the confederacy. (Mapt No. XIV. and XVII.) 3. Provence, see p. 271. 4. These party names, obscure in origin, were imported from Germany. In the ware of Frederic Barbarossa, (the Redbeard,) the Ouelfs were the champions of liberty: in the crusades which the popes directed against that prince's unfortunate descendants they were merely the partisans of the Church. The name soon ceased to signify principles, and merely ecn'ed the same purpoe as a watchword, or the color of a standard. 270 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT II had strongly fortifiel against the depredating inroads of the Normans, Saracens, and Hungarians, exercised an almost independent authority within their limited domains ; while a number of petty republics, the most important of which were Venice, Pisa, and Genoa, fortifying their cities, and electing their own magistrates, set the authority of the pope, the nobles, and the emperor, equally at defiance. Such was the confused state of Italy in the central period of the Middle Ages. 6. Germany, at the beginning of the tenth century, under the rule of a minor, Louis IV., the last of the Carlovingian family, was har- v CON- asse d by frequent invasions of the Hungarians ; while DITION OF the six dukedoms into which the country was divided, GERMANY. viz . Q & ^ my i Thurin' gia,' Franconia, 3 Bavaria, 4 Suabia, 6 and Lorraine, 6 appeared like so many distinct nations, ready to de- clare war against each other. The dukes, originally regarded as ministers and representatives of their king, had long been encroach- ing on the royal prerogatives, and by degrees had arrogated to them- selves such an increase of power, that the dignities temporarily con- ferred upon them became hereditary in their families. They next seized the royal revenues, and made themselves masters of the people 1. Saxony, the most powerful of the ancient duchies of Germany, embraced, at the period of its greatest development, the whole extent of northern Germany between the mouths of the Rhine and the Oder. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Thurin' gia was in the central part of Germany, west of Prussian Saxony. In the 13th century it was subdivided among many petty princes, and incorporated with other States, after which the name fell gradually into disuse. It is still preserved, in a limited sense, in the Thurin' /rian forest, a hilly and woody tract in the interior of Germany, on the northern con- fines of Bavaria. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Franconia was situated on both sides of the river Maine, and is now included mostly within the limits of Bavaria. (Map No. XVII.) 4. Bavaria comprising most of the Vindelicia and Nor' icum of the Romans, is a country in the southern part of Germany. It was anciently a duchy afterwards an electorate and has now the rank of a kingdom. (Map No. XVII.) 5. Suabia, of which Ulm was the capital, was in the south-western part of Germany, west of Bavaria, und north of Switzerland. It is now included in Baden, Wurtemburg, and Bavaria, (Map No. XVII.) 6. Lorraine, (German Lotharingia,} so called from Lothaire II., to whom this part of the country fell in the division of the empire between him and his brothers Louis II. and Charles, in the year 854, eleven years after the treaty of Verdun, (see p. 260,) was divided into Upper and Lower Lorraine, and extended from the confines of Switzerland, westward of the Rhine, to its mouths, and the mouths of the Scheldt. (Skelt.) A part of the Lower Lorraine was af- terwards embraced in the French province of Lorraine, (see Map No. XIII.,) and is now com- prised in the departments of the Meuse, the Vosges, the Moselle, and the Meurthe. Lorraine was for centuries a subject of dispute between France and Germany. The relative position of the six German dukedoms was therefore as follows : Saxony occu- pied the northern portions of Germany ; Thurin' gia and Franconia the centre ; Bavaria the south-eastern ; Suabia the south-western ; and Lorraine the north-western. (Maps No. XIII. and XVII.) CHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 271 and their lands. On the death of Louis IV., (A. D. 911,) they set aside the legitimate claimant, and elected for their sovereign one of their own number, Conrad, duke of Franconia. His reign of seven years was passed almost wholly in the field, checking the incursions of the Hungarians, or quelling the insurrections of the other duke- doms against his authority. On his death (A. D. 018), Henry I., surnamed the Fowler, duke of Saxony, was elected to the throne, which his family retained little more than a century. (Until 1024.) The Saxon rulers of Germany, however, were not, like Charlemagne, the sovereigns of a vast empire ; but rather the chiefs of a confeder- acy of princes, reckoned of superior authority in matters of national concern, while the nobles still managed their provincial administra- tion mostly in their own way. The history of the little more than nominal sovereigns of Germany, therefore, during this period, con- tains but little of the history of the German people. 7. In France, the royal authority, at the beginning of the tenth century, exercised an influence still more feeble than in Germany, and was little more than an empty honor. DITION OF Charles the Simple, whose name bespeaks his character, FRA *CE. was the nominal sovereign ; but four other princes in Gaul, besides himself, bore the title of king, those of Lorraine, Transjurane- Burgundy, 1 Provence, 2 and Brittany ; 3 while in other parts of the country, powerful dukes and counts governed their dominions with absolute independence. At length, in the year 920, an assembly of nobles formally deposed Charles, but he continued his nominal reign nearly three years longer, while the people and the nobility were scarcely conscious of his existence. 1. T^ransjuranc-Bvr' gundy, is that portion of Bur' gundy that was embraced in Switzerland beyond the Jura, or western Alps. 2. Provence was in the south-eastern part of France, on the Mediterranean, bounded on the east by Italy, north by Dauphiny, and west by Langedoc. Greek colonies were founded here at an early period, (see Marseilles, p. 157,) and the Romans, having conquered the country, (B. C. 124,) gave it the name of Provincia, (the province,) whence its later name was derived. After the three-fold division of the empire of Louis le Debonnaire, the son and successor of Charlemagne, by the treaty of Verdun in 843, (see p. 260,) Provence fell to Lothaire ; but it afterwards became a separate kingdom, under the name of the kingdom of Aries. In 1246 it passed to the house of Anjou by marriage ; and in 1481 Louis XI. united it to the dominions of the French crown. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Brittany, or Brelagne, was one of the largest provinces of France, occupying the penin- sula at the north-western extremity of the kingdom, and joined on the east by Poitou, Anjou, Maine, and Normandy. It now forms the five departments, Finisterre, Cotes du Nord, (coat- doo-nor) Morbihan, Hie and Vilaine, and Lower Loire. Brittany is supposed to have derived its name from the Britons, who, expelled from England by the Anglo Saxons, took refuge here in the fifth century. It formed one of the duchies of France till it wa- united to the crown by Francis I. in 1532. (Map No. X11I.) 272 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL 8. The only really important event of French history during the tenth century was the final settlement of the Northmen in that part of Neustria, 1 which received from them the name of Normandy. 2 In the year 911, during the reign of Charles the Simple, the Norman chief Hollo, who had made himself the terror of the West, ascended the Seine with a formidable fleet, and laid siege to Paris. After the purchase of a brief truce, Charles made him the tempting offer, to cede to him a vast province of France, in which he might establish himself on condition that he would abstain from ravaging the rest of the kingdom, acknowledge the sovereignty of the crown of France, and, together with his followers, make a public profession of Christi- anity. The terms were accepted : a region that had been completely laid waste by the ravages of the Normans was now assigned to them for an inheritance ; and these ruthless warriors, abandoning a life of pillage and robbery, were soon converted, by the wise regulations of their chiefs, into peaceful tillers of the soil, and the best and bravest of the citizens of France. This remarkable event put an end to the war of Norman devastation, which, during a whole century, had de- populated western Germany, Graul, and England. 9. Of the independent aristocracy of France, after the death of Charles the Simple, the most powerful were the counts of Paris, who, during the last few reigns of the Carlovingian princes, exercised little less than regal authority. At length, in the year 987, on the death of Louis V., the fifth monarch after Charles the Simple, Hugh Capet, count of Paris, was proclaimed king by his assembled vassals, and anointed and crowned in the cathedral of Ilheims, 3 by the arch- bishop of that city. The rest of France took no part in this election; and several provinces refused to acknowledge the successors of Hugh Capet, for three or four generations. The aristocracy still monopo- 1. Neustria. On the death of Clovis A. D. 511, (see p. 2550 his four sons divided the Mero- vingian kingdom, embracing northern Gaul and Germany, into two parts, calling the eastern Jlustvasia-, and the western Neustria^ the latter term being derived from the negative particle ne "not," and .Austria : rfustrasia, meaning the Eastern, and Neustria the Western monarchy. Neustria embraced that portion of modern France north of the Loire and west of the Meuse. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Normandy was an ancient province of France, adjoining Brittany on the north-east. (See Map No. XIII.) It became annexed to England through the accession of William, duke of Normandy, to the English throne, A. D. 1066. (See p. 290.) Philip Augustus wrested it from John, and united it to France, in 1203. 3. Rheims, a city of France ninety-five miles north-east from Paris, was a place of consider- able importance under the Romans, who called it Durocortarum. It become a bishopric before the irruption of the Franks, and received many privileges from the Merovingian kings. Map No. XIII.; CHAP. II] MIDDLE AGES. 273 lized all the prerogatives of royalty ; and the power of the n nbles alone flourished or subsisted in the State. The period of two hun- dred and forty years, from the accession of Hugh Capet to that of Louis IX., or Saint Louis, is described by Sismondi as " a long in- terregnum, during which the authority of king was extinct, although the name continued to exist." II. THE FEUDAL SYSTEM, CHIVALRY, AND THE CRUSADES. 1..A glance at the state of Southern and Western Europe in the central period of the Middle Ages will show that, with the waning power, and final overthrow, of the Carlovingian dynasty, a new order of things had arisen ; that kingdoms were broken into as many separate principalities as they contained powerful counts or barons ; that regularly-constituted authority no longer existed ; and that a numer- ous class of nobles, superior to all restraint, and involved in petty feuds with each other, oppressed their fellow subjects, and humbled or insulted their sovereigns, to whom they tendered an allegiance merely nominal. The rude beginnings of this state of society may be traced back to the germinating ^of the first seeds of order after the spread of barbarism over the Roman world ; its growth was checked under the first Carlovingians, who reduced the nobles to the lowest degradation ; but with the decline of royal authority in France, Germany, and Italy, it started into new life and vigor, and, towards the end of the tenth century, became organized under the name of the Feudal System. It maintained itself until l THE about the end of the thirteenth century ; and during the FEUDAL period of its existence is the prominent object that en- gages the attention of the historian of the Middle Ages. The unity of this portion of history will best be preserved by a brief historical outline of the system itself, and of the relations and events that grew out of it. 2. The people who overturned the empire of the Romans, made a partition of the conquered lands between themselves and the original possessors ; but in what manner or by what principles the division was made cannot now be determined with certainty ; nor can the exact condition in which the Roman provincials were left be ascer- tained, as the records of none of the barbarous nations of Europe extend back to this remote period. It is, however, evident that the chiefs, or leaders of the conquering invaders, in order to maintain their acquisitions, annexed, to the apportionment of lands among 18 274 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. their followers, the condition that every freeman who received a share should appear in arms, when called upon, against the enemies of the community ; and military service was probably at first the only con- dition of the allotment. The immediate grantees of lands from the leading chief, or king, were probably the most noted warriors who served under him ; and these divided their ample estates among their more immediate followers or dependents, to be held of themselves by a similar tenure ; so that the system extended, through several gradations, from the monarchs down through all the subordinates in authority. Each was bound to resort to the standard of his imme- diate grantor, and thence to that of his sovereign, with a band of armed followers proportioned, in numbers, to the extent of the terri- tory which he had received. 3. The primary division of lands among the conquerors, was probably allodial ; that is, they were to descend by inheritance from father to son ; but in addition to the lands thus distributed among the nation, others were reserved to the crown for its support and dig- nity; and the greater portion of the latter, frequently extending to en- tire counties and dukedoms, were granted out, sometimes as hereditary estates, sometimes for life, sometimes for a term of years, and on various conditions, to favored subjects, and especially to the provincial gov- ernors, who made under -grants of them to their vassals or tenants. On the failure of the tenant to perform the stipulated conditions, whether of military service, or of certain rents and payments, the lands reverted to the grantors 5 and as the word feud signifies " an estate in trust," hence the propriety of calling this the Feudal System, 4. In a very imperfect state this system existed in France in the time of Charlemagne ; but that monarch, jealous of the ascendancy which the nobles had already acquired, checked it by every means in his power, by suffering many of the larger grants of dukedoms, counties, &c., to expire without renewal, by removing the adminis tration of justice from the hands of local oflicers into the hands of his own itinerant judges, by elevating the ecclesiastical authority as a counterpoise to that of the nobility, and by the creation of a standing army, which left the monarch in a measure independent of the military support of the great landholders. Thus the nobles, desisting from the use of arms, and abandoning the task of defend- ing the kingdom, soon became unable to defend themselves ; but when in the ninth and tenth centuries the royal authority was entire- CHAP. H] MIDDLE AGES. 275 ly prostrated, when the provinces were subject to frequent inroads of the Normans and Hungarians, and government ceased to afford protection to any class of society, the proprietors of large estates found in their wealth a means of defence and security not within the reach of the great mass of the people. They converted their places of abode into impregnable castles, and covered their persons with knightly armor, jointed so as to allow a free movement of every part of the body ; and this protection, added to the increased physical strength acquired by constant military exercises, gave them an im- portance in war over hundreds .of the plebeians by whom they were surrounded. In the confusion of the times, the governors of prov- inces, under the various titles of dukes, counts, and barons, usurped their governments as little sovereignties, and transmitted them by in- heritance, subject only to the feudal superiority of the king. 5. Meanwhile the small allodial proprietors, or holders of lands in their own right, exposed to the depredating inroads of barbarians, or, more frequently, to the rapacity of the petty feudal lords, sunk into a condition much worse than that of the feudal tenantry. Ex- posed to a system of general rapine, without law to redress their in- juries, and without the royal power to support their rights, they saw no safety but in making a compromise with oppression, and were re- duced to the necessity of subjecting themselves, in return for pro- tection, to the feudal lords of the country. During the tenth and eleventh centuries a large proportion of the allodial lands in France, Germany, and Italy, were surrendered by their owners, and received back again upon feudal tenures ; and it appears that the few who re- tained their lands in their own right universally attached themselves to some lord, although in these cases it was the privilege of the free- men to choose their own superiors. 6. Such was the state of the great mass of European society when the feuda* system had reached its maturity, in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Among the legal incidents and results that grew out of the feudal relation of service on the one side ai.i protection on the other, were those of reliefs, or money paid to the lord by each vassal on taking a fief, or feudal estate, by inheritance ; fines, on a change of tenancy ; esdwats, or forfeiture of the estate to the lord on ao- count of the vassals delinquency, or for want of heirs ; aids, or sums of money exacted by the lord on various occasions, such as the knighting of his eldest son, the marriage of his eldest daughter, or for the redemption of his person from prison ; wardship, or the 276 MODERN HISTORY. [PABT IL privilege of guardianship of the tenant by the lord during the mi- nority of the former, with the use of the profits of his estate ; mar- ria.ge, or the right of a lord to tender a husband to his female wards while under age, or to demand the forfeiture of the value of the marriage. These feudal servitudes, which were unknown in the time of Charlemagne, distinguish the maturity of the system, and show the gradual encroachments of the strong upon the weak. 7. The feudal government, in its best state, was a system of op- pression, which destroyed all feelings of brotherhood and equality between man and man : it was admirably calculated, when the nobles were united, for defence against the assaults of any foreign power ; but it possessed the feeblest bonds of political union, and contained innumerable sources of anarchy, in the interminable feuds of rival chieftains, It exerted a fatal influence on the character of society in general ; while individual man, in the person of the lord or baron, was doubtless improved by it ; and the great mass of the population of Europe, during the three or four centuries in which it was under the thraldom of this system, was sunk in the most profound igno- rance. Literature and science, confined almost wholly to the cloister, could receive no favor in the midst of turbulence, oppression, and rapine : judges and kings often could not write their own names : many of the clergy did not understand the liturgy which they daily recited : the Christianity of the times, " a dim taper which had need of snuffing," degenerated into an illiberal superstition ; and every- thing combined to fix upon this period the distinctive epithet of the J)ARK AGES. Still the sentiment of independence the pride and consciousness of power and the feelings of personal consequence and dignity with which the feudal state of society inspired the nobles, contributed to let in those first rays of light and order which dis- pelled barbarism and anarchy, and introduced the virtues of a better age. 8. In the midst of confusion and crime, while property was held by the sword, and cruelty and injustive reigned supreme, the spirit of chivalry arose to turn back the tide of op- pression, and to plant, in the very midst of barbarism, the seeds of the most noble and the most generous principles. The precise time at which chivalry was recognized as a military institution, with out- ward forms and ceremonials, cannot now be ascertained; but the first notices we have of it trace it to that age when the disorders in the feudal system had attained their utmost point of excess, towards . H.] MIDDLE AGES. the close of the tenth century. It was then that some noble barons, filled with charitable zeal and religious enthusiasm, and moved with compassion for the wretchedness which they saw around them, com- bined together, under the solemnity of religious sanctions, with the" holy purpose of protecting the weak from the oppression of the pow erful, and of defending the right cause against the wrong. 9. The spirit and the institution of chivalry spread rapidly; treachery and hypocrisy became detestable ; while courtesy, magna- nimity, courage, and hospitality, became the virtues of the age ; and the knights, who were ever ready to draw their swords, at whatever odds, in defence of innocence, received the adoration of the populace, and, in public opinion, were exalted even above kings themselves. The meed of praise and esteem gave fresh vigor and purity to the cause of chivalry ; and under the influence of its spirit great deeds were done by the fraternity of valiant knights who had enrolled' themselves as its champions. " The baron forsook his castle, and the peasant his hut, to maintain the honor of a family, or preserve the sacredness of a vow : it was this sentiment which made the poor serf patient in his toils, and serene in his sorrows : it enabled his master to brave all physical evils, and enjoy a sort of spiritual ro- mance : it bound the peasant to his master, and the master to his king ; and it was the principle of chivalry, above all others, that was needed to counteract the miseries of an infant state of civilization."* 10. Though in the practical exemplifications of chivalry there was often much of error, yet its spirit was based upon the most generous impulses of human nature. " To speak the truth, to succor the helpless and oppressed, and never to turn back from an enemy," was the first vow of the aspirant to the honors of chivalry. In an age of darkness and degradation, chivalry developed the character of woman, and, causing her virtues to be appreciated and honored, made her the equal companion of man, and the object of his devotion. " The love of God and the ladies," says Hallam, " was enjoined as a single duty. He who was faithful and true to his mistress, was held sure of salvation in the theology of castles, though not of cloisters. " b In the language of another modern writer, " chivalry gave purity to enthusiasm, crushed barbarous selfishness, taught the heart to ex- pand like a flower to the sunshine, beautified glory with generosity, and smoothed even the rugged brow of war." c A description of the I ' ' I a. Introduction to Froissart'a Chronicles. b. Hallam'a Middle Agea, p. 51* ,j^ fi j c. Jamea's Chriralry and the Crusades, p. 31. 278 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT IL various customs and peculiarities of chivalry, as they grew up by de- grees into a regular institution, would be requisite to a full develop- ment of the character of the age, but we can only glance at these topics here. As chivalry was a military institution, its members were taken wholly from the military class, which comprised none but the descendants of the northern conquerors of the soil ; for, with few exceptions, the original inhabitants of the western Roman empire tad been reduced to the condition of serfs, or vassals, of their bar- barian lords. 11. The initiation of the German youth to the profession of arms bad been, from the earliest ages, an occasion of solemnity ; and when the spirit of chivalry had established the order of knighthood, as the concentration of all that was noble and valiant in a warlike age, it became the highest object of every young man's ambition one day to be a knight. A long and tedious education, consisting of instruc- tion in all manly and military exercises, and in the first principles of religion, honor and courtesy, was requisite as a preparation for this honor. Next, the candidate for knighthood, after undergoing his preparatory fasts and vigils, passed through the ceremonies which made him a knight. Armed and caparisoned he then sallied forth in quest of adventure, displayed his powers at tournaments, and often visited foreign countries, both for the purpose of jousting with other knights, and for instruction in every sort of chivalrous knowl- edge. It cannot be denied, however, that the practice of knight- errantry, or that of wandering about armed, as the avowed cham- pions of the right cause against the wrong, gave to the evil-minded a very convenient cloak for the basest purposes, and that every ad. venture, whether just or not in its purpose, was too liable to be es- teemed honorable in proportion as it was perilous. But these were abuses of chivalry, and perversions of its early spirit. 12. During the eleventh century we find that chivalry, although probably first appearing in Graul, had spread to all the surrounding nations. In Spain, the wars between the Christians and the Moors exhibited a chivalric spirit unknown to former times : about this period the institution of knighthood appears to have been introduced among the Saxons of England ; and it was first made known to the Italians, in the beginning of the eleventh century, by a band of knights from Normandy, whose religious zeal prompted them, as they were returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to under take the relief of a small town besieged by the Saracens. As the CHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 279 feudal system spread over Europe, chivalry followed in its path. Its spirit, combined with religious enthusiasm, led to the crusades ; and it was during the progress of those holy wars, which we now proceed to describe, that it attained its chief power and influence. 13. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and other hallowed localities in Palestine, had been common in the early ages of the church ; and towards the close of the tenth century they had increased m ORIQIN to a perfect inundation, in consequence of the terror that OF THB arose from the almost universal expectation then enter- GauSADES - tained, of the approaching end of the world. a The idea originated in the interpretation given to the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse, where it was announced that, after the lapse of a thousand years, Satan would be let loose to deceive the nations, and to gather them together to battle against the holy city, but that, after a little season, the army of the Deceiver should be destroyed by fire from heaven. But the dreaded epoch, the year 1000, passed by; yet the current of pilgrimage still continued to flow towards the East ; for fanati- cism had taken too strong hold of the minds of the people to be easily diverted from its course. 14. After Palestine had fallen into the possession of the Turks, about the middle of the seventh century, (see p. 249,) the pilgrims to Jerusalem were subjected to every species of extortion and out- rage from this wild race of Saracen conquerors ; and the returning Christians spread through all the countries of Europe indignation and horror by the pathetic tales which they related, of the injuries and insults which they had suffered from the infidels. Among others, Peter the Hermit, a native of Amiens, 1 returning from a pil- grimage to Palestine, where he had spent much time in conferring with the Christians about the means of their deliverance, complained in loud terms of these grievances, and began to preach, in glowing language, the duty of the Christian world to unite in expelling the infidels from the patrimony of the Saviour. 15. The pope, Urban II. , one of the most eloquent men of the age, engaged zealously in the project, and at two general councils, 1. Amiens is a fortified city of France in the ancient province of Picardy, seventy- two miles north from Paris. (Map No. XIII.) a. The archives of European countries contain a great number of charters of the tenth century, beginning with these words: Jippropinquante fine mundi, " As the end of the world la approaching." Sismondi's Roman Empire, ii. 256. 280 MODERN HISTORY. [PABT II held at Placen' tia, 1 and Clermont, 2 and attended by a numerous train of bishops and ecclesiastics, and by thousands of the laity, the multitude, harangued by the zealous enthusiasts of the cause, caught the spirit of those who addressed them, and pledged themselves, and all they possessed, to the crusade against the infidel possessors of the Holy Laud. The flame of enthusiasm spread so rapidly throughout Christian Europe, that although the council of Clermont was held in November of the year 1095, yet in the following spring large bands iv THE ^ *^ e crusa ders, gathered chiefly from the refuse and FIRST dregs of the people, and consisting of men, women, and CRUSADE, children O f %\\ a g es anc l professions and of many and distinct languages, were in motion toward Palestine. 16. Walter the Penniless, leading the way, was followed by Peter the Hermit ; but the ignorant hordes which they directed, inarching without order and discipline, and pillaging the countries which they traversed, were nearly all cut off before they reached Constantinople ; and the few who passed over into Asia Minor fell an easy prey to the swords of the Turks. Immense bands that followed these hosts, mingling the motives of plunder, licentiousness and vice, with a foul spirit of fanatical cruelty, which proclaimed the duty of exter- minating all, whether Jews or Pagans, who rejected the Saviour, were utterly destroyed by the enraged natives of southern Germany and Hungary, through whose dominions they attempted to pass. The loss of the crusaders in this first adventure is estimated at three hundred thousand men. a But while these undisciplined and barba- rous multitudes were hurrying to destruction, the flower of the chiv- alry of Europe was collecting the genuine army of the crusade under six as distinguished chiefs as knighthood could boast, headed by Godfrey of Bouillon, 3 one of the most celebrated generals of the age. In six separate bauds they proceeded to Constantinople, some 1. Placen' tia, now Piazenza, was a city of northern Italy, near the junction of the Trebia with the Po, thirty-seven miles south-east from Milan. When colonized by the Romans, 219 B. O, it was a strong .and important city ; and it afforded them a secure retreat after the unfor- tunate battles of Ticinus and Treb' bia. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Clermont, a city of France, in the ancient province of Auvergne, is eighty-two miles west from Lyons, and two hundred and eight south from Paris. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Bouillon was a small, woody, and mountainous district, nine miles wide and eighteen long, now included in the duchy of Luxembourg, on the borders of France and Belgium. The town of Bouillon is fifty-miles north-west from the city of Luxembourg. Bouillon, when in the possession of Godfrey, woa a dukedom. In order to supply himself with funds for his expedition to the Holy Land, Godfrey, who was likewise .duke of Lower L Brraine, (note, p. 5270,) mortgaged Bouillon to the bishop. (Map No. XIII.) a. Gibbon, iv. 116125. CHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 281 by way of Italy and the Adriat' ic, and others by way of the Danube ; but their conduct, unlike that of the first crusaders, was in general remarkable for its strict discipline, order, and moderation. 1 7. Alex' ius, the Greek emperor of Constantinople, had before craved, in abject terms, assistance against the infidel Turks ; but now, when the Turks, occupied with other interests, no longer men- aced his frontier, his conduct changed, and alarmed by the vast swarms of crusaders who crossed his dominions, he strove, by treach- ery and dissimulation, and even by hostile annoyances, to diminish their numbers, and thwart their designs, and to wring from their chiefs acts of homage to his own person. With some of the chiefs, the crafty Greek succeeded ; but others spurned his proposals with indignation, and at the hazard of war resolved to maintain their in- dependent position ; and when at length the several detachments of the ariny of the crusaders passed into Asia, they left behind them in their treacherous auxiliaries, the Christians of the Byzantine em- pire, worse enemies than they had to encounter in the Turks. 1 8. It is said that after the crusaders had united their forces in Asia Minor, and had been joined by the remains of the multitude that had followed Peter the Hermit, the number of their fighting men, without including those who did not carry arms, was six hundred thousand, and that, of these, the number of knights alone was two hundred thousand.* At Nice, 1 in Bithyn' ia," the capital of the Sultany of Koum, 3 they first encountered the Turks, and after a siege of two months compelled the city to surrender, in spite of the efforts of the Sultan, Soliman, for its relief. (A. D. 1097.) From Nice they set out for Syria ; and after having gained a victory over Soli- man near Dorilao' urn, 4 in a march of five hundred miles they trav- ersed Lesser Asia, through a wasted land and deserted towns, without finding a friend or an enemy. 19. The siege of Antioch, unparalleled for its difficulties, and the 1. JVfce, called by the Romans JVYea' a, was the capital of Bithyn' ia. The Turkish town of Jsnik occupies the site of the Bithyn' ian city. (Map No. IV.) 2. Bithyn' ia was a country of Asia Minor, having the Euxine on the north, and the Propon- tis and Mysia on the west. (Map No. IV.) 3. Roam (meaning the kingdom of the Romans'), was the name given by Soliman, sultan of ihe Turks, to the present Jfat6lia, (the western part of Asia Minor,) when he invaded and became master of il in the llth century. 4. Dorila' urn was a city of Phrygia, on the confines of Bithyn 1 la. The plain of DorfUe' um Is often mentioned in history as the place where the armies of the Eastern empire assembled in their wars against the Turks. (Map No. IV.) a. James's History of the Crusades, p. 1U. 282 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. losses on both sides, was the next obstacle to the onward march of the crusaders, now reduced to half the number that had been collect- ed at the capture of Nice ; but when the enterprise seemed hopeless, the town was betrayed into their hands by a Syrian renegado, (June 1098.) A few days later, the victors themselves, suffering the ex- tremity of privation and famine, were encompassed by a splendid Turkish and Persian army of three hundred thousand men; yet the Christians, collecting the relics of their strength, and urged on by a belief of miraculous interposition in their favor, sallied from the town, and in a single memorable day annihilated or dispersed the host of their enemies. 20. While the siege of Antioch was progressing, the Turkish princes consumed their time and resources in civil wars beyond the Tigris; and the caliph of Egypt, embracing the opportunity of weakness and discord to recover his ancient possessions, besieged and took Jerusa- lem. The Egyptian monarch offered to join his arms to those of the Christians, for the purpose of subduing all Palestine ; but it was evident that he purposed to enjoy the fruits of victory without par- ticipation ; and the answer of the crusading chiefs was firm and uni- form : " the usurper of Jerusalem, of whatever nation, was their enemy, and they would conquer the holy city with the sword of Christ, and keep it with the same." 21. With an army reduced to less than fifty thousand armed men, the crusaders, in the month of May, 1099, proceeded from Antioch towards Jerusalem. Marching between Mount Lib' aims 1 and the sea-shore, they obtained by treaty a free passage through the petty Turkish principalities of Trip' oli, 2 Sidon, Tyre, 3 Acre, 4 and Csesarea, 5 1. To the four chains of mountains running parallel to the sea-coast through northern Syria or Palestine, the name Lib' anus has been applied. To a chain farther east the Greeks gave the name Anti-IAb' anus. (Map No. VI.) 2. Trip' oli, at this day one of the neatest towns of Syria, is a seaport, seventy-five miles north-west from Damascus. It was one of the most flourishing seats of ancient literature, and contained an extensive library, numbering, it is said, one hundred thousand volumes, which was destroyed by the crusaders in the year J 108. On this occasion the crusaders displayed the same fanatical zeal of which the Saracens have been accused, though some think unjustly, in the case of the Alexandrian library. A priest having visited an apartment in the library in which were several copies of the Koran, reported that it contained none but impious works of Mahomet ; and the whole was forthwith committed to the flames. (Map No. VI.) 3. Tyre and Sj. Toward the middle of the thirteenth century the Tartar hordes of Northern Asia, falling upon the feeble and disunited Russian States, found them an easy prey ; and during a period of two hun- dred and fifty years, Russia, under the Tartar yoke, suffered the direst atrocities of savage cruelty and despotism. At length, about the year 1480, John III., duke of Moscow, the true restorer of his 1. Dnieper^ the Borysthenes of the ancients, still frequently called by its ancient name, is a large river of European Russia. It rises near Smolensko, runs south, and falls into the Black Sea, north-east of the mouths of the Danube. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Novogorod, or Novgorod, called also Veliki, or " the Great," formerly the most important city in the Russian empire, is situated on the river Volkhof, near its exit from Lake llmen, ne hundred miles south-east from St Petersburg!!, and three hundred and five north-west from Moscow. The Volkhof runs north to Lake Ladoga. So impregnable was Iovgorod once deemed as to give rise to the proverb, Quis contra Deos et magnam Novogordiam ? "Who can resist the Gods awl Great Novgorod?" From Novgorod to Kiev is a distance of nearly six nundred miles. 310 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. country's glory, succeeded in abolishing the ruinous system by which the regal power had been frittered away, while at the same time he threw off the yoke of the Moguls, and repulsed their last invasion of his country. Under the reign of this wise and powerful prince, the many petty principalities which had long divided the sovereignty were consolidated, and, at the end of the century, Russia, although scarcely emerged from its primitive barbarian darkness, was one of the great powers of Europe. 4. South of the country inhabited by the Russians, we look in vain, at the close of the fifteenth century, for the once '"EM-PIKE ** ^ ame< ^ G ree k empire of Justinian, or, as sometimes called, the Eastern empire of the Romans. The account which we have given of the crusades represents the Turks, a race of Tartar origin, as spread over the greater part of Asia Minor. About the beginning of the fourteenth century, a Turkish enair, a called Otto- man, succeeded in uniting several of the petty Turkish States of the peninsula, and thus laid the foundation of the Ottoman empire. About the year 1358 the Ottoman Turks first obtained a foothold in Europe ; and at the close of the fourteenth century their empire ex- tended from the Euphrates to the Danube, and embraced, onheld as tributary, ancient Greece, Thes' saly, Macedonia, and Thrace, while the Roman world was contracted to the city of Constantinople, and even that was besieged by the Turks, and closely pressed by the ca- lamities of war and famine. The city would have yielded to the efforts of Bajazet, the Turkish sultan ; but almost in the moment of victory the latter was overthrown by the famous Timour, or Tamer- lane, the new Tartar conqueror of Asia. 5 About the year 1370, Tamerlane, a remote descendant of the Great Gengis Khan, (p. 286,) had fixed the capital of his new do- minions at Samarcand, 1 from which central point of his power he 1, Samarcand, anciently called Marakanda, now a city of Independent Tartary, in Bokhara, was the capital of the Persian satrapy of Sogdiana. (See Map No. IV.) Alexander is thought to have pillaged it. It was taken from the sultan Mahomet, by Gengis Khan, in 1220 ; and under Timo, v or Tamerlane, it became the capital of one of the largest empires in the world, and the cen.^; of Asiatic learning and civilization, at the same time that it rose to high dis- tinction on account of its extensive commerce wilh all parts of Asia. Samarcand is now in a a. Emir, an Arabic word, meaning a leader, or commander, was a title first given to the caliphs ; but when they assumed the title of sultan, that of emir was applied to their children. At length it was bestowed upon all who were thought to be descendants of Mahomet in the line of his daughter Fatimah. OHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 311 made thirty -five victorio is campaigns, conquering all Persia, North- ern Asia, and Hindostan, and before his death he had ^ TARTAR placed the crowns of twenty-seven kingdoms on his EMPIRE OF head. In the year 1402 he fought a bloody and decisive TAMERLANE - battle with the Turkish sultan Bajazet, on the plains of Angora, 1 in Asia Minor, in which the Turk sustained a total defeat, and fell into the hands of the conqueror. Tamerlane would have carried his conquests into Europe ; but the lord of myriads of Tartar horsemen was not master of a single galley ; and the two passages of the Bos- porus and the Hellespont were guarded, the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks, who on this occasion forgot their animosities to act with union and firmness in the common cause. Two years later Tamerlane died, at the age of sixty-nine, while on his march for the invasion of China 6. The Ottoman empire not only soon recovered from the blow which Tamerlane had inflicted upon it, but in the year 1453, during the reign of Mahomet II., effected the final conquest of Constanti- nople. On the 29th of May of that year the city was carried by assault, and given up to the unrestrained pillage of the Turkish soldiers : the last of the Greek emperors fell in the first onset : the inhabitants were carried into slavery ; and Constantinople was left without a prince or a people, until the sultan established his own residence, and that of his successors, on the commanding spot which had been chosen by Constantine. The few remnants of the Greek or Roman power were soon merged in the Ottoman dominion ; and at the close of the fifteenth century the Turkish empire was firmlj established in Europe. 7. While at the close of the fifteenth century the three Scandina- vian kingdoms of the North, and Russia, formed, as it . . V. POLAND. were, separate worlds, having no connection with the rest of Europe, Poland, 8 the ancient Sarmatia, supplying the connect- decayed condition : gardens, fields, and plantations, occupy the place of its numerous streets and mosques ; and we search in vain for its ancient palaces, whose beauty is so highly eulo- gized by Arab historians. 1. Angora, a town of Natolia in Asia Minor, (see Note, Roum, p. 281,) is the same as the ancient Ancyra, which, in the time of Nero, was the capital of Galatia. Here St. Paul preached to the Galatians. 2. The Poles were a Sclavonic tribe (a branch of the Sarmatians), who, in the seventh cen tury, passed up the Dnieper, and thence to the Niemen and the Vistula. About the middle of the tenth century they embraced Christianity, and toward the end of the same century were first called Poles, that is, Sdavonians of the plain. The numerous principalities into which 3i2 MODERN HISTORY. [PART It ing link between the Sclavonian and German tribes, had risen to a considerable degree of eminence and power. The history of Poland commences with the tenth century ; but the prosperity of the king- dom began with the reign of Casimir the Great. (1333-1370.) In the year 1386 Lithuania 1 was added to Poland ; and about the mid- dle of the following century the Polish sovereign, Wladislas, was presented with the crown of Hungary, which he had nobly defended against the Turks. But Hungary soon reverted again to the German empire. After long wars with the Teutonic knights, 2 who, since the crusades, had firmly established their order in the Prussian part of the Germanic empire, the knights were everywhere defeated during the reign of Casimir IV., (1444-1492,) who added a large part of Prussia to the Polish territories. The Turkish province of Mol- davia 3 also became tributary to Poland ; and at the close of the fif- teenth century this kingdom had extended its power from the Baltic to the Euxine, along the whole frontier of European civilization, thus forming an effectual- barrier to the Western States of Europe against barbarian invasion. 8. The German empire, at the close of the fifteenth century, com- prised a great number of* States lying between France and Poland, extending even west of the Rhine, and embracing the whole of cen- the Poles were divided were first united into one kingdom in 1025, under king Bolealaus I. ; but Poland was afterwards subdivided among the family of the Piasts until 1305, when Wladis- las, king of Cracow, united with hiss overeignty the two principal remaining divisions, Great and Little Poland. From 1370 to 1382 Hungary was united with Poland. The union with Lithuania in 1386, occasioned by the marriage of the grand duke of Lithuania with the queen of Poland, was more permanent. After the Lithuania nobility, in 1569, united with Great and Little Poland, in one diet, Poland became the most powerful State in the North. Although Po- land has ceased to constitute an independent and single State Its detached fragments having become Austrian, Prussian, or Russian provinces -still the country is distinctly separated from those which surround it, by national character, language, and manners. The present Poland possessing the name without the privileges or a kingdom, and reduced to a territory extending two hundred miles north and south, and two hundred east and west, is, substantially, a part of the Russian empire. (Map No. XVII.) 1. The greater part of Lithuania, once forming the north-eastern division of Poland, has been united to Russia. It is comprised in the present governments of Mohilew, Witepsk, Minsk, Wilna, and Grodno. (Map No. XVII.) 2. The Teutonic Knights composed a religious order founded in 1190 by Frederic, duke of Suabia, during a crusade in the Holy Land, and intended to be confined to Germans of noble rank. The original object of the association was to defend the Christian religion against the infidels, and to take care of the sick in the Holy Land. By degrees the order made several conquests, and acquired great riches ; and at the beginning of the fifteenth century it possessed a large extent of territory extending from the Oder to the Gulf of Finland. The war with the Poles greatly abridged its power, and finally the order was abolished by Napoleon, in the war with Austria, April 24th, 1809. 3. Moldavia, nominally a Turkish province, but in reality under the protection of Russia, embraces the north-eastern part of the ancient Dacia. (Maps Nos. IX. and XVII.) CHAP. II] MIDDLE AOEa 313 tral Europe. The Carlovingian sovereigns of Germany were hered- itary monarchs ; but as early as the year 887 the great vassals of the crown deposed their emperor, and elected another sovereign, and from that remote period the em- perors of Germany have continued to be elective. 9. Owing to the great number of the Germanic States, which were of different grades, from large principalities down to free cities and the estates of earls or counts the frequent changes of territory among them, by marriages, alliances, and conquests, the weakness of the federal tie by which they were united and their conflicting interests, and frequent wars with each other and with the emperor, the history of Germany is exceedingly complicated, and generally devoid of great points of interest. Many of the States had their own sovereigns, subordinate to their common emperor. About the middle of the fourteenth century there were three powerful States in Germany, which had absorbed nearly all the rest; These were 1st, Luxemburg* which possessed Bohemia,' Moravia, 3 and part of Si- lesia, 4 and Lusatia : 6 2d, Bavaria, which had acquired Brandenburg,' Holland, 7 and the Tyrol : 8 and 3d, Austria* which, in addition to a 1. The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg was divided in the year 1833, between Holland and Bel- gium. The town of Luxemburg, one hundred and eighty-five miles north-east from Paris, containing one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, belongs, with a portion of the surround- ing country, to Holland. (Map No. XV.) 2. Bohemia, having Silesia and Saxony on the north, Moravia and the. arch-duchy of Austria on the south-east, and Bavaria on the west, forms an important portion of the Austrian empire. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Muraoia, an important province of Austria, lies east of Bohemia. In 1783 a portion of Silesia was incorporated with it. Moravia is the country anciently occupied by the Quadi and Marcomanni, who waged fierce wars against the Romans. (Map No. XVII.) 4. Silesia is north-east of Bohemia and Moravia, embracing the country on both sides of the Oder. (Map No XVII.) 5. Lusatia was a tract of country having Brandenburg on the north, Silesia on the east, Bo- hemia and Bavaria on the south, and Meissen on the west. It is now embraced in the east- ern part of the kingdom of Saxony, east of Dresden, the southern part of Brandenburg, and the north-western part of Silesia. It was divided into Upper and Lower Lusatia, the former being the southern portion of the territory. (Map No. XVII.) 6. Brandenburg-, the most important of the Prussian States, lies between Mecklenburg and Pomerania on the north, and West Prussian Saxony and the kingdom of Saxony on the south. It includes Berlin, the capital of the Prussian empire. (Map No. XVII.) 7. Holland has the Prussian German States on the south-east, Belgium on the south, and the eea on the west. (Maps Nos. XV. and XVII.) 8. The Tyrol, (comprising the ancient Rhcetia with a part of Noricum, see Map No. IX.,) is a province of the Austrian empire, east of Switzerland, and having Bavaria on the north, ami Lombardy on the south. The Tyrolese, although warmly attached to liberty, have always been steadfast adherents of Austria. ( Map No. XVII.) 9. The arch-duchy of Austria, the nucleus and centre of the Austrian empire, lies on both idee of the Danube, having Bohemia and Moravia on the north, and Styria and Carinthia on the south. In the time of Charlemagne, about the year 800, the margravate of Austria was -, ; ; ; - ,; 314 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL large number of hereditary States, possessed much of the Suabian territory. (See Suabia, p. 270.) 10. In the year 1438 the German princes elected an emperor from the house of Austria; and, ever since, an Austrian prince, with scarcely any intermission, has occupied the throne of Germany. Near the close of the fifteenth century the German States, then under the reign of Maximilian of the house of Austria, made an im- portant change in their condition, by which the private wars and feuds, which the laws then authorized, and the right to carry on which against each other the petty States regarded as the bulwark of their liberty, were made to give place to regular courts of justice for the settlement of national controversies. In the year 1495, at a general diet held at Worms, 1 the plan of a Perpetual Public Peace was subscribed to by the several States : oppression, rapine, and vio- lence, were made to yield to the authority of law, and the public tranquillity was thus, for the first time in Germany, established on a firm basis. 11. For a considerable period previous to the beginning of the fourteenth century, Switzerland, the Helvetia of the Ho- ZERLAND" mans > ^ad formed an integral part of the Germanic em- pire; but in the year 1307 the house of Austria, under the usurping emperor Albert, endeavored to extend his sway over the rude mountaineers of that inhospitable land. The tyranny of Aus- tria provoked the league of Rutuli ; a the famous episode of the hero William Tell 3 gave a new impulse to the cause of freedom ; and in formed south of the Danube, by a body of militia which protected the south-east of Germany from the incursions of the Asiatic tribes. In 1156 its territory was extended north of the Dan- ube, and made a duchy. In 1438 the ruling dynasty of Austria obtained the electoral crovvu of the German emperors, and in 1453 Austria was raised to an arch-duchy. In 1526 it acquired Bohemia and Hungary, and attained the rank of a European monarchy. (Map No. XVII.) 1. Worms is on the west bank of the Rhine, forty-two miles south-west from Frankfort. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Rutuli was a meadow slope under the Salzburg mountain, in the canton of Uri, and on the west bank of the Lake of Lucerne, where the confederates were wont to assemble at dead of night, to consult for the salvation of their country. (Map No. XIV.) 3. The story of William Tell, one of the confederates of Rutuli, is, briefly, as follows. Gess- ler the Austrian governor had carried his insolence so far as to cause his hat to be placed upon a pole, as a symbol of the sovereign power of Austria, and to order that all who passed should uncover their heads and bow before it. Tell, having passed the hat without making obeisance, was summoned before Gessler, who, knowing that he was a good archer, command- ed him to shoot, from a great distance, an apple placed on the head of his own son, promis- ing him his life if he succeeded. Tell hit the apple, but, accidentally dropping a concealed arrow, was asked by the tyrant why he had brought two arrows with him ? " Had I shot my child," replied the archer, " the second shaft was for thee : and, be sure, I should not have OHAP. II] MIDDLE AGES. 315 the year 1308 the united cantons of Uri, Schwytz, and Unterwalden, 1 strucK their first blow for liberty, and expelled their oppressors from the country. In 1315 the Swiss gained a great victory over the Austrians at Morgarten," and another at Sempach 8 in 1386 ; but they were regarded as belonging to the Germanic empire until about the close of the fifteenth century, when, in the famous Suabian war, army after army of the Austrians was defeated, and the emperor Maxi- milian himself compelled to effect a disgraceful retreat. This was the last war of the early Swiss confederates in the cause of freedom ; and the peace concluded with Maximilian in 1499 established the independence of Switzerland. 1'2. The condition of Italy during the central period of the Mid- dle Ages has already been described. (Sec II.) At the close of that period Italy still formed, nominally, a part of the Germanic empire ; but the authority of the German em- VITI ' IT perors had silently declined during the preceding cen- turies, until at length it was reduced to the mere ceremony of coro nation, and the exercise of a few honorary and feudal rights over the Lombard vassals of the crown. In the twelfth and thirteenth cen- turies, numerous republics had sprung up in Italy ; and, animated by the spirit of liberty, they for a time enjoyed an unusual degree of prosperity ; but eventually, torn to pieces by contending factions, and a prey to mutual and incessant hostilities, they fell under the tyranny of one despot after another, until, in the early part of the fifteenth century, Florence, Genoa, 4 and Venice, were the only im- missed my mark a second time." Gessler, in a rage not unmixed with terror, declared that although he had promised Tell his life, he should pass it in a dungeon ; and taking his captive bound, started In a boat to cross the Lake of Lucerne, to his fortress. But a violent storm arising, Tell was set at liberty, and the helm committed to his hands. He guided the boat suc- cessfully to the shore, when, seizing his bow, by a daring leap he sprung upon a rock, leaving the barque to wrestle with the billows. Gessler escaped the storm, but only to fall by the un- erring arrow of Tell. The death of Gessler was a signal for a general rising of the Swiss cantons. 1. t/ri, Schwytz, Unterwalden, see Map No. XIV. 2. Morgartc-n, the narrow pass in which the battle was fought, is on the eastern shore of the small Lake of Egeri, in the canton of Schwytz, seventeen miles east from Lucerne. {Map No. XIV.) 3. Sempach is a small town on the east bank of the small lake of the same name, seven miles northwest from Lucerne. (Map No. XIV.) 4. Genoa, a maritime city of northern Italy, Is at the head of the gulf of the same name, seventy-five miles south-east from Turin. After the downfall of the empire of Charlemagne, Genoa erected itself into a republic. In 1174 it possessed an extensive territory in north-west- ern Italy, nearly all of Provence, and the island of Corsica. Genoa carried on long wars with Pisa and Venice, that with the latter being one of the most memorable in the Italian annals of the Middle Ages. 316 MODERN HI&FORY. [PART II portant States that had escaped the general catastrophe. Nearly all the numerous free towns and republics of Lombardy had been con- quered by the duchy of Milan, which acknowledged a direct de- pendence on the German emperor. 13. The Florentines, who greatly enriched themselves by their commerce and manufactures, maintained their republican form of government, from about the close of the twelfth century, during a period of nearly two hundred and fifty years. The Genoese and Ve- netians, whose commercial interests thwarted each other, both in the Levant 1 and the Mediterranean, quarreled repeatedly; but eventu- ally the Venetians gained the superiority, and retained the command of the sea in their own hands. Of all the Italian republics, Genoa was the most agitated by internal dissensions ; and the Genoese, vol- atile and inconstant, underwent frequent voluntary changes of mas- ters. At the close of the fifteenth century Genoa was a dependency of the duchy of Milan, although subsequently it recovered once more its ancient state of independence. 14. Venice, to whose origin we have already alluded, was the earliest, and, for a long time, the most considerable, commercial city of modern Europe. At a very early period the Venetians began to trade with Constantinople and other eastern cities ; the crusades, to which their shipping contributed, increased their wealth, and extend- ed their commerce and possessions ; and toward the end of the fif- teenth century, besides several rich provinces in Lombardy, the re- public was mistress of Crete and Cyprus, of the greater part of the Morea, 2 or Southern Greece, and of most of the isles in the jEgean Sea. The additional powers that at this time shared the dominion of Italy, were the popes, and the kings of Naples ; but the temporal domains of the former were small, and those of the latter soon passed into other hands ; for the continual wars which all the Italian States waged with each other had already encouraged foreign powers to form plans of conquest over them. In the year 1500 Ferdinand of Spain deprived France of Naples ; and from this time the Spaniards, who were already masters of Sicily and Sardinia, became, for more than a hundred years, the predominating power in Italy. 1 , The Levant is a term applied to designate the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, from Bouthern Greece to Egypt. In the Middle Ages the trade with these countries was almost exclusively in the hands of the Italians, who gave to them the general appellation of Levants^ or eastern countries. (Italian, Levante : French, Levant.) 2. Jllorca, the ancient Peloponnesus, or southern Greece, is said to derive its modern name from its resemblance to a mulberry leaf. (Greek, morea, a mulberry tree.) ODAP. II] MIDDLE AGES. 317 15. Turning to Spain, we behold there, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, the three Christian States of Navarre, 1 Aragon, 8 Castile* and Leon* united, and the Moorish kingdom of Granada. 6 Frequent dissensions among the Christian States had long prevented unity of action among them, but in the year 1474 Ferdinand V. ascended the throne of Aragon ; and, as he had previously married Isabella, a princess of Castile, the two most powerful Christian States were thus united. The plan of ex- pelling the Moors from Spain had long been agitated; and in 1481 the war for that purpose was commenced by Ferdinand and Isabella. Ten years, however, were spent in the sanguinary strife, before the 1. Navarre is in the northern part of Spain, having France and the Pyrenees on the north, Aragon on the east, Old Castile on the south, and the Basque provinces (Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alava) on the west. A portion of ancient Navarre extended north of the Pyrenees, and afterwards formed the French province of Beam. (See Map No. XIII.) During many cen- turies Navarre was an independent kingdom, but in 1284 it became united, by intermarriage, with that of France. In 1329 it again obtained a sovereign of its own. Although still claimed by France, in 1512 Ferdinand of Aragon united all the country south of the Pyrenees to the crown of Spain. In 1590 Henry IV., grandson of Henry king of Navarre, ascended the throne of France ; and from that time to the reign of Charles X., the French monarchs, (with the ex- ception of Napoleon,) assumed the title of "king of France and Navarre ;" but only the small portion of Navarre north of the Pyrenees remained annexed to the French monarchy. Span- ish Navarre is still governed by its separate laws, and has, nominally at least, the same con- stitution which it enjoyed when it was a separate monarchy ; but its sovereignty is rested in the Spanish crown. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Aragon was bounded on the north by the Pyrenees, east by Catalonia, south by Valencia, and west by Castile and Navarre. While a separate kingdom it was the most powerful of tho peninsular States, and comprised, in 1479, under the sovereignty of Ferdinand, exclusive of Aragon proper, Navarre, Catalonia, Valencia, and Sardinia. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Castile is the central and largest division of modern Spain. The northern portion being that first recovered from the Saracens, is called Old Castile, and comprises the modern prov- inces of Burgos, Soria, Segovia, and Avila : the southern portion, called New Castile, comprises the provinces of Madrid, Guadalaxara, Cuenca, Toledo, and La Manicha. After the expulsion of the Saracens, and various vicissitudes, the sovereignty of Castile was vested by marriage in Sancho III. king of Navarre, whose son Ferdinand was made king of Castile in 1034. Three years later he was crowned king of Leon. The crowns of Castile and Leon were repeatedly separated and united, till, by the marriage of Isabella, who held both crowns, with Ferdinand, king of Aragon, in 1497, the three kingdoms were consolidated into one. (Map No. XIII.) 4. The kingdom of Leon was bounded north by Asturias, east by Old Castile, south by Es- tremadura, and west by Galicla and Portugal. During the eighth century, this district, after the expulsion of the Moors, was formed into a kingdom, called after its capital, and connected with Asturias. It was first added to Castile in 1037, in the reign of Ferdinand I. king of Cas- tile, who was king of Leon in right of his wife ; but it continued in an unsettled state till 1230, when it was finally united, by inheritance, to the dominions of Ferdinand III. king of Castile. (Map No. XIII ) 5. G-anada, consisting of the south-eastern part of ancient Andalusia, (Note p. 232,) is on the Mediterranean coast, in the south-eastern part of Spain. On the breaking up of the Afri- can empire in Spain, in the year 1238, Mohammed ben Alhamar founded the Moorish king- dom of Granada, making the city of Granada his capital. Granada remained in the possession of the Moors two hundred and fifty years, which comprise the season of Us prosperity. In 1492 it surrendered to Ferdinand the Catholic, being the last foothold of Saracen power in Spain. (Map No. XIII.) 318 MODERN HISTORY. [PABT IL Christians were enabled to besiege Granada, the Moorish capital; but the capitulation of that city in January, 1492, put an end to the Saracen dominion in the Spanish peninsula, after it had existed there during a period of eight hundred years. In the year 1512 Ferdi- nand invaded and conquered Navarre ; and thus the whole of Spain WAS united under the same government. 16. Toward the close of the eleventh century, the frontier province of Portugal, 1 which had been conquered by the Chris- *TUGA*~ tians from the Moors, was formed into an earldom tributary to Leon and Castile ; but in the twelfth cen- tui 7 it was erected into an independent kingdom, and in the early pait of the thirteenth it had reached its present limits. The history of Portugal is devoid of general interest, until the period of those voyages and discoveries of which the Portuguese were the early pro- moters, and which have shed immortal lustre on the Portuguese name. III. DISCOVERIES. 1. A brief account of the discoveries of the fifteenth century will close the present chapter. From the subver- sion of the Roman empire, until the revival of letters which succeed- ed the Dark Ages, no advance was made in the art of navigation ; and even the little geographical knowledge that had been acquired 1. Portugal, anciently called Lusitania, (Note p. 166,) was taken possession of by the Ro- mans about two hundred years before the Christian era ; previously to which the Phoenicians, Carthaginiana, and Greeks, traded to its shores, and probably planted colonies there. In the fifth century it was inundated by the Germanic tribes, and in 712 was conquered by the Saracens. Soon after, the Spaniards of Castile and Leon, aided by the native inhabitants, wrested north- ern Portugal, between the Minho and the Douro, from the Moors, and placed counts or govern- ors over this region. About the close of the eleventh century Henry, a Burgundian prince, came into Spain to seek his fortune by his sword, in the wars against the Moors. Alphonso VI. king of Castile and Leon, gave to the chivalric stranger the hand of his daughter in mar- riage, and also the earldom of the Christian provinces of Portugal. In 1139 the Portuguese earl, Alphonso I., having gained a brilliant victory over the Moors, his soldiers proclaimed him king on the field of battle ; and Portugal became an independent kingdom. Its power now rapidly increased : it maintained its independence against the claims of Castile and Leon ; and Alphonso extended his dominions to the borders of Algarve, in the south. In 1-249 Alphonso III. conquered Algarve, and thus, in the final overthrow of the Moorish power in Portugal, ex- tended the kingdom to its present limits. The language of Portugal is merely a dialect of the Spanish ; but the two people regard each other with a deep-rooted national antipathy. The character attributed to the Portuguese is not very flattering. " Strip a Spaniard of all his virtues, and you make a good Portuguese of him," says the Spanish proverb. " I have heard it more truly said," says Dr. Southey, " add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices, and you have the Portuguese character. The two na- tions differ, perhaps purposely, in many of their habits. Almost every man in Spain smokes ; the Portuguese never smoke, but most of them take snuff. None of the Spaniards will use a wheelbarrow : none of the Portuguese will carry a burden : the one says, ' it is only fit for beasts to draw carriages ;' the other, that ' it is fit only for beasts to carry burdens.' " (Map No. XIII.) CHAP. II] MIDDLE AGES. 319 was nearly lost during that gloomy period. Upon the returning dawn of civilization, however, commerce again revived ; and the Italian States, of which Venice, Pisa, 1 and Genoa, took the lead, soon became distinguished for their enterprising commercial spirit. The discovery of the magnetic needle gave a new impulse to naviga- tion, as it enabled the mariner to direct his bark with increased bold- ness and confidence farther from the coast, out of sight of whose landmarks he before seldom dared venture ; while the invention of the art of printing disseminated more widely the knowledge of new discoveries in geography and navigation. In the fourteenth century the Canary 2 islands, believed to be the ^Fortunate islands of the ancients, were accidentally rediscovered by the crew of a French ship driven thither by a storm. But the career of modern discovery was prosecuted with the greatest ardor by the Portuguese. Under the patronage of prince Henry, son of king John the First, Cape Bojador, before considered an impassable limit on the African coast, was doubled ; the Cape de Verd 3 and Azore* islands were discovered ; and the greatest part of the African coast, from Cape Blanco to Cape de Verd, was explored. (1419 1430.) 2. The grand idea which actuated prince Henry, was, by circum- navigating Africa, to open an easier and less expensive route to the Indies, and thus to deprive the Italians of the commerce of those fertile regions, and turn it at once upon his own country. Although prince Henry died before he had accomplished the great object of his ambition, the fame of the discoveries patronized by him had rendered his name illustrious, and the learned, the curious, and the 1. P/sa, the capital of one of the most celebrated republics of Italy, and now the capital of the province of its own name in the grand duchy of Tuscany, is on the river Arno, about eight miles from its entrance into the Mediterranean, and thirteen miles north-east from Leg- horn. In the tenth century Pisa took the lead among the commercial republics of Italy, and in the eleventh century its fleet of galleys maintained a superiority in the Mediterranean. In the thirteenth century a struggle with Genoa commenced, which, after many vicissitudes, ended in the total ruin of the Pisans. Pisa subsequently became the prey of various petty tyrants, and was finally united to Florence in 1406. 2. The Canaries are a group of fourteen islands belonging to Spain. The peak of Teneriffe, a half extinct volcano, on one of the more distant islands, is about two hundred and fifty miles from the north-west coast of Africa, and eight hundred miles south-west from the straits of Gibraltar. 3. The Cape de Verd islands, belonging to Portugal, are off the west coast of Africa, about three hundred and twenty miles west from Cape de Verd. 4. The Azores (az-Bres') are about eight hundred miles west from Portugal. The name is said to be derived from the vast number of hawks, (called by the Portuguese affor,) by which they were frequented. At the time of their discovery they were uninhabited, and covered with forest and underwood. 320 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL adventurous, repaired to Lisbon 1 to increase their knowledge by the discoveries of the Portuguese, and to join in their enterprises. Among them Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa, arrived there about the year 1470. He had already made himself familiar with the navigation of the Mediterranean, and had visited Iceland ; 2 and he now accompanied the Portuguese in their expeditions to the coast of Gruinea 3 and the African islands. But while others were seeking a passage to India by the slow and tedious process of sailing around the southern extremity of Africa, the bold and daring mind of Co- lumbus conceived the project of reaching the desired land by a west- ern route, directly across the Atlantic. The spherical figure of the earth was then known, and Columbus doubted not that our globe might be circumnavigated. 3. Of the gradual maturing and development of the theory of Co- lumbus, of the poverty and toil which he endured, and the ridicule, humiliation, and disappointments which he encountered, as he wan- dered from court to court, soliciting the patronage which ignorance, bigotry, prejudice, and pedantic pride, so long denied him, and of his final triumph, in the discovery of a new continent, equal to the old world in magnitude, and separated by vast oceans from all the earth before known to civilized man, our limits forbid us to enter into details, and it would likewise be superfluous, as these events have al- ready been familiarized to American readers by the chaste and glow- ing narrative of their countryman Irving. In the year 1492, the genius of Columbus, more than realizing the dreams of Plato's famous Atlantis, 4 revealed to the civilized world another hemisphere, 1. Lisbon, the capital and principal seaport of Portugal, is situated on the right bank, and near the mouth, of the Tagus. The Moors captured the city in the year 716, and, with some slight exceptions, it remained in their power till, in 1145, Alphonso I. made it the capital of his kingdom. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Iceland is a large island in the Northern Ocean, on the confines of the polar circle. It was discovered by a Norwegian pirate in the year 8S1, and was soon after settled by Norwe- gians. In the year 028 the inhabitants formed themselves into a republic, which existed nearly four hundred years ; after which Iceland again became subject to Norway. On the annexation of that kingdom to Denmark, Iceland was transferred with it. 3. Guinea is a name applied by European geographers to designate that portion of the Afri- can coast extending from about eleven degrees north of the equator, to seventeen degrees south. 4. Atlantis was a celebrated island supposed to have existed at a very early period in the Atlantic Ocean, and to have been, eventually, sunk beneath its waves. Plato is the first who gives an account of it, and he obtained his information from the priests of Egypt. The state- ment which he furnishes is substantially as follows : " In the Atlantic Ocean, over against the pillars of Hercules, lay a very large and fertile island, whose surface was variegated by mountains and valleys, its coasts indented with many navigable rivers, and its fields well cultivated. In its vicinity were other islands from which CHAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 321 and first opened a communication between Europe and America that will never cease while the waters of the ocean continue to roll be- tween them. Five years after the discovery of America, Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese admiral, doubled the Gape of Good Hope, and had the glory of carrying his national flag as far as India. These were the closing maritime enterprises of the fifteenth century : they opened to the Old World new scenes of human existence : new na- tions, new races, and new continents, rapidly crowded upon the vision ; and imagination tired in contemplating the future wonders that the genius of discovery was about to develop. there was a passage to a large continent lying beyond. The island of Atlantis was thickly set- tled and very powerful : its kings extended their sway over Africa as far as Egypt, and over Europe until they were checked by the Athenians, who, opposing themselves to the invaders, became the conquerors. But at length that Atlantic island, by a flood and earthquake, was suddenly destroyed, and for a long time afterwards the sea thereabouts was full of rocks and shoals." A dispute arose among the ancient philosophers whether Plato's statement was based upon reality, or was a mere creation of fancy. Posidonius thought it worthy of belief: Pliny re- mains undecided. Among modern writers, Rudbeck labors to prove that Sweden was the Atlantis of the ancients : Bailly places it in the farthest regions of the north, believing that the Atlantides were the far-famed Hyperboreans ; while others connect America, with its Mexican and Peruvian remains of a remote civilization, with the legend of the lost Atlantis. In con- nection with this view they point to the peculiar conformation of our continent along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where everything indicates the sinking, at a remote period, of a large tract of land, the place of which is now occupied by the waters of the Gulf. And mjiy not the mountain tops of this sunken land still appear to view as the islands of the West Indian group ; and may not the large continent lying beyond Atlantis and the adjacent islands have been none ether than America ? 21 322 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET II. CHAPTER III. EUROPEAN HISTORY DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY I. INTRODUCTORY. ANALYSTS. I. The unity of ancient history. How broken, in the history of the Middle Ages. Still less unity in modern history. How, only, confusion can be avoided. 2. Approxi- mation towards a knowledge of universal history. Future plan of the work. What must not be overlooked, and what alone we can hope to accomplish. 3. State of Europe at the begin- ning of the sixteenth century. Condition of Persia. Mogul empire in Hindostan. China. Egypt. The New World. Where, only, we look for historic unity. II. THE AGE OF HENRY VIIL, AND CHARLES V. 1. Rise of the STATES-SYSTEM OF EUROPE. Growing intricacy of the relations between States. 2. Causes of the first development of the States-system. 3. The Great power of Austria under Charles V. 4. Ferdinand, the brother of Charles. Philip II., son of Charles. 5. Beginning Of THE RIVALRY BETWEEN FRANCIS I. AND CHARLES V. The faVOr Of HENRY VIII. OF ENG- LAND courted by both. 6. Favorable position of Henry at the time of his accession. 7. Ef- forts of Charles and Francis to win his favor. The result. 8. Efforts of Francis to recover Navarre. The Italian war that followed. Francis defeated, and made prisoner, in the battle of Pavia. [House of Bourbon.'] 9. Imprisonment, and release, of Francis. 10. A general league against Charles V. 11. Operations of the duke of Bourbon in Italy. Pillage of Rome, and death of Bourbon. 12. Captivity of the pope. The French army in Italy. The peace of Cambray. 13. The domestic relations of Henry VIII. 14. The rise, power, and fall, of Wolsey. [Wolsey's soliloquy.] J5. THE REFORMATION. The maxim of religious freedom. Papal power and pretensions at this period. Persecution of reformers. [Wicklifle. Council of Constance. The Albigenses.] Effect of advancing civilization on papal power. Avarice of pope Leo. X. Indulgences. Martin Luther. [Wittemberg.] 16. Luther's first opposition to the Church of Rome. His gradual progress in rejecting the doctrines and rites of popery. His writings declared heretical. He burns the papal bull of condemnation. 17. Declaration of the Sorbonne. [Sorbonne.] The diet of Worms. Henry VIIL joins in opposing Luther. 18. Circumstances in Luther's favor. Decrees of the diet of Spires. Protest of the Reformers. [Spires.] 19. The diet of Augs- burg, 1530. [Augsburg.J Melancthon. Result of the diet. League of the Protestants. Henry VIII. and Francis I. favor the Protestant cause. 20. -Invasion of Hungary by the Turks. Cru- sade of Charles V. against the Moors. [Algiers ] Renewal of the war by the French monarch. [Savoy.] Invasion of France by Charles. 21. Brief truce, and renewal of the war. [Nice.] The Parties to this war, and its results. [Cerisoles. Boulogne.] 22. War carried on by Charles against his Protestant German subjects. Revolt of Maurice of Saxony. 23. Surprise and mor tification of Charles, and final treaty of Augsburg. [Passau.] 24. Circumstances which led to the ABDICATION AND RETIREMENT OF CHARLES V. [St. Just.] 25. The emperor in his retirement. 26. The Protestant States of Europe. Character of the Refor- mation in England. Religious intolerance of Henry. Character of Henry's government. 27. Brief reign of Edward VI. Reign of Mary. Character of her reign. War with France. [St. sisted by a Spanish force under Spinola, and by the Catholic league of Germany, now overran Bohemia, and compelled Frederic to seek refuge in Holland, where he dwelt without a kingdom, and without courage to reconquer it, maintained at the expense of his father- in-law, the king of England. The punishment inflicted upom Bohe- mia was severe in the extreme : twenty-seven of the Protestant lead- ers were condemned to death ; by degrees all Protestant clergyman were banished from the country ; and, finally, it was declared that no subject who did not adhere to the Roman Catholic church would be tolerated. Thirty thousand families, driven away by this cruel ./ti.-:::-".'v ]. Prague, the capital city of Bohemia, is situated on both sides of the Moldau, a branch of the Elbe, one hundred and fifty-two miles north-west of Vienna, and seventy-two miles south- east from Dresden. Jerome, the friend of the great Bohemian reformer John Huss, was a native of this citv, and was thence surnamed, " of Prague." (Map No. XVII.) 356 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL edict, took refuge in the Protestant States of Saxony and Brandon- burf. Thus closed the Palatine period of the thirty years' war. 3. After the flight of Frederic, his general Mansfeldt still deter- mined to maintain the Protestant cause against the emperor Ferdi- nand ; but he found himself unable to cope with the imperial gen- erals, Tilly and Wallenstein. The Protestant towns of Lower Saxony, foreseeing the fate to which they might be subjected, next took up arms, and having entered into an alliance with Christian IV. of Den- mark, made him captain general of the confederated PERIOD OF army. ( 1 625.) Thus opened the Danish period of the THE WAR. ^- ar With a body of twenty -five thousand men, consist- ing of Danes, Germans, Scotch, and English, the Danish king crossed the Elbe, where he was joined by seven thousand Saxons ; but, after some successes, he was defeated by Tilly near the castle of Lutter, 1 on the road from Gottingen 2 to Brunswick, 3 with the loss of four thousand men, besides a vast number of prisoners. (Aug. 26th, 1626.) 4. In the following year, 1627, the Danes were driven from Ger- many by Wallenstein, the imperial commander, who had now in- creased his forces to one hundred thousand men. Not content with driving Christian from Germany, Wallenstein pursued him into Denmark ; and soon the whole of the peninsula, with the exception of one fortress, was conquered, and the king was obliged to take refuge in his islands. The ambitious views of Ferdinand now aimed at the extirpation of the Lutheran heresy throughout his own empire, and the reestablishment of the Catholic faith throughout the entire north, by the subjugation of Norway and Sweden, in addition to Denmark. As a preliminary step towards the accomplishment of this gigantic undertaking, Wallenstein was first to secure the dominion of the Baltic and the North Sea. Assisted by a Spanish fleet, he took possession of several ports on the Baltic ; but the citi- zens of Stralsund," aided by five thousand Swedish and Scottish troops, defended their walls with such determined courage and per- severance, that Wallenstein was forced to abandon the siege, after a 1. Lutter, "near Barenberg. in Hanover," south-west from Brunswick. This battle was fought Aug. 26th, 1626. 2. Gottingen, in the kingdom of Hanover, is fifty-six miles south-west from Brunswick. It is especially noted for its university, which, down to 1831, was fully entitled to its appellation " the queen of German universities." (Map No. XVII.) 3. Brunswick, the early seat of the dukes of that name, is a city of Germany, situated on the Ocker, a branch of the Weser, thirty-seven miles a little south of east from Hanover. (Map No. XVII.) 4. Stralsund is a strongly-fortified Prussian town, on the narrow strait of the Baltic which separates the island of Rugen from the continent. (Map No. XVII.) . IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 357 loss of twelve thousand men. This signal discomfiture induced the emperor to consent to treat for peace with Denmark ; and by the treaty of Lubec, 1 Christian was restored to his dominions, on the condition of abandoning his German allies. (May, 1629.) Thus terminated the Danish period of the thirty years' war. 5. It had been hoped that the treaty of Lubec would prove the forerunner of a general pacification ; and the subjects, the allies, and the enemies of Ferdinand, now united in imploring him to put an end to a civil war which had been waged with a ferocity hitherto un- known since the ages of Gothic barbarism. But, the Protestants being subdued, and no enemy left to oppose the emperor, the Roman Catholics thought the moment too favorable to be neglected, and Ferdinand was urged on by them to exercise the most intolerable tyranny over his Protestant subjects. The last beam of hope froni the emperor's clemency was extinguished, and the Protestants only awaited the arrival of a leader to throw off a yoke which m SWEDIgH had become insupportable. A deliverer was found in PERIOD OF Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant king of Sweden. The THE WAE * circumstances that led to his interposition, the opening of the Swedish period of the war show how tangled has often been the web of European politics. 6. Cardinal Richelieu, the able minister of Louis XIII. of France, after having humbled the Huguenots by the capture of Ro- chelle, 8 their last stronghold, directed his great powers to the abase- ment of the house of Austria. With this view he was instrumental iii depriving Ferdinand of his ablest general, "Wallenstein, whose dismissal from power was successfully urged by an assembly of the German States in the summer of 1630. Richelieu had previously 1. Lubec, the capital of the " Hanseatic towns," is situated on the river Trave, about twelve miles from its entrance into the Baltic, and thirty-six miles north-east from Hamburg. The surrounding territory subject to Lubec consists of a district of about eighty square miles. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Rochetle is a town and seaport of France on the Atlantic coast, in the former province of Saintonge, seventy-six miles south-east from Nantes. During the religions wars, and especially after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Rochelle was a stronghold of the Protestants. Invested by the Catholic forces In 1572, it withstood a long siege, terminated by a treaty. The numerous infractions of that treaty, in the reign of Louis XIII., and under (he ministry of Richelieu, led to a second siege, which commenced in August, 1627, and was as violent as the former, and longer and more decisive. After six months of heroic resistance, the famous engineer, Mote- zeau, was directed to bar the entrance to the harbor by an immense dyke, extending nearly five thousand feet into the sea, the remains of which are still visible at low water. The result was soon fatally apparent. Famine quickly decimated the ranks of the besieged ; and after a resistance of fourteen months and eighteen days, Rochelle was compelled to capitulate. Riche- lieu n.ade a triumphant entry into the city ; the fortifications were demolished, and the Pro- testants were deprived of their last place of refuge. ( Map No. XIII.) 358 MODERN HISTORY. [?AET IL offered his successful mediation in negotiating a six years' armistice between the hostile States of Sweden and Poland, with the view of leaving Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish king, at liberty to turn his arms against the German emperor. All the inducements that an artful diplomatist could urge were brought to bear upon Gustavus, a prince ardsnt in the Protestant faith, and already a sufferer from the insolence and rapacity of Wallenstein ; and the result was a dec- laration of war against the German emperor, and an invasion of his territory by the Swedes, in the summer of 1630. 7. When Ferdinand was informed that the Swedish monarch had landed in Pomerania 1 - at the head of only fifteen thousand men, he treated the affair with much indifference; and the Roman Catholic party throughout the empire styled Gustavus, in contempt, the petty snow king, who, they said, would speedily melt beneath the rays of the imperial sun. But while the German armies were a motjey of all creeds and nations, bound together only by the ties of a common warfare and pillage, the Swedes formed a phalanx of hardy and well- disciplined warriors, strengthened by the confidence that God was on their side ; and to Him they offered up their prayers twice a day, each regiment having its own chaplain. Besides this, Gustavus had introduced a new system of military tactics into his army ; and by the novelty and boldness of his positions, and the impetuosity of his movements, he completely disconcerted the adherents of the old Ger- man routine. 8. Although some of the Protestant princes of Germany, through fear of their emperor, or from jealousy of foreign dominion, hesi- tated about joining the new ally of their cause, yet the onset of the Swedes was irresistible : they rapidly made themselves masters of all Pomerania, and took Frankfort under the eye of the imperial gen- eral Tilly ; but they were unable to relieve Magdeburg, 2 which Tilly plundered and burned, amid scenes of the most revolting atrocity an act which rendered his name infamous among all classes of the German population. 9. The unfortunate loss of Magdeburg was speedily compensated 1. Pomerania is a large province of Prussia, extending east from Mecklenberg about two hundred miles along the southern coast of the Baltic. Gustavus landed on the islands Wollen and Usedom, south-east of Stralsund. The first towns reduced by him were Wolgast and Stettin. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Magdeburg is a strongly-fortified city, and the capital of Prussian Saxony, situated on the Elbe, seventy-four miles south-west from Berlin. Magdeburg has suffered numerous sieges, but Us fortifications are now so extensive that it is said it would require fifty thousand men to in rest it. It was plundered and burned by Tilly, May 12th, 153J. (Map No. XVII.) CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 359 by formidable accessions of strength received from France and Eng- land, and by a great victory gained by Gustavus over Tilly in the vicinity of Leipsic. 1 (Sept. 7th, 1631.) Gustavus now rapidly traversed Germany from the Elbe to the Rhine, pursuing his victo rious career to the borders of Switzerland : all northern and western Germany, together with Bohemia, were in the hands of the Protest- ants ; and early in the following year Tilly himself was slain on the banks of the river Lech, a southern tributary of the Danube, in Ba- varia. 10. Ferdinand now saw no alternative, in his sinking fortunes, but to call the great and proud Wallenstein from retirement. His res- toration at once gave a new direction to the war. He quickly seized Prague, and restored Bohemia to his sovereign ; and Gustavus was now obliged to retire within the walls of Nuremberg 2 until he could rally his troops, which were scattered over Germany. After a tedious blockade of Nuremberg, in which both parties lost thirty thousand soldiers by famine and the sword, Wallenstein made a sudden move- ment towards Dresden ; 3 but the advance of Gustavus thwarted his plans and brought on that fatal action in which the Swedish hero lost his life. On the 16th of November, 1632, the two armies met at Lutzen ; 4 but scarcely had the battle commenced when Gustavus, throwing himself before the enemy's ranks, fell pierced by two balls. After a desperate engagement the Protestants triumphed ; but the glory of their victory was dearly bought by the death of their leader. 1. Leipsic is a celebrated commercial city of the kingdom of Saxony, sixty miles north-west from Dresden. It is a manufacturing town of considerable importance, and is the greatest book emporium in the world. In Oct. 1813, Leipsic was the scene of a most tremendous con- flict between Napoleon and the allies, in which the French, greatly inferior in numbers, were repulsed with a heavy loss. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Nuremberg is a ciiy of Bavaria, ninety-three miles north-west from Munich. It is sur- rounded by feudal walls and turrets, and these are inclosed by a ditch one hundred feet wide and fifty feet deep, lined throughout with masonry. Nuremberg is celebrated in the history of the Reformation, having early embraced its doctrines. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Dresden, the capital of the kingdom of Saxony, is situated on the Elbe, one hundred miles south-east from Berlin, and two hundred and thirty north-west from Vienna. Population mostly Protestant. It has a great number of literary and scientific institutions, and establish- ments devoted to education. Dresden and its environs have been the scene of some of the most important conflicts in modern warfare, particularly on the 26th and 27th of August, 1813, when Napoleon defeated the allies under its walls. (Map No. XVII.) 4. Lutzen is a small town of Prussian Saxony, twelve miles south-west from Leipsic. It would be unworthy of notice were it not that its environs have been the scene of two of the most memorable conflicts of modern times-, the first, which occurred Nov. IGth, 1632, and in which the Swedish monarch Gustavus Adolphus fell ; and the second, which took place on nearly the same ground, May 2d, 1813, and in which the French, under Napoleon, defeated the allies, who were encouraged by the presence of the emperor Alexander and the king of Prussia. (Map No. XVIL) 360 MODERN HISTORY. [PART 11. 11. Thus terminated the Swedish period of the " Thirty years' war ;" for although the Swedes still determined to support the Pro- testant cause in Germany, the animating spirit of the war had fled, and they were unable, alone, to accomplish anything effectual. A little more than a year after the fall of Gustavus, Wallenstein, being iv FRENCH accuse d f treason to his master and the Catholic cause, PERIOD OF was assassinated by the command of the emperor Fer- THE WAR. dinan a (F e k 1634< ) We come now to whafc hag been called the French period, embracing the closing scenes of this war. 12. The French minister, Richelieu, had long observed, with se- cret satisfaction, the misfortunes of the house of Austria, and of the German empire generally ; and now he offered the aid of France to the Swedes and the German Protestants, with Holland and the duke of Savoy as allies, on the condition of extending the French frontier over a portion of the German territory ; and thus the persecutor of the Huguenots was leagued with the Protestant powers of Europe against its Roman Catholic princes;- "a clear proof," says a writer of French history, " that his principles were politic, not bigoted." In a short time French armies were sent into Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands; and from this moment the provinces along the Rhine became the chief seat of the war, being pillaged and devas- tated as those along the Oder, Elbe, and Weser, had been previously. 13. From the moment of the active interference of France, the power of the German imperialists declined ; and the remainder of this " Thirty years' war," which was marked by an unusual degree of ferocity on both sides, presents a continuation of gloomy and dis- heartening scenes, in which Richelieu had the advantage, not from military but diplomatic superiority. Ferdinand died in the year 1637, without living to witness the termination of the civil and do- mestic war in which he had been engaged from the commencement of his reign. The French monarch Louis XIII., and his minister Richelieu, the great fomentors and leaders of the war, died in 1642, after which the negotiations for peace, which had been begun as early as 1636, were the more easily concluded; and in October 1648, the treaty of Westphalia 1 closed the sad scene of the long and sanguinary 1. Westphalia ia a province embracing all the northern portion of the Prussian dominions west of the Weser The " peace of Westphalia" was concluded in 1648, at Minister and Osna- burg, both then in Westphalia, but the latter now in Hanover. In 1641 preliminaries were agreed upon at Hamburg: in 1644 actual negotiations were commenced at Osnaburg, between the ambassadors of Austria, the German empire, and Sweden ; and at JMunster between those of the emperor, France, Spain, and other powers ; but the articles adopted in both formed one CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 361 " Thirty years' war." Peace found the German States in a sadly- depressed condition ; the scene that was everywhere presented was a wide waste of ruin ; and two-thirds of the population had perished, although not so much by the sword as by contagion, plague, famine, and the other attendant horrors that follow in the train of war. 14. The chief articles of the treaty of Westphalia were, 1st, the confirmation of the religious peace of Passau, and the consequent establishment of the independence of the Protestant German powers : 2d, the dismemberment of many of the German States for the purpose of indemnifying others for their losses ; and the sanction of the com- plete sovereignty of each of the German States within its own terri- tory : 3d, the extension of the eastern limits of France : 4th, the grant, to Sweden, of a considerable territory on the Baltic coast, to- gether with a subsidy of five millions of dollars ; and 5th, the ac- knowledgment of the independence of the Netherlands by Spain, and of the Swiss cantons by the German empire. '-.: '':". L)i\>i; oJ ifc.'is'. liefest y/aif II. ENGLISH HISTORY : THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. While the " Thirty years' war" was progressing on the continent, leading to the final triumph of religious liberty there, England was convulsed by domestic dissensions, which eventually led to a civil war, and the temporary overthrow of the monarchy. On the death of Elizabeth in 1603, James VI. of Scotland, the son of the unfortunate Mary, succeeded to the throne of England, AND with the title of James I. England and Scotland were thus united under one sovereign ; and henceforth the two countries received the common designation of " Great Britain." 2. The character of James, the first English monarch of the Stuart family, was not calculated to win the affections of his n< subjects. He was as arbitrary as his predecessors of the JAMES i. Tudor race ; and, although excelling in the learning of the times, he was signally deficient in all those noble qualities of a sovereign which command respect and enforce obedience. His imprudence in sur- rounding himself with Scotch favorites irritated the English : the Scotch saw with no greater satisfaction his attempts to subject them to the worship of the English church : some disappointed Roman Catholics formed a conspiracy, which was fortunately detected, to destroy by gunpowder the king and assembled parliament ; and the treaty. After terras had been settled between the parties at Osnabnrg, the ministers repaired to Munater, where the final treaty was concluded, Oct. 24th, 1R48. (Map No. XVII.) 362 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT IL puritans, aiming at farther reforms in the church and in the state, were committed to prison for even petitioning for some changes, not in the least inconsistent with the established hierarchy. James strenuously maintained the " Divine right of kings ;" and his entire reign was a continued struggle of the house of commons to restore, and to fortify, their own liberties, and those of the people. 3. In 1625 James was succeeded on the throne by his son Charles m . I., then in the twenty-fifth year of his age. Had Charles CHARLES i. lived a hundred years earlier, or had not the reformatory spirit of the age introduced great and important changes in the minds of men on the subject of the royal prerogative and the liber- ties of the people, he might have reigned with great popularity; for his stern and serious deportment, his disinclination to all licentious- ness, and a deep regard for religion, were highly suitable to the char- acter of the English people at this period ; but it was the misfortune of Charles to be destitute of that political prudence which should have taught him to yield to the necessities of the times. 4. The accession of Charles was immediately followed by difficul- ties with his parliament, which had no confidence in the king, and which he suddenly dissolved, because it refused to vote the supplies demanded by him, and showed an inclination to impeach his favorite minister Buckingham. The second parliament proceeded with the impeachment of the minister, (1626,) and the king retaliated by im- prisoning two members of the house on the charge of " words spoken by them in derogation of his majesty's honor ;" but the exasperation of the Commons soon obtained their release. The third parliament, called in 1628, waiving all minor contests, demanded the king's sanc- tion to a " Petition of Right," which set forth the rights of the Eng- lish people as guaranteed to them by the G-reat Charter, and by various laws and statutes of the realm. Charles, after many evasions, reluctantly signed the Petition ; but in a few months he flagrantly violated the obligations it had imposed upon him, and in a fit of in- dignation dissolved parliament, resolving never again to call another. (162939.) 5. During an interval of about ten years, and until the assembling of another parliament, no opposition, except such as public opinion interposed, was made to the full enjoyment of the unrestrained pre- rogatives of the king. Monopolies were now revived to a ruinous extent, and the benefits of them were sold to the highest bidder ; ille- gal duties were sustained by servile judges; unheard-of fines were CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 363 imposed ; and no expedient was omitte^ that might tend to bring money into the royal treasury, and thus enable the king to rule without the aid of parliament. The English clergy, at the head of whom was archbishop Laud, one of the chief advisers of the king, usurped, by degrees, the civil powers of government ; and the puri- tans were so rigorously persecuted that great numbers of them sought an asylum in America. In 1637 the attempts of Charles to intro- duce the Episcopal form of worship into Scotland, drove the Scotch presbyterians to open rebellion ; and a covenant to defend the re- ligion, the laws, and the liberties of their country against every danger, was immediately framed and subscribed by them. The covenanters, having received arms and money from the French minister Richelieu, marched into England ; but the English army refused to fight against their brethren, when the king, finding himself beset with difficulties on every side, was obliged to place himself at the discretion of a fourth parliament. (April 1640.) This parliament, not fully complying with the king's wishes, was abruptly dissolved after a month's session ; but public opinion soon compelled the king to summon another, which assembled in November of the same year. 6. The new parliament, called the Long Parliament, from the ex- traordinary length of its session, first applied itself dili- v THB gently to the correction of abuses and a redress of griev- LONG PAR- ances. Future parliaments were declared to be triennial ; many of the recent acts for taxing the people were declared illegal ; and monopolies of every kind were abolished the king yielding to all the demands that were made upon him. Not satisfied with these concessions, the commons impeached the earl of Strafford, the king's first minister, and favorite general, -accusing him of exercising pow- ers beyond what the crown had ever lawfully enjoyed, and of a sys- tematic hostility to the fundamental laws and constitution of the realm. By the unconstitutional expedient of a bill of attainder, Strafford was declared guilty ; and the king had the weakness to sign his condemnation. (1641.) Archbishop Laud was brought to trial and executed four years later. The severity of the punishment of Strafford, and the magnanimity displayed by him on his trial, have half redeemed his forfeit-fame, and misled a generous posterity ; but he died justly, although the means taken to accomplish his condem- nation, by a departure from the ordinary course of judicial proceed- ings, established a precedent dangerous to civil liberty. (TV 'f. .v5 \iutf'- } fl\k'-- /-..> r-j odj VT. CIVIL WAK. 364 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. 7. With a strong hand parliament now virtually took possession of the government ; it declared itself indissoluble without its own consent, and continued to encroach on the prerogatives of the king until scarcely the shadow of his former power was left him. A re- bellion which broke out in Ireland was maliciously charged upon the king as its author ; and Charles, to refute the unworthy suspicion, intrusted the management of Irish affairs to parliament, which the latter interpreted into a transference to them of the whole military power of the kingdom. At length Charles, irritated by a threatening remonstrance on the state of the kingdom, caused five members of the Commons to be impeached ; and went in person to the House to seize them, a fatal act of indiscretion which was declared a breach of privilege of parliament, for which Charles found it necessary to atone by a humiliating message. 8. The difficulties between the king and parliament, and their re- spective supporters, at length reached such a crisis, that in January 1642 the king left London, attended by most of his no- bility, and, repairing to Nottingham, 1 erected there the royal standard, resolving to stake his claims on the haz- ards of war. The adherents of parliament were not unprepared for the contest. On the side of the king were ranged most of the no- bility of the kingdom, together with the Roman Catholics all form- ing the high church and monarchy party ; while parliament had on its side the numerous presbyterian dissenters, and all ultra religious and political reformers ; parliament held the seaports, the fleet, the great cities, the capital, and the eastern, middle, and southern counties ; while the royalists had the ascendancy in the north and west. 9. From 1642 until 1647 the war was carried on with various suc- sess. In the battle of Edghill, 2 fought in October 1642, nothing was decided, although five thousand men were left dead on the field. The battle of Newbury, 3 fought in the following year, (Sept. 1. Nottingham is a city one hundred and eight miles north-west from London. It was the chief place of rendezvous for the troops of Edward IV. aud Richard III. during the wars of the Roses. Soon after Charles I. raised his standard here in 1642, the inhabitants, who were attached to the republican cause, compelled him to abandon the town and castle to the parlia- mentary forces. (Map No. XVL) 2. Edghill is a small town in the county of Warwick, seventy-two miles north-west from London. (Map No. XVI.) 3. Newbury is a town in Berks county, England, on the Kennett, a southern branch of the Thames, fifty-three miles south-west from London. The vicinity of this town is celebrated for two battles fought during the civil wars between the royalist and parliamentary forces, Charle* I. commanding his army in person on both occasions. The first was fought Sept. 20th, 1643 ; the second, Oct. 27th, 1644 ; but neither had any decided result. (Map No. XVI.) CHAP IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 365 20th, 1643,) was equally indecisive ; but it was attended with such loss on both sides that it put an end to the campaign, by obliging both parties to retire into winter quarters. 10. Both king and parliament now began to look for assistance to other nations ; and while some Irish Roman Catholics vir THK joined the royal army, the parliament entered into a SCOTCH " Solemn League and Covenant" with the Scotch people, LKAGUE - by which the parties to it bound themselves to aid in the extirpation of popery and prelacy, and to promote the establishment of a church government conformed to that of Scotland. The Scots, rejoicing at the prospect thus held out of extending their mode of religion over England, sent an army of twenty thousand men, at the beginning of 1644, to cooperate with the forces of parliament 1 1. The campaign of 1644 was unfortunate to the royal cause, the Irish forces being dispersed by Sir Thomas Fairfax, and the royal- ists experiencing a severe defeat at Marston Moor, 1 (2d July,) on which occasion fifty thousand British combatants engaged in mutual slaughter. In Scotland the royal cause was for a time sustained by the marquis of Montrose ; but the gallant Scot was at length over- whelmed by superior numbers ; and in the following year, June 1 4th, 1645, the battle of Naseby, 8 gained by the parliamentary forces, de- cided the contest against the king, although the useless obstinacy of the royalists protracted the war till the beginning of 1647. a After the defeat at Naseby, the king, relying on the faith of uncertain promises, threw himself into the hands of his Scotch subjects ; but the latter, treating him as a prisoner, delivered him up to the commission- ers of parliament. 1 2. The war was now at an end, but civil and religious dissensions raged with greater fury than ever. The late enemies of the king were divided into two factions, the Presbyterians and the Independents, the former having a majority in the parliament, and the latter form- ing a majority of the army. At the head of the Inde- pendent party was Oliver Cromwell, a general of the army, and a man of talent and address, who appears al- 1. Marston Moor is a small village of Yorkshire, England, seven milea west of the city of York. (Map No. XVI.) 2. Nasetry is a decayed market town of England, eleven and a-half miles north-west from London. It is twenty-nine miles north-east of the locality of the battle of Edghill. The battle of Naseby was fought north of the town, in the plain that separated Naaeby from Harborough. (Map No". XVI.) a. "Some of the. castles of North Wales, the last tbat surrendered, held out till April 1647."- flaUam's Const. Hist. Note p. 351.) 566 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL ready to have formed the design of obtaining supreme power. By his orders the king was taken from the commissioners of parliament, and placed in the custody of the army. A proposition of parliament to disband the army gave Cromwell an opportunity to heighten the disaffection of the soldiers ; and, placing himself at their head, he entered London, purged parliament of the members obnoxious to him, and imprisoned all who disputed his authority. 13. While parliament was suffering under the military domination of Cromwell, a general reaction began to take place in favor of the king. The Scots, ashamed of the reproach of having sold their sover- eign, now took up arms in his favor ; but Cromwell marched against them at the head of an inferior force, and after defeating them, entered Scotland, the government of which he settled entirely to his satisfaction. Parliament also entered into a negotiation with the king, with the view of restoring him to power ; but Cromwell sur- rounded the House of Commons with his soldiers, and excluding all but his own partisans, caused a vote to be passed declaring it treason in a king to levy war against his parliament. Under the influence of Cromwell, proposals were now made for bringing the king to trial ; and when the few remaining members of the House of AND EXECU- Lords refused their sanction to the measure, the Com- TION OF mons voted that the concurrence of the Lords was un- OHAB.LKS I. 111 i -i . n 11 . necessary, and that the people were the origin of all just power. The Commons then named a court of justice, composed mostly of the principal officers of the army, to try the king ; and on the charge of having been the cause of all the bloodshed during the continuance of the war, he was condemned to death. He was allowed only three days to prepare for execution ; and on the 30th of January, 1649, the misguided and unhappy monarch was behead- ed, being, at the time, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty fourth of his reign. 14. " The execution of Charles the First," says Hallam, " has been mentioned in later ages by a few with unlimited praise, by some witk faint and ambiguous censure, by most with vehement reproba- tion." Viewing the case in all its aspects, we can find no justifica- tion for the deed ; for no considerations of public necessity required it ; and it was, moreover, the act of a small minority of parliament, that had usurped, under the protection of a military force, a power which all England declared illegal. Lingard asserts that "the men. who hurried Charles to the scaffold were a small faction of bold and CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 367 ambitious spirits, who had the address to guide the passions and fanati- cism of their followers, and were enabled, through them, to control the real sentiments of the nation." The arbitrary principles of Charles, which he had imbibed in the lessons of early youth, his passionate temper, and want of sincerity, indeed rendered him unfit for the difficult station of a constitutional king ; but, on the other hand, he was deserving of esteem for the correctness of his moral principles ; and in private life he would not have been an unamiable man. 15. A few days after the death of Charles, the monarchical form of government was formally abolished ; the House of x ABOU . Lords fell by a vote of the Commons at the same time ; TION OF the mere shadow of a parliament, known by the appella- MONARCHY - tion of the Rump, and supported by an army of fifty thousand men under the controlling influence of Oliver Cromwell, took into its hands all the powers of government ; and the former title of the " English Monarchy" gave place to that of the Commonwealth of England. The royalists being still in considerable force in Ireland, Cromwell repaired thither with an army, and speedily reduced the country to submission ; after which he marched into Scotland at the head of sixteen thousand men, and, in the battle of Dunbar, (Sept. 13th, 1650,) defeated the royal covenanters, who had proclaimed Charles II., son of the late king, as their sovereign. In the follow- ing year he pursued the Scotch army into England, and completely annihilated it in the desperate battle of Worcester. 1 (Sept. 13th, 1651.) 16. Cromwell had formed the project of a coalition with Holland, which was to make the two republics one and indivisible ; xr WAR but national antipathies could not be overcome ; and in- WITH stead of the proposed coalition there ensued a fierce and HOLLAND. bloody war. Under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce, the British parliament passed the celebrated navigation act, which prohibited all nations from importing into England, in their ships, any commodity which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country ; a blow aimed directly at the Dutch, who were the general factors and carriers of Europe. Ships were seized and re- prisals made ; and in the month of May, 1652, the war broke out by 1. Worcester, the capital of Worcester county, England, is on the eastern bank of the river Severn, one hundred miles north-west from London. Worcester is of great, but uncertain, antiquity, and is one of the best built towns in the kingdom. It is principally celebrated in history for its giving name to the decisive victory obtained there by Cromwell on the 13th Sept. 1651. (Map No. XVI.) 368 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL a casual encounter of the hostile fleets of the two nations, in the straits of Dover, the Dutch admiral Yan Tromp commanding the one squadron, and the heroic Blake the other. After five hours' fighting, the Dutch were defeated, with the loss of one ship sunk and another taken. 17. The States-general of Holland were seriously alarmed at the prospect of a naval war with England, but the English parliament would listen to neither reason nor remonstrance ; and in a short time the fleets of the two nations were at sea again. Several actions took place with various success, but on the 29th of November a deter- mined battle was fought off the Goodwin sands, 1 between the Dutch fleet commanded by Van Troinp and De Ruyter, and the English squadron under Blake. Blake was wounded and defeated ; five Eng- lish ships were taken, or destroyed ; and night saved the fleet from destruction. After this victory, Tromp, in bravado, placed a broom at his mast head, to intimate that he would sweep the English ships from the seas. 18. Great preparations were made in England to remove this dis- grace ; and in the month of February following (1653) eighty sail, under Blake, assisted by Dean and M.cmk, met, in the English Chan- nel, the Dutch fleet of seventy-six vessels, commanded by Van Tromp, who was seconded by De Ruyter. Three days of desperate fighting ended in the defeat of the Dutch, although Tromp acquired little less honor than his rival, by the masterly retreat which he con- ducted. In June several battles were fought ; and in July occurred the last of these bloody and obstinate conflicts for naval superiority. Tromp issued forth once more, determined to conquer or die, and soon met the enemy commanded by Monk ; but as he was animat- ing his sailors, with his sword drawn, he was shot through the heart with a musket ball. This event alone decided the action, and the defeat which the Dutch sustained was the most decisive of the whole war. Peace was soon concluded on terms advantageous to England ; and Cromwell, as protector, signed the treaty of pacifica- tion, (April 1654,) after having vainly endeavored to establish a union of government, privileges, and interests, between the two republics. 19. While the war with Holland was progressing, a controversy 1. The Ooodwin sands are famous and very dangerous sand banks, about four miles from the eastern coast of Kent, a few miles north-east from Dover. They are believed to have once formed part of the Kentish land, and to have been submerged about the end of the reign of William Rufus. The channel between them and the main land is called " the Downs," a cele- brated roadstead for ships, which affords excellent anchorage. (Map No. XVI.) CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 369 had arisen between Cromwell and the army on the one hand, and the Long Parliament on the other. Each wished to rule supreme, hut eventually Cromwell forcibly dissolved the parliament, (April 1653,) and soon after summoned another, composed wholly of mem- bers of his own selection. The latter, however, commonly called Barebonds parliament, from the name of one of its leading members, at once commenced such a thorough reformation in every department of the state, as to alarm Cromwell and his associates ; and it was re- solved that these troublesome legislators should be sent back to their respective parishes. A majority of the members voluntarily sur- rendered their power into the hands of Cromwell, who put an end to the opposition of the rest by turning them out of doors. (Dec. 12th, 1653.) Four days later a new scheme of govern- xn THB ment, called " The Pr-otectorate," was adopted, by which PROTECTO- the supreme powers of state were vested in a lord pro- RATE * tector, a council, and a parliament ; and Cromwell was solemnly in- stalled for life in the office of " Lord Protector of the commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland." 20. The parliament summoned by Cromwell to meet in September of the following year, suspecting that the Protector aimed at kingly authority, commenced its session (1654) by an inquiry into the right by which he held his power ; upon which Cromwell plainly informed the members that he would send them to their homes if they did not acknowledge the authority by which they had been assembled. About three hundred members signed a paper recognizing Cromwell's scheme of government ; while the remainder, amounting to a hundred and sixty, resolutely refused compliance, and were excluded from their seats ; but although parliament was in some degree purged by the operation, it did not exhibit the subserviency which Cromwell had hoped to find in it. On the introduction of a bill declaring the Pro- tectorate hereditary in the family of Cromwell, a very large majority voted against it. The spirit which characterized the remainder of the session showed Cromwell that he had not gained the confidence of the nation ; and an angry dissolution, early in the following year, (Feb. 1655,) increased the general discontent. Soon after, a conspiracy of the royalists broke out, but was easily suppressed ; and even in the army, among the republicans themselves, several officers allowed their fidelity to be corrupted, and took a share in counsels that were intended to restore the commonwealth to its original vigor and puri- ty. During the same year (1655), a war with Spain broke out ; the 24 370 MODERN HISTORY. [?ABT IL island of Jamaica, in the West Indies, was conquered ; the treasure- ships of the Spaniards were captured on their passage to Europe ; and some naval victories were obtained. 21. In his civil and domestic administration, which was conducted with ability, but without any regular plan, Cromwell displayed a general regard for justice and clemency; and irregularities were never sanctioned, unless the necessity of thus sustaining his usurped authority seemed to require it. Such indeed were the order and tranquillity which he preserved such his skilful management of per- sons and parties, and such, moreover, the change in the feelings of many of the Independents themselves, since the death of the late monarch, that in the parliament of 1656 a motion was made, and carried by a considerable majority, for investing the Protector with the dignity of king. Although exceedingly desirous to accept the proffered honor, he saw that the army, composed mostly of stern and inflexible republicans, could never be reconciled to a measure that implied an open contradiction of all their past professions, and an abandonment of their principles ; and he was at last obliged to re- fuse that crown which had been solemnly proifered to him by the representatives of the nation. 22. After this event, the domestic affairs of the country kept Cromwell in perpetual uneasiness. The royalists renewed their con- spiracies against him ; and a majority in parliament now opposed all his favorite measures ; a mutiny of the army was apprehended ; and even the daughters of the Protector became estranged from him. Over- whelmed with difficulties, possessing the confidence of no party, hav- ing lost all composure of mind, and in constant dread of assassina- tion, his health gradually declined, and he expired on the 13th of September, 1658, the anniversary of his great victories, and a day which he had always considered the most fortunate for him. 23. On the death of Cromwell, his eldest son, Richard, succeeded him in the protectorate, in accordance, as was supposed, with the dying wish of his father, and with the approbation of the council. But Richard, being of a quiet, unambitious temper, and alarmed at the dangers by which he was surrounded, soon signed his own abdica- tion, and retired to private life. A state of anarchy followed, and xiii. EESTO- conten( l m g factions, in the army and the parliament, for RATION OF a time filled the country with bloody dissensions, when DNAUCHY. Q. enera j Monk, who commanded the army in Scotland, marched into England and declared in favor of the restoration of CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 371 royalty. This declaration, freeing the nation from the state of suspense in which it had long been held, was received with almost universal joy : the House of Lords hastened to reinstate itself in its ancient authority; and on the 18th of May, 1660, Charles the Second, son of the late king, was proclaimed sovereign of England, by the united acclamations of the army, the people, and the two houses of par- liament. 24. The accession of Charles II. to the throne of his ancestors was at first hailed as the harbinger of real liberty, and the promise of a firm and tranquil government, although no terms were required of him for the security of the people against his abuse of their con- fidence. As he possessed a handsome person, and was open and affable in his manners, and engaging in conversation, the first im- pressions produced by him were favorable ; but he was soon found to be excessively indolent, profligate, and worthless, and to entertain notions as arbitrary as those which had distinguished the reign of his father. The parliament, called in 1661, composed mostly of men who had fought for royalty and the church, gave back to the crown its ancient prerogatives, of which the Long Parliament had despoiled it endeavored to enforce the doctrine of passive obedience, by com- pelling all officers of trust to swear that they held resistance to the king's authority to be in all cases unlawful, and passed an act of religious uniformity, by which two thousand Presbyterian ministers were deprived of their livings, and the gaols filled with a crowd of dissenters. Episcopacy was established by law ; and the church, grateful for the protection which she received from the government, made the doctrine of non-resistance her favorite theme, which she taught without any qualification, and followed out to all its extreme consequences. 25. While these changes were in progress, the manners and morals of the nation were sinking into an excess of profligacy, encouraged by the dissolute conduct of the king in private life. Under the austere rule of the puritans, vice and immorality were sternly re- pressed ; but when the check was withdrawn, they broke forth with ungovernable violence. The cavaliers, as the partisans of the late king were called, in general affected a profligacy of manners, as their distinction from the fanatical and canting party, as they denominated the puritans ; the prevailing immorality pervaded all ranks and pro- fessions ; the philosophy and poetry of the times pandered to the general licentiousness ; and the public revenues were wasted on the 372 MODERN HISTORY. [PART 1. vilest associates of the king's debauchery. The court of Charles was a school of vice, in which the restraints of decency were laughed to scorn and at no other period of English history were the immo- ralities of licentiousness practiced with more ostenation, or with less disgrace. 26. While Charles was losing the favor of all parties and classes by his neglect of public business, and his wasteful profligacy, the general discontent was heightened by his marriage with Catherine, a Portuguese princess, and by the sale of Dunkirk 1 to France ; but still greater clamors arose, when, in 1664, the king provoked a war with Hol- land, by sending out a squadron which seized the Dutch settlements on the coast of Africa, and the Cape Verde Islands. The House of Commons readily voted supplies to carry on the war with vigor ; but such was the extravagance, dishonesty, and incapacity of those to whom Charles had intrusted its management, that, after a few inde- cisive naval battles, it was found necessary to abandon all thoughts of offensive war ; and even then the sailors mutinied in the ports from actual hunger, and a Dutch fleet, sailing up the Thames, burned the ships at Chatham, a on the very day when the king was feasting with the ladies of his seraglio. The capital was threatened with the miseries of a blockade, and for the first time the roar of foreign guns was heard by the citizens of London. 27. In the summer of 1665, while the ignominious war with Hol- land was raging, the plague visited England, but was confined prin- cipally to London, where its frightful ravages surpassed in horror anything that had ever been known in the island. But few recovered from the disease, and death followed within two or three days, and sometimes within a few hours, from the first symptoms. During one week in September more than ten thousand died ; and the whole number of victims was more than a hundred thousand. In the fol- lowing year a fire, such as had not been known in Europe since the 1. Dunkirk, the most northern seaport of France, is situated on the straits of Dover, in the former province of French Flanders, opposite, and forty-seven miles east from, the English town of Dover. Dunkirk is said to have been founded by Baldwin, count of Flanders, in 960 : in 1388 it was burned by the English ; and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it alternately belonged to them and to the Spaniards and French. Charles II sold it to Louis XIV. for two hundred thousand pounds sterling. Louis, aware of its importance, fortified it at great expense, but was compelled, by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, to consent to the demoli- tion of its fortifications, and even to the shutting up of its port. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Chatham is a celebrated naval and military depot, on the river Medway, twenty-eight miles south-east from London. It was anciently called Cetcham, or the village of cottages. Many Roman remains have been found in its vicinity. It is this town which gives the title of earl to th Pitt family. (Map No. XVI. CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 373 conflagration of Rome under Nero, laid in ruins two-thirds of the metropolis, consuming more than thirteen thousand dwellings, and leaving destitute two hundred thousand people. 28. After the war with Holland had continued two years, Charles was forced, by the voice of parliament and the bad success of his arms, to conclude the treaty of Breda, 1 (July 1667,) by which the Dutch possessions of New Netherlands, 9 in America, were confirmed to England, while the latter surrendered to France Acadia and Nova Scotia. 51 In 1672, however, Charles was induced by the French monarch, Louis XIV., to join him in another war against the Dutch. The combined armies of the two kingdoms soon reduced the republic to the brink of destruction ; but the prince of Orange, 4 being pro- moted to the chief command of the Dutch forces, soon roused the courage of his dismayed countrymen : the dykes were opened, laying the whole country, except the cities, under water ; and the invaders were forced to save themselves from destruction by a precipitate re- treat. At length, in 1674, Charles was compelled, by the discon- tents of his people and parliament, who were opposed to the war, to conclude a separate treaty of peace with Holland. France continued the war, but Holland was now aided by Spain and Sweden, while in 1676 the marriage of the prince of Orange with the Lady Mary, daughter of the duke of York, the brother of Charles, induced England to espouse the cause of the republic, and led to the treaty of Nimeguen 6 1. Breda is a strongly-fortified town of Holland province of North Brabant, on the river Merk, thirty miles north-east from Antwerp. Breda is a well-built town, entirely surrounded by a marsh that may be laid under water. It was taken from the Spaniards by prince Maurice in 1590, by means of a stratagem suggested by the master of a boat who sometimes supplied the garrison with fuel. With singular address he contrived to introduce into the town, under a cargo of turf, seventy chosen soldiers, who, having attacked the garrison in the night, opened the gates to their comrades. It was retaken by the Spaniards under the marquis Spinola in 1625, but was finally ceded to Holland by the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. (Map No. XV.) 2. New Netherlands, the present New York, had been conquered by the English in 1664, while England and Holland were at peace ; and the treaty of Breda confirmed England in the possession of the country. 3. The French possessions in America, embracing New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the ad- jacent islands, were at first called Acadia. A fleet sent out by Cromwell in 1654 soon reduced Acadia, but it was restored by the treaty of Breda in 1667. 4. The family of Orange derive their title from the little principality of Orange, twelve miles in length and nine in breadth, of which the city of Orange, a town of south-eastern France, was the capital. Orange, known to the Romans by the name of Arausio, is situated on the small river Meyne, five miles east of the Rhone, and twelve miles north of Avignon. From the eleventh to the sixteenth century Orange had its own princes. In 1531 it passed, by marriage, to the count of Nassau. It continued in this family till the death, in 1702, of William Henry of Nassau-Orange (William III. of England), when the succession became the subject of a long contest; and it was not till the peace of Utrecht in 1715 that this little territory was finally ceded to France. (Map No. XIII.) 5. Jfimtffutn, or Jfymtftn, is a town of Holland, province of Guelder land, on the south side 374 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET IL in 1678, by which the Dutch provinces obtained honorable and ad- vantageous terms. 29. Although Charles professed adherence to the principles of the Reformation, jet his great and secret designs were the establishment of papacy, and arbitrary power, in England. To enable him to ac- complish these objects, he actually received, from the king of France, a secret pension of two hundred thousand pounds per annum, for which he stipulated, in return, to employ the whole strength of Eng- land, by land and sea, in support of the claims of Louis to the vast monarchy of Spain. But the popularity with which Charles had commenced his reign had long been expended ; there was a prevail- ing discontent among the people, an anxiety for public liberty, which was thought to be endangered, and a general hatred of the Roman Catholic Religion, which was increased by the circumstance that the king's brother, and heir presumptive, was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic. Parliament became intractable, and suc- cessfully opposed many of the favorite measures of the king ; and at length in 1 678 a pretended Popish Plot for the massacre of the Pro- testants threw the whole nation into a blaze. One Titus Gates, an infamous impostor, was the discoverer of this pretended plot ; and in the midst of the ferment which it occasioned, many innocent Catholics lost their lives. At a later period, however, a regular pro- ject for raising the nation in arms against the government was de- tected; and the leaders, among whom were Lord Russell and Alger- non Sidney, being unjustly accused of participation in the Rye House plot for the assassination of the king, were beheaded, in defiance of law and justice. (1683.) From this time until his death Charles ruled with almost absolute power, without the aid of a parliament. He died suddenly in 1685. His brother, the duke of York, imme- diately succeeded to the throne, with the title of James II. 30. The reign of James was short and inglorious, distinguished xiv. by nothing but a series of absurd efforts to render him- JAMES n. ge jf independent of parliament, and to establish the Roman Catholic religion in England, although he at first made the strongest professions of a resolution to maintain the established gov- ernment, both in church and state. It soon became evident that a crisis was approaching, and that the great conflict between the pre- of the Waal, fifty-three miles south-east from Amsterdam. It is known in history from the treaty concluded there August 10th, 1678, and from its capture by the French on the 8th of Sept. 1794, after a severe action in which the allies were defeated. (Map No. XV.) CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 375 rogatives of the crown and the privileges of parliament was about to be brought to a final issue. 31. In the first exercise of his authority James showed the insin- cerity of his professions by levying taxes without the authority of parliament : in violation of the laws, and in contempt of the national feeling, he went openly to mass : he established a court of ecclesias- tical commission with unlimited power over the Episcopal church : he suspended the penal laws, by which a conformity had been re- quired to the established church ; and although any communication with the pope had been declared treason, he sent an embassy to Rome, and in return received a nuncio from his Holiness, and with much ceremony gave him a public and solemn reception at Windsor. 1 In this open manner the king attacked the principles and prejudices of his Protestant subjects, foolishly confident of his ability to rees- tablish the Roman Catholic religion, although the Roman Catholics in England did not comprise, at this time, the one-hundredth part of the nation. 32. An important event of this reign was the rebellion of the duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II., who hoped, through the growing discontents of the people at the tyranny of James, to gain possession of the throne ; but after some partial successes he was de- feated, made prisoner, and beheaded. After the rebellion had been suppressed, many of the unfortunate prisoners were hung by the king's officers, without any form of trial ; and when, after some in- terval, the inhuman Jeffries was sent to preside in the courts before which the prisoners were arraigned, the rigors of law were made to equal, if not to exceed, the ravages of military tyranny. The juries were so awed by the menaces of the judge that they gave their ver- dict as he dictated, with precipitation : neither age, sex, nor station, was spared ; the innocent were often involved with the guilty ; and the king himself applauded the conduct of Jeffries, whom he after wards rewarded for his services with a peerage, and invested with the dignity of chancellor. 1. Windsor is a small town on the south side of the Thames, twenty miles south-west from London. Tt is celebrated for Windsor castle, the principal country seat of the sovereigns of England, and one of the most magnificent royal residences in Europe. The castle, placed on the summit of a lofty eminence rising abruptly from the river, appears to have been founded by William the Conqueror, and it has been enlarged or embellished by most of his successors. On the north and east sides of the castle is the Little Park, a fine expanse of lawn, comprising nearly five hundred acres : on the south side is the Great Park, comprising three thousand eight hundred acres ; while near by is Windsor forest, a tract fifty-six miles in circumference, laid out by William the Conqueror for the purpose of hunting. (Map No. XVI.) 376 MODERN HISTORY. [PART 1L 33. As the king evinced, in all his measures, a settled purpose of invading every branch of the constitution, many of the nobility and great men of the kingdom, foreseeing no peaceable redress of their grievances, finally sent an invitation to William, prince of Orange, the stadtholder of the United Dutch Provinces, who had married the king's eldest daughter, and requested him to come over and aid them by his arms, in the recovery of their laws and liberties. XV. REVOLU- * J TIOX OF About the middle of November, 1688, William landed 1688. m England at the head of an army of fourteen thousand men, and was everywhere received with the highest favor. James was abandoned by the army and the people, and even by his own children ; and in a moment of despair he formed the resolution of leaving the kingdom, and soon after found means to escape privately to France. These events are usually denominated " the Revolution of 1688." 34. In a convention-parliament which met soon after the flight of James, it was declared that the king's withdrawal was an abdication of the government, and that the throne was thereby vacant ; and af- ter a variety of propositions, a bill was passed, settling the crown on William and Mary, the prince and princess of Orange ; the success- ion to the princess Anne, the next eldest daughter of the late king, and to her posterity after that of the princess of Orange. To this settlement of the crown a declaration of rights was annexed, by which the subjects of controversy that had existed for many years, and particularly during the last four reigns, between the king and the people, were finally determined ; and the royal prerogative was more narrowly circumscribed, and more exactly defined, than in any former period of English history. 35. While the accession of William and Mary was peaceably ac- quiesced in by the English people, some of the Highland clans of Scotland, and the Catholics of Ireland, testified their adherence to the late king by taking up arms in his favor. The former gained the battle of Killiecrankie 1 in the summer of 1689; but the death of their leader, the viscount Dundee, who fell in the moment of victory, ended all the hopes of James in Scotland. In the meantime Louis XIV. of France openly espoused the cause of the fallen monarch, and 1. Killiecrankie is a celebrated pass, half a mile in length, through the Grampian hills in Scotland, in the county of Perth, sixty miles northwest from Edinburgh. In the battle of 1689, fought at the northern extremity of this pass, Mackay commanded the revolutionary forces^ and the famous Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, the troops of James II. (Map No. XVI.) CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 377 furnished him with a fleet, with which, in the spring of 1689, James landed in Ireland, where a bloody war raged until the autumn of 1691, when the whole country was again subjected to the power of England. The course taken by the French monarch led to a decla- ration of war against France in May 1689. The war thus com- menced involved, in its progress, most of the continental powers, nearly all of which were united in a confederacy with William for the purpose of putting a stop to the encroachments of Louis. An account of this war will be more properly given in connection with the history of France, which country, under the influence of the genius and ambition of Louis XIV., acquires, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, a commanding importance in the history of Europe. King William died in the spring of 1702, having retained, until his death, the chief direction of the affairs of Holland, under the title of stadtholder ; thus presenting the singular spectacle of a mon archy and a republic at the same time governed by the same individual. III. FRENCH HISTORY: WARS OF Louis XIV. 1. During the administration of Cardinal Richelieu, (1624 42,) the n , f xi f ^^ T VTTT -n T - ADMINIS- able minister of the feeble Louis XIII., JB ranee was TRATION OF ruled with a rod of iron. " He made," says Montes- CARDINAL , , . . t ,i i . ,1 RICHELIEU. queu, " his sovereign play the second part in the mon- archy, and the first in Europe ; he degraded the king, but he rendered the reign illustrious." He humbled the nobility, the Huguenots, and the house of Austria ; but he also encouraged literature and the arts, and promoted commerce, which had been ruined by two centuries of domestic war. He freed France from a state of anarchy, but he es- tablished in its place a pure despotism. No minister was ever more successful in carrying out his plans than Richelieu ; but his successes were bought at the expense of every virtue ; and as a man he merits execration. He died in December 1642, and Louis survived him but a few months, leaving, as his successor, his son Louis, then a child of only six years of age. 2. During the minority of Louis XIV., Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian, ruled the kingdom as prime minister, under the n MAZARIN > S regency of the queen mother, Anne of Austria. Under ADMINIS- Mazarin was concluded the treaty of Westphalia, which TRATI N - terminated the thirty years' war ; and during the early part of hia administration occurred the civil war of the Fronde? in which the 2. " War of the Fronde" so called because the first outbreak in Paris was commenced by 378 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET IL magistracy of Paris, supported by the citizens, rose against the arbi- trary powers of the government, and promulgated a plan for the ref- ormation of abuses ; but when the young nobility affected to abet and adopt its principles, they perverted the cause of freedom to their own selfish interests ; and the vain struggle for constitutional liberty degenerated into the most ridiculous of rebellions. 3. Though the treaty of Westphalia (1648) had terminated the " Thirty years' war" among the parties originally engaged in it, a yet France and Spain still continued the contest in which they had at first only a secondary share. The civil disturbances of the Fronde, occurring at this time, greatly favored the Spaniards, who recovered, principally on the borders of the Low Countries, many places which they had previously lost to the French ; and by means of the great military talents of Conde, a French general who had been exiled during the late troubles, and who now fought on the side of the Spaniards, the latter hoped to bring the war to a triumphant issue. The French, however, found in marshal Turenne a general who was more than a rival for Conde : he defeated the latter in the siege of Arras, 1 and compelled the Spaniards to retreat, but was himself compelled to abandon Valenciennes. 2 At this time Mazarin, by flattering the passions of Cromwell, induced England to take part in the contest : six thousand English joined the French army in Flan- ders; 3 and Dunkirk, taken from the Spaniards, was given to England, according to treaty, as a reward for her assistance. 4. But France, though victorious, was anxious for peace, as the finances of the kingdom were in disorder, and the death of Cromwell had rendered the alliance with England of little benefit ; while troops of urchins with their slings fronde being the French word for " a sling." In derision the insurgents were first called frondeurs, or " slingers," an insinuation that their force waa trifling, and their aim merely mischief. 1. Jlrras is a city of northern France, in the former province of Artois, thirty-three miles south-east from Agincourt. Robespierre, of infamous memory, and Dainiens, the assassin of Louis XV., were natives of Arras. 2. Valenciennes is a town of north-eastern France, on the Scheldt, (skelt), near the Belgian frontier. (Map No. XV.) 3. In 803 Charles the Bold established the county of Flanders, which extended from the straits of Dover nearly to the mouths of the Scheldt, At different, times Flanders fell under the dominion of Bur' gundy, Spain, &c. Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century it was divided into French, Austrian, and Dutch Flanders. French Flanders comprised the French province of that name. (See Map No. XIII.) Adjoining this territory, on the east, was Aus- trian Flanders ; and adjoining the latter, on the east, was Dutch Flanders. Dutch and Austrian Flanders are now comprised in East and West Flanders, the two north-western provinces of Belgium (see Map No. XV.,) although the Dutch portion embraced only a small part of East Flanders. a. See p. 314. CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 379 Spain, engaged in war with the Netherlands and Portugal, gladly acceded to the offers of reconciliation with her most powerful enemy. On the banks of the Bidassoa 1 the treaty, usually known as the treaty of the Pyrenees, was concluded, (Nov. 1659,) and the infatuated Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of Philip of Spain, was given in marriage to the French monarch ; although, to prevent the possible union of two such powerful kingdoms, Louis was compelled to re- nounce all claim to the Spanish crown, either for himself or his suc- cessors. By the treaty of the Pyrenees, Conde was pardoned and again received into favor ; the limits of France were extended on the English Channel to Gravelines ; a while on the south-west the Pyrenees became its boundary, by the acquisition of Roussillon. 3 Thus France assumed almost its present form ; its subsequent acquisitions being Franche-Comte 4 and French Flanders. 5. About a year after the conclusion of the treaty of the Pyrenees, Mazarin died, (March 1661,) and Louis, summoning his council, and ex pressing his determination to take the government wholly into his own hands, strictly commanded the chancellor, lou j^ > XIV and secretaries of state, to sign no paper but at his ex- press bidding. To the stern, economical, and orderly Colbert, he in- trusted the management of the treasury ; and in a brief period the purchase of Dunkirk from England, the establishment of numerous manufactures, the building of the Louvre, 8 the Invalides, 6 and the 1. The Sidassoa^ which rises in the Spanish territory, and falls into the Bay of Biscay, forms, in the latter part of its course, the boundary between France and Spain. A short distance from its mouth it forms the small Isle of the Pheasants, where the peace of the Pyrenees was concluded in 1G59. The Bidassoa was the scene of important operations in the peninsular war of 1813. 2. Oravelines is a small town twelve miles east from Calais. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Roussillon, a province of France before the French Revolution, was bounded on the south and east by the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. The counts of Roussillon governed this dis- trict for a long period. The last count bequeathed it to Alphonso of Aragon in 1 178. In 1462 it was ceded to Louis XI. of France, but in J493 it was restored to the kings of Aragon, and in 1659 was finally surrendered to France by the treaty of the Pyrenees. (Map No. XIII.) 4. Franche-Comte, called also Upper Bur' gundy, had Bur' gundy Proper, or Lower Bur'- gundy, on the south and west. Besancon was its capital. In the division of the States of the emperor Maximilian, Franche-Comte fell to Spain; but Louis XIV. conquered it in 1674, and it was ceded to France by the peace of Nimeguen, in 1678. (Map No. XIII.) 5. The palace of the Louvre, one of the finest regal structures in Europe, has not been the residence of a French monarch since the minority of Louis XV., and is now converted into a national museum and picture gallery. The pictures are deposited on the first floor of a splendid range of rooms above a quarter of a mile in length, and facing the river. 6. The Hotel des Invalides (in'-va-leed) is a hospital intended for the support of disabled officers and soldiers who have been in active service upwards of thirty years. It covers a space of nearly seven acres, and is one of the grandest rational institutions of Europe. 380 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET It palace of Versailles, 1 and the commencement of the canal of Langue- doc, 2 attested the miracles that mere economy can work in finance. 6. Arousing himself from the thraldom of love intrigues, Louis now began to awake to projects of ambition. The splendor of his court dazzled the nobility : his personal qualities won him the affection of his people : he breathed a new spirit into the administration 5 and foreign potentates, like the proud nobles of his court, seemed to quail before his power. He repudiated the stipulations of the treaty of the Pyrenees, on the ground that the dower which he was to receive with his wife had not been paid; and on the death of his father-in-law, Philip IV. of Spain, by which event the crown devolved upon a sickly infant, by a second marriage, he laid immediate claim to the Spanish Netherlands in right of his wife, alleging, in sup- port of the claim, an ancient custom of the province of Brabant, 3 by which females of a first marriage were to inherit in preference to sons of a second. The French monarch, after securing the neutrality of Austria, poured his legions over the Belgian frontier, and with great rapidity reduced most of the fortresses as far as the Scheldt. The captured towns were immediately fortified by the celebrated engineer Vauban, and garrisoned by the best troops of France. (1667-8.) 7. These successes encouraged Louis to turn his arms towards another quarter ; and Franche-Comte, a part of the old Bur' gundy, but still retained by the Spaniards, was conquered before Spain was aware of the danger. (Feb. 1668.) The Hollanders, alarmed at the approach of the French, became reconciled to Spain ; and a Triple Alliance was formed between Holland, Sweden, and England, three Protestant powers, for the purpose of defending Catholic 1. Versailles is nine miles south-west from Paris. The palace of Versailles, of prodigious size and magnificence, has not been occupied by the court since 1789. It was much out of re pair, when Louis Philippe transformed it into what may be called a national museum, intended to illustrate the history of France, and to exhibit the progress of the country in arts, arms, and civilization. (Map No. XFII.) 2. The canal of Languedoc, commencing at Cette, fourteen miles south-west of Montpelier, and extending to Toulouse on the Garonne, a distance of one hundred and forty-eight miles, thus connects the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Brabant, first erected into a duchy in the seventh century, included the Dutch province of North Brabant, and the Belgic provinces of South Brabant and Antwerp. Having passed, by marriage, into the possession of the house of Bur' gundy, it afterwards descended to Charles V. In the seventeenth century the republic of Holland took possession of the northern part, (now North Brabant,) which was thence called Dutch Brabant, while the remainder was known as Austrian Brabant. Both repeatedly fell into the hands of the French, but in 1815 were in- cluded in the kingdom of the Netherlands. Since the revolution of 1830 North Brabant has been included in Holland, and the other provinces, or Austrian Brabant, in Belgium. (Map No. XV.) CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 381 Spain against Catholic France. Louis receded before this menacing league, and by restoring Franche-Comte, which he knew could at any time easily be regained, while he retained most of his Flemish con- quests, concluded the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1 (1668,) which mere- ly suspended the war until the French king was better prepared to carry it on with success. 8. The great object of Louis was now revenge against Holland, the originator of the triple alliance. Knowing the profligate habits of Charles II., he purchased with ready money the alliance of England ; he also bought the neutrality of Sweden, and the neigh- boring princes of Germany, while in the meantime he created a navy of a hundred vessels, built five naval arsenals, and increased his army to a hundred thousand men. 9. For the first time the bayonet, so terrible a weapon in French hands, was affixed to the end of the musket ; and the hundred thou- sand soldiers who composed the French army, armed as the French were, might well strike terror into the rulers of Holland, who could raise, at most, an army of only thirty thousand men. 10. In the spring of 1672 the French armies, avoiding the Spanish Netherlands, passed through the country betwixt the Meuse and the Rhine, 2 crossed the latter river in June, and rapidly advanced to within a few leagues of Amsterdam, 8 when the Dutch, by opening the dykes, let in the sea and saved the metropolis. But even Amster- dam meditated submission ; one project of the inhabitants being to embark, like the Athenians, on board their fleet, sail for their East India settlements, and abandon their country to the modern Xerxes who had come to destroy their liberties. While Amsterdam was secure for the present behind its rampart of waters, and the French armies were wintering triumphantly in the conquered provinces, the envoys of the Dutch roused Europe against the ambition of Louis. L Jlix-la-Chapelle (a-lah-shahpel') is an old and well-built city of the Prussian States, near the eastern confines of Belgium, eighty miles east of Brussels. It was the favorite residence of Charlemagne, and for some time the capital of his empire. Two celebrated treaties have been concluded in this city ; the first, Mtiy 2d, 16G8, between France and Spain ; and the second, Oct. 18th, 1748, between the different powers engaged in the wars of the Austrian suc- cession. Here also was held the celebrated congress of the allied powers in 1818. (Map No. XVIF.) 2. The Meuse and the Rhine ; see Map No. XV. 3. Amsterdam, a famous maritime and commercial city of Holland, is on the south bank of the Y., an inlet or arm of the Zuyder Zee. Being situated in a marsh, its buildings are all founded on piles, driven from forty to fifty feet in a soil consisting of alluvial deposits, peat, clay, and sand. The State-House, a magnificent building of freestone, is erected on a foundation of thirteen thousand six hundred and fifty-nine piles. Numerous canals divide the city into about a hundred islands. (Map No. XV.) 382 MODERN HISTORY. [PART It Prince William of Orange, a general of only twenty-two years of age, being placed at the bead of the Republic, soon succeeded in de- taching England from the unnatural alliance which she had formed with her ancient enemy : Spain and Austria, awaking to their interests, prepared to send troops to aid the Dutch; and by 1674 nearly all Europe was leagued against the French monarch. 1 1. Louis was now obliged to abandon Holland ; but, in the Span- ish Netherlands, his great generals, Conde and Turenne, turning upon the allied armies, for a while kept all Europe at bay. In the following year, (1675,) Turenne was killed by a cannon ball as he was about to enter Germany ; and although Louis created six new marshals, the whole were not equal to the one he had lost. Soon after, Conde retired, disabled by age and infirmity ; and with the loss of her great generals the valor of France, on the land, for a while slumbered. But at this time there appeared a seaman of talent and heroism, named Duquesne, who, being sent to succor Messina, which had revolted against Spain, defeated the fleet of De Ruyter in a terrible naval battle within sight of Mount ^Etna. The Dutch admiral himself was among the slain. In the second battle, in 1677, Duquesne almost annihilated the Dutch fleet. Under a grateful monarch this man might have become high admiral of France ; but Louis was growing bigoted with his years, and his faith- ful servant was reproached for being a Protestant. " When I fought for your majesty," replied the blunt sailor, " I never thought of what might be your religion." His son, driven into exile for ad- hering to the reformed faith, carried away with him the bones of his father, determined not to leave them in an ungrateful country. 12. In the meantime conferences took place at Nimeguen* the allies wished peace ; and France and Holland, the original parties in the war, were equally exhausted. At length, in August 1678, the treaty was signed, Louis retaining most of his conquests in the Spanish Netherlands, all French Flanders in fact, as well as Franche-Comte. Spain, from whom these possessions were obtained, assented to the treaty ; for the imbecile monarch of that country knew not what towns belonged to him, nor where was the frontier line of what he still retained of the Spanish Netherlands. "Here may be seen," says Voltaire, " how little do events correspond to projects. Hol- land, against which the war had been undertaken, and which had nearly perished, lost nothing, nay, even gained a barrier ; while the /! SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 383 other powers, that had armed to defend and guarantee her indepen- dence, all lost something." 13. The years which followed the peace of Nimeguen were the most prosperous for France ; and formed the zenith of the reign of Louis XIV. All Europe had been armed against him, and success had more or less crowned all his enterprises. He assumed to him- self the title of Great ; and one of his dukes even kept a burning lamp before the statue of the monarch, as before an altar ; the least insult offered by foreign courts to his representatives, or neglect of etiquette, was sure to bring down signal vengeance. In the years 1682 and 168^ Algiers was bombarded, then a new mode of warfare : in 1684 Genoa experienced the same fate because it refused to allow the French monarch to establish a depot within its territory. Even the pope was humbled before the " Grand Monarch ;" some of the German princes were expelled from their territories ; and in time of peace French maurauding par ties devastated the Spanish provinces. Louis increased his navy to two hundred and thirty vessels ; and toward the end of his reign his armies amounted to four hundred and fifty thousand men. But the greatest glories of the reign of Louis were those connected with literature and the arts. Men of letters now, for the first time, began to exert a great influence on the mind of the French nation ; and the familiar names of Moliere, Ra- cine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Massillon, and Fenelon, adorned the age of Louis, and shed on the land the brightness of their fame. In the next century the writings of these men, and of their success- ors, determined the fate of the great monarchy which Louis had built up. 14. The cpeen of France being dead, towards the year 1685 Louis secretly married Madame Scarron, the widow of the celebrated comic writer, on whom he conferred the title of Madame De Main- tenon. This woman, who had been educated a Calvinist, and had abjured her religion, would have made all Protestants do the same ; and it was chiefly through her influence, and that of the royal con- fessor La Chaise, that the king, naturally bigoted, became a bitter persecutor of his Protestant subjects. In 1685 he revoked the edict of Nantes, which had given tolerance to all religions, forbade all ex- ercise of the Protestant worship, and banished from the kingdom, within fifteen days, all Protestant ecclesiastics who would not recant. Afterwards he closed the ports against the fugitives, sent to the gal- leys those who attempted to escape, and confiscated their property, 384 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT IL France lost by these cruel measures two hundred thousand some say five hundred thousand of her best subjects ; and the bigotry of Louis gave a greater blow to the industry and wealth of his king- dom than the unlimited expenses of his pride and ambition. 15. The cruelties of Louis to the Protestants roused the hearts of the Germans, Dutch, and English, against him, and accelerated a general war. In 1686 a league was formed at Augsburg by all the German princes to restrain the encroachments of Louis : Holland joined it, Spain also, excited by jealousy of a domineering neighbor; Sweden, Denmark, and Savoy, were afterwards gained; and the revolution of 1688, by which William of HollancJ ascended the throne of England, placed the latter country at the head of the confederacy. But Louis was not daunted by the power of the league : anticipating his enemies, he was first in the field, sending an army against Germany in 1688, which ravaged the Palatinate 1 with fire and sword. He also sent an army into Flanders, one into Italy, and a third to check the Spaniards in Catalonia ; while at the same time he sent a fleet and an army to Ireland, to aid James II. in re- covering the throne of England. 16. After the first campaign, in which Louis profited little, he gave the command of his armies to new generals of approved talent, and instantly the fortune of the war changed. In 1690 Savoy was overrun by the French marshal Catinat, and Flanders by marshal Luxembourg : the combined squadrons of England and Holland were defeated by the French admiral Tourville, off Beachy Head ; a and a descent was made on the coast of England. In 1692 the for- tress of Namur 3 was taken by the French, in spite of all the efforts of William and the allies to relieve it ; but during the progress of the siege the French were defeated in a terrible naval battle off Cape La Hogue ; 4 a battle that decided the fate of the Stuarts, and marks the era of England's dominion over the seas. 1. The Palatinate, by which is generally understood the Lower Palatinate, or Palatinate of the Rhine, was a country of Germany, on both sides of the Rhine, embracing about sixteen hundred square miles, and now divided among Prussia, Bavaria, Baden, Hesse Darmstadt^ Nassau, &c. That part of it west of the Rhine, and belonging to Bavaria, is still called " The Palatinate." The Upper Palatinate, embracing a somewhat larger territory, was in Bavaria, and bordered on Bohemia. Amberg was its capital. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Beachy Head is a bold promontory on the southern coast of England, eighteen milea south-west from Hastings. (Map No. XVI.) 3. Namur is a strongly-fortified town of Belgium, at the junction of the Sambre and Meuse, thirty-five miles south-east from Brussels. (Map No. XV.) 4. Cape La Hogue is a prominent headland of France, on the English Channel, sixteen miles north-west of Cherbourg. (Map No. XIII.) CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 385 17. The campaign of 1693 was fortunate for the French, who gained the bloody battle of Nerwinden 1 over king William defeated the duke of Savoy in a general action at Marseilles made progress against the Spaniards in Catalonia and gained some advantages at sea. But after this year Louis no longer visited his armies in person j and succeeding campaigns became less fruitful of important and decisive results. France had been exhausted by the enormous exertions of. her monarch, and all parties were anxious to terminate a war in which much blood had been shed, much treasure expended, and no permanent acquisitions made. Conferences for peace com- menced in 1696; and in the beginning of 1697 the plenipotentiaries of the several powers assembled at Ryswick, 3 a small town in Hol- land. In the treaty, which was signed in September, England gained only the recognition of the monarch of her choice ; while the French king's renunciation of the Spanish succession, which had been one important object of the war, was not even mentioned. ^ Although in the treaty Louis appeared to make concessions, yet he kept the new frontier that he had chosen in Flanders, whilst the possession of Strasburg 9 extended the French limits to the Rhine. Louis had baffled the most powerful European league ; and although the com- merce of the kingdom was destroyed, and the country exhausted of men and money, while a dreadful famine was ravaging what war had spared, yet at the close of the seventeenth century France still pre- served, over surrounding nations, the ascendency that Richelieu had planned, and that Louis XIV. had proudly won. IV. COTEMPORARY HISTORY. 1. Besides France, England, Ger- many, and the countries connected with them in wars and alliances, the strictly universal history of this period embraces a range more extended than that of any previous century. On the continent the histories of the leading powers become more and more intermingled; J. Neneinden is a small village of Belgium, about thirty-three miles south-east from Brussels. 2. Ryswick is a small town in the west of Holland, two miles south-east from Hague, and thirty-five south-west from Amsterdam. The peace of Ryswick terminated what is known in American history as " King William's War," a war between the French and the English American colonies, attended with numerous inroads of the Indians, who were in alliance with the French. (Map No. XV.) 3. Straslurg is an ancient fortified city on the west bank of the Rhine, in the former prov- ince of Alsace. It is principally noted for its cathedral, said to have been originally founded by Clovis, in 504. The modern building, however, was begun in 1015, but not finished till the fifteenth century. Its spire reaches to the extraordinary height of four hundred and sixty-six feet about seven feet higher than St. Peter's in Rome, and about five feet higher than the great pyramid of Cheops. (Maps Nos. XIII. and XVII.) 25 386 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL the Northern States are seen growing in importance, and beginning to take part in European politics ; while, abroad, colonies are planted, that are soon to assume the rank of independent and powerful nations. 2. It was not until after the Reformation that the three Scandi- navian States, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, came into I. DENMARK, i i SWEDEN, contact with the Southern nations of Christendom, nor AND until the commencement of the " Thirty Years' War," in the early part of the seventeenth century, that they took any active part in the concerns of their southern neighbors, when, under the conduct of the heroic Gustavus Adolphus, Sweden and her allies warred so manfully in the cause of religious freedom Under Gustavus, the glory and power of Sweden attained their greatest height ; and although the successes of the Swedish arms continued under Christina, Charles X., and Charles XI., Swedish history offers little further that is interesting to the general student until the Recession of Charles XII. in 1697, the extraordinary events of whose career belong to the next century. 3. The history of Poland, during most of the seventeenth cen- tury, is of less interest to the general reader than that of Sweden, being filled with accounts of unimportant do- mestic contentions among the nobility, and of foreign wars with Sweden, Russia, and Turkey, while the mass of the people, in the lowest state of degradation, were slaves, in the fullest extent of the term, and not supposed to have any legal existence. The greatest of the monarchs of Poland was John Sobieski, elected to the throne in 1 674, the fame of whose victories over the Turks threw a transient splendor on the waning destinies of his ill-fated country. His first great achievement was the victory of Kotzim, 1 gained, with a com- paratively small force, over an army of eighty thousand Mussulmen, strongly intrenched on the banks of the Dniester, leaving forty thou- sand of the enemy dead in the precincts of the camp. (Nov. 1673.) All Europe was electrified with this extraordinary triumph, the great- est that had been won for three centuries over the infidels. 4. Other victories of the Polish hero, scarcely less important, are recorded in the annals of Poland ; but what has immortalized the name of John Sobieski is the deliverance of Vienna 8 in 1683. A 1. Kotiim is now an important fortress of south-western Russia, situated on the right bank of the Dniester, in the province of Bessarabia. The Turks strongly-fortified it in 1718, but it was successively taken by the Russians in 1730, 1769, and 1788. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Vienna, the capital of the Austrian empire, is on the southern bank of the Danube, three hundred and thirty miles south-east from Berlin, and eight hundred miles north-west from CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 387 revolt of the Hungarians from the dominion of Austria, and an alli- ance formed between them and the Turks, had brought an army of nearly three hundred thousand men against the Austrian capital, which was defended by its citizens, and a garrison of little more than eleven thousand men. After an active siege of more than two months, Vienna was reduced to the last extremity. In the mean- time the Austrian emperor, who had left his capital to make what defence it could against the immense hosts of Turks that poured down upon it, had solicited the aid of the Polish king ; and Sobieski was not long in making his appearance at the head of a small, but resolute army of eighteen thousand veterans. The combined Polish and Austrian forces, when all assembled, amounted to only seventy thousand men, whom the Turks outnumbered more than three to one ; but Sobieski, whose name alone was a terror to the infidels, was at once the Agamemnon and Achilles of the Christian host. 5. Sunday the 12th of September, 1683, wag the important day that was to decide whether the Turkish crescent or the cross, was^to wave on the turrets of Vienna. At five o'clock in the afternoon Sobieski had drawn up his forces in the plain fronting the Mussul- men camp, and ordering the advance, he exclaimed aloud, " Not to us, Lord, but to thee be the glory." "Whole bands of Tartar troops broke and fled when they heard the name of the Polish hero repeated from one end to the other of the Ottoman lines. At the same moment an eclipse of the moon added to the consternation of the superstitious Moslems, who beheld with dread the crescent waning in the heavens. With a furious charge the Polish infantry seized an eminence that commanded the grand Vizier's position, when Kara Mustapha, taken by surprise at this unexpected attack, fell at once from the heights of confidence to the depths of despair. Charge upon charge was rapidly hurled upon the already wavering Moslems, whose rout soon became general. In vain the vizier tried to rally the broken hosts. " Can you not aid me !" said he to the Constantinople. Population about three hundred and seventy thousand. In Roman history Vienna is known as rindabona, (see Map No. VIII.,) and is remarkable as being the place where Marcus Aurelius died. After the time of Charlemagne, margraves or dukes held Vienna till the middle of the thirteenth century, soon after which it came into the possession of the house of Hapsburg. In 1484 it was taken by the Hungarians, whose king, Matthias, made it the seat of his court. Since the time of Maximilian it has been the usual residence of the arch-dukes of Austria, and the emperors of Germany. About two miles from the city is Schonbrunn, the favorite summer residence of the emperor. It was twice occupied by Napo- leon: the treaty of Schunbrunn was signed in it in 1808, and here the duke of Reichstadt, son of Napoleon, died in 1832. (Map No. TVII.) "J 388 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT IL cham of the Tartars, who passed him among the fugitives. " I know the king of Poland," was the reply ; " and I tell you, that with such an enemy we have no safety but in flight. Look at the sky ; see if God is not against us." 6. So sudden and general was the panic among the Turks, that at six o'clock Sobieski entered the camp where a hundred and twenty thousand tents were still found standing the innumerable multitude of the Orientals had disappeared ; but their spoils, their horses, their camels, their splendor, loaded the ground. The cause of Chris- tianity of civilization had prevailed ; the wave of Mussulman power had retired, never to return. But Sobieski received little thanks from a jealous monarch for rescuing him and his country from irretrievable ruin ; and Poland unhappy Poland ! had saved a serpent from death, which afterward turned and stung her for the kindness. Sobieski died in 1696, in the midst of the ruin that was fast overwhelming his country through the dissensions and clamors of a turbulent nobility, and just in time to save his withered laurels from being torn from his brow by the rude hand of rebellion. With him the greatness of his native land may be said to have ended. 7. Russia, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, was immersed in extreme ignorance and barbarism ; and al- though a glimmering of light dawned upon her during the reign of Alexis, who died in 1677, yet the great epoch in the history of Russia is the reign of Peter the Great, whose genius first opened to its people the advantages of civilization. In 1689, this prince, then only seventeen years of age, became sole monarch of Russia. The vigorous development of his mind was a subject of universal wonder and admiration. Full of energy and activity, he found nothing too arduous to be attempted, and he commenced at once the vast project of changing the whole system of the govern- ment, and of reforming the manners of the people. His first exer- tions were directed to the remodelling and disciplining of the army, and the improvement of his resources ; and from the model of a small yacht on the river which runs through Moscow, he constructed the first Russian navy. In 1694 he took from the Turks the advan- tageous port of Azof, 1 which opened to his subjects the commerce of 1. The sea of Azof, the Palus Mteotis of the ancients, communicates by the narrow strait of Yenicale, (an. Cimmerian Bosporus,) with the north-western angle of the Black Sea. The port of Azof is at the mouth of the Don, at the north-eastern extremity of the sea of Azof. The town, anciently called Tanazs, ai i, in the middle ages, Tana, once had an extensive trade, but is now fast falling into decay. ii TM r n CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 389 ' ifiti^T 10 Y'ji' > *Jl JJJ i'u7ol since which it has been quietly retained by th British, and risen to its present degree of importance. CHAP. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 397 ceeding time has perfected to the happiness and glory of our country, and the advancement of the cause of freedom throughout the world. In a work of general history like the present we cannot hope to do such a subject justice ; and instead of attempting here a brief and separate compend of our early annals, it will be more satisfactory and useful to refer the student to some of the numerous standard works on Amercan history which are at all times accessible to him, and with some one of which it is presumable every American youth will early make himself familiar, before he enters upon the study of the general history of nations. 398 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET IL CHAPTER Y. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. I. WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, AND CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV. ANALYSIS. 1. Pride and ambition of Louis XIV. Events that led to the war of the Spanish Succession." ENGLAND, GERMANY, AND HOLLAND, DECLARE WAR AGAINST FRANCE, 1702. 2. Causes that induced England to engage in the war. The opposing powers. Death of king William. Queen Anne. 3. Opening of the campaign by Austria and England. The French generals. 4. The CAMPAIGN OF 1702. Naval events. [Cadiz. Vigo Bay.] EVENTS OF 1703. 5. EVENTS OF 1704. [Blenheim. Gibraltar.] 6. EVENTS OF 1705 AND 170li. French losses. [Ramillies. Mons. Barcelona. Madrid.] 7. Overtures of peace. CAMPAIGN OF 1707. [Almanza. Toulon.] EVENTS OF 1708. [Oudenarde. Brussels.] 8. Sufferings of the French in the year 1709. Haughtiness of the monarch. 9. Louis in vain seeks peace with Holland. Battle of Malplaquet. [Malplaquet.] Successes of Louis in Spain. His domestic misfortunes. 10. Death of the Austrian emperor. Importance of that event Decline of the war. 11. TREATY OF UTRECHT, April llth, 1713. [Minorca. Newfoundland. Hudson's Bay territory. St. Christopher. Radstadt. Lisle. Alsace.] 12. Death of Louis XIV. CHARACTER OF THE RKIGN OF LOUIS XIV. II. PETER THE GREAT OF RUSSIA, AND CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN. 1. THE NORTH AND EAST OF EUROPE during the war of the Spanish succession. Beginning of the reign of the Russian monarch. 2. Leading object with the Czar. He is induced to en- gage in a war with Sweden. His allies. [Livonia. Riga.] 3. Sweden. Reported character of Charles XII. The Swedish council, and declarations of Charles. Change in the king's character. 4. BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES AGAINST SWEDEN, in the year 1700. [Sleswick. Holstein. Narva.] Charles humbles Denmark. [Copenhagen.] 5. The Polish king. Charles marches against Narva. 6. Signal DEFEAT OF THE RUSSIANS AT NARVA. Remark of the Czar. Superstition of the Russians. 7. The course pursued by Peter. Resolution of Charles. 8. VICTORIES OF CHARLES IN THE YEAR 1702. [Courland. Warsaw. Cracow.] The Polish king deposed. [Pultusk.] Charles declines the sovereignty of Poland. 9. Increase of his power and influence. [Borysthenes.] His views, and plans, for the future. 10. Policy, and gradual successes, of the Czar. [Neva. Ingria.] 11. MARCH OF CHARLES INTO RUSSIA, 1707-8. [Smolensko.] 12. Passage of the Desna. [Desna.] Misfortunes of Charles. 13. Situation of the Swedish army in the winter of J708-9. Advance of Charles in the Spring. [Pultowa.] 14. Siege and BATTLE OF PULTOWA. Escape of Charles. [Bender. Campbell's descriplion of the catastrophe at Pultowa.] 15. Important effects of the battle of Pultowa. 16. Warlike vie^s still entertained by Charles. He enlists THE TURKS in his favor. Treaty between the Russians and Turks. [Pruth.] 17. Lengthened stay of Charles in Turkey. RETURN OF CHARLES. 18. Situation of Sweden on his return. Warlike projects of Charles. EVKNTS OF 1715. [Stock- holm.] Siege of Stralsund. Irruption into Norway. Project of a union with Russia. DEATH OF CHARLES, 1718. [Frederickshall.] 19. Change in Swedish affairs. Peace with Russia. [Nystad.] 20. CHARACTER OF CHARLES THE TWELFTH. [Dr. Johnson's description of him.] 21. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF PETER THE GREAT. III. SPANISH WARS, AND WARS OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION. 1. Effects of the treaty of Utrecht. EUROPEAN ALLIANCE for guaranteeing the fulfilment of the treaty Spain finally compelled to accede to it. 2. WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SPAIN CHAP.V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 399 1739. Its causes. 3. CAUSES or THE WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION. [Pragmatic sanction.] 4. Claims, and designs, upon the Austrian dominions. The position of England. 5. Plan of THK COALITION AGAINST AUSTRIA. Invasion of Austria, 1741. The diet of Frank- fort. [Frankfort.] Maria Theresa and the Hungarians. EVENTS or 1742 AND 1743. [Munich. Dettingen.] 6. Successes and reverses of Frederic of Prussia, 1741. The Austrian general. 7. Death of Charles Albert, 1745. Successes of Marshal Saxe. [Fontenoy.] Treaty between Prussia and Austria. Francis I. 8. Events in Italy in 1745. [Piedmont.] Events of the IN- VASION or ENGLAND, 1745-6. [Edinburgh. Preston-pans. Culloden.] Cruelties of the Eng- lish. 9. EVENTS IN AMERICA, 1745-6. [Cape Breton.] 10. EVENTS OF 1746-7. TREATY or AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Oct. 1748. In what respect the result was favorable to all parties. IV. THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR : 1756 63. 1. The EIGHT YEARS OF PEACE that followed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. CAUSES THAT THREATENED ANOTHER WAR. 2. East-India colonial difficulties between France and England. 3. North American difficulties. BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES IN 1754. Braddock's defeat, 1755. 4. The connected interests of all the European States. The relations between Prussia r.nd Austria. EUROPEAN ALLIANCES growing out of them. 5. The threatened danger to Prussia. 6. FIRST CAMPAIGN OF FREDERIC, 1756. 7. Declarations of war by France and England, 1756. The first campaign. 8. The opposing forces, 1757. Victory of Frederic at Prague, and defeat at Kolin. [Kolin.] General invasion of Prussia. Defeat of the English in Germany. 9. Dangerous situation of Frederic. [Berlin.] Recall of the Russian army. Frederic advances into Saxony. 10. Great victory of Frederic at Rossback. [Rossback.] 11. Results of the battle. Frederic's treatment of the wounded and prisoners. 12. The English and Hanoverians resume their arms. Affairs in Silesia. Victory of Frederic at Lissa. [Lissa.] Anecdote of Frederic. 13. Results of the campaign of 1757. 14. Successes of the duke of Brunswick, 1758. Frederic in Silesia escapes from the Austrians at Olmutz, and marches against the Russians. [Olmutz.] 15. Battle of Zorndorf. [Zorndorf.J Anecdotes. Action of Hochkirchen. [Hochkirchen.] Results of the campaign. 16. Losses of the French in India and America. 17. Opening of the campaign of 175!>. Defeat of Frederic at Kunersdorf. [Kunersdorf.] His loss in Bohemia. Result, to the Austrians. 18. The campaign of the duke of Brunswick. The results on the ocean and in the colonies. 19. Losses of Frederic in the campaign of 1760. He defeats the enemy at LiegnUz and Torgau. [Liegnitz. Torgau.] 20. The campaign in Germany. 21. Alliance between France and Spain. Losses of Spain and France. [Cuba. Manilla. Belleisle. Guadaloupe.] 22. The campaign of 1761. Coldness of England, and change in the Russian councils. 23. General PEACE OF 17G3. The results, to England to France to Prussia. [Honduras.] The MILITARY CHARACTER or FREDERIC. V. STATE OF EUROPE. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 1. GENERAL PEACE IN EUROPE. Results of the "Seven Years' War." Efforts of Frederic for the good of his people. 2. FRANCE during the closing years of the reign of Louis XV. Accession of Louis XVI. 3. Condition of RUSSIA. Her war with Turkey and Poland. [Mol- davia and Wallachia.] DISMEMBERMENT OF POLAND, 1773. 4. STATE OF PARTIES IN EM -LAND. Taxation. Resignation of the earl of Bute. 5. The Grenville ministry. The case of Mr. Wilkes. 6. The subject of AMERICAN TAXATION. The Stamp Act. 7. Misfortunes of England in her attempts to coerce the Americans. 8. OPENING OF THE WAR WITH THE COLONIES. 9. EUROPEAN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND. Aid extended to the Americans. 10. Capture of Bur- goyne, 1777, and ALLIANCE BETWEEN FRANCE AND THE AMERICAN STATES. 11. Begin- ning of the WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 12. War In the West Indies. [Do- minica. St. Lucia.] 13. Hostilities in the East Indies, and overthrow of the French power there. 14. WAR BETWEEN SPAIN AND ENGLAND. Events of 1779. [St. Vincents. Grenada.] 15. Successes of Admiral Rodney, 1780. English merchant fleet captured by the Spaniards. 16. The English claim of the right of search. ARMED NEUTRALITY AGAINST ENGLAND. Principles of the Neutrality. General concurrence in them. 17. RUPTUKE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 18. Capture of St. Eustatia by the English. [St. Eustatia.] 19. The Spaniards conquer West Florida. The French and English in the West Indies. [Tobago.] Naval battle off the coast of Holland. [Dogger Bank.] 20. Results of the war between England and 400 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET II. her American colonies. Continuance of the war in Europe. Siege of Gibraltar, 1781, and de- struction of the Spanish works. 21. Minorca taken by Spain, 1782. Losses of the English in the West Indies. [Bahamas.] Naval victory of the English. [Carribee islands.] -21. Con- tinued siege of Gibraltar. Preparations for an assault. 23. The assault. 24. Generous conduct of the British seamen. Results of the assault. 25. The WAR IN THE EAST INDIES. Account of Hyder AH. [Mysore. Seringapatam.] 26. Successes of Hyder Ali and his son Tippoo Saib, in 1780. Events of 1781-2. 27. Tippoo concludes a treaty with the English, 1783. Re- newal of the war, 1790. Defeat and death of Tippoo, 1799. 28. TREATY OF 1782. GENERAL TRK.ATY OF 1783, between England, France, and Spain. Its terms. 29. Remarks upon the war of the Revolution. VI. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1. The DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT of the American Revolution : its influence upon French society. -2. State of France at the time of the death of Louis XV. 3. Louis XVI. His character. 4. FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. Efforts of Turgot and Neckar, and the opposition which they en- countered. 5. The system of Calonne, and its results. 6. Brieime calls THE STATES-GENERAL 7. Removal of Brienne, and restoration of Neckar. The policy of the court. 8. The general agitation throughout France. The evils to be complained of. The clergy and the nobility. The philosophic party. The calling of the States-general a revolutionary measure. Demands of the Commons. Results of the elections. 9. New difficulty at the opening of the States- general. Its final settlement. 10. Effect of the triumph of the third estate. REVOLUTIONARY STATE OF PARIS. Attack upon the Bastile, 1789. 11. Louis throws himself, for support, upon the popular party. 12. The effect. Revolutionary movements throughout France. GREAT POLITICAL CHANGES. 13. Two months of quiet. FAMINE, AND MOBS, in Paris. The mob at Versailles, and return of the Assembly and royal family to Paris. 14. Formation of a NEW- CONSTITUTION. MARSHALLING OF PARTIES. The Jacobin club. 15. Its character. Its leaders. Mirabeau. His character, and death. 16. THE EMIGRANT NOBILITY. [Coblentz.] ATTEMPTED ESCAPE OF THE ROYAL FAMILY, 1791. The king swears to support the new con- stitution. Dissolution of the "Constituent Assembly." 17. The "Legislative Assembly." Chief parties in it. Growing influence of the Jacobins. 18. First acts of the legislative assem- bly. Object of the Girondists. Demands of the Austrian emperor. WAR DECLARED AGAINST AUSTRIA, 1792. Real causes of the war. 19. Collection of forces, and invasion of France. The effects produced in France. 20. MASSACRE OF THE IOTH OF AUGUST. Acts of the As- sembly. Flight of La Fayette. Dumouriez. 21. MASSACRES OF SEPTEMBER. 22. Victories of the French. [Jemappes. Marseilles Hymn.] 23. Decree of the National Convention. TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF Louis XVI. [1793.] 24. FALL OF THE GIRONDISTS. 25. Rule of the Jacobins. 26. THE REIGN OF TERROR. Execution of the queen. TRIUMPH OF INFIDELITY. 27. Divisions among the Jacobin leaders. FALL OF THE DANTONISTS. 28. WAR AGAINST EUROPE. 29. Defection of Du- mouriez. 30. Fate of Custine. 31. War on the Spanish frontier. In other quarters. 32. IN- SURRECTION OF LA VENDEE. Victory of the Vendeans at Saumur, and defeat at Nantes. [Saumur.] Repeated defeats of the Republicans. [Torfou.] 33. Cruelties of the Republicans. The Vendeans cross into Brittany. [Cholet. Chateau Gonthier.] 34. Closing scenes of the Vendean war. [Granville. Mans. Savenay. The Vendean leaders.] 35. INSURRECTIONS IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. Marseilles and Lyons. 36. Siege of Toulon. Napoleon Bonaparte. 37. Results of the campaign of 1793. [1794.] 38. Progress of the Revolution after the fall of Danton. 39. FALL OF ROBESPIERRE, AND END OF THE REIGN OF TERROR. 40. Military condition of France. 41. THE ENGLISH VIC- TORIOUS AT SEA, AND THE FRENCH ON THE LAND. [Biscay.] 42. SECOND PARTITION OF Po- LAND. 43. THIRD PARTITION OF POLAND. [1795.] 44. DISSOLUTION OF THK FIRST COALITION AGAINST FRANCE. Austria, England, and Russia. 45. Internal condition of France. THK NEW CONSTITUTION. 46. INSURRECTION IN PARIS, suppressed by Napoleon. 47. Military events of 1795. [17%.] 48. INVASION OF GERMANY by Jordan and Moreau. 49. THE ARMY OF ITALY. Victo- ries of Napoleon. [Montenotte. Millessimo. Lodi. Arcole. Mantua.]-50. DISTURBANCES IN ENGLAND. Spain. English supremacy at sea. French invasion of Ireland. [1797.] 51. NAPOLEON'S AUSTRIAN CAMPAIGN. TREATY OF CAMPO FORMIO. [Campo For- CHAP.V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 401 mio.] Losses of Italy. 52. Strife of parties, and ESTABLISHMENT OF MILITARY DESPOTISM IN FRANCE. [1798.] 53. PREPARATIONS FOR THE INVASION OF ENGLAND. EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 54. Preparations for the expedition 55. Surrender of Malta. [Malta.] Storming of Alexandria. 56. Policy of Napoleon. [The Arab population. Cairo.] BATTLE OF THE PYRAMIDS. 57. BATTLE OF THE NILE. 58. Remarkable energy of Napoleon. Conquest of Upper Egypt. [1799.] SYRIAN EXPEDITION. 59. SIEGE OF ACRE. [Mount Tabor.] BATTLE OF MOUNT TABOR. [Nazareth.] 60. Return of Napoleon to Egypt. BATTLE OF ABOCKIR. 61. State of affairs in Europe. 62. Napoleon's return to France. OVERTHROW OF THE DIRECTORY. [SU Cloud.] NAPOLEON FIRST CONSUL. Changes of the Revolution. 1. WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, AND CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF Louis XIV. 1 . The war which ended in the treaty of Ryswick had not humbled the pride of Louis XIV., whose ambition soon involved Europe in another war, known in history as the " War of the Spanish succession." The immediate events that led to the war were the following. On the death of Charles the Second of Spain, in the year 1700, the two claimants of the Spanish throne were the arch- duke Charles of Austria, and Philip of Anjou, nephew of the French monarch. Both these princes endeavored, by their emissaries, to obtain from Charles, then on a sick bed, a declaration in favor of their respective pretensions ; but although the Spanish monarch was strong- ly in favor of ihe claims of the arch-duke his kinsman, the gold and the promises of Louis prevailed with the Spanish nobles to induce their sovereign to assign by will, to the duke of Anjou, the undivided sovereignty of the Spanislj dominions. The arch-duke resolved to sup- port his claims by the sword, while the possible and not improbable union of the crowns of France and Spain in the person of Philip, after the death of Louis, was looked upon by England, Germany, and Holland, as an event highly dangerous to the safety of those nations; and on the 1 5th of May, 1702, these three powers declared war against France, in support of the claims of the arch-duke to the Spanish succession. 2. It was, doubtless, of very little importance to England, whether an Austrian or a French prince became monarch of Spain; but when, on the death of the exiled James II., his son was acknowl- edged king of England by the French court, the act was regarded as an insult and a defiance to Great Britain ; the national animosity was aroused, and king William engaged strenuously in the work of forming a league against the ambition of France. England, Holland, and Austria, were the leading powers of the coalition, while France was aided by Bavaria alone. Already William was preparing to 26 402 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL take the field in person at the head of the allies, when a fall from his horse occasioned a fever, which terminated his life in May 1 702. Queen Anne, who next ascended the throne of Great Britain, de- clared her resolution to adhere to the policy of her predecessor. 3. The emperor of Austria began the war by pouring into Italy a large army under the command of Prince Eugene, a Frenchman by birth, who had early entered the Austrian service, where he had gained distinction in the wars of the Turks. At the same time the English duke of Marlborough, intrusted with the chief command of the Dutch and English forces, entered on the campaign in Flanders. To these generals was at first opposed marshal Villars; but the complaints of the elector of Bavaria against him induced that able general to resign his command. Marsin, Tallard, and Villeroy, suc- ceeded him ; but the French generals, brought up under the despotic authority of Louis, who required in his officers the quality of sub- mission as well as the talent for command, were unable to cope with Marlborough and Eugene, who had been bred in a school that en- couraged the development of talent, by allowing a greater indepen- dence of character. 4. The campaign of 1 702 passed without any remarkable results : ii THE Marlborough took a few towns in Flanders, and Eugene CAMPAIGN in northern Italy, but on the Rhine the French gained r some successes : at sea a combined Dutch and English fleet failed in an attack on Cadiz, 1 but succeeded in capturing and destroying, in Vigo Bay, 8 a French and Spanish fleet that had taken shelter there, laden with the treasures of Spanish America. OF 1703 -^ n * ne 8 P rm g f 1703 the French succeeded in breaking through the lines of the allies on the Rhine, thus trans- ferring the seat of the war to the Danube, and making a threatening demonstration against Vienna itself. 5. In the spring of 1704 Marlborough, abandoning Flanders, marched to the relief of the Austrian emperor, and having J ome( ^ Prince Eugene, on the 13th of August, near the small village of Blenheim, 2 he won a decisive victory over the French and Bavarians. Each army numbered about eighty 1 Cadiz is an important city and seaport of Andalusia, in southern Spain, sixty miles north- west from Gibraltar. It is a very ancient city, having been founded by the Carthaginians. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Vigo Bay is on the western coast of Spain, a little north of Portugal. 3. Blenheim is a small village of western Bavaria, on the Danube, thirty-three miles north- east from Ulm. (Map No. XVII.) CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 403 thousand men, and the vanquished lost thirty thousand in killed, wounded, and taken, while all their camp equipage, baggage, and ar- tillery, became the prize of the conquerors. The loss of the latter was about five thousand killed and eight thousand wounded. The results of this battle obliged the French to evacuate Germany al- together, abandon Bavaria, and retire behind the Rhine. In the meantime the war continued in northern Italy ; Portugal joined the coalition ; the arch-duke Charles of Austria, aided by an English force, landed in the Spanish peninsula ; and an English and Dutch fleet, commanded by Sir George Rooke, stormed the important fortress of Gibraltar, 1 of which England has ever since retained the possession. 6. The year 1 705 passed away with varied success, the French obtaining many advantages in Italy, while the allies were v EV KNTS generally victorious in Spain and on the ocean. In 1706 OF a French force again penetrated into Germany ; but the 1705 ~ 6 - main army, of about eighty thousand men, commanded by marshal Villeroy, advancing into the Spanish Netherlands, was met by an inferior force under the duke of Marlborough, and utterly routed in the decisive battle of Ramillies. 2 (May 23d, 1706.) The conse- quences of the battle were the loss, to France, of all the Spanish Netherlands, except the fortified towns of Mons 8 and Namur. In 1. Gibraltar, the Calpe of the Greeks, formed, with Abyla on the African coast, the "Pillars of Hercules." The fortress stands on the west side of a mountainous promontory or rock, pro- jecting south into the sea about three miles, and being from one-half to three-quarters of a mile in breadth. The southern extremity of the rock is called Europa Point. The north side of the promontory, fronting the long narrow isthmus which connects it with the main land, is per- pendicular, and wholly inaccessible. The east and south sides are steep and rugged, and ex- tremely difficult of access, so as to render any attack upon them, even if they were not for- tified, next to impossible, so that it is only on the west side, fronting the bay, where the rock declines to the sea, and the town is built, that it can be attacked with the faintest pros- pect of success. Here the fortifications are of extraordinary extent and strength. The princi- pal batteries are so constructed as to prevent any mischief from the explosion of shells. Vast galleries have been excavated in the solid rock, and mounted with heavy cannon ; and com- munications have been established between the different batteries by passages cut in the rock to protect the troops from the enemy's fire. At Gibraltar, the Arabians first landed in Spain, in the year 711. It was taken from them in 1302: in 1333 they retook it, but were finally deprived of it in 1462 by Henry IV. of Spain. August 4th 1704 the British captured it, since which time it has been repeatedly besieged and assaulted, but without success In 1729 Spain offered two millions sterling for the place, but in vain. The last attempt made for its recovery was by France and Spain combined, in 1779, during the war with England which grew out of the An.erican Revolution. Eighty thousand barrels of gunpowder were provided for the occasion, and more than one hundred thousand men were employed, by land and sea, against the fortress. {Map No. XIII.) 2. Ramillies is a small village of Belgium, twenty-eight miles south-east from Brussels. (Map No. XV.) 3. Mons is a fortified town of Belgium, thirty-two miles south-west from Brussels. (Map No. XV.) 404 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL other quarters the campaign was equally disastrous to Louis. Bar- celona 1 surrendered to the English ; even Madrid 2 submitted to the allies ; and prince Eugene, breaking through the French lines at Turin, drove the enemy from Italy. 7. Louis now made overtures of peace ; but the allies, hoping to reduce him lower, would not listen to them. The cam- PAIGNOF paign of 1707 in a measure revived his sinking fortunes. 1707. Q n ^ pl a i n O f Almanza 3 the French won a victory over the allies, as complete as any that had been obtained during the war. (April 1707.) This victory established Philip of Anjou on the throne of Spain. In the same year prince Eugene was foiled in an attempt on the port of Toulon. 4 In the following year, however, (1708,) Marlborough and Eugene defeated a powerful Drench arm J near tne village of Oudenarde, 5 in Flanders, and recovered Ghent and Bruges, 6 which, a short time before, had been surprised by the French. Again the frontier of France lay completely open. 8. The year 1709 commenced with one of the most rigorous winters ever known. Olives and vines, and many fruit VIH. 1709. . , , , . , j / trees perished ; the sown gram was destroyed, and every- thing portended a general famine. The French populace began to 1. Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, is a city and seaport of Spain, on the Mediterranean, three hundred and fifteen miles north-east from Madrid. It is supposed to have been founded by the Carthaginians about two hundred years before the Christian era, and to have beea named from its founder Hamilcar Barcino. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Madrid, the modern capital of Spain, is in the centre of the kingdom, and occupies the site of the ancient Mantua. Carpctanorum, a fortified town belonging to the Carpetani. It was af- terwards called Majoritum, and was taken and sacked by the Moors, who gave it its present name. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Almanza is a town of Spain in the northern part of the province of Murcia, ninety-threo miles north-west from Carthagena. In the battle fought in the neighborhood of this town April 25th, 1707, the French were commanded by the duke of Berwick. The allies, in the in- terest of the arch-duke Charles, lost five thousand men killed on the field, and nearly ten thou- sand taken prisoners. (Map No. XIII.) 4. Toulon, the first naval port in France, is on the Mediterranean coast, thirty-two miles south-east from Marseilles. The town is strongly fortified, and has an excellent harbor. It Is wholly indebted for its importance as a great naval port, and strong military position, to Louis XIV., who expended vast sums on its fortifications, and on the arsenal and harbor. (Map No. XIII.) 5. Oudenarde is a town of Belgium thirty-three miles west from Brussels. In the battle of July nth, 1708, the dukes of Brunswick and Vendome commanded the French army. (Map No. XV.) 6. Bruges is a town of Belgium, seven miles from the sea, and sixty miles north-west from Brussels. At a very early period Bruges was a prosperous seat of manufacturing and com mercial industry. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was the central empori- um of the whole commercial world, and, as the leading city of the Hanseatic confederacy, had resident consuls and ministers from every kingdom in Europe. (Map No. XV.) CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 405 clamor from present sufferings, and the dismal prospect before them ; but when the French parliament proposed to appoint deputies to visit the provinces, buy corn, and watch over the public peace, the haughty monarch reprimanded them, and told them they had as little to do with corn as with taxation. The magistrates were silent, and desisted from farther interference with the claims of the royal prerogative. 9. With the finances in disorder, commerce ruined, and agricul- ture at a stand, Louis sought peace with Holland ; but the States, Blighting his envoys and his offers, repaid him all his past insults and pride, and he was compelled to resume the war, or submit to conces- sions degrading to himself and the nation. Again the chief command of the French armies was given to marshal Villars, who fought with the allies the battle of Malplaquet 1 (Sept. 1 1th, 1709) ; but although the latter lost the greatest number of men, the French lost the honor of the day by being driven from the position which they had chosen. The situation of Louis became desperate, when again the successes of his arms in Spain restored him to security and confi- dence ; but domestic misfortune fell upon him, and humbled his pride more than all his military reverses had done. Most of the near relatives of the king were cut off by sudden death, since at- tributed to the small pox, but then ascribed to the agency of poison. 10. While these clouds were lowering upon France and her mon- arch, an unexpected event changed the situations and views of all parties. Early in 1 7 1 1 , the death of the emperor of Austria without issue, and the succession of the arch-duke Charles, the claimant of the Spanish crown, to the sovereignty of Austria, threatened a union of the crowns of Spain and Austria in the person of one individual, an event looked upon with as much dread as the union of France and Spain in the person of Philip of Anjou. From this period the war languished ; and when, by a change in English politics, Marlborough, who had supported, so nobly, the glory of England, was disgraced, and deprived of his command, the influence and support which Eng- land had given to the war were taken away. 11. Conferences opened at Utrecht in the early part of 1712, and on the 1 1th of April, 1713, the terms of a general peace were assented 1. Malplaquet (raal-plah'-ka) is a small town of France, near the border of Belgium, forty- three miles south-west from Brussels. In the battle fought here Sept. llth, 1709 the bloodiest in the " War of the Spanish succession" the allies were commanded by Marlborough and Eugene. The French army numbered seventy thousand ; the allies eighty thousand. The allies lost twenty thousand in tilled, and the French about ten thousand. (Map No. XV.) DC. TREATY 406 MODERN HISTORY. [PABT IL to by all the belligerents except Austria. England was gratified by the demolition of the port of Dunkirk, in the cession OF""* of Gibraltar and Minorca, 1 together with Newfoundland,* UTRECHT, Hudson's Bay Territory, 3 and the island of St. Christo- pher. 4 Spain remained to Philip V. of Anjou, on his renouncing forever all right of succession to the crown of France. The treaty of Radstadt, 6 concluded in 1714 between France and Austria, completed that of Utrecht, and terminated the war, the Austrian emperor receiving Naples, Milan, and Sardinia, together with Spanish Flanders, in lieu of Spain, the Spanish monarchy thus losing its possessions in Italy and the Netherlands. Louis re- tained the fortress of Lisle 6 and French Flanders, while the Rhine was acknowledged the frontier on the side of Alsace. 7 12. The treaties of Utrecht and Radstadt were the closing politi- cal acts of the reign of Louis XI Y., who breathed his last x. CHAEAC- . ^ . J~ . TEE OF THE m September 1715, alter a reign or seventy-seven years, KEIGN OF or fifty-four from the expiration of the regency. Louis was the most despotic monarch that ever reigned over a civilized people. In the condition of France at the time of his ac- cession, despotism was perhaps the only remedy against anarchy, and it marks an overmastering spirit that the will of the monarch alone was able to bend all minds to his purposes. The nobility stood submissive before the throne, the people, in silence and suf- fering, far beneath it. But the reign of Louis has shown that des- potism is not compatible with modern civilization, for everything was frozen under its chilling touch ; and although letters nourished 1. Minorca. See Balearic Isles, p. 152. 2. Newfoundland, a large island of North America, off the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is celebrated tor its fisheries. Since the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, it has remained in the possession of England. 3. Hudson's Bay Territory embraced a large but indefinite extent of country, mostly on the west side of Hudson's Bay. The Hudson's Bay Company has long monopolized nearly all the fur trade of British North America. 4. St. Christopher's is an island of the West Indies, nearly two hundred miles south-east from Porto Rico. It was discovered and named by Columbus, but was first settled by the English in 1623. 5. Radstadt is a small Austrian town one hundred and forty-five miles south-west from Vienna. (Map No. XVII.) 6. Lisle is a strongly-fortified city of France, near the Belgian frontier, one hundred and twenty-four miles north-east from Paris. Lisle is supposed to have been founded in 640. It successively belonged to the counts of Flanders, the kings of France, and the dukes of Bur gundy. (Map No. XIII.) 7. JHsace was an eastern province of France, on the Rhine. In ancient times it was a Gei- man duchy, and the inhabitants still speak German. Strasburg is the chief city. (Map No, XIIU CHAP.V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 407 among the favored few, there was no prosperity, no learning, no life, among the people ; and had the progress of science, and the devel- opment of intellect, been checked by the strong arm of authority, France would have needed nothing more to reduce her to a state of oriental simplicity and degradation. II. PETER THE GREAT OF RUSSIA, AND CHARLES XII. OP SWEDEN. 1. While the "war of the Spanish succession" engaged . I. THE NORTH the attention of the south and west of Europe, casting a AND EAST shadow of gloom on the declining years of Louis XIV., OF KUttoW! - the northern and eastern divisions of Christendom were occupied with the rivalry of two of the most extraordinary men that the world has ever known Peter the Great of Russia, and Charles XII. of Sweden. In the preceding chapter we noticed the auspicious events which marked the beginning of the reign of the Russian monarch, just at the close of the seventeenth century, and which promised to his kingdom a rapid augmentation of power, and the opening of a new era in civilization. The results remain to be de- veloped in the present chapter. 2. It was a leading object of the Czar, a to make Russia a great commercial nation ; and for the success of his plans a free and unin- terrupted communication with the ocean, by way of the Baltic Sea, was deemed of the greatest importance ; but Sweden possessed the entire eastern coast of the Baltic, together with the gulfs of Finland and Livonia, 1 thus hemming in the Czar in the only quarter where his ardent wishes might, otherwise, be accomplished. During his travels he had been rudely refused admission into the citadel of Riga, 2 which had once belonged to Russia ; and this circumstance afforded him a sufficient pretext for engaging in a war with Sweden for the recovery of that valuable seaport. The kings of Denmark and Poland, both of whom had suffered from the Swedish arms, were easily induced to form an alliance with the Czar for dividing between themselves the possessions wrested from their predecessors. 3. Sweden was at this time (1700) governed by Charles XII., a prince only eighteen years of age who was reported by the ministers L Finland and Livonia are the two eastern gulfs of the Baltic. St. Petersburg, at the eastern extremity of the former, and Riga, near the head of the latter, are now the two most important cities and ports in the Russian dominions. 2. Riga is a strongly-fortified city of Russia, situated on the river Dwina, nine miles from its entrance into the Gulf of Livonia. Population, seventy thousand. a. The title given by the Russians to their king, and pronounced Tzar. 408 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL of foreign courts to be of a haughty and indolent disposition, and who had thus far shown DO inclination for public business, nor evinced any ardor for military pursuits. But Charles was neither known to others nor did he know himself until the storm that suddenly arose in the north gave him an opportunity of displaying his concealed talents. While the Swedish council, alarmed by the dangers which threatened the country, were debating in his presence the terms ot an accommodation with their enemies, the young prince suddenly arose, and with a grave and determined air declared that his resolu- tion was fixed ; " that he would never enter upon an unjust war, but that he. would attack any power that evinced hostile intentions, and that, in the present instance, he hoped to conquer the first enemy and to strike terror into the rest." From that moment Charles renounced his former indolent habits and frivolous amusements, and, placing before himself the characters of Alexander and Caesar, resolved to imitate those heroes in everything but their vices. The vain and trifling boy suddenly became the stern, vigilant, and ambitious soldier of fortune. 4. Almost simultaneously, early in the year 1700, the Czar and ii. BEGIN- his allies began hostilities by invading the Swedish terri- NING OF tories. The Danes fell upon Sleswick, 1 a city of Hol- AGAINST stein, friendly to Sweden ; the king of Poland invested SWEDEN. Riga ; while the Czar, with eighty thousand men, laid siege to Narva. 2 Attacked by so many foes at once, Charles placed himself at the head of his armies, and directed his first efforts against the Danes, whom he compelled to purchase the safety of Copenhagen, 8 their capital, by the payment of four hundred thousand dollars, and soon after to sign a peace, by which Charles was indemnified for all the expenses of the war. Thus the youthful Swede, by his vigorous conduct, humbled a powerful adversary in a campaign of six weeks, 1. Sleswick, now included in the duchy of the same name, is a city and seaport town of Den mark, seventy miles north-west from Hamburg. Holstein is the southern duchy or province of Denmark, extending to the Elbe, and having the duchy of Sleswick on the north. At the period above-mentioned the city of Sleswick was included in the territories of the duke of Holstein, who, having married a sister of Charles XII., and being oppressed by the king of Denmark his master, had fled to Stockholm to implore assistance. (Map No. XVII.) 2. JVarea is a small town of Russia on the river Narova, eight miles from its entrance into the Gulf of Livonia, and eighty-one miles south-west from St. Petersburg. 3. Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, is a well-fortified city, built principally on the eastern coast of the island of Zealand, and partly also on the contiguous small island of Amak, the channel between them forming the port. It was founded in 1168. Its environs are celebrated for their beauty. (Map No. XIV.) CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 409 and rendered his own name, at the age of eighteen, the terror of the North, and the admiration of Europe. 5. In the meantime the king of Poland, who had laid siege to Riga, being thwarted by the activity of its veteran commander, the same who had refused the Czar permission to enter the citadel, availed himself of a plausible pretext for withdrawing his forces. Charles was now left at liberty to turn his attention to the most pow- erful of the confederates, the Russian monarch, who, at the head of eighty thousand men and one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, had been engaged ten weeks in besieging the town of Narva, which was defended by a garrison of scarcely one thousand soldiers. 6. In the month of November Charles landed on the coast with only twenty thousand men, and proceeded rapidly towards the town, at the head of less than one-half of his actual OF THE force, driving before him more than thirty thousand RUSSIANS Russians who had been sent out to impede his march. Scarcely allowing his weary troops a moment's repose, and without waiting for the remainder of his little army, Charles resolved to attack the enemy in their intrenchments : in three hours the camp was forced on all sides : eighteen thousand Russians were killed, be- sides a great number drowned in attempting to cross the river ; and on the next day thirty thousand who had surrendered were dismissed to their homes. (Nov. 30th. Dec. 1st, 1700.) This extraordinary victory did not cost the Swedes over six hundred men. When the Czar, who was absent from Narva at the time, heard of this disaster^ he was not disheartened, but attributing the result to the right cause, the ignorance and barbarism of his subjects, he said : " I know very well that the Swedes will have the advantage of us for a considerable time ; but they will at length teach us to become conquerors."' The ignorant Russians, unable to account for a victory gained by human means, over such disparity of numbers, imagined the Swedes to be magicians and sorcerers ; and a form of prayer, composed by a Rus- sian bishop, was read in their churches, imploring St. Nicholas, the patron of Muscovy, to be their champion in future, and to drive the troop of Northern wizards away from their frontiers. 7. But Peter, disregarding both St. Nicholas and the priests, pur- sued steadily the course which he had marked out, and, withdrawing to his own dominions, occupied hits time in equipping a fleet, in re- cruiting and disciplining a new army, in carrying out his project of uniting the Baltic, Caspian, and Euxine seas, and in introducing nu- 410 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL merous improvements for civilizing his barbarous subjects. Charles, on the contrary, neglectful of the welfare of his own country, and of the proceedings of the Czar, had resolved never to return home until he had driven from the throne of Poland the newly-elected sovereign, and ally of Peter, Augustus of Saxony. 8. Having wintered at Narva, Charles next drove the Poles and Saxons from Riga, defeated his enemies on the western bank of the Dwina, overran Courland 1 and Lithuania, entered War- op CHARLES saw2 without opposition, and at length, in July 1 70'2, IN THE YEAR defeated Augustus in a bloody battle fought on a vast plain between Warsaw and Cracow. 3 A second victory gained by Charles at Pultusk* in the following year (May 1st, 1703) completed the humiliation of Augustus, who was formally deposed by the Polish diet, while the crown was soon after given to Stanislaus Leczinski, who had been nominated by the king of Sweden. (January 1704.) Charles, at the head of a victorious army, might easily have assumed the sovereignty of Poland, to which he was advised by his ministers, but he declared that he felt more pleasure in bestowing thrones upon others than in winning them for himself. 9. Charles soon reduced the Saxon States, the hereditary domin- ions of the unfortunate Augustus ; his ships were masters of the Baltic ; Denmark, restrained by the late treaty, was prevented from offering any active interference with his plans ; the German emperor, engaged in the War of the Spanish succession, was afraid of offend- ing him ; and a detachment of thirty thousand Swedes kept the Russians in check towards the east : so that the whole region from 1. Courland is a province of Russia, on the Baltic coast, north of the ancient Lithuania. (See Lithuania, p. 312.) 2. Warsaw, the capital of Poland, is on the west bank of the Vistula, six hundred and fifty miles southwest from St. Petersburg, and three hundred and thirty-three miles east from Berlin the Prussian capital. Population, about one hundred and forty thousand. In 1795, in the third partition of Poland, Warsaw was assigned to Prussia : in 1806 it was made the capital of the grand-duchy of Poland ; and in 1815 it became the capital of the new kingdom of Poland, that was uniled to the crown of Russia, but with a separate constitution and administration. Warsaw was the principal seat of the ill-fated Polish revolution of 1831. See p. 527. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Cracow is on the north bank of the Vistula, one hundred and sixty miles south-west from Warsaw, and two hundred north-east from Vienna. Previously to the seventeenth century Cracow was the metropolis of the kingdom of Poland. Most of the Polish kings, and many other illustrious men, have been buried in the cathedral of Cracow. Among others it con-tains the tombs of Casimir the Great, of John Sobieski the deliverer of Poland, and of the " last of the Poles," Kosciusko and Poniatowski. About a mile west of the city is an artificial mound of earth, one hundred and fifty feet in height, erected to the memory of Kosciusko. (Map No. XVII.) 4. Pultusk is forty miles north of Warsaw, on the western bank of a small tributary of the Vistula. (Map No XVII.) OHAP.V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 411 the German Ocean almost to the mouth of the Borysthenes, 1 and even to the gates of Moscow, was held in awe by the sword of the conqueror. All Europe was filled with astonishment at the arbitrary manner in which he had deposed the king of Poland ; while in the meantime Charles himself was indulging in the most extravagant views of future conquests and glory. One year he thought sufficient for the conquest of Russia : the pope of Rome was next to feel his vengeance, for having dared to oppose the concession of religious lib- erty to the German Protestants, in whose behalf Charles had inter ested himself; and the youthful hero had even despatched officers privately into Egypt and Asia, to take plans of the towns, and ex- amine into the resources, of those countries. 1 0. The Czar, in the meantime, had not been an idle spectator of the progress of the Swedish conqueror. By keeping large bodies of his troops actively engaged on the Swedish frontiers, he gradually accustomed them to the presence of the enemy, over whom he gained several little advantages ; and having driven the Swedes from both banks of the Neva, 5 in the year 1701 he laid the foundations of St. Petersburg, in the heart of his new conquests, and by his judicious measures protected the rising city from the attacks of the Swedish generals. During the year 1 704 he gained possession of all Ingria ;* the next year he entered Poland at the head of sixty thousand men ; but the advance of Charles from Saxony soon obliged him to, retire again towards the Russian territories. 11. In the autumn of 1707, Charles began his march eastward, with the avowed object of the conquest of Russia, driving the Russians back to the eastern banks of the Dnieper, CHARLES then the dividing line between Russia and Poland. The INTO Czar, seeing his own dominions threatened with war, which must put a stop to the vast plans which he had formed for the improvement of his people, now offered terms of peace, but Charles, intoxicated with success, only replied, " I will treat at Moscow." Peter, resolving not to act the part of another Darius, wisely deter- mined to check the career of the invaders by breaking up the roads 1. Borysthenes^ see Dnieper, p. 309. 2. The Neva is the stream by which Lake Ladoga discharges its surplus waters into the Gulf of Finland. St. Petersburg is built at its entrance into the Gulf. 3. Ingria was a province extending about one hundred and thirty miles along the southern bank of the Neva and the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland. In 1617 the Swedes took it from the Russians, but in 1700 the latter reconquered a part of it, and in 1703 built St. Peter*- burg within its limits. 412 MODERN HISTORY. [PABT II. and desolating the country; and Charles, after crossing the Dnieper, and penetrating almost to Smolensko, 1 found it impracticable to con- tinue his march in the direction of the Russian capital. (1708.) His army, exposed to the risk of famine, and the incessant attacks of the enemy, was slowly wasting away ; yet, instead of falling back upon Poland, he adopted the extraordinary resolution of passing into the Ukraine, whither he had been invited by Mazeppa, a Pole by birth, ax>d chief of the Cossacks, but who had resolved to throw off his al- legiance to the Czar, his master. 12 A march of twelve days, amid almost incredible and unpar- alleled hardships, brought the Swedes to the river Desna, 2 where Charles expected to meet his new ally with a body of thirty thousand men ; but, instead of this, he was compelled to force the passage of the stream against a Russian army. The Czar, having been in- formed of the treason of Mazeppa, had disconcerted his schemes by the punishment of his associates ; and the unfortunate chief appeared in the Swedish army rather as a fugitive than as a powerful prince bringing succors to his ally. Charles soon after learned of a still greater misfortune that had befallen him, the loss of a large convoy and reinforcement expected from Poland. 13. In the midst of one of the severest winters ever known in Europe, (1708-9) the small Swedish army, now reduced to less than twenty thousand men, found itself in the midst of a hostile and al- most desolate country, cut off from all resources, and. threatened with an attack from nearly a hundred thousand Russians, who were gradually concentrating upon their victims. Yet the iron heart of the Swede did not a moment relent at the sufferings of his soldiers, although in one day he beheld two thousand of them drop dead be- fore him, from the effects of cold and hunger ; nor had he relinquished the design of penetrating to Moscow. On the opening of spring he advanced to the town and fortress of Pultowa, 3 in the hope of seiz- ing the magazines of the Czar, and opening a passage into the heart of the Russian territory. 1 4. Toward the end of May Charles invested Pultowa, but while 1. Smolensko is a Russian town on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, two hundred and thirty miles south-west from Moscow. (Map No. XVII.) 2. The Desna is an eastern tributary of the Dnieper, which enters that river a little above Kiev. ( Map No. XVII.) 3. Pultowa is a fortified town of Russia, on the river Worskla, an eastern tributary of the Dnieper, two hundred miles south-east from Kiev, and four hundred and fifty south-west from Moscow. In commemoration of the victory of Pultowa the Russians have erected a column in the city, and an obelisk on the field of battle. CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 413 he was pressing the siege with great vigor, on the 15th of June the Czar appeared before the place with an army seventy thousand strong, and, in spite of the exertions of the Swedes, succeeded in throwing a strong reinforcement into the place. When Charles discovered the manoeuvre by which this had been effected, he could not forbear saying, " I sec well that we have taught the Muscovites the art of war." On the eighth of July a general action was brought on between the two armies, the Czar commanding his troops in person, while Charles, unable to walk, owing to a severe wound he had some days before received in the heel, was carried about the field in a litter, with a pistol in one hand and his drawn sword in the other. The desperate charge of the Swedes broke the Russian cavalry, but the Russian infantry acted with great steadiness, and restored the honor of the day. The Czar received a musket ball through his hat ; his favorite general. Menzi- koff, had three horses killed %nder him ; and the litter in which Charles was carried was shattered in pieces by a cannon ball. But neither the courage nor the discipline of the Swedes could avail against the overwhelming numbers of their antagonists; and after a dread- ful battle of two hours' duration the Swedish army was irretrievably ruined. Charles escaped with about three hundred horsemen to the Turkish town of Bender, 1 abandoning all his treasures to his rival, including the rich spoils of Poland and Saxony. a 15. Thus in one day the king of Sweden lost the fruits of nearly a hundred victories, and nine years of successful warfare. Nearly 1. Bender is now a Russian town, on the Dniester, in the province of Bessarabia, about fifty- eight miles from the Black Sea. In 1770 the Russians took this town by storm, and reduced it to ashes. Four years later it was restored to Turkey, but was reconquered by the Russians in 1809, and was finally ceded to them, with the province of Bessarabia, by the treaty of Bucha- rest, in 1812. (Map No. XVII.) a. The catastrophe of Pultowa is thus powerfully described by Campbell : " Oh ! learn the fate that bleeding thousands bore, Led by their Charles to Dnieper's sandy shore. Faint from his wounds, and shivering in the blast, The Swedish soldier sank and groaned his last ; File after file the stormy showers benumb, Freeze every standard sheet, and hush the drum ; Horseman and horse confessed the bitter pang, And arms and warrior fell with hollow clang : Yet, ere he sank in Nature's last repose, Ere life's warm current to the fountain froze, The dying man to Sweden turned his eye, Thought of his home, and closed it with a sigh. Imperial pride looked sullen on his plight, And Charles beheld, nor shuddered at the sight. 414 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT IL all Europe felt the effects of the battle of Pultowa : the Saxons called for revenge on a prince who had pillaged and plundered their country : Augustus returned to Poland at the head of a Saxon army, while Stanislaus, knowing it was vain to resist, was unwilling to shed blood in a useless struggle : Denmark, Russia, and Poland, entered into a league against Sweden, and but for the interference of the Ger- man emperor and the maritime powers, the Swedish monarchy would have been rent in pieces. 16. Although Charles was now an exile from his country, relying, for his support, upon the generosity of the Turkish sultan, yet he still en- tertained the romantic project of dethroning the Czar, and marching back to Sweden at the head of a victorious army. He endeavored to raise the Turks against his enemies ; and his prospects grew ^TUE bright or dark according as the wavering policy of the Turkish divan was swayed by his intrigues, or by the gold of Russia. At one time the vizr promised to conduct him to Moscow at the head of two hundred thousand men : war was declared against Russia ; and the forces of the two nations were assembled on the banks of the Pruth. 1 (July 1711.) Here the Russian army, surrounded by a greatly superior Turkish force, lost, in four days' fighting, more than sixteen thousand men, when by the resolute sa- gacity of the empress Catherine, who accompanied her husband during the campaign, a secret treaty was concluded with the Turkish commander, and Peter was rescued from the same fate that had be- fallen his antagonist at Pultowa. 17. The Swedish monarch continued to linger in Turkey until 1714, still flattering himself that he should yet lead an Ottoman army into Russia. Being at length dismissed by the sultan, and ordered to depart, he still resolved to remain ; and arming his secre- taries, valets, cooks, and grooms, in addition to his three hundred guards, he bade defiance to a Turkish army of twenty-six thousand men. After a fierce resistance, in which many of his attendants were slain, he was captured, the Turks being careful not to endanger his life. Another revolution in the Turkish divan revived the hopes of Charles, and prolonged his stay ; but when he learned that the Swedish senate intended to create a regent in his absence, and 1. The Pruth^ rising in Gallicia, forma the boundary between Bessarabia and Moldavia, and enters the Danube about fifty miles from the Black Sea. By the treaty of Adrianople in 1829, it was stipulated that the Pruth should continue to form the boundary between the Russian and Turkish territories. (Map No. XVII.) CHAI V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 415 make peace with Denmark and Russia, his indignation at such pro- ceedings induced him to return home. He was honorably escorted to the Turkish frontiers ; but although orders had been given that he should be treated in the Austrian and German dominions with all due honor, he chose to travel in the disguise of a courier, and toward the close of November 1714 reached Stralsund, the capital of Swedish Pomerania. 18. At the time of the return of Charles, Sweden was in a truly deplorable condition, surrounded by enemies without money, trade, or credit her foreign provinces lost, and one hundred and fifty thou- sand of her best soldiers slaves in Turkey and Siberia, or locked up in the fortresses of Denmark and Poland. Yet Charles, instead of seeking that peace which his kingdom so much needed, immediately issued orders for renewing the war with redoubled vigor. During the year 1715, the Danish and Russian fleets swept the Baltic, and threatened Stockholm ;' and Stralsund, though defended by Charles with his accustomed bravery, was com- pelled to surrender after a siege of two months. On the night be- fore the surrender Charles made his escape in a small boat, safely passing the batteries and fleets of the allies. In the following year he made an irruption into Norway, but his army was driven back greatly diminished in numbers. His attention was next occupied with the scheme of his favorite minister, Baron Gortz, for uniting the kings of Sweden and Russia in strict amity, and then dictating the law to Europe. The plot embraced the restoration of Stanislaus to the throne of Poland, and Charles was to have the command of a combined Swedish and Russian army of invasion, for establishing the Pretender (son of James II.) on the throne of England. The Czar seemed not averse to the project, and a conference of the ministers of the two nations had already been appointed for making the final arrangements, when the death of the king of Sweden rendered abor- tive a revolution that might have thrown all Europe into a state of political combustion. In the autumn of 1718 Charles had invaded Norway a second time, and laid siege to Frederickshall ;' J but while engaged in viewing the works 1. Stockholm, the capital city, and principal commercial emporium of Sweden, is built partly on a number of islands and partly on the main laud, at the junction of the Lake Mzelar with the Baltic, four hundred and forty miles a little south of west from St. Petersburg. It was founded in the thirteenth century, but was not recognized as the capital till the seventeenth, previously to which Upsala had been the seat of the court. (Map No. XIV.) 2. Frederickshall is a maritime town of Norway, near the north-east angle of the Skagger- rack, fifty-seven miles south-east from Christiana. The town spreads irregularly around a per- 416 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT EL in the midst of a tremendous fire from the enemy, he was struck dead by a ball from the Danish batteries. (Dec. 1718.) 19. The death of Charles produced an entire change in the affairs of Sweden. The late king's sister was declared queen by the volun- tary choice of the States of the kingdom ; but the last reign had taught them a severe lesson, and they compelled their new sovereign to take a solemn oath that she would never attempt the establish- ment of arbitrary power. The project of a union with Russia was at once abandoned, and the new government united its forces to those of England against the Czar. For a while the Russian fleet desolat- ed the coasts of Sweden, but in 1721 peace was established between the two powers by the treaty of Nystad. 1 Russia gained thereby a large accession of territory on the shores of the Baltic, and dominion over the Gulf of Finland, which Peter had purchased as a highway of commerce to the ocean, with the toils and perils of twenty years of warfare. 20. Charles the Twelfth, at the time of his death, was little more than thirty-six years of age, one-half of which had been CHARACTER s P en * am id * ne turmoil of arms, or wasted in foreign exile. War was his ruling passion ; but the only ob- ject of his conquests seemed to be the satisfaction of bestowing their fruits upon others, without any apparent wish to enlarge his own do- minions. After all his achievements, nought but the memory of his renown survives him ; for all the acts of his reign sprung from a misdirected ambition, and not one of them was conducive to the per- manent welfare of his country. " He was rather an extraordinary than a great man," says Voltaire, " and more worthy to be admired than imitated. His life ought to be a lesson to kings, how much a pacific and happy government is preferable to so much glory. " a pendicular rock four hundred feet in height, on which is the strong fortress of Frederickstein, at the siege of which Charles XII. was killed. It was doubted for awhile whether the king met his death by a ball from the fortress, or from an assassin in the rear ; but there seem to be no good grounds for supposing that treachery had anything to do with the matter. Dr. Johnson has availed himself of the suspicion in his ad- mirable description of the character of the Swedish warrior. The hat, clothes, buff-belt, boots^ &c., which Charles wore when he was shot, are still preserved in the arsenal of Stockholm. 1. Nystad is a town of Finland, on the eastern coast of the Baltic, one hundred and fifty miles north-east from Stockholm. a. The following is Dr. Johnson's description of the character of Charles XII. "On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide. A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, No dangers fright him, and no labors tire ; CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 417 21. The Czar Peter, or, as he is usually called in history, Peter the Great, died in 1725, seven years after the death of xii. DEATH his great rival the king of Sweden. Through a life of restless activity he labored for the improvement and OF PETK R prosperity of his country ; and while Charles left behind THE GRKAT. him nothing but ruins, Peter the Great may truly be regarded as the founder of an empire. The ruler of a barbarous people, he early saw the advantages of civilization, and by the measures he adopt- ed for reforming his empire he truly merited the epithet of GREAT. Yet it has been truly said of him that although he civilized his sub- jects, he himself remained a barbarian ; for the sternness, or rather the ferocity, of his disposition, spared neither age nor sex, nor his dear- est connexions. So conscious was he of his frailties that he was accus- tomed to say, " I can reform my people, but I cannot reform myself." He never learned the lessons of humanity ; and his sublime but un- cultivated genius continually wandered without a guide. It is a high and just eulogium of his character to say that " his virtues were his own, and his defects those of education and country." O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain ; No joys to him pacific sceptres yield, War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field ; Behold surrounded kings their powers combine, And one capitulate, and one resign ; Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain ; 'Think nothing gained,' he cries ' till naught remain ; On Moscow's walls, till Gothic standards fly, And all be mine beneath the polar sky.' The march begins in military state, And nations on his eye suspended wait ; Stern famine guards the solitary coast, And winter barricades the realms of frost : lie comes ; nor want, nor cold, his course delay ; Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa's day. The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands, And shows his miseries in distant lands ; Condemned a needy supplicant to wait While ladies interpose, and slaves debate. But did not chance at length her error mend ? Did no subverted empire mark his end ? Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound ? Or hostile millions press him to the ground? His fall was destined to a barren strand, A petty fortress, and a dubious hand : He left the name, at which the world grew paie, To paint a moral, or adorn a tale." 27 418 MODERN HISTORY [PART II III. SPANISH WARS, AND WARS OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION. 1, The treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which closed the war of the Spanish succession, had given pacification to southern and west- ^ALUAKOE* ern Eur P e > ky defining the territorial limits of the belligerents in such a manner as to preserve that bal- ance of power on which the peace of Europe depended. The in- triguing efforts of Spain in contravention of that portion of the treaty by which Philip V. renounced forever all right of succession to the crown of France, induced England and Holland, in 1717, to unite with France in forming a Triple Alliance guaranteeing the ful- filment of the treaty; but during the same year a Spanish fleet, entering the Mediterranean, quickly reduced the island of Sardinia, which had been assigned to Austria ; and in the following year an- other fleet and army captured Sicily, which had been adjudged to the duke of Savoy. These acts of aggression roused the resentment of Austria ; and by her accession to the terms of the Triple Alliance, the Quadruple Alliance was formed, for the purpose of putting a check to the ambition of Spain. A British squadron, under admiral Byng, sailed into the Mediterranean and destroyed the Spanish fleet, whilst an Austrian force passed into Sicily to contest with the Spanish army the sovereignty of that island. The successes of the allies soon compelled even Spain to accede to the terms of the Alliance for pre- serving the peace of. Europe. 2. In 1 739, however, the general peace was interrupted by a war between England and Spain, growing out of the com- BETWEEN niercial and colonial difficulties of the two nations. For ENGLAND a long time Spain, claiming the right of sovereignty over the seas adjacent to her American possessions, which had been confirmed by successive treaties, had distressed and insulted the commerce of Great Britain by illegal seizures made under the pretext of the right of search for contraband goods ; while Britain, on the other hand, secretly encouraged a contraband traffic, little to her honor, and deeply injurious to Spain. War was first declared by England : the vessels of each nation in the ports of the other were confiscated ; and powerful armaments were fitted out by the one to seize, and by the other to defend, the Spanish American possess- ions, while pirates from Biscay harassed the home trade of England. 3. While this war continued with various success, a general Euro- pean war broke out, called the " war of the Austrian succession,'' presenting a scene of the greatest confusion, and eclipsing, by its im- OHAP.V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 419 1 ' mi t * '*[ 'i portance, the petty conflicts on the American seas. Charles VI., em- peror of Austria, the famous competitor of Philip for the throne of Spain, died in the autumn of 1 740 ; and as he had no male issue he left his dominions to his eldest daughter, Maria ^^HE^AR Theresa, queen of Hungary, in accordance with a solemn OF THE ordinance called the Pragmatic Sanction, 1 which had AM been confirmed by all the leading States of Europe. This sanction, however, did not secure his daughter, after his death, from the attacks of a host of enemies, who hoped to make good their pretensions, by force of arms, to different portions of her estates. 4. The elector of Bavaria declared himself, by virtue of his descent from the eldest daughter of Ferdinand I., the proper heir of the hereditary Austrian provinces : the elector of Saxony, who was also Augustus III., king of Poland, made the same claims by virtue of a preceding marriage with the house of Saxony : Spain was anxious to appropriate to herself some of the Italian principalities, and vir- tually laid claim to the whole Austrian succession, while Frederick II., the young king of Prussia, marched suddenly into Silesia, and took possession of that country. France, swayed by hereditary hatred of Austria, sought a dismemberment of that empire; while England offered her aid to Maria Theresa, the daughter of her ancient ally, to preserve the integrity of the Austrian dominions. 5. The plan of the coalition against the Austrian queen embraced the elevation of Charles Albert, the electoral prince of Bavaria, to the sovereignty of all the German States ; COALITION and accordingly, in the summer of 1741, two French AGAINST armies crossed the Rhine, and being joined by the Ba- varian forces, seized Prague, made several other important conquests, threatened Vienna, and compelled Maria Theresa to flee from her capital. In a diet held at Frankfort, 8 in Frebruary 1742, the impe- rial crown, through the influence of France and Prussia, was given to Charles Albert. In the meantime Maria Theresa, crushed in 1. Pragmatic Sanction There are four ordinances with this title mentioned in history: 1st, tl at of Clnrles VII. of France, iu 1436, on which rest the liberties of the Galilean church : 2d, th decree of the German diet in 1439, sanctioning the former : 3d, the ordinance of the German emperor Charles VI. in 1740, by which he endeavored to secure the succession to his female descendants, and which led to the war of the Austrian succession : and 4th, the ordinance by which Charles III. of Spain, in 1759, ceded the throne of Naples to his third son and his posterity. 2. Frankfort, or Frankfortron-the-Afayn, is a celebrated commercial city of Germany, on' the north bank of the Mayn, eighteen miles north-east from its confluence with the Rhine at Mayence. There is also a Frankfort-on-the-Oder, ninety-five miles north-east from Dresden. (Map No. XVII.) 420 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IJ, everything but energy of spirit by the vast array against her, pre- sented herself, with her infant son, in the diet of the Hungarian nobles, and having first sworn to protect their independence, de- manded their aid in tones that her beauty and her tears rendered more persuasive. The swords of the Hungarians flashed in the air as their acclamations replied, " We will die for our sovereign Maria Theresa, !" On the very day that Charles, Albert was crowned at Frankfort, Munich, 1 his own capital, fell into the hands of the Aus- trian general ; and while Bavaria was plundered, the new emperor was compelled to live in retirement far from his own dominions. In another quarter fortune was not equally favorable to V 1^4^3 Austria; and Maria Theresa was compelled to purchase peace of the Prussians by the surrender of Silesia. (June 1741.) This loss was compensated, Ixowever, by a successful blockade of Prague, then in the hands of the French, who were at length forced to a disastrous retreat, while England began to take a more active part in the war against France. The losses of France were great on the ocean ; and in 1 743 Greorge II. of England, advancing into Germany at the head of a powerful army, defeated the French at Dettin- gen, 2 and compelled them to retreat across the Rhine. (June 1743.) 6. The year 1 744 is distinguished by the renewal of hostilities on the part of Frederick, who, having formed an alliance with the king of France, entered Bohemia at the head of seventy thousand soldiers, and in the beginning of September sat down before Prague, which soon surrendered, and with it a garrison of eighteen thousand men. But misfortunes rapidly succeeded this brilliant beginning of the campaign ; the illness of Louis XV., king of France, prevented the promised diversion on the side of the Rhine ; and Frederick was eventually compelled to retreat to his own do- minions, with the loss of twenty thousand men. The king of Prussia acknowledged, in his own memoirs, that no general committed greater faults during the campaign than he did himself : and that the conduct of his opponent, the Austrian general, marshal Traun, was a model of perfection, which every military man would do well to study. 7. The death of Charles Albert, early in January 1745, removed all reasonable grounds for continuing the war ; but the national animosity between England and France prevent- 1. Munich is a large German city, the capital of Bavaria, on the Isar, a southern branch of the Danube, two hundred and twenty miles west from Vienna. It is called the " Athens of south Germany." (Map No. XVII.) v . 2. Dettinffen is a small village of Bavaria, on the Mayn, sixteen miles south-east of Frankfort, V CHAP. V.I EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 421 , jjjjkfo..,, i . . '_' ed the restoration of peace. During the same year, the celebrated French general, marshal Saxe, obtained the victory of Fontenoy 1 over the Austrians, and their Dutch and English allies commanded by the duke of Cumberland, and conquered the Austrian Netherlands and Dutch Flanders. The king of Prussia conducted a successful cam- paign in Silesia and Saxony, and in December concluded with Austria the treaty of Dresden, which confirmed him in the possession of Si- lesia. In the meantime the German States had elected for their emperor Francis I., the husband of Maria Theresa, and in the treaty of Dresden he was formally acknowledged by Frederick. 8. In Italy the combined armies of France, Spain, and Naples, obtained important advantages over the Austrians and Sardinians ; and at the close of the campaign they held possession of all Lorn- bardy and Piedmont. 3 During the same year, while the king of England was warring with the French in the Netherlands, his own dominions were invaded. The loss of the English at Fon- tenoy seemed to present to Charles Edward, grandson SION OF of James II., commonly called the Young Pretender, ENGLAND, a fit opportunity for attempting the restoration of his family to the throne of England. Being furnished by the French monarch with a supply of money and arms, at the head of a small force he landed, in July, on the coast of Scotland, and being joined by many of the Highland clans, on the 16th of September he was enabled to take possession of Edinburgh, 3 and a few days later de- feated the royal forces at Preston Pans.* In November he entered 1. Fontenoy is a village of Belgium, In the province of Hainault (a-n&), forty-three miles Bouth-west from Brussels. The battle was fought April 30th, 1745. Voltaire's account of it, in his " Age of Louis XV.," is extremely interesting. (Map No. XV.) 2. Piedmont, (pied-de-monte, "foot of the mountain,") the principal province of the Sardinian monarchy, has the Swiss canton of Valais and the Sardinian province of Savoy, on the north, and Savoy and France on the west. Capital, Turin. In J802 Napoleon incorporated it with France, but it was restored in 1814. 3. Edinburgh, the metropolis of Scotland, county of Mid Lothian, is two miles south of the Frith of Forth, and three hundred and thirty-seven miles north-west from the city of London. It is principally built on three parallel ridges running east and west. At the western extremity of the central ridge, which is terminated by a precipitous rock four hundred and thirty-four feet above the level of the sea, is the castle ; and a mile distant, at the eastern extremity of the ridge, is the palace of Holyrood, one hundred and eight feet above the same level. The palace has a peculiar interest from the circumstance that the apartments occupied by the unfortunate Queen Mary have been carefully preserved in the state in which she left them. Connected with the palace, on the north, are the ruins of the abbey of Holyrood. Edinburgh Is highly celebrated for its literary and educational institutions. (Map No. XVI.) 4. Preston Pans is a small seaport town of Scotland, on the south shore of the Frith of Forth, even and a-half miles east of Edinburgh. It derives its name from its having, for a length- ened period, had a number of salt works or pans for the production of salt by the evaporation f sea-water. (Map No. XVI.) 422 MODERN HISTORY. [PABT IL England, and advanced to within a hundred miles of London, but was then compelled to retreat into Scotland, where, after having de- feated the royal forces a second time, his cause was utterly ruined by the decisive battle of Culloden. 1 (April 1746.) To the disgrace of the English, the surrounding country was given up to pillage and de- vastation. After a variety of adventures Charles reached France in (Safety; but numbers of his unfortunate adherents perished on the scaffold, or by military execution, while multitudes were transported to the American plantations. 9. During the year 1745 the important French fortress of Louis- burg, on the island of Cape Breton, 2 was captured by i^AMEBici *ke British and their colonial allies, an event which re- vived the spirits of the English, and roused France to a great vindictive effort for the recovery of Louisburg, and the devas- tation of the whole American coast from Nova Scotia to Georgia. Accordingly a powerful naval armament was sent out to America in 1 746 ; but it was so enfeebled by storms and shipwrecks, and dispirit- ed by the loss of its commander, that nothing was accomplished by it. 10. During the years 1746 and 1747 hostilities were carried on with various success by the French and the Spaniards on one side, and the English, Dutch, and Austrians, on the other. By sea the French lost almost their last ship ; but no im- portant naval battles were fought, as the English navy had scarcely a rival. On the continent, northern Italy and the Netherlands were the chief seats of the war. The French were driven from the former, and the Austrians and their allies from the latter. XI. TREATY OF AIX-LA- France made frequent overtures of peace, and in Octo- OHAPELLE, ke r 1748 the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded between all the belligerents, on the basis of a restitution of all conquests made during the war, and a mutual release of prison- ers without ransom. The treaty left unsettled the conflicting claims 1. Culloden, or Culloden Moor, is a heath in Scotland, four miles east of Inverness, and one hundred and fifteen miles north-west from Edinburgh. The battle of Culloden, fought April 27th, 1746, terminated the attempts of the Stuart family to recover the throne of England. (Map No. XVI.) 2. The island of Cape Breton, called by the French Isle Royals, is on the south-eastern border of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Louisburg; once called the " Gibraltar of America," waa a strongly-fortified town, having one of the best harbors in the world. After its capture by general Wolfe in 1758, (see p. 430,) its walls were demolished, and the materials of its buildings were carried away for the construction of Halifax, and other towns on the coast. Only a tew fishermen's huts are now found within the environs of the city, and so complete is the ruin that it ia with difficulty the outlines of the fortifications, and of the principal buildings, can be traced. CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 423 of the English and Spaniards to the trade of the American seas ; but France recognized the Hanoverian succession to the English throne, and henceforth abandoned the cause of the Pretender. Neither France nor England obtained any recompense for the enormous ex- penditure of blood and treasure which the war occasioned ; but in one aspect the result was favorable to all parties, as, by preserving the unity of the Austrian dominion, it maintained the due balance of power in continental Europe. IV. THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR : 1756-63." 1. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle proved to be little better than a sus- 1 EIGHT pension of arms. A period of eight years of nominal YEARS OK peace that followed did not produce, in the different FE ACK. States of Europe, the desired feeling of united firmness and security; but all seemed unsettled, and in dread of new commotions. Two causes, of a nature entirely distinct, united to involve all n CAU8E8 Christendom in a general war. The first was the long OF ANOTHER standing colonial rivalry between France and England ; WAEt and the second, the ambition of the Great Frederick of Prussia, and the jealousy with which the court of Austria regarded the increase of the Prussian monarchy. 2. Immediately after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, difficulties arose between France and England respecting their colonial possess- ions in India. Several years previous to the breaking out of the European war, the forces of the English and French East India companies, having taken part, as auxiliaries, in the wars between the native princes of the country, had been engaged in a course of hos- tilities at a time when no war existed between the two nations. 3. More serious causes of quarrel arose in North America. The French possessed Canada and Louisiana, one commanding the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the other that of the Mississippi ; while the in- tervening territory was occupied by the English colonists. The limits of the American colonial possessions of the two nations had been left undefined at the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and hence dis- putes arose among the colonists, who did not always arrange their controversies by peaceful discussion. The French made settlements at the head of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, claiming the ter- a That part of the war waged in America between France and England is better known in American history as the " French and Indian war." Although hostilities began, in the colonies, in 1754, no formal declaration of war was made by either France or England until the breaking oat of til* general European war in 1758. 424 MODERN HISTORY. [PAUT II. ritory as a part of New Brunswick ; while, by extending a frontier line of posts along the Ohio river, they aimed at confining the British colonies to the Atlantic coast, and cutting KING OK them off" from the rest of the continent. In 1754 the HOSTILITIES English Colonial authorities began hostilities on the Ohio, without waiting for the formality of a declaration of war : in the following year the French forts at the head of the Bay of Fundy were reduced by colonel Monckton ; but the English general, Braddock, who was sent against Fort Du Quesne, on the Ohio, was defeated with a heavy loss, and his army was saved from total destruction only by the courage and conduct of major Wash- ington, who commanded the provincial troops. 4. These colonial difficulties were the prominent causes of enmity between France and England ; but such were now the bonds of in- terest and alliance that united the different European States, that the quarrel betwixt any two led almost inevitably to a general war. A cause of war entirely distinct from the foregoing was found in the relations existing between Prussia and Austria. Maria Theresa was still dissatisfied with the loss of Silesia, and Frederick, too clear- sighted not to see that a third struggle with her was inevitable, abandoned the lukewarm aid of France, and formed an alliance with England, (Jan. 1756,) an event which altogether changed the exist- ing relations between the different States of Europe. Prussia was IV thus separated from her old ally France, and England EUROPEAN from Austria, while France and Austria, nations that ' CE ' had been enemies for three hundred years, found them- selves placed in so close political proximity that an alliance between them became indispensable to the safety of each. Augustus III., king of Poland and also elector of Saxony, allied himself with Aus- tria for the purpose of ruining Prussia ; the empress Elizabeth of Russia, entertaining a personal hatred of Frederick, who had made her the object of his political satires, joined the coalition against him, while the latter could regard Sweden in no other light than that of an enemy in the event of a general war. 5. Thus Austria, Russia, France, Sweden, and Poland, had all united against one of the smaller kingdoms, which was deprived of all foreign resources, with the exception of England ; and the latter, in a continental war, could give her ally but little effective aid. Austria looked with confidence upon the recovery of Silesia ; the partition of Prussia was already planned, and the days of the Prus- CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 425 sian monarchy appeared to be already numbered ; but in this most unequal contest the superiority of Frederick as a general, and the discipline of his troops, enabled Prussia to come out of the war with increased power and glory. 6. Frederick, without waiting for the storm that was about to burst upon him, marched forth to meet it, to the surprise v. FIRST of his enemies, who were scarcely aware that he was CAMPAIGN OF arming. In the month of August, 1756, he entered FREDERICK, Saxony at the head of seventy thousand men, blockaded the Saxon army, and cut off its supplies, defeated an army of Aus- trians that advanced to the relief of their allies, and finally com- pelled the Saxon forces, now reduced to fourteen thousand men, to surrender themselves prisoners, (Oct. 1756,) many of whom he forced to enter the Prussian service. Thus the result of the first campaign of Frederick was the conquest of all Saxony. 7. It was not till the month of May and June 1756, that England and France issued their declarations of war against each other, al- though hostilities had for some time previously been carried on be- tween their colonies. France commenced the war by an expedition against the island of Minorca, then in possession of the English ; and that important fortress surrendered, although admiral Byng had been sent out with a squadron for the relief of the place. In America the English had planned, early in the season, the reduction of Crown Point, Niagara, and Fort Du Quesne, but not a single ob- ject of the campaign was either accomplished or attempted. 8. At the beginning of the campaign of 1757 it was estimated that the armies of the enemies of Frederick, on foot, and preparing to march against him, exceeded seven hundred thousand men, while the force which he and his English allies could bring into the field amounted to but little more than one third of that number. Frederick, having succeeded in deceiving the Aus- trians as to his real intentions, began the campaign by invading Bo- hemia, where, at the head of sixty-eight thousand men, he fought and won the celebrated and sanguinary battle of Prague, (May 6,) against an army of seventy-five thousand Austrians. Dearly, how- ever, was the victory purchased, as twelve thousand five hundred Prussians lay dead or wounded on the field of battle. Seeking to follow up his advantage, in the following month Frederick experi- enced a severe check, being defeated by the greatly superior force 426 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. of marshal Daun at Kolin, 1 in consequence of which the Prussians were forced to raise the siege of Prague, and evacuate Bohemia. The Austrians and their allies, after this unexpected victory, resumed operations with increased activity : a Russian army of one hundred and twenty thousand men invaded Prussia on the east ; seventeen thousand Swedes entered Pomerania ; and two powerful French armies crossed the Rhine to attack the English and Hanoverian allies of Prussia commanded by the duke of Cumberland. The latter, being defeated, was compelled to sign a disgraceful convention by which his army of thirty-eight thousand men was reduced to a state of in- activity. 9. The loss of his English allies at this juncture was a most griev- ous blow to the king of Prussia. While he held the Austrians at bay in Lusatia, Saxony, whence the Prussians drew their supplies, was opened to the French ; the Russians were advancing from the east, and already the Swedes were near the gates of Berlin, 2 when the sudden recall of the Russian army, owing to the serious illness of the Russian empress, illumined the troubled path of Frederick with a glimmering of hope, which promised to lead him on to better fortune. After having in vain tried to give battle to the Austrians, he suddenly broke up his camp, and by rapid marches advanced into Saxony, to drive the French out of that country. 10. Early in November, Frederick, at the head of only twenty thousand men, came up with the enemy, whose united forces amount- ed to seventy thousand. After some manoeuvring he threw his little army into the low village of Rossback, 8 the heights around which, covered with batteries, served at once to defend his position, and conceal his movements. Here the French and their allies, antici- pating a certain victory, determined to surround him, and thus, by making him prisoner, at once put an end to the war. To accomplish this object they advanced by forced marches, with sound of trumpet ; anxious to see if Frederick would have the courage to make a stand 1. Kolin is a small town of Bohemia, thirty-seven miles a little south of east from Prague, The battle of Kolin, fought June 18th, 1757, was the first which Frederick lost in the Seven Years' War. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Berlin, the capital of the Prussian States, and the ordinary residence of the monarch, is on the river Spree, a branch of the Elbe, in the province of Brandenburg, one hundred and sixty miles south-east from Hamburg. Berlin is one of the finest cities in Europe, and is called the Athens of the north of Germany. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Rossback is near the western bank of the river Saale, in Prussian Saxony, about twenty miles south-west from Leipsic, and consequently near the battle-fields of Leipsic, Jena, and Lutzen. The banks of the Saale are fully immortalized by carnage. (Map No. XVII.) CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 427 against them. The morning of the 5th of November Frederick spent in reconnoitering the enemy, and learned their plans for envel- oping him ; but he kept his forces perfectly quiet until the afternoon, without allowing a single gun to be fired, when, giving his orders, and suddenly concentrating the greater part of his troops to one point, he hurled them, column after column, in one irresistible tor- rent upon the foe. Never before had the French encountered such rapidity of action : they were completely overwhelmed and routed before they could even form into line ; and in less than half an hour the action was decided. " It was the most inconceivable and com- plete route and discomfiture," says Voltaire, " of which history makes any mention. The defeats of Agincourt, Cressy, and Poitiers, were not so humiliating." 1 1 . The French fled precipitately from the field of battle, and never stopped until they had reached the middle States of Germany, while many only paused when they had placed the Rhine between themselves and the victors. Seven thousand prisoners, and three hundred and twenty officers of every rank, including eleven generals, fell into the hands of the king, while the loss of the Prussians amounted to only five hundred in killed and wounded. Frederick caused the wounded among the prisoners to be treated with the greatest humanity and attention. The officers of distinction, who were taken prisoners, he invited to sup with him. He told them he regretted he could not offer them a more splendid entertainment, " but gentlemen," said he, " I did not expect you so soon, nor in so large numbers." 12. The victory of Rossback had recovered Saxony, and, what was equally important, it gave an opportunity to the English and Hanoverian troops to resume their arms, which they did on the ground of the alleged infraction of the convention by the French general. Still the affairs of Prussia were gloomy in the extreme, for during the absence of Frederick from Silesia, that province had been overrun by the Austrians, and the Prussians had been defeated in several battles. Frederick returned thither in December with thirty thousand men, and on the 5th of that month was met, on the vast plain of Lissa, 1 by the Austrian force of ninety thousand men, 1. The Lissa here mentioned is a small town of Silesia, fourteen miles west of Breslau too capital of the province, and about one hundred and seventy-five miles south-east from Berlin. The battle was fought in the plain between Lissa and Breslau. There is another and larger town of Lissa in Posen, fifty-five miles north-west from Breslau. (Map No. XVII.) 428 MODERN HISTORY. PAR* & exactly One month after the battle of Rossback. Here Frederick bad recourse to those means by which he had often been enabled to double his power by the celerity of his manoeuvres. Having succeed- ed in masking the movements of his troops, by taking possession of some heights near the field of battle, and causing a false attack to be made on the Austrian right, he fell suddenly upon their left and routed it before the right could be brought to its support. The con- sequent disorder was communicated to the whole Austrian army, and in the course of three hours Frederick gained a most complete vic- tory. The Austrians lost seven thousand four hundred men in killed and wounded, twenty-one thousand prisoners, and one hundred and seventeen cannon, while the total Prussian loss was less than five thousand men. In this extraordinary battle superior genius tri- umphed over superior numbers. When Frederick was told of the many insulting things that the Austrians had said of him and his little army, " I pardon them readily," said he, " the follies they may have uttered, in consideration of those they have just committed." 13. The campaign of 1757 Was the most eventful of all those waged by Frederick ; but although he had been forced to risk his fate in eight battles, and more than a hundred partial actions, his numerous enemies failed in their object. The battles of Rossback and Lissa inspired the English people with the greatest enthusiasm for the Prussian army, and the result was a fresh subsidiary treaty entered into with Frederick, by which England agreed to furnish him an annual subsidy of six hundred and seventy thousand pounds, and to send an army into Germany. Mr. Pitt, recently appointed prime minister, entered fully into the views of supporting Frederick, de- claring that " the American colonies of the French were to be con- quered through Germany." 14. The campaign of 1758 was opened by Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, who, by the influence of the king of Prussia, had been appointed commander of the English and Hanoverian troops in Germany. At the head of thirty thousand men he drove a French army of eighty thousand beyond the Rhine, and in a brief campaign of three months, from January to April, took eleven thousand prisoners. Frederick commenced the campaign in March, by reducing the last remaining fortress in Silesia : then he penetrated to Olmutz, 1 in Moravia, but failed in the siege of that 1. Olmutz, the former capital of Moravia, and one of the strongest fortresses of the Austrian empire, is on the small river March or Morava, one hundred and five miles north-east from OHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 429 place. Here the Austrians completely surrounded him in the very heart of their country, but he effected a retreat as honorable as a victory, and suddenly directed his march against the Russians, who were committing the most shocking ravages in the province of Bran- denburg, sparing neither age nor sex. 15. At the head of thirty thousand men Frederick met the enemy, numbering fifty thousand, on the 24th of August, near the small village of Zorndorf, 1 where one of the most sanguinary battles of the Seven Years' War was fought, continuing from nine o'clock in the morning until ten at night. On the evening of this sanguinary day nineteen thousand Russians and eleven thousand Prussians lay dead and wounded on the field of battle ; but the victory was claimed for the latter. The Prussian king in person led the last attacks, and so much was he exposed to the fire of the Russians that all his aids, and the pages who attended him, were either killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. The able Austrian general, count Daun, who had often fought Fred- erick, and sometimes with success, had written to the general of the Russians, " not to risk a battle with a wily enemy, whose cunning and resources he was not yet acquainted with ;" but as the courier who carried this dispatch fell into the hands of the Prussians, Fred- erick himself answered the letter in the following words : " You had reason to advise the Russian general to be on his guard against a crafty and designing enemy, whom you were better acquainted with than he was ; for he has given battle, and has been beaten." At a later period in this campaign count Daun surprised and routed the right wing of Frederick's troops at Hochkirchen, 2 in Saxony, when nothing but the admirable perfection of the Prussian discipline saved the army from utter destruction. But this reverse could not damp the spirits of Frederick : he drove the Austrians a second time from Silesia ; and then compelled Daun to abandon the sieges of Dresden and Leipsic, and retreat into Bohemia. At the end of the campaign Frederick found himself in possession of the same countries as in the preceding year, while, in addition, northern and central Germany had been recovered from the French. 16. In the meantime the war had been carried on in other quarters Vienna. It was taken by the Swedes in the thirty years' war, was besieged unsuccessfully by Frederick the Great in 175?, and Lafayette was confined there in 1794. (Map No. XVII.) 1. Zorndorf is a small village of Brandenburg, about twenty miles north-east from Frank- fort on the Oder, and abcut the same distance south-east from Custrim. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Hochkirchen is a small village in the present kingdom of Saxony, (formerly in Luaatia,) thirty-seven miles east from Dresden. It is a short distance south-east from Bautzen which was the chief town of Upper Lusatia. (Map No. XVII.) 430 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL between the French and the English. In India the French were generally successful, as they not only preserved their possessions, but wrested several fortresses from their rivals, but they were deprived of all their settlements on the coast of Africa, while in North America they abandoned Fort du Quesne to the English, and were obliged to surrender the important fortress of Louisburg, after a vig- orous siege conducted by generals Amherst and Wolfe. 17. The campaign of 1759 commenced under favorable auspices for the Prussians, as they succeeded early in the season vm. 1759. . , . i-r,. . k'-i j in destroying the Russian magazines m Foland, and broke up the Austrian armies in Bohemia ; but in August Frederick himself suffered a greater loss, in the battle of Kunersdorf, 1 than any he had yet experienced. At the head of only forty-eight thou- sand men he attacked the combined Russian and Austrian force of ninety-six thousand, defended by strong intrenchments, but he was defeated with the loss of more than eighteen thousand men in killed and wounded. The Russian and Austrian loss was nearly sixteen thousand ; in allusion to which, the Russian general, writing to the empress an account of the battle, said : " Your majesty must not be surprised at the greatness of our loss. It is the custom of the king of Prussia to sell his defeats very dear." At a later period of the campaign Frederick rashly exposed fourteen thousand of his troops in the defiles of Bohemia, where they were surrounded by the Aus- trians, and, after a valiant resistance, compelled to surrender, when only three thousand of the number remained unwounded. Yet, after all the reverses which the Prussians sustained, the only permanent acquisition made by the Austrians was Dresden, for Frederick's vigor and rapidity of movement rendered even their victories fruitless. 18. The campaign of Ferdinand of Brunswick against the French, during this year, was more successful than that of the king of Prussia. On the 1st of August he attacked the French army of seventy thou- sand men near Minden, 2 and obtained a complete victory, which alone prevented the French from gaining possession of the king of England's Hanoverian dominions. On the o,pean and in the colonies the results of the year 1759 were highly favorable to the English. The French fleets were destroyed ; the English gained a decided J. Kunersdorf in a small village of the province of Brandenburg, a short distance south of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and on the eastern bank of the river, fifty-five miles south-east from Berlin. The battle fought near this town is sometimes called the battle of Frankfort. 2. Minden is a Prussian town in Westphalia, on the west bank of the Weser, near the Han overian frontier, thirty-five miles south-west from Hanover. (Map No. XVII.) CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 431 preponderance in India ; while the conquest of Canada was achieved by the gallant Wolfe, who fell in the moment of victory before the walls of Quebec. 19. After a winter spent in futile attempts at negotiation, the most vigorous preparations were made by all parties for the campaign of 1760. It opened with a continuation of misfortunes to Prussia, with the loss of nearly nine thousand men surrounded and taken prisoners by the Austrians, with an unsuc- cessful attempt on Dresden by Frederick himself, and the surrender of an important fortress in Silesia. For the space of a year Fred- erick had met with almost continual reverses, but, still undaunted and undismayed, his transcendent talents never shone to greater ad- vantage than when brought into action by the rigors of fortune. At the very moment when he was surrounded with overwhelming forces of Russians and Austrians, to the number of one hundred and seventy- five thousand men, and his ruin seemed inevitable, his genius saved him, and converted what appeared the certainty of defeat into a series of brilliant victories. While his enemies were preparing to attack him in his camp, he suddenly fell upon one of their divisions at Liegnitz 1 and almost annihilated it before the others were aware that he had changed his position. (Aug. 16th.) In November he at- tacked the intrenched camp of marshal Daun at Torgou, 2 having previously declared to his generals his determination to finish the war by a decided victory, or perish, with his whole army, in the at- tempt. The battle was perhaps the bloodiest fought during the whole war, but the impetuosity of the Prussians was irresistible, and the result recovered to Frederick all Saxony, except Dresden, and compelled the Austrians, Russians, and Swedes, to evacuate the Prussian dominions. 20. The campaign of Ferdinand of Brunswick against the French in northern and western Germany was marked by a great number of skirmishes which fatigued both parties, and in which towns and villages were taken and retaken ; but when it is considered that the hostile armies numbered nearly two hundred thousand men, we are surprised to find that no memorable events occurred. 21. During the year 1760 France and Spain formed an intimate alliance, known by the name of the Family Compact, by which the enemy of either was to be considered the enemy of both, and neither was 1. Licgnitz is a town of Silesia, on the Katsbach, forty-six miles a little north of west from Breslau. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Torgou is a town of Prussian Saxony, on the wst bank of the Elbe, sixty-six miles south' west from Berlin. (Map No. XVII.) 432 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL to make peace without consent of the other. This was an unfortunate act for Spain, whose colonies of Cuba 1 and Manilla, 2 with her ships of war and commerce, soon fell into the hands of England. The English were also successful against the French ; and the latter, be- fore the close of the war, were divested of all their possessions of importance in the East Indies, while Belleisle, 3 on the very coast of France, was captured, and in the West Indies, Martinico, Guada- loupe, 4 and other islands, were added to the list of British conquests. 22. The campaign of 1761 was carried on languidly by all parties. The king of Prussia, exhausted even by his victories, was forced to act on the defensive, while the English government, after the accession of George III. to the throne, (Oct. 1760,) had shown, under the counsels of Lord Bute, an ardent desire for peace, even if it were to be obtained by the sacrifice of the Prussian monarch. An event which happened early in 1 762 greatly improved the aspect of Prussian affairs, and more than compensated Frederick for the growing coldness of England towards him. This was the death of Frederick's implacable enemy, Elizabeth, empress of Russia, and the accession of her nephew, the unfortunate Peter the Third, who was a warm admirer and most sedulous imitator of the king of Prussia. The Russian armies withdrew from their former Austrian allies, and ranged themselves under the Prussian standards : Sweden concluded a peace with Prussia ; and even Austria consented to a cessation of hostilities in Silesia and Saxony. 23. In November 1763 the preliminary articles of peace were signed at Paris between England, France, and Spain, *OF ?763 E w kil e Prussia and Austria, deserted by their allies, were left to continue the war ; but they also soon agreed to suspend hostilities, and in the month of February 1763 peace was concluded between all the belligerents. France ceded to England, Canada and Cape Breton, while Spain purchased the restoration of the conquests which had been made from her, by the cession of Florida to England, by givkg the latter permission to cut logwood 1. Cuba, the largest of the West India islands, and the mistress of the Gulf of Mexico, still belongs to Spain. 2. Manilla, a fortified seaport city of Luzon, one of the Philippine islands, is the capital of the Spanish settlements in the East. 3. Bellisle is an island west of France, on the coast of Brittany, thirty miles south-west from Vaimes. (Map No. XIII.) 4. Martinique and Ouadaloupe belong to the Windward group of the West Indies. Both have frequently changed hands between the French and the English, but both were restored to France in 1815. Martinique was the birth-place of the empress Josephine. CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 433 in the bay of Honduras, 1 and by a renunciation of all claim to the Newfoundland fisheries. But important as these results were to England, they were so much less advantageous than her position might have commanded, that it was said of her, " she made war like a lion, and peace like a lamb." Of France it was said by Voltaire, that u by her alliance with Austria she had lost in six years more men and money than all the wars she had ever sustained against that power had cost her." By the terms of the treaty between Prussia and Austria, prisoners were exchanged, and a restitution of all con- quests was made ; but Frederick still held the much-contested Silesia, a small territory, which had cost the contending parties more than a /nillion of men. The glory of the war remained chiefly - i -n i i i 11 . * 11 XII. MILITARY with Frederick, who, at the head of his veteran phalanx, CHARACTER moving among the masses of Austria, France, and Russia, OF and confronting all. still preserved, through an unex- ampled series of victories and reverses, the character of Great No general ever surpassed him in regularity and rapidity of manoeuvres, in well ordered marches, and in the facility of concentrating masses on the weak side of an enemy. " Bonaparte effected wonders with ample means; but when reduced to play the forlorn game of Fred- erick against united Europe, the great French captain fell, the Prussian lived and died a king." V. STATE OF EUROPE. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 1. The peace of 1763 gave general tranquillity to Europe, which x QKNEEAL continued until the breaking out of the war between PEACE m England and her American colonies, called the " War of EUR OPK. Uie American Revolution." The result of the " Seven Years' War" fas, that Prussia and Austria became the principal continental powers ; France, by her subserviency to Austria, her ancient enemy, iosi the political ascendency which she had previously sustained ; and Britain, although abandoning her influence in the European system, and maintaining intimate relations with Portugal and Hol- land only, had obtained complete maritime supremacy. Frederick of Prussia exerted himself successfully to repair the desolation made in his dominions by the ravages of war ; he gave corn, for planting, to the destitute, procured laborers from other countries, remitted the taxes for a season, and during the four and twenty years of his 1. Honduras is a settlement adjoining the bay of the same name, on the eastern coast of Tucatan. In 1798 it was transferred to England, in accordance with a previous treaty. 28 434 MODERN HISTORY. [PAST IL reign after the peace, he appropriated for the encouragement of agri- culture, commerce, and manufactures, no less than twenty-four millions of dollars ; and this sum he had saved, by his simple and frugal life, from the amount set apart for the maintenance of his court. 2. In the meantime France, during the last years of the reign of the dissolute Louis XV., was declining in power, and sinking into disgrace. While the finances were in a state of utter confusion, and universal misery pervaded the land, there was the same splendor in the court, and the same profusion in ex- penditure, that marked the conclusion of the reign of Louis XIV. Both monarchs were doomed to see their children perish by an un- accountable decay; and on the death of Louis XV. in 1774, it was his youthful grandson, already married to an Austrian princess, who was elevated to the throne. As evidence of the heartlessness that often surrounds a court, it is related that no sooner had Louis XV. breathed his last, than the array of sedulous courtiers deserted the apartments of the deceased monarch, and rushed forth in a tumult- uous crowd to do homage to the rising power of Louis XVI. The first act of this pious prince and of his queen was to fall on their knees and exclaim, " Our God ! guide and protect us : we are too young to reign." 3. While the power and greatness of France were declining, Russia was gradually acquiring a preponderating influ- ence in Eastern Europe. In 1768 a war broke out be- tween her and Turkey, which resulted in a series of defeats and losses to the latter. During this war Russia had taken possession of Moldavia and Wallachia, 1 which she was extremely desirous of retaining ; but Austria opposed it, lest Russia should become too powerful ; and as the latter was at the same time engaged in a con- test with a confederacy of Polish patriots under the pretence of at- tempting to restore tranquillity to Poland, it was thought best that she should retain a portion of the Polish territory instead of the conquered Turkish provinces. But even this would destroy the bal- DISMEM ance Between the three great eastern powers of Christen- BERMEXT OF dom ; and, to restore the equilibrium, Prussia and Aus- POLAND. ^ r ' a mus t have a share also ; and thus was accomplished 1. Moldavia and Wallachia are two contiguous provinces of Turkey, embracing the ancient Dacia. (Map No. IX.) They are in reality under the protection of Russia. Wallachia lies along the northern bank of the Danube, and Moldavia immediately west of the river Pruth. CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 435 the iniquitous measure of a dismemberment of Poland, and the di- vision of a large portion of her territory between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. (1773.) 4. At the time of the conclusion of the peace of 1 763 a strong feel- ing of animosity existed between the two great parties in y STATE op England, the whigs and the tories, the latter of whom PARTIES IN had been taken into favor and rewarded with the chief ENGLAND - offices of government soon after the accession of George the Third. A long and expensive war had increased the national debt, and ren- dered additional taxes necessary, while the bulk of the nation very naturally thinking that conquests and riches ought to go hand in hand, were induced to believe that administration arbitrary and op- pressive which loaded them with new taxes immediately after the great successes which had attended the British arms. The indiscre- tion of the ministry, in levying the taxes upon certain important ar- ticles of domestic manufacture, threw the kingdom into an almost universal ferment, and compelled the resignation of the earl of Bute, who was at the head of the tory administration. 5. The earl of Bute was succeeded by Mr. G-renville, and as he also was a tory, and was considered but the passive instrument of the late minister, he inherited all the unpopularity of his predecessor. One of his first acts was the arrest and prosecution of Mr. Wilkes, a member of parliament, who, in a paper called the North Briton, had asserted that the king's speech at the opening of parliament, which he affected to consider as the minister's, contained a falsehood. On a hearing before the judges of the common pleas, it was decided that the commitment of Mr. Wilkes was illegal, and that his privi leges, as member of parliament, had been infringed by the ministry. Mr. Wilkes was subsequently outlawed by the Commons, on his fail- ing to appear to answer the charges against him ; but this extreme severity only increased the agitation, and imbittered the feelings of the opposing parties. At a later period, on a legal trial, the out- lawry of Mr. Wilkes was reversed, and he was repeatedly chosen a member of the Commons, although the house as often rejected him. 6. The augmentation of the revenue being at this time the chief object of the administration, in 1764 Mr. Grenville in- troduced into parliament a project for taxing the Ameri- can colonies; and early in 1675 the " Stamp Act" was passed an act ordering that all legal writings, together with pam- phlets, newspapers, &c., in the colonies, should be executed on 436 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL stamped paper, for which a duty should be paid to the crown. The colonies resisted every project for taxing them, on the ground that they were not represented in the British parliament, and that taxation and representation were inseparable; and a large party in England, consisting mostly of whigs, united with them in maintain- ing this doctrine. The stamp act was soon repealed, but the minis- try still avowed the right of the mother country to tax her colonial possessions, and this doctrine, still persisted in, laid the foundation for that contest which at length terminated in the independence of the American colonies. 7. Misfortunes seemed to attend almost every scheme undertaken by England for coercing the Americans into obedience. A bill was passed for depriving the people of New England of the benefits of the Newfoundland fisheries ; and it was thought that this act would throw into the hands of British merchants the profits which were formerly divided with the colonies ; but the Americans refused to supply the British fishermen with provisions, and many of the ships were obliged to abandon, for a time, the business on which they came, and return in quest of supplies. Added to this, a most vio- lent and unprecedented storm swept over the fishing banks ; the sea arose thirty feet above its ordinary level, and upwards of seven hun- dred English fishing boats were lost, with all the people in them, and many ships foundered with their whole crews. When, at the commencement of the war, an immense quantity of provisions was prepared in England for the use of the British army in America, the transports remained for a long time wind-bound ; then contrary winds detained them so long near the English coasts that nearly twenty thousand head of live stock perished ; a storm afterwards drove many of the ships to the West Indies, and others were captured by American privateers, so that only a few reached the harbor of Boston, with their cargoes greatly damaged. The universal distress produced throughout the British nation by the refusal of the Americans to purchase British goods, completed the catalogue of evils which fol- lowed in the train of ministerial measures, and, by exciting the most violent altercations between opposing parties, seemed to threaten England herself with the horrors of civil war. 8. Passing by the arguments that were used for and against tax- ation the acts exhibiting the rash confidence and perseverance of the ministers and the crown the determined opposition of the colo- nies the changes in the English ministry, and the dissensions be> CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 437 tween opposing parties in England we come to the decisive open- ing of the war with the British American colonies by the VII OPENING gkirmish at Lexington, on the 19th of April, 1775, A O F THE WA& revolutionary war of seven years' duration followed, WITH THK .1 ! f ^1 i ,t COLONIES. on the American soil, a war of the weak against the strong of the few in numbers against the many but a war successful, in its results, to the cause of freedom. Fortunately for the colonies the war was not confined to them alone ; and as the history of the American portion of it is doubtless already familiar to most of our readers, we proceed to consider the new relations, between England and the other powers of Europe, arising out of the war of the Ameri- can Revolution. 9 The continental powers, jealous of the maritime and commercial prosperity of England, and ardently desiring her humili- ation in the contest which she had unwisely provoked PKAN KELA with her colonies, rejoiced at every misfortune that befel TIOX8 OF her. The French and Spanish courts, from the first, gave the Americans the aid of their sympathy, and opened their ports freely to American cruisers, who found there ready purchasers for their prizes ; and although, when England complained of the aid thus given to her enemies, it was publicly disavowed, yet it was evi- dent that both France and Spain secretly favored the cause of the Americans. 10. The capture of the entire British army of general Burgoyne at Saratoga, in October 1777, induced France to throw aside the mask with which she had hitherto endeavored K- ALLIANCB BETWEEN to conceal her intentions ; and in the month of March FEANCE AND 1778, she gave a formal notification to the British gov- THE AMKtt1 ' CAN STATES. eminent that she had concluded a treaty of alliance, friendship, and commerce, with the American States. France and England now made the most vigorous preparations for the anticipated contest between them ; the English marine force was increased, but the French navy now equalled, if it did not exceed, that of England, nor was France disposed to keep it idle in her ports. 11. Although war had not yet been declared between the two na- tions, in the month of April, 1778, a French fleet, com- X. WAE manded by Count D'Estaing, sailed from Toulon for BETWEEN America ; and soon after a much larger naval force was FRANCE AND assembled at Brest, with .the avowed object of invading England. In June, the English admiral Keppel fell in with 'and at- 438 MODERN HISTORY. [PART D. tacked three French frigates on the western coast of France, two of which he captured. The French government then ordered reprisals against the ships of Great Britain, and the English went through the same formalities, so that both nations were now in a state of actual war. 12. During the autumn and winter of 1778 the West Indies were the principal theatre of the naval operations of France and England. In September, the governor of the French island of Martinique at- tacked, and easily reduced, the English island of Dominica, 1 where he obtained a large quantity of military stores ; but in the December following the French island of St. Lucia 2 was compelled to submit to the English admiral Barrington, after an ineffectual attempt to relieve it by the fleet of D'Estaing. 13. While these naval events were occurring on the American coasts, the French and English settlements in the East Indies had also become involved in hostilities. Soon after the acknowledgment of American independence by the court of France, the British East India company, convinced that a quarrel would now ensue between the two kingdoms, despatched orders to its officers at Madras to attack "the neighboring post of Pondicherry, the capital of the French East India possessions. That place was accordingly besieged in August, by a force of ten thousand men, natives and Englishmen, and after a vigorous resistance was compelled to surrender in Octo- ber following. Other losses in that quarter of the globe followed, and during one campaign the French power in India was nearly anni- hilated. 14. In the year 1779 another power was added to the enemies of England. Spain, under the pretext that her mediation, (which she had proposed merely as the forerunner of a rupture) BETWEEN had been slighted by England, declared war, and with SPAIN AND the cooperation of a French fleet laid siege to Gib- ENGLAND. 1,1,11 111-^11 c raltar, both by sea and land, in the hope of recovering that important fortress. Early in this year a French fleet attacked and captured the British forts and settlements on the rivers Senegal and Gambia, on the western coast of Africa ; and later in the season the French conquered the English islands of St. Vincents 3 and 1. Dominica is one of the Windward islands, in the West Indies, between Martinique and the Guadaloupe. It was restored to England at the peace of 1783. 2. St. Lucia is also one of the Windward group. At the peace of Paris it was deflnitivelj assigned to England. 3. -St. Vincents is the central island of the Windward group. By the peace of 1783 it reverted to Great Britain. CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 439 Grenada 1 in the West Indies ; but the count D'Estaing, acting in concert with an American force, was repulsed in the siege of Savannah. 15. Early in January 1780, the British admiral Rodney being despatched with a powerful fleet to the relief of Gibraltar, fell in with and captured a Spanish squadron of seven ships of war and a number of transports ; and a few days later he engaged a larger squadron off Cape St. Vincent, and captured six of the heaviest ves- sels and dispersed the remainder. These victories enabled him to afford complete relief to the garrisons of Gibraltar and Minorca, after which he proceeded to America, and thrice encountered the French fleet, but without obtaining any decisive success. In August the English suffered a very heavy loss in the capture of the outward bourd East and West India fleets of merchant vessels, by the Span- iards, off the western coast of France. 16. The position which England had taken in claiming the right of searching neutral ships for contraband goods, together with her occasional seizure of vessels not laden with exceptionable . . xn - ARMED cargoes, were the cause of a formidable opposition to her NEUTRALITY at this time, by most of the European powers, who united AGAINST in forming what was called the " Armed Neutrality" for the protection of the commerce of neutral nations. In these pro- ceedings, Catherine, Empress of Russia, took the lead, asserting, in her manifesto to the courts of London, Versailles, and Madrid, that she had adopted the following principles, which she would defend and maintain with all her naval power: 1st, that neutral ships should enjoy a free navigation from one port to another, even upon the coasts of belligerent powers, except to ports actually blockaded : 2d, that all effects conveyed by such ships, excepting only warlike stores, should be free : 3d, that whenever any vessel should have shown, by its papers, that it was not the carrier of any contraband article, it should not be liable to seizure or detention ; and 4th it was de- clared that such ports only should be deemed blockaded, before which there should be stationed a sufficient force to render the entrance perilous. Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Prussia, Portugal, and Ger- many, readily acceded to the terms of the "armed neutrality;" France and Spain expressed their approval of them, while nothing but fear of the consequences which must have resulted from the re- 1. Grenada is one of the most southerly of the Windward group. About the year 1650 it was first colonized by the French, from whom it was taken by the British in 1762. In 1779 it was retaken by the French, but was restored to Great Britain at the peace of 1783. 440 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL fusal, induced England to submit to this exposition of the laws of nations, and the rights of neutral powers. 17. Since the alliance between France and the United States ; mutual recriminations had been almost constantly pass- MII ET R ^ RE ing between the English and the Dutch government, the ENGLAND former accusing the latter of supplying the enemies of AND England with naval and military stores, contrary to HOLLAND. ' ... J treaty stipulations, and the latter complaining that great numbers of Dutch vessels, not laden with contraband goods, had been seized and carried into the ports of England. A partial collision between a Dutch and an English fleet, early in the year 1780, had increased the hostile feelings of the two nations ; and in December of the same year Great Britain declared, and immediately com- menced, war against Holland, induced by the discovery that a com- mercial treaty was already in process of negotiation between that country and the United States. The Dutch shipping was detained in the ports of Great Britain, and instructions were despatched to the commanders of the British forces in the West Indies, to pro- ceed to immediate hostilities against the Dutch settlements in that quarter. 18. The most important of these was the island of St. Eustatia, 1 a free port, abounding with riches, owing to the vast conflux of trade from every other island in those seas. The inhabitants of the island were wholly unaware of the danger to which they were exposed, when, on the 3d of February, 1781, Admiral Rodney suddenly ap- peared, and sent a peremptory order to the governor to surrender the island and its dependencies within an hour. Utterly incapable of making any defence, the island was surrendered without any stipu- lations. The amount of property that thereby fell into the hands of the captors was estimated at four millions sterling. The settle- ments of the l)utch situated on the north-eastern coast of South America soon after shared the same fate as Eustatia. 19. In the month of May the Spanish governor of Louisiana completed the conquest of West Florida from the English, by the capture of Pensacola. In the West Indies the fleets of France and England had several partial engagements during the month of April, May, and June, but without any decisive results. In the latter part 1. St. Eustatia is one of the group of the Leeward islands, a range extending north-west of the Windward isles. This island was taken possession of by the Dutch early in the seventeenth century. It has, since then, several times changed hands between them, the French, and the English, but was finally given up to Holland in 1814. CUAP V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 441 of May a large body of French troops landed on the island of To- bago, 1 which surrendered to them on the 3d of June. In the month of August a severe engagement took place on the Dogger Bank,* north of Holland, between a British fleet, commanded by Admiral Parker, and a Dutch squadron, commanded by Admiral Zoutman. Both fleets were rendered nearly unmanageable, and with difficulty regained their respective coasts. 20. In the meantime the war had been carried on, during a period of more than six years, between England and her rebellious Ameri- can colonies ; but the latter, guided by the counsels of the immortal Washington, had nobly withstood all the efforts of the most powerful nation in the world to reduce them to submission, and had finally compelled the surrender, at Yorktown, of the finest army England had ever sent to America. After the defeat and surrender of Corn- wallis, at Yorktown, in October, 1781, the war with the United States was considered, virtually, at an end ; but between England and her Eu- ropean enemies hostilities were carried on more vigorously than ever. The siege of Gibraltar was ardently prosecuted by the Spaniards ; and the soldiers of the garrison, commanded by governor Elliot, were greatly incommoded by the want of fuel and provisions. They were also exposed to an almost incessant cannonade from the Spanish bat- teries, situated on the peninsula which connects the fortress with the main land. During three weeks, in the month of May, 1781, nearly one hundred thousand shot or shells were thrown into the town. But while the eyes of Europe were turned, in suspense, upon this im- portant fortress, and all regarded a much longer defence impossible, suddenly, on the night of the 27th of November, a chosen body of two thousand men from the garrison sallied forth, and, in less than an hour, stormed and utterly demolished the enemy's works. The damage done on this occasion was estimated at two millions sterling. 21. In the month of February following, the island of Minorca, after a long siege, almost as memorable as that of Gibraltar, sur- rendered to the Spanish forces, after having been in the possession of England since the year 1708. During the same month the former Dutch settlements on the north-eastern coast of South America were 1. Tobago is a short distance north-east of Trinidad, near the northern coast of South America. It was ceded to Great Britain by France in 1703, but in 1781 was retaken by the French, who retained possession of it till 1793, since which it has belonged to England. 2. The Dogger Bank is a long narrow sand bank in the North Sea or German Ocean, extend- ing from Jutland, on the west coast of Denmark, nearly to the mouth of the Huraber, on th eastern coast of England. 442 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL recaptured by the French. St. Eustatia had been recaptured in the preceding November. Other islands in the West Indies surrendered to the French, and the loss of the Bahamas 1 soon followed. For these losses, however, the British were fully compensated by an important naval victory gained by Admiral Rodney over the fleet of the Count de Grasse, on the 12th of April, in the vicinity of the Carribee islands. 2 In this obstinate engagement most of the ships of the French fleet were captured, that of Count de Grrasse among the number, and the loss of the French, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was estimated at eleven thousand men. The loss of the English, in- cluding both killed and wounded, amounted to about eleven hundred. 22. During the year 1 782 the fortress of Gibraltar, which had so long bid defiance to the power of Spain, withstood one of the most memorable sieges ever known. The Spaniards had constructed a number of immense floating batteries in the bay of Gibraltar ; and one thousand two hundred pieces of heavy ordnance had been brought to the spot, to be employed in the various modes of assault. Besides these floating batteries, there were eighty large boats, mounted with heavy guns and mortars, together with a vast multitude of frigates, sloops, and schooners, while the combined fleets of France and Spain, numbering fifty sail of the line, were to cover and support the attack. Eighty thousand barrels of gunpowder were provided for the occasion, and more than one hundred thousand men were employed, by land and sea, against the fortress. 23. Early in the morning of the 13th of September the floating batteries came forward, and at ten o'clock took their stations about a thousand yards distant from the rock of Gibraltar, and began a heavy cannonade, which was seconded by all the cannon and mor- tars in the Spanish lines and approaches. At the same time the garrison opened all their batteries, both with hot and cold shot, and during several hours a tremendous cannonade and bombardment was kept up on both sides, without the least intermission. About two o'clock the largest Spanish floating battery was discovered to emit smoke, and towards midnight it was plainly seen to be on fire. Other batteries began to kindle ; signals of distress were made ; and boats 1. The Bahamas are an extensive group of islands lying east and south-east from Florida. They have been estimated at about six hundred in number, most of them were cliffs and rocks, only fourteen of them being of any considerable size. 2. What are sometimes called the Carribee Islands comprise the whole of the Windward and the southern portion of the Leeward islands, from Anguila on the north to Trinidad OB the south. CHAP.V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 443 were sent to take the men from the burning vessels, but they were interrupted by the English gun boats, which now advanced to the attack, and, raking the whole line of batteries with their fire, com- pleted the confusion. The batteries were soon abandoned to the flames, or to the mercy of the English. 24. At the awful spectacle of several hundred of their fellow soldiers exposed to almost inevitable destruction, the Spaniards ceased firing, when the British seamen, with characteristic humanity, rushed forward, and exerted themselves to the utmost to save those who were perishing in the flames and the waters. About four hundred Span- iards were thus saved, but all the floating batteries were consumed, and the combined French and Spanish forces were left incapable of making any farther effectual attack. Soon after, Gibraltar was re- lieved with supplies of provisions, military stores, and additional troops, by a squadron sent from England, when the farther siege of the place was abandoned. 25. The siege of Gibraltar was the last act of importance during the continuance of the war in Europe. In the East Indies the British settlements had been engaged, during THE EAST several years, in hostilities with the native inhabitants, INDIE s. who were conducted by the famous Hyder Ali, and his son Tippoo Saib, often assisted by the fleets and land forces of France and Hol- land. Hyder Ali, from the rank of a common sepoy, had raised himself, by his abilities, to the throne of Mysore, 1 one of the most important of the kingdoms of Hindostan. His territories, of which Seringapatam 3 was the capital, bordered on those of the English, which lined the eastern coast of the peninsula ; and as he saw ^..possess- ions of the Europeans gradually encroaching upon the domains of the native princes, he resolved to unite the latter in a powerful con- federacy for the expulsion of the intruders. After detaching one of the powerful northern princes from an alliance with the English, and 1. Mysore, a town of southern Hindostan, and capital of the State of the same name, is three hundred miles north of Cape Comorin, and nine miles south-west from Seringapatam. The State of Mysore, comprising a territory of about thirty thousand square miles, is almost entirely surrounded by the territory of the Madras presidency ; and although the government is nomi- nally in the hands of a native prince, it is subsidiary to the government of Madras. From 1700 to 1799 Mysore was governed by Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib. 2, Seringapatam is a decayed town and fortress of Hindostan, in the State of Mysore, two hundred and fifty miles south of Madras. It was besieged by the English on three different occasions : the first two sieges took place in 1791 and 1792, and the third in 1799, on the 4th of May of which year it was stormed by the British and their allies, on which occasion Tippoo was killed, with the greater part of his garrison, amounting to eight thousand men. On an eminence in the suburbs of Seringapatam is the mausoleum of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib. 444 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL having introduced the European discipline among his numerous troopg, as early as 1 767 he began the war, which was continued with scarcely any intermission, but with little permanent success on the part of the natives, down to the period of the American war, when the French united with him, and the war was carried on with increased vigor. 26. In the year 1780 Hyder Ali and his son Tippoo Saib, at the head of an army of one hundred thousand natives, and aided by a body of French troops, fell upon the English forces in the presidency of Madras, and killed or captured the whole of them, Madras, the capital, alone being saved from falling into their hands. In the following year the English were strongly reenforced, and Hyder Ali, at the head of two hundred thousand men, was defeated in three obstinate battles ; but these successes were interrupted by the loss of an English force of three thousand men, which was entirely cut to pieces by Tippoo Saib in the year 1782. 27. On the death of Hyder Ali, in the same year, Tippoo Saib succeeded to the throne, and in the following year, after the restora- tion of peace between France and England, he concluded a treaty with the English, in which the latter made concessions that greatly detracted from the respect hitherto paid to their name in Asia. But this native prince never ceased, for a moment, to cherish the hope of expelling the British from Hindostan. In 1790 he began the war again, but was eventually compelled to purchase peace at the price of one half of his dominions. His last war with the English ter- minated in 1799, by the storming of Seringapatam, his capital, and the death of Tippoo, who fell in the assault. 28. On the 30th of November 1782, preliminary articles of peace were signed between Great Britain and the United States, X OF 1*782 w hi c h were to be definitive as soon as a treaty between France and Great Britain should be concluded. When the session of parliament opened, on the 5th of December, consid- erable altercation took place in respect to the terms of the provis- ional treaty, but a large majority was found to be in favor of the peace thus obtained. The independence of the United States being now recognized by England, the original purpose of France was ac- complished ; and all the powers at war being exceedingly desirous of xvi GENE- P eace J preliminary articles were signed by Great Britain, KAL TREATY France, and Spain, on the 20th of January, 1783. By OK 1783. thig treaty F rance restored to Great Britain all French acquisitions in the West Indies during the war, excepting Tobago, CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 445 while England surrendered to France the important station of St. Lucia. On the coast of Africa the settlements in the vicinity of the river Senegal were ceded to France, those on the Gambia to Eng- land. In the East Indies France recovered all the places she had lost during the war, to which were added others of considerable im- portance. Spain retained Minorca and West Florida, while East Florida was ceded to her in return for the Bahamas. It was not till September, 1783, that Holland came to a preliminary settlement with Great Britain, although a suspension of arms had taken place between the two powers in the January preceding. 29. Thus closed the most important war in which England had ever been engaged, a war which originated in her ungenerous treat- ment of the American colonies. The expense of blood and treasure which this war cost England was enormous ; nor did her European antagonists suffer much less severely. The United States was the only country that could claim any beneficial results from the war, and these were obtained by a strange union of opposing motives and principles on the part of European powers. France and Spain, ar- bitrary despots of the Old World, had stood forth as the protectors of an infant republic, and had combined, contrary to all the princi- ples of their political faith, to establish the rising liberties of America. They seemed but as blind instruments in the hands of Providence, employed to aid in the dissemination of those republican virtues that are destined to overthrow every system of political oppression through- out the world. VI. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1. The democratic spirit which had called forth the war between England and her American colonies, and which the princes of continental Europe had en- couraged and fostered, through jealousy of the power of DEMOCRATIC England, to the final result of American independence, was destined to exert a much wider influence than the royal allies of the infant Republic had ever dreamed of. Borne back to France by those of her chivalrous sons who, in aiding an oppressed people, had imbibed their principles, it entered into the causes which were al- ready at work there in breaking up the foundations of the rotten frame-work of French society, and contributed greatly to hurry for- ward the tremendous crisis of the French Revolution. 2. At the time of the death of Louis XV., in 1774, the lower orders of the French people had been brought to a state of extreme 446 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET II. indigence and suffering, by the luxuries of a dissolute and despotic court, during a long period of misrule, in which agriculture was sadly neglected, and trade, commerce, and manufactures, existed but in an infant and undeveloped state. The nobility had been, for a long period, losing their power and their wealth, by the gradual elevation of the middling classes ; and the clergy had lost much of their influ- ence by the rise of philosophical investigation, which was not only attended by an extraordinary degree of freedom of thought, but was strongly tinctured also with infidelity. 3. Louis XVI., who came to the throne at the age of twenty years, was poorly calculated to administer the government at a LOUISXVI CI> iti ca l period, when resolute and energetic measures were requisite. He was a pious prince, and sincerely loved the welfare of his subjects ; but the exclusively religious educa- tion which he had received had made him little acquainted with the world, and he was exceedingly ignorant of all polite learning even of history and the science of government. Ignorance of politics, weak- ness, vacillation, and irresolution, were the fatal defects in the king's character. 4. To find a remedy for the disordered state of the French finances, and the decline of public credit, was the first difficulty III. FINAN- CIAL DIFFI- which Louis had to encounter; nor did he surmount it CULTIES. un t,il ne found himself involved in the vortex of a Revo- lution. Minister after minister attempted it, sometimes with partial success, but oftener with an increase of evil. Turgot would have introduced radical and wise reforms by an equality of taxation, and by the suppression of every species of exclusive privilege ; but the nobility, the courtiers, and the clergy, who were interested in main- taining all kinds of abuses, protested against any sacrifices on their part ; and the able minister fell before their combined opposition. Turgot was succeeded by Neckar, a native of Geneva, an economical financier, who had amassed immense wealth as a banker ; but his projects of economy and reform alarmed the privileged orders, and their opposition soon compelled him to retire also. 5. The brilliant, vain, and plausible Calonne, the next minister of finance, promulgated the theory that profusion forms the wealth of a State ; a paradox that was highly applauded by the courtiers. His system was to encourage industry by expenditure, and to stifle discontent by prodigality ; he liquidated old debts by contracting new ones, paid exorbitant pensions, and gave splendid entertain- CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 447 mcnts ; and while the credit of the minister lasted, his resources appeared inexhaustible. Calonne continued the system of loans after the conclusion of the American war, and until the credit of the gov- ernment was utterly exhausted, when it was found that the annual deficit of the revenue, below the expenditure, was nearly thirty mil- lions of dollars ! General taxation of the nobility and clergy, as well as the commons, was now proposed, and in order to obtain a sanction to the measure, an assembly of the Notables, the chiefs of the privileged orders, was called ; but although the assembly at first assented to a general tax, the national parliament defeated the project. 6. Brienne, who succeeded Calonne, becoming involved in a contest with the parliament, which was anxious to maintain the jy THB immunities of the privileged orders, and being unable to STATES- obtain a loan to meet the exigencies of government, was GENERAL - reduced to the necessity of a convocation of the States-General, a great National Legislature, composed of representatives chosen from the three orders, the nobility, the clergy, and the people, but which had not been assembled during a period of nearly two hundred years. 7. When the day came for the payment of the dividends to the public creditors, the treasury was destitute of funds ; much distress was occasioned, and an insurrection was feared ; but the removal of Brienne, and the restoration of Neckar to office, created confidence, while the most urgent difficulties were removed by temporary expe- dients, in anticipation of some great change that was to follow the meeting of the States-General, the remedy that was now universally called for. The court had at first dreaded the convocation of the States-General, but finding itself involved in a contest with the priv- ileged classes, who assumed all legal and judicial authority, it took the bold resolution of throwing itself upon the representatives of the whole people, in the hope that the commons would defend the throne against the nobility and clergy, as they had done, in former times, against the feudal aristocracy. 8. When it was known that the great assembly of the nation was to be convened, a universal ferment seized the public mind. Social reforms, extending to a complete reorganization of society, became the order of the day ; political pamphlets inundated the country ; politics were discussed in every society ; theories accumulated upon theories ; and, in the ardor with which they were combated and de- fended, were already to be seen the seeds of those dissensions which 448 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. afterwards deluged the country with blood. There was abundance of evil to be complained of, and it was evident that exclusive privi- leges, and the marked division of classes, must be broken down. The clergy held one-third of the lands of the kingdom, the nobility an- other third ; yet the remaining third was burdened with all the ex- penses of government. This was more than could be borne ; yet the clergy, the nobility, and the magistracy, obstinately refused the sur- render of their exclusive privileges, while, on the other hand, the philosophic party, considering the federal republic of America as a model of government, desired to break up the entire frame-work of French society, and construct the edifice anew. Such was the state of France when the assembly of the States- General was called, a measure that was, in itself, a revolution, as it virtually gave back the powers of government to the people. The Third-Estate the Com- mons, comprising nearly the whole nation, demanded that its represent- atives should equal those of the other two classes the clergy and the nobility. Public opinion called for the concession, and obtained it. The result of the elections conformed to the sentiments of the three classes in the kingdom : the nobility chose those who were firmly attached to the interests and privileges of their order ; the bishops, or clergy, chose those who would uphold the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and who were more inclined to political freedom than the former ; while the commons, or Third-Estate, chose a numerous body of represent- atives, firm in their attachment to liberty, and ardently desirous of extending the power and influence of the people. 9. At the opening of the States-General, on the 4th of May, 1789, a difficulty arose as to the manner in which the three orders should vote ; the clergy and nobility insisting that there should be three assemblies, each possessing a veto on the acts of the others, while the commons insisted that all should be united in one general assembly, without any distinction of orders. The commons managed with great tact and adroitness, waiting patiently, day after day, for the clergy and nobility to join them, but after more than a month had thus passed away, they declared themselves the " National Assembly," being, as they asserted, the representatives of ninety-six hundredths, at least, of the nation, and therefore the true interpreters of the national will. The nobles, alarmed by this sudden boldness of the Assembly, implored the monarch to support their rights ; a coalition was formed between them and the court, but the public mind was against them, and towards the last of June, the clergy and the no- CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 449 bility, constrained by an order of the sovereign himself, took their seats in the hall of the Assembly, where they were soon lost in an overwhelming majority. " The family was united, but it gave few hopes of domestic union or tranquillity." 10. The triumph of the third-estate had destroyed the moral power and influence of the government : a spirit of insubordination, began to appear in Paris, caused, in some degree, by the pressure of fam- ine ; journals and clubs multiplied ; declaimers harangued in every street, and directed the popular indignation against the king and his family ; and the very rabble imbibed the TIONARY intoxicating spirit of politics. When a regiment of STATE OF French troops mutinied, and their leaders were thrown into prison, a mob of six thousand men liberated them ; collisions took place between the populace and the royal guards ; and the former, obtaining a supply of muskets and artillery, attacked the Bas- tile, or state prison of Paris, tore the governor in pieces, and inhu- manly massacred the guards who had attempted to defend the place. (July 14th, 1789.) 11. Louis, greatly alarmed, now abandoned the counsels of the party of the nobles, who had advised him to suppress the threatened revolution at the head of his army, and hurrying to the National Assembly, craved its support and interference to restore order to the capital. At the same time he caused the regular troops to be with- drawn from Paris, while the defence of the place was intrusted to a body of civic militia, called the National Guards, and placed under the command of La Fayette, whose liberal sentiments, and generous devotion to the cause of American liberty, had made him the idol of the populace. 12. The union between the king and the National Assembly was hailed with transports of joy by the Parisians, and for a few days it seemed that the revolution had closed its list of horrors ; but there were agents at work who excited and bribed the people to fresh sedi- tion. The consequences of the insurrection of the 14th July extend- ed throughout France ; the peasantry of the provinces, imitating the lower orders of the capital in a crusade against the privileged classes, everywhere possessed themselves of arms ; the regiments of the line declared for the popular side ; many of the chateaux of the nobles were burned, and their possessors massacred or expelled, and in a fortnight there was no authority in France but what emanated from the people. These things produced their effect upon the National 29 450 MODERN HISTORY. [PAST IL Assembly. The deputies of the privileged classes, seeing no escape from ruin but in the abandonment of those immunities VI. GKEAT POLITICAL which had rendered them odious, consented to sacrifice CHANGES. ^ n e W h i e . the clergy followed the example, and in one evening's session the aristocracy and the church descended to the level of the peasantry ; the privileged classes were swept away, and the political condition of France was changed. (Aug. 4th, 1789.) 13. An interval of two months now passed over without any flagrant scene of popular violence, the Assembly being engaged at Versailles in fixing the basis of a national constitution, and the mu- nicipality of Paris in procuring bread for the lower orders of the Parisians, while the latter, imagining that the Revolution was to liberate them from almost every species of restraint, were rioting in the exercise of their newly-acquired freedom. Towards the latter P art of Au g ust tlie famine had become so severe in Paris, (a natural consequence of the public convulsions, and the suspension of credit,) that mobs were frequent in the streets, and the baker's shops were surrounded by multitudes clamoring for food, while the most extravagant reports were circu- lated, charging the scarcity upon the court and the aristocrats. The leaders of the populace, artfully fomenting the discontent, instigated the mob to demand that the king and the Assembly should be re- moved from Versailles to the capital ; and on the 5th of October a crowd of the lowest rabble, armed with pikes, forks, and clubs, and accompanied by some of the national guards, marched to Versailles. They penetrated into the Assembly, vociferously demanding bread, a slight collision occurred between them and some of the king's body guards, and during the ensuing night they broke into the palace, massacred the guards who opposed them, and had it not been for the opportune arrival of La Fayette and his grenadiers, the king him- self and the whole royal family would have fallen victims. After tranquillity had been partially restored, the king was compelled to set out for Paris, accompanied by the tumultuous rabble which had sought his life. The National Assembly voted to transfer its sittings to the capital. The royal family, on reaching Paris, repaired to the Tuilleries, which henceforth became their palace and their prison. 14. Several months of comparative tranquillity followed this out- rage, during which time the formation of the constitution was prose- cuted with activity by the Assembly. The feudal system, feudal services, and all titles of honor, had been abolished. One general CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 451 legislative Assembly had been decreed : the absolute veto of the king had been taken away ; and now the immense prop- ^ u NEW erty of the church was appropriated to the State, a meas- CONSTITU- ure that secured the great financial resources which so long upheld the Revolution. In the meantime the training, dividing, forming, and marshalling of parties went on. At first, La ^ MAESHAL . Fayette, and those who aided him the moderate friends LING OF of liberty prevailed in the Assembly, satisfied with FAKTTES. constitutional reforms, without desiring to overthrow the monarchy. But there was another class the ultra revolutionists composed of the factious spirits of the Assembly, who afterwards obtained the control of that body. Having organized themselves into a club, called the club of the Jacobins, from the name of the convent in which they assembled, and gathering members from all classes of society, they held nightly sittings, where, surrounded by a crowd of the popu- lace, they canvassed the acts of the Assembly and formed public opinion. 15. At one time this club contained more than two thousand five hundred members, and corresponded with more than four hundred affiliated societies throughout France. It was the hot-bed of sedition, and the centralization of anarchy, and it eventually overturned the government, and sent forth the sanguinary despots who established the Reign of Terror. Barnave, the Lameths, Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, were the leaders of the Jacobin faction. Mirabeau, the first master-spirit which arose amid the troubles of the times, a man of extraordinary eloquence and talent, but of loose principles who had at first united with the Jacobins, foreseeing the sanguinary excess that already began to tinge the career of the Revolution, at length entered into a treaty with the court to use his great influence in aiding to establish monarchy on a constitutional basis ; but his death, early in 1791, up to which period he had maintained his ascendancy in the Assembly, deprived the king of his only hope of being able to withstand the Jacobin influence in the National Legis- lature. Mirabeau had a clear presentiment of the coming disasters. " Soon," said he, " neither the king nor the Assembly will rule the country, but a vile faction will overspread it with horrors." 16. While the machinations of the Jacobins were convulsing France, the repose of Europe was threatened by the in- x THE judicious movements of the emigrant nobility, large EMIGRANT numbers of whom, estimated at seventy thousand, dis- NOBILITy - gusted with the Revolution, had abandoned their country, resolved to 452 MODERN HISTORY. {PAST H. seek the restoration of the old government by the intervention of foreign powers. Collecting first at Turin, and afterwards at Co- blentz, 1 they endeavored to stir up rebellion in the provinces, and solicited Louis to sanction their plans, and join their me ditated armaments. Louis, accompanied by his queen OF THE and children, attempted to escape secretly to the frontiers, ROYAL j^. wag gt pp ec [ an( j brought back a prisoner to his capital. (June 1791.) The Jacobins now argued that the king's flight was abdication ; and the National Assembly, to ap- pease the popular outcry, provisionally suspended him from his functions, until the constitution, now nearly completed, was presented to him for acceptance. On the 14th of September, 1791, he took the oath to maintain it against civil discord and foreign aggression, and to enforce its execution to the utmost of his power. The Con- stituent Assembly, as that which framed the constitution is often called, after having passed a self-denying ordinance that none of its members should be elected to the next Assembly, declared itself dis solved on the 30th of September, 1791. 17. But the constitution, thus established, could not be permanent, for the minds of the French people were still agitated by the passion for change, and the members of the new Legislative Assembly soon displayed opinions more radical, and divisions more numerous, than their predecessors. The court and the nobility had exercised no in- fluence in the late elections ; the upholders of even a mitigated aris- tocracy had disappeared ; the assembly was thoroughly democratic ; and the only question that seemed to remain for it was the main- tenance or the overthrow of the constitutional throne. The chief parties in the assembly, at its opening, were the constitutionalists and the republicans, the latter were more usually called Girondists, as their most celebrated leaders, Brissot, Petion, and Condoroet, were members from the department of the Gironde. The constitutional- ists would have preserved the throne, while they stripped it of its power ; but the Girondists, enthusiastic admirers of the Americans, despising the vain shadow of royalty, longed for republican institu- tions on the model of antiquity. The Jacobins, who were anarchists, men without principles, and attached to no particular form of gov- 1. CoWentz, (the Co-nfluenles of the Romans,) is a Prussian town in the province of the Rhine, at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle. Since the wars of Napoleon it has been strongly fortified, and is now deemed one of the principal bu warks of Germany on the side of France. (Map No. XVII.; CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 453 eminent, possessed at first little influence in the assembly, but direct- ing the passions of the populace, and possessing the means of rousing at pleasure the strength of the capital, they soon acquired a prepon- derating influence that bore down all opposition, and crushed the more moderate revolutionary party of the Girondists. 1 8. The legislative assembly commenced its sittings by confiscating the property of the emigrants, and denouncing the penalties of treason against those refractory priests who refused to take the oath to sup- port the constitution ; but the king refused to sanction the decrees. It was the great object of the Girondists to involve the kingdom in foreign war ; and the warlike preparations of the Austrian emperor and the German princes, evidently designed to support the emigrants, rendered it an easy matter to carry out their designs. When an open declaration of his objects was demanded of the Austrian em- peror, he required as a condition on which he would discontinue his preparations, that France should return to the form and principles of government which existed at the time of the commencement of the constituent assembly. Against his own judgment the king yield ed to the force of public opinion, and on the 20th of xii \STAIL April, 1792, war was declared against the court of DE C LARK D Vienna. It must be admitted that the war which arose AGAINST from so feeble beginnings, but which at length involved the world in its conflagration, was not provoked by France, but by the foreign powers which unjustly interposed to regulate the laws and government of the French people. 19. While the strife of parties continued in Paris, producing con fusion in the councils of the assembly, and increasing anxiety and alarm in the mind of the king, a formidable force was assembling on the German frontier with the avowed object of putting down the Revolution, and restoring to the king the rights of which he had been deprived. The king of Prussia and the emperor of Austria engaged to cooperate for this purpose ; and their united forces were placed under the command of the Duke of Brunswick, who, towards the end of July, entered the French territories at the head of a hun- dred and forty thousand men. The threatening manifesto which he issued roused at once the spirit of resistance throughout every part of France ; the demagogues seized the occasion to direct the popular fury against the court, which was accused of leaguing with the enemy ; and the two prominent factions, the Girondists and Jacobins, com- 454 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET IL bined to overturn the monarchy, each with the view of advancing its own separate ambitious designs. 20. The dethronement of the king was now vehemently discussed in all the popular assemblies ; preparations were made in Paris for a general revolt ; and soon after midnight on the morning of the 10th of August, an infuriate mob attacked and pillaged the MASSACRE P a l ace J massacred the Swiss guards, and forced the OF THE king and royal family to seek shelter in the hall of TENTH OF the National Assembly. The assembly protected the person of the king, but, yielding to the demands of the conquering populace, passed a decree suspending the royal functions, dismissed the ministers, and directed the immediate convocation of a National Convention. La Fayette, then in command of the army on the eastern frontier, having in vain endeavored to keep his troops firm in their allegiance, and being outlawed by the assembly, fled into the Netherlands, but was seized and imprisoned by the Aus- trians. Dumouriez, who had adhered to the assembly, succeeded to the command, and made energetic preparations to resist the coming invasion. 21. The massacre of the 10th of August was soon followed by xiv MASSA- ano ^ er f S *i^ more frightful atrocity. The prisons of ORE OF Paris had become filled with suspected persons ; and the SEPTEMBER. | ea( j er g O f the Jacobins, now occupying the chief places in the magistracy, in order to diminish the number of their internal enemies planned the massacre of the prisoners. Accordingly, at three o'clock on the morning of the 2d of September, a band of three hundred hired assassins, accompanied by a frantic mob, entered the prisons, and began the work of death. In the court yard of the first prison four and twenty priests were hewn in pieces because they refused to take the revolutionary oath. In some instances the assassins, stained with gore, established tribunals to try their victims, and a few minutes, often a few seconds, disposed of the fate of each individual. The massacres continued from the 2d to the 6th of September, and during this period more than five thousand persons perished in the different prisons of Paris. A committe of the mu- nicipality of Paris, declaring that a plot had been formed by the pris- oners throughout France to murder all the patriots of the empire, in- vited the other cities to imitate the massacres of the capital, but, fortunately, none obeyed the summons. 22. While these shocking excesses were perpetrated in the capital, CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 455 the armies of Prussia and Austria, which had invaded the French territories, met with a signal repulse. Dumouriez, pursuing his suc- cesses, crossed the Belgian frontier, and on the 6th of November gained the battle of Jemappes, 1 which gave him possession of all the Austrian Netherlands. With so much rapidity and decision did Dumouriez execute the skilful movements of the army, that the allies poon found there was no want of able generals among the French. At the battle of Jemappes, the enthusiasm and martial spirit of the French, displaying themselves in all their brilliancy, bore down all obstacles, and redoubt after redoubt was stormed and taken, to the chant of the Marseilles Hymn. a 23. The National Convention, which had succeeded the Legislative Assembly, inflamed by this first great victory of the Revolution, pub- lished a decree offering the alliance of the French to every nation that desired to recover its liberties, a decree which was equivalent to a declaration of war against all the monarchies of Europe. One step further was necessary to complete the Revolution, and that was the death of the kind-hearted and unfortunate AND EXEOU- monarch. On the ridiculous charge of having engaged TI N OF in a conspiracy for the subversion of freedom, on the 26th of December Louis XVI. was brought before the Convention, and, after a trial which lasted twenty days, was declared guilty, and condemned to death by a majority of twenty-six votes out of seven hundred and twenty-one. Nearly all of those who had voted for his death subsequently perished on the scaffold, during the sanguinary " reign of Terror," which soon followed. On the 21st of January, 1793, Louis was led out to execution. He met death with magna- nimity and firmness, amid the insults of his cruel executioners. His fate will be commiserated, and his murderers execrated, so long as justice or mercy shall prevail on the earth. 1. Jemappes (zhem-map) is a small village of Belgium, near Mons, forty-four miles south, west from Brussels. The Duke de Chartres, afterwards Louis Philippe king of the French, acted as the lieutenant of Dumouriez during the battle of Jemappes, and by his intrepidity at the head of a column aided essentially in winning the day. a. The famous Marseilles Hymn^ the national song of the French patriots and warriors, was composed by Joseph Rouget de 1'Isle, (roozhS de leel,) a young engineer officer, early in the French Revolution. It was at first called the " Offering to Liberty," but received its present name because it was first publicly sung by the Marseilles confederates in 1192. Both the words and the music are peculiarly inspiriting. So great was the influence of this song over the ex- citable French, that it was suppressed under the empire and the Bourbons ; but the Revolution of 1830 called it up anew, and it has since become again the national song of the French people. 456 MODERN HISTORY. [P AET IL 24. The Girondists, who had been the first to fan the flame of revolution, were the first to suffer by its violence. Ardent xvi FALL republicans in principle, but humane and benevolent in OF THE their sentiments, they had not desired the death of the king, but they could not restrain the mad fury of the Jacobins. The latter, a base faction in the convention, taunted the former with having endeavored to save the tyrant : their partisans, throughout Paris, roused the feelings of the populace against the Girondists : a powerful insurrection a deprived the convention of its liberty : thirty of the leading members of the Girondist party were given up and imprisoned ; and those who had not the fortune to es- cape from Paris were brought to trial, condemned, without being heard in their defence, and speedily executed, b and all for no other crime than having tried to prevent the execution of the king, to avenge the massacres of September, and to allay the desolating storm of violence and crime that was spreading terror and dismay over their country. 25. After the fall of the Girondists, the victorious Jacobins, at the head of whom were Danton, Marat, Robespierre, and their asso- ciates, obtained control of the " Committee of Public Safety," a for- midable Revolutionary tribunal, in which was vested the whole power of the convention and of the government. Some opposition was indeed made, by the magistracies of the cities and towns throughout a great part of France, to this central power, and at one time seventy departments were in a state of insurrection against the convention ; but the vigorous measures of the Parisian Revolutionists soon broke this formidable league. Revolutionary committees, radiating from the central Jacobin power in Paris, extended their network over the whole kingdom ; and these committees, having the power of arrest- ing the obnoxious and the suspected, and numbering more than five hundred thousand individuals, often drawn from the very dregs of society, held the fortunes and lives of every man in France at their 26. The prisons throughout France were speedily filled with vic- xvn THE ^ ms ' f rce d lo ans were exacted with rigor ; TERROR was OF made the order of the day ; and the guillotine* was put ^ n re q u i s ition to do its work of death. The queen was * Guillotine so called from the name of the inventor is an engine or machine for be- heading persons at a stroke. a. May 31st. b. Oct. 31st. CHAP.V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 457 brought to the scaffold,* 1 and the dauphin, thrown into prison, ere long fell a victim to the barbarous neglect of his keepers. Irreligion and impiety raised their heads above the mass of pollution and crime : the Sabbath was abolished by law : the sepulchres of the xvm TEI . kings of France were ordered to be destroyed, that every UMPH OF memorial of royalty might be blotted out; and the 1NFIDELITY - leaders of the municipality of Paris, in the madness of atheism, pub- licly expressed their determination " to dethrone the king of Heaven as well as the monarchs of the earth." As the crowning act of this drama of wickedness, the Goddess of Reason, personified by a beauti- ful female, was introduced into the convention, and declared to be the only divinity worthy of adoration : the churches were closed religion everywhere abandoned and on all the public cemeteries was placed the inscription, " Death is an Eternal Sleep." 27. After the downfall of the Girondists and the party attached to a constitutional monarchy, divisions arose among the Jacobin leaders. The sanguinary Marat had already fallen by the dagger of the devoted heroine, Charlotte Corday, who voluntarily sacrificed her xlx FALL own life in the hope of saving her country. The more OF THE moderate portion of the Revolutionary leaders, Danton, DANTOKKT8 - Camille Desmoulins, and their supporters, who had so recently roused the populace against the Gironde, were ere long charged with show- ing too much clemency, and brought to the scaffold. b The Repub- lican Girondists had sought to prevent the Reign of Terror the Dantonists to arrest it ; and both perished in the attempt. There- after there seemed not a hope left for France. The revolutionary excesses everywhere increased : those who kept aloof from them were suspected, and condemned ; and the power of DEATH was relentlessly wielded by such a combination of monsters of wickedness as the world had never before seen. 28. Having pursued the internal history of the Revolution down to the fall of the Dantonists in March 1794, we resume the narra- tive of affairs at the beginning of 1793. The death of ^ WAft Louis XVI., which derives its chief importance from AGAINST the principle which the revolutionists thereby proclaimed, excited profound terror in France, and feelings of astonishment and indignation throughout Europe. France thereby placed herself in avowed and unrelenting hostility to the established governments of the neighboring States; and it was universally felt that the period had a. Oct. 16th, 1793. b. March 5th, 1794. 458 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL now arrived when she must conquer the coalition of thrones, or perish under its blows. The convention did not wait to be attacked, but forthwith, on various pretexts, declared war against England, Spain, and Holland, and ordered the increase of the armies of the republic to more than five hundred thousand men. 29. Early in 1793 the English and Prussians combined to check the progress of the French in Holland, and on the 18th of March Dumouriez was defeated in the battle of Neerwinde. Soon after this repulse, the French general, disgusted with the excesses of the revolutionists in Paris, and finding himself suspected by both Giron- dists and Jacobins, entered into a negotiation with the allied generals for a coalition of forces to aid in the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in France ; but his army did not share his feelings, and being denounced by the convention, and a price set upon his head, he was obliged to take refuge in the Austrian lines. 30. After the defection of Dumouriez, Custine was appointed to the command of the north, then severely pressed by the allies near Valenciennes ; but being unable to check the progress of the enemy, he was deprived of his command, ordered to Paris-, and, soon after, condemned and executed on the charge of misconduct. The revolu- tionary government, seeing no merit but in success, placed its gen- erals in the alternative of victory or death, and employed the terrors of the guillotine as an incentive to patriotism. The fall of Valen- ciennes seemed to open to the allies a way to Paris, but, pursuing in- dependent plans of aggrandizement, they injudiciously divided their forces, and before the close of the year, were driven back across the frontier. 31. Early in the same year Spain had despatched an army of fifty- five thousand men for the invasion of France by the way of the Pyrenees ; but although the French, who advanced to meet them, were driven back, the campaign in that quarter was characterized by no event of importance. In the meantime, in the west of France, the insurrectionary war of La Vendee was occupying the troops of the convention ; and on the side of Italy the allies were aided by the revolt of Marseilles, Lyons, and Toulon. 32. In La Vendee, a large district bordered on the north by the xxi IKSUR- ^^ re an( ^ on tne wes * by * ne cean, containing eight RECTION OF hundred thousand souls, the Royalists, embracing nearly >EE< the entire population, had early taken up arms in the cause of their church and their king. This district soon became the CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 459 theatre of innumerable conflicts, in which the undisciplined peasantry of La Vendee at first had the advantage, from their peculiar mode of fighting, and the nature of their country. On the 10th of June, 1793, they obtained a great victory at Saumur, 1 where their trophies amounted to eighty pieces of cannon, ten thousand muskets, and eleven thousand prisoners ; but on the 29th of the same month they were defeated in their attempt on Nantes, where their brave leader Cathelineau was mortally wounded. During the summer two inva- sions of the country of the Ven deans was made by large bodies of the republican troops under skilful generals, who were defeated and driven back with severe loss. The convention, at length aroused to a full sense of the danger of this war, surrounded La Vendee with an army of two hundred thousand men, who, by a simultaneous advance, threat- ened a speedy extinction of the revolt. But the republican troops who had penetrated the country were cut off in detail the veterans of Kleber were defeated near Torfou, 2 and before the close of Sep- tember the Vendean territory was freed from its invaders. 33. Again the convention made the most vigorous efforts to sup- press the insurrection. Their forces penetrated the country in every direction, and, with unrelenting and uncalled-for cruelty, burned the towns and villages that fell into their hands, and put the inhabitants, of every age and sex, to the sword. Defeated a in the battle of Cholet, 3 and their country in the possession of their enemies, a large portion of the surviving Vendeans, with their wives and chil- dren, crossed the Loire into Brittany, with the hope of obtaining assistance from their countrymen in that quarter. In the battle of Chateau Gonthier, 4 fighting with the courage of despair, they gained a decisive victory over the Republican forces, whose loss amounted to twelve thousand men and nineteen pieces of cannon. This victory was gained on the very day when the orator Barrere announced in the convention, " the war is ended, and La Vendee is no more." Great then was the consternation in Paris when it was known that the Republican array was dispersed, and that nothing remained to prevent the advance of the Royalists to the capital. 1. Saumur is on the southern bank of the Loire, in the former province of Anjou, one hundred and fifty-seven miles south-west from Paris. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Torfou was a small village in the northern part of La Vendee, a short distance south-east from Nantes. (Mcp No. XIII.) 3. Cholet (sho-la) is nearly forty miles south-east from Nantes. (Map No. XIII.) 4. Chateau Gonthier is sixty miles north-east from Nantes. (Map No. XIII.) a Oct. 17th, 1793. 460 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT II. 34. But the Vendeans were divided in their councils. Induced by the hope of succors from England, they directed their march to the coast, and, after laying siege to Granville, 1 where they expected the cooperation of the English, were at length compelled to retreat, with heavy loss. Defeated a at Mans," and having experienced a final overthrow b at Savenay, 3 they slowly melted away in the midst of their enemies, fighting with unyielding courage to the last. Out of nearly a hundred thousand who had crossed the Loire, scarcely three thou- sand returned to La Vendee, and most of these fell by the hands of their pursuers, or, brought to a hasty trial, perished on the scaffold. 35. The discontents in the south of France against the measures of the convention first broke out in open insurrection at RECTION IN Marseilles, which was soon reduced to submission, while THE SOUTH a large proportion of the inhabitants fled to Toulon. In the meantime Lyons had revolted. During four montlis it was in a state of vigorous siege ; and sixty thousand men were employed before the place at the time of its surrender in October, 1793. All the houses of the wealthy were demolished, and nearly the entire city destroyed. In the course of five months after the surrender of the place, more than six thousand of the citizens suffered death by the hands of the executioners, and more than twelve thou- sand were driven into exile. 36. On the fall of Lyons the Republican troops immediately marched to the investment of Toulon, whose defence was assisted by an English and Spanish squadron. The artillery of the besiegers was commanded by a young Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte, who re- mained faithful to France, in which he had been educated. By his 1. Granville is a fortified seaport town of France, on the western coast of Normandy, one hundred and eighty miles west from Paris. Granville was bombarded and burned by the Eng- lish in 1695, and was partly destroyed by the Vendean troops in 1793. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Mans is situated on the left bank of the river Sarlhe, a northern tributary of the Loire, one hundred and twenty miles south-west from Paris. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Savenay is a town on the northern bank of the Loire, twenty-two miles north-west from Nantes. Here the Vendeans fought with the courage of despair, and their guard, protecting a crowd of hapless fugitives the aged, the wounded, women and children continued to resist, with their swords and bayonets, long after all their ammunition had been expended, and until they all fell under the fire of the Republicans. (Map No. XIII.) a. Dec. 10th, 1793. b. Dec. 22d, 1793. c. The most prominent of the Vendean leaders were Larochejacquelin, Bonchamps, Cathe- lineau, Lescure, D'Elbe, Stofflet, and Charette. Nearly all of these, and most of their families, perished in this sanguinary strife, or on the scaffold. Among those who were saved by the courageous hospitality of the peasantry were the wives of Larochejacquelin and Bonchamps. who, after escaping unparalleled dangers, lived to fascinate the world by the splendid story of their husbands' virtues and their own misfortunes. CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 461 exertions a fort commanding the harbor was taken, and the place, being thus rendered untenable, was speedily evacuated a by the allies, who carried away with them more than fourteen thousand of the wretched inhabitants being so many saved from the vengeance of the Revolutionary tribunals. 37. Thus terminated the memorable campaign of 1793. In the midst of internal dissensions and civil war, while France was drenched with the blood of her own citizens, and the world stood aghast at the atrocities of her " Reign of Terror," the national councils had shown uncommon military talent and unbounded energy. The invasion, on the north, had been defeated ; the Prussians had been driven back from the Rhine ; the Spaniards had recrossed the Pyrenees ; the English had retired from Toulon ; and the revolt of La Vendee had been extinguished ; wliilt an enthusiastic army, of more than a mil- lion of men, stood ready to enforce and defend the principles of the Revolution against all the crowned heads of Europe. [1794.] 38. The fall of Danton and his associates, which occurred in the early part of 1 794, b was followed by unqualified submission to the central power of Paris, from every part of France. For a time the work of proscription had been confined to the higher orders; but when it had descended to the middling classes, and when, even after all the enemies of the Revolution had been cut off, there seemed no limit to its onward course, humanity began to revolt at the cease- less effusion of human blood, and courage arose out of despair. 39. In the convention itself, which, long stupefied by terror, had become the passive instrument of Robespierre and his xxni FALL associates, a conspiracy against the tyrant was at length OF KOBES- formed among those whose destruction he had already PIEREE > AND J END OF THE planned, not of the good against the bad, but a con- REIGN OF spiracy of one set of assassins against another : his ar- TERROR. rest was ordered : he was declared out of the pale of the law ; and, after a brief struggle, he was condemned, with twenty of his associates, by the same Revolutionary Tribunal which he himself had estab- lished, and sent to the scaffold, where he perished amid the exulting shouts of the populace. On the following day sixty of the most ob- noxious members of the municipality of Paris met the same fate. Thus terminated that Reign of Terror, which, under the cloak of Republican virtue, had not only overturned the throne and the alter, and driven the nobles of France into exile, and her priests into Cap- 11. Dec. 20th, 1793. b. March 5th. See p. 462 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET II tivity, but which had also shed the blood of more than a million of her best citizens.* 40. The fall of Kobespierre placed the direction of public affairs in the hands of more moderate men ; but the genius of Carnot still controlled the military operations, which were conducted with remark- able energy and success. In consequence of the extinction of civil employments, and the forced requisition on the people, the whole talent of France was centered in the army, whose numbers, by the be- ginning of October, 1794, amounted to twelve hundred thousand men. After deducting the garrisons, the sick, and those destined for the service of the interior, there remained upwards of seven hundred thousand ready to act on the offensive ; a greater force than could then be raised by all the monarchies of Europe. The French territory resembled an immense military camp, and all the young men of the country seemed pressing to the frontier to join the armies. 41. England, at the head of the allies in the war against France, XXIV THE made preparations that were considered " unparalleled;" ENGLISH and it was soon easy to see that the latter was destined AT^SEA^AND ^ become irresistible on land, and the former to acquire THE FRENCH the dominion of the seas. In the early part of the season ON LAND. fa e ]7 renCQ were dispossessed of all their West India possessions ; the island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean, was cap- tured ; and on the 1st of June, a French fleet of twenty-six ships of the line was defeated, and six vessels taken by the English admiral Howe, off the western coast of France. But numerous victories on the land far more than compensated for these losses ; and the cam- paign was one of the most glorious in the annals of France. At the beginning of the year the allies were pressing heavily on all the frontiers : at its close, the Spaniards, defeated in Biscay 1 and Cata- lonia, were suing for peace : the Italians, driven over the Alps, were trembling for the fate of their own country : the allied forces had everywhere recrossed the Rhine : Holland had been revolutionized 1. Biscay is a district of northern Spain, on the Bay of Biscay, and adjoining France. It comprises Biscay Proper, Alava, and Guipuzcoa, the three Basque provinces. The Basques have a peculiar language, which is undoubtedly of great antiquity. Some have attempted to trace it, as a dialect of the Phoenician, to the Hebrew. It has some similarity to the Hungarian and Turkish. ( Map No. XIII.) * The Republican writer, Prudhomme, gives a list of one million, twenty-two thousand thre hundred and fifty-one persons, who suffered a violent death during this period, of whom more than eighteen thousand perished by the guillotine. In his enumeration are not included the massacres at Versailles in the prisons, &c. nor those shot at Toulon and Marseilles. CHAP.V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 463 and subdued ; and the English troops had returned home, or had fled for refuge into the States of Hanover. 42. The failure of the allies in the campaigns of 1793 and 1794 was in great part owing to a want of cordial cooperation xxy 8ECOND among them, occasioned by the prospect held out to PARTITION Russia, Prussia, and Austria, of obtaining a further share OF POLAm in the partition of ill-fated Poland. While Poland was a prey to civil dissensions, it was invaded in 1792 by Russia, and early in the following year by Prussia ; and the result was a second partition of the Polish territory among the invading powers, with the concurrence and sanction of Austria, the king of Prussia assigning as reasons for his treachery and disregard of former treaties, that the " danger- ous principles of French Jacobinism were fast gaining ground in that country." 43. Scarcely had this iniquitous scheme been consummated, when the patriots of Poland, with Kosciusko at their head, arose against their invaders, whom they drove from the country. But XXVJ THIRD Poland was too feeble to contend successfully against PARTITION the fearful odds that were brought against her. Kosciusko OF POLAND - was defeated, wounded, and taken prisoner by the Russians ; and the result of the brief struggle was the third and last partition of Poland, among Russia, Prussia, and Austria. To effect this un- hallowed object, Austria and Prussia had withdrawn a portion of their troops from the French frontiers, and thus the time was allowed to pass by, when a check might have been given to French ambition. [1795.] 44. The first coalition against the French Republic, formed in March 1793, embraced England, Austria, XXVII mg . Prussia, Holland, Spain, Portugal, the two Sicilies, the SOLUTION OF Roman States, Sardinia, and Piedmont : but the successes THE FIRST COALITION of France in the campaign of 1 794 led to the dissolution AGAINST of this confederacy early in 1 795. The conquest of Hoi- FBANCE - land decided the wavering policy of Prussia, which now, by a treaty of peace, agreed to live on friendly terms with the Republic, and not to furnish succor to its enemies ; and before the first of August, Spain also, completely humbled, withdrew from the coalition ; and thus the whole weight of the war fell on Austria and England. Russia had indeed already become a party to the war against France, but her alliance was as yet productive of no results, as the attention of the Empress Catherine was wholly engrossed in securing the im- mense territories which had fallen to her by the partition of Poland. 464 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL 45. During the year 1 795 the reaction against the Reign of Terror was general throughout France : the Jacobin clubs were broken up, the Parisian populace disarmed, and many of the prominent mem- bers of the Revolutionary tribunals justly expiated their crimes on XXVIIL *ke sca ffld- As J 6 ^ a ^ *^ e powers of government were NEW CON- centered in the National Convention ; but the people now STITUTION. b e g an t demand of it a constitution, and the surrender of the dictatorship which it had so long exercised. A constitution was formed, by which the legislative power was divided between two Councils, appointed by delegates chosen by the people, that of the Five- Hundred, and that of the Ancients, the former having the power of originating laws, and the latter that of passing or rejecting them. The executive power was lodged in the hands of a Directory of five mem- bers, nominated by the council of Five-Hundred, and approved by that of the Ancients. 46. This constitution was to be submitted to the armies of the people for ratification : but the convention, composed of the very ix INSUR- men w ^ ^ a( ^ a ^ ^ rs * ( ^ rec * iec l * ne Revolution, who had SECTION IN voted for the death of the king, and the execution of the PARIS. Girondists, and who had finally overthrown the tyrant Robespierre, still unwilling abruptly to relinquish its power, decreed that two -thirds of their number should have a seat in the new legis- lative councils. This measure met with great opposition, and caused intense excitement. Although the armies, and a large majority of the people, accepted the constitution, a formidable insurrection against the convention broke out in Paris, headed by the Royalists, compris- ing many of the best citizens, and supported by the Parisian National Guard numbering thirty thousand men, but destitute of artillery. The convention, hastily collecting to its support a body of five thou- sand regular troops assembled in the neighborhood of Paris, placed them under the command of General Barras, who intrusted all his military arrangements to his second in command, the young artillery officer who had distinguished himself in the reduction of Toulon Napoleon Bonaparte. The latter was indefatigable in making pre- parations for the defence of the convention, and when his little band was surrounded and attacked by the Parisians, he replied at once by a discharge of cannon loaded with grape shot, firing with as much spirit as though he were directing his guns upon Austrian battalions. In a few hours tranquillity was restored ; and this was the last in- surrection of the people in the French Revolution. The new gov- CHAPV.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 465 eminent being established, the convention, which had passed through so many stormy scenes, and had experienced so great changes in sentiment, determined to finish its career by a signal act of clemency, and after having abolished the punishment of death, and published a general amnesty, it declared its mission of consolidating the Repub- lic accomplished, and its session closed. (Oct. 26th, 1795.) 47. The military events of 1795 were of much less importance than those of the two former years. England indeed maintained her supremacy at sea ; but the Austrians barely sustained themselves in Italy ; and success was evenly balanced on the side of Germany ; while a general lassitude, and uncommon financial embarrassments, the result of the recent extraordinary revolutionary exertions, pre- vailed throughout IJranee. [1796.] 48. In the spring of 1796 the French Directory sent three armies into the field : that of the Sambre and x XXX. INVA" Meuse, 1 under Jourdan, numbering seventy thousand SION OF men; that of the Rhine and Moselle, under Moreau, GERMANY - numbering seventy-five thousand ; and the army of Italy under Bona- parte, numbering forty-two thousand. Jourdan and Moreau made successful irruptions into Germany, but they were stopped in their mid-career of victory by the Arch-duke Charles of Austria, one of the ablest generals of his time, and eventually compelled to retreat across the Rhine. 49. The operations of the army of Bonaparte in Italy were more eventful. Although opposed by greatly supe- rior forces, the indefatigable energy and extraordinary ARMY ox military talents of the youthful general crowned the ITALY. campaign with a series of brilliant victories, almost unparalleled in the annals of war. Napoleon, on assuming the command, found his army in an almost destitute condition, maintaining a doubtful contest on the mountain ridges of the Italian frontier. Rapidly forcing his way into the fertile plains of the interior, he soon compelled the king of Sardinia to purchase a dishonorable peace, subdued Piedmont, conquered Lombardy, humbled all the Italian States, and defeated, and almost destroyed, four powerful armies which Austria sent against him. The battles of Montenotte 2 and Millessimo, 3 the terrible pas- 1. Sambre and Meuse. The Sambre unites with the Meuse at Namur. (Map No. XV.) 2. April 11-12, 1796. Montenotte is a mountain ridge near the Mediterranean, a short dis- tance west from Genoa. 3. April 13-14. Milleasimo is a small village twenty-eight miles west from Genoa. 466 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. sage of the bridge of Lodi, 1 the victory of Arcole, 2 and fall of Man- tua* in fine, the brilliant results of the campaign, excited the utmost enthusiasm throughout France, and Napoleon at once became the favorite of the people. The councils of government repeatedly de- creed that the army of Italy had deserved well of their country ; and the standard which Napoleon had borne on the bridge of Arcole was given to him to be preserved as a precious trophy in his family. 50. England had for some time been greatly agitated by a division xxxn DIS- ^ pi n i n respecting the policy of continuing the war TDRBANCES against France ; important parliamentary reforms were IN ENGLAND. Demanded ; a party spirit became extremely violent ; and on several occasions the country seemed on the brink of revolution. 13 Added to these internal difficulties, in the month of August, 1796, Spain concluded a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with France, and this was followed, in the month of October/ 1 by a formal declaration of war against Great Britain. Still, England maintained her supremacy at sea, and greatly extended her conquests in the East and West Indies, 6 while a powerful expedition f which France had prepared for the invasion of Ireland was dispersed by tempests, and obliged to return without even effecting a landing. 1. May 10th. The bridge of Lodi crosses the Adda, twenty miles south-west from Milan. ;M ap No. XVII.) 2. Nov. 15-17. Creole is a small village a short distance east of the Adige, thirteen miles eouth-west from Verona, and one hundred miles east from Milan. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Mantua is a fortified town of Austrian Italy, on both sides of the Mincio, twenty-one miles south-west from Verona. It derives its principal celebrity from its being the native country of Virgil. After the conquest of northern Italy by Charlemagne, Mantua became a republic, and continued under that form of government till the twelfth century, when the Gonzaga family acquired the chief direction of its affairs. They were subsequently raised to the tille of dukes, and held possession of Mantua till 1707, when it was taken by the Austrians. Mantua sur- rendered to Napoleon, Feb. 2d, 1797, after a siege of nearly six months. In July, 1799, it sur- rendered to the Austrians, after a siege of nearly four months. (Map No. XVII.) a. For increasing democratic power &c., for which purpose there were numerous associations throughout the kingdom, and the reformers were charged with a desire of subverting the mon archy, and establishing a republican constitution, similar to that of France. b. Kings' carriage surrounded pelted with stones, &c., Oct. 29th, 1795, and the monarch nar- rowly escaped the fury of the populace. A crisis in money matters compels the Bank of Eng- land to suspend cash payments, Feb. 1797. Discontents in the navy, and mutiny of the channel fleet, April, 1797. Second mutiny, May and June, and blockade of the Thames. c. Of San Ildefonso. d. Oct. 2d. e. St. Lucia, Essequibo, and Demarara, in the West Indies, were reduced in May, 1796, and early in the same year Ceylon, the Malaccas, Cochin, Trincomalee, &c., in the East Indies. The Cape of Good Hope had been previously taken by the English. f. The French fleet under Hoche, carrying twenty-five thousand land forces, sailed Dec. 15th, 1796. A formidable conspiracy existed in Ireland to throw off the English yoke and establish a republican government, and alliance with France. CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 467 [1797.] 51. Early in the spring of 1797, Napoleon, after stimu- lating the ardor of his soldiers by a spirited address,* in which he recounted to them the splendid victories which NAPOLEON'S they had already won, set out from Northern Italy b at AUSTRIAN ,i i T /. . , A i j i j- . CAMPAIGN. the head of sixty thousand men, m several divisions, to carry the war into the hereditary States of Austria. Opposed to him was the Arch-duke Charles at the head of superior forces, only a part of which, however, could be brought into the field at the be- ginning of the campaign. Rapidly passing over the mountains, Na- poleon drove his enemies before him, and was ready to descend into the plains which spread out before the Austrian capital, when pro- posals of peace were made and accepted ; and in less than a month after the first movement of the army from winter quarters, the pre- liminaries of a treaty between France and Austria were signed. Tke final treaty was concluded at Campo TREATY OF Formio 1 on the 17th of October following. Spain and CAMPO Holland suffered severely in this war : Austria was re- munerated for the loss of Mantua by the cession of Venice ; while France obtained a preponderating control over Italy, and her frontiers were extended to the Rhine. Thus terminated the brilliant Italian campaigns of Napoleon. Italy was the greatest sufferer in these contests. " Her territory was partitioned ; her independence ruined, her galleries pillaged ; the trophies of art had followed the car of victory ; and the works of immortal genius, which no wealth could purchase, had been torn from their native seats, and violently trans- planted into a foreign soil."** 52. During these events of foreign war, the strife of parties was raging in France. In the elections of May, 1797, the Royalists pre- vailed by large majorities, and royalist principles were boldly advo- cated in the legislative councils, so great a change had been pro- 1. Campo Formio is a small town and castle of northern Italy, near the head of the Adriatic. The negotiations for this peace were carried on by the Austrians at Udine, a short distance north-east of Campo Formio, and by Bonaparte at the castle of Passeriano. The treaty was dated at Campo Formio, because this place lay between Udine and Passeriano, although the ambassadors had never held any conferences there. (Map No. XVII.) a u You have been victorious," said he, " in fourteen pitched battles and seventy combats ; you have made one hundred thousand prisoners, taken five hundred pieces of field artillery, two thousand of heavy calibre, and four sets of pontoons. The contributions you have levied on the vanquished countries have clothed, fed, and paid the army ; you have, besides, added thirty millions of francs to the public treasury, and you have enriched the museum of Paris with three hundred masterpieces of the works of art, the produce of thirty centuries." b. March 10th. c. April 9th, at Judemberg. d. Alison. 468 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL duced in public opinion by the sanguinary excesses of the Revolution. But the vigilance of the Revolutionary party was again aroused, and the Directory, who were the Republican leaders, becoming alarmed for their own existence, but being assured of the support of the army, determined upon decisive measures. On the ni & nt of the 3d of September, twelve thousand troops, OF MILITARY under the command of Augereau, and with the concurring su PP ort f Napoleon, were introduced into the capital ; the Royalist leaders, and the obnoxious members of the two councils, were seized and imprisoned ; and when the Parisians awoke from their sleep, they found the streets filled with troops, the walk covered with proclamations, and military despotism established. 51 The Directory now took upon themselves the supreme power, while their opponents were banished to the pestilential marshes of G-uiana. 1 53. The year 1798 opened with immense military preparations [1198] f r the invasion of England, the only power then xxxvr. PRE- at war with France. Unusual activity prevailed, not FOR THB IN- on ^J ' lu tne harbors of France and Holland, but also of VASION OF Spain and Italy : all the naval resources of France were ..LAND. p u j n re q U i s jtion, and an army of nearly one hundred and fifty thousand men was collected along the English Channel, under the name of the Army of England, the command of which was given to Napoleon. But the hazards of the expedition induced Na- poleon to direct his ambitious views to another quarter, and, after xxxvn considerable difficulty, he persuaded the "Directory to EXPEDITION give him the command of an expedition to Egypt, a TO EGYPT. provmce O f t } ie Turkish empire. The ultimate objects of Napoleon appear to have been, not only to conquer Egypt and Syria, but to strike at the Indian possessions of England by the overland route through Asia, and after a series of conquests that should render his name as terrible as that of Ghenghis Khan or Tam- erlane, establish an Oriental empire that should vie with that of Al- exander 54. Filled with these visions of military glory, Napoleon sailed from Toulon on the 19th of May with a fleet of five hundred sail, carrying about forty thousand soldiers, and ten thousand seamen. He topk with him artisans of all kinds ; he formed a complete col- lection of philosophical and mathematical instruments ; and about 1. French Guiana. See Surinam, p. 393. a. Called the Revolution of the eighteenth Fructidor. CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 469 a hundred of the most illustrious scientific men of France, reposing implicit confidence in the youthful general, hastened to join the ex- pedition, whose destination was still unknown to them. 55. The fleet first sailed to Malta, 1 which quickly surrendered a its almost impregnable fortresses to the sovereignty of France, the way having been previously prepared by a conspiracy fomented by the secret agents of Napoleon. Fortunate in avoiding the fleet of the English admiral Nelson, then cruising in the Mediterranean, the ar- mament arrived before Alexandria on the first of July, and Napo- leon, hastily landing a part of his forces, marched against the city, which he took by storm before the dismayed Turks had time to make preparations for defence. 56. With consummate policy Napoleon proclaimed to the Arab population 11 that he had come to protect their religion, restore their rights, and punish their usurpers, the Mamelukes ; and thus he sought, by arming one part of the people against the other, to 1. Malta. (See also p. 152.) On the decline of the Roman empire Malta fell under the do- minion of the Goths, and afterwards of the Saracens. It was subject to the crown of Sicily from 1190 to 1525, when the emperor Charles V. conferred it on the Knights Hospitallers of St. John, who had been expelled from Rhodes by the Turks. In 1565 it was unsuccessfully be- sieged by the Turks; the knights, under their heroic master Valette, founder of the city called by his name, finally compelling the enemy to retreat with great loss. In 1798 it fell into the hajids of Napoleon ; but the French garrisons surrendered to the English, Sept. 5th, 1800. The treaty of Paris, in 1814, annexed the island to Great Britain. a. June 12th, 1798. b. The population of Egypt at this time, consisting of the wrecks of several nations, was composed of three classes ; Copts, Arabs, and Turks. The Copts, the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, a poor, despised, and brutalized race, amounted at most to two hundred thousand. The Arabs, subdivided into several classes, formed the great mass of the population : 1st, there were the Sheiks or chiefs, great landed proprietors, who were at the head of the priesthood, the magistracy, religion, and learning : 3d, there was a large class of smaller landholders ; and, 3d, the great mass of the Arab population, who, as hired peasants, by the name of fellahs, in a condition little better than that of slaves, cultivated the soil for their masters; and 4th, the Bedouin tribes, or wandering Arabs, children of the desert, who would never attach them- selves to the soil, but who wandered about, seeking pasturage for their numerous herds of cattle in the Oases, or fertile spots of the desert on both sides of the Nile. They could bring into the field twenty thousand horsemen, matchless in bravery, and in the skill with which their horses were managed, but destitute of discipline, and fit only to harass an enemy, not to fight him. The third race was that of the Turks, who were introduced at the time of the con- [uest of Egypt by the Sultans of Constantinople. They numbered about two hundred thousand, and were divided into* Turks and Mamelukes. Most of the former were engaged in trades and handicrafts in the towns. The latter, who were Circassian slaves purchased from among the handsomest boys of the Circassians, and carried to Egypt when young, and there trained to the practice of arms, were, with their chiefs and owners, the beys, the real masters and tyrants of the country. The entire body consisted of about twelve thousand horsemen, and each Mameluke had two fellahs to wait upon him. " They are all splendidly armed : in their girdles are always to be seen a pair of pistols and a poniard ; from the saddle are suspended another pair of pistols and a hatchet ; on one side is a sabre, on the other a blunderbuss, and the ervant on foot carries a carbine." 470 MODERN HISTORY. [PART H neutralize their means of resistance. Leaving three thousand sol- diers in garrison at Alexandria, he set out on the 6th of July for Cairo 1 at the head of thirty thousand men. After some BATTLE OF skirmishing on the route with the Mamelukes, on the THE 21st of the month he arrived opposite Cairo, on the west PYRAMIDS. gide of the Nile> where Mourad Bev had formed an in _ trenched camp, defended by twenty thousand men, while on the plain, between the camp and the pyramids, were drawn up nearly ten thousand Mameluke horsemen. Napoleon arranged his army in five divisions, each in the form of a square, with the artillery at the angles, and the baggage in the centre ; but scarcely had he made his dispositions, when eight thousand of the Mameluke horse- men, in one body, admirably mounted and magnificently dressed, and rending the air with their cries, advanced at full gallop upon the squares of infantry. Falling upon the foremost division, they were met by a terrible fire of grape and musketry, which drove them from the front round the sides of the column. Furious at the unexpected resistance, they dashed their horses against the rampart of bayonets, and threw their pistols at the heads of the grenadiers, but all in vain, the tide was rolled back in confusion, and the survivors fled towards the camp, which was quickly stormed, its artillery, stores, and baggage were taken, and the " Battle of the Pyramids" was soon at an end. The victors lost scarcely a hundred a men in the action, while a great portion of the defenders of the camp perished in the Nile ; and, of the splendid array of Mameluke horsemen that had so gallantly borne down upon the French columns, not more than two thousand five hundred escaped with Mourad Bey into Upper Egypt. 57. A few days after the battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon expe- xxxix r i enc ed a severe reverse by the destruction of his fleet BATTLE OF which he had left moored in the Bay of Aboukir near THE NILE. Alexandria. On the morning of the 1st of August the British fleet, under the command of Admiral Nelson, appeared off 1. Cairo (ki'-ro) the modern capital of Egypt, and the second city of the Mohammedan world, is near the eastern bank of the Nile, about twelve miles above Uie apex of its delta, and one hundred and twelve miles south-east from Alexandria. Population variously estimated at from two hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand. Cairo is supposed to have been founded about the year 970, by an Arab general of the first Fatimate caliph. The neighbor- hood of Cairo abounds with places and objects possessing great interest, among which are the pyramids, and the remains of the city of Heliopolis, the On of the scriptures. (Map No. XII.) a. " Scarcely a hundred killed and wounded." Thiere. " The victors hardly lost two hun- dred men in the action." Alison. CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 471 the harbor, and on the afternoon of the same day the attack was commenced, several of the British ships penetrating between the French fleet and the shore, so as to place their enemies between two fires. The action that followed was terrific. The darkness of night was illumined by the incessant discharge of more than two thousand cannon; and during the 'height of the contest the French ship L'Orient, of one hundred and twenty guns, having been for some time on fire, blew up with a tremendous explosion, by which every ship in both fleets was shaken to its centre. The result of this fa- mous " Battle of the Nile" was the destruction of the French naval power in the Mediterranean, the shutting up of the French army in Egypt, cut off from its resources, with scarcely the hope of return, the dispelling of Napoleon's dreams of Oriental conquest, and the revival of the coalition in Europe against the French republic. Turkey declared war ; Russia sent a fleet into the Mediterranean ; the king of Naples took up arms ; and the emperor of Austria, yield- ing to the solicitations of England, recommenced hostilities. 4 5. Notwithstanding the loss of his fleet, and the storm that was arising in Europe, Napoleon showed no design of abandoning his conquests. With remarkable energy he established mills, foundries, and manufactories of gunpowder throughout Egypt, and soon put the country in an admirable state of defence. Upper Egypt was con- quered by a division under Desaix, who penetrated beyond the ruins of Thebes ; and finally, in the early part of February, [17991 1799, Napoleon, leaving sixteen thousand men as a re- XL. SYRIAN serve in Egypt, set out at the head of only fourteen thou- EXPEDITI0 *- sand men for the conquest of Syria, where the principal army of the? Sultan was assembling. On the 6th of March, Jaffa, the Joppa of antiquity, the first considerable town of Palestine, was carried by storm, and four thousand of the garrison who had capitulated were mercilessly put to death an eternal and ineffaceable blot on the memory of Napoleon. 59. On the 16th of March the French army made its appearance be- fore Acre, where the Pacha of Syria had shut himself up with all his treasures, determined to make the most des- x "' "^ K OF ALLvL. perate resistance. He was aided in the defence of the place by an English officer, Sir Sidney Smith, who commanded a small squadron on the coast. Foiled in every attempt to take the place by storm, Napoleon was finally compelled to order a retreat, after a siege of more than two months, having in the meantime, with 472 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL only six thousand of his veterans, defeated an army of thirty thou- sand Oriental militia in the battle of Mount Tabor. 1 On the morn- ing of that battle Kleber had left Nazareth 8 to make an attack on the Turkish camp near the Jordan, but he met the advancing hosts in the plain in the vicinity of Mount Tabor. Throwing his little army into squares, with the artillery at the angles, he bravely main- tained the unequal combat for six hours, when Napoleon, XL1T. BATTLE * 7 r ' OF MOUNT arriving on the heights which overlooked the field of bat- TABOR. t j e ^ an< j distinguishing his men by the steady flaming spots amid the moving throng by which they were surrounded, an- nounced, by the discharge of a twelve pounder, that succor was at hand. The arrival of fresh troops soon converted the battle into a complete rout ; the Turkish camp, with all its baggage and ammuni- tion, fell into the hands of the conquerors, and the army which the country people called " innumerable as the sands of the sea or the stars of heaven" was driven beyond the Jordan and dispersed, never again to return. 60. Napoleon reached Egypt on the 1st of June, having lost more than three thousand men in his Syrian expedition ; but scarcely had he restored quiet to that country, when, on the llth of July, a body of nine thousand Turks, admirably equipped, and having a numerous pack of artillery, landed at Aboukir Bay, having been transported XLm thither by the squadron of Sir Sidney Smith. Napoleon BATTLE OF immediately left Cairo with all the forces which he could ABOUKIR. gonnna,^ anc i although he found the Turks at Aboukir strongly intrenched, he did not hesitate to attack them with inferior forces. The result was the total annihilation of the Turkish army, five thousand being drowned in the Bay of Aboukir, two thousand killed in battle, and two thousand taken prisoners. 61. By some papers which fell into his hands, Napoleon was now, for the first time, informed of the state of affairs in Europe. Early in the season the allies had collected a force of two hundred and fifty thousand men between the German ocean and the Adriatic, as a bar- rier against French ambition ; and fifty thousand Russians, under the veteran Suwarrow, were on the inarch to swell their numbers. To this vast force the French could oppose, along their eastern frontiers, 1. Mount Tabor is twenty-five miles south-east from Acre, and fifty-three north-east from Je- rusalem. It is the mountain on which occurred the transfiguration of Christ. Matthew, xvii. 2, and Mark, ix. 2. (Map No. VI.) 2. JVazareiA, a small town of Palestine, celebrated as having been the early residence of the founder of Christianity, is seventy miles north-east from Jerusalem. (Jtfap No. VI.) CHAP. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 473 and scattered over Italy, an army of only one hundred and seventy thousand. In Italy the united Russians and Austrians gradually gained ground until the French lost all their posts in that country except Genoa : many desperate battles were fought in Switzerland, but victory generally followed the allied powers, while, in Germany, the French were forced back upon the Rhine : Corfu had been con- quered by the Russians and English, and Malta was closely block- aded. 62. When Napoleon was informed of these reverses of the French arms, his decision was immediately made, and leaving Kleber in com- mand of the army of Egypt, he secretly embarked for France. After a protracted voyage, in which he was in constant fear of being cap- tured by British cruisers, he landed at Frejus 1 on the 9th of Octo- ber, and on the 18th found himself once more in Paris. The most enthusiastic joy pervaded the whole country on account of his return. The eyes, the wishes, and the hopes of the people, who were dissatis- fied with the existing state of things, were all turned on him : men of all professions paid their court to him, as one in whose hands were, already, the destinies of their country : the Directory alone distrusted and feared him. 63. Napoleon, perceiving that the French people had grown weary of the Directory, and relying on the support of the army, concerted, with a few leading spirits, the overthrow of OVERTHROW the government. As preliminary measures, the Council OF THE of the Ancients was induced to appoint him commander of the National Guard and of all the military in Paris, and to de- cree the removal of the entire Legislative body to St. Cloud," under his protection ; but the Council of Five Hundred, alarmed by ru- mors of the approaching dictatorship, raised so furious an opposition against him, that Napoleon was in imminent danger. As the only resource left him, he appealed to his comrades in arras, and on the 9th of November, 1 799, a body of grenadiers entering the Legisla- tive hall by his orders, cleared it of its members; and thus military 1. Frejus is a town of south-eastern France, in a spacious plain, one mile from the Mediter- ranean, and forty-live miles north-east from Toulon. Napoleon landed at St. Raphael, a small fishing village about a mile and a-half from Frejus. Frejus was a place of importance in the lime of Julius Caesar, who gave it his own name. (Map No. XIII.) 2. St. Cloud is a delightful village six miles west from Paris, containing a royal castle and magnificent garden, which were much embellished by Napoleon. Napoleon chose St. Cloud for his residence ; hence the expression cabinet of St. Cloud. Under the former government the phrase was, cabinet of Versailles, or cabinet of the Tuileries. 474 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. force was left triumphant in the place of the constitution and the XLV NAPO- ^ aws - A new constitution was soon formed, by which LEON FIRST the executive power was intrusted to three consuls, of CONSUL. wnom Napoleon was the chief. The " First consul," as Napoleon was styled, was in everything but in name a monarch. Not only in Paris, but throughout all France, the feeling was in favor of the new government ; for the people, weary of anarchy, rejoiced at the prospect of repose under the strong arm of power, and were as unanimous to terminate the Revolution as, in 1789, they had been to commence it. The Revolution had passed through all its changes ; monarchical, republican, and democratic ; it closed with the mili- tary character ; while the liberty which it strove to establish was im- molated by one of its own favorite heroes, on the altar of personal ambition CHAP. VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 475 CHAPTER VI. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. SECTION I. THE WARS OF NAPOLEON. ANALYSIS. [EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1800.] 1. Napoleon's proposals for peace. Rejected by the British government. 2. Military force of Great Britain and Austria. Situation of France. Effect of Napoleon's government 3. Disposition of the French forces. 4. Successes of Moreau. [Engen. Moeskirch.] Massena is shut up in Genoa. Napoleon passes over the Great St. Bernard. [Great St. Bernard.] 5. Surprise of the Austrians. Napoleon's progress. Victory of Marengo. [Marengo.] 6. Efforts at negotiation. Malta surrenders to the British. 7. Oper- ations of the French and Austrians in Bavaria. [Hohenlinden.] Passage of the Splugen by Macdonald. [Splugen.] Armistice. Peace of Luneville. [Luneville.] 8. Maritime confed- eracy against England. Its effect. Previous orders of the Danish and Russian governments. 9. [EVENTS or 1801.] England sends a powerful fleet to the Baltic. Battle of Copenhagen. 10. The Russian emperor Paul is strangled, and succeeded by Alexander. Dissolution of the League of the North. 1 1. The French army in Egypt. Capitulation. General peace. [Amiens.] 12. [EVENTS or 1802, THE YKAR OF PEACE.] Internal Affairs of France. Napoleon made consul for life. 13. Conduct of Napoleon in his relations with foreign States. Holland the Italian republics the Swiss cantons. Attempt to recover St. Domingo. [Historical account of St. Domingo.] 14. Circumstances leading to a RENEWAL or THE WAR IN 1803. Hostile acts of England and France. 15. First military operations of the French, in the year 1803. [Hanover.] Preparations for the invasion of England. 16. Rebellion in Ireland. Conspiracy against Napoleon early in 1804. The affair of the Duke D'Enghien. [Baden.] 17. Hostile acts of England against Spain- The latter joins France. 18. Napoleon, emperor, May, 1804 crowned by the pope anointed sovereign of Italy, May, 1805. 19. New coalition against France. Prussia remains neutral. Beginning of the war by Aus- tria. 20. The French forces. Napoleon victorious at Ulm. [Ulna.] English naval victory of Trafalgar. [Trafalgar.] Additional victories of Napoleon, and treaty of Presburg, Dec. 3805. [Austerlitz.] [1806.] 21. Conquests of the English. [Mahrattas. Buenos Ayres.] Napoleon rapidly ex- tends his supremacy over the continent. The affairs of Naples, Holland, and Germany. 22. Circumstances which led Prussia to join the coalition against Napoleon. 23. Napoleon's victo- ries over the Prussians. He enters Berlin. [Jena. Auerstadt.] 24. The Berlin decrees. Na- poleon in Poland. Battle of Pultusk. Battle of Eylau, Feb. 1807. Fall of Dantzic. [Eylau. Dantzic.] 25. Battle of Friedland. [Friedland. Niemen.] The treaty of Tilsit. Losses suf- fered by Prussia. [Tilsit. Westphalia.] 26. Circumstances that led to the bombardment of Copenhagen, by the English fleet. Denmark joins France. Portuguese affairs. The French in Lisbon. [Rio Janeiro. Brazil.] 27. The designs of Napoleon against the Peninsular mon- archs. Affairs of Spain, 1808. Godoy abdication of the Spanish monarch, and his son Ferdi- nand. Joseph Bonaparte becomes king of Spain, and Mural king of Naples. 28. Resistance of the Spaniards and beginning of the Peninsular war. 29. Successes of the Spaniards at Cadiz, Valencia, Saragossa, and Baylen. [Baylen. Ebro.] 30. War in Portugal, and evacuation of that country by the French forces. [Oporto. Vimiera. Cintra.] 31. Napoleon takes the field in person, and the British are rapidly driven from Spain. [Reynosa. Burgos. Tudela. Corunna.] 476 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET U. [1609.] 32. Austria suddenly renews the war. Victories of Napoleon, who enters Vienna in May ; arid peace with Austria in October. [Eckmuhl. Aspern. Wagram.] 33. War with the Tyrolese. British expedition to Holland. Continuance of the war in the Spanish penin- sula. Difficulties between Napoleon and the pope. 34. Napoleon's divorce from Josephine and marriage with Maria Louisa of Austria, 1810. Effects of this marriage upon Napoleon's future prospects. His conduct towards Holland. Sweden. His power in the central parts of Europe. Jealousy of the Russian emperor. 35. Continuance of the war in the Spanish penin- sula. Wellington and Massena. [Ciudad Rodrigo. Busaco. Torres Vedras.] 36. The pe- iiinsula war during the year 1811. [Badajoz. Albuera.] 37. Events of the peninsular war from the beginning of 1812 to the retreat of the French across the Pyrenees. [Salamanca. Vittoria.] ^ , . 38. NAPOLKON'S RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN, 1812. Events that led to the opening of a war with Russia. The opposing nations in this war. 39. The " Grand Army" of Napoleon. The op- posing Russian force. 40. Napoleon crosses the Niemen, June 1812. Retreat of the Russians. Early disasters of the French army. [Wilna.] 41. Onward march of the army. Battle of Smolensko. Entrance of the deserted city. 42. Napoleon pursues the retreating Russians, who make a stand at Borodino. [Borodino.] The evening before the battle. 43. Battle of Borodino, Sept. 7th. 44. Continued retreat of the Russians, who abandon Moscow. The city, on the entrance of the French. The burning of Moscow. Napoleon begins a retreat Oct. 19th. 45. The horrors of the retreat. 46. Napoleon at Smoleusko. He renews the retreat Nov. 14th. Battles of Krasnoi, and passage of the Beresina. [Krasnoi. Beresina.] Marshal Ney. Napoleon abandons the army, and reaches Paris, Dec. 18th. His losses in the Russian campaign. 47. War between England and the United States of America. Mexico. The war in the Indian seas. [1813.] 48. Napoleon's preparations for renewing the war. Prussia, Sweden, and Austria. Battles of Lutzen and Bautzen. Armistice, and congress of Prague. [Bautzen.] 49. War re- newed Aug. 16th. Austria joins the allies. Battles. [Culm. Gross-Beren. Katsbach. Den- newitz.] Battles of Leipsic, and retreat of the French. Losses of the French. Revolts. Wellington. [1814.] 50. General invasion of France. Bernadotte and Murat. Energy and talents of Na- poleon. The allies march upon Paris, which capitulates. Deposition, and abdication, of Napo- leon. Treaty between him and the allies. [Elba.] Louis XVIII. Restricted limits of France. [1815.] 51. Congress of Vienna, and Napoleon's return from Elba. Marshal Ney. All France submits to Napoleon. 52. Napoleon in vain attempts negotiations. Forces of the allies ; of Napoleon. 53. Napoleon's policy, and movements. Battles of Ligny, Quatre Bras, Wavre, and Waterloo. Second capitulation of Paris. Napoleon's abdication attempted escape to America exile and death. 54. First objects of the allies. Return of Louis XVIII. Execution of Ney, and Labedoyere. Fate of Murat. 55. Second treaty of Paris. Its terms. Restoration of the pillaged treasures of art. 1. As soon as Napoleon was seated on the consular throne of r France he addressed to the British government an able i. EVENTS OF communication, making general proposals of peace. To THE YEAR this a firm and dignified reply was given, ascribing the evils which afflicted Europe to French aggression and French ambition, and declining to enter into a general pacification until France should present, in her internal condition and foreign policy, firmer pledges than she had yet given, of stability in her own government, and security to others. The answer of the British gov- ernment forms the beginning of the second period of the war that in which it was waged with Napoleon himself, the skilful director of all the energies of the French nation. 2. War being resolved on, the most active measures were taken CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 477 JL on both sides to prosecute it with vigor. The land forces, equipped militia, and seamen of Great Britain, amounted to three hundred and seventy thousand men, and Austria furnished two hundred thou- sand. France seemed poorly prepared to meet the coming storm. Her armies had just been defeated in Germany and Italy ; her treasury was empty, and her government had lost all credit ; the af- filiated Swiss and Dutch republics were discontented ; and the French people were dissatisfied and disunited. But the establishment of a firm and powerful government soon arrested these disorders ; the finances were established on a solid basis ; the Vendean war was amicably terminated ; Russia was detached from the British alli- ance ; many of the banished nobility were recalled ; confidence, en- ergy, and hope, revived ; and the prospects of France rapidly bright- ened under the auspices of Napoleon. 3. At the opening of the campaign the French forces were dis- posed in the following manner. The army of Germany, one hundred and twenty-eight thousand strong, under the command of Moreau, was posted on the northern confines of Switzerland and north along the west bank of the Rhine : the army of Italy, thirty-six thousand- strong, under the command of Massena, occupied the crest of the Alps in the neighborhood of Genoa ; while an army of reserve, of fifty thousand men, of whom twenty thousand were veteran troops, awaited the orders of the first consul, ready to fly to the aid of either Moreau or Massena. 4. Moreau, victorious at Engen and Moeskirch, 1 drove the Aus- trians back from the Rhine, and, penetrating to Munich, laid Bavaria under contribution. Massena, after the most vigorous efforts against a greatly superior force, was shut up in Genoa with a part of his army, and finally compelled to capitulate. Napoleon, on hearing the reverses of Massena, resolved to cross the Swiss Alps and fall upon Piedmont. Taking the route by the Great St. Bernard, 2 on the 1 7th 1. Engen and Moeskirch are in the south-eastern part of Baden, near the northern boundary of Switzerland. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Great St. Bernard is the name given to a famous pass of the Alps, leading over the mountains from the Swiss town of Martigny to the Italian town of Aosta. In its highest part it rises to an elevation of more than eight thousand feet, being almost impassable in winter, and very dangerous in spring, from the avalanches. Near the summit of the pass is the famous hospital founded in 96-2 by Bernard de Menthon, and occupied by brethren of the order of St. Augustine, whose especial duty it is to assist and relieve travellers crossing the mountains. In the midst of the tempests and snow storms, the monks, accompanied by dogs of extraordi- nary size and sagacity, set out for the purpose of tracking those who have lost their way. If, they find the body of a traveller who has perished, they carry it into the vault of the dead, where it remains lying on a table until another victim is brought to occupy the place. It is 478 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL of May his larmy began the ascent of the mountain. The artillery wagons were taken to pieces, and put on the backs of mules, while a hundred large pines, each hollowed out to receive a piece of artil- lery, were drawn up the mountain by the soldiers. To encourage the men, the music of each regiment played at its head ; and where the ascent was most difficult the charge was sounded. 5. Great was the surprise of ,the Austrians at beholding this large army descending into the Italian plains. Before the end of the month Napoleon was at Turin, and on the 2d of June, after little opposition, he made his triumphant entry into Milan. On the 14th he was attacked by the Austrian general Melas, at the head of greatly superior forces, on the plains of Marengo. 1 Here, after twelve hours of incessant fighting, victory was decided in favor of the French by the stubborn resistance of Desaix, and the happy charge of the gal- lant Kellerman. General Desaix, who had just arrived from Egypt, fell on the field of battle. The result of the victory gave Napoleon the entire command of Italy, and induced the Austrians to pro- pose a suspension of arms, which, in anticipation of a treaty, was .agreed to. 6. The efforts at negotiation were unsuccessful, as no satisfactory arrangements could be made between England and France, and in the latter part of November the armistice was terminated, and hostili- ties recommenced. In the meantime Malta, which, during more than two years, had been closely blockaded by the British forces, was compelled to surrender, and was permanently annexed to the British dominions. 7. On the renewal of the war, the Austrian army, eighty thousand strong, under the Archduke John, and the French army, somewhat less in number, under Moreau, were facing each other on the eastern confines of Bavaria. The Austrians advanced, and on the 3d of De- then set up against the wall, among the other dead bodies, which, on account of the cold, decay so slowly that they are often recognized by their friends after the lapse of years. It is impos- sible to bury the dead, as there is nothing about the hospital but naked rocks. Not a tree or bush is to be seen, but everlasting winter reigns in this dreary abode, the highest inhabited place ir. Europe. When the army of Napoleon crossed the St. Bernard, every soldier received from the monks a large ration of bread and cheese, and a draught of wine at the gate of the hospital : a season- able supply which exhausted the stores of the establishment, but was fully repaid by the First Consul before the close of the campaign. The Little St. Bernard, over which Hannibal crossed, is farther west, separating Piedmont from Savoy. The undertaking of the Carthaginian was far more difficult than that of Napoleon. (Map No. XIV.) 1. Marengo is a small village of Northern Italy, in an extensive plain, forty-three miles south- west from Milan. (Map No. XII.) CHAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 479 cember brought on the famous battle of Hohenlinden, 1 in which they were completely overthrown, and driven back with great slaughter. Moreau rapidly pursued the retreating enemy, and penetrated within sixty miles of Vienna, when, at the solicitation of the Austrian gen- eral, an armistice was agreed to on the 25th. In the meantime, in the very heart of winter, the French general Macdonald, at the head of fifteen thousand men, had crossed from Switzerland into the Italian Tyrol, by the famous pass of the Splugen, 3 more difficult than that of St. Bernard. The French forces in Italy now numbered more than a hundred thousand men, and the speedy expulsion of the Aus- trians was anticipated, when an armistice, soon followed by the peace of Luneville, 3 put an end to the contest with Austria.* 8. In the meantime Napoleon, with consummate policy, was suc- cessfully planning a union of the Northern powers against England ; and on the 16th of December, 1800, a maritime confederacy was signed by Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, and soon after by Prussia, as an acceding party. This league, aimed principally against Eng- land, was designed to protect the commerce of the Northern powers, on principles similar to the armed neutrality of 1780; but itjs effect would have been, if fully carried out, to deprive England, in great part, of her naval superiority. The Danish government had previ- ously ordered her armed vessels to resist the search of British cruis- ers ; and the Russian emperor had issued an embargo on all the British ships in his harbors. 9. England, determined to anticipate her enemies, despatched, as soon as possible, a powerful fleet to the Baltic, under the command of Nelson and Sir Hyde Parker. Passing through the Sound under the fire of the Danish batteries, on the 30th of March the fleet came 1. Hohenlinden is a village of Bavaria, nineteen milea east from Munich. (Map No. XVII.) Campbell's noble ode, beginning, " On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow," has rendered the name, at least, of this battle, familiar to almost every school-boy. 2. The Pass of the Splugen leads over the Alps from the Grisons to the Italian Tyrol, into the valley of the Lake of Como. It was only after the most incredible efforts that Macdonald succeeded in passing his army over the mountain ; and more than a hundred soldiers, and as many horses and mules, were swallowed up in its abysses, and never more heard of. Since 1823 there has been a road over the Splugen passable for wheel carriages. It was built by Austria, at great expense. (Map No. XIV.) 3. Luncvilte, in the former province of Lorraine, is on the road from Paris to Strasbourg, sixteen miles south-east from Nancy. By the treaty concluded here in 1801, and which Francis was obliged to give his assent to, "not only as emperor of Austria, but in the name of the German empire," Belgium and all the left bank of the Rhine were again formally ceded to France, and Loinbardy was erected into an independent State. (Maps No. XIII. and XVII.) a. Feb. 9th, 1801. 480 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL to anchor opposite the harbor of Copenhagen, which was protected by an imposing array of forts, men-of-war, fire-ships, and floating batteries. On the 2d of April Nelson brought his ships into the harbor, where, in a space not exceeding a mile and a half in extent, they were received by a tremendous fire from more than two thousand cannon. The English replied with equal spirit, and after four hours of incessant cannonade the whole front line of Danish vessels and floating batteries was silenced, with a loss to the Danes, of more than six thousand men. The English loss was twelve hundred. Of this battle, Nelson said, " I have been in one hundred and five engagements, but that of Copenhagen was the most terrible of them all." 10. While Nelson was preparing to follow up his success by at- tacking the Russian fleet in the Baltic, news reached him of an event at St. Petersburgh which changed the whole current of Northern policy. A conspiracy of Russian noblemen was formed against the Emperor Paul, who was strangled in his chamber on the night of the 24th of March. His son and successor Alexander at once resolved to abandon the confederacy, and to cultivate the friendship of Great Britain. Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia followed his example ; and thus was dissolved, in less than six months after it had been formed, the League of the North, the most formidable confederacy ever arrayed against the maritime power of England. 11. While these events were transpiring in Europe, the army which Napoleon had left in Egypt, under the command of Kleber, after losing its leader by the hands of an obscure assassin, was doomed to yield to an English force sent out under Sir Ralph Aber- crombie, who fell at the head of his victorious columns on the plains of Alexandria.* By the terms of capitulation, the French troops, to the number of twenty-four thousand, were conveyed to France with their arms, baggage, and artillery. As Malta had previously surrendered to the British, there was now little left to contend for between France and England. To the great joy of both nations preliminaries of peace were signed at London on the 1st of October, and on the 27th of March, 1802, tranquillity was restored through- out Europe by the definitive treaty of Amiens. 1 12. Napoleon now directed all his energies to the reconstruction 1. Amiens. (See p. 279.) The definitive treaty of Amiens was concluded March 27th, 1802, between Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic, (Republic of Holland.) a. March 21st, 1801. CHAP VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 481 of society in France, the general improvement of the country, and the consolidation of the power he had acquired. By a general amnesty one hundred thousand emigrants were O F 1802, enabled to return : the Roman Catholic religion was re- THE YKAR stored, to the discontent of the Parisians, but to the great joy of the rural population : a system of public instruction was es- tablished under the auspices of the government : to bring back that gradation of ranks in society that the Revolution had overthrown, the Legion of Honor was instituted, an order of nobility founded on personal merit : great public works were set on foot throughout France : the collection of the heterogeneous laws of the Monarchy and the Republic into one consistent whole, under the title of the Code Napoleon, was commenced ; an undertaking which has deserved- ly covered the name of Napoleon with glory, and survived all the other achievements of his genius ; and finally, the French nation, as a permanent pledge of their confidence, by an almost unanimous vote, conferred upon their favorite and idol the title and authority of con- sul for life. 13. In his relations with foreign States the conduct of Napoleon was less honorable. He arbitrarily established a government in Holland, entirely subservient to his will ; and he moulded the northern Italian republics at his pleasure : he interfered in the dis- sensions of the Swiss cantons to establish a government in harmony with the monarchical institutions which he was introducing in Paris ; and when the Swiss resisted, he sent Ney at the head of twenty thou- sand men to enforce obedience. England remonstrated in vain, and the Swiss, in despair, submitted to the yoke imposed upon them. Napoleon was less successful in an attempt to recover the island of St. Domingo, 1 which had revolted from French authority. Forces 1. St, Domingo, or Hayti, called by Columbus Hispaniola, (Little Spain,) is a large island of the West Indies, about fifty miles east of Cuba. It was first colonized by the Spaniards, by whose cruelties the aboriginal inhabitants were soon almost wholly destroyed. Their place was at first supplied by Indians forcibly carried off from the Bahamas, and, at a later period by the importation of vast numbers of negroes from Africa. About the middle of the six- teenth century the French obtained footing on its western coasts, and in 1691 Spain ceded to France half the island, and at subsequent periods the possessions of the latter were still farther augmented. From 1776 to 1789 the French colony was at the height of its prosperity, but in J791 the negroes, excited by news of the opening revolution in France, broke out in insurrec- tion, and in two months upwards of two thousand whites perished, and large districts of fertile plantations were devastated. While the war was raging, commissioners, sent from France, taking part with the negroes against the planters, proclaimed the freedom of all the blacks who should enrol themselves under the republican standard : a measure equivalent to the instant abolition of slavery throughout the island. The English government, apprehensive of danger to its West India possessions from the establishment of so great a revolutionary outpost a^' 81 482 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. to the number of thirty-five thousand men were sent out to reduce the island, but nearly all perished, victims of fatigue, disease, and the perfidy of their own government. 14. It soon became evident that the peace of Amiens could not be permanent. The encroachments of France upon the feebler Eu- ropean powers, the armed occupation of Holland, the great accumu- lation of troops on the shores of the British Channel, and the evident designs of Napoleon upon Egypt, excited the jealousy of England ; and the latter refused to evacuate Malta, Alexandria, and the Cape of Grood Hope, in accordance with the late treaty stipulations, until sat- iv RENEWAL ^ s ^ ac ^ r y explanations should be given by the French gov- OF THE ernment. Bitter recriminations followed on both sides, WAR, 1803. and - m the month of Mayj Ig03j tte cabinet of London issued letters of marque, and an embargo on all French vessels in British ports. Napoleon retaliated by ordering the arrest of all the English then in France between the ages of eighteen and sixty years. 15. The first military operations of the French were rapid and successful. The electorate of Hanover, 1 a dependency of England, the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, and hoping to take advantage of the confusion prevailing in the island, attempted its reduction, but after an enormous loss of men finally evacuated it ia 1798. No sooner was the island delivered from external enemies than a frightful civil war en- sued between the mulattoes and negroes, but the former were overcome, and in December 1800 Toussaint Louverture, the able leader of the blacks, was sole master of the French part of the island. Napoleon at first confirmed him in his command as general-in-chief, but finding that he aimed at independent authority, in the winter of 1801 he sent out a large force to reduce the island to submission. During a truce Toussaint was surprised and carried to France, where he died in April 1803. Hostilities were renewed : in November, 1803, the French, driven into a corner of the island, capitulated to an English squadron ; and in January, 1804, the Haytien chiefs, in the name of the people, renounced all dependence on France. Numerous civil wars and revolutions long continued to distract the island. In 1821 that part of the island originally settled by the Spaniards voluntarily placed itself under the Haytien government, which still maintains its independence. In 1791 St. Domingo was in a most flourishing condition, but its commerce and industry were seriously interrupted by the bloody wars and revolutions which succeeded. Moreover, it was not to be expected that half-civilized negroes, suddenly loosed from bondage, under a burning sun, and without the wants or desires of Europeans, should exhibit the vigor and industry of the latter. The Haytien government has found it necessary to adopt a " Rural Code," which makes labor compulsory on the poorer classes, who in return share a portion of the produce of the lands of their masters. Nominally free, the blacks remain really enslaved. But the island IB beginning to assume a more thriving appearance ; the manners and morals of the people, although still bad, are improving ; and something has been done for public instruction. What are to be the final results of this experiment of negro emancipation, time only can determine. 1. Hanover is a large kingdom of north-western Germany, bounded north by the German Ocean and the Elbe, east by Prussia aud Brunswick, south by Hesse Cassel and the Prussian department of the Lower Rhine, and west by Holland. A portion of western Hanover is almost divided from the rest by the grand-duchy of Oldenburg. (See Map No. XVII.) This kingdom is formed out of the duchies formerly possessed by several families of the junior . branch of the house of Brunwsick. Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, married Sophia, * CHAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 483 was quickly conquered, and in utter disregard of neutral rights the whole of the North of Germany was at once occupied by French troops, while, simultaneously, an army was sent into southern Italy, to take possession of the Neapolitan territories. But these move- ments were insignificant when compared with Napoleon's gigantic preparations ostensibly for the invasion of England. Forts and bat- teries were constructed on every headland and accessible point of the Channel : the number of vessels and small craft assembled along the coast was immense ; and the fleets of France, Holland, and Spain, were to aid in the enterprise. England made the most vigorous preparations for repelling the anticipated invasion, which, however, was not attempted, and perhaps never seriously intended. 16. The year of the renewal of the war was farther distinguished by an unhappy attempt at rebellion in Ireland, in which the leaders, Russell and Emmett, were seized, brought to trial, and executed. Early in the following year, 1804, a conspiracy against the power of Napoleon was detected, in which the generals Moreau and Pichegru, and the royalist leader Georges, were implicated. Moreau was allowed to leave the country, Pichegru was found strangled in prison, and Georges was executed. Napoleon, either believing, or affecting to believe, that the young Duke D'Enghien, a Bourbon prince then living in the neutral territory of Baden, 1 was concerned in this plot, caused him to be seized and hurried to Vin- ccnnes, where, after a mock trial, he was shot by the sentence of a court martial: an act which has fixed an indelible stain on the memory of Napoleon, as not the slightest evidence of criminality was , , ,, , brought against the unhappy prince. 1 7. Owing to the intimate connection that had been formed between the courts of Paris and Madrid, England sent out a fleet in the autumn of 1804, before any declaration of war had been made, to interrupt the homeward bound treasure frigates of Spain ; and theso were captured, 11 with valuable treasure amounting to more tlian two grand-daughter of James I. of England ; and George Louis, the issue of this marriage, became king of England, with the title of George I., in 1714 ; from which time till 1837, at the death of William IV., both England and Hanover had the same sovereign. On the accession of a female to the throne of Great Britain, the Salic law conferred the crown of Hanover on anothet branch of the Hanoverian family. During the supremacy of Napoleon, Hanover constituted a part of the kingdom of Westphalia, but was restored to its lawful sovereign in 1813. (Map No. XVIU 1. The grand-duchy of Baden occupies the south-western angle of Germany, having Switzer- land OB the south, and France and Rhenish Bavaria (the Palatinate) on the west. (Map No. XVII.) a. Oct. 4th, 1604. 484 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET IL million pounds sterling. The British government was severely cen- sured for this hasty act. Spain now openly joined France, and de- clared war against England. 4 18. On the 18th of May of this year Napoleon was created, by decree of the senate, "Emperor of the French;" and on the 2d x)f December, 1804, was solemnly crowned by the pope, who had been induced to come to Paris for that purpose. The principal powers of Europe, with the exception of Great Britain, recog- nized the new sovereign. On the 26th of May of the following year he was formally anointed sovereign of Northern Italy. The iron crown of Charlemagne, which had quietly reposed a thou- sand years, was brought forward to give interest to the ceremony, and Napoleon placed it on his own head, at the same time pronouncing the words, " G-od has given it me : beware of touching it." 19. The continued usurpations charged upon Napoleon at length induced the Northern Powers to listen to the solicitations of England ; and in the summer of 1 805 a new coalition, embracing Russia, Aus- tria, and Sweden, was formed against France. Prussia, tempted by the glittering prize of Hanover, which Napoleon held out to her, per- sisted in her neutrality, with an evident leaning towards the French interest. The Austrian emperor precipitately commenced the war by invading 1 * the neutral territory of Bavaria ; an act as unjustifiable as any of which he accused Napoleon. The latter seized the oppor- tunity of branding his enemies as aggressors in the contest, and de- clared himself the protector of the liberties of Europe. 20. In the latter part of September, 1805, the French forces, m eight divisions, and numbering one hundred and eighty thousand men, were on the banks of the Rhine, preparing to carry the war into Austria. The advance of Napoleon was rapid, and everywhere the en^my were driven before him. On the 20th of October, Napoleon, having surrounded the Austrian general Mack at Ulm, 1 compelled him to surrender his whole force of twenty thousand men. On the very next day, however, the English fleet, commanded by Admiral Nelson, gained a great naval victory off Cape Trafalgar, 2 over the 1 Ulm is an eastern frontier town of Wirtemberg, on the western bank of the Danube, sev- enty-six miles north-west from Munich. Formerly a free city, it was attached to Bavaria ia 1803, and in 1810 to Wirtemberg. (Map No. XVII. ) 2. Cape Trafalgar is a promontory of the south-western coast of Spain, twenty-five miles north-west of the fortress of Gibraltar. In the great naval battle of Oct. 2Jst, 1805, the Eng- lish, under Nelson, having twenty-seven sail of the line and three frigates, were opposed by the a. Dec. 12th, 1804. b. Sept. 9th, 1805. CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 485 ^ ''- vi bAiiAk* IaJ flooloui*/ J*d) ^^JJWflflflJW^ 61 * * 1 *, " r>7/ combined fleets of France and Spain ; but it was dearly purchased by the death of the hero. On the 13th of November Napoleon en- tered Vienna, and on the 2d of December he gained the great battle of Austerlitz, 1 the most glorious of all his victories, 1 which resulted in the total overthrow of the combined Russian and Austrian armies, and enabled the victor to dictate peace on his own terms. b The em peror of Russia, who was not a party to the treaty, withdrew his troops into his own territories : the king of Prussia received Hanover as a reward of his neutrality ; and Great Britain alone remained at open war with France. 21. While the English now prosecuted the war with vigor on the ocean, humbled the Mahratta 5 powers in India, subdued the Dutch colony of the Cape, and took Buenos Ayres* from the Spaniards, Na- poleon rapidly extended his supremacy over the continent of Europe. In February, 1806, he sent an army to take possession of Naples, because the king, instigated by his queen, an Aus- trian princess, had received an army of Russians and English into his capital. The king of Naples fled to Sicily, and Napoleon conferred the vacant crown upon his brother Joseph. Napoleon next placed his brother Louis on the throne of Holland : he erected various dis- tricts in Germany and Italy into dukedoms, which he bestowed on his principal marshals : while fourteen princes in the south and west of Germany were induced to form the Confederation of the Rhine, and place themselves under the protection of France. By this latter stroke of policy on the part of Napoleon, a population of sixteen millions was cut off from the Germanic dominion of Austria. 22. In the negotiations which Napoleon was at this time carrying on with England, propositions were made for the restoration of Han- over to that power, although it had recently been given to Prussia. It French and Spanish fleet of thirty-three sail of the line and seven frigates. Nelson, who was mortally wounded in the action, lived only to be made aware of the detmction of the enemy's fleet. (Map No. XIII.) 1. Austerlitz (ows'-ter-litz) is a small town of Moravia, thirteen miles southwest of Brunn the capital. (Map No. XVII.) 2. The Mahrattas were an extena' <>e Hindoo nation in the western part of southern Hindostan. The various tribes of which the nation consisted were first united into a monarchy about the middle of the seventeenth century. 3. Buenos Ayres (in Spanish bwa-noce-i-res,) is a large city of South America, capital of the republic of La Plata. In 1810 began the revolutionary movements that ended in the emanci- pation of Buenos Ayres and the States of La Plata from Spain. The declaration of indepen- dence was made on the 9th of July, 1816. a. Loss of the allies thirty thousand, in killed, wounded, and taken prisoners. Loss of the French twelve thousand. b. Treaty of Presburg, Dec. 27tn, 1805. c. July 12th. 486 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II 7HOT/IH was moreover suspected that Napoleon bad offered to win the favor of Russia at the expense of his Prussian ally. These, and other causes, aroused the indignation of the Prussians ; and the Prussian monarch openly joined the coalition against Napoleon before his own arrangements were completed, or his allies could yield him any assist- ance. Both England and Russia had promised him their coopera- tion. 23. With his usual promptitude Napoleon put his troops in motion, and on the 8th of October reached the advanced Prussian outposts* On the 14th he routed the Prussians with terrible slaughter in the battle of Jena, 1 and on the same day Marshal Davoust gained the battle of Auerstadt,* in which the Duke of Brunswick was mortally wounded. On these two fields the loss of the Prussians was nearly twenty thousand in killed and wounded, besides nearly as many prisoners. The total loss of the French was fourteen thousand. In a single day the strength of the Prussian monarchy was prostrated. Napoleon rapidly followed up his victories, and on the 25th his vanguard, under Marshal Davoust, entered Berlin, only a fortnight after the commencement of hostilities. 24. Encouraged by his successes Napoleon issued a series of edicts from Berlin, declaring the British islands in a state of blockade, and excluding British manufactures from all the continental ports. He then pursued the Russians into Poland : on the 30th of November his troops entered Warsaw without resistance ; but on the 26th of December his advanced forces received a check in the severe battle of Pultusk. On the 8th of 'February, 1 307, a sanguinary battle was fought at Eylau, 3 in which each side lost twenty thousand men, and both claimed the victory. In some minor engagements the allies had the advantage, but these were more than counterbalanced by the siege and fall of the important fortress of Dantzic, 4 which had a garrison of seventeen thousand men, and was defended by nine nundred cannon. 1. Jena is a town of central Germany, in the grand-duchy of Saxe Weimar, on the west bank of the river Salle, forty-three miles south-west from Leipsic. The battle was fought between the towns of Jena and Weimar. (Map No. XVII.) 2. rfuerstudt (ow'-r-stadt) is a small village of Prussian Saxony, six miles west of Naumberg, and about twenty miles north of the battle-ground of Jena. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Eylau (i-low) is a village in Prussia proper, or East Prussia, twenty-eight miles south from Konigaberg. (Map No. XVII.) 4. Dantzic is an important commercial city, seaport, and fortress, of the province of West Prussia, on the western bank of the Vistula, about three miles from its mouth. Dantzic sur- rendered to the French May 27th 1807. (Map No. XVII.) :; .rf CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 487 25. 'At length, on the 1 4th of June, Napoleon fought the great and decisive battle of Friedland, 1 and the broken remains of the Russian army fell back upon the Niemen. 8 An armistice was now agreed to : on the 25th of June the emperors of France and Russia met for the first time, with great pomp and ceremony, on a raft in the middle of the Niemen, and on the 7th of July signed the treaty of Tilsit. 8 All sacrifices were made at the expense of the Prussian monarch, who received back only about one-half of his dominions. The elector of Saxony, the ally of France, was rewarded with that portion of the Prussian territory, which, prior to the first partition in 1772, formed part of the kingdom of Poland : this portion was now erected into the grand-duchy of Warsaw. Out of another por- tion was formed the kingdom of Westphalia, 4 which was bestowed upon Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon ; and Russia agreed to aid the French emperor in his designs against British commerce. 26. Soon after the treaty of Tilsit it became evident to England that Napoleon would leave no means untried to humble that power on the ocean, and it was believed that, with the connivance of Russia, he was making arrangements with Denmark and Portugal for the conversion of their fleets to his purposes. England, menaced with an attack from the combined navies of Europe, but resolving to an- ticipate the blow, sent a powerful squadron against Denmark, with an imperious demand for the instant surrender of the Danish fleet and naval stores, to be held as pledges until the conclusion of the war. A refusal to comply with this summons was followed by a four days' bombardment of Copenhagen, and the final surrender of the fleet. Denmark, though deprived of her navy, resented the hostility of England by throwing herself, without reserve, into the arms of France. The navy of Portugal was saved from falling into the power of France, by sailing, at the instigation of the British, to Rio 1. Friedland (freed' land) is a town of East Prussia, on the western bank of the river Alle (al'-leh) twenty-eight miles south-east from Konigsberg, and eighteen north-east of Eylau. (Map No. XVIL) 8. The river Niemen (Polish nyem' en) rises in the Prussian province of Grodno, and, passing through the north-eastern extremity of Prussia, enters a gulf of the Baltic by two channels twenty-two miles apart, and each about thirty miles below Tilsit. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Tilsit is a town of East Prussia, on the southern bank of the Niemen, sixty miles north- east of Konigsberg. ( Map No. XVIL) 4. Westphalia is a name, 1st, originally given, in the Middle Ages, to a large part of Germany : 2d, to a duchy forming a part of the great duchy of Saxony : 3d, to one of the circles of the German empire: 4lh, to the kingdom of Westphalia, created by Napoleon: 5th, to the present Prussian province of Westphalia, created in 1815. Most of the present province was embraced in each of these divisions. See also Note, p. 360. (Map No. XVIL) 488 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL Janeiro, 1 the capital of the Portuguese colony of Brazil.* Napoleon had already announced, 8 - in one of his imperial edicts, that " the House of Braganza had ceased to reign," and had sent an army under Junot to occupy Portugal. On the 27th of November, the Portu- guese fleet, bearing the prince regent, the queen, and court, sailed for Brazil ; and on the 30th the French took possession of Lisbon. 27. The designs of Napoleon for the dethronement of the Penin- sular monarchs had been approved by Alexander in the conferences of Tilsit ; and when Napoleon returned to Paris he set on foot a series of intrigues at Madrid, which soon gave him an opportunity of interfering in the domestic affairs of the Spanish nation, his recent ally. Charles IV. of Spain, a weak monarch, was the dupe of his faithless wife, and of his unprincipled minister Godoy. The latter, secured in the French interest by the pretended gift of a principality formed out of dismembered Portugal, al- lowed the French troops under Murat to enter Spain ; and by fraud and false pretences the frontier fortresses were soon in the hands of the invaders. Too late Godoy found himself the dupe of his own treachery. Charles, intimidated by the difficulties of his situation, resigned b the crown to his son Ferdinand, but, by French intrigues, was soon after induced to disavow his abdication, while at the same time Ferdinand was led to expect a recognition of his royal title from the emperor Napoleon. The deluded prince and his father were both enticed to Bayonne, where they met Napoleon, who soon compelled both to abdicate, and gave the crown to his brother Joseph, who had been summoned from the kingdom of Naples to become king of Spain. The Neapolitan kingdom was bestowed upon Murat as a reward for his military services. 28. Although many of the Spanish nobility tamely acquiesced in this foreign usurpation of the sovereignty of the kingdom, yet the great bulk of the nation rose in arms : Ferdinand, although a prisoner in France, was proclaimed king : a national junta, or council, was 1. Rio Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, is the most important commercial city and seaport of South America. Population about two hundred thousand, of whom about half are whites, and the rest mostly negro slaves. 2. Prior to 1808 Brazil was merely a Portuguese colony, but on the arrival of the prince regent and his court, accompanied by a large body of emigrants, January '25th, 1808, it was raised to $ kingdom. In 1822 Brazil was declared a kingdom independent of the crown of Portugal. The empire of Brazil, second only in extent to the giant empires of China and Russia, embraces nearly the half of the South American continent; but its population whites, negroes, aiid Indians is less than six millions, of whom only about one million are whites. a. Nov. 13th, 18Q7. b. March 20th, 1808. CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 489 chosen to direct the affairs of the government ; and the English at once sent large supplies of arms and ammunition to their new allies, while Napoleon was preparing an overwhelming force to sustain his usurpation. A new direction was thus given to affairs, and for a time the European war centered in the Spanish Peninsula. 29. In the first contests with the invaders the Spaniards were generally successful. A French squadron in the Bay of Cadiz, pre- vented from escaping by the presence of an English fleet, was forced to surrender : a Marshal Moncey, at the head of eight thousand men, was repulsed in an attack b on the city of Valencia : Saragossa, de- fended by the heroic Palafox, sustained a siege of sixty-three days ; c and, although reduced to a heap of ruins, drove the French troops from its walls : Cor' dova was indeed taken d and plundered by the French marshal Dupont, yet that officer himself was soon after compelled to surrender at Baylen, 1 with eight thousand men, to the patriot general Castanos. This latter event occurred on the 20th of July, the very day on which Joseph Bonaparte made his tri- umphal entry into Madrid. But the new king himself was soon obliged to flee, and the French forces were driven beyond the Ebro. a 30. In the meantime the spirit of resistance had extended to Por- tugal : a junta had been established at Oporto 3 to conduct the gov- ernment : British troops were sent to aid the insurgents, and on the 21st of August Marshal Junot was defeated at Virniera, 4 by Sir Arthur "Wellesley. This battle was followed by the convention of Cintra, 6 which led to the evacuation of Portugal by the French forces. 31. Great was the mortification of Napoleon at this inauspicious beginning of the Peninsular war, and he deemed it necessary to take 1. Baylen is a town of Spain, in the province of Jaen, twenty-two miles north from the city of Jaen. It commands the road leading from Castile into Andalusia. (Map No. XIII.) 2. The Ebro (anciently Iberus) flows through the north-eastern part of Spain, and is the only great river of the peninsula that falls into the Mediterranean. Before the second Punic war it formed the boundary between the Roman and Carthaginian territories, and in the tune of Charlemagne, between the Moorish and Christian dominions. (Map No. XIII.) 3. Oporto, an important commercial city and seaport of Portugal, is on the north bank of the Douro, two miles fro m its mouth, and one hundred and seventy-four miles north-east from Lisbon. (Jlfap No. XIII.) 4. Vimiera is a small town of the Portuguese province of Estremadura, about thirty miles north-west from Lisbon. (Map No. XIII.) 5. Cintra is a small town of Portugal, twelve miles north-west from Lisbon. By the con- vention signed here Aug. 22d, 180H, the French forces were to be conveyed to France with their arms, artillery, and property. This convention was exceedingly unpopular in England. (Map No. XIH.) au June 14th. b. June 28th. c. June 14th, to Aug. 17th. d. June 8th. 490 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II the field in person. Collecting his troops with the greatest rapidity, in the early part of November he was in the north of Spain at the head of one hundred and eighty thousand men. He at once com- municated his own energy to the operations of the army : the Span- iards were severely defeated at Reynosa, a Burgos, b and Tudela ; cl and, on the 4th of December, Napoleon forced an entrance into the capital. The British troops, who were marching to the assistance of the Span- iards, were driven back upon Corunna, 2 and being there attacked d while making preparations to embark, they compelled the enemy to retire, but their brave commander, Sir John Moore, was mortally wounded. On the following day the British abandoned the shores of Spain, and the possession of the country seemed assured to the French emperor. 32. A short time before the battle of Corunna Napoleon received despatches 6 which induced him to return immediately to Paris. The Austrian emperor, humbled, but not subdued, and stimulated by the warlike spirit of his subjects, once more resolved to try the hazards of war, while the best troops of Napoleon were occupied in the Spanish Peninsula. On the 8th of April large bodies of Austrian troops crossed the frontiers of Bohemia, of the Tyrol, and of Italy, and soon involved in great danger the dispersed divisions of Napo- leon's army. On the 1 7th of the same month Napoleon arrived and took the command in person. Baffling the Austrian generals by the rapidity of his movements, he speedily concentrated his divisions, and in four days of combats and manoeuvres, from the 19th to the t. Reynosa, Burgos, and Tudela. (See Map No. XIII.) Reynosa is forty-seven miles north- west from Burgos. Tudela is on the Ebro, one hundred and ten miles east from Burgos. Burgos is one Hundred and thirty-four miles north of Madrid. At Reynosa Blake was defeated by the French under Marshal Victor : at Burgos the Spanish count de Belvidere was over- thrown by Marshal Soult : and at Tudela Palafox and Castanos were beaten by Marshal Lannes. 2. Corunna is a city and seaport of Spain, at the north-western extremity of the kingdom. Sir John Moore was struck down by a cannon ball as he was animating a regiment to the charge. " Wrapped by his attendants in his military cloak, he was laid in a grave hastily formed on the ramparts of Corunna, where a monument was soon after constructed over hi uncoffined remains by the generosity of the French marshal Ney. Not a word was spoken as the melancholy interment by torch light took place : silently they laid him in his grave, while the distant cannon of the battle fired the funeral honors to his memory." Jllison. This touching scene has been vividly described in one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry in the English language, beginning " Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, As his corpse to the ramparts we hurried ; Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried," a. Nov. 10th and llth. b. Nov. 10th. c, Nov. 21st. d. Jan. 16th, 1809. e. Jan. 1st, 1809. CHAP. VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 491 22d inclusive, he completed the ruin of the Austrian army. On the last of these diys he defeated the Archduke Charles at Eckmuhl, 1 and compelled him to recross the Danube. Rapidly following up his victories, he entered Vienna on the 13th of May, and although worsted in the battle of Aspern 2 on the 21st and 22d, on the 5th of July he gained a triumph at "VVagram, 3 and soon after dictated a peace a by which Austria was compelled to surrender territory containing three and a-half millions of inhabitants. 33. During the war with Austria, the brave Tyrolese had seized the opportunity to raise the standard of revolt ; and it was not until two powerful French armies had been sent into their country that they were subdued. The British government also sent a fleet, and an army of forty thousand men, to make a diversion against Napo- leon on the coast of Holland ; but the expedition proved a failure. The war still continued in the Spanish Peninsula, and Sir Arthur Wellesley was sent out by the British government with a large force to cooperate with the Spaniards. In the meantime difficulties had arisen between the French emperor and the Pope Pius VII. : French troops entered Rome; and by a decree b of Napoleon the Papal States were annexed to the French empire. This was followed by a bull of excommunication d against Napoleon, whereupon the pope was seized and conveyed a prisoner into France, where he was de- tained until the spring of 1814. 34. Near the close of 1809 the announcement was made that Na- poleon was about to obtain a divorce from the Empress Josephine, 1. Eckmuhl is a small village of Bavaria, thirteen miles south of Ratisbon, and fifty-two miles north-east from Munich. Marshal Davoust, having particularly distinguished himself in the battle of the 23d, was raised by Napoleon to the dignity of prince of Eckmuhl. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Aspem is a small Austrian village on the eastern bank of the Danube, opposite the island of Loban, about two miles below Vienna. (Map No. XVII.) After two days' continuous fighting, with vast loss on both sides, Napoleon was obliged to withdraw his troops from the field, and take refuge in the island of Loban. Marshal Lannes, one of Napoleon's ablest gen- erals, was mortally wounded on the field of Aspern, having both his legs carried away by a cannon ball. Napoleon was deeply affected on beholding the dying Marshal brought off the field on a litter, and extended in the agonies of death. Kneeling beside the rude couch, he wept freely. 3. Wagram is a small Austrian village eleven miles north-east of Vienna. (Map No. XVII.) In the battle of Wagram each party lost about twenty-five thousand men : few prisoners were taken on either sid, and the Austrians retired from the field in good order. The French bulletin, copied by Sir Walter Scott, says the French took twenty thousand prisoners, now admitted to be a grossly erroneous statement. The retreat of the Austrians, however, gave to Napoleon all the moral advantages of a victory. a. Treaty of Vienna, Oct. 14th. b. May 17th, 1809. c. See Note, p. d. June llth. fVf " ^iMJtei 492 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET IL for the purpose of allying himself with one of the royal families of Europe. To Josephine Napoleon was warmly attached ; but reasons of state policy were, in his breast, superior to the dearest affections. His first marriage having been annulled a by the French senate, early in 1810 he received the hand of Maria Louisa of Austria, daughter of the emperor Francis. This mar- riage, which seemed permanently to establish Napoleon's power, by uniting the lustre of descent with the grandeur of his throne, was one of the principal causes of his final ruin, as it was justly feared by the other European powers that, secured by the Austrian alliance, he would strive to make himself master of Europe. His conduct towards Holland justified this suspicion. Dissatisfied with his broth- er's government of that country, he, soon after, by an imperial de- cree, 11 incorporated Holland with the French empire. In the same year Bernadotte, one of his generals, was advanced to the throne of Sweden. Napoleon continued his career of aggrandizement in the central parts of Europe, and extended the French limits almost to the frontiers of Russia, thereby exciting the strongest jealousy of the Kussian emperor, who renewed his intercourse with the court of London, and began to prepare for that tremendous conflict with France which he saw approaching. 35. The war still continued in the Spanish peninsula. Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had recently been created Lord Wellington, had the chief command of the English, Spanish, and Portuguese forces. On the I Oth of July the Spanish fortress of Ciudad Kodrigo 1 surrend- ered to Marshal Massena, but on the 27th of September Massena was defeated in an attack upon Wellington on the heights of Busaco. 2 Wellington, still pursuing his plan of defensive operations, then re- tired to the strongly-fortified lines of Torres Vedras, 3 which defend- 1. Ciudad Rodrigo (in Spanish the-oo-dad r rod-ree-go, meaning, " the city Rodrigo,") is a strongly-fortified city of Spain, fifty-five miles south-west from Salamanca. In 1812 this city was retaken by Wellington, an achievement which acquired for him the title of Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo from the Spanish government. (Map No. XIII.) 2. Busaco is a mountain ridge starting from the northern bank of the river Mondego a few liiles north-east of Coimbra, and extending north-west about eight miles. On the summit of the northern portion of this range, around the convent of Busaco, seventeen miles north-east of Coimbra, Wellington collected his whole army of fifty thousand men on the evening of Sep- tember 36th, while Massena, with seventy-two thousand, lay at its foot, determined to force the passage, which he attempted early on the following morning, but without success. (Map No XIII.) 3. Torres Vedras is a small village on the road from Lisbon to Coimbra, twenty-four milet north-west of the former. The "Lines of Torres Vedras," constructed by Wellington in 1810, consisted of three distinct ranges of defence, extending from the river Tagus to the Atlantic a. Dec. 15th, 1809. b. July 9th, 1810. CHAP. VLj NINETEENTH CENTURY. 493 ed the approaches to Lisbon. Massena followed, but in vain en- deavored to find a weak spot where he could attack with any prospect of success, and after continuing before the lines more than a month, he broke up his position on the 14th of November, and, for the first time since the accession of Napoleon, the French eagles commenced a final retreat. 36. The early part of 1811 witnessed the siege of Badajoz 1 by Marshal Soult, and its surrender to the French on the 1 Oth of March ; but this was soon followed by the battle of Albuera, 3 in which the united British and Spanish forces gained an important victory. Many battles were fought during the re- mainder of the year, but they were attended with no important results on either side. 37. The year 1812 opened with the surrender of the important :ity of Valencia to Marshal Suchet on the 9th of Jan- xnr RUS8IAN uar y the last of the long series of French triumphs in CAMPAIGN, the peninsula. On the same day Wellington, in another 1812t quarter, laid siege to Ciudad Rodrigo ; and the capture 81 of this place by the British arms was soon followed b by that of Badajoz. Wel- lington, following up his successes, next defeated Marmont in the battle of Salamanca : 3 the intrusive king Joseph fled from Mad- rid, and on the next day the capital of Spain was in the possess- ion of the British army. The concentration < of the French forces again compelled the cautious Wellington to retreat to Portugal ; but early in the following year, 1813, he resumed the offensive, gained Ocean, the most advanced, embracing Torres Vedras, being twenty-nine miles in length, the second, about eight miles in the rear of the first, being twenty-four miles, and the third, or " lines of embarcation," in the vicinity of Lisbon, designed to cover the embarcation of the troops if that extremity should become necessary. More than fifty miles of fortifications, bris- tling with six hundred pieces of artillery, and one hundred and fifty forts, flanked with abattis and breastworks, and presenting, in some places, high hills artificially scarped, in others deep and narrow passes carefully choked, and artificial pools and marshes made by damming up the elreams, were defended by seventy thousand disposable men. The French force under Massena amounted to about the same number. (Map No. Xllf.) 1. Badajoz is a city in the west of Spain, on the eastern bank of the Guadiana, about two hundred miles south-west of Madrid, and one hundred and thirty-five miles east of Lisbon. (JfapNo.XIII.) a, Albuera is a small town fourteen miles south-east of Badajoz. In the battle of Albuera, fought May 16th, 1811. the allied British, Spanish, and Portuguese troops, were commanded by Marshal Beresford, and the French by Marshal Soult. (Map No. XIIJ.j 3. Salamanca is a city of Leon in Spain, one hundred and nineteen miles north-west from Madrid. It was known to the Romans by the name of Salamantica. During a long period it was celebrated as being the seat of a University, which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was attended by from ten thousand to fifteen thousand students. (Map No. XIII.) a. Jan. 12th. b. April 6th. c. July 22d. d. Aug. llth. 494 MODERN HISTORY. [PART It the decisive battle a of Vittoria, 1 and before the close of the campaign drove the French across the Pyrenees into their own territories. 38. During these reverses to the French arms, events of greater magnitude than those of the peninsular war were occupying the per- sonal attention of Napoleon. The jealousy of Russia at his repeat- ed encroachments in Central and Northern Europe has already been mentioned : moreover, the commercial interests of Russia, in com- mon with those of the other Northern powers, had been greatly in- jured by the measures of Napoleon for destroying the trade of Eng- land ; but the French emperor refused to abandon his favorite policy, and the angry discussions between the cabinets of St. Petersburg and Versailles led to the assembling of vast armies on both sides, and the commencement of hostilities in the early part of the summer of 1812. Napoleon had driven Sweden to enter into an alliance with Russia and England ; but he arrayed around his standard the im- mense forces of France, Italy, Germany, the Confederation of the Rhine, Poland, and the two monarchies Prussia and Austria. 39. The " Grand Army" assembled in Poland for the Russian war amounted to the immense aggregate of more than five hundred thousand men, of whom eighty thousand were cavalry the whole supported by thirteen hundred pieces of cannon. Nearly twenty thousand chariots or carts, of all descriptions, followed the army, while the whole number of horses amounted to one hundred and eighty-seven thousand. To oppose this vast army the Russians had collected, at the beginning of the contest, nearly three hundred thou- sand men ; but as the war was carried into the interior their forces increased in numbers until the armies on both sides were nearly equal. 40. On the 24th of June, 1812, Napoleon crossed the Niemen at the head of the " Grand Army," and entered upon his ever mem- orable Russian campaign. As the enormous superiority of his forces rendered it hopeless for the Russians to attempt any immediate re- sistance, they gradually fell back before the invaders, wasting the country as they retreated. The wisdom of this course soon became apparent. A terrible tempest soon set in, and the horses in the French army perished by thousands from the combined effects of in- 1. Vittoria is a town in the Spanish province of Alava, on the road between Burgos and Bayonne, sixty miles north-east from the former. The Battle of Vittoria almost annihilated the French power ai Spain. (Map No. XIII.) a. June 21st, 1813. CHAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 495 cessant rain and scanty forage : the soldiers sickened in great num- bers ; and before a single shot had been fired twenty -five thousand sick and dying men filled the hospitals ; ten thousand dea4 horses strewed the road to Wilna, 1 and one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon were abandoned for want of the means of transport. 41. Still Napoleon pressed onward in several divisions, frequently skirmishing with the enemy, and driving them before him, until he arrived under the fortified walls of Smolensko, where thirty thousand Russians made a stand to oppose him. A hundred and fifty cannon were brought up to batter the walls, but without effect, for the thick- ness of the ramparts defied the efforts of the artillery. a But the French howitzers set fire to some houses near the ramparts ; the flames spread with wonderful rapidity, and during the night which followed the battle a lurid light from the burning city was cast over the French bivouacs, grouped in dense masses for several miles in circumference. At three in the morning a solitary French soldier scaled the walls, and penetrated into the interior ; but he found neither inhabitants nor opponents. The work of destruction had been completed by the voluntary sacrifice of the inhabitants, who had withdrawn with the army, leaving a ruined city, naked walls, and the cannon which mounted them, as the only trophy to the conqueror. 42. The division of the army led by Napoleon followed the Russians on the road to Moscow, engaging in frequent but indecisive encounters with the rear guard. When the retreating forces had reached the small village of Borodino, 8 their commander, General Kutusoff, resolved to risk a battle, in the hope of saving Moscow. On the evening of the 6th of September the two vast armies took their positions facing each other, each numbering more than a hundred and thirty thousand men the Russians having six hundred and forty pieces of cannon, and the French five hundred and ninety. Napoleon sought to stimulate the enthusiasm of his soldiers by recounting to them the glories of Marengo, of Jena, and of Austerlitz ; while a procession of dignified clergy passed through the Russian ranks, be- stowing their blessings upon the kneeling soldiers, and invoking the aid of the God of battles to drive the invader from the land. 1. Wilna, the former capital of Lithuania, is at the confluence of the rivers Wilenka and Wilna, eastern tributaries of the Niemen, about two hundred and fifty miles north-east from Warsaw. Population nearly forty thousand, of whom more than twenty thousand are Jews. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Borodino (bor-o-dee'-no) is a small village about seventy miles south-west from Moscow, on the small stream ol the Kolotza, a tributary of the Moskwa, a Aug. llth. 496 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL 43. At six o'clock on the morning of the 7th a gun fired from the French lines announced the commencement of the battle : the roar of more than a thousand cannon shook the earth : vast clouds of smoke, shutting out the light of the sun, arose in awful sublimity over the scene ; and two hundred and sixty thousand combatants, led on in the gathering gloom by the light of the cannon and musketry, engaged in the work of death. The battle raged with desolating fury until night put an end to its horrors. The slaughter was immense. The loss on both sides was nearly equal, amounting, in the aggre- gate, to ninety thousand in killed and wounded. The Russian position was eventually carried, but neither side gained a decisive victory. 44. On the day after the battle the Russians retired, in perfect order, on the great road to Moscow. Preparations were immediately made by the inhabitants for abandoning that city, long revered as the cradle of the empire ; and when, on the 14th, Napoleon entered it, no deputation of citizens awaited him to deprecate his hostility, but the dwellings of three hundred thousand persons were as silent as the wilderness. It seemed like a city of the dead. Napoleon took up his residence in the Kremlin, the ancient palace of the czars ; but the Russian authorities had determined that their beloved city should not afford a shelter to the invaders. At midnight on the night of the 15th a vast light was seen to illuminate the most distant part of the city ; fires broke out in all directions ; and Moscow soon exhibited a vast ocean of flame agitated by the wind. Nine-tenths of the city were consumed, and Napoleon was driven to seek a tem- porary refuge for his army in the country ; but afterwards returning to the Kremlin, which had escaped the ravages of the fire, he re- mained there until the 19th of October, when, all his proposals of peace being rejected, he was compelled to order a retreat. 45. The horrors of that retreat, which, during fifty-five days that intervened until the recrossing of the Niemen, was almost one con- tinued battle, exceeded anything before known in the annals of war. The exasperated Russians intercepted the retreating army wherever an opportunity offered ; and a cloud of Cossacks, hovering incessant- ly around the wearied columns, gradually wore away their numbers., But the severities of the Russian winter, which set in on the 6th of November, were far more destructive of life than the sword of the enemy. The weather, before mild, suddenly changed to intense cold : the wind howled frightfully through the forests, or swept over the CHAP. VI.] * NINETEENTH CENTURY. 497 plains with resistless fury ; and the snow fell in thick and continued showers, soon confounding all objects, and leaving the army to wander without landmarks through an icy desert. Thousands of the soldiers, falling benumbed with cold, and exhausted, perished miserably in sight of their companions ; and the route of the rear guard of the army was literally choked up by the icy mounds of the dead. In their nightly bivouacs crowds of starving men prepared, around their scanty fires, a miserable meal of rye mixed with snow water and horse flesh ; but numbers never awoke from the slumbers that followed ; and the sites of the night fires were marked by circles of dead bodies, with their feet still resting on the extinguished piles. Clouds of ravens, issuing from the forests, hovered over the dying remains of the soldiers ; while troops of famished dogs, which had followed the army from Moscow, howled in the rear, and often fell upon their victims before life was extinct. The ambition of Napoleon had led the pride and the chivalry of Europe to perish amid the snows of a Russian winter ; and he bitterly felt the taunt of the enemy, " Could the French find no graves in their own land ?" 46. Napoleon had first thought of remaining in winter quarters at Smolensko ; but the exhausted state of his magazines, and the con- centrating around him of vast forces of the enemy, which threatened soon to overwhelm him, convinced him that a protracted stay was impossible, and on the 1 4th of November the retreat was renewed Napoleon, in the midst of his still faithful guards, leading the ad- vance, and the heroic Ney bringing up the rear. But the enemy harassed them at every step. During the 16th, 17th, and 18th, in the battles of Krasnoi, 1 Napoleon lost ten thousand killed, twenty thousand taken prisoners, and more than a hundred pieces of cannon fell into the hands of the enemy. The terrible passage of the Bere- sina, 2 which was purchased by the loss of sixteen thousand prisoners, and twenty-four thousand killed or drowned in the stream, completed the ruin of the Grand Army. All subordination now ceased, and it was with difficulty that Marshal Ney could collect three thousand men on foot to form the rear guard, and protect the helpless multi- tude from the indefatigable Cossacks ; and when at length the few remaining fugitives reached the passage pf the Niemen, the rear guard was reduced to thirty men. The veteran marshal, bearing a musket, and still facing the enemy, was the last of the Grand Army 1. Krasnoi is a small town about thirty miles south-west from Smolensko. (Map No. XVIL) 2. The Beresina is a western tributary of the Dnieper. See Map No. XVII. 32 498 MODERN HISTORY. * [PAET II. . who left the Russian territory. Napoleon had already abandoned the remnant of his forces, and, setting orit in a sledge for Paris, he arrived there at midnight on the 18th of December, even before the news of his terrible reverses had reached the capital. It has been estimated that, in this famous Russian campaign, one hundred and twenty-five thousand men of the army of Napoleon perished in battle ; that one hundred and thirty-two thousand died of fatigue, hunger, and cold ; and that nearly two hundred thousand were taken prisoners. 47. While these great events were transpiring on the continent of Europe, difficulties arose between the United States of America and Great Britain, which led to the opening of war between those two powers in the summer of 1812. Mexico was at this time passing through the struggles of her first Revolution ; and a feeble war was still maintained between the French and British possessions in the Indian seas ; but these events were of little interest in comparison with that mighty drama which was enacting around the centre of Na- poleon's power, and which was converting nearly all Europe into a field of blood. 48. Notwithstanding his terrible reverses in the Russian campaign, Napoleon found that he still possessed the confidence of the French nation : he at once obtained from the senate a new levy of three hundred and fifty thousand men took the most vigorous measures to repair his losses, and, having arranged his dif- ficulties with the pope, on the 15th of April he left Paris for the theatre of war. In the meantime Prussia and Sweden had joined the alliance against him ; a general insurrection spread over the German States ; Austria wavered ; and already the confederates had advanced as far as the Elbe. On the 2d of May Napoleon gained the battle of Lutzen, and a fortnight later that of Bautzen j 1 but as these were not decisive, on the 4th of July an armistice was agreed to, and a congress met at Prague to consider terms of peace. 49. As Napoleon would listen to nothing calculated to limit his power, on the expiration of the armistice, on the 10th of August, war was renewed, when the Austrian emperor, abandoning the cause of his son-in-law, joined the allies. Napoleon at once commenced a series of vigorous operations against his several foes, and with vari- 1. Bautzen (bout-sen) is a town of Saxony, on the eastern bank of the river Spree, thirty-two jnilss north-east from Dresden. (Map No. XVII.) CHAP.VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 499 ous success fought the battles of Culm, 1 Gross-Beren,* the Katsbach, 1 and Dennewitz, 4 in which the allies, although not decidedly victorious, were constantly gaining strength. In the first battle of Leipsic, fought on the 16th of October, the result was indecisive, but in the battle of the 1 8th the French were signally defeated, and on the fol- lowing morning began a retrograde movement towards the Rhine. Pressed on all sides by the allies, great numbers were made prisoners during the retreat ; about eighty thousand, left to garrison the Prussian fortresses, surrendered ; the Saxons, Hanoverians, and Hollanders, threw off the French yoke ; and it was at this time that Wellington was completing the expulsion of the French from Spain. 50. The year 1814 opened with the invasion of France, on the eastern frontiers, by the Prussian, Russian, and Austrian armies ; while Wellington, having crossed the Pyrenees, laid siege to Bayonne : Bernadotte, the old comrade of Napoleon, but now king of Sweden, was marching against France at the head a hundred thousand men ; and Murat, king of Naples, brother-in-law of the French emperor, eager to secure his crown, entered into a se- cret treaty with Austria for the expulsion of the French from Italy. Never did the military talents of Napoleon shine with greater lustre than at this crisis. During two months, with a greatly inferior force, he repelled the attacks of his enemies, gained many brilliant victo- ries, and electrified all Europe by the rapidity and skill of his move- ments. But the odds were too great against him ; the enemy had crossed the Rhine, and while, by a bold movement, Napoleon threw himself into the rear of the allies, hoping to intimidate them into a retreat, they marched upon Paris, which was compelled to capitulate before he could come to its relief. Two days later the emperor was formally deposed by the senate, and, on the 6th of April, with a trembling hand, he signed an unconditional abdication of the thrones of France and Italy. By a treaty concluded between him and the allies on the 1 1 th, Napoleon was promised the sovereignty of the 1. Culm is a small town in the north of Bohemia, at the foot of the Erze-Gebirg mountains, about fifty miles north-west from Prague. On the 30th of August, 1813, the French under Vandamme were utterly overwhelmed by the allied Austrians, Russians, and Prussians, com- manded by Barclay de Tolly. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Gross-Berenjtgroce-bZren) is a small village a short distance south of Berlin, and east of Potsdam (Map No. XVII.) 3. The Katsbach. (kats-back) is a western tributary of the Oder, in Silicia. The battle, or several battles of that name, were fought near the eastern bank of that stream, west of Lieguitz, and fifty-five miles norlh-west from Breslau. (Map No. XVII.) 4. Dennewitz is a small village of Prussian Saxony, seven miles north-east from Wittemberg (Map No. XVII.) 500 MODERN HISTORY. [PABT IL island of Elba, 1 and a pension of one hundred thousand pounds per annum. On the 3d of May, Louis XVIII., returning from his long exile, reentered Paris : to conciliate the French people he gave them a constitutional charter, and soon after concluded a formal treaty with the allies, by which the continental dominions of France were restricted to what they had been in 1 792. 51. The final settlement of European affairs had been left to a general congress of the ministers of the allied powers, which assem- bled at Vienna on the 25th of September ; but while the conferences were still pending, the congress was thrown into consternation by the announcement that Napoleon had left Elba. An extensive conspira- cy had been formed throughout France for restoring the fallen emperor, and on the 1st of March, 1815, he landed at Frejus, accompanied by only eleven hundred men : everywhere the soldiery received him with enthusiasm : Ney, who had sworn fidelity to the new government, went over to him at the head of a force sent to arrest his progress ; and on the evening of the 20th of March he reentered the French capital, which Louis XVIII. had left early in the morning. With the exception of Augereau, Mar- mont, Macdonald, and a few others, all the officers, civil and military, embraced his cause ; at the end of a month his authority was rees- tablished throughout all France ; and he again found himself at the summit of power, by one of the most remarkable transitions recorded in history. 52. In vain Napoleon now attempted to open negotiations with the allied powers, and professed an ardent desire for peace ; the allies denounced him as the common enemy of Europe, and refused to re- cognize his authority as emperor of the French people. All Europe was now in arms against the usurper, and it was estimated that, by the middle of'summer, six hundred thousand effective men could be as- sembled against him on the French frontiers. But nothing which genius and activity could accomplish was wanting on the part of Na- poleon to meet the coming storm ; and in a country that seemed drained of men and money, he was able, by the 1st of June, to put 1. Elba, (the (Etholia of the Greeks, and the Iloa or Ilva of the Romany) is a mountainous island of the Mediterranean, between the Italian coast and Corsica, six or seven miles from the nearest point of the former, and having an area of about one hundred and fifty square miles. It derives its chief historical interest from its having been the residence and empire of Napo- leon from the 3d of May 1814, to the 26th of February 1815. During this short period a road was opened between the two principal towns, trade revived, and a now era seemed to have dawned upon the island. (Map No. VIII.) CHAP VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 501 on foot an army of two hundred and twenty thousand veterans, who had served in his former wars. 53. His policy was to attack the allies in detail, before their forces could be concentrated, and with this view he hastened across the Belgian frontier on the 15th of June, with a force numbering, at that point, one hundred and twenty thousand men. On the 1 6th he defeated the Prussians, under Blucher, at Ligny, 1 but at the same time Ney was defeated by Wellington at Quatre Bras.* The defeat of the Prussians induced Wellington to fall back upon Waterloo, 3 where, at eleven o'clock on the morning of the 18th, he was attacked by Napoleon in person, while, at the same time, large bodies of French and Prussians were engaged at Wavre. 3 On the field of Waterloo the combat raged during the day with terrific fury Napoleon in vain hurling column after column upon the British lines, which withstood his as- saults like a wall of adamant ; and when, at length, at seven in the evening, he brought up the Imperial Guard for a final effort, it was driven back in disorder. At the same time Blucher, coming up with the Prussians, completed the rout of the French army. The broken host fled in all directions, and Napoleon himself, hastening to Paris, was the herald of his own defeat. Once more the capital capitulated, and was occupied by foreign troops : Napoleon a second time abdicated the throne, and, after vainly attempting to escape to America, sur- rendered himself to a British man-of-war. He was banished by the allies to the island of St. Helena, 6 where he died on the 5th of May, j ... 1. Ligny is a small village on the small stream of the same name, two or three miles north- east of Fleurus, and about eighteen miles east of south from Waterloo. (Maps Nos. XII. and XV.) 2. Quatre Bras (kah-tr-brah " four arms,") is at the meeting of four roads about seventeen miles south from Brussels, and nearly ten miles south from Waterloo. {Maps Nos. XII. and XV.) 3. Waterloo is a small village or hamlet of Belgium, nine miles south of Brussels, and on the south-western border of the forest of Soignies. The great road from Brussels leading south to Charleroi passes through Waterloo, about three-quarters of a mile south of which was the centre of the position of the allies, who occupied the crest of a range of gentle eminences, ex- tending about two miles in length, and crossing the high road at right angles. The French army occupied a corresponding line of ridges nearly parallel, on the opposite side of the valley, and about three-quarters of a mile distant. In the valley between these ridges the " Battle of Waterloo" was fought. (Maps Nos. XII. and XV.) 4. Wavre is a small village on the western bank of a small stream called the Dyle, nine miles a little south of east from Waterloo, and fifteen miles south-east from Brussels. The river Dyle is not deep, but at the period of the battle it was swollen by the recent heavy rain, and the roads were in a miry state. (Maps Nos. XII. and XV.) 5. St. Helena is an island of the Atlantic Ocean, belonging to Great Britain, in fifteen deg. fifteen min. south hit., and twelve hundred miles west from the coast of Benguela in South Af rica. Length ten and a-half miles, breadth six and a-half miles. It is a rocky island, the inte- rior of which is a plateau about fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. The highest 502 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET IL 1821, during one of the most violent tempests that had ever raged on the island fitting time for the soul of Napoleon to take its de- parture. In his last moments his thoughts wandered to the scenes of his military glory, and his last words were those of command, as he fancied himself at the head of his armies. 54. After the capitulation of Paris, the tranquilization of France, and the future peace and safety of Europe, received the first atten- tion of the allies. Louis XVIII. following in the rear of their armies, entered the capital on the 8th of July; but the French people felt too deeply the humiliation of defeat to express any joy at his restoration. The mournful tragedy which followed, in the exe- cution of Marshal Ney and Labedoyere for high treason in favoring Napoleon's return from Elba, after the undoubted protection which had been guaranteed them by the capitulation of Paris, was a stain upon the character of the allies ; and although Ney's treason was beyond that of any other man, to the end of the world his guilt will be forgotten in the broken faith of his enemies, and the tragic interest and noble heroism of his death. The fate of Murat, king of Naples, was equally mournful, but less unjust. On Napoleon's landing at Frejus he had made a diversion in his favor by breaking his alliance with Austria, and commencing the war ; but the cowardly Neapoli- tans were easily overthrown, and Murat was obliged to seek refuge in. France. At the head of a few followers he afterwards made a descent upon the coast of Naples, in the hope of regaining his power ; but being seized, he was tried by a military commission, condemned, and executed. 55. On the 20th of November, 1815, the second treaty of Paris was concluded between France and the allied powers, by which the French frontier was narrowed to nearly the state in which it stood in 1790 : twenty-eight million pounds sterling were to be paid by France for the expenses of the war, and a larger sum still for the mountain summit is two thousand seven hundred and three feet in height. Jamestown, the port, and residence of the authorities, is the only town. Longwood, the residence of Napoleon, stand* on the plateau, in the middle of an extensive park. After Napoleon's death the house was for some time uninhabited, but was finally converted into a kind of farming establishment ; and recently, the room in which the conqueror of Austerlitz breathed his last, was occupied as a caruhouse and stable ! Napoleon arrived at St. Helena on the 13th of October, 1815, and there he expired on the 5th of May, 1821. His remains, after having been deposited for nineteen years in a humble grave near the house, were, in 1840, conveyed with great pomp and ceremony to France, where, agreeably to the wish expressed in his last will, they now repose, in the Hotel dea Invalidea, In Paris. CHAP VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 503 spoliations which she had inflicted on other powers during her Revo- lution, and for five years her frontier fortresses were to be placed in the hands of her recent enemies ; while the vast treasures of art which adorned the museums of the Louvre the trophies of a hundred victories were to be restored to the States from which they had oeen pillaged by the orders of Napoleon. Mournfully the Parisians parted with these memorials of the glories of the consulate and the empire. The tide of conquest had now set against France herself: her pride was broken her humiliation complete and the iron en- tered into the soul of the nation. SECTION II. FROM THE FALL OF NAPOLEON TO THE PRESENT TIME. I. THE PERIOD OF PEACE : 18151820. ANALYSIS. [TREATIES OF 1815.] 1. Treaty between Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Eng- land. The " Holy Alliance." General accession to it. 2. Its authorship, objects, and effects. 3. Condition of Europe. Continued popular excitement, but change in its objects. 4. The social contest in ENGLAND. Prosperity of England during the war. 5. Disappointed expectations. Causes of a general revulsion. Scarcity, in 1816. 6. Other contributing causes diminished supply of the precious metals, &c. Demands of the Radicals. 7. Policy of the English government. Reforms granted. Reported conspiracy. 8. Stringent measures of gov- ernment. The meeting at Manchester. [Manchester.] Continued complaints. Government carries all its important measures. 9. The piratical States of Northern Africa. [Barbary.] The United States of America and Algiers. 10. Chastisement of Algiers by an English gquadron, in J816. J 1. Importance of these events. Decline of the Ottoman empire. 12. Situation of FRANCE at the time of the second restoration. Change in public feeling against the Bonapartisls and Republicans. Punishment of the Revolutionists demanded. 13. Religious and political feuds. Atrocities. 14. Demands, and acts, of the Chamber of Deputies of 1815. Singular position of parties. 15. Policy of the king and ministry, and coup d'etat (Koo-dd-tah) of Sept. 1816. 16. Effects of the new measures. II. REVOLUTIONS IN SPAIN, PORTUGAL, NAPLES, PIEDMONT, GREECE, FRANCE, BELGIUM, AND POLAND: 18201831. I. SPAIN. 1. Spain from 1815 to 1820. Grant of a constitution in 1820. The party opposed to it. Action taken by the European powers. 2. Interference of the French in 1823. Re mainder of the reign of Ferdinand. The course of England and the United States of America. II. PORTUGAL. 1. Situation of Portugal. Revolution of 1820. Opposition to, and sup- pression of, the new constitution. Anarchy. 2. Don Pedro. Don Miguel's usurpation. Civil war. Foreign interference, and restoration of tranquillity. III. NAPLES. 1. History of the kingdom of Naples previous to 1815. 2. The subsequent rule of Ferdinand. Popular insurrection in July, 1820. Grant of a constitution. Resolution of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to put down the constitution. [Troppau.] 3. Conduct of Ferdi- nand. [Laybach.] An Austrian army suppresses the Revolution. IV. PIEDMONT. 1. Account of the Sardinian monarchy. [Sardinia. Tessino.] Feelings and 504 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET II. complaints of the Piedmontese. 2. Insurrection in Piedmont, March 1821. Success of the in- surgents, and abdication of the king. Austrian interference suppresses the Revolution. V. THK GREEK REVOLUTION. J. History of Greece from 1481 to 1821. Proclamation of Grecian independence in 1821. Suppression of the Revolution in Northern Greece. [Islam- ism. Trieste.] 2. Beginning and spread of the Revolution in the Morea. Proclamation of the Messenian senate. [Kalamatia.] Aid extended to the Greeks. 3. Rage, and cruelties, of the Turks. Effects produced. 4. Events on the Asiatic coast, in Candia, Cypress, Rhodes, &c. Successes and retaliatory measures of the Greeks. [Monembasia. Navariuo. Tripolitza.] 5. Defeat of the Turks at Thermopylae. The peninsula of Cassandra laid waste by them. [Cas- sandra.] The Turks driven from the country to the cities. [182-2.] 6. Acts of the Greek congress. [Epidaurus.] Dissensions and difficulties among the Greeks. 7. Principal military events of 1822. [Scio. Napoli di Romania.] 8. Destruction of Scio. Events in Southern Macedonia. [Saloniea.] 8. Events in Western Greece. The Greek flre-ships. [Tenedos.] Great loss of Turkish vessels. Taking of Napoli di Romania. [1823.] 9. Events of the war during the year 1823. [Missolonghi.] The poet Lord Byron. [1824.] 10. The Turks besiege Negropont, subdue Candia, reduce Ipsara, and attack Samos. The Egyptian fleet, [1825-6.] 11. Successes of Ibrahim Pacha in the Morea. Siege and fall of Missolonghi. [Salona.] Fate of the inhabitants of Missolonghi. 12. Danger apprehended from the successes of Ibrahim Pacha, and treaty of London, July 1827. 13. Allied squadron sent to the archipelago. Battle of Navarino. Rage of the Porte. 14. French and English army sent to the Morea, 1828. War between Russia and Turkey. [Pruth.] Convention with Ibra- him Pacha. Successes of the Greeks. Retaliatory measures of the sultan. 15. Protocol of the allies, Jan. 1827. [Cyclades.J Successes of the Russians, and peace of Adrianople. [Balkan Mts.] 16. Unsettled condition of the country and its subsequent history. VI. THK FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 1. Beginning of the reign of Charles X. Principles of his government and opposition of the people. The Poliguac ministry, 1829. 2. The royal speech at the opening of the Chambers in 183!). Effects. Reply of the Chambers. Dissolution of the Chambers. 3. War with Algiers. 4. Continued excitement in France. Result of the elections. Course pursued by the ministry. The three ordinances of July 26th. Accompany- ing report of the ministers. 5. The course pursued by the public journals. Excitement throughout Paris. Apathy of the king and ministers. 6. Events of the 27th. Marmont. Arming of the people. 7. On the 28th the riot assumes the aspect of a Revolution. The con- test during the day. Its results. 8. Renewal of the contest on the third day. Defection of the troops of the line, and success of the revolution. Installation of a provisional government. Louis Phillippe elected king. 9. Alarm of the continental sovereigns. The emperor of Russia. Charles X. and his ministers. VII. BELGIUM. 1. Effects of the French Revolution upon Europe. Revolution in Belgium. 2. Vain attempts at reconciliation. Declaration of Belgian independence. Protocol of the five great European powers. Selection of a king. [Saxe-Coburg, Gotha.] Siege and sur- render of Antwerp. Prosperity of Belgium. VIII. POLISH REVOLUTION. 1. Disposition made of Poland by the congress of Vienna. Al- exander's arbitrary government of Poland. 2. The government of Poland under the emperor Nicholas. Character of Constantine. Effect of his barbarities. Secret societies. [Volhynia.] 3. Revolutionary outbreak at Warsaw, Nov. 1830. A general rising in Warsaw. The pro- visional government. 4. Fruitless attempts to negotiate. Russian and Polish forces. Opening events of the war. 5. Night attacks and rout of the Russians. [Bug River.] Conduct of Prussia and Austria. 6. Battle of Ostrolenka. [Minsk. Ostrolenka.] Death of Diebitsch and Constanline. Conspiracy at Warsaw. 7. Dissensions among the Poles. Fall of Warsaw and end of the war. Fate of the Polish generals, soldiers, and nobility. Result, III. ENGLISH REFORMS. FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848. REVOLUTIONS IN THE GERMAN STATES, PRUSSIA, AND AUSTRIA. REVOLUTIONS IN ITALY. HUNGARIAN WAR. USURPATION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. I. ENGLISH REFORMS. 1. England from 1820 to 1830. Reforms obtained in 1828 and 1829. Resignation of the Wellington ministry, 1830. The whig rainisLry of Earl Grey. Lord Russell's Reform bill : lost in the Commons. 2. Dissolution of Parliament. Result of the new elections. Second defeat of the Reform bill, 1831. Pop ilar resentment, and riots. [ DerD y- Bristol.] 3. CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 505 Third defeat of the Reform bill. 1832. Resignation of ministers. Causes of their reinstatement. Final passage of the Reform bill. 4. Important effects of this measure. More intimate union with France. Prosperity of England under the change. 5. Accession of Victoria to the throne, 1837 ; and her marriage to Prince Albert, 1840. II. FRENCH REVOLUTION or 1848. 1. Most important events of the reign of Louis Phillippe. 2. Lafayetle's instrumentality in his election. Anomalous and difficult position of Louis Phillippe. The temporary success of his government. 3. Discontent of the middle and lower classes. 4. The political reform banquets of 1847-8. The contemplated banquet for the 22d of Feb., 1848, forbidden by the government. Measures taken by the opposition deputies. 5. Announcement of the postponement of the banquet. Popular assemblage dispersed. Dis- turbances in the evening of the 22d. 6. Renewed disturbances on the morning of the 23d. Demands of the National Guards acceded to. The people fired upon in the evening. 7. A Thiers' ministry organized. Proclamation on the morning of the 24th, and withdrawal of the troops. Disarming of the troops, abdication of the king, pillage of the palace, and flight of the king and ministers. 8. Meeting of the Chamber of Deputies. Adoption of a Republic. 9. M. Lamartine. General adhesion to the new government. 10. The Moderate and the Red Republicans. Their respective principles. Demands upon the government. II. Ani- mosities of the two sections of the Republican party. Popular demonstrations. The April elections. The executive committee. 12. Insurrection of. the 15th of May. Its suppression. 13. Precautionary measures of the government. Insurrection of June suppressed after a bloody contest. 14. Cavaignac chief executive. Treatment of the insurgent prisoners. Adop- tion, and character of, the new constitution. III. REVOLUTIONS IN THE GKRMAN STATES, PRUSSIA, AND AUSTRIA. 1. Effects of the recent French Revolution upon the German States. Events in Baden. 2. Events at Cologne, Munich, and Hesse-Cassel. [Hanau. Hesse-Cassel.] 3. Convention at Heidelberg. [Heidel- berg.] Action of the Frankfort diet. Course of Frederick William of Prussia. Saxony and Hanover. Revolt of Sleswick and Holstein. 4. Excitement in Vienna, caused by the Revolution in Paris. [Galicia. Metternich.] 5. Opening of the diet of Lower Austria. Commotions and bloodshed. 6. Concessions of the government, and triumph of the people. 7. Efforts of government to fulfil its promises. Dif- ficulties that intervened. Rule of the mob. Flight, and return, of the emperor. [Inspruck.] 8. Demands of the Bohemians. A Slavic Congress. Bombardment of Prague, and termination of the Bohemian Revolution. 9. Hungary at this period. Revolt of the Croats, who are sup- ported by Austria. [Hungary. Croatia.] Second Revolution in Vienna. Flight of the em peror. [Olmutz.] Siege and surrender of Vienna, 10. The Hungarian army during the siege. II. Character of the second Revolution in Vienna. Reaction in the popular mind, and triumph of despotism. IV. REVOLUTIONS IN ITALY. 1. Austrian influence and interference in Italian affairs since Uie fall of Napoleon. [Modena. Parma. Papal-States.] 2. Election of Pope Pius IX. in 1846. His character and acts. Austria interferes. [Ferrara.] A general rising jagainst Aus- tria. Withdrawal of Austrian troops. [Bologna. Lucca.]-^3. Austrian force in Lombardy. General insurrection throughout Austrian Italy. Charles Albert of Sardinia espouses the cause of Italian nationality. Final triumph of the Austrians under Radetsky. An armistice. 4. Renewal of the war second triumph of Radetsky, and abdication of Charles Albert. 5. Blockade and fall of Venice. 3. Revolution in Naples. [Kingdom of Naples.] War with, and final reduction of, the Sicilians. [Palermo.] 7. Difficulties of the pope. 8. His growing unpopularity and flight. [ fiaeta -] The Roman Republic instituted. 9. The pope's appeal for aid how responded to. 10. Reduction of Rome by the French army. Return of the pope. The change in him and his people. V. HUNGARIAN WAR. 1. Immediate cause of the second Revolution in Vienna. Hungarian and Croatian war. 2. Historical account of the Magyars. [Theiss.] Character of the Hun- garian government. 3. Repeated acknowledgments of its independence. 4. Ferdinand the Fifth. His means of influence, and Austrian control over the government of the Hungarians. The two parties in Hungary. 5. Concessions to Hungary in March, 1848. [Pesth.] 6. Anarchj and misrule in Hungary. 7. A more alarming danger to Hungary. Her population. Revolt of Croatia. [Slavonians.] The Serbian revolt. [Serbs.] Actual beginning of the war on th part of Hungary. [Carlowitz. Peterwardein. The Banat.] Austria openly supports thj Croatian retMlibn. 8. Action of the Hungarian Diet. Defeat of Jellachich near Pesth.-k 506 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. Character, and situation, of Ferdinand, who abdicates the throne. The Hungarian Diet refuses to acknowledge his successor. Failure of the attempt at negotiations. 10. Defection of several of the Hungarian leaders, but general adherence to Kossuth and the country. Want of arms but partially supplied. Hungarian force. 1.1. Austrian plan of invasion. Austrians enter Pesth, Jan. 1849, and the government retires to Debreczin. Concentration of the Hungarian forces. General Bern. [Debreczin. Comorn. Eperies. Bukowina.] 12. Loss of Esseck. Bern is at first repulsed. His final successes. [Esseck. Wallachs. Hermanstadt. Cronstadt. Temeswar.] 13. Dembinski. Operations in the valley of the Theiss. [Szegedin. Maros. Ka- polna, &c.] Battles of Kapolna. 14. Gorgey. His victories over the Austrians. [Tapiobieske. Godollo. Waitzen. Nagy Sarlo.] Siege of Buda. [Buda.] J5. Constitution for the Austrian, empire. Declaration of Hungarian independence. Kossuth governor of Hungary. 16. Aus- trian and Russian preparations for a second campaign. The Hungarian forces. 17. Invasion of Hungary in June. [Presburg. Bartfeld.] 18. Gradual concentration of the enemies of Hungary. [Hegyes.] Barbarities of Hayuau. 19. Gorgey's retreat to Arad. [Onod. Tokay. Arad.] Want of concert among the Hungarian generals. 20. Retreat of Dembinski. Defeat at Temeswar, and breaking up of the southern Hungarian army. Gorgey's failure to support Dembinski. His suspected fidelity. Supreme power conferred upon him. '21 . Gorgey's treason, and surrender of his army, Aug. 13th, 1849. 22. Previous successes of the Hungarians in the vicinity of Comorn. [Raab.] Surrender of Comorn, Sept. 29th. 23. Fate of Kossulh, Bern, Dembinski, &c. [Widdin.] 24. The closing tragedy of the Hungarian war. Fate of the in- ferior officers, Hungarian soldiers, &c. VI. USURPATION OF Louis NAPOLEON. 1. Election of a chief magistrate in France in 1848. The six candidates. Cavaignac, and Louis Napoleon. Election of the latter. Inauguration and oath of office. 2. History of Louis Napoleon down to the period of his election. [Fortress of Ham.] 3. His declaration of principles. Jealousy of him. Parties in the Assembly. 4. Want of confidence between the President and Assembly. Acts of the Assembly. 5. Pro- posed revision of the constitution. 6. President's message of November 1851. Increasing ani- mosity of the Assembly against the President. 7. An approaching crisis, how anticipated by Louis Napoleon. Circumstances of the coup d'etat of December 2d. 8. Meeting, and arrest, of members of the Assembly. The public press. Decree for an election. Insurrection of De cember 4th, suppressed by the military. 9. Result of the elections of December. The new- constitution. Louis Napoleon President for ten years. Assumes the title of emperor. I. THE PERIOD OF PEACE: 18151820. 1. On the day of the signing of the treaty of Paris, another was concluded between Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Eng- land, designed as a measure of security for the allied powers, and declaring that Napoleon Bonaparte and his family should be forever excluded from the throne of France. On the same clay a third treaty, of notorious celebrity, called " The Holy Alliance," was subscribed by the emperors of Russia and Austria, and the king of Prussia, who bound themselves, " in con- formity with the principles of Holy Scripture, to lend each other every aid, assistance, and succor, on every occasion." This treaty was ere long acceded to b} r nearly all the continental powers as parties to the compact, although the ruling prince of England declined sign- ing it, on the ground that the English constitution prevented him from becoming a party to any convention that was not countersigned by a responsible minister. CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 507 2. The terms of the Holy Alliance were drawn by the young Russian emperor Alexander, whose enthusiastic benevolence prompt- ed him to devise a plan of a common international law that should substitute the peaceful reign of the Gospel in place of the rude em- pire of the sword. But the law of the Holy Alliance, although be- neficent in its origin, was to be interpreted by absolute monarchs: as it was evident that its only active principle would be the maintenance of despotic power, under the mask of piety and religion, it was justly regarded with dread and jealousy by the liberal party throughout Europe, and was in reality made a convenient pretext for enforcing the doctrine of passive obedience, and resisting all efforts for the es- tablishment of constitutional freedom. 3. The treaties of 1815 both closed the ascendency of imperial France in Europe, and terminated, for a time at least, the revolution- ary movements in the civilized world. Twenty-five years of war had exhausted the treasures of Europe, and covered her soil with mourn- ing, and never before had the sweets of repose been so eagerly cov- eted by rulers and people. But although the nations had tired of the mingled horrors and glories of military strife, the excitement oc- casioned by the revolutionary wars continued, and, for want of other channels of action, seized hold of the social passions of the masses : military gave place to democratic ambition the old ante-revolution- ary contest between despotism and democracy revived, to be fol- lowed by other revolutions still, until one or the other principle shall triumph until, in the language of Napoleon, Europe shall become either Cossack or Republican. 4. In England, the social contest, wearing a milder aspect than on the continent, displayed itself in the legal strife for government relief and parliamentary reforms. During a long and expensive war, England had enjoyed extraordinary do- ENG "^ ND mestic prosperity: since the year 1792 her population had increased more than four millions, notwithstanding the absorp- tion of five hundred thousand men in the army and navy : the ex- ports, imports, and tonnage, of the kingdom, had more than doubled since the war began ; and although the public debt had grown to an enormous amount, agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, had gone on increasing, during the whole struggle, in an unparalleled ratio. 5. It was confidently anticipated, not only by the ardent and en- thusiastic, but also by the prudent and sagacious, that when the enormous expenses of the war establishment should be removed, and 508 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT II peace had thrown open the ports of all Europe to the enterprise of British merchants, the tide of national prosperity would rise still higher and higher ; but never were hopes more cruelly disappointed. Exports, to an enormous amount, being suddenly thrown into countries impoverished by war, glutted the foreign market ; and the consign- ments, in most instances, were sold for little more than half their original cost spreading ruin throughout the commercial interests. Moreover, the opening of the European and American ports for the the supplies of grain, glutted the home market of England ; and prices of every species of agricultural produce soon fell to two-thirds of what they had been during the closing scenes of the war : a season of unusual scarcity, in 1816, threatening a famine, increased the general distress, which, like a pall of gloom, enshrouded the whole kingdom. 6. Other causes, in addition to those originating in the mere transition from a state of war to one of peace, doubtless contributed to the general revulsion in business, among which may be mentioned, as the most prominent, the greatly diminished supply of the precious metals from South America,* owing to the unsettled state of that country then occupied with revolutionary wars, and the rapid con- traction of the paper currency of Great Britain, in anticipation of a speedy return to specie payments. But the English Radical or Re- publican party attributed the difficulties to excessive taxation and the measures of a corrupt government ; and a vehement outcry was raised for parliamentary reform, and retrenchment in all branches of public expenditure. 7. The English government, wiser than the continental powers, has ever had the prudence to make seasonable concessions to reasonable popular demands, before the spark of discontent has been blown into the blaze of revolution ; and now, after a spirited contest, a heavy property tax, that had been patiently submitted to as a necessary war measure, was repealed, amid the universal transports of the people : the remission of other taxes followed, and, in one year, a reduction of thirty-five million pounds sterling was made from the national expenditure, although strongly opposed by the ministry. Still the distress continued ; the popular feeling against the govern- ment increased ; numerous secret political societies were organized amo^ng the disaffected ; and early in the following year ( 1 8 1 7) a com- a. From 1815 to 1810 the amount of gold and silver coin produced from the mines of South America fell from about seven million pounds sterling to five and a half million pounds. CHAP.VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 509 mittee of parliament reported that an extensive conspiracy existed, chiefly in the great towns and manufacturing districts, for the over- throw of the monarchy, and the establishment of a republic in its stead. 8. In consequence of the information, greatly exaggerated, which had been communicated to the committee, ministers were enabled to carry through parliament bills for suspending the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, and for suppressing tumultuous meetings, de- bating societies, and all unlawful organizations. Armed with ex- tensive powers, government took the most active measures for putting a stop to the threatened insurrection : a few mobs were suppressed ; many persons were arrested on a charge of high treason ; and several were convicted, and suffered death. In 1819 a large and peaceable meeting at Manchester, 1 assembled to discuss the question of parlia- mentary reforms, was charged by the military, and many lives in- humanly sacrificed ; but all attempts in parliament for an inquiry into the conduct of the Manchester magistrates, under whose orders the military had acted, were defeated. Although the people still justly complained of grievous burdens of taxation, and unequal rep- resentation in parliament, those evils were not so oppressive as to in- duce them to incur the hazards of revolution ; and government, having yielded to the point where danger was past, was sufficiently strong to carry all its important measures. 9. An event of general interest that occurred soon after the close of the European war was the merited chastisement of the piratical State of Algiers. During a long period the Barbary 3 powers had carried on a piratical warfare against those nations that were not suf- ficiently powerful to prevent or punish their depredations. From the year 1795 to 1812 the United States of America had preserved peace with Algiers by the payment of an annual tribute ; but in the latter year the Dey, believing that the war with England would render the Americans unable to protect their commerce in the Mediterranean, commenced a piractical warfare against all American vessels that fell in the way of his cruisers. In the month of June 1815, an Ameri- can squadron, under the command of Commodore Decatur, being sent 1. Manchester, the great centre of the cotton manufacture of Great Britain, and the greatest manufacturing town in the world, is situated on the Irwell, an affluent of the Mersey, thirty-one miles east from Liverpool. (Map No. XVI.) 2. Barbary is the name that has been usually given, in modern times, to that portion of northern Africa bordering on the Mediterranean, and lying between the western frontier of Egypt and the Atlantic. The name Barbary is derived from that of its ancient inhabitants, the Berbers. 510 MODERN HISTORY. [PAST IL to the Mediterranean, after capturing several Algerine vessels, com- pelled Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, to releasfe all American prisoners in their possession, pay large sums of money, and relinquish all future claims to tribute from the United States. 1 0. In the following year, the continued piracies of the Algerines upon some of the smaller European States that claimed the protec tion of England, induced the British government to send out a pow- erful squadron, with directions to obtain from the Dey unqualified abolition of Christian slavery, or, in case of refusal, to destroy, if possible, the nest of pirates whose tolerance had so long been a dis- grace to Christendom. On the 27th of August the British fleet, commanded by Lord Exinouth, appeared before Algiers, whose for- tifications, admirably constructed, and of the hardest stone, were de- fended by nearly five hundred cannon and forty thousand men. No answer being returned to the demands of the British government, the attack was commenced in the afternoon of the same day ; and although the defence was most spirited, by ten in the evening all the fortifications that defended the approaches by sea were totally ruined, while the shot and shells had carried destruction and death throughout the city. On the following morning the Dey submitted, agreeing to abolish Christian slavery forever, and immediately re- storing twelve hundred captives to their country and friends. The total number liberated at Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, was more than three thousand. 11. The humiliation of the piratical Barbary powers by the Ameri- cans in 1815, and the battle of Algiers in the following year, were events highly important to the general interests of humanity, not only from their immediate results, but as the beginning of the de- cisive ascendency of the Christian over the Mohammedan world. Former triumphs of the cross over the crescent had averted subju- gation from Christendom, or had been obliterated by subsequent dis- asters ; but since the battle of Algiers, the followers of the prophet have seen, and mournfully submitted to, their destiny ; Algiers has since become a province of a Christian State ; and the Ottoman em- pire is only saved from dissolution by the jealousies of its Christian neighbors. 12. The situation of France at the time of tho second restoration of Louis XVIII., with a vast ftrci^n army quartered HI. FRANCE. upon her people, an empty treasury, and an unsettled government, was gloomy in the extreme. With a vacillation peculiar L] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 511 to the French people, public opinion had already turned against the Bonapartists and the Republicans, who were regarded as the authors of all the evils under which the nation suffered ; and the king soon found himself seriously embarrassed by the ardor of his own friends. Punishment of the Revolutionists, and a restoration of the powers and privileges of the nobility and the clergy, were violently demand- ed by the Royalists; but, fortunately, the extreme danger of any violent reactionary movement was too manifest to permit the king to intrust the government to the ultraists of his own party. 13. Had it not been for the presence of a large foreign army, France might again have been doomed to the horrors of civil war : as it was, the party feuds of centuries between the Roman Catholics and Protestants, revived by the imbittered feelings of the moment, broke forth anew in the south of France : the Royalists demanded vengeance against the Republicans ; and political zeal combined with religious enthusiasm to arouse the worst passions of the people, and incited to numerous massacres, which recalled the memory of the bloodiest period of the Revolution. Although the king denounced these atrocities, and called upon the magistrates to bring the guilty parties to justice, the latter were screened from arrest, or, if taken, were acquitted in face of the clearest evidence of their guilt. 1 4. The Chamber of Deputies, at its first meeting, in the autumn of 1815, urgently demanded of the king that those "who had im- perilled alike the throne and the nation should be delivered over to the just severity of the tribunals :" stringent laws were passed punish- ing seditious words ; courts martial were established for trying politi- cal offences; and when the king, after the execution of Ney, La- bedoyere, and a few others, proposed a general amnesty, the chamber had prepared, and demanded the proscription of, a list of twelve hun- dred additional victims ; and in order to secure the amnesty the king was compelled, against his inclination for moderate measures, to assent to an amendment providing for the perpetual banishment of all those who had voted for the death of his brother, the unfortunate Louis XVI. France presented the singular spectacle of an ascendant Roy- alist party arrayed in opposition to the king, who, in order to check their undue zeal, was compelled to ally himself with the Republi- cans, the natural enemies of his cause. 15. Although the ultra Royalists controlled the action of the leg- islature, there was still a powerful party of ultra Revolutionists among the people ; and it was the policy of the king and his ministry 512 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL to guard against the danger of the ascendency of either, by conform- ing to the general principles which the Revolution had impressed upon the nation. As the legislative body continually thwarted the government, it was determined to alter the composition of the repre- sentatives by a coup d'etat, or arbitrary ordinance of the king ; and accordingly, on the 5th of September, 1816, a royal ordinance was published, which dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, arbitrarily di- minished the number of representatives, and secured the election of a majority of those who were attached to the measures of the minis- terial party. 16. The royal ordinance of September, although conferring the right of suffrage upon only one hundred thousand out of thirty mil- lions of the population of France, was far more democratic than ac- corded with the wishes of the Royalists, who feared that the new representatives, chosen mostly from the middle classes of landed pro- prietors, would incline towards a republican form of government, under which they might most effectually secure their own rights, and divide among themselves the honors and emoluments of office. a And such, indeed, was the result. . The electoral law proclaimed by the king, and the subsequent creation* 3 of a large body of peers taken from the Liberals and Bonapartists, soon placed the control of govern- ment in the hands of the democratic party, which was naturally an- tagonistic to the power which had given it influence ; but the Royal- ists, who at the restoration had seemed the ruling party, were unwilling to resign the control of the government ; and the struggle continued to increase in violence between them and the Liberals, until it finally resulted in the Revolution of 1830, and the overthrow of the mon- archy. IL REVOLUTIONS IN SPAIN, PORTUGAL, NAPLES, PIEDMONT, GREECE, FRANCE, BELGIUM, AND POLAND: 18201831. I. SPAIN. 1. During the period of general peace, from 1815 to 1820, Spain, under the rule of the restored Ferdinand, was in a state of constant political agitation; and in 1820 an insurrection of the soldiery compelled the king to restore to his subjects the free and almost republican constitution of 1812. The Republicans, however, a. By the ordinance of Sept. 5th, 1816, the right of suffrage was established on the basis of the payment of three hundred francs direct taxes to the government, b. March 5th, 1819. CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 513 who thus obtained the direction of the government, showed little wisdom or moderation ; and a large party, directed by the monks and friars, and supported by the lower ranks of the populace, was formed for the restoration of the monarchy. Several of the European powers, in a congress held at Verona, adopted a resolution to sup- port the authority of the king in opposition to the constitution which he had granted ; but England stood aloof, and to France was in- trusted the execution of the odious measure of suppressing democratic principles in Spain. 2. Accordingly, early in the year 1 823, a French army of a hun- dred thousand men, under the command of the Duke d'Angouleme, entered Spain : the patriots made but a feeble resistance, and the king was soon restored to absolute authority, on the ruins of the con- stitution. The remainder of the reign of Ferdinand, who died in 1833, was characterized by the complete suppression of all liberal principles in politics and religion, and the revival of the ancient abuses which had so long disgraced the Spanish monarchy. England and the United States severely censured the interference of France in the domestic affairs of the Spanish nation, and showed their sym- pathy with the cause of the oppressed by recognizing, at as early a period as possible, the independence of the Spanish South American republics, which had recently renounced their allegiance to Spain. II. PORTUGAL. 1. The adjoining kingdom of Portugal was a prey to similar commotions. The emigration of the king and court to Brazil during the peninsular war, has already been mentioned, (p. 488.) The nation being dissatisfied with the continued residence of the court in Brazil, which in fact made Portugal a dependency of the latter, and desiring some fundamental changes in the frame of government, at length in August 1820 a revolution broke out, and a free constitution was soon after established, having for its basis the abolition of privileges, the legal equality of all classes, the freedom of the press, and the formation of a representative body in the na- tional legislature. This constitution, being violently opposed by the clergy and privileged classes, who formed what was called the apos- tolical party, at the head of whom was Don Miguel, the king's younger son, was suppressed in 1823, and a state of anarchy con- tinued until the death of the king in 1826, when the crown fell to Don Pedro, emperor of Brazil. 2. Don Pedro, however, resigned his right in favor of his infant daughter Donna Maria, at the same time granting to Portugal a 33 514 MODERN HISTORY. [PAKT II constitutional charter, and appointing his brother Don Miguel regent. Although the latter took an oath of fidelity to the charter, he soon began openly to aspire to the throne, and by means of an artful priesthood caused himself, in 1829, to be proclaimed sovereign of Portugal, while the charter was denounced as inconsistent with the purity of the Roman faith. The friends of the charter, aided by Don Pedro, who repaired to Europe to assert the rights of his daughter, organized a resistance, and after a sanguinary struggle, during which they were once driven into exile, they obtained the promise of support from France, Spain, and England, who in 1834 entered into a convention to expel the younger brother from the Por- tuguese territories. Soon after, Don Miguel gave up his pretensions, and the young queen was placed upon the throne, since which time the country has remained comparatively tranquil. III. NAPLES. 1. The kingdom of Naples, embracing Sicily and southern Italy, nearly identical with the Magna G-raecia of antiquity, had been erected into an independent monarchy in 1734, under the Infante Don Carlos of Spain, who took the name of Charles III. It continued under a succession of tyrannical or imbecile rulers of the Bourbon dynasty till 1 798 : the Italian portion of the kingdom was then overrun by the French, who held it from 1803 till 1815, when it reverted to its former sovereign Ferdinand, who, during the French rule, had maintained his court in the Sicilian part of his kingdom. 2. Under the rule of Ferdinand, popular education was wholly neglected ; the roads, bridges, and other public works which the French had either planned or executed, were left unfinished, or fell into decay ; and yet the people were oppressively taxed, and a repre- sentative government was denied them. At length, on the 2d of July, 1820, the growing discontents of the people broke out in open insurrection, and a remonstrance was sent to the government de- manding a representative constitution. One based on the Spanish constitution of 1812 was immediately granted, and the Neapolitan parliament was opened on the 1st of October following; but on the same month a convention of the three crowned heads who formed the Holy Alliance, attended by ministers from most of the other Eu- ropean powers, met at Troppau; 1 and it was there resolved by the 1. Troppau, the capital of Austrian Silesia, is situated on the Oppa, a tributary of the Oder, thirty-seven miles north-east from Olmutz. From 20th October to 20th November, 1820, it was the place of meeting of the diplomatic congress, which afterwards removed to Laybach. (Map No. XVII,) CHAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 515 sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to put down the Neapoli- tan constitution by force of arms. 3. France approved the measure, but the British cabinet remained neutral. The old king Ferdinand, wno had been invited to visit the sovereigns at Laybach, 1 was easily convinced that his promises had been extorted, and therefore were not binding ; and Austrian troops immediately prepared to execute the resolutions of the congress, ile the aid of a Russian army was promised, if necessary. An Austrian force of forty-three thousand men entered the Neapolitan territory, heralded by a proclamation from Ferdinand, calling his subjects to receive the invaders as friends. A few slight skirmishes took place, but the country was quickly overrun; foreign troops gar- risoned the fortresses ; the king's promise of complete amnesty was forgotten ; and courts martial and executions closed the brief drama of the Neapolitan Revolution. IV. PIEDMONT. 1. Piedmont is the principal province of the Sar- dinian monarchy ; 2 and the latter, first recognized as a separate king dom by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, comprises the whole of north- ern Italy west of the Tessino, 3 together with the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. The Piedinontese, never considering them- selves properly as Italians, had been proud of their annexation to France under the rule of Napoleon ; and on the restoration of the monarchy they were the first of the Sardinian people to exhibit the liberal principles of the French Revolutionists, and to complain of the oppressive exactions imposed upon them by the government. 2. Scarcely had the Neapolitan Revolution been suppressed, when an insurrection, beginning with the military, broke out in Piedmont. On the 10th of March, 1821, several regiments of troops simulta- neously mutinied ; and it is believed that the malcontents were se- cretly favored by Charles Albert, a kinsman of the royal family, who 1. Laybach, the capital of Austrian Illyria, (which latter embraces the duchies of Carinthia and Carniola,) is situated on a navigable stream, a tributary of the Save, fifty-four miles north- east from Trieste. It is celebrated in diplomatic history for the congress held here in 1821. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Sardinia (Kingdom of) embraces the territory of Piedmont, Genoa, and Nice, and the adjacent duchy of Savoy on the west side of the Alps, together with the island of Sardinia. Savoy, which was governed by its own counts as early as the tenth century, was the nucleus of this monarchy. Genoa was annexed to the Sardinian crown at the peace of J815. (Map No. XVII.) 3. The Tessino or Ticino (anciently Ticiuus, see p. 158,) having its sources in Mount St. Gothard, flows southward, and after traversing the Lago Maggiore in its entire length, and forming the boundary between Lombardy and Piedmont, falls into the Po at Pa via. (Map No. XVII.) 516 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. afterwards became king of Sardinia. The seizure of the citadel of Turin, on the 12th, was followed, on the 13th, by the abdication of the king Victor Emanuel, in favor of his absent brother Charles Felix, and the appointment of Prince Albert as regent. While ef- forts were made to organize a government, an Austrian army was assembled in Lombardy to put down the Revolution : the new king repudiated the acts of the regent, who threw himself on the Aus- trians for protection : on the 8th of April the insurgents were over- thrown in battle ; and on the 10th the combined royal and Austrian troops were in possession of the whole country. In Piedmont, as in Naples, Austrian interference, ever exerted on the side of tyranny, suppressed every germ of constitutional freedom. V. THE GREEK REVOLUTION. 1. In the year 1481, Greece, the early and favored seat of art, science, and literature, was conquered by the Turks, after a sanguinary contest of more than forty years. The Venetians, however, were not disposed to allow its new masters quiet possession of the country ; and during the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries it was the theatre of obstinate wars between them and the Turks, which continued till 1718, when the Turks were con- firmed in their conquest by treaty. Although the Turks and Greeks never became one nation, and the relation of conquerors and con- quered never ceased, yet the Turkish rule was quietly submitted to until 1821, when, according to previous ar- rangements, on the 7th of March Alexander Ypsilanti, a Greek, and then a major-general in the Russian army, proclaimed, from Moldavia, the independence of Greece, at the same time assuring his country- men of the aid of Russia in the approaching contest. But the Russian emperor declined intervention ; the Porte took the most rigorous measures against the Greeks, and called upon all Mussulmen to arm against the rebels for the protection of Islamism :' the wildest fanaticism raged in Constantinople, where hundreds of the resident Greeks were remorselessly murdered ; and in Moldavia the bloody struggle was terminated with the annihilation of the patriot army, and the flight of Ypsilanti to Trieste, 2 where the Austrian govern- ment seized and imprisoned him. 1. Islamism, from the Arabic word salama, "to be free, safe, or devoted to God," is the term which the followers of Mahomet apply to their religion. The term " Mohammedism" ia as objectionable as the term " popery." 2. Trieste, a seaport town of Austrian Illyria, is near the north-eastern extremity of the Adriatic, seventy-three miles north-east from Venice. During the middle agea Trieste was the capital of a small republic. (Map No. XVII.) CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 517 2. In southern Greece no cruelties could quench the fire of liberty ; and sixteen days after the proclamation of Ypsilanti the Revolution of the Morea began at Suda, a large village in the northern part of Achaia, where eighty Turks were made prisoners. The revolution rapidly spread over the Morea and the islands of the jiEgean : the ancient names were revived ; and on the 6th of April the Messenian senate, assembled at Kalarnatia, 1 proclaimed that Greece had shaken off the Turkish yoke to save the Christian faith, and restore the ancient character of the country. From that time the Greeks found friends wherever free principles were cherished ; and from England and the United States large contributions of clothing and provisions were forwarded to relieve the sufferings inflicted by the wanton atrocities of the Turks. 3. The rage of the Turks was particularly directed against the Greek clergy, many of whom were murdered, among them the aged patriarchs of Constantinople and Adrianople ; and several hundred of the Greek churches were torn down, while the Christian ambassa dors of neutral powers in vain remonstrated with the Turkish divan. These excesses, and the massacre of those whom the Turks took in arms, showed to the Greeks that the struggle in which they had en- gaged was one of life and death ; and it is not surprising, therefore, that the Greeks often retaliated when the power was in their hands. 4. During the summer months the Turks committed great depre- dations among the Greek towns on the coast of Asia Minor : the in- habitants of the island of Candia, who had taken no part in the insur- rection, were disarmed, and the archbishops, and many of the priests, executed : in Cyprus, where also there had been no appearances of insurrection, the Greeks were disarmed, and their archbishop and other prelates murdered. The most barbarous atrocities were also committed at Rhodes, and other islands of the Grecian Archipelago, where the villages were burned, and the country desolated. But when in August the Greeks captured the strong Turkish fortresses of Monembasia" and Navarino, 8 and in October that of Tripolitza," 1. Kalamatia is near the head of the Messenian Gulf, now called the Gulf of Kalmatia. Its ancient name was Calamte. It is east of the Paraisus river now the Pamitza. (Map No. I.) 2. The fortress of Monembasia is in the vicinity of the ancient Epidaurus, on the eastern coast of Laconia, forty-three miles south-east from Sparta. (Map No. I.) 3. JVaearzno is on the western coast of Messenia, near the ancient Pylus. It stands on the south side of a fine semi-circular bay of the same name, cut off from the sea by the long narrow Island of Sphagia anciently Sphacteria. (Map No. I.) 4. Tripolitza, & town of modern origin, and, under the Turks, the capital of the Morea, la about five miles north of Tegea* in the ancient Arcadia. IU name Tripolitia, " the thro 518 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II they took a terrible revenge upon their enemies ; and in Tripolitza alone eight thousand Turks were put to death. 5. On the 5th and 6th of September the Greek general Ulysses defeated, near the pass of Thermopylae, a large Turkish army which had advanced from Macedonia ; but on the other hand the peninsula of Cassandra 1 was taken by the Turks, when three thousand Greeks were put to the sword ; women and children were carried into slave- ry, and the flourishing peninsula converted into a desert waste. The Athenian Acropolis was garrisoned by the Turks, and the inhabitants of Athens fled to Salamis for safety ; but in general, throughout all southern Greece, the Turks were driven from the country districts, anc( compelled to shut themselves up in the cities. 6. The year 1822 opened with the assembling of the first Greek congress at Epidaurus, 2 the proclaiming of a provisional constitution on the 13th of January, and the issuing, on the 27th, of a manifesto which announced the union of the Greeks under an independent federative government, under the presidency of Alexander Mavrocordato. But the Greeks, long kept in bondage, and unaccustomed to exercise the rights of freemen, were unable at once to establish a wise and firm government : they often quarreled among themselves ; and their captain, or captains, who had exercised an independent authority under the government of the Turks, could seldom be brought to submit to the control of the central govern- ment. The few men of intelligence and liberal views among them, and the few foreign officers who entered their service, had a difficult task to perform ; and all that enabled them to continue the struggle was the wretchedly undisciplined state of the Turkish armies. 7. The principal military events of 1822 were the destruction of Scio 3 by the Turks, the defeat of the Turks in the Morea, the successes of the Greek fire-ships, and the surrender of Napoli di Romania* cities," is supposed to be derived from the circumstance of its having been constructed of the ruins of the three cities Tegca, Mantinea, and Pallantium. (Map No. I.) 1. The peninsula of Cassandra is the same as the ancient Pellene, at the eastern entrance of the Thermaic Gulf, now Gulf of Salonica. (Maps Nos. I. and X.) 2. Epidaurus. See Monembasia. 3. Scio (anciently Chios') is a celebrated and beautiful island, about thirty-two miles in length, near the Lydian coast of Asia Minor. In antiquity, and in modern times down to the dreadful catastrophe of 1822, the island, although for the most part mountainous and rugged, was cul- tivated with the greatest care and assiduity. It was called the "paradise of modern Greece." Scio aspired to the honor of being the native country of the first and greatest of poets, " The blind old man of Chio's rocky isle." 4. Napoli di Romania (the ancient jYauplia, the port of Argos) is situated on a point of land at the head of the Argolic Gulf, or Gulf of Nauplia. (Map No. I,) CHAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 519 to the Greeks. The Greek population of the flourishing and de- fenceless island of Scio had declined every invitation to engage in the Revolution, until a Greek fleet appeared on the coast in March 1822, when the peasants arose in arms against their Turkish masters, attacked the citadel, and put the Turkish garrison to the sword. To punish the Sciots, on the 1 1th of April five thousand of the most bar- barous of the Turkish Asiatic troops were landed on the island, which was given up to indiscriminate pillage and massacre ; and in a few days the paradise of Scio was changed into a scene of desolation. According to the Turkish accounts, twenty thousand individuals were put to the sword, and a still greater number, mostly women and children, sold into slavery. Soon after, one hundred and fifty villages in southern Macedonia experienced the fate of Scio ; and the pacha of Salonica 1 boasted that he had destroyed, in one day, fifteen hun- dred women and children 8. In the meantime the Turks had made extensive preparations to conquer western Greece the ancient Epirus, Acarnauia, and JEtolia, and relieve the Turkish garrisons in the Morea ; but after some suc- cesses they experienced a series of defeats so disastrous, that, during the month of August alone, more than twenty thousand Turks per- ished by the sword. In June, soon after the destruction of Scio, forty-seven Greeks rowed a number of fire-ships into the midst of the fleet of the enemy, and blew up the vessel of the Turkish admiral, with more than two thousand men on board. The admiral himself, mortally wounded, was carried on shore, where he died. On the 10th of November, seventeen daring sailors conducted two fire-ships into the midst of the Turkish fleet off the island of Tenedos, 2 and fastened one of them to the admiral's ship, and the other to that of the second in command. The former narrowly escaped ; the latter blew up with eighteen hundred men on board. Several of the Turkish vessels were wrecked on the Asiatic coast ; others were captured ; and out of a fleet of thirty-five vessels that had sailed for the relief of the 1. Salonica, (anciently Thessalonica, at the head of the Thermaic Gulf in Macedonia,) is now a celebrated city and seaport of European Turkey, at the north-eastern extremity of the Gulf of Salonica. The town was known to Herodotus, Thucydides, and ^Eschines, by the name of Therma, but Cassandra changed its name to that of his wife Thessalonica, the daughter of Philip, and sister of Alexander the Great. In Thessalonica the Apostle Paul made many converts, to whom he adressed the Epistle to the Thessalonians. (Maps Nos. I. and X.) 2. Tenedos is a small but celebrated island of Turkey, in the ^Egean Sea, (Archipelago,) fifteen miles south-west from the mouth of the Dardanelles, and about five miles west from the Asiatic coast. According to Virgil, (^Eneid ii.) it was the place to which the Grecian fleet made the feigned retreat before the sack of Troy. (Map No. III.) 520 MODERN HISTORY. [PABT IL Morea, only eighteen returned, much injured, to the Dardanelles. Finally, to crown the successes of the year, on the 1 2th of December the strong Turkish fortress of Napoli di Romania was carried by assault. 9. During the year 1 823 the war was carried on with results gen- erally favorable to the Greeks. In Thessaly and Epirus there was a suspension of arms : on the 22d of March the Greek fleet gained a victory over an Egyptian flotilla : daring expeditions were made to the coast of Asia Minor : a Turkish army of twenty -five thousand men, that attempted to invade the Morea by way of the Corinthian Isthmus, was repulsed by the brave Suliot leader Marco Botzaris, who fell in the moment of victory ; and the Turks failed in repeated attacks on Missolonghi. 1 In the summer of this year the illustrious poet, Lord Byron, arrived in Greece, and took an active part in aid of Greek independence ; but he died at Missolonghi on the 19th of April following. 10. The Turks commenced the campaign of 1824, while dissensions prevailed among the Greek captains, by seizing Negro - pont, subduing Candia, and reducing the small but strongly-fortified rocky island of Ipsara, in which latter place the heroic Greeks blew up their last fort, after two thousand of the enemy had entered it, and thus perished with their conquerors. The Turk- ish fleet next made an attempt on Samos, but was driven away in terror by the skill and boldness of the Greek fire-ships. A large Egyptian fleet, sent to attack the Morea, was frustrated in all its de- signs, and the campaign terminated gloriously to the Greeks. 1 1. The campaign of 1825 was opened by the landing, in the Morea, of an Egyptian army under Ibrahim Pacha, son of the viceroy of Egypt, whom the sultan had induced to engage in the war. Navarino soon fell into his power ; nor was his course arrested till he had carried desolation as far as Argos. In the meantime Missolonghi was closely besieged by a combined land and naval Turkish force, which, on the 2d of August, after a contest of several days, suffered a disastrous defeat, with the loss of nine thou- sand men. But Missolonghi was again besieged, for the fourth time, the siege being conducted by Ibrahim Pacha alone, who had an army of twenty-five thousand men, trained mostly by French officers. Af- ter repelling numerous assaults, and enduring the extremities of 1. Missolonghi is on the coast of ^Etolia, about ten miles west of the ancient Chalcis, o. I.) CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 521 famine, Missolongki at length fell, on the 22d of April, 1826, when eighteen hundred of the garrison cut their way through the enemy, and readied Salona 1 and Athens in safety. Many of the inhabitants escaped to the mountains ; large numbers were captured in their flight ; and those who remained in the city, about one thousand in number, mostly old men, women and children, blew themselves up in the mines that had been prepared for the purpose. Five thousand women and children were made slaves, and more than ^hree thousand ears were sent as a precious trophy to Constantinople. 12. Ibrahim Pacha was now in possession of a large part of southern Greece, and most of the islands of the Archipelago or ^Egean Sea ; and the foundation of an Egyptian military and slave- holding State seemed to be laid in Europe. This danger, connected with the noble defence and sufferings of Missolonghi, roused the atten- tion of the European governments and people : numerous philanthropic societies were formed to aid the suffering Greeks ; and, finally, on the 6th of July, 1827, a treaty was concluded at London between England, Russia, and France, for the pacification of Greece stipulating that the Greeks should govern themselves, but that they should pay tribute to the Porte. 13. To enforce this treaty, in the summer of 1827 a combined Eng- lish, French, and Russian squadron, sailed to the Grecian Archipel- ago ; but the Turkish sultan haughtily rejected the intervention of the three powers, and the troops of Ibrahim Pacha continued their devastations in the Morea. On the 20th of October the allied squad- ron entered the harbor of Navarino, where the Turkish-Egyptian fleet lay at anchor ; and a sanguinary battle followed, in which the allies nearly destroyed the fleet of the enemy. The Porte, enraged by the result, detained the French ships at Constantinople, stopped all com- munication with the allied powers, and prepared for war. 14. In the following year the French cabinet, in connection with England, sent an army to the Morea : Russia declared war for vio- lations of treaties, and depredations upon her commerce : ~*1 f H/T T> C 1 J J Vm ' 1828 ' and on the 7th of May a Russian army or one hundred and fifteen thousand men, under command of Count Wittgenstein, crossed the Pruth, 3 and by the second of July had taken seven for .L Salona is the same aa the ancient Amphissa, in Locris. See Jlmphissa, p. 96. ( Map No 1.) 2. .The river Pruth, forming the boundary between the Russian province of Bessarabia and the Turkish province of Moldavia, enters the Danube about sixty miles from its mouth. (JKapi Nos. X. and XVII.) rf22 MODERN HISTORY. [PAET II. tresses from the Turks. In August a convention was concluded with Ibrahim Pacha, who agreed to evacuate the Morea with his troops, and set his Greek prisoners at liberty. In the meantime the Greeks continued the war, drove the Turks from the country north of the Corinthian Gulf, and, towards the close of the year, fitted out a great number of privateers to prey upon the commerce of the Turks in the Mediterranean. In consequence of these measures the sultan banished from Constantinople all the Greeks and Armenians not born in the city, amounting to more than twenty-live thousand persons. 15. In the month of January, 1829, the sultan received a protocol from the three allied powers, declaring that they took the Morea and the Cyc' lades 1 under their protection, and that the entry of any military force into Greece would be regarded as an attack upon themselves. The danger of open war with France and England, together with the successes and alarming advance of the Russians, now commanded by Marshal Diebitsch, who, by the close of July, had crossed the Balkan 2 mountains and reached the Black Sea, and on the 20th of August, took Adrianople, within one hundred and thirty miles of the Turkish capital, induced the sultan to listen to overtures of peace. On the 14th of September the peace of Adrianople was signed by Turkey and Russia, by which the sultan recognized the independence of Greece, granted to Russia considerable commercial advantages, and guaranteed to pay the ex- penses of the Russian war. 16. The provisional government of Greece, which had been or- ganized during the Revolution, was agitated by discontents and jeal- ousies ; for some time the country remained in an unsettled condition, and the president, Count Capo d'Istria, was assassinated in October 1831. The allied powers, having previously determined to erect Greece into a monarchy, first offered the crown to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, (since king of Belgium,) who declined it on account of the unwillingness of the Greeks to receive him, and their dissatis- faction with the boundaries prescribed by the allied powers. Finally, 1. The Cyc' lades is a name given by the ancient Greeks to that large cluster of islands in the ^Egean Sea lying east of southern Greece. {Map No. III.) 2. The Balkan mountains are the same as the ancient Hamus, which formed the northern boundary of Thrace, separating it from Maesia. (See Map No. IX.) The Balkan range extends from the Black Sea, westward a distance of about two hundred and fifty miles, dividing the Turkish provinces of IJulgaria ,and Roumelia, and the waters that flow into the Danube oil the north from those that flow into the Maritza on the south. (Map No. X.) . VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 523 the crown was conferred on Otho, a Bavarian prince, who arrived at Nauplia in 1833. VI. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1830. 1. On the death of Louis XVIII., in 1824, the crown of France fell to his brother Charles X,, who commenced his reign by a declaration of his intentions of con- firming the constitutional charter that had been granted the French people at the time of the first restoration. But the new king, bit- terly opposed to the principles of the Revelation, and governed by the counsels of bigoted priests, labored to build up an absolute mon- archy, with a privileged nobility and clergy for its support ; while, on the other hand, the people, persuaded that a plot was formed to deprive them of their constitutional privileges, talked of open resist- ance to the arbitrary demands of the court. A ministry, which the popular party had forced upon the king, was suddenly dismissed, and in August, 1829, an ultra-royalist ministry was appointed, at the head of which was Prince Polignac, one of the old royalists, and an early adherent of the Bourbons. 2. At the opening of the Chambers in March 1 830, the speech from the throne plainly announced the determination of the king to overcome, by force, any obstacles that might be interposed in the way of his government, concluding with a threat of resuming the concessions made by the charter. As soon as this speech was made public the funds fell ; the ministers had a decided majority opposed to them in the Chamber of Deputies, and a spirited reply was returned, declaring that " a concurrence did not exist between the views of the government and the wishes of the people ; that the administration was actuated by a distrust of the nation ; and that the nation, on the other hand, was agitated with apprehensions which threatened its prosperity and repose." The king then prorogued the chambers, and on the 17th of May a royal ordinance declared them dissolved, and ordered new elections, measures that produced the greatest ex- citement throughout France. 3. In the meantime the king and his ministers, hoping to facilitate their projects, and overcome their unpopularity by gratifying the taste of the French people for military glory, declared war against Algiers, the Dey having refused to pay long-standing claims of French citizens, and having insulted the honor of France by striking the French consul when the latter was paying him a visit of ceremony. A fleet of ninety-seven vessels, carrying more than forty thousand soldiers, embarked at Toulon on the 10th of May, on the 14th of 524 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL June effected a landing on the African coast, and on the 5th of July compelled Algiers to capitulate, after a feeble resistance. The Dey was allowed to retire unmolested to Italy ; and his vast treasures fell into the hands of the conquerors. 4. The success of the French arms in Africa occasioned great ex- ultation in France, but did nothing towards allaying the excited state of public feeling against a detested ministry. The elections, ordered to be held in June and the early part of July, resulted in a large in- crease of opposition members ; and the ministerial party was left in a miserable minority. The infatuated ministry, however, instead of withdrawing, madly resolved to set the voice of the nation at defiance, and even to subvert the constitutional privileges granted by the charter. They therefore induced the king to publish, on the morn- ing of the 26th of July, three royal ordinances, the first dissolving the newly-elected Chamber of Deputies the second changing the law of elections, sweeping off three-fourths of the former constituency, and nearly extinguishing the representative system and the third, suspending the liberty of the press. In the ministerial report, pub- lished at the same time with these ordinances, the ministers argue, in favor of the latter measure, that " At all epochs, the periodical press has only been, and from its nature must ever be, an instrument of disorder and sedition" ! 5. In defiance of these ordinances the conductors of the liberal journals determined to publish their papers ; and on the evening of the same day, the 26th, they published an address to their country- men, declaring tha^ " the government had stripped itself of the charac- ter of law, and was no longer entitled to their obedience," language that would probably have exposed them to the penalties of treason if the contest had terminated differently. It was late in the day be- fore intelligence of the arbitrary measures of government was gen- erally circulated through Paris : then crowds began to assemble in the streets : cries of " down with the ministry," and " the charter forever," were heard : the fearless harangued the people ; and during the night the lamps in several of the streets were demolished, and the windows of the hotel of Polignac broken. So little had the king anticipated any popular outbreak, that he passed the day of the 26th in the amusements of the chase ; and it appears that the infatu- ated ministry had not even dreamed of a Revolution as the conse- quence of their obnoxious measures. , 6. On the morning of the 27th several of the journalists printed CHAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 525 and distributed their papers ; but their doors were soon closed, and their presses broken by the police. This morning the king appointed Marshal Marmont commander-in-chief of the forces in Paris ; but it was not till four in the afternoon that orders were given to put the troops under arms, when they were marched to different stations, to aid the police, and overawe the people. The latter then be- gan to arm : some skirmishing occurred with the troops : during the night the lamps throughout the city were demolished ; and, under the cover of darkness, many of the streets were barricaded with paving-stones torn up for the purpose. At the close of the day Mar- mont had informed the king that tranquillity was restored ; and therefore no additional troops were sent for ; nor were the great depots of arms and ammunition guarded. 7. At an early hour on the morning of the 28th, armed multitudes appeared in the steets ; and numbers of the National Guard, which the king had previously disbanded, appeared in their uniform among the throng, and with them the famous tri-colored flag, so dear to the hearts of all Frenchmen. To the surprise of Marmont, the king, and the ministry, the riot, which, on the previous evening, they had thought suppressed, had assumed the formidable aspect of a Revolu- tion. By nine o'clock the flag of the people waved on the pinnacles of Notre Dame, and at eleven it surmounted the central tower of the Hotel de Ville, which was afterwards, however, retaken by the royal troops. Marmont showed great indecision in his move- ments : his columns were everywhere assailed with musketry from the barricades, from the windows of houses, from the corners of the streets, and from the narrow alleys and passages which abound in Paris ; and paving-stones and other missiles were showered upon them from the house-tops. The royal guards were disheartened : the troops of the line showed great reluctance to fire upon the citi- zens ; and the 28th closed with the withdrawal of the royal forces from every position in which they had attempted to establish them- selves during the day. 8. The contest was renewed early on the morning of the third daj, when several distinguished military characters appeared as leaders of the people, and among them General Lafayette, who took command of the National Guard ; but while the issue was yet doubtful, several regiments of the line went over to the insurgents, who, thus strength- ened and encouraged, rushed upon the Louvre and the Tuilleries, and speedily overcame the troops stationed there. So suddden was 526 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II the assault that Marmont himself with difficulty escaped, leaving be- hind him more than twenty thousand dollars of the public funds. About half past three P. M. the last of the -military posts in Paris surrendered ; the royal troops who escaped having in the meantime retreated to St. Cloud, where were the king and ministry, now in con- sternation for their own safety. The Revolution was speedily com- pleted by the installation of a provisional government : on the 31st Louis Phillippe, Duke of Orleans, 51 the most popular of the royal family, accepted the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom : when the Chambers met he was elected to the throne ; and on the 9th of August took the oath to support the constitutional charter. 9. The results of the revolutionary movement in France, and the overthrow of the elder branch of the Bourbons, in defiance of the guarantees of the congress of Vienna, spread alarm among the sov- ereigns of continental Europe ; and the emperor of Russia went so far as not only to hesitate about acknowledging the title of the citi- zen king of France, but, as is believed, was preparing to support the claims of the exiled Charles X., when the popular triumph in Eng- land, in the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, by converting a former ally into an enemy, raised up obstacles that arrested his measures. Charles X., after having abdicated the throne, was per- mitted to retire unmolested from France ; but his ministers, attempt- ing to escape, were arrested, and afterwards brought to trial, when three of them, including Polignac, were declared guilty of treason, and sentenced to imprisonment for life. At the end of six years they were released from confinement, indignation towards them having given place to pity. VII. BELGIUM. 1. The French Revolution of 1830 produced a powerful sensation throughout Europe, and aroused an insurrection- ary spirit wherever the people complained of real or fancied wrongs, while the continental sovereigns, on the other hand, alarmed for the safety of their thrones, looked with jealousy on every political move- ment that originated with the people, and prepared to suppress, by military force, the incipient efforts of rebellion. The Belgians, who had been compelled by the congress of Vienna to unite with the Hol- landers in forming the kingdom of the Netherlands, having long been goaded by unjust laws, and treated rather as vassals, than as subjects, a. Louis Phillippe, Duke of Valois at his birth, Duke of Chartres on the death of his grand- father iu 1785, and Duke of Orleans on the death of his father in 1794, was the son of Louis Phillippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans, better known under his Revolutionary title of Philip Egalite. . VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 527 of the Dutch king, judging the period favorable for dissolving their union with a people foreign to them in language, manners, and in- terests, arose in insurrection at Brussels, in the latter part of August, and, after a contest of four days' duration, drove the Dutch authori- ties and garrison from the city. 2. In vain were efforts made by the Prince of Orange to reconcile the conflicting demands of the Dutch and the Belgians, and again unite the two people under one government. The proposals of the prince were disavowed by his father the king of Holland, and equally rejected by the Belgians ; and on the 4th of October the latter made a formal declaration of their independence. Soon after, the representa- tives of the five great powers, France, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Mid Austria, assembled at London, agreed to a protocol in favor of an armistice, and directed that hostilities should cease between the Dutch and Belgians. The Belgians, having decided upon a constitutional monarchy, first offered the crown to the Duke of Nemours, the second son of Louis Phillippe; but the latter de- clined the proffered honor on behalf of his son ; after which the Belgian congress elected Leopold, prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 1 for their king. As the Dutch continued to hold the city of Antwerp, contrary to the determination of the five great powers, a French army of sixty-five thousand men, under Marshal Gerard, entered Bel- gium in November 1832, and, after encountering an obstinate defence, compelled the surrender of the place on the 24th of December. Since her separation from Holland, Belgium has increased rapidly in every industrial pursuit and social improvement. VIII. POLISH REVOLUTION. 1. By the decrees of the congress of Vienna, most of that part of Poland which Napoleon had erected into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and conferred upon his ally the king of Saxony, (see p. 487,) was reestablished as an independent kingdom, to be united to the crown of Russia, but with a separate constitution and administration; and on the 20th of June, 1815, the Russian emperor Alexander was proclaimed king of Poland. The mild character of Alexander had inspired the Poles with hopes that he would protect them in the enjoyment of their liberties ; but his 1. Saxe-Coburg- Ootha is a duchy of central Germany, consisting of the two principalities, Saxe-Coburg, and Gotha ; the former on the south side of the Thuringian forest, and the latter on the north side. Area of the whole, seven hundred and ninety-seven aqunre miles : popula- tion one hundred and forty thousand : chief towns, Coburg, and Gotha. The government is a constitutional monarchy. The house of Saxe-Coburg has intermarried with the principal reigning families of Europe. (Map No. XVII.) 528 MODERN HISTORY. [TAUT IL fine professions soon began to prove delusive : ere long none but Russians held the chief places of government : the article of the constitution establishing liberty of the press was nullified : publicity of debate in the Polish diet was abolished ; and numerous state prosecutions imbittered the feelings of the Poles against their tyrants. 2. On the accession of Nicholas to the throne of Russia, in De- cember 1 825, although the lieutenancy of Poland was intrusted to a Pole, yet the real power was invested in the king's brother, the Archduke Constantine, who held the appointment of commander-in- chief of the army. Constantine proved to be the worst of tyrants a second Sejanus delighting in every species of judicial iniquity and ministerial cruelty. The barbarities of Constantine, sanctioned by Nicholas, revived the old spirit of Polish freedom and nationality; and the successful examples of France and Belgium roused the Poles again to action. Secret societies, organized for the express purpose of securing the liberty of Poland, and uniting again under one gov- ernment those portions that had been torn asunder and despoiled by the rapacity of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, existed not only in Po- land proper and Lithuania, but also in Volhynia 1 and Podolia, and even in the old provinces of the Ukraine, which, it might be sup- posed, had long since lost all recollections of Polish glory. 3. The fear of detection and arrest on the part of some members of one of these societies, led to the first outbreak at Warsaw, on the evening of the 29th of November, 1830. The students of a military school at Warsaw, one hundred and eighty in number, first attempted to seize Constantino at his quarters, two miles from the city ; but during the struggle with his attendants, of whom the Russian general Gendre, a man infamous for his crimes, was killed, the duke escaped to his guards, who, being attacked in a position from which retreat was difficult, lost three hundred of their number, when the students returned to the city, liberated every State prisoner, and were joined by the school of the engineers, and the students of the university. A party entered the only two theatres open, calling out, " Women, home men, to arms !" The arsenal was next forced, and in one hour and a half from the first movement, forty thousand men were in arms. Constantine fell back to the frontier. Chlopicki was first appointed by the provisional government commander-in-chief of the 1. Volhynia is a province of European Prussia, formerly comprised in the kingdom of Poland, lying south of Grodno and Minsk. (Map No. XVII.) CHAP VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 529 army of Poland, and afterwards was made dictator ; but he soon re- signed, and Adam Czartoriski was appointed president. 4. After two months' delay in fruitless attempts to negotiate with the emperor Nicholas, who refused all terms but absolute submission, the inevitable conflict began Russia having already assembled an army of two hundred thousand men under the command of Field Marshal Diebitsch, the hero of the Turkish war, while the Poles had only fifty thousand men equipped for the fight. On the 5th of Feb- ruary, 1831, the Russians crossed the Polish frontier : on the 18th their advanced posts were within ten miles of Warsaw ; and on tho 20th a general action was brought on, which resulted in the Poles retiring in good order from the field of battle. On the 25th forty thousand Poles, under Prince Radzvil, withstood the shock of more than one hundred thousand of the enemy ; and at the close of the day ten thousand of the Russians lay dead on the field, and several thousand prisoners were taken. 5. Skryznecki, being now appointed commander-in-chief of the Polish forces, concerted several night attacks for the evening of the 31st, which resulted in the total rout of twenty thousand Russians, and the capture of a vast quantity of muskets, cannon and ammuni- tion. These successes were so rapidly followed up, that before the end of April the Russians were driven either across the Bug 1 into their own territories, or northward into the Prussian dominions. The conduct of Prussia, in affording the Russians a secure retreat on neutral territory, and furnishing them with abundant supplies, while in all similar cases the Poles were detained as prisoners, destroyed all advantages of Polish valor. Austria, likewise, permitted the Russians to pass over neutral ground to outflank the Poles, but de- tained the latter as prisoners if they once set foot on Austrian terri- tory. Thus Russia and Austria interpreted and enforced the princi- ples of the " Holy Alliance." 6. While the Poles were stationed at Minsk, 3 Skryznecki, uniting all his forces in that vicinity, to the number of twenty thousand, sud- denly crossed the Bug and forced his way to Ostrolenha, 3 a distance 1. The Bug, a large tributary of the Vistula, forms a great part of the eastern boundary of the present Poland. Another river of Ihe same name, running swtth-east through Podolia and Kherson, falls into the estuary of the Dnieper, east of Odessa. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Minsk is a small town of Poland, about twenty-five miles south-east of Warsaw. A large city of the same name is the capital of the Russian province of Minsk, formerly embraced in Poland. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Ostrolenka is a small town sixty-eight miles north-east from Warsaw. (Map No. XVII;) 34 530 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. of eighty miles, where, on the 26th of May, he engaged in battle with sixty thousand Russians. The combat was terrific no quarter was asked, and none was given. The Poles, led by the heroic Gen- eral Bern, lost one-fourth of their number. The loss of the Russians was less in proportion, but they had three generals killed on the field. In the following month, both the Russian comniander-in-chief, Mar- shal Diebitsch, and the Archduke Constantine, died suddenly. About the same time a conspiracy for setting at liberty all the Russian prisoners, thirteen thousand in number, was detected at Warsaw. 7. Dissensions among the Polish chiefs, and the want of an ener- getic government, soon produced their natural consequences of di- vided counsels, and disunited efforts in the field ; and by the 6th of September, during the strife of factions at Warsaw, a Russian arm} of one hundred thousand men, supported by three hundred pieces of cannon, had assembled for the storming of the city. Although de- fended with heroism, after two days' fighting, in which the Russians had twenty thousand slain, and the Poles about half that number, Warsaw surrendered to the Russian general Paskewitch the main body of the Polish army, and the most distinguished citizens, retiring from the city, and afterwards dispersing, when no farther hopes re- mained of serving their ill-fated country. Large numbers crossed the frontiers and went into voluntary exile in other lands : most of the Polish generals, who surrendered under an amnesty, were sent to distant parts of the Russian empire ; and the soldiers, and Polish nobility, were consigned by thousands to the dungeons and mines of Siberia. The subjugation of Poland is complete : her nationality seems extinguished forever. III. ENGLISH REFORMS. FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848. REVO- LUTIONS IN THE GERMAN STATES, PRUSSIA, AND AUS- TRIA. REVOLUTIONS IN ITALY. HUNGARIAN WAR. USURPATION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. I. ENGLISH REFORMS. 1. From the death of George the Third, in 1820, to the death of George the Fourth, in June 1830, England was agitated by a continued struggle between the two great parties which divided the nation the whigs and the tories. Civil disabili- ties of all kinds were loudly objected to, and political abuses denounc- ed with a plainness and force never before known in England. In 1828 the reform party obtained the abolition of the test act, which, though nearly obsolete in point of fact, still imposed nominal disabili- ties on Protestant dissenters ; and in 1 829 the barriers which had CHAP. V1.J NINETEENTH CENTURY. 531 so long excluded Roman Catholics from the legislature were removed. At the time of the accession of William IV., in 1830, a tory ministry, headed by the Duke of Wellington, was in power ; but the decided sentiment of the nation in favor of reform in all the branches of gov- ernment, occasioned its resignation in November of the same year. A whig ministry, pledged for reform, with Earl Grey at its head, then came into power ; and on the first of March of the following year Lord John Russell brought forward in parliament the ministerial plan for reforming the representation of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which, if adopted, would extend the right of suffrage to half a million additional voters, disfranchise fifty-six of the so-called rot- ten or decayed boroughs, and more nearly equalize representation throughout the kingdom. After a long but animated debate the bill passed a second reading in the House of Commons by a majority of only one, but was lost on the third reading, the vote being two hun- dred and ninety-one for the bill, and two hundred and ninety-nine against it. 2. By advice of the ministers, the king hastily dissolved parlia- ment, and ordered new elections 'for the purpose of better ascertain- ing the sense of the people. The elections took place amid great excitement, and the advocates of reform were returned by nearly all the large constituencies. The new parliament was opened on the 14th of June, 1831. The reform bill, being again introduced, passed the commons by a majority of one hundred and thirteen, but was re- jected by the lords, whose numbers remained unchanged, by a ma- jority of forty-one. The rejection of the bill by the lords led to strong manifestations of popular resentment against the nobility : serious riots occurred at Nottingham and Derby; 1 and at Bristol 3 many public buildings, and an immense amount of private property, were destroyed ; ninety persons were killed or wounded ; five of the rioters were afterwards executed, and many were sentenced to trans- portation. 3. On the 12th of December Lord John Russell a third time in- troduced a reform bill, similar to the former two ; and on the 23d of March, 1832, it passed the Commons by a majority of one hundred and sixteen, but was defeated in the House of Lords by a majority 1. Derby is a large town on the Derwent, one hundred and ten miles north-west from London. 2. Bristol is a large and important city and seaport of England, at the confluence of the Avon and the Frome, eight miles from the entrance of the former into Bristol Channel, and one hundred and eight miles west from London. The city extends over six or seven distinct hills and their intermediate valleys, amidst a picturesque and fertile district. (Map No. XVI.) 532 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL of forty. The ministry now advised the king to create a sufficient number of peers to insure the passage of the bill ; and on his refusal to proceed to such extremities, all the members of the cabinet re- signed. Political unions were now formed throughout the country ; the people determined to refuse payment of taxes, and demanded that the ministers should be reinstated. There were no riots, but the people had risen in their collective strength, determined to assert their just rights. The king yielded to the force of public opinion, and Earl Grey and his colleagues were reinstated in office, with the assurance that, if necessary, a sufficient number of new peers should be created to secure the passing of the bill. When the lords were apprized of this fact they withdrew their opposition ; but it is worthy of remark that many of them, and all the bishops, left their seats on the final passage of the bill, which, having been rapidly hurried through both houses, received the royal assent on the 7th of June. 4. The passage of the Reform bill was, to England, a political revolution none the less important because it was bloodless, and carried on under the protection of law. Thereby the electoral franchise, instead of being confined to a varied and limited class in the interest of the aristocracy, was extended, not to the whole citi- zens, as in America, but to a large body comprising the middle classes of society, who were thus, in effect, vested with supreme power in the British empire. An entire change in the foreign policy of the country was the consequence. The French Revolution of 1830 had elevated to power the middle classes of the French people also ; and the ceaseless rivalry of four centuries between France and Eng- land was, for the time, forgotten : the political interests of the two great powers of Western Europe were united ; and the Russian auto- crat, in full march to overturn the throne of the citizen-king, and put down republicanism in France, was arrested on the Vistula, where his arms found ample employment in crushing the last remnants of Polish nationality. As to England herself, none of the many evils arising from democratic ascendency in the government, so often pre- dicted by the aristocratic party, have yet followed in the train of re- form ; but, on the contrary, the peace, power, and prosperity of the country, have increased thereby. 5. The reign of William IV. was terminated on the 19th of June, 1837, when the Princess Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Kent, and grand-daughter of George III., succeeded to the throne, at the age of eighteen years. One effect of the descent of the crown to a OHAP.VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 533 female was the separation from it of Hanover, after a union of more than a century. On the 10th of February, 1840, her majesty was married to Albert, prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a duchy of central Germany. II. FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848. 1. The most important events that distinguished the reign of Louis Phillippe were the abolition of the hereditary rights of the French peerage in October 1831 ; the siege of Antwerp, and its surrender by the Dutch, after a long and vigorous resistance, in 1 832 ; an attempt of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the emperor Napoleon, to excite an insurrec- tion at Strasbourg, in October 1836, for the purpose of overthrowing the government ; the second attempt of Louis Napoleon to excite a revolution in France, by landing at Boulogne in August 1840, and his subsequent condemnation to perpetual imprisonment; and, in December of the same year, the splendid pageant of the restoration of the remains of the emperor Napoleon to France. 2. Louis Phillippe had been selected to fill the throne of France chiefly through the instrumentality of the venerable Lafayette, who, thinking France still unfitted for a republic, preferred for her " a throne surrounded by republican institutions." Placed in this anomalous position, Louis Phillippe, in the vain attempt to concili- ate both monarchists and republicans, had a difficult game to play ; and while he was laboring to consolidate his power, a large and influ- ential party, that he dare not openly denounce, was zealously striving to undermine it. Yet for a time, with an immense revenue, and un- bounded patronage, and the numerous means of political corruption which they placed at his disposal, the government of Louis Phillippe seemed to be steadily acquiring solidity, and by its success in keep- ing down domestic factions, and maintaining friendly relations with foreign powers, acquired a high reputation for wisdom and firmness. 3. Yet amid all this seeming security, the middle and lower classes, disappointed in their expectations as to the results of the Revolution of 1830, were daily growing more and more discontented with the measures and policy of the government ; and it was this all-pervading feeling of discontent, which, without any serious aggressions on the part of government, and without any previous conspiracy on the part of the people, led to the unpremeditated Revolution of February 1848, a revolution which, in its completeness and importance, and the bloodless means by which it was accomplished, is without a par- allel in history. 534 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. 4. During the winter of 1847-8 numerous political reform ban- quets were held throughout France ; and the omission of the king's health from the list of toasts on these occasions was a circumstance that added much to the jealousy with which these displays were re- garded by the government. The leaders of the opposition having announced that reform banquets would be held throughout France on the 22d of February, Washington's birthday ; on the evening preceding the 22d, the administration forbade the intended meeting in Paris, and made extensive military preparations to suppress it if it were attempted, and to crush at once any attempt at insurrection. In the Chamber of Deputies, then in session, this arbitrary measure of government was warmly discussed, when the opposition members, consenting to give up the meeting for the morrow, concurred in the plan of moving an impeachment of ministers, with the expectation of obtaining either a change of cabinet, or a dissolution of the Cham- ber and a new election, which would test the sense of the nation. 5. On the morning of the 22d the opposition papers announced that the banquet would be deferred, when the orders for the troops of the line to occupy the place of the intended meeting were counter^ manded, and picquets only were stationed in a few places ; but no serious disturbance was anticipated, either by the ministry or its op- ponents. The announcement of the opposition journals, however, came too late ; and at noon a large concourse, chiefly of the working classes, had assembled around the church of the Madeline, where the procession was to have been organized. But the multitude ex- hibited no symptoms of disorder, and were dispersed by the munici- pal cavalry without any loss of life. In the evening, however, dis- turbances began : gunsmiths' shops were broken open ; barricades were formed ; lamps extinguished ; the guards were attacked ; the streets were filled with troops ; and appearances indicated a sangui- nary strife on the morrow. 6. At an early hour on Wednesday, February 23d, crowds again appeared in the streets, barricades were erected, and some skirmish- ing ensued, in which a few persons were killed. Numbers of the National Guards also made their appearance, and a portion of them, having declared for reform, sent their colonel to the king, to acquaint his majesty with their wishes. He immediately acceded to their requests, dismissed the Gruizot cabinet, and requested Count Mole to form a new ministry. This measure produced a momentary calm ; but the rioters continued to traverse the streets, often attacking, and CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 535 sometimes disarming, the municipal guards. Between ten and eleven in the evening a crowd, passing the Hotel of Foreign Affairs, was suddenly fired upon by the troops with fatal effect. The people fled in consternation, but their thirst for vengeance was aroused, and the cry, " To arms ! Down with the assassins ! Down with Louis Phil- lippe ! Down with the Bourbons !" resounded throughout Paris. 7. The attempt to establish a Mole administration having failed, the king sent, late at night, for M. Thiers, and intrusted to him the formation of a ministry that should be acceptable to the people ; and on the following morning, the 24th, a proclamation to the citizens of Paris announced that M. Thiers and Odillon Barrot had been ap- pointed ministers that orders had been given the troops to cease firing, and retire to tbeir quarters that the' Chamber would be dis- solved, and an appeal made to the people and that General Lam- oriciere had been appointed commandant of the National Guards. The order to the troops to retire, which occasioned the resignation of their commander, Marshal Bugeaud, after a protest against the measure, was a virtual surrender, on the part of government, of the means of defence ; and the king and royal family soon found them- selves at the mercy of an excited populace. The troops quietly al- lowed themselves to be disarmed by the mob, who then, to the num- ber of twenty thousand, and accompanied by the National Guard, directed their course to the Palace Royal and the Tuilleries, and demanded the abdication of the king. In the course of the day the king signed an abdication in favor of his grandson, the young Count of Paris ; but before this fact was generally known the armed populace broke into the palace, made a bonfire of the royal carriages and furni- ture, and after having carried the throne of the state reception room in triumph through the streets, burned that also. Meanwhile the ex-king and queen escaped to St. Cloud, whence they pursued their way to Versailles, and thence to Dreux, from which latter place they escaped in disguise to England, whither they were followed by M. Guizot, and other members of the late ministry. 8. On the day of the king's abdication the Chamber of Deputies assembled ; but, being overwhelmed by the crowd, the greatest con- fusion prevailed, and amid shouts of " No king ! Long live the Re- public," the members of a provisional government were named, and adopted by popular acclamation. Although a majority of the depu- ties seemed opposed to the establishment of a republic, and it was by no means certain that there, was any great party out of Paris in 536 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II its favor, every attempt to adjourn the question was the signal of re- newed shouts and disorder and amid the turbulent demonstrations of the Parisian populace the French Republic was adopted, and pro- claimed to the nation. Royalty had vanished, almost without a struggle, blown away by the breath of an urban tumult, and the strangest revolution of modern times was consummated. 9. The leading member of the provisional government was M. Lamartine, to whom belongs the renown of saving the country from immediate anarchy. By his noble and fervid eloquence the passions of the mob were calmed ; and by his prompt and judicious measures, among the first of which was the declaration of the abolition of capi- tal punishment for political offences, tranquillity and confidence were at once restored. On the 26th the bank of France was reopened ; the public departments resumed their duties ; and with unparalleled unanimity the army, the clergy, the press, and the people, in the provinces as well as in Paris, immediately gave in their adhesion to the new Republic. 10. The Revolution of February, 1848, was accomplished by the union of the two great sections of the democratic party the Mod- erate and the Red Republicans. The principles advocated by the former were the right of self-government, civil and religious liberty, and universal suffrage. The latter went much farther, and, adopting the leading principles of the Socialists, demanded the establishment of new social relations between capital and labor ; a new distribution of wealth, the elevation of the laboring classes at the expense of the wealthy, labor and food to all, by government regulations, and the working out, on a national scale, of the grand problem of Commun- ism. Believing that it is the duty and in the power of government to remedy most of the many evils of society, the people soon began to manifest the hopes which they expected the Revolution to transform into realities. Deputations from all trades and callings even to shoe-cleaners, waiters, and nursery-maids waited on the provisional government, making known their grievances, and demanding relief, which generally consisted of freedom from taxation, the establish- ment of national workshops, fewer hours of labor, higher wages, and more holidays. 11. Although the Moderate and Red Republicans had united in overthrowing the monarchy, no sooner was tranquillity restored than the animosities of the two sections revived ; and when it was found that the Moderates had control of the provisional government, their CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 537 opponents determined upon its overthrow. On several occasions, during the month of April, the working classes of Paris assembled in mass to make a demonstration of their numbers ; but the fidelity of the National Guard showed that the real physical power of Paris was still in the hands of the provisional government. The elections, held in April, also showed a large majority in favor of the Moderate party ; and on the ballot, in May, for an executive committee of the government, consisting of five members, not one of the avowed lied Republicans was elected ; and Ledru Rollin, the most violent and ultra of the committee, was the lowest on the list. 12. On the 15th of May the National Assembly was surrounded by the populace, led by Barbes, Blanqui, Hubert, and other Com- munist leaders, who, after having driven the deputies from their seats, and assumed the functions of government, proclaimed themselves the national executive committee, and through Barbes, one of their num- ber, declared that a contribution of a % thousand millions of francs should be levied on the rich for the benefit of the poor that a tax of another thousand millions should be raised for the benefit of Po- land that the National Assembly should be dissolved and, finally, that the guillotine should be put in operation against the enemies of the country. But in the meantime the National Guard was called out, the rioters were soon dispersed, their leaders arrested, and the provisional government reinstated. 13. Owing to the fear of another demonstration against the gov- ernment, the full command of all the troops in Paris was given to General Cavaignac, the minister of war ; and all the approaches to the National Assembly, and the different ministries, were strongly guarded. In June, the government, finding the burdens imposed on the public treasury too heavy to be borne, determined to send out of Paris, to the provinces, about twelve thousand of the workmen then unprofitably employed in the national workshops. This was the signal of alarm : disturbances began on the evening of the 22d : on the 23d the most active preparations were made by both parties for the coming contest, and some blood was shed at the barricades erect- ed by the insurgents. At one o'clock on Saturday morning, the 24th, General Cavaignac declared Paris in a state of siege, and the struggle began in earnest. From that hour until four o'clock in the afternoon, when the insurgents were driven from the left bank of the Seine, the musketry and cannonade were incessant, and Paris was a vast battle- field. The fight was renewed at an early hour on Sunday morning, 538 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II and continued during most of the day, and it was not till noon on Monday that the struggle was terminated, by the unconditional sur- render of the last body of the insurgents. The number killed and wounded in this insurrection by far the most terrible that has ever desolated Paris will never be known ; but five thousand is probably not a high estimate. 14. The exertions and success of General Cavaignac in defending the government procured for him a vote of thanks from the Assembly, and the unanimous appointment of temporary chief-executive of the na- tion, with the power of appointing his ministers. Many of the leaders of the insurrection, among them Louis Blanc and Caussidiere, fled from the country : a small number of those taken with arms in their hands were condemned to transportation ; but the great majority, after a short confinement, were set at liberty. The Assembly, in the mean- time, proceeded with its task of constructing the new Constitution, which was adopted on the 4th of November, 1848, by a vote of seven hundred and thirty-nine in its favor, and thirty in opposition. It declared that the French nation had adopted the republican form of government, with one legislative assembly, and that the executive power should be vested in a President, to be elected by universal suffrage, for a term of four years. Its principles were declared to be liberty, equality, and fraternity ; and the basis on which it rested, family, labor, property, and public order. III. REVOLUTIONS IN THE GERMAN STATES, PRUSSIA, AND AUSTRIA. 1. As soon as the first accounts of the French Revolution of the 24th of February, 1848, reached Germany, the whole of that vast country was in a ferment : popular commotions took place in all the large cities ; and the people demanded a political constitution that should give them a share in legislation, establish the liberty of the press, and otherwise secure them their just rights. On the 29th of Feb- ruary deputations from every town in the Grand Duchy of Baden de- manded of the Grand Duke liberty of the press, trial by jury, th right of the people to bear arms, and meet in public, and a more popular representation in the national diet at Frankfort. a On the a. The present confederation of Germany, organized in 1815, embraces nearly forty States, some of very small dimensions, but each possessing an independent government, and only liable to be called on to furnish its proportionate contingent to the army of the Confederation in case of danger. The emperor of Austria, being the sovereign of many territories that were considered fiefs of the German empire, is a member of the Germanic Confederation ; and his minister has the right of presiding in the Confederate Germanic Diet, held at Frankfort. The Austrian German provinces belonging to the Germanic Confederation are the arch-duchy of CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 539 the 2d of March the Duke yielded to their demands, and appointed a ministry from the popular party. 2. Similar demonstrations were made in nearly all the Grerman States. At Cologne, a riot ensued, the town-house was stormed, and the authorities made prisoners. At Munich the people stormed the arsenal, and, having possessed themselves of the arms it contained, forced from the Bavarian king the concessions which he had refused to make. At Hanau, 1 in Hesse Cassel, 3 the Elector yielded only af- ter a severe conflict. Within a week from the revolution in Paris the demands of the people had been acceded to throughout nearly all the south and west of G-ermany. 3. In a popular convention held at Heidelberg 3 on the 5th of March, the necessity of the reforms demanded by the people was insisted upon ; and at the same time the Federal Diet, sitting at Frankfort, invoked the different German States to take the measures necessary for a new constitution of the Diet, providing that the people as well as the rulers should be represented in it. King Frederick William of Prussia, after having in vain resisted a popular revolution in Berlin, unexpectedly to all placed himself, foremost in the ranks of the reform party, with the hope, it is believed, of reuniting the German States in one great empire, and placing himself at its head. The king of Saxony was compelled to grant the requests of his subjects, who had pronounced in favor of reform : the king of Hanover also yielded, but with much reluctance, and only when farther delay would have cost him h/is throne. On the 26th of March, Sleswick and Holstein,* the two southern duchies of Denmark, which had always considered 1. Hanau is a town of fifteen thousand inhabitants in the electorate of Hesse, eleven miles north-east from Frankfort. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Hesse Cassel is an irregularly-shaped State of Germany, consisting of a central territory and several detached portions, the whole lying mostly north of north-western Bavaria. The government is a limited monarchy. Hesse Darmstadt, or the Grand Duchy of Hesse, also a limited monarchy, is divided by Hesse Cassel part of it lying north and part south of the river Mayn. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Heidelberg- is a city of northern Baden, on the south side of the Neckar, forty-eight mik south of Frankfort. (Map Nj>. XVII.) 4. Sieswick and Holstein. See p. 408, and Maps Nos. XIV. and XVII. Austria, the kingdom of Bohemia, with Moravia and Silesia, part of Galicia, the county of Tyrol, and the duchies of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, with the town of Trieste. The other States of the Austrian empire have no connection with the Germanic Confederation. The king of Prussia, in the same manner as the Austrian emperor, is a member of the Confederation. The empires of Austria and Prussia, and the kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and Wirtemburg, have, each, four votes in the German Diet ; and the smallest State, the free city of Hamburg, containing an area of only forty-three square miles, has one vote : the principality of Lichtenstein, with a population of only seven thousand, has also one vote. 540 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. themselves as governed by the king of Denmark in his capacity of a prince of Germany, long dissatisfied with the Danish rule, and irri- tated by the refusal of the king to accede to any of their demands, declared themselves independent of Denmark, and solicited admission into the Germanic Confederation. Being assisted by twenty thousand Prussian and Hanoverian volunteers, they waged a sanguinary war against the Danish king until foreign intervention terminated the contest. 4. For some time there had been much political excitement in those portions of the Austrian empire embracing Galicia, 1 Hungary, and northern Italy ; but down to the period of the French Revolu- tion, in February 1848, the German provinces of the empire had re- mained tranquil. When, however, news of the downfall of Louis Phillippe reached Vienna, a shock was felt which vibrated through- out the whole Austrian empire : the public funds immediately fell thirty per cent. : the people, sympathizing with the Parisians, ex- pressed themselves upon the great subject of reform with a freedom and earnestness altogether foreign to their habits ; and the royal family, panic-stricken by the gathering tempest, were closeted in deep con- sultation. All the royal family and the imperial cabinet, with the exception of the Archduke Louis, uncle of the emperor, and the min- ister Metternich, were in favor of making immediate concessions to the people, as the only means of retaining the provinces, if not of preserving the throne. Metternich tendered his resignation, but was persuaded to retain his post only on condition of being, as hitherto, unobstructed in his administration of the government. 5. At the opening of the Diet of Lower Austria, at Vienna, on the 13th of March, an immense concourse of citizens, headed by the students of the University, marched to the hall of the Assembly, and there presented their petition in favor of a constitutional government, a responsible ministry, freedom of the press, a citizens' guard, trial by jury ; and religious freedom. The crowd increasing, the Arch- duke Albert ordered the people to disperse, but, not being obeyed, commanded the soldiers to fire upon them. Many victims fell, and the greatest excitement was occasioned, which was only partially calmed by an order from the emperor for the military to withdraw. 6. The city guard had in the meantime sided with the people, and 1. Galicia and Lodomeria, now constituting a province of the Austrian empire, and lying north of Hungary, include those territories of Poland which have fallen to Austria in the vari- Otw partitions of that country. (Map No. X VII.) CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 541 opened to them the arsenal. Metternich and the Archduke Albert resigned. On the next day, the 14th, the emperor abolished the censorship of the press, and assented to the formation of a National Guard ; and forty thousand citizens enrolled their names, and were furnished with arms. On the following day, the 15th, all the other demands of the people were complied with, and a promise given that a convention of deputies from each of the provinces should be as- sembled as speedily as possible for the purpose of framing a consti- tution for the empire. This announcement was received with ex- pressions of the greatest joy ; and the supposed dawn of Austrian liberty was celebrated by triumphal processions and illuminations. 7. The first period of the Revolution terminated with the triumph of the people, and was followed by apparently sincere efforts on the part of the government to fulfil its promises and carry out the reforms projected. But serious difficulties intervened. The various races in the empire Germans, Magyars, Slavonians, and Italians were jeal- ous of each other, while their wants and requirements were dissimi- lar ; the people, generally, were unprepared for free institutions ; and the government was undecided to what extent concessions were expe- dient. During the whole of April and May, the mob, guided by the students, who often conducted themselves disgracefully, ruled in Vienna : the liberty of the press degenerated into licentiousness : a shameful literature flooded the city : violations of law and order were frequent : the Reign of Terror commenced ; and finally, on the 18th of May, the emperor, anxious for his personal safety, secretly left Vienna and repaired to Innspruck 1 in the Tyrol. But the with- drawal of the emperor was not what the people wished, and they de- sired him, now that Metternich was removed, to lead them onward in the way of reform. Returning in August he strove in vain to resume the reins of government : the students of the university and the democratic clubs usurped the entire control of the city, and, in the name of democracy, exercised a most cruel and unmitigated des- potism. 8. In the meantime the Bohemians, of Slavic origin, opposed to every measure tending to identify them with the German Confedera- tion, had demanded of the emperor a constitution that should give them a national existence, equivalent, in its relations with the empire, to that enjoyed by the Hungarians. Being refused their demands ; a 1. Innspruck, the chief city of the Tyrcl, is on the river Inn, two hundred and forty milet south-west from Vienna. 542 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL congress of the Slavic nations of the Austrian empire had assembled at Prague early in June, and was discussing the various plans of Slavic regeneration, when a vast assemblage of citizens and students addressed a " Storm Petition" to Prince Windischgratz, the military commander of the city, demanding the withdrawal of the regular troops, and a distribution of arms and ammunition for the use of the people. The petition not being granted, the people rose in open re- volt ; a most fearful and bloody conflict ensued within the city, which was also bombarded from the surrounding heights, and after almost an entire week of fighting, on the 17th the city capitulated. The Slavic congress was broken up ; the bright visions of Bohemian na- tionality vanished ; and subsequently the strong national feelings of the Slavonic population, and their hatred alike of Magyars and Germans, rendered them the chief supporters of the Austrian throne and government. 9. At this time Hungary 1 was striving for a peaceable maintenance of her rights against Austrian encroachments ; and Croatia, 2 which was considered as an integral part of the Hungarian monarchy, en- couraged by Austria, had revolted, and her troops were already on their march towards the Hungarian capital. Austria now openly supported the Croats ; and an order of the emperor, on the 5th of October, for some troops stationed in Vienna to march against Hun- gary, produced another Revolution in the Austrian capital. The people, sympathizing with the Hungarians, opposed the march of the troops : a sanguinary contest followed ; the insurgents triumphed ; the ministry was overthrown ; the minister of war murdered ; and the emperor fled to Olmutz, 3 attended by the troops that remained 1. Hungary, taken in its widest acceptation, includes, besides Hungary proper, Croatia, Slavonia, the military frontier provinces, the Banat, and Transylvania. The Carpathian moun- tains form the boundary of Hungary on the north-east, separating it from Galicia and Lodo- ineria. The greater part of the kingdom consists of two extensive plains ; the plain of Upper Hungary, north of Buda, traversed by the Danube from west to east ; and the great plain of Southern Hungary, south of Buda, watered by the Danube and its tributaries, the Drave, the Save, and the Theiss, with the numerous affluents of the latter. The whole of this lower plain, an exceedingly fertile territory, embracing thirty-six thousand English square miles, is in scarcely a single point more than one hundred feet above the level of the Danube. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Croatia, (Austrian) regarded as forming the maritime portion of Hungary, has Slavonia, Turkish Croatia, and Dalmatia, on the east and south-east, and the Adriatic on the south-west. The Drave separates it from Hungary proper. The Croats are of Slavonic stock, and speak a dialect which has a greater affinity with the Polish than any other language. About the year 1180 Croatia was incorporated with Hungary. (Map No. XVII.) .2. Olmutz, a town of Moravia, and one of the strongest fortresses of the Austrian empire, is on the river March, forty miles north-east of Brunn. Olmutz was taken by the Swedes in the CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 543 faithful to his cause. Fortunately for the emperor, a large and faith- ful army in other parts of the empire enabled him soon to concentrate an overwhelming force around the chief seat of rebellion : Prince Windischgratz from the north, and Jellachich the ban or governor of Croatia from the south, united their forces before Vienna : on the morning of the 28th of October they opened their batteries on the city; and on the 31st, after a great destruction of life and prop- erty, compelled an unconditional surrender. Of sixteen hundred persons arrested under martial law, nine only were punished with death. 10. While these events were occurring at Vienna, a Hungarian army of twenty or thirty thousand men, which had pursued Jellachich to the Austrian frontier, had remained there many days awaiting an invitation from the Viennese to come to their aid. At last, on the 28th of October, the Hungarians took the responsibility of advancing into the Austrian territory : on the 30th and 31st they met the im- perialists, when some skirmishing ensued ; but the fatal blow had already been struck at Vienna, and the Hungarian army recrossed the frontiers. 1 1. The second Revolution of Vienna was a riot, neither national nor liberal in its character, and not participated in by the other parts of the empire ; but its suppression, in connection with the scenes of anarchy which preceded it, produced an unfavorable effect on the cause of freedom throughout the whole of Germany. A re- action had already taken place in the popular mind : peace, under imperial rule, began to be preferred to the unchecked excesses of the mob : the emperor Ferdinand, yearning for repose, resigned his crown in favor of 'his nephew the Archduke Joseph : the government resumed its despotic powers ; and Austria fell back to her old posi- tion. In Prussia, Frederick William, imitating the Austrian empe- ror, and calling the army to his aid, dissolved the assembly which he had called for the purpose of constructing a constitution, and forgot all his promises in favor of reform and constitutional liberty. With Prussia and Austria against them, the smaller German States, di- vided in their counsels, could accomplish nothing ; and the project of German unity was virtually abandoned. IV. REVOLUTIONS IN ITALY. 1. Since the fall of Napoleon, Aus- trian influence has been predominant in Italy. The Congress of Thirty Years' War : it was besieged unsuccessfully by Frederick tin Great in 1758 ; and Lafay- ette was confined there in 1794. (Map No. XVIL) 544 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL Vienna assigned to Austria the whole Milanese and Venetian prov- inces, now included in Austrian Lombardy : at the same time the dependent thrones of Tuscany, Modena, 1 and Parma, 1 were filled by members of the house of Hapsburg; and it was not long before Austria, in her steady adherence to the principles of despotism, had exacted treaties from all the princes of Italy, stipulating that no con- stitution should be granted to their subjects. When, in 1820, the Neapolitans established a constitution, Austria suppressed it by the force of arms, (see p. 516) : in 1821 she interfered in Piedmont; and in 1831 and 1832, in the Papal States 3 also, for the purpose of suppressing all liberal tendencies, whether in the government or the people. 2. The election in June 1846, of Cardinal Mastai, to fill the pon- tifical chair, with the appellation of Pius the Ninth, threatened the subversion of Austrian influence throughout a great part of Italy. The pope, a plain upright man, earnestly desiring to ameliorate the condition of his people, immediately commenced the work of reform ; and the liberal course pursued by him at once revived the spirit of nationality throughout the entire peninsula. Austria, alarmed by these movements, used every means to change the course of the pope ; and on the 19th of July, 1847, the Austrian army entered Ferrara, 4 a northern frontier town of the Papal States. The occupation of Ferrara was the signal for a general rising against the emperor of Austria, not only in Home, but also in Florence, Bologna, 5 Lucca, 8 and Genoa, without regard to their distinct governments. In De- 1. The Duchy of Modena is a State of northern Italy, having Austrian Lombardy on the north, the northern division of the Papal States on the east, Parma on the west, and Tuscany, Lucca, and the Mediterranean, on the south. Modena, the ancient Mutina, is the capital. The government, an absolute monarchy, is possessed by a collateral branch of the House of Austria. 2. The Duchy of Parma adjoins Modena on the west, and has Austrian Lombardy on the north, from which it is separated by the Po. Government, an absolute monarchy. Capital, Parma, thirty-three miles south-west from Mantua. 3. The Papal States', or the " States of the Church," occupying a great part of central, with a portion of northern Italy, have Austrian Italy on the north, from which they are separated by the Po ; Modeua, Tuscany, and the Mediterranean, on the west ; the Neapolitan dominions on the south ; and the Adriatic on the north-east. 4. Ferrara, formerly an independent duchy belonging to the family of Este, and now the most northern city belonging to the pope, is on the west bank of the Volano, five miles south of the Po, and fifty-three miles south-west from Venice. 5. Bologna, the second city in rank in the Papal States, is at the southern verge of the valley of the Po, twenty-five miles s,outh-west from Ferrara. Bologna, which has always assumed the title of " Learned," has given birth to eight popes, nearly two hundred cardinals, and more than one thousand literary and scientific men and artists. 6. Lucca, a duchy of central Italy, and, next to San Marino, the smallest of the Italian States, has the duchy of Modena on the north, and the Mediterranean on the south-west Lucoa, its capital, is eleven miles north-east of Pisa, and thirty-eight west of Florence. CHAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 545 cember the Austrian army was withdrawn ; and the right of the States of Italy, not under Austrian rule, to choose their own forms of government, seemed to be conceded. 3. The Austrian emperor, fearing for the safety of Lombardy, which was already in commotion, increased his forces in that prov- ince, until, in the beginning of March 1848, the different garrisons numbered a hundred thousand men. The proclamation* of a republic in France hastened the crisis in the Austrian portion of Italy, and, by the unexpected tidings of the Revolution in Vienna, the climax was precipitated. On the 18th of March the citizens of Milan arose in insurrection, and after a contest of five days drove the Austrian troops, commanded by Marshal Radetsky, from the city. At the same time the Austrians were driven out of Parma and Pavia ; and nearly all the Venetian territory was in open insurrection. On the 23d of March the king of Sardinia, Charles Albert, issued a procla- mation in favor of Italian nationality, and marched into Lombardy to aid in driving the Austrians beyond the Alps. The Austrian gen- eneral, Radetsky, a skilful and veteran commander, retreated until he could concentrate all his forces, when he returned to meet the Ital- ians, who, gradually overpowered by superior numbers, were soon compelled to retire ; and one by one the Austrians regained possess- ion of all the cities from which they had been driven. After defeat- ing the Sardinian king in several engagements during the latter part of July, on the 5th of August Radetsky was again before Milan : all Lombardy submitted ; an armistice was agreed upon ; and Charles Albert retired to his own dominions. 4. After some attempts of England and France to mediate be- tween the contending parties, the armistice was terminated by Charles Albert on the 20th of March, 1849, on the avowed ground that its terms had been repeatedly violated by the Austrians ; but, in reality, in obedience to the clamors of his people, and as the only chance of saving his crown, and preventing Sardinia from becoming a republic. Sardinia was poorly prepared for the conflict : her forces were badly organized, and her officers incompetent ; while opposed to th^em was one of the most efficient and best-disciplined armies in Europe, under the command of an able and experienced general. At twelve o'clock on the 20th, the moment that the armistice expired, Radetsky entered Piedmont, while the Sardinians were utterly ignorant of his move- ments ; and by the 24th the war was at an end. Charles Albert, defeated in three battles, and rightly judging that more favor would 35 546 MODERN HISTORY. [PART H. be shown his countrymen if the supreme power were in other hands, abdicated in favor of his son Victor Emanuel on the evening of the 23d, and in a few hours left the country bidding adieu not only to his crown, but his kingdom also. Victor Emanuel purchased peace by the payment of fifteen millions of dollars as indemnity for' the ex- penses of the war. 5. While these successes were attending the Austrian arms in Piedmont, an Austrian army was blockading Venice, which on the 22d of March, 1848, had proclaimed the " Republic of Saint Mark." Venice held out until her provisions were exhausted, and an immense amount of property had been destroyed not less than sixty thousand shot and shells having been thrown into the city during the last few days of the siege. In the last days of August 1849, Venice sur- rendered to Marshal Radetsky ; and with the fall of the Republic of Saint Mark, Austria recovered her authority throughout all north- ern Italy. 6. During this period the southern portions of the peninsula were far from enjoying tranquillity. The subjects of Ferdinand, king of Naples 1 and Sicily, had risen early in 1848, and their demands for a constitution were acceded to ; but the promises of the king to the Sicilians were broken, and Sicily revolted from his authority, and elected for her sovereign the Duke of Genoa, the second son of Charles Albert king of Sardinia. A sanguinary war between the Neapolitans and Sicilians followed : Messina, after two days' bom- bardment, fell into the hands of the Neapolitans : the Sicilians were defeated in a desperate battle at Catania ; Syracuse, terror stricken, surrendered without a blow : Palermo, 2 the last stronghold of the islanders, fell after a short struggle ; and Ferdinand of Naples re- sumed his former sway as unlimited monarch of the two Sicilies. 7. From the well-known liberal character of Pius the Ninth, and the manner in which his reign began, it was to be expected that, in the Papal States at least, liberty would find a quiet asylum. For a time prince and people were united in the noble cause of the political regeneration of Italy ; but the people soon outran the pope in the inarch of reform, and began to murmur because he lingered so far behind them. He granted liberty of the press, and its license alarmed him : he placed arms in the hands of the people, but could 1. The Kingdom of Naples, otherwise called the " Kingdom of the two Sicilies," nearly identical with the Magna Grsecia of antiquity, comprises the southern portion of Italy, together with Sicily and the adjacent islands. 2. Palermo : see Panormus, p. 117. CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 547 not control the use of them : he named a council to assist him in the administration of civil affairs, but was dismayed at the cries for a representative assembly that should share in the government of the country. 8. In the summer of 1848 symptoms of reaction began to appear: Pius signified to the Roman Chamber of Deputies that it was asking too much ; and his appointment of Rossi to the post of prime minis- ter exasperated the people, and diminished his own popularity. Rossi's avowed hostility to the democratic movement led to his assassination on the 15th of November, as he was proceeding to open the Chambers ; and eight days later the pope fled from Rome, and took up his residence in Gaeta, 1 in the territory of the king of Naples. On the 9th of February following, a National Assembly, elected by the people, proclaimed that the pope's temporal power was at an end, and that the form of government of the Roman States should be a pure democracy, with the name of" The Roman Republic." 9. Month after month Pius remained at Gaeta, unwilling to de- mand foreign aid to reinstate him in his temporal sovereignty, and hoping that his people, acknowledging their past misconduct, would recall him of their own accord ; but no signs of any change in his favor being exhibited, he at length availed himself of the only re- source left him. The Roman Catholic powers of Austria, Naples, Spain, and France, responded to his appeal for aid : the Austrians entered the Papal States on the north the Neapolitans on the south a body of Spanish troops landed on the coast and, to the shame of republican France, towards the close of April a French army, under the command of General Oudinot, was sent to southern Italy, under the avowed pretence of checking Austrian influence in that quarter, but, in reality, as the sequel proved, to restore papal authority on the ruins of the Roman Republic. 10. The pretended " friendly and disinterested mission" of the French army was resisted with a heroism worthy of the days of the early Roman Republic, and the first attack of the French upon the city of Rome resulted in their defeat ; but the assailants were reenforced, and, after a regular siege and bombardment, on the 30th of June, 1849, Rome surrendered. When the French troops entered the city they were received with silence and coldness on the part of the people ; 1. Oaeta is a strongly-fortified seaport town, forty-one miles north-west from Naples, and eeveuty-two miles south-east from Rome. Cicert was put to death, by order of Antony, in the immediate vicinity of this town. 548 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL the Roman guards could not be induced to pay them the customary salute ; the common laborers refused to engage in removing the bar- ricades from the streets, and the French soldiers were compelled to perform this task themselves. Pius the Ninth returned to Home, stealthily, and in the night, a changed man. Three years of political experience had changed his zeal for reform into the most imbit- tered feelings towards all democratic institutions : political tolerance gave place to the most determined support of absolutism ; and the blessings with which his people once greeted him were changed to curses. V. HUNGARIAN WAR. 1. It has been mentioned that the imme- diate cause of the second Revolution in Vienna, in October 1848, was the order to some Austrian troops stationed in Vienna to march to the aid of the Groats, who had revolted from Hungary. The Hun- garian and Croatian war soon became a war between Hungary and Austria. In order to understand the true character of this important war it will be necessary to explain the previous political connection between the two countries. 2. The Magyars, from whom the present Hungarians are descend- ed, were a numerous and powerful Asiatic tribe, which, after over- running a great part of central Europe, settled in the fertile plains of the Danube and the Theiss, 1 about the close of the ninth century. For a long period the government of the Magyars was an elective monarchy, and in the year 1526 Ferdinand of Austria, of the house of Hapsburg, was elected to the throne of Hungary ; and this was the first connection between the two countries. Seven succeeding Austrian princes of the same house were elected in succession by the Hungarian Diet, until, in the year 1687, the Diet declared the suc- cession to the Hungarian throne hereditary in the house of Hapsburg ; yet the independence of the kingdom was not affected thereby, al- though Hungary, with all its dependent provinces, among which was Croatia, became permanently attached to the Austrian dominions. The same as Bohemia, it acknowledged the Austrian emperor for its monarch ; but Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, were still separate nations, each governed by its own laws. 3. In the year 1790 Leopold the Second, emperor of Austria, yielded to the demands of the Hungarian Diet, and signed a solemn 1. The Theiss, (ancient Tibiscus,) a northern tributary of the Danube, ia a large and navi- gable river of Hungary, flowing south through the great Hungarian plain. The area of its basin is estimated at six thousand square miles. (Map No XVII.) CHAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 549 declaration that " Hungary is a free and independent nation in her entire system of legislation and government," and that " all royal patents not issued in conjunction with the Hungarian Diet, are illegal, null, and void." After the peace of 1815, Francis the Second re- solved to govern Hungary without the aid of a Diet, in violation of the laws which he had sworn to support ; but after a long period of confusion he found it necessary, in 1825, to yield, and again summon the Diet. His attempt to subvert the constitution of Hungary, ter- minated in renewed acknowledgment of the constitutional rights of the Hungarians, and a reiteration of the declaratory act of 1 790. 4. Ferdinand the Fifth, who succeeded his father Francis in 1835, took the usual coronation oath, acknowledging the rights, liberties, and independence of Hungary ; and the project of incorporating Hungary with Austria seemed to be abandoned ; but still the empe- ror, by the exercise of the royal prerogative in making appointments to office, could command a majority in the House of the Magnates, and, by the influence which he could exert in the elections, hoped to secure an ascendency in the House of Deputies. Moreover, the af- fairs of Hungary, instead of being regulated in Hungary by native Hungarians, were managed by a bureau or chancery in Vienna, under the direct supervision and control of the Austrian cabinet. Austrian influence very naturally produced an Austrian party in the country, opposed to which was the great mass of the Hungarians, who took the designation of the Liberal or Patriotic party. 5. At a most opportune moment, just after the first Revolution in Vienna, in March 1 848, when the emperor had conceded to the people of his hereditary States the rights and privileges which they demand- ed, a deputation from Hungary appeared, asking, for their kingdom, the royal assent to a series of acts passed by the Hungarian Diet, providing for its annual meeting, the union of Transylvania and Hungary, the organization of a National Guard, equality of taxation for all classes, religious toleration, freedom of the press, and a re^ sponsible ministry. After some delay these acts received the royal assent, and on the 1 1th of April were confirmed by the emperor per- sonally, in the midst of the Diet assembled at Pesth, 1 the capital of Hungary. These concessions were received with the utmost joy throughout the Hungarian nation. 1. Pesth, which, in conjunction with Buda, is the seat of government of Hungary, ia on the east side of the Danube, immediately opposite Buda, with which it is connected by a bridge of boats. Population about sixty-five thousand. It ia one hundred and thirty-five miles south- east from Vienna. (Map No. XVIL) 550 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II 6. The sudden change from the restraints of a rigid government to the enjoyment of constitutional liberty, exerted, among the masses who had hitherto enjoyed no political privileges, and especially in the provinces dependent upon Hungary, an influence the most adverse to rational freedom. Liberty was construed to mean license : in some places the Jews were plundered and maltreated : officers and jurors who did their duty were sacrificed to the vengeance of the mob : the imbittered feelings and prejudices of race were kindled into all their fury ; and the most horrid atrocities were committed, while the new government, scarcely organized, was too feeble to afford protection to the persons and property of the more peaceful inhabitants. Calls upon the Austrian government for assistance from the Austrian troops in the provinces to suppress this anarchy were unheeded ; and the indifference thus shown to the welfare of Hungary gave rise to the first threats of separation. 7. A more alarming danger to Hungary was the opposition against her in her own provinces, first secretly encouraged, and afterwards openly aided, by the Austrian government. The Hungarian domin- ions embrace a population of about fifteen millions, of whom only six millions are Magyars ; and unfortunately the other eight millions were so jealous of the Magyar ascendency as to be found either cold to the cause of Hungary, or openly joining the Austrian party. First the Croats, a portion of the southern Slavi, or Slavonians, 1 af- ter demanding entire independence of Hungarian rule, and showing a disposition to place themselves in more immediate connection with Austria, also a Slavonic nation, took up arms against Hungary, and rejected all advances towards reconciliation. Notwithstanding the unconstitutionality of their position, the emperor sided in their favor, and sent Austrian armies to their aid. Portions of Slavonia proper joined the Croats ; and the Serbs, 2 or Servians, in eastern Slavonia, distinguishing their revolt by the greatest atrocities, with unrelent- ing fury laid waste the Magyar villages, and massacred the unresist- ing inhabitants. The actual beginning of the war on the part of Hungary was the bombardment, on the 12th of June, 1848, of Car- 1. The Slavonians comprise a numerous family of nations, descendants of the ancient Sar- inatians. The Slavonian language extends throughout the whole of European Russia ; and dialects of it are spoken by the Croats, Servians, and Slavonians proper, and also by the Poles and Bohemians. 2. The Serbs or Servians, who belong to the wide-spread Slavonian stock, are inhabitants of the Turkish province of Servia ; but many of the Serbs are scattered throughout the southern Hungarian provinces. CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 551 lowitz, 1 the metropolis or holy city of the Serbs. The city made a brave defence : the Ottoman Serbs hastened across the frontiers to the assistance of their brethren, and the Magyars were driven back into the fortress of Peterwardein. 2 The whole Servian race in the Banat 8 then rose in rebellion, and the peninsula a at the confluence of the Theiss and the Danube became the theatre of a furious con- flict between the hostile races. Finally, on the 29th of June, the Aus- trian cabinet, throwing off all disguise, announced the intention of Austria to support Croatia openly. It soon appeared, also, that the altered condition of Austria, consequent upon the late triumphs of the imperial arms in Italy, had determined the emperor to revoke the concessions recently made to Hungary. 8. The Hungarian Diet, now convinced that the constitution and independence of Hungary must be defended by force of arms, decreed a levy that should raise the Hungarian army to two hundred thou- sand men. In the meantime Jellachich, the ban, or governor, of Croatia, had advanced unopposed into Hungary, at the head of an Austrian and Croatian army, and had arrived within twenty miles of Pesth, when the eloquence and energy of Kossuth, one of the leaders of the patriot party, collected a considerable body of troops, and on the 29th of September Jellachich was repulsed and the capi- tal saved. The ban fled, and on the 5th of October the rear guard of the Croatian army, ten thousand strong, fell into the hands of the Hungarians. 9. Hitherto both parties, the invaders and invaded, appeared to be acting under the orders of the emperor -king, a kind-hearted man, but of moderate abilities, and unfitted for the trying situation in which he found himself placed. Wearied by the contentions in dif- ferent parts of his empire, desiring the good of all his subjects, but distracted by diverse counsels, and involved, by a series of intrigues, in conflicting engagements, Ferdinand abdicated the throne on the 1. Carlowitz is a town of Slavonia, on the right bank of the Danube, four miles south-east of Peterwardein. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Peterwardein, the capital of the Slavonian military frontier district, and one of the strongest fortresses in the Austrian empire, is on the south bank of the Danube, in eastern Slavonia. It derives its present name from Peter the Hermit, who marshalled here the soldiers of the first crusade. (Map No. XVII.) 3. The Banat, or Hungary-bey ond-the-Theiss, is a large division of south-eastern Hungary, having Transylvania on the east, and Slavonia on the west. (Map No. XVII.) a. " The very spot that was, in 1697, the theatre that witnessed the splendid victories of Eugene of Savoy over the Turks, and which were followed by the peace of Carlowitz, that memorable era in the history of the house of Austria and of Europe." Stiles' 1 Austria, ii. p. 68. See p. 390. 552 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL 2d of December, but a short time after the second Revolution in Vienna, (see p. 542;) and, by a family arrangement, the crown was transferred, not to the next heir, Ferdinand's brother, but to his nephew Francis Joseph. The Hungarian Diet, declaring that Ferdi- nand had no right to lay down the crown of Hungary and transfer it to another that the same was settled by statute on the direct heirs of the house of Hapsburg and, moreover, that Francis Joseph had not taken the requisite oath, in the Hungarian capital, to preserve in- violate the constitution, laws, and liberties, of the Hungarians, de- nied the right of the new emperor to reign over their nation. The Hungarians, however, averse to a war with Austria, attempted nego- tiations for a settlement of all difficulties ; but the Austrian cabinet, desirous of setting aside the constitutional privileges recently grant- ed to Hungary, had resolved upon the unconditional submission of the Hungarians ; and the new emperor yielded himself to the course of policy dictated by his ministers. 10. With the alarming prospect of a desperate conflict with the whole power of the Austrian empire, several of the Hungarian leaders, who had thus far supported all the measures of the movement party, withdrew altogether from the struggle ; but the great mass of the Hungarian people, more than one-half of the high aristocracy, and nearly all the untitled nobility, and both Romanist and Protestant clergy, rallied around Kossuth, and sided with the country. Although the peasantry, whom the constitution had elevated from the condition of serfs to that of freemen, rose en masse, arms and ammunition were wanting, and the regular troops of Hungary were still in Italy, fighting the battles of Austria. Manufactories of powder and arms had to be established ; but they arose as if by magic ; and in every town the anvils rang with the clang of the arms which the artizans forged by night and by day. But, after all possible efforts, the Hun- garian army, at the actual opening of the campaign in December 1848, amounted to only about sixty-five thousand men, which was as nothing compared with the forces which Austria was concentrating for the subjugation of the country. 11. The plan of Prince Windischgratz, Commander-in-chief of the Austrian forces, consisted in invading Hungary from nine points at the same time all the lines of attack tending to a common centre, the capital of the kingdom. The main divisions of the Austrian army, entering Hungary from the north and west, met with but little opposition from the Hungarian general Gorgey, who had the com- CHAP. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 553 mand in that quarter, and on the 5th of January, 1849, both Win- dischgratz and Jellachich entered Pesth without striking a blow. Kossuth and the government retired to Debreczin. 1 in the south- eastern part of the kingdom, leaving a strong garrison, however, in the almost impregnable fortress of Cornorn, 2 while the Hungarian forces gradually concentrated in the valley of the Theiss, from Eperies 8 to the Danube. To protect the rear, General Bern, a Pole, was sent to Bukowina,* at the eastern extremity of Transylvania, at the head of ten thousand men. 12. On the 30th of January the Hungarians lost the strong for- tress of Esseck 6 in Slavonia, which surrendered with about five thou- sand men. About the same time Bern was driven from Bukowina, and, after repeated disasters, from Transylvania also, the Saxons and Wallachs, 8 who form the bulk of the population, having joined the Austrians. The Szeklers, however, a wild, restless, and warlike race of southern Hungary, espousing the side of the Hungarians, placed themselves under the command of Bern, who, thus reenforced, was soon in a condition to resume the offensive. Again he entered Transylvania, at the head of a well-disciplined corps of twenty thou- sand men ; and although ten thousand Russian troops had crossed the frontiers to aid the Austrians, he repeatedly defeated their united forces, took Herrnanstadt 7 after a severe battle, and entered Cron- stadt 8 without opposition. In a few weeks Bern was complete master 1. Debreczin) the great mart for the produce of northern and eastern Hungary, is situated in a flat, sandy, and arid plain, one hundred and fourteen miles east of Pesth. Population forty, five thousand. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Comorn, situated on a point of land formed by the confluence of the Waag and the Dan- ube, is forty-six miles north-east of Buda. The citadel is one of the strongest fortresses iu Europe, and has never been taken. (Map No. XVII.) 3. Eperies is a fortified town of Upper Hungary, on an affluent of the Theiss, one hundred and forty miles north-east of Pesth. 4. Bukowina, ceded by the Turks to Austria in 1774, is now included in Galicia and Lodo- meria. (Map No. XVII.) 5. Esseck, (ancient Mursia,) the capital of Slavonin, is a strongly-fortified town situated on the Drave, thirteen miles from its confluence with the Danube. It is one hundred and thirty- four miles south of Buda. Mursia, founded by the emperor Adrian, in the year 125, became the capital of Lower Pannonia. (Map No. XVII.) 6. The Wallachs properly the inhabitants of the Turco-Russian province of Wallachia, are the descendants of the ancient Dacians. (Pronounced Wol'-laks : Wol-ia'-ke-a.) 7. Hermanstadt, the capital of the " Saxon land," a Saxon portion of Transylvania, is situated In an extensive and fertile plain, on a branch of the Aluta, in the southern part of Transyl- vania. (Map No. XVII.) 8. Cronstadt, the largest and most populous, as well as the principal manufacturing and commercial town of Transylvania also in the " Saxon land" is seventy miles east of Her* manstadt. (Map No. XVII.) 554 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. of Transylvania, from which he passed into the Banat. and captured Temeswar, 1 its capital. 13. In the meantime important events had occurred in the valle} 1 " of the Theiss. About the first of February General Dembinski, also a Pole, was invested, by Kossuth, with the command-in-chief of the Hungarian armies. Although the appointment of Dembinski aroused the jealousy of the native Hungarian officers, who seconded him with little cordiality, yet his plan of operations was judicious. Leaving strong garrisons at Szegedm" and on the Maros, 3 about the middle of February he concentrated his forces in the upper valley of the Theiss, to meet the Austrians, then advancing in full force under Windischgratz. In the vicinity of Kapolna, 3 on the 26th and 27th, a severe battle was fought between forty thousand Hungarians and sixty thousand Austrians, without any decisive result ; but had it not been for the inactivity of Gorgey, who restricted himself to a defensive position, the Austrians would have suffered a total defeat. 14. Early in March Dembinski resigned, and General Yetter was appointed commander-in-chief of the Hungarian forces ; but owing to the illness of Vetter the command soon devolved on Gorgey, under whom was gained a series of victories by which the Austrians were for a time driven out of Hungary. On the 4th of April Jella- chich was defeated at Tapiobieske, 3 and on the 6th the corps of Windischgratz at Godollo : 8 on the 9th Gorgey took Waitzen 8 by storm : on the 19th the Ausrians were defeated in a desperate battle at Nagy-Sarlo ; 3 and on the 20th Gorgey relieved the fortress of Comorn, which the Austrians had closely besieged during several months. In a few days the main body of the Austrians was driven from the right bank of the Danube, when nothing but a routed army remained between the Hungarians and the city of Vienna. Had Gorgey then followed up his successes, as he was strongly urged to do by Kossuth, in two days his forces might have bivouacked in the Austrian capital ; but he remained inactive eight days at Comorn, and then proceeded to the siege of the fortress of Buda, 4 1. Temeswar, the capital of the Banat, is a strongly-fortified town, seventy-five miles north- east of Peterwardein. It was taken from the Turks in 1716 by Prince Eugene. The Bega canal, seventy-three miles in length, passes through the town. Temeswar is supposed to rep- resent the ancient Tabiscus, to which Ovid was banished. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Siegedin is a large town of Hungary, situated at the confluence of the Maros and the Theiss, one hundred miles south-east of Pesth. (Map No. XVII.) 3. For the river Maros, and the towns Kapolna, Tapiobieske, Godollo, Waitzen, and Nagy- Sarlo, see Map No. XVII. 4. Buda, situated on the right bank of the Danube, one hundred and thirty-five miles south CHAP. VI.] NINETEENTH DENTURY. 555 which was carried by storm on the 21st of May. Buda was the bait which the retreating army left behind them to lure the Hungarians ; and its siege was the salvation of Vienna, and, perhaps, of the Aus- trian empire. 15. On the 4th of March the Austrian emperor had made known the project of a constitution for his empire, the effect of which would have been to rob Hungary of her independence and constitutional rights. This measure, in connection with the well-known fact that Russia had been invoked to lond her aid in suppressing the Hungarian rebellion, induced the Hungarian Diet to make, on the 1 4th of July, 1849, the declaration of Hungarian independence. The Diet also decreed that, until the form of government to be adopted for the future should be fixed by the nation, the government should be con- ducted by Louis Kossuth and the ministers to be appointed by him. Kossuth was thereupon unanimously declared governor of Hungary, with little less than regal powers. 16. The demand which the Austrian emperor had made upon the Czar for assistance was neither rejected nor delayed ; and prepara- tions for a second campaign against Hungary were speedily com- pleted. Four hundred thousand men, of whom one hundred and sixty thousand were Russians, were assembled on the Hungarian frontiers early in June, the whole being placed under the command- in-chief of the Austrian general Haynau, of whom little was then known, except that he had served under Radetsky in Italy, where he had distinguished himself by his atrocities. To meet this force the Hungarians had raised an army of one hundred and forty thousand men, with four hundred pieces of artillery. Of these, forty-five thou- sand, under the immediate command of Gorgey, were on the upper Danube, between Presburg 1 and the capital. The other principal divisions of the Hungarian forces consisted of thirty-five thousand men under General Perczel in the Banat, thirty-two thousand under General Bern in Transylvania, and twelve thousand under Dembinski at Eperies, near the Galician frontier. 1 7. Almost simultaneously, in the early part of June, Haynau, at the head of fifty thousand men, entered Hungary at Presburg; east of Vienna, is, in conjunction with Pesth, the capital of Hungary. Attila occasionally made Buda his residence. Arpad, the Magyar chief, made it his head-quarters in the year 900 ; and it then became the cradle of the Hungarian monarchy. (Map No. XVII.) 1. Presburg; once the capital of Hungary, is on the north bank of the Danube, thirty-four milea east of Vienna. The castle, now in ruins, is memorable as the scene of the appeal made in 1741 by Maria Theresa to the Hungarian States, which was so generously responded to by the latter. See p. 420. (Map No. XVII.) 556 MODERN HISTORY. [PART H Paskie witch, at the head of eighty-seven thousand Russians, passed the frontiers of Galicia, and descended into the valley of the Theiss "by way of Bartfeld 1 and Eperies ; and forty thousand Russians and fourteen thousand Austrians entered Transylvania from the south and east. Smaller divisions entered at other points the whole de- signed to enclose the Hungarians within a circle of armies, in the plains of the Theiss and the Danube. 18. The plan of the Austrians and Russians was too successfully carried out. The Russians, after encountering a heroic resistance, drove Bern from Transylvania : Jellachich. after experiencing the most disastrous defeat in the defile of Hegyes, 3 marched up the Theiss : the Russians, under Paskiewitch, in two divisions entered Debreczin on the 7th of July, and Pesth on the llth. Haynau fought his way from Presburg to the vicinity of Comorn, near which place he fought, on the llth of July, a severe battle with Gorgey, in which the latter had the advantage. On the 19th he reached Pesth, where he renewed those brutal scenes which had marked his whole career in Hungary. To his own everlasting infamy, and the deep disgrace of the Austrian government, he repeatedly ordered ladies of great respectability and high rank to be publicly flogged for having held communication with the insurgents, and one, the daughter of a professor in Raab, for having turned her back upon the emperor as he entered the city. Brave officers were hanged by him for no other crime than that of defending their country. Hay- nau, by his barbarities, fully earned the title which has been given him, that of" Hungary's Hangman." 19. From Comorn, Gorgey, constantly harassed by the enemy, re- treated to Waitzen, and thence to Onod, 3 and on the 29th crossed the Theiss at Tokay, 4 from which place he turned south, and, pur- sued by the enemy, continued his retreat, until, on the 8th of August, 1. Bartfeld is at the foot of the Carpathian mountains, in northern Hungary, on the Tope, an affluent of the Theiss. It formerly enjoyed considerable distinction as a seat of learning. It is one hundred and fifty-five miles north-east from Pesth. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Hegyes is a small town of Southern Hungary, thirty-five miles north-west of Peterwardein. (Map No. XVIL) 3. Onod is on the western bank of the Theiss, ninety-five miles north-east of Pesth. (Map No. XV II.) 4. Tokay is a small town, situated at the confluence of the Bodrog with the Theiss, one hun- dred and thirteen miles north-east from Pesth. Tokay derives its whole celebrity from its being the entrepot for the sale of the famous sweet wine of the same name, made in a hilly tract of country extending twenty-five or thirty miles north-west from the town. The finest quality of the wine is that which flows from the ripe grapes by their own pressure, while in heaps. (Map No. XVII.) . VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 557 he reached the fortress of Arad, 1 on the Maros. Petty jealousies between the Hungarian generals frequently prevented concert of action and a union of forces when the safety of whole armies depend- ed upon it; and the ambition of Gorgey, in particular, who was possessed of both skill and courage, seemed to be to show himself a great general. His country's safety was a secondary consideration. 20. Dernbinski, in the meantime, had retreated south, and crossed the Danube also in the Banat. After almost constant fighting on the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th of August, on the latter of which days he was severely wounded, on the 9th his army, commanded by Bern, fought with Jellachich and Haynau the decisive battle of Temeswar, in which the Austrians were at first repulsed with great loss ; but the failure of ammunition in the Hungarian lines finally gave the victory to the Austrians. The southern Hungarian army was com- pletely broken up by this disaster : many laid down their arms and returned home : some escaped into Turkey ; and some thousands fell into the hands of the pursuing enemy. On the 8th Gorgey had reached Arad with forty thousand troops, within half a day's march of the spot where Dembinski was fighting ; but instead of joining his countrymen at that opportune moment, when he might have turned the scale of victory, he was then engaged in efforts for obtaining the dissolution of the government, and procuring for himself the ap- pointment of dictator. Gorgey's fidelity to the Hungarian cause had long been suspected, even by Kossuth himself, yet he had been re- tained in command of the largest division of the Hungarian army ; and now, when he declared that he alone could and would save the country if dictatorial powers were conferred upon him, Kossuth, considering the cause of Hungary desperate, took the important step of dissolving the government and conferring upon Gorgey the su- preme civil and military power. (Aug. 10th.) 21. It soon appeared that Gorgey had long maintained a treason- able correspondence with the enemy. He had long disobeyed, at his pleasure, the orders sent him by the government ; and he now made such a disposition of his forces that the Kussians might enclose his army, of which, in spite of its corrupt condition, he still stood in fear. On the 13th he surrendered to the Russian general Rudiger, without any conditions, his entire force, with one hundred and forty-four can- nons. When the troops were drawn up for surrender, grief and in- 1. J}rad is a strongly-fortified town, situated on both sides 6f the Maros, twenty-seven miles north of Temeswar. (Map No. XVII.) 558 MODERN HISTORY. [PART It dignation were visible throughout the ranks : one officer broke his sword, and threw it with curses at Gorgey's feet : many a hussar shot his noble charger, that it might not survive the disgrace of its master; and some regiments burned their standards, determined never to surrender them to the enemy. 22. A few days before Gorgey's treacherous surrender, one parting gleam of success shed its lustre on the Hungarian arms. At mid- night on the 3d of August the garrison of Comorn, commanded by General Klapka, sallied from the fortress, and drove back the Aus- trians with dreadful slaughter ; and so great was the panic that on the 5th of August Raab 1 was taken, and with it supplies and ammu- nition to the value of several millions of dollars. The peasantry in the valley of the Danube rose en masse, and Klapka thought serious- ly of marching upon Vienna itself, when the news of Gorgey's sur- render paralyzed all farther effort. Comorn surrendered on the 29th of September, on favorable terms ; and with the fall of that import- ant fortress, terminated the military operations in Hungary. 23. After the surrender of Gorgey, Kossuth left Arad and direct- ed his course to the Turkish frontier, and, finding that no hope re- mained of serving his country, delivered himself up to the Ottoman garrison at Widdin. 2 Austria in vaid demanded him of the Turkish government. When he was finally permitted to leave the country he came to the United States. The attentions there bestowed upon him for his noble efforts in the cause of Hungarian freedom, called forth, from the Austrian government, a remonstrance, which was nobly answered by Mr. Webster, the American Secretary of State. Bern also fled into Turkey, where, after receiving a command in the Turkish army, he died in 1850, of wounds received in the Hungarian war. Dembinski and a few others followed the fortunes of Kossuth. 24. On the 6th of October, 1849, a day rendered forever mem- orable for infamy in the annals of Austria thirteen Hungarian generals and staff officers, who had surrendered, were shot or hanged at Arad : many of the Hungarian ministers and other civil officials were also executed : an immense number of inferior officers were sent to fortresses to be imprisoned for life, or a term of years; and about seventy thousand Hungarians, who had taken part in the contest, 1. Raab is situated south of the Danube, twenty-two miles south-west of Comorn. It was a atrong post under the Romans. In 1809 an Austrian force was routed by the French under its walls. (Map No. XVII.) 2. Widdin is a fortified town of Bulgaria in Turkey, on the southern bank of the Danube, one hundred and sixty-five miles south-east of Peterwa/dein. (Map No. VIU CHAP VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 559 were forcibly enlisted in Austrian regiments. Thus terminated the struggle of Hungary for freedom. Her national existence, preserved through a thousand years, was annihilated, not so much by the over- whelming power of two great empires, as by the faults and treason of her own sons. a VI. USURPATION OF Louis NAPOLEON. 1. After France had adopted a republican constitution in 1848, the election of a chief magistrate, to hold the executive power of the nation for four years, became the absorbing subject of thought and discussion with the French people. Six candidates were in the field, Lamartine, Ledru Rolliu, Raspail, Generals Changarnier and Cavaignac, and Louis Na- poleon. Lamartine, who had saved the country from anarchy in the Revr^ition of February, but had made a feeble president of the pro- visional government, soon virtually withdrew from the contest, by re- questing his friends to make no efforts in his behalf: the adherents of Ledru Rollin, although earnest and active, were, comparatively, few in number : Raspail and Changarnier possessed no peculiar rec- ommendations for the office ; and it was soon evident that the choice would lie between General Cavaignac and Louis Napoleon the former, popular with the Assembly and the leading republicans, a man of tried integrity, and possessing every requisite qualification for the office the latter an adventurer, who had made two fool- hardy attempts to usurp the throne of France, viewed with jealousy and distrust by the republicans, and treated with coldness by the politicians of all parties, but strong in the prestige of a name, and hailed by the people as the living representative of that world- renowned emperor whom France can never forget. The result of the election surprised every one. Seven and a-half millions of votes were polled in the nation, and, of these, five and a-half millions were cast for Louis Napoleon, who was inaugurated President on the 20th of December. He then solemnly swore " to remain faith- ful to the Democratic Republic, and to fulfil all the duties which the constitution imposed upon him." 2. Louis Napoleon, the son of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense Beauharnais, the king and queen of Holland, was born in the palace a. When Kossuth, with the members of the provisional government, was retreating from point to point as the Austrian and Russian armies advanced, he carried with him the Hunga- rian regalia the royal jewels, and the crown of St. Stephen objects of almost religious ven- eration to the Hungarian people. It long remained a mystery what had become of them, but after years of search by individuals sent out by the Austrian government, they were discovered in Sept. 1853, buried in an iron chest near the confines of Wallachia, 560 MODERN HISTORY. [PART IL of the Tuilleries on the 20th of April, 1808, and, being the first prince of the Napoleon dynasty born under the imperial regime, and the only one living at the time of his election as President of the French Kepublic, considered himself, and was acknowledged by the Bonapartists, as the legitimate representative of the emperor Napo- leon, and the heir to his empire. After his second attempt, in August 1840, to excite a Revolution against Louis Phillippe, he was confined in the castle of Ham, 1 from which he made his escape in May 1846, after an imprisonment of more than five years. Being in London at the time of the Revolution of February, 1848, he imme- diately repaired to Paris, but was so coldly received by the members of the provisional government that he again left the country. Soon after he was informed that he had been elected a member of the As- sembly from three different departments ; but the hostility against him in the Assembly was so great that, deeming it unsafe to take his seat as a delegate, he resigned the office. In the election to fill vacancies, in August, he was reflected, when he returned to France, and on the 26th of September took his seat as the representative of Paris, his native city. But even then, nearly all the members, re- garding him as a secret enemy of the government, treated him with marked coldness and neglect ; nor did the icy reserve wear away when the suffrages of nearly six millions of his countrymen had elevated him to the first place in the Republic. 3. The first act of Louis Napoleon was to make a public declara- tion of the principles of his government, which he avowed to be strictly republican ; yet from the outset it was assumed by a large portion of the Assembly that he would prove unfaithful to his oath, and endeavor to establish an imperial dynasty. The Assembly was composed of several parties, first, the Legitimists, who were ad- herents of the elder branch of the Bourbons : second, the Orlean- ists, who desired to see the heir of Louis Phillippe raised to the throne : third, the Republicans, both moderate and ultra ; and, finally, the Bonapartists, who openly expressed their desire for the restoration of the empire, and were encouraged by Louis Napoleon, although he remained professedly attached to the Republic. 4. From the beginning there was no mutual confidence between the President and the Assembly; and while the conduct of the 1. -Ham, celebrated for its strong fortress used as a State Prison, is a town in a marshy plain, in the former province of Picardy, seventy miles north-east from Paris, and thirty-five south-east from Amiens. Here Prince Polignac and other ministers of Charles X. were confined for six years. CHAP, VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 561 former exhibited marked dishonesty of purpose in furthering his am- bitious views, the whole career of the latter was a serious of intrigues against the President, of party contests, and encroachments upon popular rights. The Assembly introduced severe restrictions upon the liberty of the press : it placed the entire control of education in the hands of the Roman Catholic clergy : it made restrictions upon the right of suffrage, which disfranchised three millions of electors ; and it united with the President in sending an army to crush the rising Republic of Rome. 5. The constitution of 1848 provided that it might be revised by a vote of three-fourths of the Assembly during the last year of the Presidential term, and that the President should be ineligible to reelection, until after an interval of four years. This latter provision would therefore render the continuance of Louis Napoleon in power impossible, without a revision of the constitution. Early in 1851 the question of revision was brought before the Assembly, and after being the subject of some very exciting and stormy debates, in which any change was vehemently opposed by the republicans, the motion to revise failed by nearly a hundred votes. 6. In his annual message in November the President strongly urged upon the Assembly the extension of the right of suffrage, a measure which greatly increased his popularity with the French people ; but the bill introduced for that purpose was rejected by the Assembly. Soon after, the increasing animosity of the Assembly towards the President was exhibited by the proposal of a law authorizing his impeachment in case he should seek a reelection in violation of the constitution. His accusation and arrest on a charge of treason were also hinted at. 7. The strife of parties in the Assembly was fast bringing matters to a crisis that would probably have ended in anarchy and civil war, when suddenly unexpectedly and quietly, Louis Napoleon put forth his hand, and with a degree of skill that would have done honor to his great name-sake, grasped the reins of power, and, crushing the constitution, overwhelmed all opposition to his will. On the night of Monday, December 1st, the palace of the President was the scene of a gay assemblage of the fashion and beauty of Paris ; and it was remarked that the President was in the highest spirits, and unusually attentive to his guests. On the following morning the inhabitants of Paris awoke to find the city filled with troops, and every com- manding position in the vicinity occupied by them, while the Presi- 36 562 MODERN HISTORY. [PART II. dent's decree, posted on every wall, announced the dissolution of the National Assembly, the restoration of universal suffrage, and the es- tablishment of martial law throughout Paris. The chief members of the Assembly, together with Generals Cavaignac, Changarnier, Lamoriciere, and others, had been seized in their beds, and were already in prison : not a man was left of sufficient ability and popularity to rally the people ; the coup d'etat was entirely successful, and Louis Napoleon was absolute dictator of France. 8. On Tuesday the 2d of December about three hundred members of the Assembly, finding the doors of the hall of legislation guarded, met in another part of the city, declared the President guilty of treason, and proclaimed his deposition ; but scarcely had they signed the decree when they were surrounded b} 7 a band of soldiers, and all marched to prison. The Assembly being destroyed, measures were next taken to disarm the power of the press ; and none of the jour- nals, except the government organs, were allowed to appear. On Wednesday, the 3d, a decree was promulgated, convening the whole people for an election to be held between the 14th and 22d of De- cember the questions submitted to them being whether Louis Na- poleon should remain at the head of the state ten years, or not, with the power of forming a new constitution on the basis of universal suffrage. On Thursday, the 4th, troops were called out to suppress an insurrection in Paris : no quarter was given, and about a thousand of the insurgents were killed, when tranquillity was restored. In some of the departments the people rose in great strength against the usurpation ; but the army remained faithful, and in the course of two or three days all resistance was quelled. 9. It had been arranged that the army should vote first on the great question submitted to the nation ; and, as had been anticipated, its vote was nearly unanimous in favor of Louis Napoleon. The official returns showed nearly seven and a-half millions of votes in his favor, and but little more than half a million against him. Thus the nation sanctioned his usurpation of the 2d of December, and virtually proclaimed its wish for the restoration of the empire. On the 1st of January, 1852. the result of the election was celebrated at Paris with more than royal magnificence, and on the 1 4th the new constitution was decreed. It was avowedly based on the constitution which the emperor Napoleon had given to the French nation. It intrusted the government to Louis Napoleon for ten years, made him commander-in-chief of the army and navy, gave him control over legislation, and the power to declare war and make treaties. He was all but in name an emperor ; and before a year had passed he assumed that title, apparently with the consent, and by the desire, of the na- tion. France had accepted the Napoleon Dynasty as a refuge from anarchy as the only compromise between Bourbonism, or the past, and Republicanism, or the future. GENERAL GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL VIEWS, (IN ADDITION TO THE NOTES THROUGHOUT THE WORK.) ILLUSTRATED BY THE FOLLOWING MAPS. PAGE MAP No. ANCIENT GREECE 564 L ATHENS AND ITS HARBORS 566 II. ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN SEA 568 III. ASIA MINOR 570 IV. PERSIAN EMPIRE 572 .. V. PALESTINE 574 VI. TURKEY IN EUROPE 576 VII. ANCIENTITALY 578 VIII. ROMAN EMPIRE 580 IX. ANCIENT ROME 582 X. CHART OF THE WORLD 584 XI. BATTLE GROUNDS OF NAPOLEON, &c 586 XII. FRANCE, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL 588 XIII. SWITZERLAND, DENMARK, &c 590 XIV. NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND AND BELGIUM) 592 XV. GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND 594 XVL CENTRAL EUROPE 596 XVII. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA... .. 598 .. .. XVIII. ANCIENT AND MODERN GREECE. Map No. I. A general description of both Ancient and Modern Greece may be found on pp. 21 and 22 Grecian Mythology, 22 to 27 Ancient History of Greece, 27 to 123 Modern History, 510 to 5-23. For descriptive accounts of the Grecian States, and important towns, cities, rivers, battle- grounds, &c., see the " Index to the Descriptive Notes" at the end of the volume. The following is a brief synopsis of the leading events in Grecian History, beginning with the Persian wars, which ended B. C. 469. The Peloponnesian wars lasted nearly thirty years, B. C. 431-404. Subjugation of Greece by Philip of Macedon, B. C. 338, after which come the conquests of Alexander, the Achaean League, and then the Roman conquest. B. C. 146. from which time, during thirteen hundred and fifty years, Greece continued to be either really or nominally a portion of the Roman empire. The country was invaded by Alaric the Goth, A. D. 400, and afterwards by Genseric and Zaber Khan, in the sixth and seventh, and by the Normans in the eleventh century. After the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204, Greece was divided into feudal principalities, and governed by a variety of Norman, Ve- netian, and Fraukish nobles. It was invaded by the Turks in 1438, and conquered by them in 1481. It was the theatre of wars between the Turks and Venetians during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; but by the treaty of Passarovitcn, in 1718, it was given up to the Turks, who retained possession of the country till the breaking out of the Greek Revolution in 1821. The present kingdom of Greece embraces all the Grecian peninsula south of the ancient Epirus and Thes' saly, as seen on the accompanying map, together with Euboa'a, the Cyc' lades, and the northern Spor' ades. Thes' saly, now a Turkish province, retains its ancient name and limits : Epirus is embraced in the Turkish province of Albania, for which, see Map No. VII. The Modern Greeks are described as being, generally, " rather above the middle height, and well-shaped ; they have the face oval, features regular and expressive, eyes large, dark, and animated, eyebrows arched, hair long and dark, and complexions olive colored." They retain many of the customs and ceremonies of the ancients ; the common people are extremely credulous and superstitious, and pay much attention to auguries, omens, and dreams. They belong mostly to the Greek Church ; they deny the supremacy ot the pope, abhor the worship of images, and reject the doctrine of purgatory, but believe in transubstantiation. The priests are generally poor and illiterate, although improving in their attainments ; and their habits are generally simple and exemplary. The inhabitants of Northern Greece, or Hellas, are said to have retained M a chivalrous and warlike spirit, with a simplicity of manners and mode of life which strongly remind us of the pictures of the heroic age." The inhabitants of the Peloponnesus are more ignorant and less honest than those of Hellas. Previous to the Greek Revolution, remains of the Hellenic race were found, in their greatest purity, in the mountainous parts of the country in the vicinity of Mount Parnassus in Northern Greece, and the inhospitable tracts of Taygetos in Southern Greece, whither they had been driven from the plains by their ruthless oppressors. The language of the modern Greeks bears, in many of its words, and in its general forms and grammatical structure, a strong resemblance to the ancient Greek similar to the relation sus- tained by the Italian to the Latin ; but as the pronunciation of the ancient Greek is lost, how far the modern tongue corresponds to it in that particular cannot be ascertained. Travellers still speak in the highest terms of the fine views everywhere found in Grecian scene- ry ; and besides their natural beauties, they are doubly dear to us by the thousand hallowed asso- ciations connected with them by scenes of historic interest, and by the numerous ruins of ancient art and splendor which cover the country recalling a glorious Past, upon which we love to dwell as upon the memory of departed friends, or the scenes of happy childhood 14 sweet, but mournful, to the soul." "Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant :ire thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields. There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds. The freeboru wanderer of thy mountain air ; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare; Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair. * Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground ; No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the muses tales seem truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon: Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold, Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone : Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.'' Childe Harolde, cauto ii. NO, I. " ANCIENT ATHENS, Map No. II. Among the monuments of antiquity which still exist at Athens, the most striking are those which surmount the Acrop' olis, or Cecropian citadel, which is a rocky height rising abruptly out of the Attic plain, and accessible only on the western side, where stood the Propyl&'a, a magnificent structure of the Doric order, which served as the gate as well as the defence of the Acrop' olis. But the chief glory of Athens was the Par' then on, or temple of Minerva, which stood on the highest point, and near the centre, of the Acrop' olis. It was constructed entirely of the most beautiful white marble from Mount Pentel' licus, and its dimensions were two hundred and twenty-eight feet by one hundred and two having eight Done columns in each of the two fronts, and seventeen in each of the sides, and also an interior range of six columns in each end. The ceiling of the western part of the main building was supported by (bur interior columns, and of the eastern end by sixteen. The entire height of the building above its platform was sixty-five feet. The whole was enriched, within and without, with matchless works of art by the first sculptors of Greece. This magnificent structure remained entire until the year 1687, when, during a siege of Athens by the Venetians, a bomb fell on the devoted Par' thenon, and setting fire to the powder which the Turks had stored there, entirely destroyed the roof, and reduced the whole building almost to ruins. The eight columns of the eastern front, however, and several of the lateral colonnades, are still standing, and the whole, dilapidated as it is, still retains an air of inexpressible grandeur and sublimity. North of the Par' thenon stood the Erechtkeium, au irregular but beautiful structure of the Ionic order, dedicated to the worship of Neptune and Minerva. Considerable remains of it are still existing. In addition to the three great edifices of the Acrop' olis, which were adorned with the most finished paintings and sculptures, the entire platform of the hill appears to have been covered with a vast composition of architecture and sculpture, consisting of temples, monuments, and statues of Grecian gods and heroes. Among these may be mentioned statues of Jupiter, Apollo, Neptune, Mercury, Venus, and Minerva ; and a vast number of statues of eminent Grecians the whole Acrop' olis having been at once the fortress, the sacred enclosure, and the treasury of the Athenian nation, and forming the noblest museum of sculpture, the richest gallery of painting, and the best school of architecture in the world. Beneath the southern wall of the Acrop' olis, near its eastern extremity, was the Theatre of Bacchus, which was capable of containing thirty thousand persons, and whose seats, rising one above another, were cut out of the sloping rock. Adjoining this on the east was the Odeum built by Pericles, and beneath the western extremity of the Acrop' olis was the Odeum or Musical Theatre, constructed in the form of a tent. On the north-east side of the Acrop' olis stood the Prytaneum, where were many statues, and where citizens who had rendered service to the State were maintained at the public expense. A short distance to the north-west of the Acrop' olis was the small eminence called Areop' agus, or hill of Mars, at the eastern extremity of which was situated the celebrated court of the Areop' agus. About a quarter of a mile south-west stood the Pnyx, the place where the public assemblies of Athens were held in its palmy days, a spot that will ever be associated with the renown of Demosthenes, and other famed Athenian orators. The steps by which the speaker mounted the rostrum, and a tier of three seats for the audience, hewn in the solid rock, are still visible. A short distance south of the Pnyx was the eminence called the Museum, that part of Athens where the poet Musaeus is said to have been buried. In the Ccramicus, north and west of the Acrop' olis, one of the most considerable parts of the ancient city, were many public buildings, some dedicated to the worship of the gods, others used for stores, and for the various markets, and some for schools, while the old Forum, often used for large assemblies of the people, occupied the interior. North of the Areop' agus is the Temple of Theseus, built of marble by Cimon. The roof, friezes, and cornices, of this temple, have been but little impaired by time, and the whole is one of the most noble remains of the ancient magnificence of Athens, and the most perfect, if not the most beautiful, existing specimen of Grecian architecture. South-east of the Acrop' olis, and near the Ilissus, is now to be seen a cluster of sixteen mag- nificent Corinthian columns of Pentelic marble, the only remaining ones of a hundred and twenty, which mark the site of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius. On the left bank of the Ilissus was the Stadium, used for gymnastic contests, and capable of accommodating twenty-five no. n. 568 thousand persons. The marble seals have disappeared, but the masses of masonry which formed the semi-circular end still remain. Just without the ancient city walls on the cast was the Lyceum, embellished with buildings, groves, and fountains, a place of assembling for military and gymnastic exercises, and a favorite resort for philosophical study and contemplation. Near the foot of Mount Anchesmus was the Cynosar' ges, a place adorned with several temples, a gymnasium, and groves sacred to Hercules. Beyond the walls of the city on the north was the Academy, or Public Garden, surrounded with a wall, and adorned with statues, temples, and sepulchres of illustrious men, and planted with olive and plane trees. Within this enclosure Plato possessed a small garden, in which he opened his school. Thence arose the Academic sect. Athens had three great harbors, the PiraV us, Munych' ia, and Phal' erum. Anciently these ports formed a separate city larger than Athens itself, with which they were connected by means of two long walls. During the prolonged conflict of the revolutionary war in Greece, from 1820 to 18-27, Athens was in ruins, but it is the now capital of the kingdom of Greece. The philosophical era in the history of Athens has been beautifully alluded to by A'ilton. "See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer-long: There flowery hill Hymeltus with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites To studious musing; There llissus rolls His whispering stream: within the walls then view The schools of ancient sages ; his who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next: * * * * * * * * To sage philosophy next lend thine ear, From Heaven descended to the low-roofed house Of Socrates ; see there his tenement, Whom, well inspired, the oracle pronounced Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth Mellifluous streams that water'd all the schools Of Academics old and new, with those Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect Epicurean, and the Stoic severe." ISLANDS OF THE AEGEAN, Map No. III. The -lEoEAN SEA, now called the Archipelago, is that part of the Mediterranean lying between Greece, the islands Crete and Rhodes, and Asia Minor. It embraces those groups of Islands, the Cyc' lades and the Spor' ades ;* also Eubos'a, Lesbos, Chios, Tenedos, Lemnos, &c., nearly all of which cluster with interesting classical associations. Mentioning only the most important in history, and beginning in the northern Archipelago, we have Thasos, now Theso or Tasso, early colonized by the Phoenicians on account of its valuable silver mines : Samothrace, where the mysteries of Cybele, the " Mother of the Gods," are said to have originated: Lemjios, known in ancient mythology as the spot on which Vulcan fell, after being hurled down from heaven, and where he established his forge: Tenedos, whither the Greeks retired, as Virgil relates, in order to surprise the Trojans: Lesbos, celebrated for its olive oil and figs, and as being the abode of pleasure and licentiousness, while the inhabitants boasted a high degree of intellectual cultivation, and, especially, great musical attainments : Chios, now Scio, called the garden of the Archipelago, and claimed to have been the birthplace of Homer: Samos, early distinguished in the maritime annals of Greece for its naval ascendency, and for its splendid temple of Juno : Icaria, whose name mythology derives from Ic' arus, who fell into the sea near the island after the unfortunate termination of his flight from Crete: Patmos, to which St. John was banished, and where he wrote his Apocalypse: Cos, celebrated for its temple of ^sculapius, and as being the birthplace of Hippocrates, the greatest physician of antiquity : Jfisyrus, said to have been separated from Cos by Neptune, that he might hurl it against the * The division between the Cyc' lades and Spor' ades, on the accompanying Map, should include the islands Jlscania, Thera^ and Jlnaphe y among the latter. No, III AND ASIA MINOK 570 giant PolybaB'tes: Jin' aphe, said to have been made to rise by th under from the bottom of the sea, in order to receive the Argonauts during a storm, on their return from Colchis : TAero, now called Sautorin, said to have been formed in the sea by a clod of earth thrown from the ship Argo iJlstypala'a, called also Trapedza, or the " Table of the Gods," because its soil was fertile, and almost enamelled with flowers :Amorgus, the birthplace of the Iambic poet Simon' ides: Jos, claimed to have been the burial place of Homer: Melos, now Milo, cele- brated for its obstinate resistance to the Athenians, and its cruel treatment by them, (see p. 83; :Jlntiparos, celebrated for its grotto, of great depth and singular beauty : Paros, lamed for its beautiful and enduring marble : JVazos, the largest of the Cyc' lades, celebrated for the worship of Bacchus, who is said to have been born there : Seriphus, celebrated in mythology as the scene of the most remarkable adventures of Perseus, who changed Polydec' tes, king of this island, and his subjects, into stones, to avenge the wrongs offered to his mother Danae : Delos, (a small island between Rhenea and Mycanos,) celebrated as the natal island of Apollo and Diana : Ceos, the birthplace of the Elegiac poet Simonides, grandson of the poet of Amorgus. The Simonides of Ceos was the author of the celebrated inscription on the tomb of the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae : " Stranger, tell the Lacedemonians that we are lying here in obedience to their laws." ./Egina, Salamis, Crete, Rhodes, &c., have been de- scribed in other parts of this work. See Index, p. 840. ASIA MINOR, Map No. IV. ASIA MINOR, or Lesser Asia, a celebrated region of antiquity, embraced the great peninsula of Western Asia, about equal in area to that of Spain, and bounded north by the Black Sea, east by Armenia and the Euphrates, south by Syria and the Mediterranean, and west by the Euxine Sea or Archipelago. The divisions by which it is best known in history are the nine coast provinces, Cilicia, Pamphylia, and Lycia, on the Mediterranean ; Caria, Lydia, and Mysia, on the ^Egean ; Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus, on the Euxine ; and the four in- terior provinces, Galatia, Cappadocia, Phrygia, and Pisidia. All of these were, at times, inde- pendent kingdoms, and at others, dependent provinces. The most renowned of the early kingdoms of Asia Minor was that of Lydia, situate between the waters of the Hermus and the Maeander, and bounded on the east by Phrygia. Under the last of its king?, the famous Croesus, renowned for his wealth and munificence, the Lydian kingdom was extended so as to embrace the Grecian colonies on the Euxine coast, and nearly all Asia .Minor as far as the Halys. On the overthrow of Croesus by Cyrus the Persian, B. C. 566, the Lydian kingdom was formed into three satrapies belonging to the Medo-Persian em- pire, under which it remained upward of two centuries. The Macedonian succeeded the Per- sian dominion, B. C. 331, from which time, during nearly two centuries, Asia Minor was subject to many vicissitudes consequent on the changing fortunes of Alexander's successors. During the century immediately preceding the Christian era, the western provinces of the peninsula fell successively into the hands of the Romans, under whom they formed what was called the proconsulship of Asia, (see Map No. IX.,) the same which the Greek writers of the Roman era call Asia Proper, and in which sense we find the word Asia used in the New Testament, (Acts, 2 : 9,) although in some passages Phrygia is spoken of as distinct from Asia. (Act?, 16:6, and Revelations.) The decline of the Roman power exposed the peninsula to fresh invasions from the East ; and at the period of the first crusade the Mohammedans had spread over almost the whole peninsula. Asia Minor now constitutes a pachalick of Asiatic Turkey, under the name of Jfatolia, or Anatolia a. corruption of a Greek word, (avar6Xri,) meaning the East, corresponding to the French word Levant. The Greek colonists of Asia Minor, who spread themselves along the coast from the Euxine to Syria, were at least equal, in commercial activity, refinement, and the cultivation of the arts, to their European brethren. Among the Grecian poets, philosophers, and historians of Asia Minor, we may mention, in poetry, Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, and Alcseus; in philosophy, Thales, Pythag' oras, and Anaxag' oras ; and in history, Herod' otus, Ctesias, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Anatolia is now occupied by a mixed population of Turks and Greeks, Arme- nians and Jews ; besides wandering tribes of Kurds and Turcomans in the interior, engaged partly in pastoral, and partly in marauding occupations. No. Iv". PERSIAN EMPIRE, Map No. V. ANCIENT PERSIA comprehended, in its utmost extent, all the countries between the river Indus and the Mediterranean, and from the Euxiue and Caspian Seas to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean ; but in its more limited acceptation it denoted a particular province, bounded on the north by Media and Parthia, on the east by Carmania, on the south by the Persian Gulf, and on the west by Susiana. (See Map.) This was the original seat of the conquerors of Asia. Great obscurity rests on the early history of the nations embraced within the limits of the Persian empire ; but about the middle of the sixth century B. C., Cyrus, supposed by some to have been grandson of Astyages, the last Median monarch, being elected leader of the Persian hordes, became, by their assistance, a powerful conqueror, at a time when the Median and Babylonian kingdoms were on the decline, and on their ruins founded the Persian empire, which properly dates frgm the capture of Babylon, B. C. 536. Cambyses, generally supposed to be the Ahasuerus of Scripture, succeeded Cyrus ; then followed the brief reign of the usurper Smerdis, after whom Darius Hystaspes was elevated to the throne, 521 B. C. Darius was both a legislator and conqueror, and his long and successful reign exerted a powerful influence over the destinies of Western Asia. Under his rule the Persian empire attained its greatest extent. (See Map.) His vast realm he divided into twenty satrapies or provinces, and ap- pointed the tribute which each was to pay ; but his government was little more than an or- ganized system of taxation. The attempts of Darius to reduce Greece to his sway were de- feated at Marathon ; (B. C. 490 ;) and the mighty armament of Xerxes, his son and successor, was destroyed in the battles of Sal' amis, Plats 'a, and Myc' ale. The Medo-Persian empire itself was finally overthrown by Alexander the Great, in the battle of Arbela, B. C. 331. The Macedo-Grecian kingdom of Alexander succeeded to the vast Persian domains, with the additional provinces of Greece, Thrace, and Macedon thus exceeding the Persian kingdom in extent. About the middle of the third century B. C., the Parthians, under Arsaces, one of their nobles, arose against the successors of Alexander, and established the Parthian empire, which, under its sixth monarch, Mithridates I., attained its highest grandeur extending from the Euphrates to the Indus. (See Parthia, p. 179.) The Parthian empire lasted nearly four hundred and eighty years from B. C. 250 to A. D. 226, at which latter period the Persians proper, taking advantage of the weakened state of the empire under the Seleucidae, rebelled, and founded a new dynasty, that of the Sassanida. (See Note, Persian History, p. 249.) The Persian empire under the Sassanida3 continued until the year 636, when it was overthrown by the Moslems in the great battle of the Cadesiah. (See p. 249.) Persia then continued a province of the caliphs for more than two centuries, when the sceptre was wrested from them by the chief of a bandit tribe. After this period Persia was wasted, for many centuries, by foreign oppression and internal disorder, (see pp. 287 311 351,) when, toward the end of the sixteenth century, order was restored, and Persia again rose to distinction under the government of Shah Abbas, surnamed the Great, (p. 351.) The present kingdom of Persia is reduced to the limits of the ancient provinces of Persia, Media, Carmania, Parthia, the country of the Matieni, and the southern coasts of the Caspian Sea. The Turkish territories extend some distance east of the Tigris ; Russia is in possession of the country between the Euxine or Black and Caspian Seas, embracing a part of Armenia ; and on the east the now independent but constantly changing kingdoms of Cabool and Belo- chistan embrace the ancient Bactria, India, and Gedrosia, together with parts of Margiana and Aria, (now eastern Khorassan,) and the country of the ancient Sarangaei. The present Persia has an area of four hundred and fifty thousand square miles, with a population of eight or ten millions. The most striking physical features of Persia are its chains of rocky mountains ; its long arid valleys without rivers ; and its vast salt or sandy deserts. The population is a mixture of the ancient Persian stock with Arabs and Turks. The language spoken is the Par sec, simple in s'ructure, and, like the French and English, having few inflections. The religion of the country is Mohammedanism (of the Sheah sect, or adherents of Ali,) which seems, how- ever, to be rapidly on the decline. No. V. PALESTINE, Map No. VI. A brief geographical account of PALESTINE has been already given on page 40 : accounts of the Moabites, Canaanites, Midianites, Philistines, Ammonites, and of the Jordan, Jabesh- Gilead, Gilgal, Gath, Gilboa, Hebron, Tyre, Sidon, Joppa, Syria, Damascus, Kabbah, Edom, Samaria, Gaza, Bethoron, Mount Tabor, &c., may be found by referring to the Index at the end of the volume. Joshua divided Palestine, or the Holy Land, among the twelve Israelitish tribes, whose localities may be learned from the accompanying map. The Children of Israel remained united under one government until the death of Solomon, when ten of the twelve tribes, under Jeroboam, rebelled against Rehoboam, the son and successor of Solomon. The tribe of Judah, with a part, and part only, of the little clan of Benjamin, remained faithful to Rehoboam. From this time forward Judah and Israel were separate kingdoms. The dividing line was about ten miles north of Jerusalem, between Jericho and Gibeah, the former belonging to Israel, the latter to Judah. Edom, or Idumea, and the possession of the capital, Jerusalem, therefore fell to Judah ; but four-fifths of the territory, and the sovereignty over the Moabites, belonged to Israel. The Syrians (Aramites) and Ammonites, after this, were no longer under subjection. The history of ISRAEL from the time of Jeroboam to the carrying away of the ten tribes captive to Assyria, (B. C. 721,) was a series of calamities and revolutions. The reigns of its seventeen princes average only fifteen years each ; and these seventeen kings belonged to seven different families, which were 'placed on the throne by seven sanguinary conspiracies. With the captivity, the history of the ten tribes ends. Josephus assures us that they never returned to their own land. The history of JUDAH, after the revolt of the ten tribes, is little more than the history of a single town, Jerusalem. After the lapse of three hundred and eighty-nine years Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, (B. C. 606, and afterwards, B. C. 587,) and Judca became tributary to the king of Babylon. The termination of the captivity of Judah, after a period of seventy years, was the act of Cyrus, soon after the conquest of Babylon, B. C. 530 ; but it was a com- mon saying among the Jews, that " only the bran, that is, the dregs of the people, returned to Jerusalem, but that all the fine flour stayed behind at Babylon." At the time of the Persian conquest by Alexander, Judea, along with the rest of the Persian provinces, passed under the Macedonian dominion. After the death of Alexander we find Palestine alternately subject to the kings of Syria and Egypt ; about the middle of the second century B. C., Judea was rendered independent by the Maccabees, (pp. 112114,) and in the year 63 B. C. it was conquered by Pompey, when it became a part of the Roman empire. (See p. 177.) Under the Roman dominion, Palestine was divided into five provinces, viz. : Upper and Lower Galilee, Samaria, Judea, and Peraea, situated as follows : The divisions of Asher and Naphtali, (see Map,) embracing the country of the Sidonians, formed Upper Galilee ; the tribes of Zebulun and Issachar, embracing the country of the Perizites, formed Lower Galilee ; the half tribe of Manasseh west of the Jordan, and the tribe of Ephraim, embracing the country of the Hivites, formed Samaria ; the tribes of Benjamin, Judah, and Simeon, em- bracing the countries of the Jebusites, Amorites, Hittites, and Philistines, formed Judea ; the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh east of the Jordan, embracing the countries of the Moabites and Ammonites, and the kingdom of Bashan, formed Peraea. Palestine remained under the Roman dominion (part of the time under the Eastern or Greek empire) until the year 636, when Omar conquered Jerusalem, (see p. 249 :) after being more than four hundred years subject to the Arabian caliphs, the country fell into the hands of the Turks, (see p. 268,) who proved more oppressive masters than any of their predecessors. Then followed the Crusades ; and about four hundred and sixty years after the conquest of Omar, the Holy city was rescued from the Mohammedan yoke, (see p. 283 ;) but after a series of changes, in the year 1519 Jerusalem came finally into the hands of the Turks, whose flag has ever since floated over its sacred places. The inhabitants of Palestine are a mixture of various races consisting of the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the country, their Arab conquerors, Turks, Crusaders, wandering Bedouins, Kurds, &c., but all now equally naturalized, and distributed into various classes or tribes according to their several religious systems. No. VL TURKEY IN EUROPE, Map No. VII. EUROPEAN TDRKKY, including Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia, which are connected with the Porte only by the slenderest ties, is bounded on the north by Slavonia, Hungary, and Transylvania divisions of the Austrian empire from which it is separated by the Save, the Danube, and the eastern Carpathian mountains; on the north-east-it is separated from the Russian province of Bessarabia by the Pruth ; on the east it has the Black Sea, the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Hellespont ; on the south the Archipelago and Greece ; and on the west, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and the Austrian province of Dalmatia. Area of European Turkey about two hundred and ten thousand square miles ; population about fifteen millions. The leading events in the history of European Turkey may be stated as follows : The ancient Byzanteum founded by Byzas the Megarean, B. C. 656 : destroyed by Septimius Severus in his contest with Niger, A. D. 196: rebuilt by Constantine, who gave it his own name, and made it the capital of the Roman empire, A. D. 323 : captured in 1204 by the Crusaders, who retained it till 1261 : taken in 1453 by the Turks, who thus put an end to the Eastern or Greek empire, and firmly established their power in Europe. The Turkish arms continue to maintain their ascendency over those of Christendom until their check in 1683 by the famous John Sobieski, in the siege of Vienna. (See p. 389.) Then began the decline of the Ottoman power: it received a severe blow by the victories of Prince Eugene in 1697, (see p. 390 ;) since which period province after province has been dismembered from the empire, which, during the last century, has been saved from dissolution only by the mutual jealousies and animosities of its Christian neighbors. The divisions by which European Turkey is best known in history are Rumilia, Bulgaria, Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, Bosnia, Turkish Croatia, Herzegovina, Albania, Thessaly, and Macedonia, for which, see the accompanying Map. Rumilia, bordering on the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmora, and the Archipelago, containing the cities of Adrianople and Constantinople, and watered by the Maritza, the ancient Hebrus, is coterminous with the ancient Thrace, (p. 71.) Bulgaria, separated from Rumilia by the Balkan range of mountains, having Sophia for its capital, and the Danube for its northern boundary, corresponds to the ancient Moasia Inferior, (p. 200.) Moldavia and Wallachia, separated from Transylvania by the Carpathian mountains, correspond to the ancient Dacia conquered by Trajan, (p. 200-3.) The inhabitants, descendants of the ancient Dacians, call themselves Roumuni, or Romans. Servia, peopled by Slavonians corresponding to the ancient Moesia Superior, formed an independent kingdom in the Middle Ages. It was conquered by the Turks in 1365 ; but since that period it has fre- quently rebelled against its Turkish masters. The internal government is now wholly in the ijands of the Servians, who pay a small annual tribute to the sultan. Bosnia, now a pachalic of Turkey, comprising also under its government Turkish Croatia and Hersegovina, and occu- pying the north-western extremity of the empire, was anciently included in Lower Pannonia. In the Middle Ages it first belonged to the Eastern empire, and afterwards became a separate kingdom dependent upon Hungary. It was conquered by the Turks in 1480, after a war of seventeen years : but it was not till 1522 that Solyman the Magnificent finally annexed it to the Turkish dominions. Albania, a large province bordering on the Adriatic, is nearly the same as the ancient Epirus, (p. 44.) Thessaly and Macedonia preserve their ancient names and limits. CONSTANTINOPLE, the capital of the Turkish dominions, occupies a triangular promontory near the eastern extremity of the province of Rumilia, at the junction of the Sea of Marmora with the Thracian Bosporus. It is separated from its extensive suburbs Galata, Pera, &c., on the north, by the noble harbor called the Golden Horn. Like Rome, Constantinople was originally built on seven hills, The city is about thirteen miles in circuit comprises an area f about two thousand acres and has a population, exclusive of its suburbs, of about five hundred thousand. The seraglio, containing the palace, mint, arsenal, public offices, &c., occupies the site of the ancient Byzanteum, (see p. 218,) at the apex of the triangle. It is about three miles in circuit, and is entirely surrounded by walls. The Bosporus, or Channel of Con- stantinople, is about seventeen miles in length, with a width varying from half a mile to two milea. The channel is deep ; the banks abrupt, with stately cliffa ; and the adjacent country is unrivalled for beauty. No. VII. AMENT ITALY, Map No. VIII. ANCIENT ITALY was called by the Greeks Hesperia, from its western situation in relation to Greece ; and from the Latin poets it received the names Ausonia, Saturnia, and CEnotria. (See also p. 123,) About the time of Aristotle, (B, C. 380,) the Greeks divided Italy into six countries or regions, Ausonia or Opica, Tyrrhenia, lapygia, Ombria, Liguria, and Henetia ; but the di- Yisions by which it is best known in Roman history are those given on the accompanying Map, Cisalpine Gaul, Etruria, Umbria, Pieenuro, the country of the Sabines, Latium, Cam- paniaj Samnium, Apulia, Calabria, Lueania, arid Brutiorum Ager. Cisalpine Gaul, or Gaul this side of the Alps, embracing all northern Italy beyond the Rubicon, was inhabited by Gallic tribes, which, as early as six hundred years B, C., began to pour over the Alps into this extensive and fertile territory. Etruria, embracing the country west and north of the Tiber, was inhabited by a nation which had attained to an advanced de- gree of civilization before the founding of Rome. Um.br ia embraced the country east of Etruria, from the Rubicon on the north to the river Nar, which separated it from the Sabine territory on the south. Pieenum, inhabited by the Picentes, was a country on the Adriatic, having the river ^Esis on the north, the Matrinus on the south, and on the west the Apennines, Which separated it ffom Umbria. The Country of the Salines, at the period when it was marked out with the greatest clearness and precision, was separated from Latium by the river Anio, from Etruria by the Tiber, from Umbria by the Nar, and from Pieenum by the central ridge of the Apennines. (See also Map No. X,) Latium was south of Etruria and the country of the Sabines, from which it was separated by the Tiber and the Anio. Campania, separated from Latium by the river Liris, was called the garden of Italy. The Campanian nation conquered by the Romans was composed of Oscans, Tuscans. Samnites, and Greeks ; the latter having formed numerous colonies in southern Italy. Samnium, the country of the Samnites, bordered on the Adriatic, having Pieenum on the north, Apulia on the south, and Latium and Campania on the west The ambitious and warlike Samnites not unfrequently brought into the field a force of eighty thousand foot and eight thousand horse. Apulia, inhabited by the early Daunii, Peucetii, and Messapii, bordered on the Adriatic on the east ; and, on the west, on the territories of the Samuites, the Campanians, and Lucanians. Calabria, called also by the Greeks lapygia, embraced the south-eastern extremity of the Italian peninsula, answering nearly to what is now called Terra di Otranto. Lueania, inhabited by the warlike Lucani, who carried on a successful war with the Greek colonies of southern Italy, was separated from Apulia and Calabria on the north-east by the Bradanus. Brutiorum Agcr, the Country of the Brutii, comprised the southern extremity of the peninsula, now called Calabria Ultra. The Brutii, the most barbarous of the Italian tribes, were reduced by the Romans soon after the withdrawal of Pyrrhus from Italy. Since the downfall of the Roman empire Italy has never been united in one State. After having been successively possessed by the Heruli, Ostrogoths, Greeks, and Lombards, Charle- magne annexed it to the empire of the Franks in 774 : from 888 till the establishment of the republic of Milan in 1150, it generally belonged, with the exception of the territory of the Ve- netians, to the German emperors. In 1535, Milan, then a duchy, came into the possession of the emperor Charles V. Since the war of the Spanish succession, the duchies of Milan and Mantua have generally belonged to Austria, with the exception of the short time they formed a part of the Cisalpine republic and the French empire. Venice was a republic from the seventh century till 1797. It was confirmed to Austria by the treaty of 1815. The present Italian States are the kingdom of Lombardy and Venice, forming a part of the Austrian empire kingdom of Sardinia kingdom of Naples and Sicily Grand-duchy of Tuscany States of the Church Duchies of Parma, Modena, and Lucca and the little republic of San-Marino. The French rule in Italy was a great blessing to that unhappy country ; " but the coalition," says Sismondi, " destroyed all the good conferred by France." The state of the people con- trasts very disadvantageously with the fertility of the soil and the beauty of the climate. "How has kind Heav'n adornM the happy land, And Tyranny usurps her happy plains ? And scattered blessings with a wasteful hand ! The poor inhabitant beholds in vain But what avail her unexhausted stores, The redd'ning orange and the swelling grain, Her blooming mountains and her sunny shores, Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines, With all the gifts that Heav'n and earth imparl, And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines : .The smiles of nature and the char ms of art, Starves, in the midst of natures's bounty curst, > While proud Oppression in her valleys reigne, And in the laden vineyard dies for thirst." No. VIII. "7 ME Scale tf Miles. THE ROMAN EMPIRE, Map No. IX. REOAL ROMK, or Rome under the Kings, occupying a period of about two hundred and forty years, from the founding of the city, 753 B. C., to the overthrow of royalty, 510 B. C., ruled over only a narrow strip of seacoast, from the Tiber southward to Terracina, an extent of about seventy miles, (see Map No. X ;) but it already carried on an extensive commerce with Sardinia, Sicily, and Carthage. REPUBLICAN ROME, occupying a period of about four hundred and eighty years, from the overthrow of royalty 510 B. C. to the accession of Augustus, 28 B. C., extended the Roman do- minion, not only over all Italy, but also over all the islands of the Mediterranean over Egypt, and all Northern Africa from Egypt westward to the Atlantic Ocean over Syria and all Asia Minor over Thrace, Achaia or Greece, Macedonia, and Illyricum and over all Gaul, and most of Spain. IMPERIAL ROME occupies a period of about five hundred years, extending from the accession of Augustus, 28 B. C., to the overthrow of the Western empire of the Romans, A. D. 476. Under Augustus, the Roman dominion was extended by the conquest of Masia, corresponding to the present Turkish provinces of Bulgaria and Servia of Pannonia, corresponding to the eastern part of southern Austria, and Hungary south of the Danube, Styria, Austrian Croatia, and Slavouia, and the northern part of Bosnia of Noricum, corresponding to the Austrian Salzburg, western Styria, Carinthia, Austria north to the Danube, and a small part of south- eastern Bavaria Rhcetia, extending over the country of the Tyrol and eastern Switzerland and Vindelicia, corresponding to southern Wirtemberg and Bavaria south of the Danube. (See also Maps Nos. VII. and XVII.) On the death of Augustus, therefore, the Roman empire was bounded by the Rhine and the Danube on the north ; by the Euphrates on the east ; by the sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa on the south ; and by the Atlantic Ocean on the west. The southern part of Britain, or Brittania, was reduced by Ostorius, in the reign of Claudius ; and Agricola, in the reign of Domitian, extended the Roman dominion to the Frith of Forth, and the Clyde. With this exception, the empire continued within the limits given it by Augustus, until the accession of Trajan, who, in the year 105, added to it Dacia, a region north of the Danube, and corresponding to Wallachia, Transylvania, Moldavia, and all Hungary east of the Theiss and north of the Danube. Trajan also, in his eastern expedition, descended the Tigris from the mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf, and for a brief period extended the sway of Rome over Colchis, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria; and even the Parthian monarch accepted his crown from the hands of the emperor. In the time of Trajan, therefore, who died A. D. 117, thfe Roman empire attained its greatest extent, being, at that period, the greatest monarchy the world has ever known, extending in length more than three thou- sand miles, from the Western Ocean to the Euphrates, and more than two thousand in breadth, from the northern limits of Dacia to the deserts of Africa, and embracing an area of sixteen hundred thousand square miles of the most fertile land on the face of the globe. Well might it be called the Roman WORLD. Adrian, or Hadrian, the successor of Trajan, voluntarily began the system of retrenchment which was forced upon his successors. In order to preserve peace on the frontiers he aban- doned all the conquests of his predecessor except Dacia, and bounded the eastern provinces by the Euphrates. The unity of this mighty empire was first broken by the division into Eastern and Western in the year 395. In the year 476 the Western Empire fell under the repeated attacks of the barbarians of Germany and Scythia, the rude ancestors of the most polished na- tions of Europe. The Eastern Empire survived nearly a thousand years longer, but finally fell under the power of the Turks, who took Constantinople, its capital, in the year 1453, and made it the capital of the Ottoman empire. Nc. IX. ANCIENT ROME, Map No. X. / \ In describing ANCIENT ROME our uttention is first directed to the relative localities of the Seven Hills on which Rome was originally built the Aventine, Ccelian, Palatine, Esquiline, Capitoline, Viminal, and Quirinal all included within the walls of Servius Tullius, built about ibe year 550 B. C. About two hundred and eighty years later the emperor Aurelian commenced the erection of a new wall, which was completed by Probus five years afterward. The cir- cumference of the Servian town was about six miles; that given it by the wall of Aurelian, which extended to the right bank of the Tiber, and inclosed a part of the Janiculaii mount, was about twelve ; although the city extended far beyond the limits of the latter. The modern rampart surrounds, substantially, the same area as that of Aurelian. The greater part of Modern Rome covers the flat surface of the Campus Mariius, the Capi- toline and Quirinal mounts, and the right bank of the Tiber from Hadrian's Mausoleum, (now the Castle of St. Angelo,) south to and including the Janiculan mount. The ancient city of the Seven Hills is nearly all contained within the old walls of Servius. Almost the whole of this area, with the exception of the Capitoline and Quirinal hills, is now a wide waste of piles of shattered architecture rising amid vineyards and rural lanes, exhibiting no tokens of habitation except a few mouldering convents, villas, and cottages. Beginning our survey at the Capitoline hill, on which once stood the famous temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, we find there no vestiges of ancient grandeur, save about eighty feet of what are believed to have been the foundations of the temple. At the northern extremity of the hill we still discern the fatal Tarpeian Rock, surrounded by a cluster of old and wretched hovels, while ruins encumber its base to the depth of twenty feet. The open space between the Capitoline, Esquiline, and Palatine hills, is covered by relics of ancient buildings interspersed among modern churches and a few paltry streets. Here was the Great Roman Forum & large space surrounded by and filled with public buildings, temples, statues, arches, &c., nearly all of which have disappeared ; and the surface pavement on which they stood is now covered with their ruins to a depth of from fifteen to thirty feet. The space which the Forum occupied has l>een called, until recently, Campo Vaccino, or the Field of Cows ; and it is in reality a market place for sheep, pigs, and cattle. In early times there was a little lake between the Capitoline and Palatine hills. In time this was converted into a marsh ; and the most ancient ruin which remains to us, the Cloaca. Maxima, or great drain, built by the Tarquins, was designed for carrying off its waters. This drain, still performing its destined service, opens into the Tiber with a vault fourteen feet in height and as many in width. The beautiful circle of nineteen Corinthian columns near the Tiber, around the church of Santa Maria, has been usually styled the Temple of Vesta. sup- posed to belong to the age of the Autonines. On the Palatine hill Augustus erected the earliest of the Palaces of the Casars ; Claudius ex- tended them, and joined the Palatine to the Capitoline by a bridge ; and towards the northern point of the Palatine, Nero built his " Golden House," fronted by a vestibule in which stood the emperor's colossal statue. The Aventine rises from the river steep and bare, surmounted by a solitary convent. On the Coelian are remains of the very curious circular Temple of Faunus, built by Claudius. Southward are. the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, occupying a surface equal to one-sixteenth of a square mile. The building, or range of buildings, was im- mense, containing four magnificent temples dedicated to Apollo, ^Esculapius, Hercules, and Bacchus, a grand circular vestibule, with baths on each side for cold, tepid, warm, and sea- bathing in the centre an immense square for exercise and beyond it a noble hall with sixteen hundred marble seats for the bathers, and, at each end of the hall, libraries. On/jach side of the building was a court surrounded by porticoes, with an odeum for music, and, in the middle, :i spacious basin for swimming. There was also a gymnasium for running, wrestling, &c., and around the whole a vast colonnade opening into spacious halls where the poets declaimed, and philosophers gave lectures to their auditors. But the immense halls are now roofless, and the wind sighs through the aged trees that have taken root in the pavements. South of the Palatine was the Circus Maximus, which is said to have covered the spot where the games were celebrated when the Romans seized the Sabine women. It was more than two thousand feet in length, and. in iis greatest extent, contained seats for two hundred Wo. X. .^iiS-H ^i^JiiCS^ >^b4. -: 584 and sixty thousand spectators. We can still trace its shape, but the structure has entirely dis- appeared. In the open space eastward of the Great Forum stands the Coliseum or Flavian Amphi- theatre, the boast of Rome and of the world. This gigantic edifice, which was begun by Ves- pasian and completed by Titus, is in form an ellipse, and covers an area of ttbout five and a-half acres. The external elevation consisted of four stories, each of the three lower stories having eighty arches supported by half columns, Doric in the first range, Ionic in the second, and Corinthian in the third. The wall of the fourth story was faced with Corinthian pilasters, and lighted by forty rectangular windows. The space surrounding the central elliptical arena was occupied with sloping galleries resting on a huge mass of arches, ami ascending towards the summit of the external wall. One hundred and sixty staircases led to the galleries. A movable awning covered the whole, with the exception of the Podium, or covered gallery for the emperor and persons of high rank. Within the area of the Coliseum, gladiators, martyrs, slaves, and wild beasts, combated on the Roman festivals ; and here Ihe blood of both men and animals flowed in torrents to furnish amusement to the degenerate Roman?. The' Coliseum ia now partially in ruins; scarcely a half presents its original height; the uppermost gallery has disappeared ; the second range is much broken ; the lowest is nearly perfect ; but the Podium is in a very ruinous state. From its enormous mass " walls, palaces, half cities have been reared ;" but Benedict XIV. put a stop to its destruction by consecrating the whole to the martyrs whose blood had been spilled there. In the middle of the once bloody arena stands a crucifix ; and around this, at equal distances, fourteen altars, consecrated to different saints, are erected on the dens once occupied by wild beasts. ^ The principal ruins on the Esquiliue, a part of them extending their intricate corridors on the heights overlooking the Coliseum, have been called the Baths and the Palace of Titus ; but although it is evident that baths constituted a part of their plan, the design of the whole is not known. What is called the Temple of Minerva Medica, in a garden near the eastern walls, is a decagonal ruin, supposed to belong to the age of the Autonines. The Baths of Diocletian, on the Viminal mount, appear to have resembled, in their general arrangement, those of Caracalla. Still farther to the north-east are the remains of the camp erected by Sejanus, the minister of Tiberius, for the Praetorian guards. In the beautiful gardens of the historian Sallust, on the eastern declivity of the Pincian mount, are the remains of a temple and circus, supposed to belong either to the Augustan age, or to the last days of the Republic. On the western ascent of the thickly-peopled Quirinal, whose heights are crowned by the palace and gardens of the pope, are extensive ruins of walls, vaults, and porticoes, belonging to the baths of Constantine. They are now surrounded by the beautiful gardens of the Colonna palace. Farther south, be- tween the Quirinal and Capitoline, some striking remains of the Forums of Nerva and Trajan are still visible. Of the numerous ruins in the Campus Marlius, we have room for only a brief notice. Of the Theatre of Marcellus, eleven arches of the exterior walls still remain. Of the Theatre of Pompey, the foundation arches may be seen in the cellars and stables of the Palazzio Pio. The Flcminian Circus and the Circus Agonalis are entirely in ruins. The Column of Antoninus and the Tomb of Augustus are still standing, with their summits much lowered. The Pantheon, the most perfect of all the remains of ancient Rome, is a temple of a circular form, built by Agrippa. It was dedicated to Jupiter the Avenger, but besides the statue of this god, it contained those of the other heathen deities, formed of various materials gold, silver, bronze, and marble. The portico of this temple is one hundred and ten feet long by forty-four in depth, and is supported by sixteen Corinthian columns, each of the shafts con- sisting of a single piece of Oriental granite, forty-two feet in height. The bases and capital are of white marble. The main building consists of a vast circular drum, with niches flanked by columns, above which a beautiful and perfectly preserved cornice runs round the whole build- ing. Over a second story, formed by an attic sustaining an upper cornice, rises, to the height of one hundred and forty-three feet, the beautiful dome, which is divided internally into square panels supposed to have been originally inlaid with bronze. A circular aperture in the dome admits the only light which the place receives. The consecration of this temple (A. D. 608) as a Christian church, has preserved, for the admiration of the moderns, this most beautiful of heathen fanes. Christian altars now fill the recess where once stood the most famous statues of the gods of the heathen world. No. XI. CHART OF THE WORLD. Map No. XL Map No. XI. is a CHART OF THE WORLD on Mercator's projection a Chart of History, ex- hibiting the world as known to Europeans at the period of the discovery of America and a Chart of Isothermal lines, or lines of equal heat, showing the comparative mean annual tem- perature of different parts of the Earth's surface. It will be observed that General History, previous to the discovery of America, is confined to a small portion of the Earth's surface ; as represented by the light portions of the Chart; while the whole Western Continent and Greenland, most of Africa and Asia, and their islands, and parts of Northern Europe and Iceland, were unknown to Europeans, and in the darkness of barbarism. It would seem, therefore, that the history of THE WORLD has but just com- menced. The Isothermal lines show that the temperature of a place doe^ not depend wholly upon its latitude. Thus the southern limit of perpetually frozen ground in the northern hemisphere (at a mean annual temperature of thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit) follows a line ranging from below fifty-five degrees of latitude to above seventy. The mean annual temperature of London, at fifty-one and a-half degrees north latitude, is fifty degrees of Fahrenheit, the same as that of Philadelphia, which is eleven and a-half degrees of latitude farther south. The line of greatest heat, (at a mean annual temperature of eighty-two and four-tenths degrees of Fahrenheit,) is more than ten degrees of latitude north of the Equator in South America, in Africa, and southern Hindostan; and about eight degrees south of the Equator in a part of the Indian Ocean be- tween Borneo and Hew Holland. The sea is, generally, considerably warmer in winter than the land, and cooler in summer. Continents and large islands are found to be wanner on their western sides than on the eastern. The extremes of temperature are experienced chiefly in large inland tracts, and little felt in small islands remote from continents. Had the Arctic regions been entirely of land, the intense heat of summer and the cold of winter would have been equally fatal to animal life. BATTLE GROUNDS OP THE WARS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE WARS OF NAPOLEON, Map No. XII. The wars growing out of the French Revolution, of which those of Napoleon were a con- tinuation, embrace a period of nearly twenty-three years, from the defeat of the Austrians at Jemappes on the 17th of November, 1792, to the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo on the 18th of June, 1815. The accompanying Map presents at a glance the vast theatre on which were exhibited the thousand Scenes in this mighty Drama of human suffering. The thickly-dotted Spanish penin- sula may be regarded as one great battle-field, where Frenchman, Spaniard, Portuguese, and Briton, sank in the death struggle together. Those dark spots where the "pealing drum," the " waving standards," and the " trumpets clangor," invited to slaughter, cluster thickly around the eastern boundaries of France, including Belgium and northern Italy ; they are seen in far-off Egypt and Palestine, recalling Napoleon's dreams of Eastern conquest ; and they strew the route to Moscow, where, from the fires of the Kremlin, and amid the snows of a Russian winter, the French eagles commenced a lasting retreat. As we look over this vast gladiatorial arena of frantic, struggling Life, and agooizing Death, our thoughts naturally turn from its mingled horrors and glories to rest upon the commanding genius, the wizard spirit, of him "who rode upon the whirlwind and directed the storm" of him whom Byron well describes as a mighty Gambler, "Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones, Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones." But the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, with all the suffering which they oc- casioned, have not been unattended with useful results in urging forward the march of European civilization. The moral character of Napoleon, the most prominent actor in the drama, has been variously drawn by friends and foes; but the towering height, the lightning-like rapidity, and the brilliancy, of his genius, have never been questioned by his most bitter revilers. No. XII. w IHaSter ' L FRANCE, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL, Map No. XIII. FRANCE, (ancient Gaul,) bordering on three seas, and being enclosed by natural boundaries on all sides except the north-east, where her natural limits are the Rhine, is admirably situated for a commanding influence in European affairs ; and, besides, her large population, the active spirit of her people, the fertility of her soil, and the amenity of her climate, place her among the foremost of the great nations of the earth in power and resources. When first known to the Romans, Gaul was divided between the Belgae, the Ccltse, and the Aquitani ; the Belgae or Belgians between the Seine and Lower Rhine ; the Celts between the Seine and Garonne ; and the Aquitani between the Garonne and Pyrenees ; but the Romans, under Augustus, made four divisions of Gaul ; Belgica, in the north-east ; Lugduneusis, be- tween the Seine and Loire ; Aquitania, between the Loire and Pyrenees ; and Narboriensis, in the south-east. None of the barbarian tribes of Europe passed through a more agitated or brilliant career than the ancient Gauls, the ancestors of the French people. They burned Rome, conquered Macedonia, forced Thermopylae, pillaged Delphi, besieged Carthage, and established the empire of Galatia in Asia Minor ; but, after a century of partial conflicts, and nine years of general war with Ca?sar, they yielded to the overshadowing power of Rome. When Rome fell, Gaul was overrun by the Germanic nations : then came the beginning of the empire of the Franks the encroachments and defeat of the Saracens the vast empire of Charlemagne and then the increasing power of the feudal nobility, until, in the year 937, the last of the Carlovingian princes possessed only the town of Laon ! Under Hugh Capet even, dukes, counts, and minor seigneurs, shared among themselves nearly all of the modern kingdom. But by degrees the great fiefs, one after another, fell to the crown : and before the close of the seventeenth century all France was united under one monarchy in the person of Louis XIV. Thus, with her history, the geography of France has been continually changing ; but those divisions of her territory best known in general hislory are the old Provinces, as given on the accompanying Map. These provinces, during the Middle Ages, were all either duchies or minor seignories ruled by the feudal nobility; and their history is, therefore, virtually, for a long period, that of separate kingdoms. (See description of Provence, Brittany, Normandy, Aquitaine, Burgundy, Roussillon, &c., pp. 300, 371-2, 379.) At the period of the French Revolution the thirty-three provincial divisions were abolished, and France was then divided into eighty-six Departments or Prefectures ; these into three hundred and sixty-three Arrondissements ; these into two thousand eight hundred and forty-five Cantons ; and these latter into thirty-eight thousand six hundred and twenty-three Communes. SPAIN, anciently Hispania, a name given to the entire peninsula beyond the Pyrenees, was not fully conquered by the Romans till the time of Augustus, who made three divisions of the country ; 1st, Bcetica, in the south of Spain, embracing the more modern province of Anda- lusia; 2d, Lusitania, embracing all Portugal south of the Douro, and, in addition, most of Estremadura and Salamanca ; and, 3d, Tarraconensis, embracing the remainder, and greater portion, of the peninsula. About the time of the subversion of the Western empire of the Romans, Spain was overrun by the Vandals, and other Gothic tribes; and, a century later, the Christianized Visigoths estab- lished their supremacy in every part of the peninsula. At the beginning of the eighth century the Moors from Africa overran the whole country, but after their defeat by Charles Martel in France, (see p. 253,) the Christians began to make head against them, founded the kingdom of Leon about the middle of the eighth century, and, from that period, gradually extended their power until, in 1492, Granada, the last Moorish kingdom, yielded to the arms of Ferdinand of Aragon, and, soon after, the whole Spanish peninsula was united under one government. In 1139 PORTUGAL became an independent kingdom: from 1580 to 1640 it was a Spanish province ; but at the latter period it regained its independence. For historical accounts of Navarre, Aragon, Castile, Leon, and Granada, see p. 317, Portugal, 318. SWITZERLAND, DENMARK, AND PARTS OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN, Map No. XIV. As a brief outline of the history of SWITZERLAND has already been given on page -69, and of DENMARK, SWKDKN, and NORWAY, on page 308, we shall here confine our attention princi- pally to the physical geography, government, population, &c., of those countries. SWITZERLAND is a republic formed by the union of twenty-two confederated States or cantons, whose total area is about fifteen thousand square miles, or about one-third of that of the State of New York. Population, about two millions two hundred thousand, of whom nearly two-thirds are Protestants. More than half of the Swiss people speak a German dialect : about four hundred and fifty thousand speak French ; and about one hundred and twenty-five thousand a corrupt Italian. The greater portion of Switzerland consists of mountains ; and the geographical appearance of the country has, not improperly, been compared to a large town, of which the valleys are the streets, and the mountains groups of contiguous houses. Both the Rhine and the Rhone, and several other important rivers, have their sources in Switzerland ; but the Aar drains the greater part of the country, passes through the lakes of Brienz and Thun, and, after a course of about one hundred and seventy miles, unites with the Rhine. The lakes of Switzerland are numerous all navigable and remarkable for the depth and purity of their waters, and their great variety of fish. Lakes Thun and Brienz are nineteen hundred feet above the level of the sea the lakes of Geneva and Constance about twelve hundred. Not only is Switzerland much colder than the adjacent countries, owing to its elevation, and the influence of its glaciers in cooling the atmosphere, but the cold has increased in modern times, and many tracts are now bare that were formerly covered with forests and pasture grounds. The kingdom of DENMARK, properly so called, comprises only Jutland, or the northern half of the ancient Cimbric Chersonese, together with the islands between Jutland and Sweden, and the island of Bornholna in the Baltic. To these possessions have been added the duchies of Sleswick and Holstein, which originally formed part of the German empire ; and as sovereign of which the Danish king now ranks as a member of the Germanic confederation. Iceland, part of Greenland, the Faroe isles, and some possessions in the East and West Indies, also be- long to Denmark. The surface of the Danish peninsula is remarkably low and level ; and along the whole western coast of Sleswick and Holstein the country is defended, as in Holland, against irruptions from the sea, by immense mounds or dikes. The soil is various, but, generally, very fertile. There are no mountains, and no rivers of any magnitude ; but the inlets of the sea are numer- ous, and penetrate far inland. Since the year 1660 the government has been perhaps as abso- lute a monarchy as any other in the world ; but the sovereigns have generally exercised their extensive powers with great moderation. The Lutheran is the established religion. Population but little more than two millions. The kingdom of SWEDEN comprises, with Norway and Lapland, the whole of the Scandi- navian peninsula, west of the Baltic. Sweden is, in general, a level, well-watered country, but the soil is poor. Sweden extends so far north that, near Tornea, the sun is visible, at mid- summer, during the whole night. The government of Sweden is a hereditary monarchy, with a representative diet consisting of four chambers, formed, respectively, of deputies from the nobility, clergy, burghers, and peasants, or cultivators. NORWAY, forming the western part of the great Scandinavian peninsula, is a mountainous country, and is characterized by its lofty mountain plateau in the interior, and the deep in- dentations or arms of the sea all round the coast. Although Norway is under the same crown with Sweden, it is, in reality, little connected with the latter country. Its democratic assembly, called the Storthing, meets for three months once in three years, by its own right, and not by any writ from the king. If a bill pass both divisions of this assembly in three successive storthings, it becomes a law of the land without the royal assenta right which no other monarchico-legislative assembly in Europe possesses. "No XIV. COUNTRIES around the. BALTIC SEA THE NETHERLANDS, NOW EMBRACED IN THE KINGDOMS OP HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. Map No. XV. Nearly the whole kingdom of HOLLAND, (often mentioned in history as the " Low Countries,"; with the exception of a few insignificant hill ranges, is a continuous flat a highly fertile country in great part conquered by human labor from the sea, which, at high tide, is above the level of a considerable portion of the surrounding country. The latter is at all times liable to dangerous inundations. Where there are no natural ramparts against the sea, enormous artificial mounds or dikes have been constructed ; but these are sometimes broken down by the force of the waves. That extensive arm of the sea called the Zuyder Zee, occupying an area of about twelve hundred square miles, was formed by successive inundations in the course of the thirteenth century. The surface of the country presents an immense network of canals, the greater number being appropriated to the purposes of drainage. When the sea is once shut out by the dikes the marsh is intersected by water courses ; and wind-mills, erect- ed on the ramparts, are employed to force up the water. Sometimes the marsh is so far below the level of the sea even twenty-five or thirty feet below the highest tides that twj> or more ramparts and mills, at different elevations, are requisite. There is no other country where nature has done so little, and man so much, as this. The north and west provinces of BELGIUM are very similar in their flatness, fertility, dikes, and canals', to Holland. Goldsmith's description of Holland is peculiarly appropriate. > " To men of other minds my fancy flies, Spreads its long arms around the watery roar, Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies : Scoops out an empire and usurps the shore : Methinks her patient sons before me stand, While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,' Where the broad ocean leans against the land ; Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile, And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale, Lift the tall ramparts artificial pride. The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, The firm compacted bulwark seems to grow ; A new creation rescued from his reign." Holland and Belgium were partially subjected by the Romans: in the second century Hot- land was overrun by the Saxons : in the eighth both were conquered by Charles Martel ; and they subsequently formed a part of the dominions of Charlemagne. From the tenth to the fifteenth century they were divided into many petty sovereignties, most of which successively passed into the possession of the house of Burgundy, thence to that of Austria, and, about the middle of the sixteenth century, the whole fell under the rule of Charles V., king of Spain and em- peror of Germany. The arbitrary measures of Philip II. of Spain, the son and successor of Charles V., led to a general rebellion in the Netherlands : the indpendence of the " Republic of the United Provinces," embracing the States of Holland, was acknowledged by Spain in 1609, while the ten southern provinces, which had either remained loyal to Spain or been kept in subjection, had in the meantime passed under the sovereignty of the house of Austria. From this period the southern provinces have been generally distinguished by the name of Belgium. After having been several times conquered by the French, and recovered from them, they were incorporated, in 1795, with the French republic, and divided into departments. In 1805 the republic of Holland was erected into a kingdom for Louis, a brother of Napoleon ; and on the downfall of the latter, the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, united Holland and Belgium to form the kingdom of the Netherlands, which latter, by the Revolution of 1830, was dissolved into the present kingdoms of Holland and Belgium. A portion of Luxembourg, entirely de- tached from the rest of the Dutch dominions, belongs to Holland. Of the inhabitants of Holland, numbering about two millions six hundred thousand, about iwo millions are Dutch, who speak what is called the Low Dutch, as distinguished from the High Dutch or German the two great divisions of the Dutch or Teutonic language. The popu- lation of Belgium numbers about four millions three hundred thousand, divided among three principal races, the Germanic-, which comprehends the Flemings and Germans; the Gallic, to which belong the Walloons, who speak a dialect of the ancient French ; and the Semitic, which comprehends only the Jews. The French language is used in public affairs, and by all the educated and wealthy classes. No. XV. now divided into MUM AM) Scale of Miles GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, Map No. XVI. The UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND consists of the islands Great Britain and Ireland, the former including the once independent kingdoms of England and Scotland, and the whole constituting not only the nucleus and the centre, but also the main body and seat, of the wealth and power of the BRITISH EMPIRE. The colonies and foreign dependencies belonging to the United Kingdom are of great extent and importance, consisting principally of the British possessions in North America, the West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, and the East Indies. The British East India possessions aloue embrace an area of one million two hundred thousand square miles. It is doubtless the common opinion that the United Kingdom is indebted to its territorial possessions for a large portion of its wealth and power ; but many able writers have come to the conclusion that these colonies and dependencies occasion an enormous outlay of expense without any equivalent advantage, and that they are a source of weakness rather than of strength. No country ever existed more favorably situated for the centre of a mighty empire than the United Kingdom. Its insular situation gives it a well defended frontier, rendering the country comparatively secure from hostile attacks, and affording unequalled facilities for commerce ; while its soil enjoys the fortunate medium between fertility and barrenness that excludes in- dolence on the one hand, and poverty on the other. Its harbors are numerous and excellent : its principal rivers, the Thames, Trent, and Severn in England, and the Shannon in Ireland, are all navigable to a very great distance : iron is found in the greatest abundance : its tin mines of Devon and Cornwall are the most productive of any in Europe : its salt springs and salt beds are alone sufficient for the supply of the whole world ; and its inexhaustible coal mines, the principal source and foundation of its manufacturing and commercial prosperity, are more valuable than would have been the possession of all the gold and silver mines in the world. But England has an enormous public debt : her government is very expensive ; and con- sequently, with all her wealth and prosperity, the burdens of taxation are unusually heavy. In 1838 her public debt, contracted in great part during the American Revolution, and the French revolutionary wars, amounted to nearly eight hundred million pounds sterling: Her expenditures during the same year were upwards of fifty millions, of which more than twenty-nine millions were appropriated to defray the interest and expense of managing the public debt ! The inhabitants who occupied the British isles at the period when the Romans first landed in England, fifty-five years before Christ, belonged partly to the Celtic, and partly to the Gothic family the Celts having very early passed over into England from the contiguous coasts of France ; and the Belgic Goths having at a later period driven the Celts northward and west- ward into Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and occupied the eastern, lower, and more fertile portions of England. The Romans conquered England and the more southern portions of Scotland, but appear not to have visited Ireland. After the departure of the Romans, about A. D. 409, the Caledonian Celts overran the country, when the Saxon chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, were in- vited over to aid their English brethren. The conquest of England by the united Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, occupied a period of about one hundred and thirty years, from the landing of Hengist. In the ninth and tenth centuries occurred the repeated inroads of the Danes, who, at length, in 1017, under their leaders Sweyn and Canute, became masters of the kingdom, which, how- ever, they only held till 1041. In the year 1066 occurred the conquest of England by William of Normandy. Through William and the princes of the house of Plantagenet, more than a third part of France was placed, by inheritance, marriage, conquest, &c., under the immediate jurisdiction and sovereignty of the kings of England ; but during the reign of John, surnamed Lackland, the French recovered most of their provinces. In 1169 Henry II. began the conquest of Ireland. The leading epochs in later English history are, the Civil Wars of the Two Roses, terminated by the battle of Bosworlh Field in 1484 : the union of the crowns of England and Scotland in 1604 : the great Civil War in the reign of Charles I., followed by the execution of that monarch in 1649 : the Restoration in 1660 : the Revolution of 1688 : the legislative union of England and Scotland in 1707 : the accession of the House of Hanover in 1714, (see Hanover p. 482 :) the American War, 1776-1784: the war with revolutionary France, 1793-1815: the legislative union of Ireland with England and Scotland, 1799 : the repeal of the Test Act, 1828 : Catholic Emancipation, 1829 ; and passage of the Reform Act, 1832. No. XVI. IF 19' 9 f 9- w m * a a i o and IfflBIMMD Scale of*Milef. CENTRAL EUROPE, TOGETHER WITH POLAND, HUNGARY, AND WESTERN RUSSIA. Map No. XVII. CENTRAL EUROPE may be considered as embracing the present numerous German States, and Switzerland ; including in the former those portions of the Austrian and Prussian empires which, previous to the French Revolution, belonged to the German empire. The " German Empire" occupies a prominent position in the history of Continental Europe ; but it has passed through so many changes in limits, divisions, and government, that the reader of history, unless he is familiar with them, will often be perplexed by apparent contradictions. Thus the emperor of Austria is often mentioned as the emperor of Germany ; and portions of Germany are spoken of as belonging to Austria. The following sketch of the German Empire, and the Germanic Confederation, it is believed will explain these seeming inconsistencies, and render German history more intelligible to the general reader. The first Carlovingian sovereigns of Germany were hereditary monarchs ; but as early as 887 the great vassals of the crown deposed their emperor, and elected another sovereign in hia stead ; and from that period down to the dissolution of the German empire in 1806, the em- perors of Germany were elected by the most powerful vassals of the empire, some of whom were monarchs within their own domains. From 1745 to 1806 the Austrian emperors exercised a double sovereignty, as emperors of Austria, and emperors of Germany also ; but a portion of the Austrian dominions were not included in the German empire. At the period of the outbreak of the French Revolution, the German empire was divided into what were termed Ten Great Circles, each of which had its diet for the transaction of local business ; but affairs of general importance to the empire at large were treated by the imperial diet summoned by the emperor. The Ten Great Circles were, 1st, the Circle of Austria ; 2d, The Circle of Burgundy, (including most of the present Belgium, and belong- ing to Austria;) 3d, the Circle of Westphalia; 4th, the Circle of the Palatinate; 5th, the Circle of the Upper Rhine ; 6th, the Suabian Circle, (including Wirtemberg and Baden ; see Suabia, p. 270 ;) 7th, the Circle of Bavaria ; 8th, the Circle of Franconia, (see Franconia, p. 270 ;) 9tb, the Circle of Lower Saxony, (including the duchies of Magdeburg, Holstein, &c. : the latter a part of Denmark;) 10th, the Circle of Upper Saxony, (including Pomerania, Brandenburg, the electorate of Saxony, &c.) In addition to these Circles the empire embraced the kingdom of Bohemia; the margraviate of Moravia; the duchy of Silesia, (Austrian and Prussian;) and rarious small territories held directly of the emperor. The Swiss cantons had revolted from the empire, and maintained their independence. Thus the German empire, consisting of a vast aggregation of States, from large principalities or kingdoms down to free cities and the estates of earls or counts, comprised all the countries of Central Europe, and was bounded north by northern Denmark and the Baltic; east by Prussian Poland, Galicia, and Hungary; , south by the Italian Tyrol and Switzerland; and west by France and Holland. The Austrian monarch was at the head of this vast empire ; but he had also other States, such as Hungary, Galicia, Slavonia, &c., which had no connection with the German empire. Most of Prussia, and the southern half of Denmark, were also included in the German dominions. Napoleon made important changes in the political geography of the German empire. By the treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, (see p. 467,) the frontiers of France were for the first time ex- tended to the Rhine ; and the Circle of Burgundy was thus cut off from the German dominions. The treaty of Presburg in 1805 was followed by other changes, Austrian Tyrol being given to Bavaria, and Hanover to Prussia ; and, in 1806, by the Confederation of the Rhine, (see p. 485,) a population of sixteen millions was taken from the Germanic dominion of Austria. Under these circumstances, on the 6th of Aug. 1806, the Austrian emperor solemnly renounced the style and title of emperor of Germany. The war with Prussia in 1807 deprived the Prussian monarch of nearly one half of his dominions ; and Westphalia was soon after erected into a kingdom for Napoleon's brother Jerome. The downfall of Napoleon restored Germany to its geographical and political position in Europe, but not as an empire acknowledging one supreme head. A confederation of thirty- five (afterwards changed to thirty-four) Independent sovereignties, and four free cities, replaced the old elective German monarchy. In this Confederation are embraced all the Austrian and Prussian territories formerly belonging to the German empire ; also Holstein, (a part of Den- mark,) and Luxembourg, (a part of Holland ;) the emperor of Austria, and the kings of Prussia, Denmark, and Holland, becoming, for their respective German territories, parties to :o. xvn. 598 the league. The affairs of the Confederation are managed by a diet, in which the representa- tive of Austria presides. Until a very recent period each of the German States had its own custom houses, tariff and revenue laws, by which the internal trade of the country was sub- jected to many vexations and ruinous restrictions ; but chiefly through the influence of Prussia this selfish system has been abandoned ; free trade exists between the States ; and a commodity that has once passed the frontier of the league may now be conveyed without hinderance throughout its whole extent. For notices of Russia, Poland, and Hungary, see pp. 287, 311, and 542. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Map No. XVIII. The UNITED STATES occupy the middle division of North America, extending from the At- lantic to the Pacific Ocean, and embracing an area of about three millions two hundred thou- sand square miles. Physical geography would divide this broad belt into three great sections ; 1st, the Atlantic coast, whose rivers flow into the Atlantic ; 2d, the Valley of the Mississippi, whose waters find an outlet in the Gulf of Mexico ; and 3d, the Pacific coast, embracing an extensive territory west of the Rocky Mountains. The section between the Alleghanies and the Atlantic, embracing the thirteen original States, has a soil generally rocky and rough in the north-eastern or New England States ; of moderate fertility in the Middle States ; and generally light and sandy in the Southern Atlantic States. The immense Valley of the Mississippi, in- cluded between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, and drained by the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, and Red rivers, is one of the largest and finest basins in the world, embracing an area of more than one million square miles nearly equal to all Europe, with the exception of the Russian empire. In the eastern and middle sections of this valley the soil is generally of very superior quality ; but extensive sandy wastes skirt the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains. The country west of the Rocky Mountains exhibits a great variety of soil. Washington and Oregon territories are divided into three belts or sections, by mountain ranges running nearly parallel with the coast. The eastern section is rocky, broken, and barren ; the western fertile. Most parts of Utah and western New Mexico are an extensive elevated region of sandy barrens and prairie lands : the northern and eastern sections of Cali- fornia are hilly and mountainous : the only portion adapted to agriculture being the southern section, and a narrow strip along the coast, forty or fifty miles in width. The vast mineral wealth of California gives that country its chief importance. The United States seem destined to become, at no distant day, in population, wealth, and power, the greatest nation of the earth. In the year 1850 their population numbered more than twenty-three millions ; and if it should continue to increase, for a century to come, as it has during the past twenty years, at the end of the century it will number one hundred and sixty millions, and then be only half as populous as Britain or France. Hardly any limits can be assigned to the probable wealth of so extensive and fertile a country, intersected by numer- ous canals and navigable lakes and rivers, bound together by its roads of iron, bordering on two oceans, and commanding the trade of the world. In commerce it is even now the second country on the globe, being inferior only to Great Britain : in its agricultural products it has no equal ; and in manufactures it has alreaily risen to great respectability. Its revenue, which has arisen chiefly from customs on imports, and the sale of public lands, was sufficient in January! 1837, not only to complete the payment of the public debt contracted during the two wars withf Great Britain, but also, after retaining five million dollars in the treasury, to distribute more than thirty-seven millions among the States. In 1838 the United States was entirely free from debt, while at the same time Great Britain owed a debt of nearly eight hundred million pounds sterling, equal to more than thirty-five hundred millions of dollars ! the annual interest on which, at the low English rates, was more than three times the amount of the total annual expenditure of the American government. The national existence of the United States commenced on the 4th of July, 1776, when they No. XVIII. 600 declared their independence of Great Britain. The seven years' war of the Revolution fol- lowed: the definitive treaty of peace was signed September 30th, 1783: the present Constitu- tion was ratified by Congress July 14th, 1788 ; and on the 30th of April, 1789, Washington was inaugurated first President of the United States. In 1803, Louisiana, embracing a vast and un- defined territory west of the Mississippi, was purchased from France for fifteen millions of dol- lars ; and in 1821 Florida was ceded to the United States by Spain. On the 4th of June, 1812, the American Congress declared war against Great Britain: peace was concluded at Ghent, Dec. 14th, 1814. In the year 1845 the Republic of Texas was annexed to the United States. In April 184ti a war with Mexico began : California was conquered by the Americans during the summer of the same year ; on the 27th of March, 1847, Vera Cruz capitulated ; and on the 14th of September the American army entered the city of Mexico. In February, 1848, a treaty was concluded with Mexico, by which the United States obtained a large increase of ter- ritory, embracing the present New Mexico, Utah, and California. PART 111. OUTLINES OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, CHAPTER I. THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. ANALYSIS. 1. The earliest historical statement that we possess carries us back to the antediluvian period of our world's history. Seeming barrenness of the field thus opened to us. What assurances are given the student. 2. Subject presented, and questions suggested by the SCRIPTURAL ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION. What is purposed in relation thereto. 3. Popular belief relative to the work of creation. The belief opposed to this. 4. GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE EARTH. 5. The facts on which the geological argument is based. Character of the earth's surface. 6. Formation of the stratified rocks. Fossil remains in the uppermost strata. 7. Evidences of great convulsions of the globe. What geology has not the rashness to conjecture, on the one hand, and what it has proved, on the other. 8. How the geological theory is now generally regarded. The opposition to it. The suggestion of va- rious possibilities miraculous interpositions, &c., how regarded. The supposition that the fossil remains were deposited at an epoch so recent as the deluge. 9. The assertion that the geological theory is derogatory to the Deity. 10. Various opinions whether the whole or a part ot '.he globe was embraced in the "six days" work of creation. 11. Of the period of time em- braced in them. 12. Concluding remarks on the geological portion of our world's history. 13. The sceptical argument against Bible history. Collateral testimony of what use to the student. 14. The four leading historical facts in the history of the antediluvian world . 15. UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE, the doctrine of the Bible. Varieties of the human family. Science not opposed to scripture testimony. 16. Peculiarities of form and color not permanent characteristics of races. Examples. The proof furnished by them. 17. The comparative study of languages tends to the same result. Languages of the earth, how grouped. The af- finities between them show a common origin. 18. The same result shown by the course o) ancient migrations. 19. INSTITUTION OF A SABBATH. The sabbath probably known to the antediluvians. Evi- dences of the Sabbath among heathen nations. 20. Division of time by our Saxon ancestors. Origin of our names of the days of the week. 21. The result showing a common origin of the prevalent custom of dividing time. 22. Jewish festivals, and heathen sacrifices. 23. THE ORIGIN OF DISCORD. Brief scriptural account of it in the history of Cain. Asiatic traditions on this subject more minute. Account which the Asiatics give of their own origin. Supposed original source of these traditions. Grecian and Roman account of the origin of discord. 24. The struggle of opposing races forms the main subject of primitive history. How described in the poems of Hindoo mythology. The same legend enlarged and beautified by the Greeks. 25. Sources of early profane history. Moses probably not the first historian. Job. 26. COINCIDENCES BETWEEN SACRED AND PROFANE HISTORY. 27. Sanchoniatho and hi writings. Coincidenceswith scripture history. 28. Phoenician system of idolatry. 29. Genera] 602 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART TIT. analogy between Sanchoniatho's account and the Bible record. 30. The writings of Berosus. 31. His account of the creation. His list of kings before and after the deluge. The first king on the list. 32. The most ancient god of the Chaldeans, the same as that of the Romans and Greeks Confounded by the Greeks with the Noah of scripture. 33. Farther illustrations of the inter weaving of scripture history with heathen mythology, in the history of Nitnrod. 34. TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE. Their universality. 35. and 36. The Chaldean account of the deluge, as given by Bcrosus. 37. Grecian traditions of the deluge. How viewed by Plutarch, and the Latin writers. 38, American traditions. Mexican tradition of the deluge. Of the building of the pyramid at Cholula. The Mexican Noah. Tradition of the Algonquin tribes. Of the Iroquois tribes. The age of fire. 39. Tradition of the Tamenacs of South America. Of the Chilians. Of the natives of New Granada. 40. Remarks on these traditions. Their probable origin. Causes of the variety of character which they present. 41. The assei 1 tions of the sceptic disproved. * 42. Summary of the topics examined. ANCIENT CHRONOLOGY. 43. Difficulties in the way of the historian. What is required of him on the subject of ancient chronology. The old sys- tems still generally adhered to. Examples. Bible Chronology. Danger to be apprehended. 44. Diversity of dates assigned to the creation. To the deluge. The ten most important dates of the deluge. 45. Result of the comparison. Dates assigned to the Exodus of the Israelites the destruction of Troy the overthrow of Nineveh the founding of Rome the nativity of the Saviour. 46. Doubts suggested. Erroneousness of the common era of the deluge 47. The epoch of the deluge, and of the creation how calculated. Sources of uncertainty and error in the calculations. 48. The scriptures in the time of Josephus. Subsequent changes made in their chronology. 49. Probable origin of the errors. The Chronology of Usher erroneous. 50. Hieroglyphical evidence. Dates assigned by Dr. Hales for the creation and the deluge. 51. The certainty of some historical dates. The birth of the Saviour. 52. The founding of Rome. 53. Similar examples numerous. The era of the patriarch Job. 54. Interesting truths taught by these examples. 55. Review of the first portion of our subject the geological history of the globe. 56. The second portion of the history of the antediluvian world proper. Imaginary comparison between early times and our own. 57. Interest and importance of antediluvian history. Conclusion. I. 1. The earliest historical statement that we possess is the simple but sublime declaration that " In the beginning G-od created the Heavens and the earth." This historic truth carries us back to the antediluvian period of our world's history to a field of inquiry that appears, indeed, at first view, almost an unknown and desert waste, barren of interest to us, shut out from the sympathies of the present, and seemingly devoid of any connection with the subsequent history of our race. But notwithstanding the dearth of materials that might be anticipated from a subject so distant and diminutive in the range of historical vision, we venture to assure the student that it is one from which he may gather something besides doubt, and con- jecture, and idle speculations, and fanciful theories ; one that will serve at least to mark out the true beginnings of historical investi- gation, and from which some light may be reflected on his future course of exploration on the great ocean of human life. 2. The first declaration of scripture presents to us a subject that is receiving much attention from the learned of the present age. At CHAP. L] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 603 what period was the earth created was it the work of six days, or of an untold series of ages what does the Bible teach, and what are the revelations of science on these points are questions . A , i i i i /. i i SCRIPTURAL that arise at the very threshold of history, opening sub- ACCOUNT OF jects on which volumes have been written,and with which THE the student of history, as well as the general scholar, may well be supposed to have some familiarity. It will not be inap- propriate, therefore, to present, in this place, the outlines of this sub- ject to the historical inquirer, and to examine, briefly, how far, and with what degree of certainty, these questions have been answered. 3. As the sacred historian declares that " in the beginning' 11 God created the heavens and the earth, and then proceeds with an account of the six days' work of the creation, the supposition was not unnatu- ral that the first act of creative power, in calling the materials of the universe into being, immediately preceded the six days' work of or- dering, arranging, and beautifying them as they now exist. This, until recently, has been the popular belief; but many eminent theo- logians and philologists of the present day contend that the language of scripture will admit an indefinite interval between the " beginning" of all things, and the perfecting of the great work of creation. As paraphrased by a modern commentator, the scriptural account of the creation would read thus. " In the beginning God created the heav- ens and the earth. And the earth was desolate. Afterwards the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters;" thus allowing the possibility of even millions of years between the first act of creative power and the six days' work of arranging the universe. II. 4. Admitting that this interpretation does no violence to scripture, the question still remains, are there sufficient reasons for adopting it ? Here the modern science of Geology lends its pow- GEOLOGJOAL erful aid to explain the true meaning of scripture ; and HISTOKY OF with an amount of testimony and force of argument not T easily controverted teaches that between the first dawnings of creative power, and the completion of the stupendous work which rendered our earth the fit habitation of man, a long an indefinite period must be assigned, whose history is written in characters as enduring as the materials of the globe itself. 5. The facts on which the geological argument is based are briefly these. An examination of the outer shell or surface of the earth 604 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL has convinced geologists that the earth's surface is not as it was originally created ; but that the different layers^or strata of which it is composed are the results of second causes, of a chemical or me- chanical nature. From the present appearances of mountain chains, and chasms, and from artificial excavation, geologists have been en- abled, after an almost incredible amount of labor and research, di- rected by the light of science, to rearrange, measure, and examine, the stratified rocks, which reach to the depth of about ten miles, below which, and of an unknown depth, are the unstratified masses, which show, from their position, and the crystalline arrangement of their parts, the action of heat, and an origin earlier in point of time. 6. The stratified beds give evidence that they have been formed out of the fragments of other rocks, by atmospheric agencies, and the action of water, that the materials of which they are composed were deposited in the form of mud, and sand, and gravel ; mingled with which were the remains of plants and animals ; and that the several masses were hardened into stone by chemical agencies, as rocks are forming, at the present day, at the bottoms of lakes and oceans. The uppermost of these strata of the earth's shell or sur- face, when the rocks of which they are composed are broken, are found to contain the fossil remains of plants and animals, nearly all of which, to the number of more than thirty thousand species, be- longed to races different from any that now exist. 7. Each of these strata appears to mark some important era in the world's history, when some great convulsion of the globe, or sudden change of climate, destroyed the living races, and gave place to a new creation of plants and animals : so that, some half a dozen times at least, the earth appears to have changed its outer form and its inhab- itants. But geology has not the rashness to conjecture the era, far back in the early dawn of time, when the Creator called the materials of our globe into being ; nor to designate the period when his breath cooled the liquid fires that had fused them into one homogeneous mass, and his plastic hand, having shaped the rude planet, sent it wheeling through the realms of space, on a journey that shall end only when time shall be no more. It is perhaps not too much to as- sert, however, that geology has proved, that, for the formation of each of the successive layers that compose the shell of this mighty ball, untold centuries of years were requisite ; while perhaps tens of thousands of years must be assigned for the gradual development and disappearance of those orders of animal and vegetable life, CHAP. I] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. C05 whose fossil remains, imbedded in coffins of stone, alone reveal to us the fact of their existence, and of the distant, widely separated, but unknown ages of the world of which they were the only in- habitants. 8. The geological theory of the great antiquity and gradual con- formation of our globe, which is held by its advocates to be in no respect inconsistent with Revelation, is now generally regarded by the learned as one of the settled principles of science, although it has, indeed, been attacked, as merely hypothetical and unscriptural. Those who oppose the geological theory, while they admit the facts which geolo- gy furnishes, make no serious attempt to explain their causes, which they declare to be beyond the province of geology. The suggestion of various possibilities is all they would leave in the place of the theory which they attempt to overturn. That the Deity, however, when he called the materials of the earth into being, should strew its surface with the apparent fossil remains of races of plants and ani- mals that never existed or that all the seemingly conclusive evi- dences of the gradual operation of natural causes on our earth, through myriads of ages, were miraculous interpositions since the creation of man calculated to cheat us with a mockery of science, and to throw distrust upon Revelation, are inconsistent, to say the least, with our views of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. That the fossil remains which geology has exhumed from the solid rock, to the depth of seven miles below the earth's surface, were all deposited at so re- cent an epoch as the deluge, by the breaking up of continents in that great catastrophe, and the burying of others beneath the detritus of their remains, is a theory inconsistent with the order in which the fossils are distributed in successive series, and with the fact that the remains of man and of his works are found only in the uppermost of the earth's strata. 9. Again, the assertion that the geological theory is derogatory to the Deity, because it ascribes to him the creation of the earth in an imperfect state, countless ages before it 'W^s finished for the use of man, seems like an attempt to estimate the years and the works of Him who is without beginning and without end, by the narrow stand- ard of man's existence. For it is as rational to suppose that He, who knew all things from the beginning, and who designed to create or fashion a world for the abode of man at some particular period of time, may have called its primordial elements into being, myriads of ages before,and through the operation of natural causes, may have been 606 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III gradually forming them into a habitable world, as to suppose that the whole was accomplished in a moment of time, or in six natural days, by the word of his power. 10. Different opinions, however, prevail among the learned, with regard to the nature, the extent of time, and the date, of the six days' work of creation. While it is the most prevalent opinion that the six days' work of ordering, arranging, and fitting the earth for the abode of man, extended over the entire globe, it has been argued by at least one eminent divine and geologist, that by the term earth in Genesis, is meant only " that part of our world which God was adapt- ing for the dwelling place of man, and for the animals connected with him." This interpretation would admit the possibility of dif- ferent places and periods of creation for the lower animals, and would remove the difficulty of accounting for their distribution from one centre, throughout different climates, without a miracle. 11. In the early period of geological investigation it was a favor- ite theory that by the " six days" work of creation was not to be un- derstood six literal days, but indefinite periods of time ; as it is said that, with the Almighty, " a thousand years are to be reckoned but as one day." But this interpretation has very generally given place to that which is in accordance with the literal language of scripture the evening and the morning denoting, literally, the successive days caused by the earth's revolution on its axis. 12. Such is the brief outline of the geological history of our globe extending back perhaps millions of years, but still infinitely distant, in its beginnings, from the origin of the first Great Cause of all things. Whoever would read this portion of our world's his- tory must look for it in the department of geology, a science com- paratively new, but opening to the student an almost boundless field of research, of deep and absorbing interest. III. 13. But having disposed of this subject, we still find that the way is not all clear before us ; for as the compiler of the early history of mankind necessarily draws most of his materials from the Bible record, he will often be met by the sceptic with the assertion that this portion of scripture is allegorical or fabulous ; and that, as a history, it has no valid claims to authenticity. In reply it may be alleged that, separate from the evidence which the scriptures bear, within themselves, of their own verity, a great amount of collateral testi- CHAP. LJ THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 607 mony may be adduced, corroborative of early scripture history ; and it is to this testimony that we now desire to direct the reader, trusting that a general view of the early ages of the world, drawn from other sources than the Bible, will be profitable to students of history, whether regarded as opening new sources of historical infor- mation, with which all should be acquainted, or as furnishing addi- tional means of refuting the cavillings of scepticism and infidelity. 14. The great leading historical facts which the Bible presents us in the history of the antediluvian world, after the adaptation of our earth for the dwelling place of man, are, 1st. The unity of the human race ; 2d. The institution of a Sabbath, and the arbitrary division of time into weeks of seven days ; 3d. The marked distinction between the descendants of Cain and those of Seth, together with the origin of discord, and the history of the struggle that ensued between the two great divisions of the human race the peaceful and pious patri- archs on the one hand, and a giant race of pretended demi-gods on the other ; and, 4th. The Universal Deluge. We would direct at- tention to the character of the evidence corroborative of these lead- ing outlines of sacred history. IV. 15. While it is admitted that the descent of all mankind from the same original pair is the doctrine of the Bible, infidelity has at- tempted to array the teachings of philosophy against it. UNITY OK The human race is known to consist of five varieties, dis- THE HUMAN playing considerable differences of form and color, and KACE> speaking different languages ; and so striking is the opposition be- tween any two of these varieties, the white and the black in par- ticular, that the supposition of separate origins has seemed, to many, the only philosophical* way of accounting for the diversity. But it may be safely asserted that on this subject science can no longer be appealed to as testifying against scripture, for it has been successfully shown that nothing can be inferred, from external peculiarities, against the original unity of the human race. 16. From extensive researches into the physical history of man it has been ascertained that very marked peculiarities of form and color often arise from accidental causes, and that they are far from being permanent characteristics of races. Among the inhabitants of Hin- dostan known to be of the Mongolian variety, are found groups of people of almost every variety of shade and color : among the Negro 608 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL nations of Central Africa, of intensely black complexion, there are tribes whose features and limbs are as elegantly formed as those Of Euro- pean nations ; and in Northern Africa there are unmixed descend- ants of ancient Arab and Jewish families, who have become as black as the surrounding natives. Many similar examples might be men- tioned, furnishing proof that climate, modes of living, and differences of circumstance and situation, are powerful agencies in producing va- rieties of form and color, however slowly the effects may be after- wards eradicated by opposing causes. 17. The comparative study of languages, by exhibiting striking coincidences of verbal forms and grammatical structure, and by tracing out the paths of ancient migrations, points to the same re- sult unity of origin of the human race. The languages of the earth are grouped into six great families, the subdivision of which have many features in common, viz. : The Indo-European, the Syro- Phenician, the African, the Polynesian, the Chinese, and the Ameri- can. But the Chinese, the American, and the Polynesian, are all based in words of one syllable, as if the process of development had been arrested at an early point; while the other families show a greater advance in the language-forming principle. Moreover, in the various American languages, one hundred and seventy words have been found that are almost identical with the words of the same meaning in the languages of the Old World, while, in grammati- cal structure, sufficient affinities exist among the whole to make a common origin extremely probable. 18. As additional evidence on this point, the lines in which the principal tribes of the human family appear to have migrated have been traced back, until, in accordance with tradition, they seem to converge to a point somewhere in the region of Central Asia. From this point the Malay race branches off to the south, covering the In- dian Archipelago : the Mongolians radiate to the east and north, spreading over China and Northern Asia, and sending off the Red- men of America as a sub-variety : the Indo-Europeans or Caucasians spread away to the north and west, and cover Europe, Northern Af- rica, and the " Isles of the Gentiles;" while the African negro ap- pears as an offshoot of the family of Ham, that migrated westward, along southern Arabia, and through Abyssinia, to Ethiopia. Thus physiology and philology combine to prove the truth of the Bible doctrine of the unity of the human race, and of their central Asiatic origin. CHAP. L] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 609 V. 19. We are told that when the Almighty had finished the work of creation, he rested from his labors ; that thereupon he instituted a Sabbath, or day of rest ; and that every returning seventh INSTITUTIOX day was to be kept holy, in remembrance of the creator OF A and governor of all things. In accordance with this ac- SABBATH - count we might naturally suppose that this divine institution was known among the antediluvians, and that the observance of it was enjoined by Noah upon his three sons and their posterity. Traces of the same we might expect to find, also, among heathen nations, who, although they had lost the knowledge of the true God, would be apt to interweave, in their own crude systems of mythology, the traditionary religious rites of their fathers. And such has, evidently, been the case. It appears that the Israelites, during their sojourn in Egypt, neglected the observance of the Sabbath ; yet the Egyptians, a heathen people, and ignorant of the Sabbath as a day of rest, di- vided time into weeks of seven days, and the days they consecrated to the seven planets ; a system of dividing time, which, singularly enough, we find among the Greeks, the Romans, the Hindoos, the Goths and Germans, and, partially, among the Saxons. 20. Our Saxon ancestors, a heathen people, divided time into weeks of seven days ; and our names of the days of the week are of heathen and not scriptural origin. Thus the day which the heathen nations of Northern Europe dedicated to the worship of the sun the first day of the week, we still call Stem-day, a name which the puritanical notions of our New England fathers rejected, as profanely impious, and in its place adopted the Jewish appellation the Sabbath. The second in order is Monday, or Moon-day, the day dedicated to the moon : 3d, we have Tuesday, from Tuisco, the Saxon God of war : hence Tuesday, in old English, is court day, the day for legal com- bat, or for commencing litigation. The 4th, is Wodin's-day, frqm Wodin, or Odin, another Saxon divinity. The 5th, is Thursday, that is, T7?/-'s-day, the day consecrated to Thor, the God of Thunder, answering to the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans. The 6th, is Friday, the day of Freya, a divinity corresponding to the Grecian Venus ; and the 7th, is Saturday, the day of Sater or Saturn, the most ancient of the gods worshipped by the Greeks and Romans, and known to our Saxon ancestors by the name of Seatur. 21. Thus we find here an intermingling of different systems of my- thology: we find Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Goths, Ger- 610 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. mans, and Saxons, retaining the scriptural division of time, which they have introduced into their own religious systems ; and even these latter, we shall find, have certain prominent analogies running through them, all traceable, for their origin, in their prominent fea- tures, to scripture history itself. None will deny that this custom of dividing time, so prevalent among different and widely-separated heathen nations, must have had an early and a common origin ; and what one so satisfactory can be assigned, as that to which the Bible attributes it ? 22. In memory also of the primeval work of creation and the di- vision of time into weeks of seven days, not only did each of the principal festivals of the Jews continue a week, but even among heathen nations, as well as among the Jews, sacrifices appear most frequently to have been offered by sevens. When Balak called on Balaam, the Chaldean diviner, to curse the people of Israel, the latter commanded seven altars to be built, and seven rams to be prepared for the sacrifice. In Virgil, the Cumasan sibyl, who was the guide of ^Eneas to the lower world, directs the hero to haste the sacrifice with " seven bullocks, and seven unspotted ewes." The heathen poet Hesiod calls " the seventh a holy day ;" and Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, speaking of the seventh day, says, " All heathen writers distinguish it ; but most are ignorant of the reason why." VI. 23. We now pass to the consideration of another subject to which we have alluded as a leading historical fact in the Bible records of the antediluvian world ; the origin of discord, and the O DJSCORD F hi 13 * ^ f the struggle between the pious patriachs and their descendants in the line of Seth on the one hand, and the giant race of the descendants of Cain on the other. While sacred history describes minutely the origin of discord, in the fra- tricide of Cain, it barely mentions the flight of that restless criminal to the country eastward of Eden, the name of the city which he founded, and the seven generations of his descendants, who are char- acterized as a haughty and wicked race of giants. The early tra- ditions of the Asiatic nations, however, although overlaid with poetical ornament, and rudely adorned with gigantic hyperbolej-^-the whole wearing, at first sight, a purely fabulous aspect, yet abundant- ly fill up, with much of the clearness of historic truth, the outlines which are so briefly sketched by the sacred penman. The Asiatics CHAP. I] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 611 very generally trace their origin to one or the other of two brothers, who, by their contentions, transmitted the seeds of strife and future wars to their descendants. It is true the chequered tablet of tradi- tion presents much chronological confusion, and many interpolations of later history interwoven with ancient narrative ; but even this di- versity often corroborates and illustrates the main truth the more fully and forcibly. Thus, one Asiatic nation, describing itself as descend- ed from the elder of the first two brothers of mankind, sets forth the circumstances of their enmity in a party spirit highly favorable to its progenitor, who is represented as having been driven from the pa- ternal home, and compelled to take refuge in the East, by the envy of his } T ounger brother. And to what source, we may ask, can the many heathen traditions of fraternal strife between the early pro- genitors of mankind be attributed so confidently as to the accredited history of Cain and Abel ? Among the Greeks and Romans the origin of discord is referred to the goddess of that name ; and the classical scholar will hardly fail to recognize, in the fable of the golden apple thrown into the festive assembly of the gods, and its results of discord, enmity, strife, and war, among the race of mortals, the preservation of a truth of sacred history, the origin of evil, and the fall of our first parents from a state of innocence and purity. 24. Indeed, the opposition, the discord, and the struggle between the two great divisions of the human race, with religion and truth on the one hand, and impiety on the other, form the whole tenor of primitive history. The wise and peaceful patriarchs, blessed with long life, which they spend in pastoral simplicity and innocence, are everywhere described, in the traditions of Eastern nations, as an- noyed, harassed, and often overcome, by a proud, wicked, and violent race, of pretended demi-gods. The chief subject of the grand epic poems of Hindoo mythology is this war of opposing races. Wicked nations of giants attack the Brahrninical races descended from the virtuous patriarchs, and the latter are assisted by divinely-inspired heroes, who achieve many wonderful victories over these formidable foes. Grecian philosophers have embodied the same legend in the fable of the war of the Giants against Jupiter, and of the Heaven- storming Titans against their father Saturn. But the Greeks great- ly enlarged and beautified the tradition received by them from the Eastern nations, by representing these opposing states the virtuous and the violent as the gradual decline and corruption of mankind; going down from the Golden age of human felicity, through many 612 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL transitions, to the Brazen age of all-ruling violence, disorder, and crime. At this period in the history of the human family, the Bible tells us that God punished the wickedness of mankind by one univer- sal flood. But the vivid imagination of the Greeks stopped not here : they closed the period of human existence by the Iron age, in which they themselves lived the last term of man's progressive de- generacy. 25. It is the common belief that tradition is the only source of early profane history, and especially of the history of the antediluvi- ans ; but many circumstances render this supposition quite improba- ble. Eminent scholars maintain that Moses was not the first histo- rian, and that in the book of Genesis may be seen evidences of several original records, which the Hebrew lawgiver used in making his compilation. Again, Job is supposed to have been an Arabian, and not a Hebrew ; and his probable epoch is placed from six hun- dred to eight hundred years before that of Moses. But Job says : " Oh that my words were ivritten ; Oh that they were printed in a book," evidence sufficient to show that in the time of Job, long be- fore Moses compiled the Pentateuch, books, or manuscript records, were not unknown. VII. 26. It is not improbable that the antediluvians were acquaint COINCIDENCES ed with a system of writing, and had written annals, BETWEEN which survived the deluge ; and this supposition is PROFANE strengthened by the striking coincidences that are found HISTORY, to exist between the Mosaic records of the antediluvian world, and those found in the writings of Sanchoniatho and Berosus, the most ancient of profane historians. 27. Only a few fragments of the writings of Sanchoniatho have been handed down to us. He is said to have been a Phoenician ; and by some he is supposed to have lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century before the Christian era, while others make him cotemporary with Gideon, a judge of Israel, and others, still, carry him back to the era of the Assyrian queen Semiramis. This writer, in his Phoa nician history, gives us a list of eight antediluvian generations, the same number that is found in scripture, commencing with " Proto- gonos" and his wife " Aion," corresponding with Adam and Eve, and continuing down, in the line of Cain, to Jubal and Tubal Cain, where the list of the antediluvians ends ; but the genealogy is resumed CHAP. I.] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 613 again, after the deluge, with Agros, a word signifying " a husband- man" plainly the representative of Noah. 28. As the basis of the Phoenician system of idolatry, this pagan writer has evidently antroduced the same events and the identical personages mentioned in the scripture record. We indeed know of the writings of Sanchoniatho only through the medium of their translation into Greek ; but the original signification of terms has doubtless been retained in the translation. Thus the name of the first man, Protogonos, signifies " first-born." The first human pair are said to have been begotten of Wind and Night, or the " Spirit of the Wind," and the " Chaos of Darkness ;" and the Arabic version of the Bible reads that " a mighty wind blew upon the face of the waters," to bring order, and light, and life, out of chaos and darkness. 29. Sanchoniatho represents Aion as first plucking fruit from trees for food : plainly alluding to the transgression of Eve in eating of the forbidden fruit. The account of Sanchoniathoj down through seven generations after the deluge, although involved in much mysti- cism relating to the worship of heavenly bodies and deified men, bears a striking analogy to the Bible record, showing that it could not have been wholly the result of mythological fiction. 30. But the writings ef Berosus, a Chaldean by birth, and prince of Belus at Babylon, who lived in the time of Alexander the Great, are of still deeper interest, as confirmatory of the truth of scripture history. He possessed every advantage which the ancient archives preserved in the temple of Belus, and the learning and traditions of the Chaldeans, could afford ; and his works were held in the highest repute by Josephus, Eusebius, Pliny, and other writers. Unfortu- nately, only a few fragments of his writings are preserved. 31. Berosus gives an account of the creation, and of the early ages of the world, corresponding, in a very striking manner, with the Mosaic record. He also gives a list of ten kings who reigned in Chaldea before the deluge, and records ten generations of men after the deluge conformably to the scripture account down to the time of Abraham. The name of the first king given by Berosus, corre- sponds in meaning with that of one of the antediluvian patriarchs of Sanchoniatho ; the one signifying " Artificer of light, or of fire" and the other, the " God of light, or of fire;" corresponding with the Vulcan of the Greeks and Egyptians, and, in point of chronology, with the Lamech of scripture. 32. The most ancient of the gods of the Chaldeans was the same as 614 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. the Saturn of the Romans, and the Kronos of the Greeks, a word which appropriately signifies the " God of Time," or the " Ancient of Days," a name given to Jehovah himself. But the Greek poets and mythologists appear to have confounded their god Kronos with the Noah who was saved from the deluge, and among whose three sons the earth was divided. Carrying out the mythological fiction, to the three sons of the god the Greeks ascribed a division of the dominion of the universe. To Jupiter (or Japheth) was given Heaven, or the Northern regions : the sea, or Middle regions, was assigned to Nep- tune, (or Shem,) and Hell, or the southern regions, to Pluto, (or Ham,) in conformity with the geography of the Greeks, placing the north pole above, and the south pole below, the horizon. 33. As farther illustrative of the manner in which scripture his- tory is often found interwoven with heathen mythology, it may be mentioned that Nimrod, " the mighty hunter before the Lord," and the founder of Babylon, after his death was worshipped as a god by the Chaldeans, and was supposed to be translated into the constella- tion Orion, attended by his hounds, and still pursuing his favorite game, the " Great Bear" changed into a constellation also. In Grecian mythology the constellation Orion is represented as a war- rior of gigantic stature wielding a sword. The Arabian name of this constellation signifies " giant," or " hero." The English term warrior is almost identical in form and pronunciation with the Greek oarion (oapiuv) an early name of Orion. Moreover, in an ancient Hindoo statue, where Nimrod, or Orion, is called Bala Rama, from Baal or Belus, he is represented with a thick cudgel in his right hand, and his shoulders covered with the skin of a tiger ; and it is believed that the scripture Nimrod, the Assyrian Baal, and the Hindoo Bala t were but the prototype of the Grecian Hercules, with his club and lion's skin. Thus the true scripture history of that " mighty hunter" Nimrod has given rise to many a wild legend in Hindoo, Greek, and Arabian mythology t giving the hero a renown wider than his fame while living ; and when Earth could not sufficiently honor him, he is translated to the Heavens, where he still shines as a brilliant constel- lation of glories near the southern horizon. 34. But among the numerous and wide-spread traditions, which, TRADITIONS even am ^ *^ e g ross darkness of heathenism, still pre- OF THE serve the great outlines of primitive history, and corrob- DKLUGE. ora te the truth of the scripture narrative, none are more satisfactory than those which relate to the destruction of mankind by a CHAP. I. J THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 615 universal deluge. There has scarcely been found a heathen nation or tribe, in all the wide extent of the eastern hemisphere among the islands of the sea, or throughout our own vast continent from Greenland to Patagonia, which did not possess some traditionary record of this closing act in the drama of the antediluvian world. 35. For the traditions of the Asiatics on this subject we again re- fer to the Chaldean historian Berosus, and give the account which he compiled from the archives preserved in the great temple of the gods of the Chaldeans. " In the reign of Xisuthrus, the last of the antediluvian kings," says Berosus, " the great deluge came upon the earth. Saturn, (or God,) appeared to Xisuthrus in a dream, and told him that on the fifteenth day of the month Daesius mankind should be destroyed by a flood. Therefore he commanded him to write a history of the origin, progress, and end of all things, and to bury the writings underground, in Sipparse, the city of the sun. Then he ordered him to build a ship, and to enter into it with his kindred and friends, and also to store the vessel with provisions, and to take into it fowls and four footed beasts ; and when he had thus provided everything, if he should be asked whither he intended to sail, he should say, To the Gods, to pray for tJie happiness of mankind. 36. " Xisuthrus did not disobey the divine command, but built a vessel five furlongs in length and two furlongs in breadth ; and hav- ing got all things in readiness, he put on board his wife, children, and friends. Then the flood came upon the earth 5 and after it be- gan to abate, Xisuthrus let out certain birds, which, finding no food, nor a place to rest upon, returned again to the ship. After some days he let out the birds again, but they came back to the ship a second time, having their feet daubed with mud ; but being let out a third time, they returned no more to the ship, whereby Xisuthrus understood that dry land had appeared. Then he opened the sides of the ship, and seeing that it rested on a certain mountain, he went out with his wife and daughter, and pilot ; and after he had worshipped, and built an altar, and sacrificed to the Gods, he, and those who went out with him, disappeared. But they who had stayed in the ship, finding that Xisuthrus and his companions did not return, went out to seek them, calling them aloud by name. Xisuthrus, indeed, was seen by them no more ; but his voice was heard issuing from the air, and commanding them, as their duty, to be religious ; and informing them that he himself, on account of his piety, was gone from them to dwell with the Gods ; and that his wife, daughter, 616 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. and pilot, were partakers of the same honor. He told them, farther, that they should go again to Babylonia ; and that it was ordained for them to take the writings from Sipparae, and communicate them to mankind. He added that the place where they were was in Armenia. When they heard this they offered sacrifice to the Gods, and then went to Babylonia. And when they came thither they dug up the writings at Sipparae, built many cities, created temples, and rebuilt Babylon." 37. Such is the Chaldean account of the deluge, once believed in by numerous pagan nations throughout a large portion of Central Asia. If we pass to Greece, we find there, also, some faint records of the same great event of primitive history, in the traditionary accounts of the deluge of Deucalion. The fable relates that when Jupiter designed to destroy the brazen race of men on account of their iin piety, Deucalion, prince of Thessaly, by the advice of his father, made himself an ark, and, putting provisions therein, entered it with his wife Pyrrha. Jupiter then poured rain from heaven, and inundated the greater part of Greece, so that all the people, except a few who escaped to the lofty mountains, perished in the waves. Deucalion was carried along the sea in his ark or vessel during nine days and nights, until he reached Mount Parnassus. By this time the rain had ceased, and leaving his ark, he sacrificed to Jupiter, who sent to him Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, desiring him to ask what- ever he wished. His request was to have the earth replenished with men. By the direction of the oracle, thereupon he and his wife threw stones behind them, and those which Deucalion cast became men those thrown by Pyrrha became women. Plutarch says, ' ; The early mythologists assert that a dove, let fly from the ark, was to Deucalion a sign of bad weather if it came in again of good weather if it flew away. According to the Latin writers the deluge over- spread the whole earth, and all animal life perished except Deucalion and Pyrrha, who were conveyed in a small boat to the summit of Mount Parnassus, as some say; but, as others relate, to Mount .ZEtna." 38. When the genius of Columbus led to the discovery of a new world across the wide Atlantic, even there, by the rude Indian in the very solitude of the American forests, as well as among the semi-civilized Mexicans and Peruvians, where the Bible was never known, nor the name of Jehovah ever uttered, were preserved traces of the inspired record of the Jewish lawgiver. A Mexican tradition preserved by Clavigero, Humboldt. and others, relates that, at the CHAP. I] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 617 time of the great deluge, Tezpi, with his wife and children, embarked in a calli or house, taking with him several animals, and the seeds of different fruits ; and that when the waters began to withdraw, a bird called aura was sent out, which remained feeding upon carrion ; and that other birds were then sent out, which did not return, except the humming-bird, which brought a small branch in its mouth. Another tradition relating to the building of the great Mexican pyramid at Cholula, by a race of giants, asserts that the gods, beholding with wrath the attempts to build an edifice whose top should reach the clouds, hurled fire upon the pyramid, by which numbers of the workmen perished. In one of the Mexican picture writings is a de- lineation of a venerable looking man, the Mexican Noah, who, with his wife, was saved in a canoe at the time of the great inundation, and, upon the retiring of the waters of the flood, was landed upon a mountain called Colhuacan. Their children were born dumb ; and different languages were taught them by a dove from a lofty tree. The wide-spread Algonquin nation, extending over most of the country eastward of the Mississippi, and embracing numerous tribes speaking different languages, preserved a tradition of the original creation of the earth from water, and of a subsequent general in- undation. The Iroquois tribes of New York likewise had a tradition of a general deluge, but from which they supposed that no human being escaped ; and that, in order to repeople the earth, beasts were changed into men. One tribe held the tradition, not only of a gen- eral deluge, but also of an age of fire, which destroyed every human being except one man and one woman, who were saved in a cavern. 39. The Tamenacs, a nation in the northern part of South America, say that their progenitor, Amalivica, arrived in their country in a bark canoe at the time of the great deluge, which is called the age of water. This tradition, with some modifications, was current among many tribes ; and the .name of Amalivica was found spread over a region of more than forty thousand square miles, where he was termed the " Father of mankind." The aboriginal Chilians say that their progenitor escaped from the deluge by ascending a high mountain, which they still point out. The natives of New Granada have a tradition that they were taught to clothe themselves, to worship the sun, and to cultivate the earth, by an old man with a long flowing beard ; but that his wife, less benevolent, caused the valley of Bogota to be inundated, by which all the natives perished, except a few who were saved on the mountains. 618 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. 40. These traditions, and many others of a similar character that might be mentioned, form an important link in the chain of testimo- ny which goes to substantiate the authenticity of the writings of the early Jewish historian Moses. To prove this portion of the Bible record true, is a point gained by the historian, and one that has an important bearing on the philosophy of subsequent history. And with reference to the character of the historical portion of the proof the only portion to which we have alluded, we may safely assert that no one can rationally account for the similarity and the univer- sality of these traditionary legends of a universal deluge, but by the supposition that all were derived from one and the same original source from the positive knowledge which mankind once possessed, of the actual drowning of a wicked world. Early dispersion of the primitive families the formation of tribes the rise of distinct na- tions, and the growth of different languages, would pervert the stream of history from its legitimate channel ; and while the traditions of so important an event as a universal deluge would be preserved among people however rude and barbarous, they would naturally be varied in detail and changed in locality, as we find them, owing to the propensity of mankind to signalize their own countries and their own ancestors. 41. If the sceptic assert that those traditions of the Old World to which we have referred were derived from the fabulous religious books of the Jews, the assumption will not, assuredly, account for those, equally wonderful, found among the American aborigines. We behold the unlettered tribes of a vast continent, who nave lost all knowledge of their origin, or migration hither, preserving, with re- markable distinctness, the apparent tradition of certain events which the inspired penman tells us happened in the early ages of the world's history. We readily detect in several of these traditions, clouded though they are by fable, a striking coincidence with the scriptural accounts of the creation and the deluge, while in others we think we see some faint memorials of the destruction of the " cities of the plain" by " fire which came down from heaven," and of that " con- fusion of tongues" which fell upon the descendants of Noah in the plains of Shinar. If the scriptural account of the deluge, and the saving of Noah and his family, be only a " delusive fable," at what time, and under what circumstances, it may be asked, could such a fable have been imposed upon the world for a fact, and with such im- pressive force that it should be credited as true, and transmitted, in CHAP. I.] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 619 many languages, through different nations, and successive ages, by oral tradition alone ? Those who can admit the supposition of cre- dulity so universal, have no alternative but to reject the evidence de- rived from all human experience, and, with a world of testimony weighing against them, to stand forth the irrational advocates of infidel unbelief. VIII. 42. "We have thus passed, very cursorily, over the most prominent subjects connected with the history of the antediluvian world : we have called the attention of the student to the geological theory of the antiquity of our globe the nature of the ^^LOGY six days' works of creation the unity of the human race the leading facts of antediluvian history presented in the Bible, with some of the collateral testimony corroborative of them the anal- ogies between the early histories of all nations, showing a common origin of their mythological legends and the traditionary and his- torical evidences of a general deluge. We might here, appropriate- ly, bring this chapter to a close, but the importance of establishing the date of the deluge, reminds us that this is a fitting opportunity to call the attention of the student to the general subject of ancient chronology. 43. One of the greatest difficulties which the modern critical com- piler of ancient history has to encounter, is that of deducing from the great variety of dates which different writers have assigned to the same events, a system of chronology that shall not be inconsist- ent with the best lights of history, and that shall, at the same time, harmonize with the revelations of modern science. The hope of en- tirely avoiding errors which future learning and research may not detect, would be presumption ; and all that can reasonably be re- quired of the historian is, that he shall adopt the best accredited chronology of his predecessors, with such corrections as later investi- gation may have rendered reasonable. It is a matter of much re- gret, however, that while the antiquarian researches of the learned have established a standard of ancient chronology, which, by the amendments it is occasionally receiving, is gradually approximating nearer and nearer to truth and reason, the great mass of modern compilers of ancient history, editors, and publishers, still blindly ad- here to some of the old systems of chronology, which have long been discarded by the learned. The evidently widely-erroneous dates of 020 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. the creation and the deluge that are still retained in the margins of our modern Bibles, and in our histories, are cases in point, showing the tenacity with which printed and venerated error is adhered to by the mass of mankind. We are aware that most people have been led to regard everything embraced within the cover of a Bible as inspired truth, ignorant that nearly the whole of Bible chronology, not con- tained in the text, but in the margin, is but the result of the compu- tations of fallible men like themselves. If there is danger that the enunciation of the truth in this matter will weaken some innocent prejudices, and impair a slight portion of the veneration with which the sacred volume has been regarded, there is much greater danger, on the other hand, that while the Bible chronology is received as a portion of the word of God, its irreconcilableness with modern de- velopments in science will furnish the sceptic and infidel with avail- able arguments against the truth of Revelation itself. 44. To illustrate the chronological difficulties that beset the path of the historical inquirer at the outset, we will refer to some of the conflicting dates assigned by different writers to a few important events in the early history of the world. The marginal date given in an English Bible for the Creation, (by which is meant the creation of Adam,) 4004 years before Christ, and which is taken from the chronological system of Archbishop Usher, an eminent Irish divine, is only one among some three hundred different computations for that epoch : the highest of which, that of the celebrated Swiss historian, Von Muller, dates that event 6984 years before Christ ; and the lowest, that of the Jewish Rabbi Lip man, 3616 before Christ 5 a difference in the extremes of more than three thousand and three hundred years. The numerous dates assigned for the Deluge, a more important histor- ical epoch, are almost equally conflicting, and, as a matter of some in- terest as well as curiosity, we compile a list of ten of the most prominent, with the authorities for each, beginning with the highest computation : Septuagint Version of the Bible 3246 B. C. Jackson, (Antiquities & Chronology) 3170 Dr. Hales, (a celebrated English di- vine and chronologist) 3155 " Josephus, (the Jewish historian) .... 3146 " Persian Computation 3103 " Samaritan text of the Bible 2998 B. C. Playfair 2352 " Usher, and English Bible 2348 " Hebrew text of the Bible 2288 " Vulgar Jewish Computation 2104 45. Here we find a difference in the extremes of no less than eleven hundred and forty-two years ; and it is not improbable that subsequent hieroglyphical discoveries in Egypt, will yet render certain CHAP. I] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 621 a date prior to any here given. For the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt we find ten prominent dates assigned by the learned, ranging from 1312 to 1686 B. C., differing, in the extremes, three hundred and seventy-four years. And coming down to a later period, where there are seemingly more reliable data, we find similar dis- crepancies. For the supposed destruction of Troy we find ten promi- nent dates assigned by different writers from 904 to 1270 B. C. a difference of three hundred and sixty-six years : for the overthrow of Nineveh dates varying between 596 and 896 B. C., a difference of three hundred years : for the founding of Rome six dates, varying from 627 to 753 B. C., a difference of one hundred and twenty-six years ; and even for the nativity of the Saviour no less than ten dif- ferent years have been assigned, from the year seven before the vulgar era, to the third year after. 46. It may be doubted by many that the dates assigned for the Creation (by which we mean the creation of Adam, the first of the human family) and the deluge, events so remote, can be anything more than mere conjecture ; as many of the uninitiated in science doubt the ability of astronomers to calculate the distances and orbits of the planets ; but, fortunately for the cause of historic truth, the proofs in the former case are much more easy of comprehension to the uneducated than in the latter. And in the first place we will endeavor to show, briefly, why the common era of the deluge is probably erroneous, and the necessity of assigning that event to a more remote epoch, which, at the same time, shall not conflict with the testimony of authentic Revelation. 47. The epoch of the deluge is calculated by scripture chronology backward from the nativity of the Saviour, through the successive generations of the human family as they are recorded in the Bible ; and the creation of Adam, backward, in a similar manner, from the deluge. If the successions and ages of the several generations in this chronological chain were plain, and no apprehension existed of interpolations or retrenchments by the hand of man, the results would be easily attained, and incontrovertible ; but neither of these postulates can be assumed. Some partial links in the chain have to be supplied by human calculation : yet the errors that might thus accrue would doubtless be small ; but, as if to obliterate the only reliable landmarks, and throw all into inextricable confusion, the several versions of scripture differ considerably in their chronological results ; and here is the great source of uncertainty and error. 622 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. 48. In the time of Josephus, the first century after Christ, the sacred scriptures were found only in Hebrew and in Greek the latter, called the Septuagint version, being a copy of the former. From the Hebrew, Josephus translated his Jewish Antiquities into the Greek language ; at which time, as there is every reason to be- lieve, the genealogies of the antediluvian patriarchs, and of the de- scendants of Noah, were the same in the Hebrew as in the Greek version of the Bible, with both of which the computations of Josephus evidently corresponded. Subsequently, however, a remarkable dif- ference has arisen between copies of the Hebrew and of the Grecian text, in the lengths of the successive generations, amounting to at least six hundred years in the records of the antediluvian world, and seven hundred in the subsequent period. 49. When, by whom, and in what versions of the scriptures, the chronological errors were introduced, has long been a subject of in- vestigation with the learned ; and a variety of evidence, of a highly interesting character, has at length been adduced, proving that, while the Septuagint has remained essentially unchanged, the chronology of the Hebrew text has been perverted at different times by the Jews, that the prophecies concerning the advent of the Saviour might not appear to be fulfilled, and that the reality of the Christian Mes- siah might thereby be disproved. The chronology of Usher, which was adopted in the margin of the English Bible by act of Parliament, is based, principally, on the Jewish systems and the Hebrew text, instead of the Septuagint ; but it has been relinquished by the ablest chronologers of the present time, principally on account of its irreconcilableness with the rise of the primitive empires ; the As- syrian, the Egyptian, the Indian, and the Chinese all of which sug- gest earlier dates for the deluge. 50. Moreover, recent hieroglyphical discoveries in Egypt prove very conclusively that the deluge must have occurred many centuries before the date usually assigned to it, (2348 B. C.,) for we are now able to trace the outlines of Egyptian history back as far as that period ; but even at that time the Egyptian monarchy must have been already old, for the greatest of the pyramids was then in ex- istence, quarries had been worked, mines explored, the arts and sciences cultivated, and tombs had been quarried in the rocks for thousands and perhaps millions of the departed. Dr. Hales, one of the ablest of modern chronologists, dates the era of the creation at 5411 B. C., and of the deluge at the year 3155 ; but it is not im- CIIAP. I] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 623 probable that subsequent researches will render it necessary to carry these events back farther still. 5 1 . While some of the conflicting dates which we have enumerated still remain unsettled, and open for further investigations of the learned, others have become fixed almost beyond the possibility of error, as is the case with the important historical epoch of the nativity of the Saviour, and the founding of Rome. The true date of the birth of the Saviour is determined from the following circumstances. From scripture we learn that Christ was born a short time before the close of the reign of Herod ; and the death of Herod is calculated from an eclipse of the moon, which is incidentally stated by Josephus to have occurred a few days before that event. Chrysostom, Petavius, Prideaux, Play fair, &c., followed by Dr. Hales in his Analysis of Chronology, date the birth of the Saviour seven hundred and forty- nine years after the founding of Rome, or four years earlier than the common or vulgar era. '*l*? ' 52. Whether Romulus, the attributed founder of Rome, be a fabulous personage or not, there must have been some event handed down by tradition, as the origin of the city ; and that event is marked by Cicero and Plutarch as having occurred on a day when there was a total eclipse of the sun. Here again modern astronomy comes to the aid of history, and, tracing back the sun's pathway through the heavens, finds there was an eclipse of the sun visible at Rome, B. C. July 5th, 753, and thus establishes the era, whether real or fabulous it matters not, to which early tradition refers the origin of the " eternal city, Rome." 53. We might adduce numerous other instances, equally interest- ing, in which the light of astronomical science, as far reaching into the gloom of the past as the telescope, its handmaid, into the regions of space, has rendered brilliant, with the certainty of truth, portions of history hitherto enveloped in the obscurity of gloom and con- jecture. Who would have thought that modern astronomy could have anything to do with fixing the era in which the patriarch Job lived ? It is known that, owing to a small annual variation in the path of the ecliptic, the sun's place among the constellations of the zodiac, at any given season of the year, is now greatly different from what it was in remote ages. Job alludes to some of the constella- tions in such a manner as to designate, with much probability, the postions, relative to the ecliptic, which some of them occupied in his time ; and the learned chronologist, Dr. Hales, professes to have as- 624 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III certained, by a very interesting astronomical calculation on the pre- cession of the equinoxes, that the time of Job's trials was in the year 2337 B. G ; or eight hundred and eighteen years after the deluge, and one hundred and eighty -four years before the birth of Abraham. 54. If history is the preserver of the records of the sciences, the latter often repay the boon by verifying the annals of the former ; and how beautifully do the examples we have given illustrate the truth, that all the fragments of varied knowledge are but "parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." IX. 55. In closing this brief sketch of antediluvian history, we may well linger for a moment to cast a parting glance over the vast field passed so rapidly in review before us. From this habitable world now covered with verdure and filled with life and beauty, imagination, directed by science, carries us back through the long vista of ages unnumbered and almost numberless, to a period ere the fiat of the Almighty called light and life into being; when the materials of our globe, probably in a state of vapor, were floating in darkness in the " vast contiguity of space" now lighted up by the sun, and moon, and worlds of our planetary system. In the first stage of change, this mass of vapor, gradually condensing, becomes a melted globe of fire ; and as age after age passes away, the surface, cooling, forms a crust, ever and anon broken by the gases that escape from the burning mass below. But as myriads of years roll by, the crust thickens until it becomes habit- able for those rude orders of vegetable and animal life that mark the first era in the geological history of our globe. Here are seen the first " foot-prints of the Creator ;" and here geology begins its interest- ing record of life and death, of growth and decay. But race after race of animal and vegetable life must pass away, mountains and con- tinents be thrown up by internal fires from the beds of the ocean, again to be submerged, and to rise again, and again, as one mighty con- vulsion succeeds another, before the earth shall be rendered fit for the habitation of man. 56. The second portion of our subject the history of the antedi- luvian world proper embraces a period of more than two thousand years, extending from the creation of man to the deluge ; a period CHAP. II.] THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 625 nearly as long as that which intervened between the deluge and the Christian era. For the history of the human race during this long period, we have only a few pages of the Bible, but authenticated, in all their leading features, by the collateral testimony of universal tradition. In vain we look beyond this simple record, and would seek to know more to learn something of the extent, and the num- bers, of the population of the globe the kind of civilization* and the empires that arose and fell, ere the deluge swept away our guilty race, and their memorials with them. Judging from what the Bible tells us, that " there were giants in those days," and that men lived to an age of several hundred years, we might infer that everything in those early times was on a scale of stupendous magnitude ; and that we are a pigmy and ephemeral race in comparison with our antediluvian fathers. The fabulous portions of the history of the oldest Asiatic nations of Egypt and of Greece suggest the same comparison : for they magnify the kings of their early dynasties into gods, some of whom are said to have reigned on the earth a thousand years. 57. But apart from uncertain conjecture, antediluvian history is of exceeding interest as being the evident source whence the heathen, as well as the Christian world, has derived its knowledge of an omnipo- tent Creator ; and as the source whence paganism has derived the materials that have served as the foundation on which to build its own systems of mythology. And thus while man was departing wider and wider from the knowledge of the true God, he still adhered to the great principles of eternal truth which the God whom he had forsaken had taught him. Those great traditionary legends which the pride and impiety of a heathen world had set up in opposition to the true religion, still prove to be diverging rays of light which centre in the throne of the Eternal. Thus God has made the tra- ditions of the heathen to confirm his own revealed Word, and the very wickedness of man to praise him. 40 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III CHAPTER II. EARLY EGYPTIAN, ASSYRIAN, AND BABYLONIAN CIVILIZATION ANALYSTS. 1. EXCLUSIVE POLICY OF THK EARLY EGYPTIANS. Our earliest information respecting Egypt. Dense population. CHARACTER OF THE TESTIMONY OF HERODOTUS. 2. The THREE GREAT EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES. That of Saturn and his successors. Of the eight demi-gods. Of the subsequent kings. 3. The first period wholly fabulous. The second period. 4. Character of EGYPTIAN HISTORY FROM MENES TO JOSEPH. Our knowledge of the condition of the people during that period. Light thrown upon the subject by the interpreta- tion of the hieroglyphics. 5. EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS. The French expedition to Egypt in 1798. The Rosetta tab- let. 6. Construction of the hieroglyphic alphabet, and translation of the hieroglyphics. 7. Three-fold character of the hieroglyphic writing. Illustrations. Supposed manner in which the changes occurred. Difficulty of interpretation. 8. Various peculiarities of the Egyptian system. 9. The three classes of the hieroglyphic writing, hieroglyphic proper, hieretic, and demotic. 10. The hieroglyphics in the Coptic language. Theological and historical writings. 11. Results of the translations of the hieroglyphics. 12. Confirmatory of portions of Manetho's history. Manetho's writings. Their character. 13. The founding of the pyramids. 14. Great an- tiquity of the hieroglyphics and of the pyramids. 15. Both in existence before the time of Moses. 16. Supposed Ethiopian origin of THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF EGYPT, and of Egyptian civ- ilization. 17. Supposed antiquity of Ethiopian civilization. 18. Asiatic origin, and migration, of the Ethiopians. 19. The opposing theory. Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Hebrews, probably fraternal tribes. 20. DWELLINGS AND PUBLIC EDIFICES OF THE EGYPTIANS. The arch, and the Greek orders of architecture. 21. Knowledge obtained from EGYPTIAN SCULPTURES AND PAINTINGS. His- torical sculptures found at Thebes. 22. Great extent and variety of Egyptian paintings and sculptures. 23. The painting rude but durable. Stationary character of Egyptian art. 24. Sculptural representations of dress, musical instruments, &c. The Muses of Egyptian origin. 25. ASTRONOMICAL KNOWLEDGE of the Egyptians. 26. Their attainments in MECHANICAL SCIENCE. Construction of the pyramids. 27. The ART OF WEAVING. 28. The WORKING OF METALS, &c. 29. Manufacture of pottery, glass-ware, potash, wine, &c. Embalming. Chem- istry. 30. Household furniture, musical instruments, tools of artisans, &c. Surveying. 31. SCIENCE OF MEDICINE. 32. Advanced state of civilization shown by division of labor. 33. Evidences of the LITERARY ATTAINMENTS of the Egyptians. 34. DIVISION INTO CASTKS, or tribes. 35. The Egyptian hierarchy 36. The RELIGION OF THE EGYPTIANS. Animal worship. 37. The religious temples of the Egyptians. 38. General reverence for certain animals. The bull Apis. 39. Worship of crocodiles, serpents, and cats. 40. Oracles, and gods, of the Egyptians. 41. Origin of animal worship among the Egyptians. 42. Symbolical or emblemat- ical character of the religion of the Egyptians. 43. Scantiness of the MATERIALS OF ASSYRIAN HISTORY. Chronological obscurity, and con- flicting accounts. Scripture testimony. 44. The writings of Herodotus and Ctesias. 45. Gen- eral rejection of all but scripture testimony. Relations which Nineveh and Babylon sustained to each other. Our knowledge of Nineveh. 46. Assyrian history from Nimrod to Ninus. From Ninus to Sardanapalus. 47. Conflicting accounts relative to Ninus and Semir' amis 48. Our knowledge of ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION. Babylon a century before the time of Herodotus. Its buildings, streets, temples, &c. Nothing incredible in the statements of Herodotus. 49. Means of judging of the civilization of the Assyrians. Their acquaintance with the higher de- partments of science. Sculpture, painting, mechanics, religious opinions, &c. Chemical art. Astronomy. 50. The early acquisition of habits of regular industry. How obtained. Natural tendencies and results of such a system. Individual degradation. The contrast between Assyrian and Grecian civilization. 51. CONCLUSION. ] EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION. 627 I. 1. So completely did Egyptian jealousy exclude all foreign ves sels from the mouths of the Nile, that Egypt remained a perfect terra incognita to the Greeks until the reign PO UOY OF of Psammetichus, (672618 B. C.,) when a more liberal THB EARLY policy towards foreigners was adopted. Our earliest in- formation respecting the country is derived from Herodotus, the father of Greek historians, who visited Egypt in the latter part of the fifth century before the Christian era, when it formed part of one of the twenty Persian satrapies. At that time the delta was full of large and populous cities communicating with each other and the Nile by a net-work of canals ; and the priests, in describing to Herod- otus the unrivalled prosperity which, they affirmed, Egypt enjoyed under the last king before the Persian conquest, said there were then twenty thousand cities in the country. As to what Herodotus him- self saw, in both Assyria and Egypt, he is a guide per- ' / 1,1 i CHARACTER tectly trustworthy ; but what he and others relate on OF THE TES . the authority of the Chaldean and Egyptian priests TIMONY OF alone, especially in relation to early Assyrian and Egypt- ian history and chronology, is, in part, to be discarded as wholly fabu- lous, and the rest to be taken with a very great degree of abatement. Still it is interesting to know what the priests themselves taught, and the common people, at least, believed on these subjects. The fabulous early history of Greece and Rome is perhaps less absurdly extravagant, but no more authentic. II. 2. From the rude fragments of Egyptian annals that have been handed down to us from various sources, the various gov- ernments of Egypt, both fabulous and real, like those GRKAT of the oldest countries of Asia, may be divided into three BOVPTIAH great dynasties : First, the mythological rule of the gods : Second, the rule of demi-gods ; and Third, the rule of men. Saturn, or Kronos, and his successors, comprising the twelve prim- ary divinities, who are said to have reigned during a period of nearly four thousand years, are supposed by many to refer to the patriarchal generations from Adam to Noah, as recorded in the fifth chapter of Genesis. The eight demi-gods, whose rule commenced some two hundred years or more after the flood, and who are said to have 628 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL reigned in Egypt during a period of two centuries, are supposed to have comprised the priestly government of Misraim and his success- ors, to the time of Menes, when the rule of thirty-one successive Egyptian families commenced, embracing three hundred and seventy- eight kings, and terminating with the conquest of Egypt by Alex- ander, three hundred and thirty-one years before the Christian era. 3. Everything relating to the first period, or dynasty, is bare con- jecture, based on the crudest fables. The second period, although subsequent to the deluge, extends so far back into primeval antiquity, and has so little connection with the Bible record, that nought but the existence of Misraim can be satisfactorily determined. The fact of the existence, however, of such a person, who early settled in Egypt, is, with a strong degree of credibility, gathered from the Bible, supported by tradition and the earliest Egyptian chronicles ; but whether Misraim be the same as Menes, as many have main- tained, or, as is now more generally believed, a priestly ruler who lived some hundreds of years before him, is still a matter of un- certainty among the most learned chronologists and antiquarians. 4. Of the reign of Menes, and of subsequent events down to the time when Joseph ruled over Egypt, embracing a long HISTORY but indefinite period, we have nothing sufficiently reliable, FROM MENES either in the names of kings, the order of their succession, or the events of their reigns, to deserve the appellation of genuine history; and what has been written on these subjects consists of a mass of conflicting opinions, rather than of statements to which the authors themselves attached any great degree of credibili- ty. Fortunately, however, we have information more reliable and satisfactory, and of a character highly interesting, concerning the social character and condition of the people, and the progress they had made in the arts of civilized life ; and these subjects deserve the greater degree of attention from the very obscurity that rests upon all those great public and political events which would otherwise have formed the principal materials of Egyptian history. Recently much light has been thrown upon the early history of Egypt by the interpretation of the hieroglyphics inscribed "on the monuments, tombs, and temples of that country. A brief account of the discov- eries thus made will appropriately introduce the reader to the evi- dences that can be gathered of early Egyptian civilization. CHAP. II] EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION. 629 III. 5. The French expedition into Egypt, under Bonaparte, in 1798, accompanied by a corps of artists, naturalists, and antiquarians, brought back a large number of copies of the hieroglyph- TOTPTIAN ics found on the monuments of that country, and thus HIKRO- gave a new stimulus to the prosecution of hieroglyphical OLYPHICS - science. From these collections alone, however, it is probable that no discoveries of the real character of the hieroglyphics would have been made ; but there was also discovered, near Rosetta, an engraved tablet, which has been called the Rosetta stone, bearing three inscrip- tions ; the first, in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, or " sacred writing," but partly mutilated ; the second in a different style of Egyptian writing, such as appears to have been used by the common people ; and the third in ancient Greek. This stone fell into the hands of the English, and is now in the British museum in London. The Greek inscription proved to be a translation of the others ; and thus, finally, a key was found, which afforded the first clue to the deciphering of the long lost meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphics. 6. But although the greatest scholars of the age directed their at- tention to this interesting tablet, yet owing to the exceedingly com- plex system of the Egyptian writing, and the circumstance of its being in the ancient Coptic language, it was many years before much progress was made in the construction of the hieroglyphic alphabet. The honor of this great discovery is principally due to a learned Frenchman, Champollion, although he was greatly aided by the labors of Dr. Young of England, and others of his cotemporaries. The great discovery of Champollion was made public in the year 1822, since which time nearly all the known Egyptian hieroglyphics have been translated into the languages of modern Europe. 7. The hieroglyphic Egyptian writing, instead of being composed, as in other languages, wholly of alphabetical letters expressing ^ocal sounds, is found to be of a three-fold character, pictorial, symbolical, and phonetic. For example : 1st. The delineation or picture of an object is sometimes designed to convey an idea of that object, and nothing more ; thus, a crescent is sometimes used to represent the moon, and stands in place of the word moon ; and, in the same man- ner, the leaf of the palm is used to represent the palm-tree. 2d. The delineation or picture of an object is sometimes used symbolically to convey to the mind the meaning of something represented by it. Thus the crescent is also sometimes used to denote a month, probably PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL because the Egyptian month was originally lunar ; and the leaf of the palm to denote a year, probably because the palm was believed to put forth a branch every month. 3d. A large portion of the hiero- glyphic characters are phonetic, that is, they are letters designed to represent vocal sounds, as in our own and other languages. But even these phonetic characters are, many of them, pictures of well- known objects ; so that, apart from the pictorial and symbolical por- tions of the system, the phonetic portion that is, the alphabet proper consists of a series of pictorial representations also, which have lost their original pictorial signification. It is probable, there- fore, that the Egyptian system of writing was, originally, like the Mexican, wholly pictorial ; that many of the pictorial signs or rep- resentations, by a natural transition, were afterwards used symbol- ically, and, eventually, phonetically, thus producing the three-fold system as we now find it. Here then is the first dimculty to be en- countered in interpreting Egyptian hieroglyphics, even after the sys- tem is understood : for it must be ascertained in what particular sense pictorial, symbolical, or phonetic every character is to be taken : for a character may stand, pictorially, for an object, or, sym- bolically, for something associated with it, or, phonetically, for some sound to which it has been appropriated. 8. A second peculiarity of the Egyptian system of writing is the subjoining, to the phonetic name of an object, of a pictorial repre- sentation of the object denoted by the name. Thus, to the names of persons, the figure of a man is subjoined : to the verb " to dance," is subjoined the representation of a man dancing. A third peculiar- ity is, that most of the elementary vocal sounds have more than one sign ; thus forming, in reality, several different alphabets. Again, the writing is sometimes in horizontal, and sometimes in perpendic- ular lines : sometimes it is to be read from right to left, and some- times from left to right ; but it has been ascertained that the begin- ning is designated by the direction in which the heads of the animal figures are turned. 9. Moreover, in addition to the three-fold character already men- tioned, there are found to be three distinct classes of hieroglyphical writing, viz. : first, the hieroglyphic proper, or " sacred sculptured characters," probably the most ancient form, found principally on the monuments : 2d, the hieratic, derived from the former, with such changes as were necessary to adapt the stiff and angular forms of the hieroglyphics to rapid writing. In the hieratic form many of the CHAP. II.] EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION, 631 pictorial and symbolical characters of the sculptured hieroglyphics are dropped, as being too cumbersome for writing, and consequently the phonetic use prevails. The hieratic appears to have been in current use before the year 1500 B. C. 3d. After the Persian con- quest, 525 B. C., the knowledge of the hieroglyphic and hieratic ap- pears to have been confined mostly to the priests ; and a new form, called the demotic, which was an adaptation of the hieratic to still more expeditious writing, came into general use. It may be regard- ed as the vulgar idiom, or writing of the people. At first view the hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and the demotic, appear to be entirely dif- ferent and distinct systems ; but a close examination detects the same general forms pervading all of them. 10. The language in which the hieroglyphics are written is doubt- less an ancient form of the Coptic, of which the more modern Coptic, which has long ceased to be spoken, is an idiom ; for many of the hieroglyphic words are not found in the known vocabulary of the Coptic, and the meaning of such words must therefore be gathered from the context. Much of the hieroglyphic literature of the Egypt- ians is of a theological and mystical nature ; and here the obscurity of the subject renders interpretation doubly difficult ; but the histor- ical writings are more easily read, and they have the advantage of being illustrated, in most cases, by pictorial representations. It is by no means surprising, considering all the peculiarities of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, that no clue was found to their interpretation until the discovery of the Rosetta tablet ; and it is truly wonderful that so much has since been accomplished, as we have evidence of in the developments recently made in early Egyptian history. . .,,or< 5 .H '; !f-.i .'.I o; . i ; i.~: i>; -A'*} Jfci$ *%'fo : ^TK%!JI and principally of the men, and which was carried on in large establishments or manufactories. Vestments of fine linen were known as early, certainly, as the days of Joseph, who made presents of changes of raiment to his brethren. The mummies, both of men and animals, were thickly enveloped in linen ; so that, in connection with what was worn by the people, the quantity manufactured must have been surprising. 28. But in the working and compounding of metals, especially brass, the Egyptians appear, in some respects, to have excelled the moderns. They had war chariots of brass, or bronze ; and swords, bows, and arrows, of the same material, which they had the art of rendering elastic, like steel, and a. " A pulley from an Egyptian tomb is preserved in the Leyden museum, but its age is un- certain." KenricVs Egypt, i. 228. Layard's Nineveh, ii. 247J Note, referring to the same cir cumstance, says, " The pulley was known to the Egyptians." CHAP. IL] EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION. of enabling them to resist the corroding effects of the atmosphere. Among the ruins of Thebes have been found gold and silver banquet- ing cups, tureens, urns, and vases, of the most elegant forms and ex- quisite workmanship. To such a pitch of refinement was the work- ing of the precious materials carried by the Egyptians, that the Greeks even did not excel them, nor have the moderns made any great improvements on these antique models. 29. In the manufacture of pottery the Egyptians displayed a skill not inferior to that of the Greeks ; they also manufactured white and colored glass, from which they made artificial gems of extraordinary beauty. They prepared lime, as we do, by burning calcareous stones; they extracted potash from cinders ; they made wine, vinegar, and even beer ; while their method of embalming, which they appeared disposed to shroud in great mystery, is an additional confirmation of their chemical knowledge. It was also probably owing to the great advances made in the knowledge of chemistry and physics, from which had arisen the art of natural magic, that the necromancers of Egypt were enabled to contend so successfully with Moses as to deceive those who witnessed their juggling experiments. 30. The couches of the Egyptians, their seats, tripods, baskets, &c., were of elegant patterns ; their musical instruments exceeded in variety those of modern times ; while the implements employed in the various trades, having been imitated by the Greeks, were, many of them, exceedingly similar to those employed in the manufactories and workshops of the present day. Geometrical surveying, rendered necessary by the destruction of the landmarks in the annual inunda- tions of the Nile, was early practiced by the Egyptians ; and the science of astronomy appears to have been cultivated by the priests as one of the mysteries of their religion. 31. The science of medicine received so much attention that, in the practice of the art, the division of labor appears to have been carried as far as in modern times. Herodotus says that one physician was confined to the study and management of one disease ; that some attended to diseases of the eyes, some took care of the teeth, and others were conversant with all diseases of the bowels, while many attended to the cure of maladies which were less conspicuous. 11 32. Division of labor could never have been carried to this extent among any other than a refined and highly-civilized people. In the a. Herodotus, ii. 84. 640 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III infancy of society every man employs himself in all the departments of industry which are requisite for the supply of his immediate wants. As society advances, the various arts and professions arise ; with the progress of refinement these undergo various subdivisions ; but it is only in the most advanced stages of civilization that the division is carried to its ultimate limits. A very long period must have elapsed, after medicine had become a separate profession, before a demand arose for that diversity of practitioners in its several departments which we find among the early Egyptians. 33. It is evident, not only that the ancient Egyptians possessed a system of writing, far superior to the picture writing of the Mexicans and Peruvians of America, but, also, that they had books, ATTAINMENTS an( ^ co ll ect i ons f them in libraries. Over the moulder- ing doorway of a Theban temple, supposed to have been erected during the reign of Rhamses the Great, or Sesostris, about the time of Moses, was found the inscription, " the remedy for the soul." Two sculptured deities guarded the entrance to the supposed Library, over one of which was inscribed the words " Lady of Let- ters" and over the other the words " President of the Library." Another inscription, among the Theban ruins, over the head of one of these deities, the Hermes or Mercury of the Egyptians, began, " Discourse of the Lord of the divine writings." Several works, once attributed to Grecian writers, have been authenticated as of Egyptian origin, but thousands of others are known to have perished by the ravages of time. 34. An important institution of the Egyptians, and one that ex- erted a great influence on the national character, was the division of the people into various castes or tribes, the members of INTO^ASTES wn i cn > by the laws of hereditary descent, were obliged to follow the trades and professions of their fathers. To this system may be attributed the remarkably uniform and permanent character of the nation the adherence to ancient usages and the unvarying servility of the lower orders of the people, who had neither the ambition nor the means of improving their condition. The two higher classes were the priests and the military : the remainder of the community was divided among the various trades and professions, and the cultivators of the soil \ and even the latter had many subdi- visions. 35. In the early periods of Egyptian history it is probable that the political influence of the priesthood was very great; but the CHAP. IL] EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION. 641 Egyptian hierarchy had evidently lost much of its power and splendor at the time when the accounts of the Greek historians were written. Although the great religious temples of the Egyptians were found only in the several large cities of the kingdom, yet the sacerdotal order appears to have spread over the whole of Egypt, and extensive domains were set apart for its support. But the priests were not de- voted, exclusively, to the services of religion : on the contrary, they formed the aristocracy of letters : they were astronomers, architects, judges, and physicians ; and had charge of every department of science and learning. 1 36. Various opinions of the real characters of the religion of the Egyptians have been entertained. There are not wanting evidences of their belief in one Supreme Being ; but whatever may n EUGIOW have been the views of the more intelligent of the priests, OF TBE the great mass of the people appear sunk in the most de- * grading species of idolatry. Animal worship, supported and enforced by law, was the religion of the State ; and pompous processions were made, and munificent temples erected, in adoration of the meanest reptiles. Herodotus asserts that all the beasts of Egypt, both the wild and the domestic, were regarded as sacred. 37. Clemens, one of the early Christians, and bishop of Rome, speaking of the religious temples of the Egyptians, says : " The walls shine with gold and silver, and with amber, and sparkle with the various gems of India and Ethiopia ; and the recesses are concealed by splendid curtains. But if you enter the penetralia, and inquire for the image of the god for whose sake the fane was built, one of the attendants on the temple approaches with a solemn and mysterious aspect, and, putting aside the veil, suffers you to peep in and take a glimpse of the divinity. There you behold a snake, a crocodile, or a cat, or some other beast, a fitter inhabitant of a cavern or bog than a temple. 38. Each district in Egypt worshipped some particular animal ; but some species were held in great reverence by the whole nation. These were the ox, the dog, and the cat, the hawk and the ibis, and certain kinds of fish. The bull Apis was worshipped in a magnifi- cent temple at Memphis ; and it was doubtless owing to the circum- 1. Heeren supposes that the priests were an original, civilized tribe, which, migrating from beyond Meroe in Ethiopia, established inland colonies around the temples founded by them, and gradually made the worship of their gods the dominant religion in Egypt. Heeren y t Manual of Ancient Hist., p. 58. 41 642 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. stance of the Israelites having acquired many of the religious notions of the Egyptians, that a golden calf was erected by Aaron in the wilderness, and by Jeroboam in Dan and Bethel. 39. In one district crocodiles were sacred ; and one of the species was kept in a temple, where it was waited on by the priests, and worshipped by the people as a god. At Thebes there were sacred serpents, which, when dead, were buried in the temple of Ammon. Herodotus says that " in whatever family a cat happened to die, every individual cut off his eyebrows ; but on the death of a dog they shaved their heads and every part of their bodies ;" and that " the cats, when dead, were carried to sacred buildings, and after being salted were buried in the city of Bubastis, which was sacred to the Egyptian Diana." 8 - Confirmatory of this statement, im- mense catacombs have been found in Egypt, filled with the mummies of cats. 40. The Egyptians had oracles similar to those of Greece, and Herodotus asserts that the latter were derived from the former, and that in Egypt the art of divination had been in use from the remotest antiquity. The names of nearly all the Grecian gods and goddesses were derived from the Egyptian mythology. 41. Of the origin of animal worship among the Egyptians, and the reasons that induced an intelligent and highly-civilized people to pay divine honors to irrational brutes, various contradictory opinion* have been entertained. Some have supposed that gratitude for the benefits conferred by animals first led to their worship ; others, that the sacred animals were worshipped as types or emblems of the heavenly constellations; others, that as the divinity resides in all beings, the Egyptians worshipped him wherever found ; but others, with more reason, trace the origin of animal worship to those re- ligious or superstitious feelings common to man in the rudest state, and which, among all savage tribes, seek for particular objects of adoration. It is probable that, in Egypt, as among all the uncivil- ized tribes of Central Africa, Fetichism, or the worship of idols, early prevailed ; and when an intelligent class of priests was set apart for the safe keeping of the objects of worship, and the per- formance of religious rites, it would be natural that the religion of the vulgar should become intimately connected with the sciences cherished by the sacerdotal order. 42. Thus the animals that were worshipped as gods by the people, a. Herodotus, ii. 66, 67. CHAP. II] ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION. 643 were to the priests merely symbols of astronomical science, or em- blems of the mysterious works of nature. It was thus that the figures of some of them were used as the signs of the zodiac and the changes of the seasons, that the goat was an emblem of the productive powers of nature, the Apis, or ox, of the fertilizing properties of the Nile, that the leaf of the palm, owing to the longevity of the palm- tree, was a type of age, and that the^ onion, from its concentric layers or pellicles, was viewed as an image of the universe. Thus, it appears that, upon the degrading religion of the people, the Egyptian priests engrafted the mysteries of the sciences, and established a somewhat refined system of Pantheism, or general worship of the powers of the universe. VII. 43. Of the early history of the Assyrians, which is embraced chiefly in that of the two great cities Nineveh and Babylon, our ma- terials are more scanty than those which can be gathered MATERIAL8 to elucidate the history of Egypt. Such is the obscurity OF ASSYRIAN that rests upon the chronology of those remote periods, HISTORY. and so conflicting are the accounts, both of the names of the Assyrian sovereigns, and the actions attributed to them, that the whole subject is involved in the greatest uncertainty. Of the founding of the em- pire or empires of Assyria and Babylon we have scripture testimony in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth verses of the tenth chapter of Gen- esis ; but even here the chronology is a matter of doubt, and trans- lators are divided on the point whether Ashur or Nimrod built Nineveh. 1 The Bible gives no farther account of the Assyrian em- pire until the seventh and eighth centuries before Christ, when we learn that about the year 800 Jonah was sent to preach against Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, and about the year 711 a king of Babylon revolted from the Assyrians and wrote to Hezekiah, king of Judah, congratulating him on his recovery from sickness. 44. Next to the Bible, the principal sources of information on the subject of the ancient Assyrian empire are the writings of Herodotus and Ctesias, Greek historians, the former of whom wrote in the fourth century before Christ, and the latter in the early part of the third. Herodotus travelled in Persia, and, in his accounts of the remains of ancient cities, and the character and condition of the people, may be relied on ; but in other respects he has been accused of dealing in 1. See Note 1., p. .18. 644 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III fable. The historian Ctesias, from whom nearly all subsequent an- nalists and geographers have drawn their materials, resided seventeen years at the Persian court, during which time he composed a history of Assyria and Persia in twenty-three books ; but only fragments of them have come down to us. Ctesias states that he had access to the archives of the Persian empire, and he gives a long list of Baby- lonian and Assyrian kingft ; but he is discredited by many later writers, and his chronology, certainly, is not so reconcilable with the Bible, as is the system adopted by Herodotus. 45. Amidst the mass of conflicting statements and opinions, there- fore, relating to ancient Assyria and Babylon, it is difficult to select anything, apart from the Bible record, to which we can attach the credit of authentic history ; and some writers have rejected, almost entirely, all other than Biblical evidence, as fabulous and unsatisfac- tory. Still it may not be proper to pass over entirely the statements, conflicting though they be, of profane writers ; and we have therefore given, in another part of this work, a brief account of the early Assyrian and Babylonian empire or empires, gathered from the most accredited histories. Both Nineveh and Babylon were Assyrian cities, the latter being, apparently, in some sort of dependence on the former, yet governed by kings or chiefs of its own, and having a hereditary order of priests named Chaldeans, who were masters of all the science and literature of the country. Respecting Nineveh, the greatest of the Assyrian cities, we have no good information from eye witnesses ; but the recent researches of Layard and others have gathered from its ruins a valuable collection of Assyrian sculptures and monuments which promise much information in respect to Assyrian art. 46. From the time that Nimrod founded the Assyrian or Baby- lonian empire, supposed to have been about two thousand five hun- dred and sixty-six years before Christ, to the accession of Ninus, some writers allow a period of about four hundred and forty years to elapse, during which time they state that Babylon was ruled by two successive dynasties of Chaldean and Arab kings, embracing seven of the former and six of the latter, whose names are given by Ctesias. At the close of this period of four hundred and forty years, Ninus, an Assyrian prince, is supposed to have conquered Babylon, after which the two empires remained united, under the successors of Ninus, until the reign of Sardanapalus, when occurred the revolt of the Medes and Babylonians, which terminated in a final separation CHAP. II.] ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION. 645 of the monarchy into the Babylonian and Assyro-Median States, eight hundred and twenty-one years before the Christian era. 47. From Ctesias we have detailed accounts of the reigns of Ninue and his queen and successor Semir' amis, but they wear more the garb of romance than of genuine history. Both are said to have been mighty conquerors whose armies numbered millions of men. It is said that Semir' amis was the daughter of an Assyrian goddess, that during her infancy she was nourished by a flock of pigeons, and that, instead of dying the death of mortals, she was translated from earth, in the form of a dove. Moreover, the events stated by Ctesias to have occurred during the reign of Semir' amis have been attributed by other writers to different reigns; chronologers cannot agree, within fifteen hundred years, as to the period of her existence ; and some have considered such a personage entirely fabulous. On the whole, the accounts derived from Ctesias seem entitled to little credit ; and, without them, an impenetrable cloud of darkness hangs over the history and chronology of the early empires of Assyria and Babylon. VIII. 48. Of the extent and character of early Assyrian civilization we have materials for a more accurate estimate in the accounts of eye- witnesses, although written during its decline, and in the monuments exhumed from the earth in which they had cl ^%*w V been buried for ages. From the valuable particulars which Herodotus, speaking from his own observation, gives us of Babylon, we may judge of its condition a century earlier, in the days of its full splendor, when, traversed in the middle by the Euphrates, and surrounded by walls three -hundred feet in height, seventy-five feet in thickness, and composing a square of which each side, con- taining twenty-five gates of brass, was nearly fifteen miles in length, it was the metropolis of a powerful empire, " the glory of king- doms, and the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency." Its buildings, three or four stories high, and its broad and straight streets, such as were unknown in Greece at that period, its temple of Belus, com- posed of eight solid towers built one above the other, full of costly decorations of gold and silver, and its royal palace, with its memor- able terraces or hanging gardens, were well calculated to fill the Greek writers with astonishment ; but we have no good reasons for distrusting the general accuracy of their statements. There is nothing 646 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART HI incredible in the accounts of the enormous bulk of the walls and other structures of Babylon, when we consider the almost unbounded fertility of the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, their dense popu- lation, the convenience and abundance of building materials, and the unlimited command of labor which the Assyrian kings are supposed to have possessed. The pyramids of Egypt, and the great wall of China, the latter twenty-five feet high and twelve hundred miles in length, are analogous cases, furnishing results quite sufficient to make us mistrustful of our own means of appreciation. 49. Of Assyrian civilization we may say, in general terms, that it was such as was inseparable from an agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial people dwelling mostly in cities, and cultivating the arts of peaceful life. Calculate the wants, natural and factitious, and the divisions of labor requisite to supply them, in such a state of society, and whole chapters of details will be readily suggested. Of the advance made by the Assyrians in the higher departments of science, with the exception of Astronomy, we know little. In sculp- ture we have evidence, in recently-obtained relics, of prevailing ideas of the vast, powerful, mystical, and obscure, in religion ; but far in- ferior to the beautiful and sublime, but later conceptions, of Grecian genius ; while in finish and execution the infancy of the art among the Assyrians is plainly discernible. Of their knowledge of painting, geometry, and mechanics, and of their religious and philosophical opinions, we know, comparatively, nothing. Of their progress in the chemical art our knowledge is confined mostly to the rich dyes of their cotton and woollen fabrics, which were celebrated throughout all the Eastern regions. At a very early period, some say more than two thousand years before the Christian era, the Chaldeans made and recorded astronomical observations ; but none of definite date can be traced higher than the middle of the eighth century B. C. By long-continued observations they deduced the mean daily motions of the moon with a degree of accuracy which differs only by four seconds from modern lunar tables ; and Herodotus affirms that, " as to the pole of the earth, the gnomon, a and the division of the day into twelve parts, the Greeks received them from the Baby- lonians." 50. Both Assyrian and Egyptian civilization exhibit, on a vast scale, the acquisition of habits of regular industry, long before they a. Probably either the sun dial, or a style erected perpendicularly to the horizon in order to find the altitude of the sun. CHAP. II.] ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION. 647 had acquired any footing in Europe ; but these habits, so foreign to the natural temper of man, were purchased in the one case by pros- trate obedience to despotic rule, and in the other by the no less odi- ous tyranny of a consecrated institution of caste. Every man's mode of life, his creed, his duties, his place in society, were fixed, in the one case by political and in the other by religious tyranny. The natural tendencies of such a system were towards a gross kind of civ- ilization in mass, capable of the most stupendous results of mere physical labor, but at the same time opposed to great national ad- vancement, to the acquisition of any high mental qualities, and the developments of individual genius. The individual man was degraded lost in the masses, of whom he formed only a minute fraction his life of little worth, and its loss seldom or never felt by the communi- ty. We shall find the strongly-marked democratic type of Grecian civilization contrasting favorably with this in its character and ten- dencies : we shall see it stimulating to action the will and the reason, and, by elevating the individual man, and giving free scope to indi- vidual impulse and energy, furnishing, in the glorious consummations of genius, themes of admiration to all succeeding ages. IX. 5 1 . From the brief view that we have taken of the early history of mankind after the deluge, we are forced to the conclusion that Egypt was the earliest, most intelligent, and most powerful of ,1 , i -i / i , t> i i CONCLUSION. the great kingdoms or antiquity, and that trom her nave been handed down, through the Greeks and Romans, to modern times, many of the arts of civilized life; but that Assyria and Babylon, and perhaps Ethiopia also, attained a degree of splendor scarcely infe- rior to Egypt, in the magnitude, wealth, and magnificence of their cities, and the commercial industry of their people. Of those distant ages, however, after all our researches, we can obtain only a very imper- fect knowledge ; but from what little we do know we look back upon them as upon a world of buried greatness, while the few memorials that point to their untold treasures of opulence, and art, and power, overwhelm us with unavailing regret that so much of the history of our race is forever buried in oblivion. M'+'t- 648 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTOEY. [PAET III CHAPTER III. CHARACTER AND EXTENT OF CIVILIZATION DURING THE FABULOUS PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY. ANALYSIS. 1. GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY, the introduction to Grecian history. Its Philo- sophical character. 2. Character of the LEGENDS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 3. Hncertainty of GRECIAN CHRNOLOGY prior to the first Olympiad. Character of the Laconian chronology. 4. INTERPRETATION OF THE GRECIAN FABLES. 5. Semi-historical interpretation. The allegorical. The latter generally to be preferred. Both inapplicable in certain cases. Examples of alle- gorical interpretation. 6. Personification of natural powers and agents. 7. The Cecropian fable. 8. The contest between Minerva and Neptune. 9. The fable of Cran' aus. 10. Of the Egyptian Dan' aus and his daughters. 11. The legend of Hercules, allegorical explanation. 12. The Egyptian legend of Hercules. 13. Extent of the legend of Hercules. Views of Thirl- wall, Clinton, and Grote. 14. Legend of the Argonautic expedition. Different interpretations. 15. The story of Helen and the Trojan war. Views of Thirlwall. 16. Views of Grote. 17. Character, and value, of the Grecian legends. 18. RELIGION OF THE EARLY GREEKS. Great number and variety of the Grecian deities. Foundation of this religion. 19. The gods of the Greeks, change from their symbolical character. 20. The merely symbolical character of the gods of the Egyptians and Asiatics. Causes of the hideous forms of some of their deities. 21. Why nothing of this kind existed among the Greeks. Traces of the symbolical representation. 22. Personal character of the gods. 23. BELIEF IN A FUTURE STATE. The souls of the dead in Hades. The " Islands of the Blessed." Punishment of the great offenders. 24. Influence of Grecian mythology upon Grecian art. 25. Early GRECIAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT. Theclass of chiefs or nobles. 26. Powersof the kings. Their pecuniary advantages. 27. Laws. Administration of justice. 23. GEOGRAPH- ICAL KNOWLEDGE of the early Greeks. 29. ASTRONOMY AND COMMERCE. Naval expeditions. 30. DWELLINGS AND OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE. 31. Homer's representations. 32. MAN- NERS. Courtesies and friendships. 33. Enmities. Conduct in war. 34. DOMESTIC RELA- TIONS. Children and parents. Marriage. 35. Treatment of women. 36. THE ISRAELITES. No evidences, from the hieroglyphics, of their sojourn in Egypt. Supposed reason. 37. Evidences from profane authors. The name Moses. 38. Confirmatory evidence of the name and deeds of Moses. 39. Extract from Manetho. Accounts given by Tacitus, Diodorus, and others. 40. The story of the supply of quails. 4!. Conclusion arrived at from these circumstances. 42. Social character, and condition, &c., of the Israelites. 43. Evidences of an advanced state of society in the lifetime of Abraham and Isaac. 44. At the period of the Exodus. I. 1. The world of fable, far back in the shadowy past of Grecian history, opens with a variety of strange legends of gods and goddesses, who were anterior, as well as superior, to the race of MYTHOLOGY. ^^^^' Chaos, Earth, Ocean, and Heaven, Night, Sleep, Dreams, and Time, personified, as well as Jupiter, Apollo, Neptune, Vulcan, Juno, Venus, and Minerva, are represent- CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN CIVILIZATION. 649 ed by the Grecian muse as marrying and intermarrying, and beget- ting sons and daughters, some, of god-like natures, and others, min- gling forms human and divine. Grecian mythology is the Grecian view of the Philosophy of Nature ; and in the allegorical legends of the gods, natural agents, of gigantic powers, are represented as persons, possessing the attributes of free-will and conscious agency, and in a state of confusion and strife, until destroyed, imprisoned, or reduced to obedience, by the overmastering power of Jupiter, who finally ac- quires supremacy over gods and men. 2. Growing out of, and interwoven with, the Grecian theogony, and still authenticated by the Greek muse alone, we next meet with a class of heroic legends and genealogies, furnishing a LEGEND8 series of names and personal adventures, through which OF THK the Greek looked back to his gods, and which he regard- 1IEROIC AGK - ed as the primitive history of his race. In this primitive history, extending down through a period of at least a thousand years subse- quent to the supposed founding of Argos, it is impossible to dis- tinguish names and events, real and historical, from fictitious creations; and much that was deeply seated in the national faith and feelings of the Greeks, and to which the moderns have assigned a positive chronology, is found to rest on no firmer basis than the songs and traditionary legends of bards and story-tellers. 3. The whole of Grecian chronology prior to the year 776 B. C., the date of the first recorded Olympiad, 1 consists of calculations founded upon the fabulous genealogies of kings, heroes, and demi-gods, in the supposed line of descent from some CH ^ONOU)QT remote ancestor. Thus, Laconian chronology, which is generally taken as the basis of the whole, is traced back through the Spartan kings to Hercules about three generations being reckoned to a century a computation altogether illusory, and as doubtful as the reality of the legendary and poetical personages thus erected into definite historical land-marks.* II. 4. As the Grecian myths or fables, from the earliest assignable 1. An Olympiad was a period of four years the space of time which intervened between any two celebrations of the Olympic Games. The Olympiads are reckoned from the year 776 B. C., in which year Coroebus was victor in the foot race, hence culled the Olympiad of Corcebus. The Olympic Games were celebrated before this period, but their origin is unknown. a. See the " Application of Chronology to Grecian Legends" examined : Grote, ii. 34-37. 650 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IH period of Grecian history down to a period subsequent to the sup- posed Trojan war, continually confound the human INTERPRKTA- , . ,. . , , , . . . TIOX OF THE an d tne divine, and deal in the most incredible narra- GBEOIAN tions, they eventually fell into discredit, except among the multitude, with the Greeks themselves ; and with the philosophers they early became the subjects of a respectful and curious analysis, which has continued to divide the opinions of the learned to the present day. By some, the principle of semi-historical inter- pretation has been assumed ; and by others the allegorical. 5. The semi-historical interpretation, leaving out of the fabulous legend whatever is miraculous, highly colored, or extravagant, retains only a series of credible incidents : of which all that can be asserted is, that they may or may not be true they may be matters of fact, or they may be plausible fiction. The allegorical interpretation rep- resents the poetic legends as conveying to the early Greeks, religious, physical, and historical knowledge, under the veil of symbols and alle- gories. Doubtless both modes of interpretation are partially correct, and will apply to particular cases ; but the semi-historical is never to be adopted unless some collateral evidence can be brought to its support. In the legendary accounts of the founding of the chief Grecian cities, and even of the Argonautic expedition, and the siege of Troy, it will be found, therefore, that we can place little or no historical reliance, while, on the other hand, many of these fables contain highly interesting and intrinsic evidence of their allegorical character. There are others, doubtless, the special product of the imagination and feelings mere fictions radically distinct both from genuine history and philosophy, that cannot be broken down and de- composed into the one, nor allegorized into the other. a A few ex- amples of plausible allegorical interpretation, together with the reasons for distrusting the semi-historical view of some of the more import- ant and commonly-received heroic legends, will serve to characterize more truly what are appropriately styled the fabulous and uncertain periods of Grecian history. 6. The propensity of the Greeks to personify natural powers and agents may be regarded both as the basis of their religion and their legendary history. And when Earth,. Ocean, and Heaven, personi- fied, are placed at the beginning of celestial beings, it is not wonder- ful that rivers, fountains, and other natural objects, viewed as ration- al existences, should form the connecting link with humanity. Thus, a. Grote, i. 450. CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN CIVILIZATION. 651 by a figure of speech, the tributary streams and fountains may be spoken of as sons and daughters of Ocean ; and when the latter was converted into a god, it required no great effort of the Greek imagi- nation to select from his numerous progeny here and there one, like Inachus, of sufficient distinction to become the founder of a Grecian State. 7. The probable origin of the Cecropian fable exhibits the same personifying propensity of the Grecian mind. According to an Attic legend, the form of Cecrops was half human and half serpent, sup- posed to denote his indigenous nature ; as the serpent was said to be " a child of the earth." The name Cecrops has also been reduced to the meaning indigenous, and also to a synonyme of the name of an insect, the cicada, which the vulgar supposed to spring spontaneously from the earth. Cecrops is therefore considered by some to be nothing more than an emblem of the indigenous cicada itself, con- verted by the poets into the first king of Athens. This supposition is strengthened by the names of three of the daughters of the fabled Cecrops, Herse, deiv, Pandrosus, all-dewy, and Agraulos, a field insect sacred to Apollo. 8. Moreover, in the contest between Minerva and Neptune, in which Cecrops was made umpire, has been recognized an account of the rivalry that subsisted between two classes of the people of Attica, the one maritime and commercial, and the other pastoral and agricultural, whose occupations were typified, the former by the emblem of the trident, the sceptre of the god of the seas, and the latter by that of the olive, the symbol of peace. The victory of Minerva expresses a preponderance of the peaceful habits of pastoral and agricultural life, and aptly denotes the condition of the Athenian people down to the age of Themistocles. 9. Cran' aus, the successor of Cecrops, is said to have married Pedias, and the issue of their wedlock was Atthis. Here is a coinci- dence of Greek words, woven into an historical myth, which affords a plausible explanation of the allegorical character of the legend. Cran' aus, (xqavur] yi],) " the rocky country," is united with Pedias (IJsdias) the "country of the plains;" and the union of the inhabit- ants of the hills with those of the plains forms Attica, or Atthis. " And yet a hundred histories have repeated the name of Cran' aus as a king of Attica !" a 10. The origin and name of the Egyptian Dan' aus, who with his a. Anthon's Clas. Diet, and Wordsworth's Greece. 652 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL fifty daughters is said to have fled to Greece, and to have founded a colony in the vicinity of Argos, have been accounted for in the fol- lowing not improbable manner. The eastern part of the plain of Argos was dry and barren. The word dan' os signifies dry, whence perhaps the derivation of the word Dan' ai, often' applied to the Greeks, meaning the people of t/ie thirsty land of Argos. The per- sonification of their name becomes a hero, Dan' aus. Again, springs are daughters of the earth, as they are called by the Arabs ; the nymphs of the springs are therefore daughters of Dan' aus, that is, of the thirsty land ; and, as a confirmation, in some degree, of this view of the legend, the names of four of the daughters of Dan' aus were the names of springs. 1 1 . One of the most important and widely disseminated of the classic legends of antiquity is that of the hero-god Hercules. At first view nothing can be more monstrous, more at variance with every principle of chronology, and more replete with contradictions than the barren legend of the adventures of such a mortal as poetry represents Hercules to have been. But there is an interesting and not improbable philosophical explanation of the fable. Hercules is supposed to be no other than the sun, that gives light and life to the world ; and his twelve labors are the passage of that luminary through the twelve signs of the zodiac. Thus viewed, every part of the legend teems with animation and beauty, and is marked by a pleasing and perfect harmony. The god of day commences his annual revolution with the passage into the constellation Leo, the Lion, in the summer solstice ; and in the language of poetry, the hero-god combats a fearful lion which ravages the Nemean plains. Hence, too, the legend that the Nemean lion had fallen from the skies. In the second month the sun enters the sign Virgo, when the constella- tion of the Hydra sets, the second monster that opposes the hero ; and the constellation in the heavens becomes a fearful animal on the earth, to which the language of poetry assigns a hundred heads, with the power of reproduction as they are crushed by the weapon of the hero. In this manner the twelve labors of Hercules are explained as an astronomical allegory. 12. Herodotus (ii. 42) relates the following Egyptian legend of Hercules, which, like hundreds of others, would be wholly without meaning, had we not a key to its interpretation. " The Egyptians say that Jupiter Ammon was long averse to the solicitations of Her- cules to see his person, but in consequence of his repeated importuni- CHAP. HI.] GRECIAN CIVILIZATION, 653 ties, the god, in compliance, used the following artifice. He cut off the head of a ram, and covering himself with its skin, showed him- self in that form to Hercules. From that time the Thebans esteemed the ram as sacred, and, except on the annual festival of Jupiter, never put one to death. On this solemnity they kill a ram, and placing its skin on the image of the god, they introduce before it a figure of Hercules." " Who," says Heeren, " understands this story and this festival from the mere relation ? But when we learn that the ram, opening the Egyptian year, is the symbol of the ap- proaching spring, and that Hercules is the sun of that season in its full power, the story, as well as the festival, is explained as descrip- tive of the spring, and as a figurative representation of the season that is beginning." 1 3. But we have not room to pursue this subject farther. Similar illustrations might be given of many otherwise unmeaning legends of the gods. Hercules was worshipped as the sun, under a variety of names, from Ethiopia to Britain and Scythia, and from Gibraltar (the pillars of Hercules) to the shores of Eastern India. Thirl wall supposes that the astronomical part of the legend of Hercules, refer- ring to his twelve labors, may have been borrowed from the Phoeni- cians, and that other exploits attributed to him may have had some foundation in the real achievements of several Grecian heroes. Clinton, in his able work, the " Fasti Hellenici," ( Grecian Annals,) considers there is satisfactory proof that Hercules was a real person ; but Grote refutes this position with arguments which appear to us unanswerable. 14. Of the Argonautic expedition long believed, even by the moderns, to rest on a basis of accredited history, historical criticism speaks in the same tone of distrust, as of the stories of Cecrops, Gran' aus, Dan' aus, and Hercules. The early legends of the Argo- nauts differed widely from each other ; and there are no means of determining what the original story was. Not only are the various editions of it full of the unreal and the marvellous, but the chronol- ogy is various ; the geography of the places visited is a series of im- possibilities ; and there is not a particle of evidence that this ancient tale is anything more than a legend from the beginning. Yet it formed a part of the national faith of the Greeks, which they would never relinquish ; and when the advanced state of geographical knowledge, and improved criticism, had dispelled many of its il- lusions, the geographer Strabo hit upon a saving explanation, which 654 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. the moderns have generally adopted. Making a compromise with fiction, he supposed the golden fleece to be typical of the great wealth of Kolchis, and the voyage of the Argonauts to have been a plunder- ing expedition to that country. But this, as well as all other semi- historical interpretations of the legend, is bare supposition, and nothing more. It is more probable that the story has no particular facts for its basis ; and the monumentary evidence of the voyage, scat- tered over a vast region, from Italy to the Arabian Sea, and from Egypt and Lybia to the German Ocean, go far to prove that the legend is a general allegorical representation of the early beginnings of Grecian commerce with the surrounding nations. 15. Concerning the story of Helen and the Trojan war, " the most splendid gem in the Grecian legends," we shall give merely the re- sults of the investigations of the ablest of modern historians. " We conceive it necessary," says Thirlwall, " to admit the reality of the Trojan war as a general fact, but beyond this we scarcely venture to proceed a single step. We find it impossible to adopt the poetical story of Helen, partly on account of its inherent improbability, and partly because we are convinced that Helen is a merely mythological person. " a 16. "In the eyes of modern inquiry," says Grote, "the Trojan war is essentially a legend, and nothing more. If we are asked whether it be not a legend embodying portions of historical matter, and raised upon a basis of truth whether there may not really have occurred, at the foot of the hill of Ilium, a war purely human and political, without gods, without heroes, without Helen, without Ama- zons, without Ethiopians under the beautiful son of Eos, without the wooden horse, without the characteristic and expressive features of the old epic war if we are asked whether there was not really some such historical Trojan war as this, our answer must be, that as the possibility of it cannot be denied, so neither can the reality of it be affirmed.'* 17. But it may be asked, are even the fabulous records of the thousand years of Grecian history, down to the first Olympiad, from which we have derived so many of our cherished ideas of classical antiquity, to be now thrown aside as worthless legendary lore ? By no means. The very circumstances which render the Grecian legends unreliable as historical records, enhance their value as unconscious expositors of real life ; for while they professedly describe the past, a. Thirlwall, i. 80. b. Grote, i. 321. . IIL] GRECIAN CIVILIZATION. 655 their entire drapery of circumstance, character, scenes, thought, and feeling, is necessarily borrowed from the surrounding present. The Grecian legends, the spontaneous, and the earliest growth, of the Grecian mind, and accepted by the Greeks as serious realities are therefore to be viewed as exponents of early Grecian philosophy of all that the early Greeks believed, and felt, and conjectured respect- ing the character and attributes of the gods and heroes, and respect- ing the social relations, duties, and motives of mankind ; and not only are they to be regarded as brilliant creations of fancy, but they are to be studied as instructive pictures of life and manners, and as germs of thought and feeling, which have given to Grecian art and literature many of their prominent characteristics. From the poems of Homer, Hesiod, and others, who gathered the floating legends into continuous epics, we obtain our principal knowledge of early Grecian mythology and worship. III. 18. It has been a disputed point whether the Pelasgians, from whom the Hellenes derived much of their religion, worshipped only one srod, or paid adoration to numerous deities. The RELIGION OK latter supposition seems by far the most probable. A THE EARLY spontaneous religious feeling, unconnected with any glim- GREEKS - merings of traditional revelation, would probably arise in the bosoms of the rudest barbarians, however they might be situated ; but the character of this natural religion would doubtless be varied or modi- fied by the circumstances of climate, soil, scenery, and mode of life. The early Greeks, like all rude uncultivated tribes, probably asso- ciated their earliest religious emotions with the character of surround- ing objects, and ascribed its appropriate deity to every manifestation of power in the visible universe. Thus they had nymphs of the forests, rivers, meadows, and fountains, and gods and goddesses almost innumerable,* some terrestrial, others celestial, according to the places over which they were supposed to preside, and rising in im- portance in proportion to the powers they manifested. The founda- tion of this religion, like all others, was a belief in higher existences, which have an influence over the destinies of mortals. 19. Tfib gods of the Greeks, unlike those of the Egyptians, and the Eastern world, although at first exclusively of physical origin, became, in process of time, something more than mere symbols of Hesiod computes the number to be not less than thirty thousand. 656 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART HI. natural objects and powers. The Grecian gods were invariably ex- hibited under a human form ; and as the symbolical representations of natural powers and objects were gradually dismissed or lost sight of, the gods became possessed of the whole moral nature of man, with its defects and excellences, but with infinitely higher powers and attributes, and a form more ennobled and exalted, and generally more beautiful. 20. But among the Egyptians and the Asiatics, when the human form was attributed to the gods it was only secondary, employed for the purpose of exhibiting the objects or powers symbolized more clearly to the senses. Thus, keeping the primary design in view the symbolizing of nature the Egyptian did not hesitate to worship animals and various natural objects, and to unite, in the representa- tions of his gods, the combined forms of beasts and men, often a compound of all that was terrible and hideous. Thus the symbolical figure of the Phyrgian Diana, identified with the goddess of nature, denoted, by its multitude of breasts, the fruitfulness of nature ; and it was for similar reasons that the Hindoo did not scruple to represent his gods with twenty heads or a hundred arms. 21. With the Greeks, however, nothing of this kind existed, be- cause, so far back as we can trace their history, the Grecian gods had already become morally accountable persons ; a although even in Homer we can detect traces of the symbolical representation, where Jupiter represents the ether, Juno the atmosphere, and Apollo the sun. In the more perfect system of Grecian mythology, however, we observe a consciousness, in the people who adopted it, of a general dependence on superior moral beings ; and although Jupiter, the king of all the gods, was, in a limited sense, the expressed personification of certain powers of the natural world, and was called the lord of the upper regions, " who dwelt on the summits of the highest mountains, gathered the clouds about him, shook the air with his thunder, and wielded the lightning as the instrument of his wrath, " b yet he was often addressed in the simple abstract sense of an invisible, over- ruling power ; and, confirmatory of this, the Greek name of the deity signified, simply, god. 22. Although the gods are represented by the Greek poets as sub- ject to the passions and frailties of human nature, and, 1( sometimes stained with crimes of the blackest dye, yet as they seemed too great, and too far removed from earthly affairs, to be tried by the rules of a. Heeren's Pol. of the Grecians, p. 56. b. Thirlwall, i. p. 93. CHAP. III.] GRECIAN CIVILIZATION. 657 mortals, so they were not believed to approve, in men, of the vices in which they themselves were accustomed to indulge. They were never seriously considered as examples for imitation, but were, nevertheless, supposed to punish gross violations of justice and humanity, and to reward the brave and virtuous. The moral sentiments of the Grecians, therefore, could never have arisen from a contemplation of the supposed character of their gods, but the latter rather grew out of the former ; and after the general principles of virtuous conduct had become established, the gods were supposed to enforce them. But although the favor of the gods was believed to be obtained by a life of virtue, and their interposition in one's behalf by worship and sacrifice, yet so subject were they to passion and frailty that the most exalted piety could not always save a hero from the persecution of a god whom he had innocently provoked. 23. The Greeks believed in a future state ; but during the heroic age the idea of retribution appears not to have been associated with it, except in the cases of those who had been guilty of BELIEF ^ direct blasphemy, or other gross impiety, against the A FUTURE gods. The souls of the dead were supposed to descend STATB - to the realms of Hades, where they remained, joyless phantoms, the shadows of their former selves, destitute of mental vigor, and, like the spectres of the North American Indians, pursuing, with dream- like vacancy, the empty images of their past occupations and enjoy- ments. So cheerless is the twilight of the nether world that the ghost of Achilles informs Ulysses that it would rather live the meanest hireling on earth, than be doomed to continue in the shades below. Yet a few of the favored spirits, transported to some distant islands of the Ocean that are cooled by refreshing breezes, and where spring perpetual reigns, are permitted to enjoy a better destiny. On the other hand, those great offenders, the deriders of the power of the gods, plunged into an abyss deeper than Hades, are doomed to tor- ments of unavailing toil and perpetual longings. a a. See Virgil, JKneid vi. and Odyssey xi. ; in the former the descent of ^Eneas, and in the latter of Ulysses, to the lower world. See, also, in Anthon's Classical Dictionary, the articles Tantalus, Sisyphus, Tityus, Ixion, &c. Tantalus, placed in water up to his chin, was tormented with unquenchable thirst, while the fruit suspended near him constantly eluded his grasp. Sisyphus was engaged in rolling a huge stone up a hill ; a never-ending, still beginning toil ; for, as soon as it reached the summit, it rolled down again into the plain. Tityus was placed on his back, while a vulture constantly fed upon his liver and entrails, which grew again as fast as they were eaU-n. Ixion was fastened, with brazen bands, to an ever-revolving fiery wheel. Only once do we read that these torments ceased, and that was when the musician Orpheus, lyre in hand, descended to the lower world to reclaim his beloved Eurydice. In the 42 658 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. 24. The moral character and consequent human form attributed to the Grecian gods exerted an important influence on the whole progress of Grecian civilization. Asiatic and Egyptian artists never tasked themselves to produce ideal forms of beauty. The monstrous figures often given their gods, in accordance with the symbolical rep- resentations to which they were confined, furnished but a poor school of statuary and painting ; and this is the prominent reason why, in those Eastern nations, so little progress was ever made in the fine arts. The Grecian artist, however, looking upon his gods as moral beings, indued with human forms, was called to contemplate and give expression to those divine attributes which distinguished them above mortals. A boundless field was thus opened for poetic invention also, which was early cultivated by the genius of a Homer. " The sculptor Phidias," says Heeren, " found in Homer the idea of his Olympian Jupiter; and the most sublime image in human shape, which time has spared us, the Apollo of the Vatican, may be traced to the same origin." Strike from the Grecian arts of painting, poetry, and sculpture, that which they derived from Grecian mythology, and but a few naked forms, without soul, or grace, or beauty, would remain. IV. 25. The form of government that prevailed among the early Grecians, especially after the Pelasgic race had yielded to the more GRECIAN warlike and adventurous Hellenes, was evidently that of FORM OF the kingly order, on a democratic basis ; although it is GOVERNMENT, j^^fo to ascertain the precise extent of the royal pre- rogatives. In all the Grecian States there appears to have been a hereditary class of chiefs or nobles, distinguished from the common freemen by titles of honor, superior wealth, dignity, valor, and noble birth, which latter implied no less than a descent from the gods themselves, to whom every princely house seems to have traced its origin. 26. But the kings, although generally hereditary, were not always so, a nor were they absolute monarch s ; they were rather the most eminent of the nobility, the first among their equals having the command in war, and the chief seat in the administration of justice ,* beautiful language of poetry, at the music of his "golden shell" Tantalus forgot his thirst, the wheel of Ixion stood still, and Tityus ceased his moauing. a. " Esteem for the ruling families secured to them the government ; but their power waa not strictly hereditary." Heeren's Politics of Ancient Greece, p. 89. CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN CIVILIZATION. 659 and their authority was more or less extended in proportion to the noble qualities they possessed, and, particularly, to their valor in battle. a Unless distinguished by courage and strength, kings could not even command in war ; and during peace they were bound to consult the people in all important matters. Among their pecuniary advantages were the profits of an extensive domain, which seems to have been attached to the royal office, and not to have been the private property of the individual. Thus Homer represents Telemachus as in danger not only of losing his throne by the adverse choice of the people, but, also, among the rights of the crown, the domains of Ulysses his father, should he not be permitted to succeed him. b 27. During the heroic age the Greeks appear to have had no fixed laws established by legislation. Public opinion and usage, based upon principles of natural equity, and confirmed and expounded by judicial decisions, were the only sources to which the weak and injured could look^for protection and redress. Private differences were most often settled by private means ; but in quarrels which threatened to dis- turb the peace of community, the public compelled the injured party to accept, and the aggressor to pay, the compensation established by custom. As among the savage tribes of America, and even among our early Saxon ancestors, the murderer was often allowed to pay a stipulated price, which stayed the spirit of revenge, and was received as a full expiation of his guilt. The mutual dealings of the several independent Grecian States with each other were regulated by no es- tablished principles, and international law can hardly be said to have existed at this early period. 28. During the heroic age the Greeks seem to have had but little knowledge of geography, beyond the confines of Greece and its islands, and the coasts of the ^Egean Sea. The habitable world GEOGRAPH . was supposed to be surrounded by an ocean-like river, ICAL beyond which were realms of darkness, dreams, and death. KNOWLEDGE - Within the hollow earth, however, was the more proper abode of de- parted spirits; and still lower down, as far below earth as heaven was above it, was the pit of Tartarus, secured by its iron gates and brazen floor, filled with eternal gloom and darkness, and its still air unmoved by any wind. This was the prison house of the gods, or of those mortals, of more than mortal power, who were the implaca- ble enemies of Jupiter. a. Hceren's Manual Ancient History, p. 126. b. See the Odyssey, (Cowper's Trans.) xi. 207-223. 660 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL 29. The astronomy of the Greeks appears to have been much more limited than that of the Egyptians at the same period, and little ap- ASTRONOMY pli ca ti on of it was made to navigation. Legitimate com- AND rnerce appears to have been deemed of no great import- t OOMMERCE - ance during the heroic age. The largest ships of the early Greeks were slender, half decked row-boats, capable of carrying, at most, only about a hundred men, and having a movable mast, which was hoisted only to take advantage of a favorable wind. Most of the naval expeditions at this early period appear to have been fitted out for purposes of plunder ; and piracy was not deemed dis- honorable. When Mentor and Telemachus came to the court of Nestor, that prince, after entertaining them kindly, asked them, as a matter of curiosity, whether they were travellers or robbers ! 30. The Greeks, unlike most of the Asiatic nations, never dwelt in tents, and were never a wandering people. During the heroic age Greece was a populous and well-cultivated country, with DWELLINGS, J 7 AND OCCUPA- numerous and large cities, in part surrounded with walls, TIONS, OF an( j having gates and regular streets ; but no traces THE PEOPLE. oi pavements appear. Homer describes the diiierent branches of agriculture, and the various labors of farming, the cul- ture of the grape, and the duties of the herdsmen. The weaving of woollen and of linen fabrics, and perhaps of cotton also, was the chief occupation of the women, and, as in Egypt, among the Israelites, was carried to a high degree of perfection. 31. Homer's account of the luxury and splendor of the great, however, the dwellings, clothing, and furniture of the opulent, and the armor of his heroes, must not be regarded as pictures which represent the true state of Grecian art at this period. The poet may have drawn largely upon imagination for his descriptions, and be- sides, many of the manufactures from the precious metals were evi- dently of foreign origin. Still, many ancient remains of Grecian art attest the general fidelity of the poet's representations of the magnifi- cence which the noble and affluent loved to display. 32. The manners of the early Grecians presented a mixture of op- posing qualities, such as we might expect to find in a rude but chiv- - alrous age, and in an unsettled state of society. /Every MANNERS. J / stranger was looked upon either as an enemy or a guest : if a traveller could once enter a princely hall, and seat himself at the hearth of the opulent, he was treated at least with respect, and Lis person was deemed sacred. As a motive for observing the laws CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN CIVILIZATION. 661 of hospitality, Homer mentions that the gods, often in the similitude of strangers, visit the abodes of men. a 4 The many instances which Homer relates of intimate and durable friendships contracted not only between equals, but also between the princely and their inferiors, present an amiable trait of Grecian character in this rude age. It was not uncommon that an interchange of armor between two heroes of opposing forces ratified a contract to shun each other's path thence- forward in battle. b 33. But if the friendship of the Greek was warm, his enmity was fierce : while the remembrance of an injury lasted, his resentment knew no bounds, and in war he felt no pity and showed no mercy. In battle, quarter seems never to have been given to a prostrate foe, but with a view to ransom : c indignities were often offered the bodies of the dead ;d and prisoners were sometimes sacrificed 6 to the shades of those who had fallen, although perhaps this was not authorized by the established maxims of warfare. But, worst of all, when a city was captured, all the males capable of bearing arms were put to death, and the women and children were carried away into slavery. 34. In the domestic relations of life there was much in the conduct of the Greeks that was meritorious. Children were treated with affection, and great care was bestowed on their education; and, on the other hand, the respect which they showed their parents, even after the period of youth and dependence, approached almost to veneration. As evidence of a rude age, however, the father disposed of the maiden's hand with absolute authority ; and although we meet with many models of conjugal af- fection, as in the noble characters of Androm'ache and Penel'ope, yet the story of the seduced and returning Helen, and other similar ones, suggest too plainly that the faithlessness of the wife was not re- garded as an offence of great enormity. 35. The relation which the wife sustained in the family was not as an equal of the husband. $he was the housewife, and nothing more ; her constant employment, weaving, or spinning, or superin- tending the tasks of her maidens. Even Homer portrays none of those elevated feelings of love which result from a higher regard for in similitude of strangers oft The gods, who can with ease all shapes assume, Repair to populous cities, where they mark The outrageous and the righteous deeds of men." Odyssey, xvii. 577. b. AB Glaucus and Diomede. See Iliad, iv. 267, (Cowper's Trans.) c. Wad, xx. 556 : xxi. 134, &c. d. Iliad, xxii. 429-451. e. Iliad, xxiii. 217. THE 662 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL the female sex. " That love," says Heeren, " and that regard, are traits peculiar to the Germanic nations ; a result of the spirit of gallantry, which was a leading feature in the character of chivalry, but which we vainly look for in Greece. Yet here the Greek stands between the East and the West. Although he was never wont to revere the female sex as beings of a higher order, he did not, like the Asiatic, imprison them by troops in a Harem. " a V. 36. As cotemporary with the supposed beginnings of Grecian history, we may appropriately advert, in this connection, ISRAELITES ^ *^ e so j ourn f tne Israelites in Egypt, their exodus from bondage, and the character of their early civilization. 13 As the early history of the Israelites is connected with that of Egypt, we naturally look to Egyptian annals for some confirmation of the Mosaic record; but here we are doomed to disappointment; and from the circumstance that the hieroglyphic sculptures on the monuments of Egypt make no mention of the sojourn of the Israel- ites in that country, some have thought, either that the historical importance of the monuments themselves must be discredited, or, if they are to be deemed reliable testimony, that an argument would be based on their silence in this particular, against the verity of the Hebrew record of the Egyptian bondage, and the exodus of the Jews. But this silence is not at all remarkable, and is easily ex- plained, in perfect consistency with Egyptian and Jewish history. In the first place, the monuments belong almost exclusively to Upper Egypt ; and it is not certain that a separate dynasty of Egyptian kings did not rule, at this period, over the Lower country, in which the Israelites resided. In the second place, it would be an unheard of thing that a nation should erect monuments to commemorate its losses and calamities such as befel the Egyptians in their dealings with the people of Israel. Those deeds alone, which are thought to redound to the honor of a country, are hewn in stone. 37. But although we have no direct authentic evidences from pro- fane history of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, a circumstance a. Heeren's Pol. of An. Greece, p. 95. b. See, also, pp. 17 and 39. c. Heeren, (Man. of An. Hist., p. 61,) and some other writers, suppose that the shepherd kings ruled over Lower Egypt at the time of the Exodus of the Jews. When the two princi- pal divisions of Egypt were not under the same government Thebes was the capital of Upper Egypt, and Memphis of Lower Egypt. The Pharaoh who drove out the Israelites resided at Memphis. CHAP. III.] JEWISH HISTORY. 663 that renders this but little surprising is that we have scarcely any reliable details of Egyptian history itself during this early period. Notwithstanding, in profane authors some accounts remain, wrecks of more ancient records, in which it is believed some traces of the real history of the exodus of the Israelites are still visible. The name Moses, which signifies, in the Hebrew roots, saved a or anoint- ed, is evidently of Egyptian origin, and is recognized in many Egypt- ian proper names, where it means begotten, or regenerated, as in the name of the king Thotmes or Thotmoses, begotten of the god Thoth. 38. Many writers on Jewish and Egyptian antiquities, who had access to records now lost, confirm the name and the deeds of Moses. Artapanus, in a work concerning the Jews, relates that a queen of Egypt, having no children, adopted and " brought up a child of the Jews, and named it Moyses.'" Chseremon, a philosopher and his- torian of Alexandria, who lived in the time of Nero, wrote a book on the antiquities of Egypt, in which he states that when the Jews were expelled from Egypt, their leaders " were two guides, called Moyses and Josephus, the latter of whom was a sacred scribe." Among the fragments of Manetho, preserved by Josephus, and which the latter believes to refer to the Israelites, is one relating that an Egyptian king, Amenophis, whose reign, according to the interpretation of the hieroglyphics, appears to have been cotemporary with the time of Moses, collected all lepers and impure persons, and set them to work in stone quarries on the eastern side of the Nile that a leader of these people gave them ordinances chiefly characterized by their op- position to Egyptian rites; and that they were ultimately driven out of the land, and pursued through the desert to the borders of Syria or Palestine. 39. The following is the closing paragraph of this extract from Manetho. " It is said also that the priest who ordained their polity and laws was by birth of Heliopolis, (or On,) and his name Osarsiph, from Osiris, the god of Heliopolis ; but that when he went over to these people his name was changed, and he was called Moyses. r ^ Another author, quoted by Josephus, makes much mention of the leprosy of the people, and of a determined suppression of idolatry. Tacitus repeats the same story, c which he purports to have gathered from numerous consenting authorities ; and he farther states that the swine, being subject to maladies of the skin, is for that reason un- a. See Exodus, ii. 10. b. Josephua against Apion, i. 26. c. Tacitus Hist^ v. 3. 664 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. touched by the Israelites. Diodorus has preserved a traditional account from certain tribes of western Arabia, that, " on occasion of a great ebb of the waters of the Red Sea, a certain part of it was turned into land, the water removing to the opposite quarter, and the dry ground at bottom appearing, but that a great flood coming restored the bay to its former state." 40. Even the supply of quails, by which the children of Israel were supported in the wilderness, is preserved in a broken tale of Diodorus, who received it from the Egyptians, from whom alone he had sought information. He relates that an Ethiopian king, who in early times conquered and ruled over Egypt, sent all convicted crimi- nals to the extremities of the desert, where they founded a city; " and that in this unfortuante situation, and with bitter water, they invented a way of obtaining a livelihood. They cut reeds, split them, and made lines which they set up along shore for many stadia, and so they caught quails enough to live on, for these birds came in great flocks from the sea." The inaccuracies of this and other stories concerning the Israelites are not to be wondered at when we reflect that sixteen hundred years had elapsed between the Exodus and Diodorus. It should also be remarked that these facts are treated as extraordinary, and out of the common course of nature as really miraculous and this is why they were thought worth recording ; for it will not be credible that the Egyptians should be at the pains to chronicle, in their sacred annals, circumstances foreign to themselves, and of no substantial meaning, power, or import. a 41. From these circumstances there appears little doubt that the Egyptian historians, however much they might disfigure and conceal, did notice the servitude and the escape of the Israelites ; and thus sacred and profane history, springing from separate fountains, and flowing in separate streams, unite in certain particulars to prove that the miracles of the Exodus are real events. Moreover, in the language of an able writer, " the Mosaic record, independent of its religious sanction, has as high claim to the character of authenticity and credibility as any ancient document ; and he who would reject it would not merely expose his own sincerity as a believer in revealed religion, but his judgment as a philosophical historian."** 42. Of the social character and condition of the people of Israel, and the arts and sciences known to thejn at this early period, the Bible furnishes much satisfactory information ; while, from the cir- a. Cockayne's Civil History of the Jews, p. 21. b. Quarterly Review, vol. 43, p. 141. CHAP. Ill] JEWISH HISTORY. 665 cumstance of the long sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, we are warranted in ascribing to them nearly the same degree of civiliza- tion to which the people of that country had attained ; for " Moses," we are informed, " was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. " a 43. Even in Abraham's lifetime we read of the purchase of a cave for sepulture, and current money of the merchant paid for it ear- rings, and bracelets of gold b jewels of silver and of gold, and precious things a veil for the women d digging wells 6 and slavery/ In Isaac's lifetime mention is made of sowing the land ;& and in Jacob's history we read of mercantile exchange in spicery, balm, and myrrh h sheep-shearing' a signet) musical instruments k images 1 and ships." 1 After the exodus the Israelites appear to have possessed a greater knowledge of the arts, which they doubtless obtained in Egypt. Among the offerings which they were commanded to bring for the construction of the ark of the tabernacle 11 were articles of gold, and silver, and brass oil for light spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate. 44. The construction of the ark itself, with its mercy seat and cherubim, its dishes and their covers, and the candlestick with its shaft and branches, knops and flowers, all of pure gold ; together with the blue, purple, and scarlet curtains, with the loops and taches of gold to couple them together, the breastplate engraved with the names of the twelve tribes, and the plate on the mitre of the high priest, inscribed HOLINESS TO THE LORD,? all show an advanced condition of society at the period of the exodus, and a connection between the arts practiced by the Israelites, and those known, from other sources, to have been in the possession of the Egyptians, thus again exhibiting the agreeable evidence of sacred and profane history confirming each other. a. Acts, vii. 22. b. Gen. xxiv. 22. c. xxiv. 53. d. xxiv. 65. e. xxi. 30 ; xxvi. 15. f. xxi. 10; xxiv. 35. g. xxvi. 12. h. xxxvii. 25. i. xxxviii. 12. j. xxxviii. 18; Exod., xxxix. 6, 14. k. Gen., xxxi. 27. 1. xxxi. 19. m. xlix. 13. n. Exod., xxxv. o. Exod., xxxix. 14. p. xxxiz. 30. 666 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. t [PART HL CHAPTER IV. CHARACTER AND EXTENT OF CIVILIZATION DURING THE UNCERTAIN PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY. ANALYSIS. 1. CHANGES IN GRECIAN POLITICS after the Trojan war. 2. The three causes assigned for them. 3. Political effects of the Trojan war. 4. Of the great migrations spoken of. Effects upon the power of the Dorian princes. 5. Mutual influences of the colonies and parent States. 6. The democratic loniaus. Power, prosperity, and independence, of the colonies. Tendencies to democracy. 7. Growth of free principles in the parent States. Growth of freedom in colonies. 8. Gradual change in political principles. Political history of Athens. Aristocracy and oligarchy. (Greek sense of the word tyranny") 9. Gradations from oligarchy or aristocracy to democracy. 10. Diversity in the modes of exercising political rights. Checks against abuses of power by the people. 11. Accountability of magistrates. 12. Qualifications of electors. The strife between oligarchy and democracy. 13. Eligibility to office. Gradual encroachments upon the restrictive laws. 14. Municipal character of the Grecian constitutions. 15. Security of person and property. Effects of frequent political com- motions. 16. Great range of Grecian politics. Practical knowledge to be derived from the Grecian experiments in government. 17. Natural causes of union and disunion among the Greeks. NATIONAL COUNCILS. 18. Origin, composition, and meetings, of the Amphictyonic council. 19. Its objects and tendencies. Its peaceful character. Its chief functions. 20. Want of power to enforce its decrees. Causes that often rendered its efforts at peace unavailing. Its decline. 21. PUBLIC FESTIVALS. The four principal ones. Open to all Greeks. 22. Origin, revival, and superintendence, of the Olympic games. 23. Their immediate object. Their various ex- ercises. Compared with the tournaments, and Roman and Spaniah sports. 24. Rewards of the victors. 25. National influences of the games. Appearance, of Olympia at the season of Cue festival. 26. Their influence over the physical education of the Grecians. 27. PERIOD or GRECIAN COLONIZATION. Colonies in Asia Minor, the islands of the -^Egean, Sicily, and Italy. 28. The Grecian- Cyrenaica. Trade with Spain. The Phoenicians. 29. PROGRESS OF ARTS AND LITERATURE. Wealth and refinement of the lonians. Archi- tecture and sculpture. 30. Early poetical compositions of the Greeks. Poetry and music among the Dorians and lonians respectively. Songs at the banquets of the great. 31. The first Grecian prose compositions. Lateness of historical compositions. Early, dawn of Grecian philosophy. 32. The Ionian school of philosophy. The theory of Thales. 33. Theories of Anaxim' enes and Heraclitus. 34. Diog' enes the Cretan. Anaximan' der. Anaxag' oras. 35. Character and tendency of the theory of the latter. 36. Grecian philosophy intimately connected with Grecian politics. Commencement of the contest between philosophy and the popular religion. 37. The Eleatic and Pythagorean schools. Character of the former. 38. History of Pythag' oras. Discoveries made by him. His astronomical doctrine. 39. Numbers, the basis of his system. His views of the deity. Doctrine of metempsychosis. 40. General character and influence of his system. The society established by him at Crotona. -Jl. Its forcible dissolution. Subsequent dissemination, and influence, of the doctrines of Pythag' oras. 42. THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 43. Their character. Their wide range. Their tendency, in relation to the popular character of the religion of the Greeks. 44. Our knowledge of these rites. The nine days of their celebration. 45. The initiation of candidates ; admission into the vestibule of the temple ; the cave of Spleen and Despair ; the august fane of the goddess. 46. Commencement, and character, of the revelations ; ghostly apparitions ; the infernal regions. 47. The twelve Celestial duties. The lesser inhabitants of Olympus. Explanation of the types of the festivities. Extract from the ^neid. 48. Effects of the revelations of the hierophant. 49. Their oracular character. The powerful influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The general estimation in which they were held. Socrates, Nero, and Valentinian. Sup- pression of the Mysteries by Theodosius, A. D. 390. CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN POLITICS. 667 I. 1. During the first few centuries succeeding the period of the sup- posed Trojan war, a gradual change is observable in the political history of the Grecian States, the results of which were CHANOES IN an abandonment of much of the kingly authority which GRECIAN prevailed during the heroic age, and the origin and gen- ro LITICS - eral prevalence, at first of aristocracies, or the rule of the few, and finally of republican forms of government, which latter decided the whole future character of the public life of the Grecians. The gen- eral history of these changes, and of the causes which produced them, and a delineation of the most prominent characteristics of the con- stitutions of the Grecian States, are all that can be attempted on the subject of the Grecian forms of government, and indeed nearly all that is practicable in the history of political events that occurred before Greece had an historian, and when tradition was the only authority. 2. The three causes, more prominent than the rest, which are assigned by most writers for the overthrow of the early system of kingly authority in the Grecian States, and the final adoption of democratic forms of government, are, first, the more enlarged views occasioned by the supposed Trojan war, and the dissensions which followed the return of those engaged in it ; second, the great con- vulsions which attended the Thessalian, Boeotian, and Dorian migra- tions ; and thirdly, the free principles which intercourse and trade with the Grecian colonies naturally engendered. 3. The Trojan war, if we may credit the statements of the early Grecian writers, cut off the principal members of many of the ruling families in Greece ; and domestic dissensions, which arose during the war, are said to have occasioned the expulsion, from their thrones, of many others on their return ; while the authority of others still, who survived the disasters, was inevitably weakened by the general wreck of regal power around them, and the more enlarged views which their subjects had acquired by a knowledge of foreign lands. 4. The great migrations of which we have spoken, by breaking up the old foundations of society, contributed still more effectually to the same end. The old dynasties were destroyed or dislodged, and the cities and strongholds which formed the main supports of their power were seized by strangers, and a tribe, till then the weakest, became the most powerful of the Hellenes ; and although the Dori- 668 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET IIL ans had generally been accustomed to kingly government, yet the power of the princes was weakened by the change of circumstances which arose from a migration to a new country, where they were con- stantly reminded, by new dangers, of the obligations they owed to their companions in arms, and obliged to guard, with additional care, against any abuses of authority which might disturb the domes- tic quiet. When dangers from abroad threaten, the principle of self- preservation alone often prompts the greatest tyrants to strive to regain, by concessions of privilege, the lost affections of their people. 5. But the mutual influences of the Grecian colonies and the parent States, tended, more than any other single cause, to change the politi- cal condition of the Grecians. Whether the migrations of the Greek colonists were generally occasioned, as in the case of the Asiatic settle- ments, by conquests, like those of the Thessalian, Boaotian, and Dorian encroachments, which drove so many from their homes to seek an asylum in foreign lands ; or whether they were generally un- dertaken, as we know they were in some instances, with the approba- tion and encouragement of the States from which they issued, with the motive, on the part of the latter, to relieve themselves of a super- fluous population, or of discontented and turbulent spirits ; there was seldom any feeling of dependence on the one side, and little or no claim of authority on the other. 6. Scarcely had the lonians established themselves on the coast of Asia Minor, when they shook off the authority of the princes who conducted them to their new settlements, and established a form of government more democratic than any which then subsisted in Greece. In process of time many of the colonies became more pow- erful than their parent States ; and with the rapid progress of mer- cantile industry and maritime discovery, on which their prosperity greatly depended, a spirit of independence grew up among the com- monalty, highly unfavorable to monarchical rule, or the permanence of aristocratical ascendency ; and accordingly we find that, within a few generations after the first settlements in the colonies, the mon- archical forms of government had generally given way to aristocracies, or the rule of the nobility, which latter, in turn, were ere long made to yield to the more liberal institutions of democracy. 7. With the extension of commercial enterprise, these events ex- erted an influence on the parent States, and encouraged the growth of free principles there. " Freedom," says an eloquent author,* a. Heeren, Politics of Ancient Greece, p. 103. CHAP. Ill] GRECIAN POLITICS. 669 " ripens in colonies. Ancient usage cannot be preserved, cannot altogether be renewed, as at home. The former bonds of attachment to the soil, and ancient customs, are broken by the voyage ; the spirit feels itself to be more free in the new country ; new strength is required for the necessary exertions ; and those exertions are ani- mated by success. Where every man lives by the labor of his hands, equality arises, even if it did not exist before. Each day is fraught with new experience ; the necessity of common defence is more felt in lands where the new settlers find ancient inhabitants desirous of being free from them. Need we wonder, then, if the authority of the founders of the Grecian colonies, even where it had originally existed, soon gave way to liberty ?" 8. But the change in political principles was gradual, and attend- ed with similar domestic convulsions, and transfers of power from one to the few, and finally to the many, both in the parent States and in the colonies. As at Athens, monarchy, in most instances, was gradually abolished by slow successive steps, first by taking away its title, and substituting that of archon, or chief magistrate, a term less offensive than that of tyrant, which was applied to an irresponsible ruler ; next, making the office of chief ruler elective, first in one family, then in more ; first for life, then for a term of years ; and, finally, dividing its power among several of the nobility, thus form- ing an aristocracy or oligarchy. Between these terms, however, the Greeks made a distinction, using the former, as far as can now be learned, to denote the form of government in which the ruling few, whether governing by acknowledged hereditary right, or by election, were distinguished from the multitude by illustrious birth, hereditary wealth, and personal merit ; whose rule commanded the respect of the people, and was directed, ostensibly at least, to the promotion of the public welfare ; whereas an oligarchy was a degenerate species of aristocracy, the rule of a usurping faction, in which private aims predominated, and which directed its measures chiefly to the preservation of its power, to the exclusion from its body of all such as would not primarily subserve its own selfish interests. In the Greek sense, an oligarchy was to aristocracy, what a tyranny 8 - was to monarchy. a. The moderns have attached to the word tyranny a meaning which did not enter into its original definition. A tyranny, in the Greek sense of the word, was the irresponsible rule of a single person, not founded on hereditary right, nor on a free election. It was power acquired by violence, and it did not change its character or name when transmitted through several generations. According to Greek notions, and the usage of Greek historians, a mild and 670 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART lit 9. In looking at the many separate Grecian communities, we ob- serve that the gradations from oligarchy or aristocracy to democracy were numerous. In none of the States did either the oligarchy or the democracy include the servile caste or Helots, while in but few of them were foreigners ever admitted to the rights of citizenship ; so that the form of government is to be determined by the circum- stance, whether the sovereign power was exercised by a part or by all of the freemen. When political rights had ceased to be the in- heritance of certain families, democracy began its existence, even though the great mass of the commonality was still excluded from the exercise of political rights by their poverty, a barrier not deemed insurmountable, as the poorest might aspire to the highest offices, by obtaining the requisite qualifications. As political rights were brought within the reach of a more numerous class, democracy was extended, but, in the Greek sense of the term, it was not complete, until every attribute of sovereignty might be conferred upon merit alone, without respect to rank or property. 10. Among the Greeks, there was an almost infinite diversity in the modes of exercising political rights. The modern representative system was almost wholly unknown, except in the formation of con- federacies ; and yet, in perhaps none of the States were the most im- portant public matters discussed and decided in the general assembly of the whole people. The consequences of such a legislation would have been none other than the rule of the populace ; and the means used to guard against the dangers to be apprehended from this source were various. The most important business was often transacted in smaller and more select divisions, before the commons came to vote upon it 5 the subjects to be brought before them were generally limited by the constitution ; sometimes the decisions of the general assembly were subject to the revision of a select body of elders, and a reference back again for reconsideration ; but, more frequently, all business which was to come before the commons was so far prepared in some other and smaller deliberative assembly, that nothing re- mained for the commons but to accept or reject the measures pro- posed. Such were the various and necessary checks against abuses of power by the people. 11. But besides the general assemblies of the people, and the beneficent tyranny is an expression which involves no contradiction. See ThirlwM^ i. J59. "The Grecians connected with this word the idea of an illegitimate, but not necessarily of a cruel government." Heeren. Pol. of Jin. Greece, p. 182. CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN POLITICS. 671 smaller advisory assemblies, or senates, which latter were differently constituted in different States, there were magistrates for executing the laws, aud transacting other important business. Under the aris- tocracies or oligarchies, the higher magistrates, although often elect- ive, frequently held their situations for life, and without any consti- tutional accountability to the people ; but, under the republican systems, annual elections were generally held, and every magistrate was required to reader a strict account of his administration, at the close of his office. He who did not thus recognize the sovereignty of the people became what the Greeks called a tyrant. 12. The qualifications of electors of magistrates varied in differ- ent States, as sometimes all classes, and, at others, particular ones only, took part in the elections. The right of voting in the choice of a magistrate was justly regarded as an important part of the free- dom of a citizen ; and one of the chief characteristics of a perfect democracy was the admission of all citizens to vote, as in Athens, and in some other cities. Where the government verged from a democracy towards an oligarchy, there it was the constant endeavor of the few, by various restrictions, to exclude the great mass of the people from any share in the elections. Where this attempt was successful, a second step often followed, and the oligarchy was rendered complete when the magistrates usurped the power of filling vacant places in their board, and refused any accountability to the people. Such usurpations were often, and, very naturally, followed by revolutions. 13. At the first, in the republican States of Greece, individuals of the lower orders were not eligible to the higher magistracies ; but seldom could the principle long be maintained. Poverty was gen- erally made the rule of exclusion, on the ground that those who have the most of worldly goods at stake, are the most deeply interested in a just administration of government, and the support of existing forms, and that they have the most to fear from revolutionary changes. The graduation was also originally made on landed property ex- clusively. But as the State became more flourishing and powerful, and trade, and commerce, and the arts arose, those classed as the lower orders began to emerge from their original obscurity, and con- cessions were demanded and obtained for talent and worth ; and the old distinctions being once broken in upon, it often became necessary to abolish the restrictive laws. This change was sometimes more gradual, nowever, than might at first be expected, because, as the offices were 672 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. not lucrative, but, on the contrary, were generally attended with con- siderable expense, the poor were often obliged, of their own accord, to keep aloof from them. 14. But still the reader would form an erroneous, and very im- perfect idea of Grecian history, and of the nature and worth of the Grecian governments, were he not reminded that the Grecian States, with but few exceptions, were cities, with small contiguous districts, and that their constitutions, being only forms of municipal or city government, had few things in common with the large empires of modern times. Often the districts into which Greece was geograph- ically divided contained several independent cities ; although it is true that the two most important of these divisions, Attica and La- conia, formed the territories of their two leading cities only, Athens and Sparta. In Boeotia, however, the cities of Thebes and Platsea formed rival republics ; and the consequences of a want of union among the chief Boeotian cities are known to history. The territo- ries of the Grecian cities often embraced only a few square miles, and yet their prosperity seemed to depend but little on this circum- stance, for Corinth, one of the smallest of the Grecian States, rose to an eminent degree of opulence and power. 15. Whatever may have been the comparative worth of the Grecian constitutions, we are forcibly reminded, that, amid all the glory and renown for which Grecian history is so justly celebrated, security of person and property, the primary object of government, was but im- perfectly attained. The frequent political storms to which the Grecian States were exposed, although affording to the master spirits the noblest spheres of action, and exciting that constant mental ac- tivity which leads to great achievements, left little room for that tranquillity so necessary for the improvement of the domestic con dition of the people. Everything was done for the State ; and with and through the State only the individual lived and acted. Political, rather than domestic life, was the life of the Grecians. 16. There has been nothing, in modern times, comparable to the great range which Grecian politics, in all their variety, embraced. Of the hundreds of Grecian cities, scattered over a very small extent of territory, and embracing kindred people, the constitutions of no two were exactly alike, and there were none which, at some period, had not changed their forms or principles. What diversity of political ideas must thus have been awakened ! But the Greeks needed the art of printing to put them in circulation, and to produce the results CHAP. IV.J NATIONAL COUNCILS. 673 which a more general combination of them would have effected. Still, the amount of practical knowledge which the Grecian experiments in government elicited, has been of incalculable benefit to mankind ; and Grecian history and Grecian politics will long continue to form one of the must useful studies of modern statesmen and politicians. II. 17. The natural causes which tended to unite the Greeks in a common brotherhood or confederacy, were a common language and a common religion, while those which tended to keep them asunder were the natural geographical divisions of their country, and the nearly equal distributions of strength, by which the principal tribes were enabled to preserve their mutual independence. The necessity of some more special bond of union than language and religion supplied, probably led, at an early period, to the formation of friendly associations or national councils, for remedying some of the many evils of disunion, and for the regulation of mutual intercourse between kindred tribes. Such were the several associations known by the name of Amphictyonies, and, more es- pecially, the one, more famous than the rest, which, by way of dis- tinction, was called the Amphictyonic council. 18. This is said to have been instituted by Amphic' tyon, a son of Deucalion, king of Thessaly ; but probably this was a merely fictitious person, invented to account for the origin of the institution attributed to him. The council is said to have been composed, originally, of deputies from twelve tribes or nations, 11 two from each tribe ; but as independent States or cities grew up in the original divisions, each of these also was entitled to two deputies; and'no State, however pow- erful, not even Laconia nor Attica, was entitled to more. The Am- phictyon' ic council met twice every yea.?, in the spring at Delphi, and in the autumn at Anthela,* a pillage at the distance of a few miles from Thermopylae. 19. The original objects of ^ ne council, so far as they can be learned, were praiseworthy ; - dn( j although its ordinary functions were chiefly connected with reli>i on) yet it had a tendency to produce the Anthela was a small to^ at the south-eastern extremity of Thessaly, and near the mouth of the river Asopua. (^ ap No . j.) a. The twelve trib-^ 8eem to nave ^^ thft Thessalians, Boeotians, Dorians, lonians, Perrhoe- bians, Locrians, ' Alaean9j phthiotians, or Achseans of Phthia, Melians, Phocians, and Dolopiam. Arcadia, Elis, ^ cna j ai ^Etolia, and Acarnania, never belonged to the confederacy. 43 674 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET IIL happiest political effects. Its stated and frequent meetings, being attended by a large concourse of people from the different States, continually reminded the Grecians of their common origin, of the similarity of their language, religion, government and manners, and of the earnest desire of the institutors of the council to join the dif- ferent tribes in amity with one another. To impress friendly senti- ments more strongly on the members of the council, every individual was required to swear that he would never assist in utterly destroying an Amphictyon' ic city, nor in turning aside the streams which sup- plied it with water. Still the council had no right of interference between members of the league in ordinary wars between them, nor the power to act as a confederacy against foreign enemies. Its chief functions were to guard the temple of Delphi and the interests of religion, and to restrain, by advice and counsel, all undue violence of hostility among Amphictyon' ic States. 20. Still the political objects of the council were scarcely ever at- tained, for it had no power, in itself, to enforce its decrees, and it was only in cases where the interests of religion, connected with the Delphic sanctuary, were concerned, that it could safely reckon on general cooperation from all the Greeks. Schemes of conquest and ambition, or the jealousies of contending States, usually rendered its efforts at peace unavailing, an additional illustration of the truth that the wisest and most salutary institutions are often unable to counteract the effects of the follies and vices of men. After the Greeks had lost their independence, the council had scarcely any other employment than the superintendence of the temple at Delphi, and it probably ceased to exist when the Delphic oracle lost its in- fluence, a considerable time before the reign of Constantine the Great. III. 21. The public festivals of the Grecians had, in reality, more claims to be considered national institutions, than the council which we have just described. The Greeks exhibited a passion- ate f n dness f r festivals and games, which were occa- sionally celebrated in every' State for the amusement of the inhabitants. These, however, were far less interesting than the four great public games, which were, the Pythian, at Delphos, sacred to Apollo ; the Isthmian, at Corinth, to Neptun^ ; the Nemean, at Nemea,* in Ar'golis, to Hercules; and the 01yi^P ic > at Olym'- * JVemeo, noted in mythical history as having been the scene of the first la'bor of Hercules, CHAP. IV.] PUBLIC FESTIVALS, 675 pia,* in E' lis, to Jupiter. These games or festivals, though celebrated within particular districts, were not peculiar to any tribe, but were open to all true Grecians who could prove their Hellenic origin. The most important of these was the Olympic ; an account of which involves many principles common to all the others. 22. The origin of the Olympic games is involved in obscurity ; and although it appears that, during the heroic age, some Grecian chiefs had celebrated their victories at Olyrn' pia, yet it was not till the age of Lycurgus that the games were brought under certain rules, and performed at stated times. At that period a prince of E' lis, in concert with the Spartan lawgiver, and with the sanction of the Delphic oracle, caused the games to be revived in honor of Jupiter, and to be celebrated every fifth year at Olym'pia, ordaining a peri- odical suspension of hostilities during their continuance, to enable every Greek to attend them without hinderance or danger. Their superintendence was intrusted, principally, to the people of E'lis, and the judges took an oath, in presence of a statue of Jupiter, that, in adjudging the prizes, they would be regulated solely by a regard to justice. 23. The immediate object of the Olympic games was the exhibition of various trials of strength and skill. At first the foot-race was the only exercise admitted ; but in process of time the games were multi- plied, so as to embrace almost every mode of displaying bodily activity, including running, wrestling, boxing, leaping, pitching the discus or quoit, throwing the javelin, and chariot-races. Women were forbid- den, under pain of death, to be present at the games. In this par- ticular alone the Grecian spectacles sustain an unfavorable compari- son with the European tournaments of the middle ages ; but in their general purity, innocence, and humanity, they were infinitely in ad- vance of the barbarous and bloody sports of a Roman or Spanish amphitheatre. 24. The rewards bestowed on the victors were almost exclusively honorary. In the moment of victory the acclamations of the multi- tude proclaimed the prowess or skill of the conquerors ; branches of and famous for the games celebrated in the neighboring grove of Molorchus, was twelve miles south-west from Corinth, and ten north-east from Argos. The site of the ancient town is still marked by a lew ruins, among which are fragments of a temple of Jupiter, and a few blocks of stone, and broken Doric pillars. (Map No. I. ) * Olym' pia was not a city, but a collection of temples, altars, and other structures, on th northern bank of the river Alpheus in Elis, and in the immediate vicinity of the spot where the Olympic games were celebrated. Only a few vestiges of the numerous buildings, statues, temples, altars, &c., which once marked the spot, are now to be seen. (Map No. I.) 676 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAST IIL palm were then put into their hands ; and at the conclusion of the games they were summoned before the judges, who placed crowns of olive on their heads. They were then separately conducted through the assembly by a herald, who proclaimed their names, and those of their parents, and their country. On the return of the victor to his native country a part of the walls of the city in which he resided was often thrown down to admit his entrance, and he was afterwards en- titled to a distinguished place in all festivals and games, and was thought to have conferred the highest honor on his country. 25. The Olympic and other games possessed little or no efficacy as a bond of national union, because the opportunities which they presented for confederate purposes were neglected ; and it appears that the periodical interruption of hostilities, although in par- ticular instances it might postpone the effusion of blood, did not at all allay the animosity of warring tribes. The games did produce a decided effect, however, in forming the national character. As foreigners were excluded from them, they served to strengthen, in the mind of the Grecian, the feelings which bound him to his country, and thus kept alive his national pride ; but, on the other hand, they ministered to the selfish passions of rival cities, each of which felt its honor concerned in the success of its champion. At the season of the games Olym'pia presented the appearance of an extensive modern fair, being visited by a vast multitude from all parts of Greece, who brought their productions of manual labor for exhibition and exchange. Literary works were not unfrequently read there ; and inventions in the arts, and discoveries in science, were there pro- mulgated, so that these assemblies served some of the purposes of the modern press in the communication of thought, and the more equable diffusion of knowledge. 26. The games exerted an important influence over the physical education of the Grecians, as victory in them could not be gained by any occasional effort, but only after a long course of training and discipline. Those who designed to engage in the contests knew that success could be obtained only by those who were inured to hardship, who had long been accustomed to practice athletic exercises, and who habitually abstained from every pleasure which has a tendency to debilitate the constitution, and lessen the power of exertion. This kind of physical education, begun in infancy, was the most attended to by the Spartans, but was common throughout all Grecian tribes. It was one of the secrets of that eminence of the Greeks in war, CHAP IV.] GRECIAN COLONIZATION. 677 which no other nation ever surpassed. In those ancient times, be- fore the use of fire arms, battles were decided by the physical strength and agility of the combatants, or, in other words, by their perfection in the very exercises practiced in the Grecian games, and taught as a part of the education of the people. The Greeks boasted that each of their armies was equal to one of ten times the number of barbarians ; and Herod' otus asserts that the individuals who con- tributed the most to the victories obtained over the Persians, were those who had the most frequently won the palm of victory at Olym' pia. It was not uncommon to find the greatest literary at- tainments combined with the greatest physical strength and prowess. And if a portion of the physical training practiced by the Grecians were introduced into our modern systems of education, health, vigor, and energy, both of body and mind, would be increased, and the physical character of the people greatly improved. IV. 27. What is called the Uncertain Period a of Grecian history, is important, as embracing the age of Grecian colonization, and of the extension of the commerce of the Grecians to nearly all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Of the jiEolian, Ionian, GRECIAN and Dorian colonies, on the coast of Asia Minor, and in COLONI- the islands of the ^Egean Sea, we have already spoken. The beautiful and fertile island of Rhodes, peopled by Grecians during the century next after the Trojan war, became, in turn, the founder of other Greek colonies on the coast of Asia Minor. In the seventh century Sicily and Lower Italy were explored, and in the former Messina, Syracuse, and Agrigen' turn, were founded by Grecians ; and, half a century later, on the coasts of the latter arose the rival cities Crotona and Syb' aris, of Achaean origin ; and on the Gulf of Tarentum appeared the city of that name, founded, or re- peopled, by Laconians. Such was the spread of Grecian cities along the Italian coasts that Lower Italy received the name of Magna Graecia. 28. In the latter part of the seventh century we find one of the Grecian islands sending an expedition to the African coast ; and in the now desolate Barca, notwithstanding the hostility of the Libyans, who received aid from Egypt, the Greek dominion was firmly estab- lished in the delightful Gyrene, the capital of the Grecian Cyrenaica. a. See Chapter ili., p. 43. 678 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL The Greeks even passed the pillars of Hercules, and traded with Tartes' sus, supposed by some to have been the Tarshish of Scripture, a city of southern Spain at the mouth of the Baetis, now the Guadal- quiver, with which the Phoenicians at the same time carried on an ad- vantageous commerce. It appears to have been seldom, however, that the Greeks came in contact with the Phoenician navigators ; at least, there was no rivalry between them at this period ; and in all the ac- counts that we have of the trade of the commercial cities of Corinth and Athens, no mention is made of any intercourse with the Phoeni- cians. About the middle of the sixth century the knowledge and commerce of the Egyptians were first opened to the Greeks by the chance landing of a piratical band on the Egyptian coast. V. 29. The progress of the arts and literature of the Grecians is in- PROGRESS OF ti mate ty connected with the rise of the Grecian colonies, ARTS AND the widening commerce and intercourse of the Greeks rEE ' with other nations, and the general advance of public and private prosperity. In the Ionian confederacy of Asia Minor the increase of wealth and refinement appears to have been far more rapid than in the mother country. In the magnitude and splendor of their public buildings, and in the arts which adorned them, the lonians proudly vied with Sicyon and Corinth, Argos, Athens, and Lacedse' mon. The three famed orders of Grecian architecture the Doric, the Ionian, and the Corinthian arose during this period ; and before the Persian wars had commenced, the branch of sculpture termed statuary had attained nearly the summit of its perfection, the beau-ideal of which, the final union of truth and beauty, was to be realized in the school of Phidias. 30. The earliest written compositions of the Grecians, of which tradition or history has preserved any record, were poetical ; a cir- cumstance which, noticed in other nations also, has led to the asser- tion that poetry is, preeminently, the language of nature. Among the Greeks, the legends and genealogies of their heroes and gods sup- plied, at an early period, appropriate materials for poetical com- position, in which the names of Homer and Hesiod' first appear con- spicuous. With the spread of commerce, the changes in government, the increase of luxury, and new discoveries and inventions in the arts, the occasions, subjects, and forms of poetry, were rapidly mul- tiplied. Among the Dorians, poetry and music, which were general- CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. 679 ly combined, were made, by the law-givers, prominent instruments of the religious, martial, and political education of the people ; while in the Ionian and JEolian States they expressed more of the thoughts and feelings of individuals, and were adapted to recreation and amusement, rather than instruction. The aid of song was called in to enliven and adorn the banquets of the great, public assemblies, the Olympic and other games ; and scarcely a social or public gathering could be mentioned that would not have appeared, to the ardent Grecians, cold and spiritless without this accompaniment. 31. The first Grecian prose compositions, so far as we can now learn, appeared in the early part of the sixth century, and were either mythological, or collections of the local legends, whether sacred or profane, of particular districts. The importance and the practical uses of genuine history were neither known nor suspected until after the Persian wars. Grecian philosophy, or a connected investigation of causes and effects, had an earlier dawn, P ^LOSOPHT and was coeval with the poetical compositions attributed to Hesiod, although in the sixth century it first began to be sepa- rated from poetry and religion, and to be cultivated by men who were neither bards, priests, nor seers. " This is the era when the practical maxims and precepts of the seven Grecian sages began to be collected by the chroniclers, and disseminated among the people. V 32. Among these sages originated several of the early schools of Grecian Philosophy, the eldest of which, called the Ionian, because its most prominent teachers and disciples were natives of Ionia, was founded by Thales of Miletus, about the middle of the sixth century before Christ. The wealth which he inherited, together with his discoveries in astronomy and geometry, raised him to distinction among his countrymen, and prepared them to receive with favor his philosophical speculations. In the investigation of natural causes and effects, he taught, as a distinguishing tenet of his philosophy, that water, or some other fluid, was the primary element of all things ; a theory which probably arose from observations on the uses of moist- ure in the nourishment of animal and vegetable life. 33. A similar process of reasoning led Anaxim' enes of Miletus, half a century later, to substitute air in the place of the liquid ele- ment of Thales ; as in respiration it is the supporter of life, that which animates all beings, which encompasses, and appeared to him to sustain, the earth, and all the heavenly bodies. By analogical reasoning, also, Heraclitus of Ephesus, surnamed " the naturalist," was 680 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. led to regard the supposed basis of fire, or flame, as the fundamental principle of all things, both spiritual and material. To the unseen vital element of fire, (not its outward semblance,) he attributed wisdom and intelligence ; and to its opposite extremes or tendencies, whereby it is made to pass from want to gratification, and from grati- fication to want, like the vibrations of a pendulum, he ascribed the phenomena of life and death. 34. Diog' enes the Cretan, in carrying out the analogies of Anaxim'- enes, was led to regard the universe as issuing from an intelligent principle a rational as well as sensitive soul but without recogniz- ing any distinction between matter and mind. Anaximan' der, who first taught philosophy in a public school at Miletus, conceived the primitive state of the universe to have been a vast chaos or infinity,' containing the elements from which the world was constructed by in- herent or self-moving processes of separation and combination. This hypothesis, however, appears to have been treated with neglect for a century, when it was revived by Anaxag' oras, also an Ionian Greek, who, combining it with the doctrines of Diog' enes, taught that there exists one supreme mind, distinct from the chaos to which it im- parted motion, form, and order. 35. The pantheistic systems of Thales and Heraclitus admitted, in accordance with the fictions of the received mythology, that the universe is full of gods ; whereas the doctrine of Anaxag' oras would lead 4o the belief of but one god. Hence- he was accused of impiety, and driven into exile for denying the gods. Some previous philosophers had taught that the heavenly bodies are globular .col- lections of fire and vapor, animated by portions of the divinity, whereas Anaxag' oras regarded them as consisting of earthy particles, like the materials of our own planet. He gave allegorical explana- tions of the names of the Grecian gods, and struck a blow at the popular religion by attributing to natural causes what, in sacrificial rites, had hitherto been regarded as miraculous indications. 36. Such is a brief history of the principles of the Ionian school of philosophy of the Grecian mind in its early progress of devel- opment. The subject has an interesting connection with Grecian politics also. As auguries, omens, and prodigies, exercised a great influence on the public affairs of the Grecians, a philosophical expla- nation of natural phenomena, which was one business of the Greek philosophers, had a tendency to diminish the respect for the popular religion in the eyes of the multitude, and to leave the minds of rulers CHAP. IV.] GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. 681 and statesmen open to the influences of reason, to the rejection of the follies of superstition. The doctrines taught by Anaxag' oras were the commencement of the contest between philosophy and the popular religion. The varying consequences of the struggle appear through- out all subsequent Grecian history. 37. While philosophy was cultivated in Ionia, two widely different schools arose, the Eleatic and the Pythagorean, in the western Greek colonies of Lower Italy. Xenoph' anes, a native of Ionia, was the founder of the former, and Py thag' oras of Samos,* of the latter. The Eleatic philosophy began where the Ionian ended, with the admission of a supreme intelligence, eternal and incorporeal, pervading all things, bearing no resemblance to human nature, either in body or mind, but of the same essence with the universe itself, and, like it, spherical in form. Xenoph' anes openly rejected the popular super- stitions about the gods, and paid much attention to the cultivation of the natural sciences. 38. Pythag' oras, after visiting Phoenicia, and passing more than twenty years among the priests of Egypt, is said by some to have visited Persia and Babylon, where he made himself acquainted with all the learning and philosophy of the East. .Returning to Samos, he next visited nearly all the Grecian States, and finally, passing over into Italy, and settling at Crotona, established there his school of philosophy, being the first Grecian who assumed the title of a philosopher. Pythag' oras made some important discoveries in geometry, music, and astronomy. The demonstration of the forty- seventh proposition of Euclid is attributed to him. He also discov- ered the chords in music, whicji led him to conceive that the planets, striking upon the ether through which they move in their celestial orbits, produce harmonious sounds, varying according to the differ- ence of the magnitudes, velocities, and relative distances of the planets, in a manner corresponding to the proportion of the notes in a musical scale. Hence the "music of the spheres." From what can be gathered of the astronomical doctrine of Pythag' oras it has been inferred that he was possessed of the true idea of the solar sys- * Samos lies adjadtat to the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, from which it is separated by a narrow strait only twl miles across. It is about thirty miles in length from east to west, and about eight or nine in mean breadth. In antiquity it was celebrated for ita extraordinary fer- tility ; and the walls still exist which were built to form the sides of the mountains into ter- races, for the purpose of facilitating their culture. It is still the most productive island of the Archipelago, although its inhabitants have been reduced to a miserable state by the brutalizing sway of the Turks. (Map No. III.) 682 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. tern, which was revived by Coper' nicus, and fully established by Newton. 39. Owing to the predilection of Pythag'oras for mathematical investigations, he appears to have made numbers the basis of his system of natural philosophy the representatives of the essence and properties of all things and indeed the materials or elements in the construction of the universe ; but whether in the term numbers he included the idea of material particles or atoms, the basis of the modern atomic theory, is doubtful. With respect to God, Pythag'- oras appears to have taught that he is the universal, ever-existent mind, the first principle of the universe, the source and cause of all animal life and motion, in substance similar to light, in nature like truth, incapable of pain, invisible, incorruptible, and only to be com- prehended by the mind. His doctrine approached near to the mod- ern system of pantheism the doctrine that the universe is god. Pythag' oras taught the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmi- gration of souls through different bodies, an idea which he probably derived from the Egyptians ; and he professed to preserve a distinct remembrance of several states of existence through which his soul had passed. 40. On the whole, the system of Pythag' oras, with some excel- lencies, contained many gross absurdities and superstitions, which were dignified with the name of philosophy, and which exerted a per- nicious innnence over the opinions of many succeeding ages. The society which Pythag' oras established at Crotona was mostly of a secret character, embracing not only a philosophical school, but also a religious brotherhood, and a political association. A mystical kind of religion was doubtless the main bond of union among his followers. Their political opinions were in the main aristocratical, but, never- theless, they professed to aim at establishing the dominion of wisdom and virtue, under whatever form of government they might be found. 41. How far the society at Crotona was perverted to political purposes, is unknown ; but its very secresy, leaving room for sus- picions of sinister designs, was one of the causes of its forcible dis- solution. Arraying itself on the side of aristocracy, during a pub- lic commotion the house in which the Pythagorean If had assembled was set on fire, and those who did not perish in the tumult only found safety in exile. The unity of the society was at an end. but the doctrines of the Pythagoreans survived, and being disseminated throughout Greece by the exiles, and engrafted upon the Eleusinian CHAP. IV.] ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 683 mysteries, they exerted an extensive influence in religion and phi- losophy, and contributed to the education of many individuals who afterwards became distinguished for their political eminence. Other schools of philosophy scarcely less important than those we have al- luded to, arose after the Persian wars, but the limits of the present work forbid a detailed account of their principles. VI. 42. In addition to the instruction, public and private, which the philosophers gave in their various systems, and the public worship offered to the gods by sacrifices and other religious cere- T j(^ monies, there were, among the Greeks, important na- ELEUSINIAN tional institutions of a secret character, which, open only J to the initiated, combined the mysteries of both philosophy and re- ligion. The most celebrated of these, the great festival of Eleusinia, sacred to Ceres and Proserpine, was observed every fourth year in different parts of Greece, but more particularly by the people of Athens every fifth year at Eleusis in Attica. 43. The Mysteries, as the Eleusmian festival was often called by way of eminence, avowedly based on the fabulous wanderings of the goddess Ceres in search of her daughter Proserpine, were religious and philosophical rites, doubtless original^- intended to convey to the initiated the hidden meaning of the one allegory of the fabled goddess the mysteries of vegetation. Afterwards they took a wider range, and embraced the whole system of Grecian mythology. They did not, as some have supposed, throw discredit upon the popular religious belief of the times ; for while the goddess of grain and harvests was disrobed of her celestial character, and resolved into the vivifying powers of heat, rain, air, and sunlight, acting upon the seed sown in the earth, the atheistic tendency to a disbelief in the gods was checked by deifying anew these natural agents, and, with their mysterious attributes, reconstructing the " form divine" which the Greek fansy pictured as a fitting representation of those sup- posed spiritual powers at work in the vast laboratory of nature. If the material theology was debased by the revelation of the mysteries, the spiritual and philosophical was exalted. The gods, therefore, which were the immediate objects of Grecian worship, were merely the palpable images of impalpable spiritual realities the medium through which the votaries of Eleusinia held communion with NATURE. 44. What is known of the sacred rites performed at Eleusis, has 684 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III been gathered from occasional incidental allusions found in the pages of nearly all the classic authorities ; and although the penalty of a sudden and ignominious death impended over any one who divulged these symbolic ceremonies, yet sufficient is now known to describe them with much minuteness of detail. They occupied nine days, from the 15th to the 23d of September inclusive, -the first being the day on which the worshippers merely collected together the second that on which they purified themselves by bathing in the sea the third the day of sacrifices the fourth the day of offerings to the goddess the fifth the day of torches, when the multitude roamed over the meadows at night&ll, carrying flambeaus in imitation of Ceres searching for her daughter the sixth the day of Bacchus, the god of Vintage the seventh the day of athletic pastimes the eighth the day devoted to the lesser mysteries and celestial revelations and the ninth the day of libations, closing with the discordant shouts of the worship- pers. 81 45. At Athens, applicants for initiation, having twelve months pre- viously assisted at the lesser mysteries at Agrse, and having purified themselves, and offered the requisite sacrifice to Ceres, were examined by four curators appointed by the government, and presided over by the chie-f of the nine archons. Crowned with myrtle, in the hours of darkness the successful candidates were ushered, by a choir of maid- ens robed in white and their brows cinctured with garlands, through the holy grove, and admitted into the vestibule of the mystical temple, a gigantic building dedicated to Eleusinia. As the worshipper passed the threshold he found himself enveloped in darkness, while a voice warned him not to advance unless his body were cleansed, and his mind divested of all carnal affections. Proceeding a little farther a dim light enabled him to distinguish, though with difficulty, the character of the place : he was in the cave of Spleen and Despair the cave dedicated to the darker and meaner passions of humanity. As he groped his way onward through the dank cavern, the most loathsome reptiles glided along the walls, spectral, objects flitted around him, and the air was rent with unearthly yells. Each ad- venturer strove to conquer the dismay excited by these preternatural sounds and distracting illusions, when suddenly the walls of the cav- a. For the materials of our descriptive account of the rites of Eleusis we are greatly indebted to a valuable article on the " Eleusinian Mysteries," in Blackwood's Magaz^e of February 1853, to which the reader is referred for a fuller account, and for authorities for " every inci- denteven the smallest particular." CHAP. IV.] ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 685 era burst asunder, and he found himself in the august fane of the goddess a vast and magnificent temple, whose lofty dome was strewn with stars and constellations of burnished copper. Amid a crowd of worshippers, and inferior officials, he recognized the high functionaries of the festival the sacred torch-bearer, the herald, the altar-priest, and hierophant, or revealer of mysteries all suitably habited in dresses of mystic import, and the latter enveloped in a costume as gorgeous as the coronation robes of an emperor. 46. The magnificence of the temple, lit up for a moment by the flames of the sacrificial pile, was as suddenly lost to the view, for in- stantaneously the light disappeared, and the whole was involved in impenetrable obscurity. Then was heard the solemn voice of the hierophant raised in supplication to the gods; and the revelations commenced. A roaring noise seemed to shake the building to its foundations ; the marble pavement quaked, and many of the worship- pers, in an extremity of dread, were thrown down by the heavy un- dulations. Suddenly the din was hushed, and a lull profound as death succeeded. After a momentary pause the hideous roaring was renewed ; the thunder crashed above the heads of the multitude ; at one instant gleams of lightning dazzled the eyes ; at another, every- thing was buried in a gloom deeper than midnight. Amid yells and bowlings like those of demons, ghostly apparitions startled the be- holders : first a band of monster Centaurs ; then the fierce brothers Briareus and Gryges, each with a hundred arms ; now the avenging Eumen' ides ; now the Gorgons dire, and their guards, the hoary- haired Grraise ; now three-headed Cer' berus ; Chimera vomiting flames, and Min' otaur trampling the earth in a rage of madness and ferocity. Fearful as were these scenes, others more awful followed. Far down in the depths of a yawning chasm, the dread secrets of the infernal regions were unfolded. The sluggish waters of Phleg' ethon were seen beating, with measured cadence, against the palace of the god of Hades, the boatman Charon ferrying the dead across the Stygian river, Rhadaman' thus seated on his throne of judgment, grizzly phantoms flitting through the murky atmosphere, and, last- ly, the assembled deities of hell, in whose midst frowned the relent- less and forbidding visage of Pluto. With this final revelation of horrors the abyss was slowly shrouded from view, the thunder again resounded through the heavens, and at the voice of the hierophant the gloom of a tempestuous night was instantly succeeded by the lustre of refulgent day. 686 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET HI. 47. It was then that the chief mysteries of Ceres were revealed to her votaries ; and in the midst of a divine radiance the twelve Celestial deities passed before them ; Jupiter crowned with olive boughs ; Apollo, with pencils of light ; Neptune, with anemones ; Mars, with a golden helmet 5 Mercury, with a winged cap and sandals ; Vulcan, with dishevelled ringlets ; Juno, attended by her cuckoo and peacocks ; Minerva, by her owl and dragon ; Diana, by her greyhound ; Ceres, by a dolphin ; Venus, by a sparrow ; and Vesta, bearing the palladium as her talisman. Next came a procession of the lesser inhabitants of Olympus Oreads from the mountains ; Naiads from the streams ; Bacchus, with his train of revellers ; winged Cupid, with h>s bow and arrows ; and Aurora, blushing with the tints of the morning ; together with the -rest of tbe " infinite variety" of the " Pagan host," in superb and bewildering confusion. A repre- sentation of the story of Ceres and Proserpine closed the sacred fes- tival of Eleusis, after which the hierophant ascended a rostrum in front of the statue of the goddess, and opening the sacred volume Petroma, read from the stone tablets an explanation of the types of the festivities, in language probably not unlike that which Virgil puts into the mouth of Auchises, in the sixth book of the .ZEneid, and which may be regarded' as a condensed definition of the secrets of Eleusis and the creed of Pythagoras. The sixth book of the JEneid is believed to represent, moreover, several of the scenes of the mysteries. In the following language Anchises answers the inquiries of his god-like son : " Know first that heav'n, and earth's contracted frame, And flowing waters, and the starry flame, And both the radiant lights, one common soul Inspires and feeds and animates the whole. This active mind, infused through all the space, Unites and mingles with the mighty mass. Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain, And birds of air, and monsters of the main. Th' ethereal vigor is in all the same ; And ev'ry soul is fill'd with equal flame As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay Of mortal members subject to decay, Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day. From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts, Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts, And grief and joy : nor can the grovelling mind, In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined, Assert the native skies, or own its heav'nly kind: Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains ; But long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains. CHAP. IV.] ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 687 The relics of invet'rate vice they wear ; And spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear For this are various penances enjoin'd ; And some are hung to bleach upon the wind, Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires, Till all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires. All have their manes, and their manes bear : The few, so cleansed, to these abodes repair, And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air. Then are they happy, when by length of time The scurf is worn away of each committed crime ; No speck is left of their habitual stains ; But the pure ether of the soul remains. But, when a thousand rolling years are past, (So long their punishments and penance last,) Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god, Compell'd to drink the deep Lethean flood, In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares Of their past labors and their irksome years, That, unrememb'ring of its former pain, The soul may suffer mortal flesh again."a 48. We can conceive of the effect which the revelations of the hierophant produced upon the mixed assemblage whose minds were stimulated by the marvellous ordeal through which they had just passed, as he resolved the mythological legends into the varied opera- tions of Nature's laws, and explained the divine nature of the soul or spirit, its union with the body in a probationary existence, its de- generacy by association with material organs, its need of purification, its immortality, and its final destiny. With what rapture they lis- tened, as the mysteries became transparent under their scrutiny ; how their bosoms glowed with enthusiam for the pursuits of philosophy, and the cause of their religion ; how their minds must have expand- ed with the acquisition of these " hidden treasures of wisdom and happiness !" 49. But while the hierophant explained the glowing fables of Grecian mythology as allegorical representations of the mysteries of Nature, it is supposed that his words were sufficiently oracular to admit of being interpreted by the worshipper in accordance with the system of philosophy which he himself had embraced. Thus one saw, in the sacred rites, confirmation of one creed, and others, of another ; but all bowed in reverence before them, as enshrining the august mysteries of religion and philosophy. Celebrated, under a veil of secresy, with extraordinary pomp and solemnity, they exerted a powerful influence over a people so susceptible as the ancient a. Virgil's JEncid, vi. 724-751 : Dryden's Trans, vi. 980-1020. 688 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. Greeks, who abandoned themselves, with the most ardent enthusiasm, to the exquisite seductions of their polytheistic mythology. Of so holy a character were the Eleusinian rites deemed, that, although they were open to both sexes, and all classes among the citizens, all crimi- nals, helots, and necromancers, were excluded from them, while the initiated who abstained from their periodical observance were re- garded as having incurred the displeasure of the gods, and as being doomed, hereafter, to eternal darkness and abasement. The charge against Socrates, of having neglected the holy ordeal of initiation, was construed as evidence of irreverence and impiety towards the gods ; and when the imperious and lawless Nero visited Greece, such was the awe with which the sacred rites of Eleusis inspired him, that he was deterred from joining in them, from a consciousness of his own blood-stained character ; and such was the sway which, at a later period, these festivities continued to exert over the people, that the emperor Valentinian was forced to permit their continuance in Greece, after he had prohibited elsewhere all nocturnal sacrifices. For sev- enteen centuries and a-half, reckoning from their supposed introduc- tion into Attica by Eumolpus, in 1356 B. C., they maintianed their influence and authority. It was in the time of Theodosius that the Christian world rose up against them, and the fathers of the Church declared that " every mode of polytheism conducts its deluded vota- ries, through the paths of error, to the abyss of eternal perdition. " a It was then that the emperor propounded to the Roman senate the important question, " whether the worship of Jupiter, or that of Christ, should be the religion of the empire ?" a A formal renuncia- tion of the pagan mythology followed ; a royal edict declared that no one should presume, " in any city, or in any place, to worship an in- animate idol, by the sacrifice of a guiltless victim ;" d the temples of the gods were thrown down, or converted into Christian churches ; and the mystical rites of Eleusis gave place to the simplicity of gospel truths, and the mild religion of the Redeemer. a. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ch. xxviii. CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE. 689 CHAPTER V. THE GLORY AND THE FALL OF GREECE. ANALYSIS. 1. The CLOSING PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY. General character of tlie Grecian domestic wars, &c. 2. Other events submitted for our contemplation. 3. Ordinary compends of Grecian history. Object of the present chapter. 4. THE PERSIAN WARS. 5. BATTLE or PLAT*' A. Situation of the opposing forces. 6. Ad- vance of the Persians. 7. Trying situation of the Spartans. Sacrifices. 8. Favorable tokens. The Spartan phalanx prepares for battle. The battle-ground. 9. The battle. 10. Mardoniua his fall defeat and flight of the Persians. 1 1. The Athenians carry the Persian intrenchmente. Prodigious slaughter of the Persians. 12. The conquered treasure. The contrast. 13. Op- posing traits of Persian and Grecian character. 14. IMPORTANCE OF THE PERSIAN OVERTHROW. 15. The rising greatness of Greece. 16. Effect of the Persian defeat upon the East. 17. THE AGE or PEDICLES. Extract from Alison. 18. Themistocles and Cimn. Pericles and Phidias. (The Olympian Jupiter.) 19, and 20. The grace and elegance of the Athenian edifices of the time of Pericles. 21. The liberality of the people. 22. Inquiry into the origin and overthrow of the monuments of Grecian genius. FULL DK- VKLOPMKNT OF THE DEMOCRATIC CHARACTER OF GRECIAN INSTITUTIONS. Early Union of ad- ministralive and judicial powers. Their separation in the time of Pericles. Dikast juries. References to arbitrators. The judicature popularized. 23. Collision of parties, and triumph of the reformers. 24. The making and the repealing of laws. Abridged powers of the Ecclesia. The business of ordinary legislation intrusted to the Monothetse. The power of indicting the proposers of new laws. Abuse of this power. 25. Mode of affixing penalties. Check against its abuse. The study of these laws. 20. Consummation of the Athenian democracy. Leading object in the institution of the dikasteries. They furnish examples of the workings of jury trial. The jury system in England compared with that in Athens. 27. Causes that led to the especial CULTIVATION OF RHETORIC AND ORATORY. The good not without its attendant evil. 2-S. Oratory little known in Greece before the time of Pericles. Eloquence of Pericles. 29. The golden age of Grecian eloquence. Athens bears the palm. Lysias, Isocrates, ^Eschine?, and Demosthenes. Hume's view of the style of Demosthenes. 30. The true character of his eloquence. 31. The secret of his power and influence. 32. HISTORIANS, POETS, AND PHILOSOPHERS, of the age of Pericles. 33. THE DRAMA. Its development marks the age of Pericles. ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. 34. Transitions of tragedy in the hands of its three masters. 35. Influence of the drama over the Athenians. 36. COMEDY. Its character and effects. 37. THE RESULT. The age of Grecian glory was the era of democratic institutions. 38. CAUSES OF THE DOWNFALL OF ATHENS. Character of the Athenian confederacy. Despotic rule of Athens over her allies. Athens appropriates the common treasury to her own uses. 39. Her political power based on credit. Unwise policy of depending on foreign re- sources. 40. Extensive judicial powers assumed by the popular assembly. 41. Evils arising therefrom. Ungrateful treatment of illustrious citizens. 42. Want of public and private vir- tue. Evils arising from the want of a principle of universal justice like that of the Christian re- ligion. Conclusion. I. 1 . The general impression produced on the mind of the reader by a cursory perusal of the closing chapters of Grecian history ex- tending from the opening of the first war with Persia, in the year 44 690 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. 490 B. C., to the reduction of Greece to a Roman province, 146 B. C.j and embracing a period of three hundred and forty PERIOD OF f ur years is doubtless that of a confused series of domes- GRECIAN tic wars and revolutions, origniating in the jealousies and ambition of rival States, sanguinary in their progress, and destructive to all parties in their final results and tendencies. Such is, indeed, the general character we must ascribe to the several Peloponnesian wars, which almost exhausted the power and resources of the most prominent Grecian States to the Sacred War, which led to the subjection of Greece to the sway of Macedon and to the petty jealousies growing out of Achaean influence, and the dissensions sown by Macedonian ambition, which led to the final overthrow of Grecian liberty, and the reduction of Greece to a province of the Roman empire. 2. Apart, however, from the uniformly disastrous effects of the follies, crimes, and absurdities, which engendered these domestic wars, we find here, submitted for our contemplation, the grand specta- cle of the Persian contest, involving the vain struggle of barbarism against civilization the glories of Thermopylae, Mar'athon, Sal'- amis, and Platse' a the expedition of Cyrus, and the famous " Re- treat of the Ten Thousand" the brilliant career of the conquering Alexander the inroad of the Celts the last struggle of Pyrr' hus and the vain effort of Achaia, in her prime, to stem the fatal tide of Grecian corruption. 3. The limits of ordinary compends of General History forbid anything more than outline sketches, or general views, of the public life of the Grecians, in which beauty of coloring of necessity gives place to simplicity of narrative and brevity of detail, in which is scarcely detected the philosophy of the causes that were fast hurry- ing on Greece to her destiny and in which little is seen of the do- mestic condition and social character of the Grecian people. We purpose, therefore, to return to a few of the more prominent events of Grecian history, that we may place some of their most interesting peculiarities in a clearer light before the reader to examine, but with brevity, the philosophy of causes and effects, and to lift the veil which hides from view the under-current of social life. II. 4. What may properly be called the closing period of Grecian history opens with the commencement of the Persian wars, brought CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE. 691 on by the blind ambition of Darius continued, through the vain- glory of Xerxes and his successor and ending in the THK humiliation of the greatest empire the world then PERSIAN contained. The Greeks, united by a sense of common WARS - dangers, victorious abroad, and sedulously cultivating learning and the arts at home, might well regard the latter years of the Persian wars, and the subsequent administration of Pericles at Athens, as the period of their greatest glory. 5. We have spoken briefly of the heroic struggle of the Spartan Leon' idas and his countrymen at Thermop' ylse, and of the Athenians under Miltiades at Mar' athon. We give, from an eloquent writer, the following description of the battle of Platae' a, BATTLE / OF both for the sake of its beauty, and to show the effect of the religion of the Greeks upon the military character of the people. Mardonius, the Persian general, left at the head of three hundred thousand men to complete the conquest of Greece after the inglorious flight of Xerxes across the Hellespont, had advanced to the neigh- borhood of Platae' a, when he encountered that part of the Grecian army composed mostly of Spartans, commanded by Pausanias, and numbering about fifty thousand men. The Athenians had previously fallen back to a more secure position, where the entire army had been ordered to concentrate, and Pausanias and his Spartans had but just commenced the retrograde movement when the Persians made their appearance. 6. " As the troops of Mardonius advanced, the rest of the Persian armament, deeming the task was now not to fight but to pursue, raised their standards and poured forward tumultuously, without discipline or order. Pausanias, pressed by the Persian line, lost no time in sending to the Athenians for succor. But when the latter were on their march with the required aid, they were suddenly in- tercepted by the Greeks in the Persian service, and cut off from the rescue of the Spartans. 7. u The Spartans beheld themselves thus unsupported with consid- erable alarm. Committing himself to the gods, Pausanias ordained a solemn sacrifice, his whole army awaiting the result, while the shafts of the Persian bowmen poured on them near and fast. But the entrails presented discouraging omens, and the sacrifice was again renewed. Meanwhile the Spartans evinced their characteristic fortir tude and discipline not one man stirring from his ranks until the auguries should assume a more favoring aspect ; all harassed, and 692 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL some wounded, by the Persian arrows, they yet, seeking protection only beneath their broad bucklers, waited with a stern patience the time of their leader and of Heaven. Then fell Gallic' rates, the stateliest and strongest soldier in the whole army, lamenting, not death, but that his sword was as yet undrawn against the invader. 8. " And still sacrifice after sacrifice seemed to forbid the battle, when Pausanias, lifting his eyes that streamed with tears to the temple of Juno that stood hard by, supplicated the goddess, that if the fates forbade the Greeks to conquer, they might at least fall like warriors. And while uttering this prayer, the tokens waited for be- came suddenly visible in the victims, and the augurs announced the promise of coming victory. Therewith the order of battle ran in- stantly through the army, and, to use the poetical comparison of Plutarch, the Spartan phalanx suddenly stood forth in its strength, like some fierce animal erecting its bristles, and preparing its vengeance for the foe. The ground, broken in many steep and pre- cipitous ridges, and intersected by the Asopus, whose sluggish stream winds over a broad and rushy bed, was unfavorable to the movements of cavalry, and the Persian foot advanced therefore on the Greeks. 9. " Di^awn up in their massive phalanx, the Lacedsemonians pre- sented an almost impenetrable body sweeping slowly on, compact and serried while the hot and undisciplined valor of the Persians, more fortunate in the skirmish than the battle, broke itself in a thou- sand waves upon that moving rock. Pouring on in small numbers at a time, they fell fast round the progress of the Greeks their armor slight against the strong pikes of Sparta their courage with- out skill their numbers without discipline ; still they fought gallant- ly, even when on the ground seizing the pikes with their naked hands, and with the wonderful agility which still characterizes the Oriental swordsmen, springing to their feet, and regaining their arms, when seemingly overcome ; wresting away their enemies' shields, and grappling with them desperately hand to hand. 10. " Foremost of a band of a thousand chosen Persians, con- spicuous by his white charger, and still more by his daring valor, rode Mardonius, directing the attack fiercer wherever his armor blazed. Inspired by his presence, the Persians fought worthily of their warlike fame, and, even in falling, thinned the Spartan ranks. At length the rash but gallant leader of the Asiatic armies received a mortal wound his skull was crushed in by a stone from the hand of a Spartan. His chosen band, the boast of the army, fell fighting CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE. 693 around him, but his death was the general signal of defeat and flight. Encumbered by their long robes, and pressed by the relentless con- querors, the Persians fled in disorder towards their camp, which was secured by wooden entrenchments, by gates, and towers, and walls. Here, fortifying themselves as they best might, they contended suc- cessfully, and with advantage, against the Lacedaemonians, who were ill skilled in assault and siege. 11." Meanwhile the Athenians obtained the victory on the plains over the Greeks of Mardonius, and now joined the Spartans at the camp. The Athenians are said to have been better skilled in the art of siege than the Spartans ; yet at that time their experience could scarcely have been greater. The Athenians were at all times, however, of a more impetuous temper; and the men who had * run to the charge' at Marathon, were not to be baffled by the des- perate remnant of their ancient foe. They scaled the walls they effected a breach through which the Tegeans were the first to rush the Greeks poured fast and fierce into the camp. Appalled, dismayed, stupefied by the suddenness and greatness of their loss, the Persians no longer sustained their fame they dispersed in all directions, falling, as they fled, with a prodigious slaughter, so that out of that mighty armament scarce three thousand effected an escape. " a 12. Another writer remarks that " the treasure found in the camp of the Persians on this occasion was immense : the furniture of the tents glittered with gold and silver ; and vessels of the same metals were seen scattered about for ordinary use, and piled up in wagons." " Pausanias, when he entered the tent of Mardonius, and saw the rich hangings, the soft carpets, the couches and tables shining with gold and silver, ordered the Persian slaves to prepare a banquet, such as they were used to set out for their master. When it was spread he bade his Helots set by its side the simple fare of his own ordinary meal, and then invited the Greek officers to mark the folly of the barbarian, who, with such instruments of luxury at his command, had come to rob the Greeks of their scanty store. " b 1 3. In the foregoing we detect some of the prominent traits of Persian and of Grecian character, by which we are enabled to discover the causes that, during a struggle of half a century, brought defeat and humilia- tion upon one nation, and gave victory to the other. On the side of Persia was the vain boast of numbers the tinsel of display with all the glitter, " pomp, and circumstance of war," but none of that a. Bulwer'a Athens. b. Thirlwall's Greece, i. 280. 694 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. moral power which an army derives from an enlightened confidence in its own strength and resources. On the side of the Greeks were the undaunted courage, stern purpose, and firm resolve, which arose from religious faith and disciplined valor. III. 14. But the final overthrow of the Persian hosts on the battle ground of PlataB'a has an importance infinitely beyond that of the brilliant spectacle of the contest, the numbers of the slain, OF THE or tne deliverance of the Greeks from immediate danger. PERSIAN Perhaps no other event in ancient history has been so OVERTHROW. ., /. -, . i i i momentous in its consequences ; for what would have been the condition of Greece, had barbarian arms prevailed against her, and had she then become a province of the Persian empire ? The greatness which she subsequently attained, and the glory and renown with which she has filled the earth, would never have had an existence. As applicable to this subject we subjoin the following reflections from the author previously quoted. 15. " When the deluge of the Persian arms rolled back to its eastern bed, and the world was once more comparatively at rest, the continent of Greece rose visibly and majestically above the rest of the civilized earth. Afar in the Latiau plains the infant State of Rome was silently and obscurely struggling into strength against the neighboring and petty States in which the old Etrurian civilization was rapidly passing into decay. The genius of Gaul and Germany, yet unredeemed from barbarism, lay scarce known, save where colo- nized by Greeks, in the gloom of its woods and wastes. 16. " The ambition of Persia, still the great monarchy of the world, was permanently checked and crippled ; the strength of generations had been wasted, and the immense extent of the empire only served yet more to sustain the general peace, from the exhaustion of its forces. The defeat of Xerxes paralyzed the East. Thus Greece was left secure, and at liberty to enjoy the tranquillity it had acquired, and to direct to the arts of peace the novel and amazing energies which had been prompted by the dangers, and exalted by the vic- tories, of war." IV. 17. With the close of the Persian contest properly begins what has been termed the " Age of Pericles," the era of Athenian great- CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE. 695 ness, when Athens, hitherto inferior in magnitude and political im- portance among the Grecian States, having won the high- est martial honors, suddenly took the lead, not less in /p t E R fci!L intellectual progress and peaceful glories, than in politi- cal ascendency. " Nowhere else," remarks a late writer, " is to be found a State so small in its origin, and yet so great in its progress ; so contracted in its territory, and yet so gigantic in its achievements ; so limited in numbers, and yet so immortal in genius. Its domin- ions on the continent of Greece did not exceed an English county : its free inhabitants never amounted to thirty thousand citizens and yet these inconsiderable numbers have filled the world with their re- nown : poetry, philosophy, architecture, sculpture, tragedy, comedy, geometry, physics, history, politics, almost date their origin from Athenian genius ; and the monuments of art with which they have overspread the world still form the standard of taste in every civilized nation on earth." a 18. Themistocles and Cimon had restored to Athens all that of which Xerxes had despoiled it, the former having rebuilt its ruins, and the latter having given to its public buildings a degree of mag- nificence previously unknown ; but Pericles surpassed them both. The treasury of the State, filled by the tribute wrung from allied or conquered cities, was placed at his disposal, and he knew no limit to expenditure but the popular will, which, fortunately for the glories of Grecian art, kept pace with the vast conceptions of the master de- signer. Most of those famous structures, previously described, b which crowned the Athenian Acropolis, or surrounded its base, were either built, or adorned, by the direction of Pericles, under the superintend- ence of the sculptor Phid' ias. The Parthenon, the Odeum, the gold and ivory statue of the goddess Minerva, and the Olympian Jupiter* This famous statue, being sixty feet high, and made of gold and ivory, was constructed by Phid' ias at the request of the Eleans, and placed in the temple of the god at Olympia. It was such a prodigy of art that it wus thought, by the ancients, worthy to be reckoned among the seven wonders of the world. No subsequent artists had the presumption even to imagine that they could imitate it. The god was represented as sitting on his throne : in the right hand he held a figure of Vic- tory, also made of gold and ivory in bis left a sceptre beautifully adorned with all kinds of metals, and having on the top of it a golden eagle. His brows were encircled with a crown, made to resemble leaves of olive ; his robe was of massive gold, curiously adorned with various figures of animals, and lilies. The sandals too were of gold. The throne was inlaid with all kinds of precious materials ebony, ivory, and gems, nd was adorned with sculptures of ex- quisite beauty. Quinctillian said of this statue that u the beauty of it seemed to improve the religion of the beholders, xo much did the work express the majesty of the god." When a. Alison, in BlackvoocTs Magazine, July 1837. b. See p. 566. 696 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III the latter two the workmanship of the famous sculptor himself, were alone sufficient to immortalize the " Age of Pericles." But not to Pericles and the artists alone be the honor : it is to be shared by the people, whose love of the sublime and beautiful encouraged them. The following eloquent extract will convey to the reader a vivid idea of the unrivalled grace and elegance of the Athenian edifices of the time of Pericles. 19. " Then rapidly progressed those glorious fabrics which seemed, as Plutarch gracefully expresses it, endowed with the bloom of a perennial youth. Still the houses of private citizens remained simple and unadorned ; still were the streets narrow and irregular ; and even centuries afterwards, a stranger entering Athens would not at first have recognized the claims of the mistress of Grecian art. But to the homeliness of her common thoroughfares and private mansions, the magnificence of her public edifices now made a dazzling contrast. The Acropolis that towered above the homes and thoroughfares of men a spot too sacred for human habitation became, to use a proverbial phrase, ' a city of the gods.' The citizen was everywhere to be reminded of the majesty of the STATE his patriotism was to be increased by the pride in her beauty his taste to be elevated by the spectacle of her splendor. 20. " Thus flocked to Athens all who, throughout Greece, were eminent in art. Sculptors and architects vied with each other in adorning the young empress of the seas : then rose the masterpieces of Phid'ias, of Gallic' rates, of Menes'icles, which, either in their broken remains, or in the feeble copies of imitators less inspired, still command so intense a wonder, and furnish models so immortal. And if, so to speak, their bones and relics excite our awe and envy, as testifying of a lovelier and grander race, which the deluge of time has swept away, what, in that day, must have been their brilliant effect unmutilated in their fair proportions fresh in all their linea- ments and hues ? For their beauty was not limited to the symmetry of arch and column, nor their materials confined to the marbles of Pentel' licus and Paros. Even the exterior of the temples glowed with the richest harmony of colors, and was decorated with the purest gold ; an atmosphere peculiarly favorable both to the display and the PhitT ias wa* asked whence he had derived the idea of this his grandest effort, he replied by repeating the well-known passage in Homer's Iliad, where Jupiter is represented as causing Olympus to tremble on its base by the mere movement of his sable brow. The Olympian Jupiter was the last and greatest of the works of Phid' ias. CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF G&EECE. 697 preservation of art, permitted to external pediments and friezes all the minuteness of ornament all the brilliancy of colors : such as in the interior of Italian churches may yet be seen vitiated, in the last, by a gaudy and barbarous taste. 21. "Nor did the Athenians spare any cost upon the works that were, like the tombs and tripods of their heroes, to be the monuments of a nation to distant ages, and to transmit the most irrefragable proof ' that the power of ancient Greece was not an idle legend.' The whole democracy were animated with the passion of Pericles ; and when Phid' ias recommended marble as a cheaper material than ivory for the great statue of Minerva, it was for that reason that ivory was preferred by the unanimous voice of the assembly. Thus, whether it were extravagance or munificence, the blame in one case, the admiration in another, rests not more with the minister than the populace. It was, indeed, the great characteristic of those works, that they were entirely the creations of the people : without the people Pericles could not have built a temple, nor engaged a sculptor. The miracles of that day resulted from the enthusiasm of a population yet young full of the first ardor for the beautiful -dedicating to the State, as to a mistress, the trophies honorably won, or the treas- ures injuriously extorted and uniting the resources of a nation with the energy of an individual, because the toil, the cost, were borne by those who succeeded to the enjoyment and arrogated the glory." V. 22. As we contemplate the beauty of some vast edifice, harmonious in its proportions, perfect in all its adaptations, and towering above us in majestic grandeur, wisdom forbids us to overlook the creative energies on which all its glory rests the resources that sustained it, the original conception, the planning of the designer, the toil of the artisans, and the gradual development of the results of their com- bined labors. So, while we contemplate the unrivalled monuments of Grecian genius, long since passed away, a wise political philosophy requires us to examine, also, into the circum- OPMKNT OF stances which gave them origin, and the causes of their THK DKM - final destruction. The age of Pericles that of Grecian BACT Ea OF glory was also that in which the democratic character GRECIAN IN- of Grecian institutions received its fullest development in the important departments of judicature, legislation, and administration In the early history of Athens the distinction between administrative 698 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET III and judicial powers was almost unknown ; for the Athenian magistrates were not only executive but judicial officers also deciding disputes and inflicting punishments and of the same mixed nature were the functions of the Areop' agus and of the senate of Five Hundred an accummu- lation, in the same hands, of powers that must have often led to cor- ruption and oppression. The reform party headed by Pericles trans- ferred the judicial power to numerous dikasts, or panels of jurors, selected from the citizens, six thousand of whom, forming what was called the Heliaea, were annually drawn by lot, and then distributed into panels of five hundred members each ; and to these panels, paid by the State, and each presided over by a magistrate, judicial causes were submitted by lot ; so that no one knew beforehand which jury was to try any particular case. References of private causes to arbi- trators appointed by law, or chosen by mutual consent of parties, were also common each of the parties having the right to appeal to the public jury. The senate of the Areop' agus, the senate of Five Hundred, archons, and other magistrates, were stripped of nearly all their judicial functions ; the laws were brought down from the Acropolis, where justice had been previously administered, to the neighborhood of the market place, where *the dikasteries sat ; and thus was the judicature popularized, and democracy enthroned in the tribunals of justice. 23. The popular triumph was not obtained without a fierce col- lision of parties ; for the State was divided between reformers and conservatives, the latter composing the oligarchical party, ever tenacious of power, and unscrupulous of the means of preserving it. When Pericles proposed the connection of Athens and the Piraeus by the Long Walls, the same party did not scruple to invoke foreign aid for the overthrow of the democracy ; but the latter triumphed in all its measures, and, under its rule, Athens, guided by the genius of Pericles, attained the maximum of her power and glory. 24. By the reforms of Pericles, the making and the repealing of laws subjects which have called forth so much declamatory effort to the disparagement of popular legislation were placed under peculiar solemnities and guarantees, which in a great measure removed the dangers of hasty and unwise decisions. The Ecclesia, or public assembly of the whole people, was no longer, as in the days of Solon, intrusted with the power of either passing or repealing any law of general application ; it could only pass laws affecting individual cases ; and to a magisterial court of sworn jurors called nomothetae, CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE. 699 numbering from two hundred to a thousand, and selected from the Heliaea, was intrusted the business of ordinary legislation. Early in each year, at a public assembly of the people, the laws were sub- mitted for approval or rejection : at a later period, the laws which the assembly, or private citizens, desired to have repealed, together with propositions of new laws, were brought before the court of the nomothetse. Public advocates were also named to defend the laws attacked, and the decision of the court was final during the year of its jurisdiction. As an important additional security both to the public assembly and the nomothetee, against being entrapped into illegal decisions, if any new measure contravening previous legislation was passed, the proposer of it was liable to indictment and punishment ; for it was his duty to give formal notice of the contradiction, and to propose a repeal of the preexisting law, that contradictory statutes might not at the same time be in operation. The law permitting such an indictment doubtless deterred those not thoroughly con- versant with past legislation, from originating new propositions, but it was ere long grossly abused, and made the instrument of personal and party enmity j for, at a later period, we find the mover of a new law compelled to defend himself, not only against the charge of a formal contradiction of laws, but also against that of alleged mischiefs in the law passed by his agency a perversion which Pericles never an- ticipated. 25. A peculiar, not to say ingenious, mode of affixing penalties was adopted. If the accused were found guilty by the dikast jury, the accuser first named a given amount of punishment it might be a fine, imprisonment, banishment, or death then a lighter punish- ment was proposed by the accused himself; and the jury was bound to choose the one or the other without any modification. It was thus the interest of the accuser not to name a punishment too severe, lest its very severity should cause its rejection ; and the interest of the accused not to name one too mild, lest the jury should select the other. This was a common mode of determining the penalty under the Athenian laws. As a check against its abuse, if the verdict of guilty ^lid not receive the suffrages of at least one-fifth of the jury, then the accuser himself was liable to a heavy fine. Such were the safeguards, enacted in a truly conservative spirit, which Pericles and his co-reformers threw round the measures of legislation, and the ad- ministration of justice. From the study of these laws and their results from the ingenuity displayed in their enactment, and the ingenuity 700 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL which still found the means of perverting them to the purposes of individual and party animosity modern legislators may gather much political wisdom. 26. The establishment of the popular juries or paid dikasteries, and of the legislative assembly of the nomothetae, often erroneously attributed to Solon, a was the consummation of the Athenian democ- racy the culminating point towards which the efforts of the liberal party had long been tending. The leading object in the institution of the dikasteries was to guard against that corruption which was a prevalent vice among wealthy members of the aristocracy, who were not only often insubordinate to the magistrates, but who freely resorted to intimidation and bribery to promote selfish and party ends. All history, until a recent period, shows how difficult it has been to make rich and powerful criminals effectively amenable to justice. But the dikasteries of Pericles, owing to the number of those who com- posed them, their secret suffrage, and the impossibility of knowing beforehand who would sit in any particular case, seem as far removed as possible from corruption and intimidation. They furnish examples of the workings of jury trial in its broadest scale, and exhibit, in ex- aggerated proportions, both the excellencies and the defects of the jury system. In England, during a long period, the jury, justly called the palladium of English liberties, was kept in subordination to the government its members liable to be fined and imprisoned for rendering a verdict contrary to the dictation of the judge but in ancient Athens, more than two thousand years ago, the system started forth at once in its full maturity, the jury being judge of the law and the testimony, and without being bound by the precedents of former decisions. VI. 27. There were no professional advocates among the Athenians ; but plaintiffs and defendants might come before the jury with speeches prepared by others, or with friends to speak for them. CULTIVATION . OF RHET- A certain power or speech therefore became necessary, ORIC AND no t on iy f or politicians, but also for private citizens to ORATORY. .,.',..', vindicate their rights, or repel accusations in a court of justice. Accordingly, the age of Pericles was that in which style and speech began to be assiduously cultivated ; we begin to hear of the rhetorician and the sophist as persons of influence and celebrity ; a. Grote, v. 381. CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE, 701 and the composers of written speeches to be delivered by others began to multiply, and to acquire an importance previously unknown. Yet while these circumstances stimulated to the highest developments of Grecian genius in the art of oratory, the good was not without its attendant evil ; for at a time when the citizen pleaded his own cause before the dikastery, the rhetorician was viewed by many with jealousy, as imparting to those who were rich enough to buy it, "a peculiar skill in the common weapons, which made them seem like fencing masters, or professional swordsmen, amidst a society of untrained duellists."* A similar objection, however, might be made to almost any useful attainment ; but it only exemplifies the truth of the adage, that " Knowledge is power." 28. Eloquence or oratory, which Cicero calls " the friend of peace and the companion of tranquillity, requiring for her cradle a com- monwealth already well established and flourishing," was scarcely known in Greece before the time of Pericles, when it suddenly arose in Athens to a great height of perfection. Pericles himself, whose great aim was to sway the assemblies of the people to his will, culti- vated oratory with such application and success, that the poets of his day said of him, that on some occasions the goddess of persuasion, with all her charms, seemed to dwell on his lips, and that on others his discourse had all the vehemence of thunder to move the souls of his hearers. It was said of Pericles that whenever he was to speak in public such was his solicitude that he first addressed a prayer to the gods " That not a word might escape him unsuitable to the occasion ;" and it was the power of eloquence that enabled him, 'during forty years, to maintain the most unbounded influence over the inconstant and capricious Athenians, who were the most jealous of their liberties of any people in the world. 29. The golden age of Grecian eloquence is embraced in a period of a hundred and thirty years, reckoning from the time of Pericles; and during this period Athens bore the palm alone ; for there were neither Spartan, Argive, Corinthian, nor Theban orators, to contest the honor with her. Of the many eminent Athenian orators, the most distinguished were Lysias, Isocrates, jEschines, and Demosthe- nes. The first was admired for the perspicuity, purity, sweetness, and delicacy of his style. He seldom spoke in public, but composed orations and pleadings for others. IsOcrates opened a school for the instruction of youth in eloquence, and was equally esteemed for the a. Grote, v. 404. 702 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III excellence of his compositions, and his success in teaching others. His style was more smooth, flowing, elegant, and adorned, than that of Lysias, his thoughts more lively and delicate ever exhibiting a great love of virtue, and respect for religion. The style of j^Eschines, the rival of Demosthenes, was distinguished for its delicacy, ease, order, clearness, and precision ; that of Demosthenes for its variety, earnestness, power, fervor, rapidity, and passion, all exemplified in plain unornamented language, and a strain of close, business-like reasoning. " His style," as Hume observes, " is rapid harmony ad- justed to the sense ; vehement reasoning, without any appearance of art ; disdain, anger, boldness, and freedom, involved in a continued strain of argument." The true character of the eloquence of De- mosthenes is happily summed up in the following extract : 30. " The question has often been raised as to the secret of the success of Demosthenes. How is it that he attained to his astonish- ing preeminence ? How is it that, in a faculty which is common to the whole species, that of communicating our thoughts and feelings in language, the palm is conceded to him alone by the unanimous and willing consent of all nations and ages ? And this universal approbation will appear the more extraordinary to a reader who for the first time peruses his unrivalled orations. They do not exhibit any of that ostentatious declamation on which loosely hangs the fame of so many pretenders to eloquence. There appears no deep reflection to indicate a more than ordinary penetration, or any phi- losophical remarks to prove the extent of his acquaintance with the great moral writers of his country. He affects no learning, and he dis- plays none. He aims at no elegance ; he seeks no glaring ornaments ; he rarely touches the heart with a soft or melting appeal, and when he does it is only with an effect in which a third-rate artist would have surpassed him. He had no wit, no humor, no vivacity, in our accept- ance of these terms, qualities which contribute so much to the forma- tion of a modern orator. He wanted all these undeniable attributes of eloquence, and yet who rivals him ? 31. " The secret of his power is simple ; it lies essentially in this, that his political principles were interwoven with his very spirit ; they were not assumed to serve an interested purpose, to be laid aside when he descended from the rostrum, and resumed when he sought to accomplish an object. No ; they were deeply seated in his heart, and emanated from its profoundest depth. The more his country was environed by dangers, the more steady was his resolution. CHAP V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE. 703 Nothing ever impaired the truth and integrity of his feelings, or weakened his generous conviction. It was his undeviating firmness, his disdain of all compromise, that made him the first of statesmen and orators ; in this lay the substance of his power, the primary foundation of his superiority ; the rest was merely secondary. The mystery of his mighty influence, then, lay in his HONESTY ; and it is this that gave warmth and tone to his feelings, an energy to his language, and an impression to his manner, before which every im- putation of sincerity must have immediately vanished. " a VII. 32. Of the historians, poets, and philosophers, who adorned the brightest period of Grecian history, our limits forbid us to speak in detail, but among them are names that will ever be HISTORIANS, cherished and venerated, while genius and worth continue PO ETS, AXD to be held in admiration. Among historians may be PHILOSO- mentioned, as most conspicuous, the names of Herod' - otus, Thucyd'ides, Xen'ophon, and Polyb'ius; among poets and dramatists, JEs' chylus, Soph' ocles, and Eurip' ides ; and among phi- losophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, besides those previously men- tioned in a former chapter. Volumes would be requisite to describe the character and works of these writers, and to convey a just view of the indebtedness of the moderns to the lights which they kindled. 33. We should, however, omit one of the marked features of Athenian life, did we not notice the drama not merely as an element in the political character of the Athenians, D J[AMA but also as a picture of society, and an expositor of the Athenian mind in the departments of politics, religion, and philoso- phy. The great development of Grecian dramatic genius, never be- fore nor since equalled by any people, also marks the age of Pericles, and the ascendency of the Athenian democracy. The first who rendered the tragic drama illustrious was jEs' chylus, who had fought with distinguished valor in the combats of Mar' athon and Sal' amis, and had afterwards served with the Athenian troops at Platse' a. He therefore flourished at the exact period when the freedom of Greece, rescued from foreign enemies, was exulting in its first strength ; and his writings are characteristic of the boldness and vigor of the age. Soph' ocles, one of the generals of the Athenian armament against Samos in the year 440 B. C., succeeded him ; and Eurip' ides, a co- a. Sketch of Demosthenes in Anthon's Clas. Diet. 704 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART TIL temporary of Soph' odes, was the last of the three great masters of the drama the three being embraced within the period of a single century. 34. It is curious to observe the transitions through which tragedy passed in this short period, and in the hands of its three masters. Each borrows his subjects from the legendary world, but differs from his predecessor in the manner of handling them. In jffis' chylus the sterner passions alone are appealed to, and in language replete with bold metaphor and gigantic hyperbole : Venus, and her inspirations, are excluded : the charms of love are unknown ; but the gods vast, majestic, in shadowy outline, and in the awful sublimity of power, pass before and awe the beholder. That deep reverence of the gods, and love of the heroic, which characterized the Greeks at this period, are everywhere conspicuous in the tragedies of JEs' chylus. In Soph 7 ocles we find a greater range of emotions figures more dis- tinctly seen, a more expanded dialogue, simplicity of speech mixed with rhetorical declamation, and the highest degree of poetic beauty. In Eurip' ides, rhetoric becomes still more prominent, the legendary characters assume more the garb of humanity, the tender sentiments love, pity, compassion are invoked, the reason is appealed to, and an air of exquisite delicacy and refinement embellishes the whole. Soph' ocles and Eurip 'ides exhibit greater familarity, than is found in their predecessor, with the art of rhetoric, the debates of poli- ticians, and the contests of litigants before the dikasteries, a modi- fication of the tragic drama in strict accordance with the increasing popular character of Athenian institutions. 35. To estimate the influence which the drama exerted over the Athenians, we must reflect that, in the time of Pericles, a largo number of tragedies was presented on the Athenian stage every year ; that it was rare to repeat any one a second time ; that the theatre of Bacchus, in which they were represented, was capable of accom- modating thirty thousand persons ; that, as religious observances, they formed part of the civil establishment ; and that admission to them was, virtually, free to every Athenian citizen. If we conceive of the entire population of a large city listening almost daily to those immortal compositions whose beauty first stamped tragedy as a separate department of poetry, we shall be satisfied that so powerful poetic influences were never brought to act upon any other people ; and that the tastes, the sentiments, and the intellectual standard of CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE. 705 the Athenians, must have been sensibly improved and exalted by such lessons.* 36. Comedy, of later growth than tragedy, arose out of the full license which was given, in the festive procession in honor of the god Bacchus, of scoffing at any one present. In the time of Pericles comedy became an important agent and partisan in the political warfare of Athens. Cotemporary men and subjects were freely dealt with on the stage, and, often, under their real names ; and in one of the comedies of Cratinus, Cimon, the rival of Pericles, is highly eulogized, while the latter is bitterly derided. With unmeasured and unsparing license, comedy attacked, under the veil of satire, institutions, poli- ticians, philosophers, poets, private citizens by name, and even the gods also ; and not only did it expose all that was really ludicrous or contemptible, but often, with an excess of profligacy, cast scorn and derision on that which was innocent,. or even meritorious. While such license was tolerated, we need not wonder at the excess of bitter personality which characterizes Athenian literature generally. 37. In this closing sketch of the age of Grecian glory we again advert to the fact that it was democratic Athens that was the light and the eye of Greece, and that nearly all the great men whose names we have mentioned in this connection, were either Athenian born, or nurtured in her schools of learning. It has been common for a class of modern writers to deny to democratic institutions that enlightened public spirit, and fostering regard for individual worth, which are requisite to call forth the brightest conceptions of genius, and to attain the highest perfection of art. We cannot here enter upon an argument in favor of democratic influences, but we satisfac- torily point to democratic Atliens, surrounded by a halo of greatness, and shining with no borrowed lustre, proving, if it prove no more, that taste, and genius, and art, are not incompatible with republican simplicity. VIII. 38. Having thus considered the bright and favorable points of Athenian character, our attention is next called to the dark shades in the picture, by an inquiry into the causes of the brief tenure of existence which democratic Athens enjoyed; OF THE for the glory and renown with which she has filled the DOWNFALL earth were the products of a single century. b While a. Grote, viii. 322. b. In reality, less than a century ; for, reckoning from the great defeat of the Persians in the 45 706 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART ILL some have traced her downfall to causes merely political, and to the outward circumstances by which she was surrounded, others, enter- taining monarchical principles of government, have attributed it to what they call the disorganizing tendency of democratic institutions the consuming fever and exhausting violence of democratic activity. We shall best explain our views on this subject by first noticing some of the political errors of the Athenians, and some of the defects in their constitution. 39. In the time of Pericles the Athenians were at the head of a large confederacy, which had been originally formed by the free con- sent of all parties ; but the federal league had been gradually con- verted into an empire, over which Athens ruled with the authority of a despot. Maintaining that none of the members had a right to endanger the safety of the league by withdrawing from it, she had repressed, by force, several attempts at disuriion ; and, to preserve her power, had proceeded to the extremity of treating as subjects all her allies, which were mostly small cities or islands. In return for the protection which she afforded them, she demanded a heavy tribute took the common treasury, which had been originally es- tablished at Delos, under her own care, and denied any accountability for its expenditure, speciously alleging that the savings of her prudence, or the earnings of her valor, might be justly appropriated to her own uses. It was the treasure thus obtained wrested from un- willing allies that supported much of the luxury of the Athenians; and it was to the same extortions of injustice, that the edifices with which Pericles adorned the metropolis owed their existence. 40. The secret of the decay of that political ascendency which Athens had attained, is to be found in the unsubstantial nature of her power. Her political greatness arose mostly from artificial and moral causes, rather than natural resources, and was based on credit, which the first calamity was ever liable to destroy. Thus when her arms met with a reverse in Sicily, her injured allies, no longer in- timidated by her power, deserted her in the hour of need ; and again, the loss of her navy at Aigos-Potamos occasioned a still greater de- battle of Platae'a, 479 B. C., to the disastrous overthrow of the Athenians before Syracuse, 413 B. C., we have a period of only sixty-six years ; and it was during this period that the noblest of the Athenian edifices were built, that poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, oratory, history, philosophy, &c., attained their greatest eminence throughout Greece, while Athens was the centre of their glory. Within the century following the battle of Platee' a, we find, among others liltle less distinguished, the following names of eminent Grecians Herod' otns, Thucyd'- ides, Xen'ophon, Ma' chylus, Soph' ocles, Eurip'ides, Cimon, Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Demosthenes, a more brilliant galaxy than any other century has witnessed. CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE. 707 fection from her, and a general dissolution of the empire over which she had exercised her sway. In prosperity there were others to second her ambition, and add to her energies ; but in adversity she was compelled to stand alone. " Dependence upon other resources than the native population," remarks a writer previously quoted, " has been a main cause of the destruction of despotisms ; and it cannot fail, sooner or later, to be equally pernicious to the re- publics that trust to it. The resources of taxation confined to free- men and natives are almost incalculable ; the resources of tribute wrung from foreigners and dependents are sternly limited and ter- ribly precarious they rot away the true spirit of industry in the people that demand the impost they implant ineradicable hatred in the States that concede it." a A wise political lesson whose truth is enforced by the history of all ages. 41. A most pernicious evil in the Athenian constitution was the frequent assumption of the highest judicial powers by the public as- sembly of all the citizens. While the jurisdiction of the court of the Areop'agus was mostly confined to charges of maiming, poisoning, and murder, and of the dikast juries to civil cases between indi- viduals, a multitude of undefined cases, affecting more particularly the interests of the State, or in which the State was represented as the injured party, could be brought for final adjudication before the people themselves, in the public assembly of the ecclesia. This assembly, on the principle, doubtless, that vox populi est vox dei, that " the voice of the people is the voice of God" and that the people can do no wrong, taking upon itself the highest judicial func- tions in cases aflfecting the lives of the most noted citizens, exercised a kind of chancery jurisdiction, in which forms of law were supposed to yield to the plain demands of justice. 42. The prominent evil arising from the judicial character of the assembly was that the most worthy citizens were often arraigned be- fore an impatient and turbulent populace, liable to be swayed by caprice and prejudice, by party-spirit and the eloquence of individ- uals, and seldom possessing the wisdom, or exercising the candor, due to justice. The numbers of such a jury prevented all responsi- bility, and where corruption feared not detection, the great and the wealthy could too often purchase freedom, or soften the rigors of law, while the chances were decidedly against the poor man, especially if he had to contend against wealthy and influential accusers. That a. Bulwer's Athens. 708 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAST III which was designed as a regulator of the workings of the constitution thus became, eventually, the destroyer of its equilibrium ; and, by the fickleness of its measures, the corruption to which it was exposed, and the frequent injustice of its decrees, hastened the downfall of the State. The black ingratitude with which the Athenians treated their most illustrious citizens Themistocles, Aristides, Oimon, Socrates, and a host of others shows the exceeding error of their legislators in converting a popular assembly into a tribunal for the dispensation of justice.* 43. But aside from the political errors and constitutional defects already mentioned, there was a still greater and all-pervading evil, which lay at the root of all others, and was the mighty engine that hurried Athens onward to her ruin. We allude to the want of that public and private virtue which is based on the religion of Christian- ity ; without which, democratic institutions never had and never can have any lasting security. The crude and corrupt religion of the Grecians, however it might tend to arouse martial heroism, infuse poetic inspiration, and foster artistic genius, had little tendency, in itself, to promote individual virtue ; for the characters of the Grecian gods were stained with the darkest crimes ; and where philosophy a. The unhappy fate of Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, has often been cited in proof of the assertion that " republics are fickle and ungrateful." Athens has indeed much to answer for on the score of ingratitude ; but the republican system is not to be held responsible for those defects in the Athenian constitution out of which the evil arose ; and in the case of Miltiades, which is often referred to in this connection, we think it will be found that the Athenians were not greatly in the wrong. The behavior of Miltiades at Marathon was indeed highly meritorious, and for it he received the plaudits of an admiring people ; but, grown giddy with praise, he seems to have lost his patriotism and prudence; and, availing himself of his unbounded popularity, he solicits and obtains of the Athenians the command of an expedition whose destination was known to him- self alone : assuring them of the honorableness of the enterprise, and promising to enrich the public coffers with a vast amount of booty. Much treasure was spent, and lives were lost, and, through the seeming incapacity or treachery of the commander, the expedition terminated in disaster and disgrace. A rapid and decisive change now takes place in the popular estimation of Miltiades. His motives and objects are inquired into ; and it is found that private resent- ment against a prominent citizen of Paros was the motive of the expedition, while the project was in itself unprincipled, and dishonorable to the Athenian people, as the Parians had not taken part with the Persians in the war. The popular resentment against Miltiades is aggra- vated by the idea of undeserved admiration and misplaced confidence ; and the recent favorite is impeached as worthy of death. Gratitude for previous services does not exempt him from punishment, but it is an extenuating circumstance that mitigates the penalty ; and a fine, not unreasonably heavy, is imposed upon him. The death of Miltiades, it must be recollected, which occurs so opportunely to excite our sympathy, arose not from the trial nor the fine, but from the wound which he received, not in battle, but in a fall, on a night visit of doubtful propriety. From all the circumstances we are therefore led to conclude that the case of Miltiades illustrates neither the fickleness nor the ingratitude of the Athenians, but rather, for once at least, the inflexible sternness of Athenian justice, tempered by mercy. CHAP. V.] GLORY AND FALL OF GREECE. 709 inculcated the practice of virtue, it wai mostly from considerations of worldly policy the creature of circumstances. There was no principle of universal justice like that of the Christian religion, on which the laws were based, society organized, and by which individual conduct was regulated. This evil is far greater in a democracy than in an oligarchy or a monarchy ; for in the former a corrupt people, being themselves the rulers, will produce a corrupt administration of the wisest laws, and corruption is but another name for weakness and decay ; while in a monarchy the people may long remain igno- rant and vicious without thereby seriously affecting the principles or policy of the government. Throughout all Grecian history we ob- serve, both among rulers and people, with some noble exceptions, a disregard of the principles of universal justice and the Athenians even sent into banishment one of their worthiest citizens, apparently from envy that the universal rectitude of his conduct had gained for him the appellation of " The Just." We find, then, an abundance of causes to account for the premature decay of Athenian greatness, without attributing it, as Mr. Alison has done, to " the violence of the fever which in republican States exhausts the strength and wears out the energies of the people. " a a. See Blackwootfs Magazine. Review of Bulwer's Athens, July 1837. 710 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST PERIOD OF ROMAN HISTORY : FROM THE FOUNDING OF ROME TO THE CONQUESTS OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE. ANALYSIS. 1. AUTHENTICITY OF EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. What criticism has shown in relation thereto. 2. Artificial chronology of early history. Early Roman chronology. 3. Why the narrative of early Roman history is not reliable. Sources of early Roman history. 4. Legendary poems, &c. 5. HISTORY OF REGAL ROME. Early inhabitants of Italy. Legend of ^Eneas. The Latins. Alban Rome. Common name of the early Roman kings. 6. Primary causes of the rapid growth of the Alban colony. Character of the population. 7. Probable origin of the Sabine legend. Increase of population by conquests and alliances. 8. Rome evidently conquered by the Sabines. Sabine institutions predominant. Titus Tatius. 9. The Sabino-Roman dynasty. Improbabilities respecting it. The supposed Alban war. 10. Tarquin and the Etruscans. Etruscan civilization. 11. The supposition that Tarquin conquered Rome. Causes of the murder of the first Tarquin. Servius, and Tarquin the Proud. 12. Additional improbabilities in the commonly-received history of Regal Rome. All that we certainly know of this portion of Roman ni story. 13. RESULTS OF CRITICISM. The belief which it still leaves to us : the founding of the city the Sabines the Albans. 14. The beautiful episodes of Livy why worthy of our con- sideration. 15. The historians Niebuhr and Ferguson. Circumstances which show the early greatness of Rome under the kings. 16. CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF EARLY ROME. Importance of a knowledge of the ma- terials of Roman society. 17. The three tribes into which the Romans were divided. 18. Di- vision of the tribes into curia. The gentes or houses. 19. The gentes the original citizens, or Patricians. The relation of clientsMpZQ. Origin of the Plebeians. In early times not citi- zens. Their struggles with the Patricians. 21. The Roman senate. Its supposed origin. 22. The Comitia Curiata, or general assembly of the people. 23. The Roman king : his powers and revenues. 24. First division of the Plebeians into tribes. 25. Farther efforts of Servius to elevate the Plebeians. 26. New military organization of the people. The assembly of the centuries. The institutions of Servius not fully carried into effect. 27. PLEBEIAN AND PATRICIAN CONTESTS, after the downfall of royalty. Increasing power of the Patricians. 28. Plebeian secession. Office of the tribunes. 29. Relative situation of Patricians and Plebeians at the time of the conquest of Greece. Great power ultimately ac- quired by the tribunes. 30. Complete development of the constitution. Subsequent legisla- tive enactments. Relation of the provinces to the city. Guarantees for the perpetuity of the constitution. 31. RELIGIOUS NOTIONS of the Romans. 32. The Roman ceremonial law. The priesthood. Images of the gods. Growing indifference to the ceremonies of religion. 33. MODE OF LIVING SOCIAL CONDITION, &c., UNDER THE KINGS. Agriculture and conc- merce. 34. Domestic life. Evidences of the rudeness of the age 35. Money and coinage. Relative value of copper and iron. Artistic genius of the Romans. 36. Early language of Rome. Late origin of Roman literature. Poetry and History. I. 1. Almost down to the beginning of the present century, early Roman history, as transmitted by Livy, was received without any doubt as to its authenticity; but criticism has since shown both CHAP. VI.] EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 711 that the chronology of the early Roman annals is highly uncertain, and that many of the glowing pictures which adorn the * xi i -n . T i i i AUTHENTICI- pages ot the early Roman writers, and which have been TY OF KARLY unhesitatingly copied as authentic by modern historians, KOMAN are but fictions of a traditionary and poetic age. 2. In the Indian, Egyptian, and Babylonian eras, we find large spaces of time divided according to certain arithmetical proportions, showing that they are artificial arrangements to which history has been arbitrarily adapted. The same also occurs in early Roman history, down to the burning of the city by the Gauls. For this period three hundred and sixty years are assumed by the earliest Roman historians, two-thirds of which number, or two hundred and forty years, are allotted to the seven kings, and the remaining third, or one hundred and twenty years, to the commonwealth. Again, the middle of the reign of the fourth king, Ancus Martius, the era assigned for the creation of the plebeian order by the establishment of the common law of the plebeians, and the first plebeian estate in lands, falls in the middle of the first division ; so that each of the three divisions of early Roman history contains just ten times twelve years ;. and no one can doubt that this is an arbitrary chro- nology. Other instances of arithmetical proportions being made the basis of historical divisions might be mentioned. The results of the critical investigations of the learned Niebuhr show that the chronol- ogy of the Roman kings, with the exception, perhaps, of the last, is an invention of later times, and that even down to the Gallic con- quest Roman chronology is made up from unreliable materials. 3. Of the detailed narrative also, of early Roman history, criti- cism compels us to reject much that was once deemed authentic. It was the custom of the Roman pontiffs, from very early times, to record on whited tablets the principal events of each year, such as the names of the magistrates, wars, treaties, &c. ; but they appear never to have entered into details ; and even these pontificial annals were almost wholly lost, as Livy asserts, in the burning of Rome by the Gauls. A few barren family genealogies probably escaped the general ruin ; and these, with the few meagre records that had been preserved, or that were correctly restored from memory, appear to be almost the only genuine sources of Roman history before the Gallic conquest, and even these did not extend back to the times of the kings. From what source then, we may ask, did Livy derive the minute details, which he has given, of events prior to the burning of 712 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. Rome ? Doubtless, we answer, mostly from poetic lays, which arose from traditionary legends, like those of the Grecian heroes and demi- gods. 4. Thus there was a variety of legends, some Grecian and others Roman, concerning the founding of Rome ; and in the commonly-re- ceived Roman legend of Romulus Niebuhr has pointed out what portions formed part of an ancient heroic poem, and what were the additions of later times. So, also, nearly all of what is called the history of the Roman kings has been resolved into a prose narrative from ancient legendary poems that were transmitted from generation to generatioi), and often rehearsed, to the sound of music, at the banquets of the great. Of the degree of credit that should be at- tached to the claims of such legends to historical authenticity we need not speak. They may indeed rest, for the most part, on a his- torical basis, but where the reality ends, and fiction begins, will probably never be known. II. 5. All we know of the early inhabitants of central and western Italy, who were subsequently gathered into the community of Regal Rome, confirms the belief that among them was a stock OF REGAL of Pelasgic origin, nearly akin to the Trojans ; and it is ROME. no ^ j m p ro bable that early Pelasgic migrations from the coast of Troy to Sicily and Italy generated the poetical legend of ^Eneas fleeing from the destruction of Ilium, and bearing his house- hold gods and religious worship to the " fair Ausonian shore." The Latins inhabitants of Latiurn may have been, in part, descendants of this Pelasgic race. According to the accounts which the later Romans believed, a colony from the Latin town of Alba established itself on the Palatine, one of the seven hills of Rome. The leaders of the supposed colony were called Remus and^jRomus or Romulus, names evidently derived from that of Rome itself, and, probably, like the Egyptian name Pharaoh, simply a gathering, into one appel- lation, of the kings or captains who, for an indefinite period, exer- cised government there. 8 - 6. The rapid growth of the Alban colony, in which all writers agree, may be attributed, primarily, to the adoption of the Greek custom of consecrating a spot within the walls as an asylum to fugi- tives from the surrounding people. A knowledge of this policy a. Newman's Regal Rome, p. 40. CHAP. VI] EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 713 illustrates the whole history of Regal Rome. During the wars and commotions incident to an early stage of society, great numbers of refugees sought protection and a home within the walls of this bandit tribe ; for Alban Rome was evidently a robber city ; one which, like the petty cities of early Greece, practiced piracy to wards foreign cities, and gloried in the successful daring of its warriors ; a kind of political morality that has been propagated to a late age, but de- veloped on so broad a scale that its true character is often concealed under false names of national glory. 7. The mass of those who nocked to Rome must have been males ; and it is not unlikely that they resorted to violent means for carry- ing off young women from the neighboring tribes. This not a single act, perpetrated at the festival of the Consualia, but a custom per- severed in for a series of years, and probably under successive kings might well be resented by the injured parties ; and nothing more natural than that the traditions of this stormy period of Alban Rome should grow into the well-told Sabine legend. As a community that looked to warlike achievements for prosperity and power would seek to increase its population by every available means, not only were the conquered inhabitants of neighboring towns transferred in mass to Rome, where they received only the partial rights of citizenship, but foreigners were admitted by treaty stipulations their chieftains being incorporated into the patrician aristocracy, and their followers into the ranks of the plebeians. 8. The Sabines, also a warlike people, of simple tastes and rustic manners, by whatever cause stimulated, brought their arms against Alban Rome ; and although no details of the war can be received as historical, it is evident that Rome, virtually conquered by them, re- ceived an entirely new character, and that Sabine institutions the senate, with its forms and regulations the division of the patrician Quirites into thirty curiae, and of the whole population into tribes the system of clientage and the precepts and ceremonies of re- ligion then became the groundwork of the State. The pretended joint reign of Titus Tatius with the Latin king seems to be a legend adapted to veil the Sabine conquest. 9. The continuous story of the reigns of Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, and Aucus Martius three elective monarchs forming the Sabino-Roman dynasty, and filling an entire century of Regal Rome with continued military triumphs is highly improbable ; exciting a suspicion that the names of those kings only are preserved who were 714 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAKT IIL remembered with pride by the later Romans. The known fact that numerous Albans became citizens and even senators at Rome, in- clines us to distrust Livy's otherwise improbable story of the Alban war, and to believe that, either on the breaking up of Alban society by internal seditions, a powerful Alban party coalesced with the Ro- mans, or that the Alban war is wholly a fiction, as regarded by Niebuhr, who conjectures that the ancient Latins were the enemy that destroyed Alba and possessed her territory. 10. The name of Tarquin the Elder as fifth king of Rome, a sup- posed prince of Etruscan origin, but of remote Corinthian parentage, brings us to an acquaintance with the Etruscans, then a people evi- dently in the declining stage of their civilization. Before Rome ex- isted as a city, the Etruscan dominion, coeval with the era of Phoe- nicia and of Egypt, appears to have embraced all central Italy. The remains of Etruscan civilization point to an Eastern origin. The Etruscan alpbabet was a G-reek modification of the Phoenician ; and Herodotus assures us that the Lydians believed the Etruscans to be their kinsmen. But whatever may have been the origin of the Etruscans, and their relations with foreign States, we can have no doubt of their high cultivation. " The internal history of Etruria," says a modern writer , a " is written on the mighty walls of her cities, and on other architectural monuments ; on her roads, her sewers, her tunnels ; but, above all, in her sepulchres. It is to be read on graven rocks, and on the painted walls of tombs. But its chief chronicles are inscribed on sarcophagi and cinerary urns, on vases and goblets, on mirrors and other articles of bronze, and a thousand et cetera of personal adornment, and of domestic utensils and weapons of war all found within the tombs of a people long passed away." Although the Etruscan alphabet has been perfectly deciphered, the language is wholly unintelligible to us. 11. The advance of the Etruscan Tarquin, & foreigner, to the throne, and the great increase of wealth and power observable in his reign, have given rise to the suspicion that Tarquin was, strictly, a conqueror of Rome a circumstance which Roman vanity would have spared no pains to conceal ; but this theory would be a deviation from the outline which the Romans believed ; and there seems no real necessity for adopting it. The supposed murder of the first Tarquin, who Jiad been the patron of the lower classes, is with much plausibility referred to a conspiracy of the patrician nobility to re- a. Dennis. Etruria, vol. i. p. 23. CHAP. VI.] EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 715 cover their lost supremacy ; but the accession of Servius defeated their plans. With the latter, constitutional monarchy fell. Tarquin the Proud, an energetic and politic ruler, appeared to be firmly seat- ed on the throne ; but he had not the affections of the people, and a private crime of one of his sons easily caused his downfall. 12. The history of liegal Rome gives us only seven kings (three of whom perished by a violent death, and the last of whom was ex- pelled) for a period of two hundred and forty years ; or an average of about thirty-five years to a reign ; whereas fifteen years, or less, to a reign, and a list of at least sixteen kings, would be a more plausible statement. Moreover, the great changes which Rome passed through, from the time of the Sabine conquest to that of the first Tarquin, embracing only three reigns a change from the state of a rude robber tribe to. one of so great wealth and advancement in the arts as to lead to the founding of the temple of Jupiter on the capitol, and the construction of the famous subterranean drains are alone sufficient to divest the commonly-received chronology of this period of all claims to authenticity. Of the public events themselves, it has been stated by a recent writer, that all we certainly know seems to be comprehended in two sentences : "first, that the Sabine and Roman nobility became effectually blended into one State and one race, with one Sabine religion ; and, secondly, that Rome went on prospering, and acquiring masses of Latin subjects and citizens." 8 - III. N : 'i ! l fc<>r?l -rT't'to 'ft' ' >'V (' -M'I{W !*' ';*'{' ^Li ' < *rfo*- ? N." U'f 13. But notwithstanding these strictures, which just criticism compels us to adopt, and although any date that might be assigned for the founding of Rome itself would be an arbitrary as- ^iTicTsjT sum ption, it does not alter the fact that Rome had a be- ginning that was once known, and that the Palatine hill, where Romulus is fabled to have seen the omen of the twelve vultures, was the site of the original city, as all traditions, and the earliest monuments, agree. Although the story of the Sabine women may be a fiction, it must still be true that the Sabines became, at one time, an element in the population of Rome ; and although we can- not assert that we have good evidence that the Horatii saved their country, nor that it is certain, with respect to them and the Curiatii, which belonged to Rome and which to Alba, yet we still believe that a. Newman's Regal Rome, p. 180. 716 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. the inhabitants of the latter city were in some way incorporated with those of its more powerful rival. 14. The valor of Horatius Codes, and the fortitude of Mu'tius Scsev'ola the exquisite story of Lucretia the heart-stirring legend of Corioli the virtue of Cincinnatus and the deliverance of Rome by Camil' lus, may all be pure inventions, introduced to adorn the meagre details of history ; yet these and similar beautiful episodes of Livy form the most attractive and captivating parts of early Ro- man history, and, as such, will continue to be read and admired, not- withstanding the distrust that criticism would throw upon them. It is sufficient that they were believed by the Romans themselves, and that the examples of patriotic devotion, individual heroism, and ex- alted virtue, portrayed in them, helped to form the national charac- ter, to make them subjects worthy of our consideration, and to entitle them to a notice in every modern compend of Roman history. 15. But although Niebuhr and his cotemporaries have overthrown much of the long- accredited early history of Rome, they have built up more than they have destroyed, by establishing on a firm basis many things which the scepticism of others had rejected. Thus, while Ferguson, professing that he could find no firm historic ground until events began to be noted by cotemporary annalists, about the time of the second Punic war, began the details of his Roman his- tory at that period, Niebuhr has clearly shown that even in the annals of the kings all is not fiction, although the chronology is un- certain. The great subterranean drains, or sewers, of Rome, universal- ly attributed to the Tarquins, which, after a lapse of two thousand five hundred years, remain to this day without a stone displaced, still per- forming their destined service, plainly attest the greatness of Rome un- der the kings, for they cannot be referred to a later age. The treaty with Carthage also, in the first year of the republic, which Polybius translated from the original brazen tablets still existing in the capitol in his time, and from a language even then nearly obsolete, but which tablets Livy overlooked or disregarded, further divulges the secret of the early greatness of Rome under the kings, and of her subse- quent fall in the early period of the commonwealth ; a secret which the later Romans were anxious to keep concealed, as if it had been a blot on the honor of their republican ancestors. IV. 16. A clear understanding of the nature of the Roman govern- CHAP. YI] EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 717 merit, and of the causes of the various changes through which it passed, cannot be obtained without a knowledge of the OONSTITU- materials of early Roman society, as exhibited in the TIONAL HIS - social and political divisions, classes, or orders, of the EARLY people. The origin, character, and mutual relations, of ROME. these several classes, which lie at the basis of the political history of Rome, therefore demand of us, in this place, at least a brief expla- nation. The character of the constitutional history of the early Ro- mans is better known than the times and circumstances of its origin. 17. Romulus, who was regarded by the Romans as the author of the groundwork of their political constitution, is said to have divided the people into three tribes, called the Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres, each of which had, in many particulars, a distinct political and religious organization of its own. The Ramnenses, or people of Romulus, were probably the founders of Rome ; and the Titienses were doubtless the Sabines, who, under their king Titus Tatius, united with the Romans. The origin of the tribo of Luceres is not so clear, but it is generally believed that it was a body of Etruscans who were early admitted into the confederacy, perhaps in the time of the first Tarquin ; as a number of institutions and religious rites of the Romans were evidently of Etruscan origin. Among many ancient nations the practice of dividing a people into several tribes, according to their origin, was common ; and the same custom may be traced among all the great nations of the North American Aborig- ines. 4 , ; , fi 18. Besides this division of the early Romans into three tribes, each tribe was divided, for political purposes, into ten curies or classes, thirty in all, and each curia had its separate priest, religious rites, civil duties, and place of assembly. The number of the Roman curiae ever remained the same, while at later periods that of the tribes was greatly increased. Each curia also contained a num- ber of gentes, or houses, which may, not inappropriately, be com- pared to the clans of many ruder nations. It is thought by Niebuhr that there were ten of these clans in each curia, and therefore three hundred in the whole Roman State. Originally each of these houses or clans was probably made up of families united by ties of consan- a. The Huron, the Iroquois, and the Delaware tribes, were each divided into three clans ; the Sioux into two ; the Shawneea into four ; and the Chippewas into a larger number. An im- portant regulation of these divisions was that no man could marry in his own c/aw, and that every child belonged to the clan of its mother ; the undoubted object of which was to check a natural tendency towards a subdivision of the nation into independent communities. 718 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL guinity, but in process of time artificial bonds appear to have suc- ceeded to those of family relationship, and families of strangers be- came united, under a common name, in the same clan or brother- hood : thus we find that the Cornelian gens, or clan, contained the Scipios and the Syllas. 19. These gentes, families, or clans, whatever may have been their number, which made up the thirty curise or classes, were the original citizens of Rome, that is, the patricians, in whom all political rights were originally vested. But to the families which composed each clan there was attached, from the earliest period of Roman history, a class of dependents called clients, who are supposed to have been the original inhabitants of the country, reduced by the Romans to a kind of feudatory subjection, somewhat like the vassalage of the Saxon serfs under their Norman conquerors, but still retaining some rights of citizenship, as we find they had votes in the comitia of the centuries, even before the decemvirate. The person to whom a client was attached was denominated the patron of the latter, and the re- lation existing between them, and which descended from father to son, was deemed one of peculiar sanctity, involving hereditary rights and duties of a highly important character. Paternal instruction and advice, and protection, both in public and private affairs, were sacred duties of a patron to his clients ; and the latter, in return, were bound to be dutiful and obedient to their patrons, to promote their honor, to help defray their taxes, to accompany them in war, and to pay their ransom if they should fall into the hands of the enemy. The relation of clientship was wholly of a private nature, and was regulated by the ecclesiastical, and not by the civil law. The clients were subject to their patrons, and not to the State, and they can scarcely be said to have formed any part of the body politic. Slaves were a class differing widely from the clients, embracing such as had been reduced to servitude by being taken in war with arms in their hands, or who had been purchased from foreign countries. 20. It remains to give an account of the origin and character of the plebeians the commonalty of Rome. This was a population which grew up after the first establishment of the government, and the division into tribes, curiaB, and gentes. Occasionally the bondage of slaves expired, or they were emancipated, with their owner's con- sent, or by extinction of his family, and then they remained subject to the laws as freemen, but possessed no political privileges. Such was the situation of strangers also, who came to reside in the land ; and CHAP. VI] EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 719 also of the inhabitants of neighboring conquered districts, who be- came subject to the Roman laws without obtaining the franchises of Roman citizens. The freemen thus incorporated with the State con- stituted the Roman commonalty. This inferior population embraced all classes, high and low, rich and poor, in the conquered districts, and beyond the limits of the city of Rome had their own municipal regulations, and, as freemen, fought in the armies of what was now their common country. But in early times they could not vote, nor exercise any political rights whatever, nor take any part in the gov- ernment, for they belonged to no patrician gens or family, nor could they intermarry with one, they belonged to no curia nor tribe, and thus forming no part of the body politic, could not be deemed citizens. 51 It was the struggle of this body, first for protection, and the rights of citizenship, and next for political power in the admin- istration of the government, that so often shook Rome to its founda- tions, but which still preserved the republic, during the long period of the commonwealth, against the ascendency of a hateful oligarchy. Such were the several classes which formed the early population of Rome. The distinctions between them are highly important to a right view of the constitution, of the successive changes, and of the long-continued struggle between the Patrician and Plebeian orders. 21. At the time of the supposed organization of the Roman gov- ernment under Romulus, the whole Roman people appear to have been included in the tribe of the Rainnenses, from whose ten curiae or classes a senate of one hundred members was chosen, which was the supreme legislative council of the nation. But when the Sabines united with the Romans, forming the second tribe, called the Titienses, the senate was increased to two hundred, and, not long after the Luceres had been added, the senatorial body was enlarged to three hundred, at which number it remained unaltered for many centuries. The Luceres, who were called the Lesser Families of the State, in distinction from those of the other two tribes, who were called the Greater Families, were long held in some degree of subserviency to their elder brethren. The Roman senate, whose number, it is sup- posed, originally corresponded with the number of gentes or fami- lies in the thirty curiae, was not an arbitrary institution of the first a. By most writers the clients have been confounded with the plebeians. (See works on Roman Antiquities, &c.; Niebuhr says that even Dionysius "was led aatray by the delusion that the clients nd plebeians were the same body." (See Niebuhr, i. 280 ; also Arnold's Rome, i. 32.) Nevertheless, Newman, (Regal Rome, p. 8J,) says a large part of the plebeians '* were related, as clients, to particular patrician families." 720 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART lit kings, for a similar council was found in all the independent cities of civilized nations on the coasts of the Mediterranean. It is more probable that the heads of the families, or clans, which united to form the early Roman State, chose one from their number to preside over their council, or to execute its decrees, and that the king was the creature of this senate of elders. The senate was a deliberative and advisory assembly, convened by the king, who brought before it the subjects for discussion, and who might elect into its body whom- soever he pleased, although it was required that an equal number of senators should be taken from each tribe. 22. The general assembly of the thirty curias, (comitia curiata,) called in early times the assembly of the people, although it did not embrace the plebeians, was also an important branch of the govern- ment, in some respects superior even to the senate. In its organization the aristocratic principle prevailed. The votes in each curia appear to have been taken by families, and not by individuals,* and when the opinion of each curia had been ascertained by the majority of votes in it, its individual vote was given in the general assembly of all the curias. It was the general assembly of the curias that elected the king, and although, beyond this, the assembly could not originate any measure whatever, yet in the acceptance or rejection of laws its decision was final. 23. The government of early Rome was strictly a limited and elective monarchy, but the power of the king was as varied and ill- defined as in the feudal monarchies of the middle ages. While the king was the highest magistrate, the absolute commander in war, the chief judge, and high priest, of the nation, he shared the govern- ment with the senate, and the general assembly of the curias ; over the plebeians or commons only, who were not at this early period deemed citizens, his power was absolute ; but every citizen, that is, every person belonging to a patrician family, might appeal from the king, or his judges, to the sentence of his peers. The revenues of the king were derived from his share of the public land, and from his portion of the booty taken in war. 24. The early Romans were a military community, and as their territory became enlarged by the conquest of the surrounding people, the proportionate numbers of the plebeian class increased, for con- quest did not add to the citizens of the State. The first successful attempt to invest the plebeian part of the population with any share a. Niebuhr, i. 169-170. Contra, Schmitz Rome, p. 62. CHAP. VI.] EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 721 in political rights, was attributed by the Romans themselves to their sixth king, Servius Tullius; and there can be no doubt that the changes in the constitution attributed to him, rest on a historical basis, although it may not be so certain that Servius was the author of them. It ia related that Servius, although acknowledged king by the seriate, was unwelcome to the assembly of the curiae, and that in order to maintain his power he sought to create a new order of citi- zens out of the large mass of inhabitants of Rome who as yet had no political existence, although they were freemen, and, in many in- stances, wealthy, and of noble origin. Servius first divided the plebeians, or commons, into thirty tribes, classing them in local di- visions, and allowing them assemblies, (comitia tributa,) and officers, for the settlement of their own affairs, similar to those of the curiae 25. Still the curise, regarding themselves as forming, exclusively, the Roman, people, were not willing to concede any of the higher political rights to the new order ; but the numbers of the latter en- abled Servius to attain the end sought by other means, and to give to the plebeians a decided preponderance in the general military assembly of the nation, by new divisions which he made, and by which he rendered the military services of the commons more import- ant than those of the patricians. In the relation of soldiers, ar- rayed in the same army, and fighting under the same standard, both classes could feel that they belonged to one common country ; and the dangers of war would be likely to soften, at least, those preju- dices which had raised so strong a barrier between them. a 26. In the new military organization of the people, Servius divided the whole population into one hundred and ninety-three centuries, the first eighteen of which, called equestrian centuries, were to furnish the cavalry force in war, and the remainder the infantry, and in the great assembly of the centuries, (comitia centuriata,) each division had one vote. Here patricians and plebeians met on a footing of equality, being embraced in the same century when their property qualifications were equal. To the assembly of the centuries Servius transferred, from that of the curiae, the election of the higher magis- trates, the decision upon peace and war, and upon legislative meas- ures which originated in the senate, while to the assembly of the a. " For he to-day who sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother : be he ne'er so vile, rhis day shall better his condition." SHAKSPEARK. Henry V. 46 722 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL curise was given the power of sanctioning or rejecting the measures which had been passed by the centuries. But the institutions attrib- uted to Servius were never firmly established, owing to the tyranny of his successor ; yet they contained the germs of the future equality between the patricians and plebeians, and were long after referred to by the latter as an exposition of their manifest rights. V. 27. Immediately after the downfall of royalty, the commons, court- ed by those patrician families that had united against Tarquin, shared in the advantages of the revolution, and regained some AND f the rights of which the last king had deprived them ; PATRICIAN k u t within a few years they were reduced to such pov- erty, and general distress, by the disasters of war, and the oppressions of the patricians, that they were almost ready to forego the exercise of all political rights, if they could merely obtain protection from personal injuries. Their general poverty deprived them of their former power in the assembly of the centuries ; the curise acquired the supreme control ; and the government gradually centered more and more in the hands of the patricians, and ere long became, instead of a free commonwealth, an exclusive and tyrannical aristocracy. 28. It was in this situation of affairs, fifteen years after the ex- pulsion of the Tarquins, that the commons, driven to despair by their sufferings, and resolving to endure their degraded state no longer, sought relief by withdrawing from Rome, with the intention of forming a new city of their own. But the patricians, like the Egyptians in a similar case, were unwilling to let the people go, and, by complying with their very limited demands, induced them to re- turn, and thus prevented the dissolution of the Roman nation. As there were two chief officers of the patricians, called consuls, so the plebeians were henceforth to be allowed two officers, soon after in- creased to five, called tribunes, who were to watch over the interests of the commonalty, with power to protect its members, both indi- vidually and collectively, against every aggression upon their rights. Through these organs the people could make themselves heard and respected, and thus they acquired the first element of freedom, and began to look forward to the time when they might share with the patricians in all the benefits and honors of their common country. 29. After the description that we have given of the tribes and CHAP. VI] EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. 723 classes into which the Roman population was divided, the true char- acter of the government will be easily understood, and the struggles between the patrician and plebeian orders, as described in the first chapter of Roman history, will be better appreciated. It would be needless to detail here those struggles, and their results, anew. Suf- fice it to say, that, at the period of the conquest of Greece and the fall of Carthage, many patrician families had become extinct, and the old patrician ascendency had passed away, while a new aristocracy of distinguished plebeian families had not only grown into power, but had become as exclusive and as oppressive to the poorer classes as the power which it had in part supplanted. The distinctions between patricians and plebeians had ceased to be of any political import- ance. In the senate the plebeians far exceeded the patricians ; and the tribuneship had so entirely changed its original character that the tribunes, instead of being merely the protectors of the oppressed of the commonalty, wielded a power even greater than that of the consuls. 30. As an evidence that the constitution had now attained its com- plete development, we observe afterwards, during the existence of the republic, neither the springing up of any new powers, nor the creation of any new branches of government ; but all legislative en- actments henceforth become disciplinary, sanatory, or restrictive, in their character, designed to regulate the workings of the system that had already been perfected. As the government was republican, the healthful workings of the constitution depended, indeed, upon the virtue, intelligence, and patriotism of the citizens ; but it must be borne in mind that the Roman constitution was framed for a single city, that all the powers of government were centered in Rome itself, and that the numerous provinces, States, and cities, over which the Roman dominion extended, stood to Rome in the relation of subjects to their sovereign. So long, therefore, as the Roman senate remained true to the trust reposed in it, it mattered less what waa the moral and intellectual condition of the people, than under -a pure democracy, where every freeman helps to give character to the gov- ernment of which he forms a part. It was only while the city of Rome retained its republican virtues that there could be any guar- antee for the perpetuity of the constitution '-$/ "jutnl '' iiwu'jaiij 9tm& 'nii ' . '',;, VI. 31. The religious notions of the Romans were very similar to 724 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. those of the Grecians, from whom they were, evidently, in great part borrowed. Even before the founding of Rome the R jmoNs S ^" rec ^ an mythology appears to have gained a footing among the Etruscans, who were, perhaps, like the Greeks, of Pelasgic origin. Not only were the same deities venerated by the Greeks and the Romans, but both people connected similar mythical legends with the histories of their gods. It is believed that the science of the Roman augurs and haruspices, whose business it was to pierce into the future, and reveal the will of the gods, by the ex- planation of signs, omens, and prodigies, was derived from the Etruscans ; and that from the same source came that belief in the punishment of the wicked after death, to which Polybius ascribes so strong a moral influence over the minds of the Romans, even in hia own days. a 3.2, The Roman ceremonial law, whose origin is, attributed to the virtuous Numa, formed perhaps a less complicated system than the Grecian ; nor had the Romans any oracles, like those of Dodona and Delphos, which exerted so great an influence over the public life of the Grecians. The Roman priesthood never formed an order dis- tinct from the other citizens, but the priests were usually chosen from the most honorable men of the State, and often held their offices for stated periods only, although the high priest, (pontifex vfyaximus) who was the supreme judge and arbiter in all religious matters, was chosen for life. The religion of the Romans, like that of the Greeks, was paganism, in its most extensive application ; but idolatry, or the worship of idols or images, can hardly be said to have formed a part of it ; and it was not until long after the reign of Numa, the founder of the Roman religion, that any images of the gods were seen in Rome. Although the auspices continued to be consulted down to a period later than the Christian era, yet even in the times of the Punic wars many persons regarded them as mere forms ; and in the days of Cicero the ceremonies of religion were generally viewed with indifference, and sometimes treated with ridicule. VII. 33. Of the modes of living, social condition, and arts of the Ro- mans under the kings, nearly all that we profess to know is gathered, like the civil and political history of the same period, from tra- ditionary legends. If the accounts that are given of the laws and in- a. Arnold's Rome, i. 51. CHAP. VI.] EARLY ROMAN HISTORY. Btitntions of Servius, and the numbers of the population, are to be- itoDK OK lieved, the Romans had already become chfthged, under LIVING, their sixth king, from a rude shepherd tribe, to ah CONDITION, agricultural people ; and at the time of the treaty with *c- Carthage, in the first year of the republic, they appear to have been engaged in active foreign trade with Sicily, Sardinia, and the northern coast of Africa. As in Judea under the reign of Solomon, so it is probable that in Rome foreign commerce was con- ducted principally by the government for its own benefit ; and that while it was partially open to the patricians, agriculture and the handicraft trades forthed the principal occupation of the plebeian orders. In later times, however, no occupation was deemed by the Romans more honorable than agriculture, and the highest praise that could be bestowed upon a man was, that he was a good husband- man and father. 34. The domestic life of the early Romans, before the introduction of foreign luxuries had corrupted the tastes and morals of the people, was of the simplest kind, greatly resembling that which prevailed in Europe during the early part of the Middle Ages. Thus, the virtues of the chaste Lucretia, who was the wife of a Roman nobleman, and who was found spinning with her maidens, are represented by Livy as con- sisting in her domestic and industrious habits, while the idle and luxurious life of others is mentioned with disapprobation. But the rudeness of the age is shown in the circumstance that the usages of the Romans paid but little respect to women, who, by the old Roman law, at all times of their lives, and under all circumstances, were obliged to be under guardianship, and, without their guardian's sanc- tion, could contract no obligation of legal validity. The power of a father over his children was almost unlimited, for not only might he scourge and imprison them at will, and reduce them to slavery, but, in certain cases, put them to death by any punishment he chose. 35. Among the early Romans, and throughout middle Italy, cattle, and masses of copper, appear to have been the common medium of exchange, the copper being rendered more fusible by an admixture of zinc or tin. The first coinage is attributed to Servius Tullius, who is said to have stamped the rude copper, in lumps of about a pound weight, with the figure of some animal. Silver coins were first issued at Rome in the third century before Christ. In the times of the kings, copper, or brass, appears to have been procurable at a lower rate than iron, as not only shields, but the better household 726 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAKT IIL utensils were made of it, and it was not until the time of the Gallic invasion that the increased value of copper had caused iron to be generally introduced for military purposes. That artistic genius which distinguished the early Greeks was wanting in the Roman character ; and the works of art, whether of architecture or sculpture, executed under the later kings, are attributed to the Etruscans, who were the early instructors of their future conquerors. 36. The language of Borne under the kings, a few specimens of which have been preserved, required to be interpreted to the Romans of Cicero's time, and the meaning of many words had even then been wholly lost. At the beginning of the commonwealth, which was long after the times of Hesiod and Homer, and twenty years before the battle of Marathon, when the age of Greek heroic poetry was long since past, there had not appeared in Rome a single writer, whether poet or historian, whose name has been preserved to us. As yet Roman literature had not a beginning, and its origin is attributed to early intercourse with the Greeks, long, however, before the Grecian conquest. Soon after the first Punic war the forms of Grecian poetry were imitated in the Latin language, and the first cotemporary history written by a Roman was that of the first Punic war, in a metrical form, by Neevius, from whom Virgil is said to have borrowed the plan of the first books of the ^Eneid ; and immediately after this there were several Romans who wrote the history of their country in the Greek language ; but it was not until Grecian literature was fast dying away that the Roman began to thrive with vigor. It was but a short time before the conquest of Greece and the fall of Carthage that Roman historians began to write the history of their country in Latin prose ; and among the first, and the most important of these writers, was Cato the Elder, who was the first author that attempted to fix the era of the founding of Rome. CHAP. VIL] THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 727 CHAPTER VII. THE SECOND PERIOD OF ROMAN HISTORY : EXTENDING FROM THE CONQUESTS OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA. ANALYSIS. 1. Character of the First Period of Roman History. POLITICAL CHARACTER or THE CLOSING PERIOD OF THE REPUBLIC. 2. Character of the events known as the " Dis- sensions of the Gracchi." Increasing political power of the wealthy. 3. Effects of the wealth flowing in from the conquered provinces. The collectors of taxes. General political corrup- tion. 4. The elections in the times of Marius, and Sylla, &c. Growing degeneracy of the con- suls, tribunes, and senate. 5. The downward tendency arrested by the- Empire. 6. MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF THK PEOPLE. General demoralization in the times of the civil wars. Depravity of the city populace. 7. Changes observable in the country. Neglect of Agriculture. P.ublic donations to the poor. 8. ROMAN LITERATURE. The Golden Age of Roman Literature. General prevalence of the Latin language. Grecian teachers. Philosophy. 9. Cicero's influence. Obstacles to the culti- vation of oratory. Historians. Poets. Character of Roman poetry, and of Roman literature generally. 10. THE ARTS. Public buildings, architecture, &c. 11. No superior native artists. Passion for works of art. Roman amateurs, &c. 12. Other nations during the closing period of the Roman Republic. History of Judea. The birth of the Saviour. 13. THE HISTORICAL PROPHECIES. 14. Early prophetic declarations. 15. The most important of these. Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, and Daniel's visions. Their in- terpretation. 15. The First Kingdom : the Babylonian. 17. The Second Kingdom : the Medo- Persian. 18. The Third Kingdom : the Macedo-Grecian. 19. The Fourth Kingdom .-the Roman Dominion. 10. The Fifth Kingdom : the Kingdom of the Most High. 21. Supposed prophetic references to Papal Rome. 22. Prophecies relating to the Jews. The Reformation. 23. The eleventh chapter of Daniel. Bishop Newton and Dr. Hales. 24. Prophecies relating to the Messiah. 25. Magnitude and importance of the subject of the Prophecies. I. 1. The first period of Roman history is marked by a long-continued and eventually successful struggle of the plebeian commonalty, against a patrician aristocracy, for protection, prerogative, and power ; a struggle in which the Roman people were divided by supposed dis- tinctions of birth, and in which separate orders of men contended for general principles, but with little partiality for individual interests, or jealousy of personal distinctions. The second period * , POLITICAL of Roman history, extending from the conquests of CHARACTER Greece and Carthage to the Christian era, is marked by OF THE the appearance of new parties, which take the place of PER IOD the old ones, in which the old distinctions founded on OF THE pretensions of birth disappear, and an aristocracy of wealth gathers to itself all the honors and emoluments of offioa, 728 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET III. giving rise to the contests of individuals for power, and the formation of separate political factions, and leading, eventually, to the establish- ment of a monarchy on the ruins of the republic. 2. The revolution by which the constitution of the republic was overthrown, received its first development in the failure of the noble attempt of the Gracchi to restore to society a middle class of citizens which might serve as an adjusting balance to the evils arising from the usurpations of the rich, and the growing debasement and venality of the poor. The failure of that attempt widened the breach between the two classes, although as yet the people scarcely perceived that two classes existed, as by the various mutations of wealth the citi- zens were constantly passing from one to the other. Yet in the latter period of the republic few but the wealthy, or those befriended by them, could rise to political distinction, because few others could command the influence of those who directed the suffrages of the populace. 3. The immense wealth that flowed in from the conquered prov- inces became, ifa its collection and disbursement, a powerful engine of corruption. Cicero, in his orations against Verres, the praetorian governor of Sicily, draws a faithful picture of what most of the governors of provinces were in his time ; and he asserts that the rob- bery, plunder, and extortion of which they were guilty, and which were often connived at by their superiors, were more desolating in their effects than the march of a conquering army. As there was a host of officers required to collect the tribute of the conquered prov- inces, which was let out to the highest bidders, and as great fortunes were often made by the cruelty, oppression, and fraud, of the collect- ors, such offices were eagerly coveted, and were bestowed as the re- wards of political patronage. Hence the most influential and ener- getic among the poor, who aspired to become leaders, looked for escape from immediate evils to the possibility of sudden acquisitions of wealth by the attainment of a subordinate post in the government of some petty province or city, instead of directing their efforts to reform the laws and correct the perversions of justice ; while the mass of the populace was led away by the allurements held out by factious demagogues, who first labored to corrupt those whom they meant afterwards to enslave. 4. In the times of Marius, and Sylla, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, the elections, which were often scenes of tumult and riot, were carried by open and undisguised bribery : in the public assemblies free dis CHAP. VIL] THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 729 cussion gave place to violence : the tribunes, elected originally as the guardians of the people's rights, losing all zeal for the public good in the strife for personal aggrandizement, either became the leaders of factions, or sold their influence to those who could pay them the highest : the consulship became the reward of military usurpers ; and even the senate, once so dignified and virtuous as to be regarded by the people with almost sacred awe, sunk low in political and moral debasement by its servile dependence upon the will of the popular leaders. 5. In this state of general corruption and degeneracy, while the victorious arras of the republic were rapidly extending the limits of the Roman dominion, Rome herself, a prey to intrigue and faction, was fast losing the power to control the mighty empire which she had gathered around her ; and the republic was already breaking to pieces, when the downward tendency of affairs was arrested by the only remedy that could save degenerate Rome the triumph of one of her military leaders over all his competitors, and the placing of su- preme power in the hands of one individual. It was then that civil strife was hushed, peace restored, and the bonds of union renewed, under the sovereignty of Augustus. A monarchy was the greatest boon that Heaven could bestow upon the Roman people, as it was the only one which, in their degeneracy, they were fitted to enjoy. " ' '.,.... i ..*!. (>! -r''rj--n 'it \ < i\i ' * -I *' ^ i ii?' II. 6. The foregoing sketch of the political character of the Roman people in the last days of the republic, will convey some idea of their moral and social condition during the same period. Gen- ,. . . . 1-1 MORAL AND eral political corruption is inseparably connected with BOC IAL CON- general depravity in private life ; and accordingly we DITION OF find that the people who tolerated the butcheries of Marius and Sylla, and the proscriptions of Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius, were sunk in demoralization to an extreme degree. In the city of Rome, which had no efficient police until the time of Augustus, the regulations that were made to preserve the public safety and decency were violated with impunity ; robbery, murder, perjury, forgery, and like crimes, were of every-day occurrence 5 a general licentiousness prevailed ; the Roman nobles, avaricious and effeminate, and immersed in luxuries and sensual pleasures, gave themselves little concern about the public welfare so long as they could purchase security for the enjoyment of the fruit of their ex* 730 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL tortions, while an ignorant and depraved populace was easily con- verted by its leaders, the hirelings of reckless aspirants to power, into ready instruments of violence and bloodshed. 7. Passing from the city to the country, we find that the numerous small but thrifty farmers of a former period had given place to large landed proprietors, whose estates were for the most part used as pastures, and tended by gangs of slaves. The late wars had reduced large districts almost to a wilderness state ; and agriculture, once the pride and glory of the Roman people, had become so neglected that Italy, one of the most fertile countries of Europe, was depend- ent upon neighboring States, or on its provinces, for its annual sup- plies of corn. Donations of corn and meat were often made to the poor of the cities, and of Rome in particular, from the public treas- ury ; and sometimes these were given by wealthy private individuals, who added free theatrical representations, games, and amusements, as the readiest mode of courting the favor of the populace. III. 8. In literature and the arts the Romans had made considerable progress since the conquest of Greece, but they seldom LITERATURE e( l ua ^ e( ^ tne Grecian models, from which they almost universally copied ; and, moreover, Roman literature, a plant of hot-bed culture rather than of natural growth, quickly reached its maturity, and was of correspondingly short duration. The golden age of Roman literature was embraced within a period of less than a single century from the death of Sylla to that of Augustus. At this time the Latin language was understood, and generally spoken, throughout Italy and the neighboring islands, in most of Spain and in the south of G-aul, countries that derived their civilization from the Romans ; but the language of the eastern provin- cials, in Greece and Asia, was never supplanted by it, although, through- out the Roman dominions, persons of rank and education thought it necessary to become acquainted. with the Latin. On the other hand, Rome itself swarmed with Greek rhetoricians and philosophers, who gave instruction in the schools in their native tongue, while the sons of many of the Roman nobility were sent to Athens to complete their education under the ablest Grecian teachers. There were no distinct schools of philosophy peculiar to the Romans, nor was philosophy with them a favorite study until the time of Cicero, who first made his countrymen acquainted with the speculations of the Grecian sages. CHAP. VIL] THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 731 9. Cicero, whose orations are the most perfect specimens of Latin prose composition extant, did more than any other man to bring the language to its perfection, and his younger co temporaries who grew up around him received the stamp of his genius. But as oratory is best cultivated by free public speaking in popular assemblages, so when the Roman forum became silent, and political assemblages of the people were discouraged under the emperors, oratory lost its in- fluence, and was neglected, and written prose composition declined with it. Among the historians of this age, the most prominent arc Caesar, who wrote Commentaries on his Gallic wars ; Sallust, who wrote an account of the conspiracy of Catiline, and a history of the Jugurthine war ; and Livy, the author of a voluminous history of his country, and who enjoys the reputation of being the greatest of Roman historians. Among poets may be mentioned the names of Catullus, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, who form a brilliant galaxy of poetic genius, and all of whom lived in the century immediately preceding the Christian era ; but still their poetry is an imitation of the Greek, and in great part a translation of the Greek forms into Latin. On the whole, Roman literature bears throughout the clearest evi- dence of having been formed on Grecian models, except in the single department of prose composition as applied to oratory, in which Cicero shines as the greatest master the world has ever seen. IV. 10. The public buildings of the Romans in the last age of the re- public began to exhibit the influences of Grecian taste and art, which, however, were greatly extended under the reign of Augustus ; and it was not altogether a vain boast of that monarch that he found Rome a city of bricks, and left it a city of marble. Augustus was the first who introduced among the Romans the use of marble in building ; yet but few remains of the edifices of his time exist, and the architectural works for which Rome is so justly celebrated belong mostly to the first century after Christ, an era more than five hundred years later than the Grecian age of Pericles. 11. In the time of the republic, Rome produced no native artists of eminence, yet after the eastern conquests in Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, such a passion for works, of art prevailed among the Romans as to lead to the most disgraceful robberies of statues, paintings, vases, and other movable articles of ornament, which were conveyed to Italy in great numbers ; and not only were the public 732 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III places of Rome adorned with these plundered treasures, but the private dwellings of the great, also, were lavishly stocked with them. There were many Roman amateurs, but few artists ; and as the arts that were prized most highly were of foreign origin, introduced when already in their perfection, and cultivated by the wealthy few for ostentation and display, they produced none of their legitimate re- fining and ennobling effects upon the mind, and exerted little or no influence in checking the growing degeneracy of the people. ',V* Y. ***** 12. Turning from Roman history to seek after the cotemporary history of other nations during the closing period of the republic, we find but little to reward our researches, for, at the close of that period, nearly all the nations of the known world were embraced within the Roman dominion, and their separate an- nals, immediately previous to the events which led to their subjugation, are little known, and their history afterwards, as Roman provinces, is of little importance. Of all the States of the East, to Judea alone, whose history we have traced, briefly, down to the time when the Romans began to interfere in the national councils, we still turn with interest, for in Judea that important event occurred the ap- pearance of the long-promised Messiah, which marks the transition from the history of ancient to that of modern times from the pagan to the Christian world. Of the vast influences of that event upon man's moral and intellectual being as a member of society we have not room here to speak, but those who recognize in it that divine agency which all Christendom, as distinguished from Judaism and Paganism, attributes to it, cannot fail to admit, in its widest accepta- tion, that God governs the affairs of inen. 13. Connected with the subject of God's overruling agency, and THE the establishment of his spiritual kingdom on the earth HISTORICAL through the mediation of his son the Saviour, the Prince IKS of Peace, there is a portion of history of exceeding interest to the Christian student, which cannot be gathered from the pages of profane writers alone. We allude to the historical prajrfiecies contained in the Old Testament, a subject of historical importance that cannot in justice be passed over, but which we have omitted to the present time, that we might present a connected, though brief, view of it here. 14. As far back as the days of the Jewish patriarchs, the dawn of CHAP. VII] HISTORICAL PROPHECIES. 733 Christendom was announced, in the promise of the Messiah ; and almost before the authentic annals of profane history have a begin- ning, the Almighty had opened, in prophetic visions, to his servants, a view of the future, and shown them the rise, progress, decay, and dissolution, of the mighty kingdoms of the heathen world that were to fill the earth, successively, with their renown, and then pass away and give place to the kingdom of the Most High, that was to em- brace the whole earth within its dominion. It cannot be other than a study of deep interest to the candid inquirer after truth, to exam- ine the prophecies which disclose such important events, known to God alone, and to trace out their remarkable fulfilment as recorded on the pages of history. 15. Among the most important of these prophetic declarations are those of .the prophet Daniel, one of the Jews whom Nebuchad- nezzar carried away captive to Babylon nearly six hundred years before the Christian era. They are embraced, mostly, in the inter pretation of the famous dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and in four cor- responding visions of the prophet, all of which are designed to illus- trate and explain the same events. Nebuchadnezzar, in his dream, saw a compound image of gold, silver, brass, and iron, which the prophet Daniel, professing to speak from inspiration of the Most High, in- terprets to denote four successive kingdoms of the earth, whose un- expired history he gives in considerable detail ; and in the first vision of Daniel the same four kingdoms are represented by four wild beasts rising from the sea, (Dan. ii. and vii. 2, 3.) Let us examine the dream and the visions, and see if history verifies the interpreta- tion thereof. 1 6. THE FIRST KINGDOM. The head of the compound image which Nebuchadnezzar saw was of gold, and Daniel declared that this head of gold represented " the first kingdom, or that of the Babylonians," of which Nebuchadnezzar was then monarch. In the first vision of the prophet the same kingdom is represented by " the first beast, which resembled a lion with eagle's wings," expressing the fierceness and rapidity of Nebuchadnezzar, the founder of the Babylonian empire. Jeremiah had before represented him as a " lion from the north, that should make Judea desolate," ( Jer. iv. 6, 7,) and as " an eagle spread- ing his wings of destruction over Moab;" (Jer. xlviii. 40;) and Ezekiel as a " great eagle, long winged, and full of feathers," (Ezek. xvii. 3 and 12;) but at the time of Daniel's vision " its wings were plucked," for its career was checked by the victorious arms and en- 734 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. croachinents of Cyrus the Persian. It might be alleged that this interpretation of the " head of gold," as being symbolical of a king- dom already in existence, is not prophetic. Viewed as standing alone it might not be deemed so, except as it is supported by the prophecies of previous writers ; but it is the first in the series of the four prophetic kingdoms, and therefore an important link in the chain of testimony. The first kingdom found mankind in no state of cohesion a vast number of petty tribes bound together by no ties of national affinity, religion, language, or manners and in proportion to its extension, its intensity was weakened, and felt only around the person of the monarch. Having the imperfections of an elementary state of civilization, and of a first experiment, and being corrupted by the vices of luxurious effeminacy, it fell an easy prey to the then hardy and enterprising Persians. 17. THE SECOND KINGDOM. In the interpretation of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, the prophet declared that after the first king, (or kingdom,) should arise another kingdom, (Dan. ii. 32 and 39,) which was represented by the breast and arms of the image, which were of silver. Here is a prophetic declaration believed to refer to the Medo-Persian kingdom, which lasted two hundred and five years, from the capture of Babylon by Cyrus (B. C. 536) to the battle of Arbela, (B. C. 331.) As to the appropriateness of the symbols rep- resenting this kingdom, it may be mentioned that the arms and shields of the Medes and Persians were frequently cased with silver ; wherefore Alexander, after the conquest of Persia, adopting the cus- toms of the conquered nations, instituted a body of infantry which he called the "silver shields" In the first vision of Daniel the same kingdom is represented by the second beast, a bear with three ribs in its mouth ; (Dan. vii. 5 ;) and in the second vision by a ram, (Dan. viii. 3,) the figure of which, it is known, became, after the time of Daniel, the armorial ensign of the Persian empire. Moreover, in the vision, Daniel saw that the ram had two horns, and that " the one which came up last was higher than the other," the lower horn believed to denote the Median power, and the higher one the Persian, for these two powers constituted the Medo-Persian empire. It is an interesting fact that rams' heads, with unequal horns, one higher than the other, are still to be seen on the ruined pillars of Persepolis. Moreover Daniel " saw the ram, (that is, the Medo-Persian empire,) pushing westward, and northward, and southward," (Dan. viii. 4.) History verifies the interpretation, for in this exact order were CHAP. VII.] HISTORICAL PROPHECIES. 735 Lydia, Babylonia, and Egypt, (represented in the first vision (Dan. vii. 5) by three ribs in the bear's mouth,) subdued by Cyrus and his successor Cambyses. The second kingdom, more powerful than the first, but, like it, held together by the feeblest bonds of union, owed its fall, after an existence of two centuries, more to the crimes of its monarchs, the mal-administration of government, and the repeated disputes and wars for succession, than to the small but highly effect- ive force brought against it. 18. THE THIRD KINGDOM. The third division of the compound image which Nebuchadnezzar saw (Dan. ii. 32 39) was the " belly and thighs of brass" explained with great historical minuteness, as de- noting the Macedo- Grecian kingdom of Alexander and his successors. The Greeks usually wore brazen armor, whence Homer calls them the " brazen-corslet Grecians" In the first vision of Daniel the same kingdom is represented by the third beast a leopard with two pair of wings and four heads, the wings aptly denoting the rapidity of the conquests of Alexander ; and the/awr heads, the four kingdoms, Macedon, Thrace, Syria, and Egypt, into which the empire of Alex- ander was divided among his generals. In the second vision of the prophet the same Macedo- Grecian kingdom is represented by " a he-goat that came from the west (Macedonia) and touched not the ground" for swiftness. " And the he-goat had a notable horn be- tween his eyes" (Alexander the Great), and " he ran at the ram" (Darius the Persian) " and smote him, and cast him upon the ground." But when " the he-goat waxed very great, the great horn was broken," (Alexander's death) " and in its place came up four notable ones towards the four winds of Heaven. (Alexander's four successors, among whom his kingdom was divided.) But this part of the second vision is interpreted to Daniel with all the distinctness with which the history itself could have been written after the events had trans- pired. For Daniel was told, (Dan. viii. 20-22 :) " The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings (or kingdoms) of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king (or kingdom) of Grecia ; and the great horn between his eyes is the first king, (Alex- ander.) Now that being broken, whereas four rose in its stead, four kingdoms shall arise out of the nation, but not in his power" that is, not of the family of Alexander. In the fourth vision of the prophet the same historical truths are presented with similar ex- plicitness in the second, third, and fourth verses of the eleventh chapter of Daniel, with the additional notice that a certain king of 736 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III Persia (Darius Codomanus) should stir up the whole empire for an invasion of " the realm of Grecia." The prophecy respecting the Third or " Macedo-Grecian" kingdom, is so distinct, and so minute in its details, and the historical verification so perfect, that no candid mind will attribute the coincidence to chance or accident. 19. THE FOURTH KINGDOM. The fourth division of the image which Nebuchadnezzar saw, and which Daniel declared to represent the fourth kingdom, was " the legs of iron, and the feet part of iron and part of clay." (Dan. ii. 33.) This is believed to denote the Roman dominion, which reached its full vigor about the time of the conquests of Macedon, Greece, and Carthage, when the republic, under the consular government, was the strongest, as represented by the " legs of iron." Rome, the " Mistress of Nations," the " Mother of Empires," was the greatest monarchy the world has ever known. It continued in the full tide of prosperity until the conquest of Egypt, (B. C. 30,) after which it gradually declined under the monarchy : the partition of the empire into Eastern and Western greatly weakened it ; and it gradually sunk under the repeated in- vasions of the Gothic and Vandal, tribes, and was finally broken into ten kingdoms, as represented by the ten toes of the image. Daniel says : " As the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken." (Dan. ii. 42.) In the first vision of Daniel the same kingdom is represented by the fourth beast, which was " dreadful and terrible, and strong exceed- ingly ; and it had great iron teeth ; it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it ; and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it ; and it had ten horns." (Dan. vii. 7.) Here the Roman power and progress are aptly represented. It was the strongest of the four kingdoms, its very name (Ro-me) being the Grecian term for strength, and it broke in pieces, and de- voured, the previous three kingdoms ; and the residue (the western provinces of the Roman empire, Spain, Gaul, &c.) it "trampled upon with the feet of it." And as in the first vision of Daniel, the first three kingdoms had been represented by a lion, a bear, and a leopard, (Dan. vii,) so St. John, in the Revelation, (Rev. xiii. 1, 2,) describes the form of the fourth beast (or kingdom) as being com- pounded of all the rest, having " the body of the leopard, the feet of the bear, and the mouth of the lion ;" and thus the Roman empire em- braced the territories of the preceding empires. In the second vision of Daniel the fourth kingdom is represented by " a little horn" spring- CHAP. VII] HISTORICAL PROPHECIES. 73T ing up from one (the western, or Macedonian) of the four heads (or kingdoms) into which the empire of Alexander had been divided. The progress of the Roman power is here geographically described also ; for this little horn " waxed exceeding great towards the south, (Sicily and Africa.) and towards the east, (Macedon, Greece, and Syria,) and towards the pleasant land, (Judea.) 20. Thus, as marked out by prophecy, four times have the nations of the earth gathered themselves into mighty aggregates of power, denoted Universal Empires or Monarchies : none like went before, and none like have come after them ; and it is upon the warrant of nega- tive scripture testimony that men believe no other temporal universal empire possible. But, still, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and the interpretation of the prophet, point to a fifth monarchy greater than all the others, that shall arise when Christianity shall have swallowed up all other ibrms of religion, and the nations of the earth shall be gathered into one fold, under one all-conquering Shepherd the Prince of Peace.* For Nebuchadnezzar saw a " stone cut out with- out hands, which smote the image and became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth," (Dan. ii. 34-5,) and this the prophet himself declares to be " the kingdom which the God of Heaven should set up, and which shall never be destroyed." The first and the fourtk vision of Daniel contain farther prophecies relating to this kingdom. 21. While Daniel, in the first vision, was considering the ten horns (or kingdoms), b a little horn, believed by Protestant writers to denote Papal Rome, came up among them, and before it were three of the first herns plucked up by the roots ; the kingdom of the Heruli in the year 488 of the Ostrogoths in 553 and of the Lom- bards in 756. The seventh chapter of Daniel also gives an interpre- tation of the vision, and says of this little horn or kingdom that it " shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws ; and they (the saints) shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing (or half) of time" The period here denoted, in which the supposed Papal power was to prevail, is found to be twelve hundred and sixty years, allowing a day for a year, as ex- plained in the Apocalypse. (Rev. xi. 3 xii. 6, 14.) Dr. Hales, a a. Hence the fanatics of 1650, who looked for the immediate advent of the Saviour to rule over the whole earlh as a temporal prince, were usually called Fifth Monarchists. b. The ten kingdoms into which that of Rome was broken, or divided, are generally believed to have been the following, with their dates. Huns, (A. D. 356) Ostrogoths, (377) Visi- goths, (378) Franks, (407) Sandals, (407) Suevi, (Wl)-Burgundians, (407) Utruli, (476) Saxons, (476) and Lombards, (4*3526.) 47 738 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. celebrated English divine and chronologist, computes the commence- ment of the period at A. D. 620, and the end of it at A. D. 1880. We have not room to follow out here the reasoning on which the chronology is based. 22. The fulfilment of the prophecies relating to the taking away of the daily sacrifice of the Jews, and the destruction of the city and sanctuary of Jerusalem by the Romans, is so clear in relation to the times mentioned as to satisfy the most arrant scepticism. The period of the two thousand three hundred days (years, Dan. viii. 14) at the expiration of which the " transgression of desolation" should cease, and the ^sanctuary be cleansed," is computed by Dr. Hales to have commenced B. C. 420, and the expiration of this period is also placed in the year of our Lord 1880. Most Protestant theological writers suppose that the three great angels described in the Apoca- lypse (Rev. xiv. 6-12) were the three great heralds of the REFORMA- TION, Wicldiffe, Huss, and LutJier. 23. The eleventh chapter of Daniel contains a remarkable series of prophetic declarations, foretelling the sufferings and persecutions of the Jews, from Alexander's successors in Syria and Egypt, till the end of the reign of Antiochus Epiph' anes, a period of one hun- dred and sixty years. Bishop Newton, who has given a copious illus- tration of the historical facts which verify the whole of this prophecy, remarks that " there is not in profane history so complete and regular a series of Egyptian and Syrian kings, and so concise and compre- hensive an account of their affairs, as is found in this chapter of the prophet Daniel," and that " the prophecy is really more perfect than any one history." Dr, Hales says that " these prophecies of Daniel are, if, possible, more surprising and astonishing than even his grand prophetic period of two thousand three hundred years, arid the sev- eral successions of empire that were to precede the spiritual kingdom of God upon the earth." With reference to the exact fulfilment of these prophecies he remarks : " Even the infidel Porphyry, who had access to several sources of information now lost, was so confounded by this exactness that he was driven to deny the authenticity of the prophecy relating to the Jews, declaring that it could not have been written before, but must have 'been compiled after, the reign of An- tiochus Epiph' anes. But the prophecy is so intimately connected with the preceding and following parts of the vision, which relate to the Macedonians and Rqmans, that it must have been written by the same hand, and therefore be esteemed equally genuine with the CHAP. VII.] HISTORICAL PROPHECIES. 739 whole book of Daniel. The astonishing exactness, indeed, with which this minute prophetic detail has been fulfilled, furnishes the strongest pledge, from analogy, th&t the remaining prophecies were, and will be, as exactly fulfilled, each in its proper season." 24. The Old Testament abounds in prophecies which foretell the time and the circumstances of the coming of Christ the Messiah. That event was to happen before the sceptre should depart from Judah, a and while a prince, of Jewish descent reigned over the Jews in their own land : the Messiah was to come while the second temple was standing, b and a messenger was to appear before him, the voice of one crying in the wilderness to prepare his way. c In the prophecies of Daniel the same event is foretold, (Dan. ix. 24-27,) and specified periods (marked according to similar computations in the Jewish scriptures, by weeks of years, each day for a year) are designated for the birth of the Messiah, his death, the duration of the Jewish war, and the destruction of Jerusalem. This illustrious prophecy Sir Isaac Newton declares to be " tlie foundation of tJie Christian religion.' 1 ' 1 25. The subject of the prophecies embraced in the Old Testament is one of so vast magnitude, that a brief sketch of only a few pages devoted to it must be imperfect in the extreme ; but our object will have been accomplished if the little that we have said shall induce the reader to examine farther the historical evidences which the prophecies furnish in favor of the Christian religion, and which may be found in full detail in the works of Newton and Hales, d and an excellent compend of which is contained in the valuable work of Keith. The disciples of the Christiarn religion believe that its doctrines rest on a basis firm as immutable truth ; and among the evidences of the reasonableness of their faith they point with confi- dence to the prophecies which set forth the circumstances attendant Upon the introduction, progress, and final triumph, of that religion ; which contain historical proofs the most conclusive, and furnish the Christian with arguments which the cavillings of infidelity have never been able to invalidate. Whoever expresses an infidel doubt against the Christian religion, before he has fully examined the evidences which prophecy and history combined furnish in its favor, shows not only an unwarranted prejudice against the truth, but the most culpa- ble ignorance and presumption also. a. Gen. xlix. 10. b. Hag. ii. 7, 9. Mai. iii. 1. c. Isa. xl. 3. Mai. iii. ] iv. 5. d. Thomas Newton on the Prophecies, 2 vols. 12mo, 1793. Hales' Analysis of Chronology and Geography, History and Prophecy, 4 vols. 8vo, 1830. 740 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. CHAPTER VIII. THE ROMAN EMPIRE. ANALYSIS. 1. Rome at the commencement of the Christian era. The Roman empire. 2. I5eginning of the history of Imperial Rome. Roman greatness not destroyed by Caesar. 3. POVVKR AND MAJESTY OF ROME AND HER CAESARS. 4. Sacred character of the emperor attached to the office rather than the man. 5. Atrocities of the early Caesars. Character of Caligula. 6. Story of Caligula and the two consuls: of Caligula and his wife Caesonia. Clau- dius and Nero. How their crimes were viewed by the people. 7. Virtues of the people of Republican Rome. Causes of the rapid declension from virtue revolutionary wars changes in the character of the population, &c. 8. Conquests of Republican Rome. Peaceful FOREIGN POLICY of Augustus and his success- ors. ft. Departures from this policy. 10. Policy of Adrian and the Antonines. 11. Decline of the empire under succeeding rulers. Causes and consequences of this decline an interest- ing subject of philosophical research. Proposed view of the subject. 12. INTERNAL CONDITION OF THE ROMAN WORLD IN THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES. Repub- lican simplicity of the early emperors. 13. The republican forms retained by Augustus and succeeding rulers. The numerous offices concentrated in the person of the emperor. Extent of the royal prerogatives. The illusion cherished by the people. 14. Increase of prosperity and population after Claudius. Italy and Greece compared. Amount of population in the empire. 15. THE SLAVES OF THE ROMANS. Derivation of the term slave. 16. Sanguinary character of the wars of the ancients. 1 Treatment of slaves. Their value. Manumission of slaves. 17. ROMAN CITIZENS. Extension of the rights of citizenship. 18. TAXATION, under Augustus, Caracalla, Alexander Severus, &c. 19. Depopulation of the provincial districts. Foreign luxuries. 20. General poverty of the people. The amount of taxation. 21. Fixedness of the amount on each municipality. Causes of the impoverishment of the provinces. 22. THK ROMAN ARMY ; recruited in early times from the citizens only in later times from the barbarians. Examples, in the times of Marius and Caesar ; at a later period. 23. Decline of public virtue in the army how the emperors attempted to supply the defect. The pay of soldiers. 24. Military strength of the empire. Divisions of the legions. Their principal sta- tions. " City Cohorts" and "Praetorian Guards." 25. Military tactics, armor, and discipline. 20. The cavalry. A Roman camp. The Roman navy. 27. The RELIGION OF THE ROMANS DURING THE EMPIRE. 28. Intolerance towards the Christians. Rise, progress, and influence, of Christianity. 29. The pagan religions how viewed by the philosophers. The advantages of some religion admitted by all. General infidelity on the subject of religion. 30. The educated pagans. Superstitions of the common people. 31. SOCIAL MORALITY OF THE ROMANS. 32. Demoralizing effects of domestic slavery. 33. Of the favorite amusements of the Romans mock sea-fights, and the combats of the gladiators. Tragedy, in its gross reality. Influence of Christianity. 34. OUTWARD APPEARANCES OF GENERAL PROSPERITY IN THE AGE OF THK ANTONINES. 35. Populousness of Italy, Gaul, and Britain. Carthage and the Eastern provinces. 36. The public highways. Construction of the Appian Way. 37. Aqueducts leading into the capital. Buildings of the Imperial age. 38. Roman architecture. 39. Sculpture and painting. The Laocoon and the Apollo Belvidere. 40. Education of the common people. Branches taught in the public schools. Additional instruction of the higher classes. 41. Support of the schools. Encouragement given to education by Vespasian, Adrian, and Antoninus Pius. Mathematics and the Natural Sciences. Bookshops. Libraries. 42. THE SILVKR AGE OF ROMAN LITERATURE. Niebuhr's view of it. Gibbon's view. Servile Imitation of the Greek writers. 43. The most distinguished Roman writers in this period of decline. 44. Opposing opinions entertained of Lucan. Lucau's Pharsalia. 45. Writings and character of Seneca. Juvenal. 46. Pliny the Elder. 47. Quinctilian the rhetorician. 48. Tacitus the historian. CHAP. VIII] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 741 49. GREEK LITERATURE DURING THE SILVER AGE. Dionysius the critic. Strabo the geographer. 50. Plutarch, Lucien, Galen, Pausanias, tec. 51. ROMAN HISTORY AFTER THE TIME or THE ANTONINKS. Science of jurisprudence. Phi- losophical school of the Eclectics. Their system and its results. 52. Revival of Grecian litera- ture. Louginus, Arrian, Diogenes Laertius, Herodian, and Dio Cassius. 53. INCREASING CAUSES OF DECLINE. Education for the many neglected. Public morals depraved. Diverse interests, &c., in the widely-distant provinces. Division of the empire. The citizens confounded with the provincials. Mercenary legions. Election of emperor. The old attachments to Rome broken. The destruction completed by the barbarians. 54. Gloomy fore- bodings. Examples from the opposite extremes of the pagan and the Christian world. Byron. I. 1. At the commencement of the Christian era, the little settlement of mud-walled cottages which Romulus and his robber band had formed on the Palatine Hill, had grown into a mighty city a nation in itself the emporium of commerce and the arts, and the Mistress of the civilized world. The laws and institutions of Augustus, and the gradual assimilation of manners, cemented the union of the provinces ; and had public and private virtue remained, and wise legislation continued to uphold the fabric, the history of the " Decline and Fall " of the Roman empire the last of the great monarchies of Prophecy might not yet have been written. 2. With the overthrow of the republican constitution by Julius Caesar, the history of Imperial Rome commences : the struggles that followed the death of the usurper are only an interlude between the first and the second acts of the drama. But the destruction of Roman greatness was not an act of Caesar : Rome, already given up to anarchy and civil war, and fast falling a prey to its own passions, was saved from dissolution by an act of daring usurpation ; and it was through the twelve Caesars, of whom Julius was the first, that she attained the summit of her power, and fulfilled her destiny. 3. If Imperial Rome embracing within herself and her mighty suburbs 3 - not less than three millions of inhabitants was the " Mis- tress of Nations," the " Mother of Empires," in comparison with whom other cities were but villages : the Roman Caesars rOW KB AND were monarchs, in comparison with whom all modern MAJKST y OF kings or emperors are mere phantoms of royalty. In the EOME AND times of the Caesars there were no other kings that de- a. Including the numerous contiguous villages immediately dependent upon the capital for support. Much baa been written on this subject. Vossius, Lipsius, Chateaubriand, and ethers, assign to imperial Rome fourteen, seven, five, and three millions of inhabitants : Hume, seven hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand ; and Gibbon one million two hundred thousand. De Quincey ("The Caesars," p. 5; " resolutely maintains" that her population wa "not less than four millions." 742 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. served the appellation : there were no antagonist forces to raise up formidable bulwarks against the majesty of Rome : civilization and the Roman empire were commensurate terms ; and during more than two centuries nearly the whole habitable world known to Geography or recognized by History, slumbered in security under the protecting aegis of the Roman name. The occasional wars on the distant frontiers were pulsations scarcely felt in the capital, and seldom disturbing its luxurious lull of repose. 4. It should not therefore surprise us that the person of the Roman emperor the inheritor of power so vast, so intense should have been called " august," sacred, and not merely so called through ex- cess of adulation, but so regarded by the Romans, with a kind of re- ligious awe, that to doubt his consecrated character was the double crime of treason and heresy. But this veneration attached to the office rather than the man ; for the tenure of supreme power in im- perial Rome was ever hazardous : rivals and competitors might aspire to the same station ; a mercenary army might desire a more prodigal master ; or the dagger of an assassin might invade the im- perial chamber. From the heights of glory the transition was often sudden to the depths of misery ; and coloring the most brilliant and gorgeous, and shades the deepest and darkest, are in striking contrast in the pictures of the Roman Caesars. Nowhere else does history furnish so intensely interesting studies of individual character. 5. While the vast power and unrivalled splendors of imperial Rome fix our attention and command our admiration, the monstrous atrocities of the early Caesars loom up in the background of the picture like " shapes hot from Tartarus," in strange and bewildering contrast. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, shock us by com- binations of wickedness for which history has no parallel ; and it is hard to say whether the levity or brutality of their baseness most merits our execration. In Caligula, crime was but the pastime of his hours of amusement : his banquets were insipid without a supply of executions, his dinners incomplete without such a dessert ; and he deplored the tameness and insipidity of his own times, as likely to be marked by no wide-spreading calamity of war, pestilence, or famine. 6. We are told that when the two consuls were once seated at his table he burst into a fit of immoderate laughter at the pleasant thought of the facility with which he might have both their throats cut, with so little trouble to himself ; and that, while toying play- CHAP. VIII.] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 743 fully and fondly with the polished throat of his wife Caesonia, he was distracted between the desire of caressing it, which might be often re- peated, and that of cutting it, which could be gratified but once. Claudius and Nero were varieties of the same species, the former, an imbecile tyrant the tool of profligate associates, the latter a very amateur of murder ; but what shocks us even more than the baseness of the later Caesars, (for they may be justly entitled to the- apology of hereditary madness or lunacy,) are the public demonstra- tions of approval with which their blackest crimes were sometimes greeted ; as when Tiberius received the thanks of the senate for his clemency in putting to death the unfortunate and virtuous widow of Grermanicus because she was not publicly strangled, nor her body drawn through the streets like that of a public malefactor ; and when Nero received the congratulations of all orders of men for the infamous murder of his own mother. 7. And yet, fifty years before the times of the emperors, the Ro- mans were a people of severe morals, and stern republican virtues. Can it be that such monsters as Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, their abettors and parasites the degraded senate and the fickle and de- praved populace, were the immediate descendants of the same race ? If so, what causes could have produced this rapid and wonderful de- clension from virtue ? Some of them may be traced to the great revolutionary struggles which gave birth to the empire : for revo- lutionary times relax all modes of moral obligation, and introduce a general licentiousness and depravity in private life. In the second place, the civil wars swept away the greatest and best of the Roman nobility, together with vast numbers of the better classes of the Ro- man people ; and, to fill their places, Syrians, Cappadocians, Phryg- ians, and great numbers of enfranchised slaves, were brought from the provinces; so that, in a single generation, Republican Rome was transmuted into a nation of barbarians, with a strong taint of Asiatic luxury and depravity. 8 - It has been estimated that, in the time of Nero, not one man in six was of pure Roman descent. Juvenal complains that long before his time, the Orontes (a river of Syria) had mingled its impure waters with the Tiber. Such, not- withstanding all the splendors and glory of the imperial city, was the character of its population under the rule of the Caesars. \ a. Lucent, after enumerating Galatians, Syrians, Cappadocians, Gauls, Celtiberians, Arme- nians, Cilicians, &.C., says : M nam post civilia bella Hie populus Romanus erit." 744 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. II. 8. The youthful energies of a growing republic, and the martial virtues of the people, had marked the first seven centuries of Rome's existence with a rapid succession of conquests ; but Augustus saw the necessity of relinquishing the design of subduing the POLICY* wn l e earth ; and in his will he bequeathed, as a valuable legacy to his successors, the advice to restrict the empire to the limits which it had already attained. It was perhaps fortunate for the repose of surrounding nations that the system recommended by Augustus was adopted by the fears and vices of his immediate successors. 9. The only departure from this peaceful policy, previous to the reign of Trajan, was the conquest of Britain during the first century of the Christian era, after a war of forty years' duration, a war, gays Gibbon, " undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid, of all the Roman emperors." In the person of Trajan, the Romans received a mili- tary emperor ambitious of fame and emulous of the martial glories of Alexander. After a war of five years he added Dacia to the Ro- man dominions ; and in an expedition against the nations of the East reduced Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, while his fleets, setting sail on the waters of the Persian Gulf, ravaged the coasts of Arabia. 10. But Adrian, the successor of Trajan, adopting the maxims of Augustus, withdrew the Roman garrisons from the newly-conquered provinces, and once more established the Euphrates and the Danube as the frontiers of the empire. The two Autonines pursued, with trifling exceptions, the same policy, and by the justice which they exhibited in their foreign relations, and the firmness with which they repelled aggressions, caused the Roman name to be respected and revered among the most remote nations. 11. Succeeding rulers, relinquishing the idea of extending the do- minions of the already overgrown empire, aimed only to preserve its ancient limits ; but the task grew more and more difficult; gradually province after province was abandoned, till the Roman world was re- duced to the narrow limits of Italy ; Rome was repeatedly pillaged by barbarians ; arid, finally, a Gothic kingdom was established on the ruins of the Empire of the Caesars. The causes of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, and the consequences resulting to European civilization from the unloosing and breaking up of the elements which composed CHAP. VIII] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 745 the complex fabric, present one of the most interesting fields of philo- sophical research which history furnishes. A brief view of this important subject is all that can be given here ; and as a just understanding of it presupposes a knowledge of the internal condition of the Roman world at the period when its prosperity had reached its height, we shall first take a survey of the elements of Roman society as they existed in the age of the Antonines, near the close of the second cen- tury of the Christian era. It is immediately after this period, with the accession of the young ruffian Commodus, that Gibbon com- mences his story of the decline of the empire. III. 12. In the age of the Antonines, the Roman dominion extended from the wall of Scotland to the Euphrates ; and from the Rhine and the Danube to Mount Atlas, the African CONDITION OF deserts, and the cataracts of the Nile ; embracing the THE ROMAH fairest regions of the known world, and the most civil- THE AGfi OF ized portions of mankind. The vast empire included THE ANT - within these limits was under an absolute monarchy, disguised by the forms of the old Roman commonwealth ; for the wisest emperors professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, and, disdaining the pomp and ceremony of Eastern royalty, cloaked their real power under the garb of republican simplicity. 13. When Augustus subverted the republic, he artfully retained the ancient forms, professed to restore the senate to its ancient rights, and, while he deluded the people with the image of civil liberty, forged for them the chains of despotism. The true character of his early public acts was concealed under the mask of hypocrisy; and if he at last became, as he was called, the " father of the people," it was because his own interests did not run counter to the public welfare. Succeeding emperors, down to the time of Commodus, if we except those tyrants who violated every law of decency and every rule of policy, imitated the democratic affectation of Augustus, and, in all the offices of life, mingled freely with their subjects, and studiously affected to place themselves on a level with the tribunes, censors, and consuls, of former times, the powers of whose offices were now united in the royal prerogative. The emperor, by virtue of his office, was commander of the army and navy ; as consul, he was the minister of the senate, whose decrees he dictated, and seemed to obey; and as tribune, he was the representative of the people; 746 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [?AET III. while the dignity of supreme pontiff gave him the management of religion ; and that of censor, the control of morals and education. To sum up the extent of the royal prerogatives, not only could the emperor make peace, declare war, ratify treaties, and employ the revenue at discretion, but by a comprehensive decree of the senate conferring the powers of former emperors upon Vespasian, he was empowered to execute whatever he should judge advantageous to the empire, and agreeable to the majesty of things, private or public, hu- man or divine. Yet the Romans, abhorring the name of king, looked with complacency upon the title of " Augustus," and cherished the illusion that it represented only the chief magistrate of a free com- monwealth. 14. During the reigns of several emperors after Claudius, there was a gradual increase of prosperity in the Roman prov- POPULAT10N. . 3 . i , i i MI mces, and an increase of population, which was still con- fined to the towns ; for the Romans never dispersed themselves over the country, like the occupants of the small farms and plantations of modern times. Italy was gradually recovering from the desolation which civil wars had spread over it, but Greece remained a poor and desolated country. The entire population of the Roman empire in the time of Claudius was estimated by Gibbon at one hundred and twenty millions, of all classes and both sexes, one half of whom were slaves. Yet Robertson estimated that there were twice as many slaves as freemen ; and Mr. Blair that the number of the former was three times the greatest. 15. The slaves of the Romans consisted, for the most part, of bar- SLAVES harian captives taken in war, and sold by the government, OF THE or purchased from the surrounding nations. The deriva- ROMANS. ^ on O f tne ^ erm p er p e tuates a historic truth ; but its present meaning, which appears to have arisen in France, in the eighth century, shows a strange perversion of the original sense of the appellation. Slava, the root of the term Slavonian, signified renown, glory ; but when, in the eighth century, the French princes became rich in Slavonian captives, the national appellation of the Slaves (Slavonians) was degraded from the signification of glory to that of servitude. 16. The practice of reducing captives to slavery rendered the wars of the ancients extremely sanguinary, and the battles obstinate; and as it could hardly be expected that those suddenly reduced from a state of independence to servitude would neglect any opportunity CHAP. VIIL] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 747 of recovering their freedom, they were subjected to the strictest dis- cipline, and often treated with extreme cruelty. During a long period, the master exercised the jurisdiction of life and death over his slaves; but under the* reign of Adrian and the Antonines, the protection of the laws was extended to this unfortunate part of the Ro- man population ; and, on a just complaint of intolerable treatment, the slave either obtained his freedom, or a less cruel master. Slaves of promising genius were sometimes instructed in the arts and sciences; they were also found in the learned professions ; and many of the Roman physicians belonged to this class of the population. The price of a slave was regulated by the variations of supply and de- mand, and the degree of skill and talent which he displayed. In the camp of Lucullus an ox sold for one shilling, and a slave for three : by the conquests of Titus and Vespasian the Jewish slaves so glutted the market that no man would buy them ; but a learned slave, who had been bred and taught by one Atticus, sold for many hundred pounds sterling. Many of the Roman slaves were manumitted by their masters ; when they became what were termed liberti or free- men ; but after manumission they obtained no more than the private rights of citizens, being excluded from either civil or military honors ; and it was not until the third or fourth generation that all traces of their servile origin were obliterated. 17. The free inhabitants of the Roman world, apart from the freedmen and their descendants, were not all, for a long period, Roman citizens. We have seen that at an early WHO WE * period of the Republic the right of citizenship, which was at first confined to a part of the population of Rome, was ex- tended to the freemen of nearly all the Italian towns. It was the policy of the early emperors gradually to enlarge the nation of Ro- man citizens by admitting the most faithful and deserving of the provincials to the privileges of citizenship ; and in the age of the Antonines this freedom had been bestowed upon the greater pro- portion of the subjects of the empire. The boon stimulated the national spirit, and was accompanied with solid advantages so long as it implied the distinction which was designed to be kept up by Augustus ; for with the title of citizens the people acquired the im- portant benefit of the Roman laws, and the right of a free competition for the highest honors of the State; and it is asserted by Tacitus that the grandsons of the Gauls who besieged Julius Caesar in one 748 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL of his campaigns, commanded legions, governed provinces, and were admitted to the senate of Rome. 18. During more than a century and a-half previous to the reign of Augustus, the Italians had been exempt from taxation, while the tribute extorted from the provinces enriched Rome, and TAXATION. i 11 /. defrayed all expenses of government. Augustus, com- plaining of the insufficiency of the provincial tributes, introduced a system of customs and duties, and caused the real and personal property of the citizens to be assessed, and taxes on the same to be paid into the treasury : he did not extend the system of direct taxa- tion to the subjects who were not citizens, but demanded of them the customary tribute. Caracalla was led to extend constitutional free- dom over the whole empire, from the necessity, under which he had placed himself, of gratifying the insatiable avarice of his army ; as the proffered boon furnished him the pretext for demanding of the provincials the customary taxes paid by the citizens, while he con- tinued to extort from them the provincial tribute from which they were legally exempted. During the reign of Alexander Severus the provincials were relieved, in great measure, from this excessive taxa- tion ; but under succeeding emperors they were crushed to the earth and impoverished, and the country desolated, by heavy contributions of corn, wine, oil, and meat, in addition to the ordinary taxes which were exacted for the court, the army, and the capital. 19. Among the causes, and perhaps the most important of them, that concurred to let in the barbarians, and thereby contributed to the overthrow of the empire, was the depopulation of the provincial districts, occasioned by the excess of taxation, and by the competition which they had to encounter with the grain-growing districts of Egypt, Libya, and Sicily. It has often been alleged that the luxu- ries that flowed in from the conquered nations corrupted the Roman people, and destroyed their military virtues that the legions could not be recruited from Roman citizens and that the national defence was thus left to the uncertain fidelity of the semi-barbarous tribes on the frontiers. 20. But we know that, although corruption had pervaded the higher ranks of the Romans, and subjected to its influences the chief cities of the empire, the great mass of the people were suffering under an excess of poverty ; and that it was in the lower ranks, and in the country districts, that the greatest and most fatal weakness first ap- peared. Of the amount of taxation in proportion to property we CHAP. VIII.] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 749 are ignorant, as the tributary persons were fictitious several indi- gent citizens being united under one head, while the wealthy pro- vincial represented several. In a poetical request sent to one who had recently been appointed governor of Gaul, a wealthy poet, per- sonifying his tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the Geryon of the Grecian fables, implores the new Hercules to save his life by cutting off his three heads. 21. The fixedness of the amount on each municipality was a most grievous oppression to the frontier districts ; and as the tax seldom suffered any diminution, while the number of freemen on whom it fell yearly grew less as disasters of war laid waste the provinces, every attempt at productive industry was crushed, and the strongest incentive to defensive exertions taken away. Added to this, the grain-growing countries of Egypt, Libya, and Sicily, that were now embraced in the Roman dominions, and which rewarded the labors of the husbandman some fifty or sixty fold over the produce of the lands of Italy, Greece, and Spain, crushed, by free competition, all agricultural efforts in the latter countries, and forced the cultivators there to retire from the unequal contest, and devote their lands to pasturage, which required not one-fourth of the population that would otherwise have been devoted to tillage. Thus an impoverished population was driven back from the frontier districts upon the cities of the interior, where indolence, with all its attendant evils of poverty and crime, contributed to the destruction of the last remains of Ro- man virtue. 22. The Roman army was the powerful instrument on which the safety of the empire was thought to depend, by which its extensive conquests were defended, and to which its honor was THE principally intrusted. The early Romans were a nation ROMAN of warriors ; and in the purer ages of the commonwealth ARMY - the constitution permitted the ranks of the army to be filled with citizens only, who were interested in maintaining the government and institutions to which they owed their safety and happiness, while the officers were for the most part distinguished for their liberal birth and education. Thus the profession of arms was dignified by the rank and character of those who entered the service ; and as the Roman conquests extended, the proportion of the subjects increased over the number of citizens ; but as the civil wars began to encroach on the public freedom, the armies were often recruited from the most degraded of the populace, and from the camps of the barbarians ; 750 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL and the public virtue of the legions witnessed a corresponding de- cline. Sallust informs us that Marius levied troops for his African expedition from all who were inclined to volunteer, without observing the ancient method of enrolling those of certain classes only ; and Caesar formed one of his legions of Gauls and strangers ; although he afterwards extended to them the privileges of citizenship for their reward. At a later period entire legions of barbarian troops, who served the readiest those who paid the highest, formed alternately the terror and support of the tottering empire. 23. The Roman emperors, sensible of the decline of public virtue in the army, endeavored to supply the defect by motives of honor, the fear of punishment, and the hope of reward. The troops were required to take an oath annually, with every circumstance of so- lemnity, never to desert their standard, the golden eagle which glit- tered in front of their legion, to be obedient to their officers, and even to sacrifice their lives for the safety of their emperor, and the good of their country. Cowardice or disobedience received the severest punishment ; and the soldiers were taught to dread their officers more than the enemy. Promotion was ever open to ability and valor. In the time of Diocletian the annual stipend of a private soldier was twelve pieces of gold equivalent to about forty-seven dollars of our money. After twenty years' service, the veteran received about four hundred and forty-five dollars, or a proportional amount of land. 24. Some idea of the- military strength of the empire may be obtained from the number enrolled in the army, which, under the peace establishment of Adrian, formed a standing force of about three hundred and seventy-five thousand men. This formidable body was divided into thirty legions or brigades, each of which, with its attendant auxiliaries, numbered about twelve thousand five hundred men. The legions were stationed on the banks of large rivers, and along the frontiers of the surrounding barbarous nations, the main strength of the army being upon the Rhine and the Danube. The court of the monarch, and the capital, were defended by about twenty thousand chosen soldiers, who, under the titles of " City Cohorts," and "Praetorian Guards," were the authors of almost every revolution that distracted the empire, from the time of Au- gustus, by whom they were instituted, to that of Constantine the Great, who, in the war with Maxentius, the tyrant of Italy, almost CHAP. VIII.] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 751 annihilated those haughty troops in battle, and afterwards dispersed the rejnnant among the legions on the frontiers. 25. In military tactics, armor, and discipline, the Romans in the time of the empire were far in advance of the surrounding nations. The Macedonian Phalanx was superior to the Grecian, and the Roman legion to both. The former, presenting sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged together in closest array, was well adapted to resist attack ; but the superior activity of the Roman legion, which was usually drawn up eight deep, with intervals of three feet between the files as well as the ranks, rendered the latter a more available instrument on the field of battle. The armor of a heavy armed Roman soldier consisted of an open helmet, a breastplate or coat of mail, greaves on the legs, an ample concave buckler on the left arm, a broadsword, a light spear in the left hand, and a ponderous javelin in the right. The utmost length of the javelin was about six feet. It was termi- nated by a massy triangular point of steel twelve or eighteen inches in length ; and when launched, by a powerful-hand, a distance of ten or twelve paces, no shield or corslet could resist its weight. Besides his arms, the Roman soldier carried his tent furniture, instruments of fortification, and provisions for many days ; and under all this weight he was trained to march in a regular step. 26. The cavalry were incased in a coat of mail, a helmet, and light boots ; they also bore on their left arms an oblong shield, while the iavelin, and a long broadsword, were their principal weapons of offence. A Roman camp was an exact quadrangle on level ground, surrounded by a rampart of earth usually twelve feet high, armed with strong and intricate palisades, defended by a ditch of twelve feet in depth as well as in breadth, from which the earth of the ram- part had been taken. The Roman navy of Augustus and his suc- cessors was small, as compared with the army, and was composed principally of two permanent fleets, the one stationed at Ravenna on the Adriatic, and the other at Misenum in the Bay of Naples. A considerable force was stationed at Frejus, on the southern coast of Gaul ; the Euxine was guarded by thirty or forty ships ; and a few vessels preserved the communication between Gaul and Britain. The ships seldom exceeded three ranks of oars, as those of greater burden were considered too unwieldly for real service. 27. The religion of the Romans, which, in the early ages of the republic, preserved a homogeneousness of character, gradually verged into a complexity of rites and ceremonies, and a confused min- 752 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL gling of systems, as conquest enlarged the limits of the empire ; but RELIGION human sacrifices were abolished in Gaul by the emperors OF THE Tiberius and Claudius, not so much from motives of hu- Du^iNGTaK inanity, as f r tne purpose of suppressing the dangerous EMPIRE, power of the Druids ; and the rites that exhibited the abject superstition of the Egyptians were frequently prohibited at Rome. 28. The Roman government, however, often departed from the system of general toleration in its treatment of the Christian con- verts, the growth of whose numbers in the midst of paganism, and the final triumph of whose religion over all opposition, is one of the most remarkable facts which history records. An account of the rise and progress of Christianity must necessarily be passed over in a work like the present, for want of room ; but the influence which Christianity has exerted in the affairs of Europe, and the effects of its principles upon the civilization of mankind, form an important part of subsequent history. 29. The various pagan religions that were tolerated in the Roman empire, were in general considered by philosophers as equally true, or false, and equally useful ; and the Syrian and the Egyptian, the Greek, the Roman, and the barbarian, could easily persuade them- selves, that under different names and different forms of worship, they adored the same deities. As a bond of society, the advantages of some religion were admitted by all ; the persuasion that either in this, or a future life, the crime of perjury will be punished, was gen- erally acknowledged, although Lucian laments that, in his time, this apprehension had lost much of its effect. But the gods of the heathen, though still openly respected by all, had long been regarded with secret contempt by the polished and enlightened ; and in the age of the Antoniries a general infidelity on the subject of religion pervaded the minds of the people. 30. Something, however, was needed to supply the place of the waning pagan mythology ; for the human mind cannot rest without some principles of religious belief. The educated pagans found a refuge in the metaphysical speculations of the Greek philosophers ; while the multitude gave themselves up to a thousand superstitions, which exercised a great influence over many of the better informed classes also. Every unusual, unforeseen event, was converted into an omen ; the science of Astrology was sedulously cultivated ; in- terpreters of dreams, and fortune-tellers, exercised a gainful pro- CHAP. VIII] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 753 fession ; witchcraft, in its most gloomy features, seems to have been universally believed in ; and while the power of magicians to raise the dead was long a disputed question with the learned, it was never doubted that ghosts were wont to rise of their own accord. What renders these superstitions peculiarly deserving of notice is the strong hold which they had taken of the popular mind ; for the most unnatural tales respecting them are related by the best Roman writers as matters of veritable history. 31. Of the social morality of the Romans little need be said after the examples which have been ffiven, of unbounded , . ?.,. SOCIAL licentiousness and crime in the nobility and the emper- MORALITY ors. The manners and morals of the court ever exert OF THE a commanding influence upon the people, from the same principle that the tyranny of a despotic government is almost uni- versally imitated in the private life of its subjects. While a con- tempt of the decencies of life distinguished the Roman tyrants, a general dissoluteness of manners pervaded the people ; and Tacitus forcibly contrasts the virtues of the women of the rude German tribes, with the shameless conduct of the Roman ladies. A state of general concubinage prevailed, and was not deemed dishonorable ; and infanticide, the prevailing vice of antiquity, was tolerated until it was restrained by the laws of Valentinian and his associates. 32. In addition to the exceeding profligacy of the court, two other agents, domestic slavery, and the barbarous nature of the favorite public spectacles, may be assigned as prominent causes of the exceed- ing depravity of morals in the times of the empire. The slave merchants formed a large class, notorious for dishonesty ; and while the moral character of the slaves was ruined by their degraded state, owing to the vast multitudes and general distribution of these un- fortunate people, society was infected by their vices. Again, the manumitted slaves, or freedmeu, debased by servitude, were, as a class, the most rapacious and insolent part of the population. 33. The Romans under the empire, gradually neglecting such amusements as afforded intellectual recreation, turned with passion- ate enthusiasm to the spectacles of the amphitheatre, among which, mock sea fights, and the combats of gladiators with each other and with wild beasts, were the most favored diversions. Among the sea fights, Claudius exhibited one which exceeded all others in pomp as well as atrocity. On the Fucine Lake he caused two fleets of gal- leys, of fifty sail each, to be constructed ; these he manned with 48 754 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. nineteen thousand slaves and criminals, whom he caused to fight for the amusement of himself and court, and the degenerate Romans, until the greater part were slaughtered. The gladiators, usually re- fractory slaves or prisoners of war recently taken, were kept in large buildings or prisons, and subjected to a long course of training, pre- vious to being brought forward to contest in the arena. Nearly every petty town in Italy had its amphitheatre, where the gladiators were compelled to fight ; and thousands of them were annually slaughtered by each other before the eyes of the Roman people, who delighted in these spectacles of blood and cruelty. Tragedy had no part in Roman literature ; but in gross reality it was continually be- fore the eyes of the people, rendering their hearts seared and callous to human suffering, and furnishing daily provocations to the appetite for blood. The cruelties of the circus and amphitheatre are an addi- tional key to the atrocities of the Roman Imperators. To the influence of Christianity must be attributed the final suppression of these human sacrifices, in the reign of the emperor Honorius. IV. 34. But, turning from these gloomy pictures of national immor- ality, we are compelled to admit that, notwithstanding the seeds of decay which had long been germinating in the corrupt APPEARANCES soil of Roman degeneracy, the empire presented, in the OF GENERAL a g e O f ^ ne Antonines, an outward appearance of general PROSPERITY . _, i A i i /** i * IN THE AGE prosperity. The true principles ot social lite, laws, agn- OF THE culture, and science, which had first been invented by the wisdom of Athens, were then firmly established by the power of Rome, under whose auspicious influence the fiercest barbarians were united by an equal government and common lan- guage. With the improvement of arts, population increased ; the cities gained additional splendor ; the beautiful face of the country was cultivated and adorned like an immense garden ; and a long festival of peace was enjoyed by many nations forgetful of their ancient animosities, and delivered from the apprehension of future dangers, a 35. Ancient Italy is stated by a writer of the time of Alexander Severus, to have contained eleven hundred and ninety-seven cities. Gaul, in the time of Vespasian, could boast of twelve hundred ; and Pliny assigns three hundred and sixty to Spain. In the woods of a. Gibbon, i. 34, quotes from Pliny, Tertulliaa, &c. CHAP. VIIL] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 755 Britain spaces had been opened for convenient and elegant habitations. York, the capital, was a thriving town ; Bath was celebrated for its medicinal waters ; and a busy commerce already enlivened the streets of London. Carthage had arisen with new splendor from its ashes, and was regarded as the capital of Africa. Corinth and Athens had recovered all the advantages that could be separated from sovereignty; and Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, exhibited a multitude of cities whose splendor is attested by their ruins. 36. The cities of the most distant provinces were united with each other, and with the capital, by public highways, traces of which, at- testing the solidity of their construction, are still visible after the lapse of fifteen centuries. These roads consisted of a terrace of earth, sand, gravel, and cement, in many places paved with large stones, and near the capital with blocks of granite. The most entire, as well as the most ancient of these highways, is the Appian road, commenced in the four hundred and forty second year of Rome, and leading from the capital through Capua to Brundusium. At a depth of several feet is found, in the Appian way, a pavement of hard whitish stone ; above is a bed of pebbles and gravel, on which rests the surface pavement, composed of stones with hewn edges, and fitted to each other with the utmost exactness. The lower pavement was probably the original road, and it is supposed that the upper stratum was added in the times of Nerva and Trajan. 37. The aqueducts leading into the capital were perhaps the most extraordinary works of the Roman people. Of these, the nine which supplied Rome with water in the reigns of Nerva and Trajan, had a total length of more than two hundred and fifty miles. The longest, the Marcian, extends to two springs in the valley of the Arno, a distance of sixty-one miles ; and for more than six miles, near Rome, it was carried on arches, stupendous lines of which are still to be seen on the left of the Alban road. 38. The ruins that still exist of the public buildings of the im- perial age the amphitheatres, theatres, temples, baths, porticos, and triumphal arches which embellished not only the capital and Italy, but all the Roman provinces, would alone be sufficient to prove that those countries were once the seat of a wealthy, polite, and powerful empire. Until the time of Augustus, Roman architecture, formed upon Grecian models, exhibited little originality of invention ; but the great extent demanded for the Roman amphitheatres, circuses, and similar edifices, gave rise to a new style of building, the distin- 756 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET IIL guishing feature of which was the union of the arch with the Grecian orders. In the amphitheatre, which Was best calculated for the dis- play of the new style, vaults rose above vaults in magnificent gal- leries, and the huge fabric was adorned by beautiful Grecian colon- nades. Another change in style was the mixture of the Ionic and Corinthian, which formed a new order, called the Roman or Com- posite. 39. In sculpture and painting, the Romans discovered but little nationality of art, as their subjects were almost invariably borrowed from the mythology and legendary history of the Grecians, to the exclusion of scenes from the annals or poetical traditions of their own nation. Still these arts, especially that of sculpture, were culti- vated with considerable success by the Romans of the imperial age ; and, as exponents of thought and national character, the existing re- mains of them are highly valuable. The Laocoon and the Apollo Belvidere, works of Roman art which exhibit the perfection of sculp- ture, proudly vie in design with the sublimest conceptions of a Virgil or a Homer, and rival, in execution, the skill of a Praxit' les or a Phid' ias. 40. A knowledge of the kind and degree of education obtained by the great mass of the Roman people would be highly desirable ; but on this point our information is quite limited. It appears, however, that, both in early times, and throughout the period of the empire, the Romans had public schools, which were frequented by boys and girls of all ranks. Reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, were the only branches taught in them ; and here the instruction of the common people ended ; but the children of the higher classes, who were able to obtain private tutors, passed through several subsequent courses of learning. First, the elements of Greek and Latin were taught ; for the former was the natural idiom of science, while the exclusive use of the latter was maintained in the administration of civil as well as military government ; and every person of liberal education was expected to be conversant with both. After the mastery of the languages, the student received lessons in rhetoric, philosophy, and general literature. 41. Until the time of Vespasian no professorships received public endowment, the schools being supported by the fees of tuition. Ves- pasian, however, conferred salaries on a few teachers of literature and eloquence ; Adrian extended the scheme; and Antoninus Pius intro- duced, generally, into the principal towns, both in Italy and the CHAP. VIII.] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 757 provinces, seminaries in which all the higher branches of education were taught by salaried professors. Mathematics, however, and the natural sciences, were almost universally neglected ; and no teacher of these branches ever received a public salary,* Bookshops, con- taining for sale manuscript copies of books, first appeared at Rome in the time of Augustus ; and the business of a copyist soon after be- came a profession of considerable importance. Private libraries of considerable extent had accumulated in Rome as early as the time of Cicero. The first public library in Rome was the celebrated one which belonged to Aristion of Athens, and which was captured by Sylla, and placed by him in the capitol. Afterwards, the public libraries of Rome increased to twenty-nine in number under the emperors : the most important of which were those founded by Augustus, Vespasian, and Trajan. V. 42. The Augustan, or Golden age of Roman literature, to which the attention of the reader has been called in a previous chapter, was followed by an era commonly called the Silver Age, which was marked by a style quite inferior to the former, AGK OF and a taste considerably corrupted. " About the time ROMAN of the death of Augustus, and in the reign of Tiberius," says Niebuhr, " the rhetoricians exercised a paramount influence upon all branches of literature. Their only object was to produce effect by sophistical niceties, and a bombastic phraseology ; thoughts and substance were considered of secondary importance." 11 Gibbon says that although the love of letters was fashionable among the subjects of Adrian and the Antonines, yet " the name of poet was almost forgotten ; that of orator was usurped by the sophists ; and a cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning." The Greek writers, who seemed already to have occu- pied every place of honor, were still the models that were faintly copied by the Romans ; and as freedom of thought and expression, especially on philosophical and political subjects, could seldom be in- dulged in with safety under the arbitrary rule of the emperors, a de- cided check was thereby placed on the most elevated kind of prose composition. 43. Yet in the period of the decline of Roman literature, and the decay of Roman greatness, there are names that would have done a. Spalding's Italy, i. 324. b. Niebuhr, v. lect. briii. c. Gibbon, 1. 36. 758 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET HI. honor to a better age ; although perhaps there are few writers among them of original genius, or of a style really eloquent. During the Silver Age of Roman literature, which embraced a period of one hundred and eighty years, from the death of Augustus to that of Marcus Aurelius, the most distinguished of the Roman writers are the poets Lucan and Juvenal, Seneca the moralist and philoso- pher, Pliny the naturalist, Quintilian the rhetorician, and Tacitus the historian. 44. Of Lucan, whom Gibbon calls " the inimitable," and Niebuhr, the " bad poet," the most opposite opinions have been entertained. His principal work, and the only one that has come down to us, the Pharsalia, describes the wars of Caesar and Pompey, and depicts with great vividness the death struggle of the Roman Republic, in which the moral greatness of Cato rises in pious serenity above the elements of discord and the wreck of freedom. This poem, although it has heavy faults of plan and style, for which great allowance should be made to the youth of the author, has been characterized by a late critic a as a one of the grandest in any language." Lucan died in his twenty-sixth year, a victim to the tyranny of Nero. 45. Seneca, the paternal uncle of Lucan, whose tutorship of Nero, and his murder by the tyrant, have given additional interest to his writings, was the most remarkable man of the age in which be lived. Professedly a stoic philosopher, he was an earnest advocate of ascetio severity, and a valuable instructor of mankind ; yet he failed to practice the lessons which he inculcated upon others. He is charged with unbounded avarice, and a violent rage for popularity, while his private life was confessedly irregular, and far from being commend- able. The style of Seneca is antithetical, -forced, and unnatural ; yet he was the best writer of his age, and although his example doubtless precipitated the fall of Roman letters, yet his moral in- fluence was for the time beneficial. Juvenal, distinguished as an eminent satirical poet, died at an advanced age in the reign of Adrian. He painted, with a bold and free hand, the vices and follies of the times ; and although not a purely classical writer, he was a man of probity, and worthy of a better age. 46. Pliny the Elder, called also the Naturalist^ wrote a great number of books upon various subjects ; but the last and most im- portant of his writings, was his Natural History. This was a work of great erudition, containing extracts from more than two hundred a. Spalding. See his Italy and the Italian Islands, i. 131. CHAP. VIIL] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 759 volumes; but the plan is imperfect, and the execution exhibits a great want of discrimination in the selection of materials, for tales the most marvellous and unnatural are related without once having their probability questioned. Pliny was little more than a mere compiler, and one often unacquainted with the things about which he collects the opinions of others ; yet his work is a treasure of Latin terms and expressions, without the aid of which it would have been almost impossible to reestablish the Latin language. Pliny lost his life by the same eruption of Vesuvius in which the cities, Hercula- neum and Pompeii, were destroyed. 47. Quintilian the rhetorician, a native of Spain, who wrote near the close of the first century, and in the early part of the second, was the restorer of a better taste in literature, and the most classical writer of the Silver Age. The work which has immortalized his name is entitled " The Institutes of Oratory," an elaborate treatise on the rhetorical -art, exhibiting results of a refined critical spirit, of a pure taste, of extensive and varied reading, and a long course of practical experience. 48. Tacitus, a cotemporary of Quintilian, whose lectures on rhet- oric he probably attended, was one of Home's best historians, and in some respects superior to Livy himself. His principal works are his life of Agricola, his annals, and his history ; the latter two embrac- ing a period in Roman history of eighty-one years, from the death of Augustus to that of Domitian, although portions of both works have been lost. The style of Tacitus is peculiarly distinguished for that brevity which is sparing of words and prodigal of sentiment ; and hence his laconic manner has rendered him frequently obscure to modern readers, where he might have been perfectly clear to a scholar of his own times. He has been called the Father of Phi- losophical History; but his criticisms relate more to individual character, than to subjects of political speculation. VI. 49. If we turn to Greek literature in the period of the Silver Age, we find, amid the general darkness, a few isolated _ . GREEK LITE- authors whose names deserve honorable mention. In the EATURE reign of Augustus we meet with Dionysius of Halicar- DURING THE nassus, an excellent critic and rhetorician, but only a tolerable historian. He wrote, in Greek, a history of the Roman people for the use of his countrymen ; but with all his study and re- 760 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. search he was imperfectly acquainted with the Roman constitution. His critical works are valuable. Dionysius was succeeded by the geographer Strabo, who was born at Pontus, in Asia Minor. His great work, which appears to have occupied a considerable portion of a long life, not only shows a vast amount of erudition for the times, but bears on every page evidence of a philosophical and re- flecting mind. Both Dionysius and Strabo, however, belong more nearly to the Augustan than to the Silver Age. 50. After Strabo, we meet with the excellent and amiable Plutarch, a native of Chseronea in Boeotia, who was born about the middle of the first century. Of the several productions of this writer, that to which he owes his. celebrity is his " Lives" or biographical sketches of distinguished Greeks and Romans, which contain a treasure of practical philosophy, of morality, and of sound and useful maxims, the fruit of a long experience. In the age of the Antonines, a period which witnessed a revival of Greek literature, we meet with Lucian, celebrated for his satirical " Dialogues," exposing the vices, follies, and delusions of the times ; with Galen the physician, and Pausanias a traveller and geographical writer ; but of the whole school of Greek rhetoricians of this period it has been justly said that there is little substance in what they spoke and wrote. VII. 51. The later period of Roman history, from the time of the Antonines to the fall of the "Western Empire, was nearly a blank in ROMAN the native literature and philosophy of Italy, if we ex HISTORY ce pt the dawning of jurisprudence as a science, which nME^THE was honored by the worthy names of Papinian and Ul- ANTONINES. pian. Almost the only light that shone upon this age of decay was derived from a new philosophical school, that of the Latter Platonists, or Eclectics, whose seat was Alexandria. The Electics, taking the opinions of Plato concerning God, the human soul, and things invisible, as the basis of their system, and as not in- consistent with the spirit and genius of the Christian doctrine, col- lected their dogmas from every school, and attempted a coalition of all sects and systems, by maintaining that the great principles of truth were to be found equally in all, and that they differed from each other only in the mode of expressing them. In conformity to this plan, by removing the fables of the priests from Paganism, and the comments and interpretations of the Apostles from Christianity, CHAP. VIII.] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 761 and by reducing the whole history of the heathen gods to an allegory, they made all the religions of the world harmonize with each other. This plausible system, which was adopted by many pagan writers, and by some of the Christian fathers, extended rapidly for a time, and was the source of innumerable errors and corruptions in the Christian Church. Ammonius, Plotinus, and Porphyry, were the orignators, or early advocates, of the new school. 52. This re-awakening of philosophy in the East appears to have been the cause of a brief revival of Grecian literature, which shone forth the brighter from the growing intensity of the surrounding darkness. Among the Greek writers of this period may be mentioned, as the most conspicuous, the names of Longinus the critic and rhet- orician, author of the celebrated treatise on " The Sublime" Arrian the annalist and philosopher ; Diogenes Laertius, who wrote the Lives of the philosophers ; and the historians Herodian and Dio Cassius ; but none of these, except Longinus, belong to the first class of writers, although they were such as the dull Latin literature of the period had nothing to match. VIII. 53. As we approach the period of the dissolution of the "Western empire, the causes of decline increase, and the darkness which settles on the minds and morals of the people grows CAUSES OF rapidly more intense. About the time of Theodosius, DECL I N *- education for the many had almost entirely died away, while for the few it seemed suddenly to become more complete in the establish- ment, at Rome, by Theodosius, of a regular college, which numbered thirty-one professors. But this was only the evanescent glare of the expiring luminary. Even before this time public morals had become as depraved as they well could be, and the little of pure Christianity that was diffused among the western Romans, was unable to stem the overwhelming torrents of vice and misery. With the external and more immediate causes of the ruin of the empire the irruptions of the barbarians the reader is already acquainted. By the time of Diocletian, the increasing diversity of interests, feelings, and preju- dices, in the widely-distant provinces, the frequency of rebellions, and the inroads of the barbarians, so multiplied the cares of government, that the burden seemed too great for one man to sustain, and a di- vision of the Roman world into the Eastern and Western empires, ap- peared necessary to internal security as well as foreign defence. 762 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. But nothing could arrest the progress of decay, for Roman virtue was extinct, the heart was rotten to the core. The nation of Ro- man citizens and soldiers had become confounded with the millions of provincials with the Spaniard, the Briton, the Gaul, the Syrian, the Egyptian, and the Moor who had received the name, without adopting the spirit, of Romans. The stern old Roman soldiery had given place to mercenary legions levied among the barbarians of the frontiers ; the languages and dialects spoken in a Roman camp emu- lated the confusion of Babel ; and by the tumultuary election of a Roman army, a Groth, a Syrian, or an Arab, was exalted to the throne, and invested with despotic power over the conquests and over the country of the Scipios. When the unity of the empire was de- stroyed, and the identity of Rome as the mistress of nations was lost in the founding of the Byzantine capital, the old attachments that clustered around the " Eternal City," and that were affixed to the Roman name, were gone forever ; a voiceless forum and a deserted senate only imbittered the remembrance of past glories and virtues ; and the Roman world, swayed from the centre of its attraction, was already fast breaking into fragments when the inundations of the barbarians, sweeping like a torrent over Italy, served to complete, rather than hasten, the general ruin. 54. Of the gloomy forebodings, and the despair of their country, that filled the minds of the more intelligent and virtuous citizens in the last age of the empire, we have a multitude of evidence in the writings of the historians, lawgivers, statesmen, philosophers, and di- vines, of that period. From the opposite extremes of the pagan and the Christian world, we select two examples which portray in vivid colors the saddening degeneracy of the times, although the lamenta- tions are called forth by very different views and principles. Sym'- machus, the heathen pontiff, augur, and prefect of Rome, indulges the following reflections in a letter to a friend. " You complain," says he, " that I send you no narrative of public events. What if I answer, it is better to let them pass unnoticed ? The ancient oracles have grown dumb : in the grotto of Cumse are read no mystic char- acters : no voice issues from the tree of Dodona : no chanted verse is heard amid the vapors of the Delphic cell. And we, mortal and impotent, who owe our very existence to the act of a religious demi- god, may most wisely learn from the silence of heaven, and ponder in quiet over that sad history of our race, for which the book of prophecy has no longer a leaf." Such was the lament of the cham- CHAP. VIIL] THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 763 pion of the old faith. Saint Ambrose, the Christian bishop of Milan in the fourth century, and one of the latest and most distinguished of what are denominated the Fathers of the Church, expresses similar feelings in a different tone. He describes a journey in which are passed successively Bologna, a Modena, Reggio, a and Piacenza. a Those ancient cities lie half ruined, and half unpeopled : among the valleys of the Apennines stretch wide uncultivated wastes, where of old the land bloomed like a garden ; and on the surrounding heights, the site of once flourishing villages is marked by mouldering and roofless walls. The pious churchman speaks of the grief which we feel for departed friends, as softened by our trust that they have passed to a purer life ; but for his country he has no such hopes of renewed existence : her prosperity is sunk forever. ' * " Oh Rome ! ray country ! city of the soul ! The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, Lone mother of dead empires ! and control In their shut breasts their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye I Whose agonies are evils of a day A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay." Childe Harold. a. Pronounced Bo-lone-ya, Redge-yo, Pe-a-chen'-za. 764 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III CHAPTER IX. THE MIDDLE AGES ANALYSIS. 1. Prominent subjects of history during the thousand years succeeding the fall of the Roman empire. A Dark Age. 2. The two different views that may be taken of it. What the former requires. The latter. Importance of the latter. 3. UNITY OF CHARACTER IN ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. Among the Jews in Egypt in India, China, and Asia Minor. Character of Grecian acivilization. Great diversity of the Elements of Modern Civilization. 4. Theocracy, monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, &c. 5. ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES DERIVED FROM THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Municipal corporations. Despotic rule. 6. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH how made to cooperate in the advance of modern civilization. 7. THE BARBARIAN WORLD individual liberty, and military protection. 8. The three kinds of society existing at the time of the fall of the Roman empire. The four principles growing out of them. The claims of monarchy of theocracy of aristocracy of democracy. Basis of the claims of each. 9. UNSETTLED CONDITION OF INDIVIDUALS. Freemen vassals freedmen slaves. Prop- erty. 10. Unsettled condition OF GOVERNMENTS AND STATES. Social developments arising out of the elements enumerated. 11. IMPULSES TOWARDS AN ESCAPE FROM BARBARISM. Great men unforgotten glories of civilized Rome compilation of laws. INFLUENCES OF THE CHURCH. Laws of the Christianized Visigoths. 12. The Church did little for the advancement of the individual : more for the melioration of the social condition of man. Political influence of the Church on the side of despotism. 13. Increasing internal tranquillity, and rise of the Feudal System. 14. THE TWO- FOLD INFLUENCES OF FEUDALISM. 15. Decline of the municipal system. The cities begin to regain their importance. They are oppressed by the feudal lords. GENERAL INSURRECTION OF THE CITIES in the eleventh century. 16. The cities prevail. Their relations to the king and the feudal lords rise of a "Third Estate" and the beginning of the struggle between monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. 17. Different views of this struggle. On what the final triumph of democracy must depend. 18. EFFECTS OF THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE CITIES. Government of the cities. Growing inequalities among the citizens. The burgesses. Confederations among the cities. The Hanseatic League. Its power and wealth. The Italian cities. The Lombard and German war. 19. EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES. Spirit in which they were undertaken. European and national character of the enterprise shared in by all classes. 20. Tendency to more enlarged views. 21. Illustrations given by Guizot. 22. Changes in the social state during the crusades. Attempts at Centralization of Power. 23. First : ATTEMPT AT THEOCRATIC ORGANIZATION. 24. Three-fold causes of the failure. Popular reaction against the Church in the thirteenth century. The Albigenses. Pope Boniface VIII. 25. Second: ATTEMPTS AT DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION. Partial success in Italy. Failure in the south of France. Results in Switzerland Flanders the German Leagues. 26. Third: ATTEMPT AT A UNION OF THE VARIOUS ELEMENTS OF SOCIETY : in the States-General of France : in the Cortes of Spain and Portugal : in Germany. 27. Success of the union in England alone. 28. Fourth: SUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS AT MONARCHICAL ORGANIZA- TION. The progress of centralization in the fifteenth century. 29. Gradual consolidation of the French monarchy. Its internal regulations. 30. Consolidation of the Spanish monarchy. Of the German empire. Concentration of the Italian Republics. Subsequent history of Italy. CHAP. IX.] THE MIDDLE AGES. 765 \ 31. Centralization of powers in England. 32. The general tendency towards absolute mon- archy. How monarchy contributed to the civilization of Europe. 33. MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHANOKS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Church reforms. The great schism in the Church. John Huss and Jerome of Prague. 34. REVIVAL or LITERA- TURE. Italian literature. 35. INVENTIONS. 36. DISCOVERIES. \ I. 1. The prominent subjects of history during the thousand years that succeeded the fall of the Western empire of the Romans, after the great deluge of barbarism had overwhelmed Europe, are the rise, establishment, and decline, of the Saracen empire the rise of the monarchy of the Franks the beginnings of English history the Feudal system Chivalry and the Crusades. These are the promi- nent outward events and subjects the surface life w^ich historical narrative elucidates. This is, emphatically, as it has been called, a DARK AGE in its general features, an age of ignorance and super- stition ; an age of passion, and romance ; a period of storms, and strife, lit up by an occasional meteor glare that only renders the darkness more visible ; but in its troubled and tempestuous waste we are to search for the elements of modern civilization. 2. Two different, but not opposing views, may be taken of this broad field of history. Its barren Zaharas its few fertile oases its desolating barbarian inroads its now mouldering castles, wrecks of feudal power its proud barons its courtly knights its crusading hosts its chivalric honor, love, and enthusiasm may be so portrayed as to present a vivid panorama of the whole, finished to the sight ; or, on the other hand, we may pass behind the scenes, and examine the picture in all its stages of growth its elements, combinations, groupings, and colorings and the machinery that moves the whole. The former requires the artistic labor of the painter or sculptor, the latter that of the anatomist : the results of the former may be the most entertaining ; but to those already familiar with the general subject, the latter, assuredly, must be the most instructive and use- ful ; and without the knowledge which it presents, the modern student can have no just and comprehensive views of the great struggles for power that have since transpired, and that are now transpiring, on the vast theatre of European politics. II. 3. When we look at the kind and degree of civilization that pre- vailed in the States of antiquity, we find there, almost universally, 766 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL an exceeding unity of character some one general, prevailing, prin- ciple, that influenced all the developments of society. CHARACTER Thus, among the Jews, the theocratic system prevailed, IN ANCIENT imposing upon society its laws, and giving a great degree CIVILIZATION. - . ?. ., , .. ,. , ,. - , of simplicity and unity to the character of the people. In Egypt a religion of fixed rites and ceremonies produced monotony, and threw around society a barrier beyond which civilization could make no farther progress. Similar results are observable among the religious people of early India, and the Chinese, and the same ten- dencies to unity in the character of civilization are the legitimate effects of any one all-absorbing principle or system to which the people yield implicit deference. Among the commercial republics which covered the coasts of Phoenicia and Asia Minor the democratic principle prevailed, impressing its character upon the institutions^ habits, and manners, of the people. In Greece, the combined social and municipal principle, as exhibited in the numerous independent and often rival cities that covered the land, like so many families having separate interests, feelings, and sympathies, was at the basis of a civilization the most rapid and remarkable the world has ever witnessed. III. Great diversity of the Elements of Modern Civilization. 4. When, however, we turn to modern Europe, we find there, during the Middle Ages, a widely different state of things in the prodigious diversity of all those ideas and sentiments, principles, feelings, opinions, and systems, which form the elements of society. Theocracy, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, with numerous gradations of each, are found side by side ; and these principles, ever active, ever jostling each other, each striving after superiority, all modified by the collisions which they encountered, and no one power or system capable of excluding the rest, have combined, with the diversities in religion and morals, in literature and the arts, to con- stitute modern European civilization as it now exists. If we would understand and appreciate the true character of that civilization, we must investigate the origin of this variety of the elements of social organization, follow them hi their constant struggles for power, and analyze with care their results and tendencies. 5. For the earliest elements of modern European civilization it is natural that we should look to the period of the dissolution of the CHAP. IX.] THE MIDDLE AGES. 767 Roman empire, that we may learn what the ancient world bequeathed to the modern. Greece, from its earliest annals, down ELEMENTARY to the time of its conquest by the Romans, was divided PRINCIPLES into a large number of petty States, whose governments F ^ IV K were little more than city corporations. 8 - The federal KOMAN tie between the States was always weak ; and the city, EMPIRE. which composed the State, was the point towards which the best affections of the citizens centered. The government of Rome was, in its origin, a mere city corporation : the numerous Italian nations that surrounded Rome were nothing more than confederations of cities : in the Gauls and in Spain the entire population was con- centrated in large fortified towns ; and the Roman dominion was en- larged by the conquest and founding of cities, that often assumed the rank of nations. The cities conquered had once been little free re- publics, like 'that of Rome, and when they became incorporated into the Roman world, their national rights, or rights of sovereignty only, were transferred to the central government, and Rome reigned over a vast number of municipalities. Everywhere there was an almost total absence of a rural population : the numerous churches, baronial castles, country seats, and villages, that sprung up in the Middle Ages, were unknown ; and the country was tilled by the dweilers in cities ; while slaves alone, with their overseers, resided on the sur- rounding plantations. The Roman world was a vast system of mu- nicipal corporations, having few points of cohesion, and with local ties far stronger than national affinities ; all attempts to form the whole into one general State were unavailing ; it was feebly held together by the despotic administration of the empire ; and when it broke in pieces, the incoherent assemblage of municipal republics was resolved into the elements of which it had been composed ; and all the monuments of civilization which Rome bequeathed to the moderns were strongly impressed with the municipal character. " The Roman world had been formed of cities, and to cities again it returned." 1 * But with the habits of independent thought and action, and the principles of political liberty engendered by an immediate share in the regulations of city government, there was associated the idea of the majesty and power of the empire ; and with that the deferential respect paid to the name of emperor. On the one hand, growing out of the system of municipal rule, there was the inde- pendence of personal respect, based on the real self-importance of a. See p. 70. b. Guizot. History of Civilization in Europe, p. 48. 768 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. the individual, as a citizen ; and on the other, growing out of the ex- ercise of absolute power, there was the principle of order, and the principle of servitude. The municipal system and despotic rule personal liberty and political servitude combined were the two living principles that survived the wreck of the Roman world, and that have left their impress on every feature of modern European civilization. 6. A still more important connecting link, however, between the THK old Roman empire and the barbarian world that arose CHRISTIAN on its ruins, was the institution called the Christian IURCH. Church not the mere belief, the personal opinions, the individual convictions, that form our idea of the spirit or essence of Christianity, but the Church, with its magistracy of priests, bishops, and deacons ; and a system of clerical government that gave it a separate existence, independently of the society over which it ruled. In the West, the Church was able to withstand the barbarian inva- sions, and even to make numerous and powerful converts in the ranks of the enemies of the empire ; and in the East, in the times of Theodosius and Justinian, and afterwards in the West, we find that the clergy were everywhere elevated to power, and that they general- ly became the chief magistrates in the city corporations. An ecclesi- astical municipal system succeeded that of the Roman world, and prepared the way for the free cities and petty republics that over- spread Italy, and, to a considerable extent, other countries also, during the Middle Ages. Thus at a time when society seemed on the point of being overwhelmed by physical force, a power resting entirely upon moral influences, which proclaimed a law above all human law, was brought in to preserve it, and made to cooperate in the advance of modern civilization. The Church itself gained a vast accession of strength by the consideration thus attached to it, and with accumulated force reacted upon the materials of social order by which it was surrounded. 7. To these elements of civilization derived from the Church and THE *^e R man empire, the barbarians added that strong BARBARIAN love of individual liberty so universal in savage life a WORLD. f ee i} n g O f personal independence before unknown dif- fering from Roman freedom as being the personal liberty of the man, rather than the political liberty of the citizen. A second element of civilization derived from the barbarians was the strong tie of military protection that graduated brotherhood in arms that existed between CHAP. IX.] THE MIDDLE AGES. 769 a chieftain and his followers which was the beginning of a subordina- tion that led to a feudal aristocracy, and eventually established the relationship between sovereign and vassal. 8. At the time of the fall of the Roman empire we find, therefore, as the elements of future social order throughout central and West- ern Europe, three kinds of society existing, municipal, Christian, and barbarian, each differing from the other ; and growing out of these we early detect the various principles of monarchy, theocracy, 8 and democracy, all existing together, and neither prevailing over the others, although each has in later days claimed for itself an undivided share in the original formation of European society. Monarchy has asserted that the German kings, in the person of Charlemagne and his successors, inherited all the rights of the Roman emperors : theo- cracy, in the person of the Church of Rome, claimed the right of governing society, on the pretensions of her sacred mission and di- vine sanction : aristocracy declared that, at the downfall of the Ro- man empire, the conquering nation, forming afterwards the nobility, alone possessed authority, and established an aristocratic organiza- tion, which thus became the primitive and genuine form of European government ; and democracy declared that, in the fifth century, so- ciety was ruled by the assemblies of freemen that free institutions first arose on the ruins of the empire, and that kings and nobles af- terwards enriched themselves by the spoils of this primitive liberty. Each of these principles has claimed the right to rule, by virtue of its supposed priority to the others, and its unopposed adoption ; while each, as if conscious that force is no ground of title, disclaims its establishment as the offspring of violence. 9. As no general principle nothing like stability prevailed in the social system of this early period, there was an equal variety, and a want of permanency, in the condition of individuals. Freemen, who held their life and property in full lib- CONDITION erty ; vassals, who owed fealty and service to their OK INDI- patrons ; freedmen, who had been released from the bondage of servitude ; and slaves, with all the marks of their sub- jection upon them, were found side by side ; but the relations in a. The term theocracy, for want of a better, is used in this chapter, on the authority of Guizot in his " History of Civilization," to denote, simply, Ecclesiastical or Church government. Al- though theocracy means " government of a state by the immediate direction of God," yet as the Church of Rome then the only Church claimed the right to govern by divine sanction, there is no impropriety in designating that government as theocratical, provided the correct meaning be attached to the term. There has been but one genuine theocracy on the earth the government of the Israelites. 49 i /70 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET III which those classes stood to each other were not fixed and uniform, for freemen were daily becoming vassals, and vassals were shaking off the yoke of patronage, and returning to the class of freemen : everywhere society was in motion, and no rank or class of persons long continued the same. Property was in the same unsettled con- dition, some estates being allodial, or entirely free, others beneficiary, or held by various degrees of tenure, all marking the period of transition from the wandering life to a more advanced state of civil- ization. 10. In the different systems of government that struggled for su- premacy, there was no uniformity no fixedness of character : the conditions of fealty due to the baronial aristocracy were almost in- finitely diversified ; while free institutions often sunk into decay from OF GOVERN- * ne ne gl ec t f those who should have supported them. MENTS AND States, created, suppressed, united, and divided, by a STATES. thousand circumstances of personal ambition, conquest, or alliance, had seldom any definite limits ; nations and races were confusedly intermingled ; and a strange variety of idioms existed in the place of the systematic languages of Greece and Rome. It must not be supposed that when the Roman empire fell, the great movement of nations was over ; for during five centuries the German and Slavonian tribes, pressing upon the Rhine and the Danube, and the Saracens, attacking various points on the Mediterranean, kept the interior of Europe in such a state of continued ferment, that it was impossible for society to acquire any degree of permanence. IV. Social developments arising out of the elements enumerated. 11. We have enumerated the elements of which European society was composed soon after the fall of the Roman empire, and we now proceed to consider what social developments, and what influences on IMPULSES the progress of civilization arose out of them. During the TOWARDS i on g night of darkness from the fifth to the fifteenth cen- AN ESCAPE i i i /. i i FROM BAR- tury, the impulses towards an escape trom barbarism were BARISM. numerous. Amidst the chaos of universal disorder a few great men appeared, as Alfred the Great and Charlemagne, who had aspirations for a better state of things, and who labored to civil- ize the nations they governed : the glories of civilized Rome were not unknown, nor entirely forgotten, by the nations that had over- CHAP. IX.] THE MIDDLE AGES. 771 whelmed her : between the sixth and the eighth century are recorded the first attempts of our barbarian ancestors to bring society under the authority of general and fixed principles, by compilations of the laws of nearly all the European nations ; and the Christian church, a regularly organized society, embracing most of the learning of the times, made unremitting efforts, in its attempts to rule over barba- rism, to assimilate the surrounding world to itself. In INFLUENOES Spain, before the invasion of the Saracens, the Church OF THE was the chief instrument of civilization ; and in the laws CHURCH. of the Visigoths, compiled mostly by the clergy, are seen the first indications of learning, philosophy, and system, that we meet with in the legislation of modern Europe. Under the early barbarians, each separate people, although united under the same government, was judged by its own laws the Romans by one system, the Franks by another -'but the Christianized Visigoths compelled all the free- men to yield obedience to the same law. Among the barbarians nearly all capital offences were punished by fines, varying according to the rank of the offender ; but the Visigoths, considering the lives of all men of equal worth in the eyes of the law, punished murder with death. a 12. For the development of the capacities of man for the ad- vancement of the individual the Church evidently did but little, except what was confined to the clergy themselves ; and for these she established schools and colleges, and such other institutions as the deplorable state of society would permit. For the melioration of the social condition of man, however, her labors were highly effica- cious. By her influences, the rugged manners and sentiments of the great were softened ; slavery, intestine wars, and other evils of the social system, were combated ; legislation was improved ; and some degree of literary taste, that would, otherwise, have perished, was kept alive in the world. But in a political point of view, the in- fluence of the Church, as between the governing and governed, was decidedly opposed to liberty. Unfortunately there prevailed in its bosom a desire to rule in matters of faith apart from the convictions of reason or the consent of the will ; and with this was connected the attempt to establish for itself an absolute theocracy, and thus to ob- tain universal dominion, both temporal and spiritual ; but, failing in this, it leagued itself with temporal rulers, and sheltering itself under a. For an interesting abstract of the laws of the Visigoths see " History of Spain and Por- tugal," (published by the Harpers,) vol. iv. pp. 70-89. 772 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. their claims of absolute power, attempted to establish the divine right of kings, at the expense of the liberty of the people. In the struggles between prerogative arid liberty, the Church, throughout the entire period of the Middle Ages, arrayed itself on the side of despotism. 13. In addition to the two-fold influences of the Church, one salutary to the intellectual and moral condition of man, and the other detrimental to his political condition both silently working in the midst of barbarism, about the beginning of the tenth century the emigration of nations had ceased, and the wandering life had declined in the interior of Europe ; population, consequently, became more fixed, landed possessions more settled, and the customs which make laws more uniform : all the social relations of men also assumed in- creasing permanency ; their ideas and sentiments acquired a more fixed character ; their roving dispositions began to yield to attach- ments to place ; and at the close of the first period of barbarism, the Feudal System had taken possession of European society. 14. The influences of feudalism on civilization were also two-fold. To the ruling orders it gave great additional energy and indepen- dence of character, and, as the parent of chivalry, it gave FOLD INFLU- birth to elevated ideas and feelings, and noble develop- KNCES OF m ents of sentiment in individuals ; and it was under this form that foe civilization of Europe began ; but at the same time it was a blight upon the social condition of the masses, and an obstacle to the progress of society ; it subjected the lower classes to every species of lawless oppression, and everywhere op- posed, not only the establishment of general order, but the extension of general liberty. Feudalism and the Church were, therefore, to a great extent, opposing influences upon society upon the masses and it was not until the former was substantially overthrown, about the beginning of the fourteenth century, that the condition of the people began to be sensibly improved. 15. With the growing influences of feudalism, the municipal sys tern left by the Romans had gradually declined in importance, until, about the tenth century, the towns, having no political connection with the kings, or national rulers, were everywhere subjected to the control of feudal lords, although exempt from the servitude of the agricultural portions of community. When, however, the wandering habits of the people had ceased, and society had become more per- manent, the increasing activity and industry of the cities, the growth CHAP. XL] THE MIDDLE AGES. 773 of their commerce, and a corresponding advance in their wealth, re- gained for them some importance, and a small portion of the power which they had lost, but conferred upon the citizens little additional security of person and property. Their barbarian conquerors, the new proprietors of the soil, restrained from distant pillaging excur- sions by the more settled state of society, redoubled their exactions upon the cities within their domains, as additional means were there offered for the gratification of avarice. At length the ... GENERAL cities, borne down by oppression, the more galling on ac- INSURREO- count of the exposure of their interests to the hazard of T10N IN pillage, resolved to resist the iniquitous rule of their feudal masters ; and about the commencement of the eleventh cen- tury they broke out into a general insurrection, although without any concerted movement, which led to important changes in the condition of society. 16. There had been many previous unsuccessful efforts for free- dom, and even now, when the struggle was general, it was attended with many vicissitudes ; but the cities prevailed ; and written treaties of peace were made between them and their feudal proprietors. These treaties were so many concessions or charters granted to the cities, usually guaranteeing to them most of the rights and privileges for which they had taken up arms. As these charters were frequent- ly violated, and their articles eluded in different ways, the inter- ference of royalty was often solicited, sometimes by the cities and sometimes by the lords ; and a connection thus began to be formed between the citizens and the king ; although the burgesses, or freemen of the towns, had, as yet, acquired no additional part in the general government of the country. All remained local as before ; the cities were still politically attached to their feudal lords ; and the latter only had any political relations with the head of the government ; but a new class of society had been formed by the enfranchisement of the commons ; a " third estate" began to arise in the chartered corporations that covered Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- turies ; and that struggle of classes began, which has ever since con- tinued in European society, the struggle between kings, lords, and commons between the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the democ- racy. 17. In the more civilized countries of Europe neither of these classes has so far triumphed as to bring the others into subjection to itself; and some writers, observing that in Asia and Egypt, the tri- 774 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAIIT IIL umph of monarchy, aristocracy, or theocracy, has led to the system of castes, and interposed a barrier to the progress of civilization, have been led to attribute to the constant struggle between the three great powers in European society, the wonderful energy and productive- ness of modern European civilization, 3 - and to predict its illimitable progress. That the progress of civilization is to be onward, even in Europe, despite the opposing elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, we do not doubt 5 but our faith in man's moral des- tiny forbids us to believe that the struggle is to be unending ; and we confidently anticipate the period when democracy will triumph, although it will not be until her cause relies for its main support upon the general intelligence and virtue of the people. With them, universal education alone can lead to universal emancipation. 18. The enfranchisement of the cities the greatest revolution of the Middle Ages was highly favorable to the progress of civiliza- EFFECTS OF tion in Europe ; but owing to the ignorance and barba- THE ENFRAN- r i gm O f the inhabitants, the government of them was still OF THE a ver j difficult matter. The magistrates, chosen by the CITIES. general assembly of the citizens, being under few restric- tions, at first governed with almost arbitrary power ; so that there was but little more security in these communities than there had been previously under the rule of the barons. Soon there grew up, under the system of privileges or monopolies granted to the trading classes or merchants, a great inequality among the citizens ; and the community was divided between a corps of opulent burgesses, and a poor and ignorant population subject to all the errors and vices of a mob. The power of government very naturally centured in the wealthier class, which found itself harassed, on the one hand, by an insolent and turbulent democracy, arid pressed on the other by the ancient feudal lord of the borough, who sought to regain the power which he had lost. The situation of the superior burgesses there- fore required from them a temporizing policy, which sought to ac- commodate all differences without the risk of insurrection on the one hand, or the danger, on the other, of being involved in a contest in which the want of cordial support from the people was certain to incur defeat. Excessive timidity and caution in political matters, and a feeling of indifference as to the government of the nation, with a. See Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe, Lecture VII. Alison, the historian, takes the same view, and, especially, never neglects an opportunity to portray the dangers of " democratic ascendency." CHAP. XL] THE MIDDLE AGES. 775 a consequent modesty of pretensions to the right of taking part in the same, was the character of the burgesses in the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries. This timid and cautious spirit was poorly calcu- lated to raise the cities to any great degree of importance in the government of the state. Confederations among the free or incor- porated cities were found throughout all southern and western Eu- rope ; but the free cities of Germany and Italy contributed the most largely to the progress of civilization. As early as the year 1254 seventy cities in the south of Germany formed the Rhenish League, to resist the encroachments and pretensions of the nobility : after- wards arose the Swabian cities-union ; but the most powerful of the Germanic confederations was that of the Hanse towns, called the Hanseatic League, formed between Lubeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Stettin, and other cities, numbering sixty at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and afterwards increased to a hundred. These were all commercial cities ; and the League not only monopolized the trade of the Baltic, but extended its influences to the shores of the Mediterranean, and competed with the Italians in the merchan dize of India. The League was also able to collect together whole fleets and armies, and such was its wealth and power that its friend- ship was universally sought. In Italy, as early as the middle of the twelfth century, the cities of Lombardy, with Milan at their head, had become extremely rich and powerful, principally by the commerce which the Crusades threw into their hands ; but it was only in confederated communities that they found protection against the German emperor, who called himself their sovereign. From 1153 to 1183 the Lombard cities maintained an obstinate struggle with Frederic Barbarossa ; but the former triumphed, and the em- peror was compelled to renounce all prerogatives which he had hith- erto exercised over the internal administration of towns. The Lom- bard and German war, says an able modern writer, " was the first and most noble struggle which the nations of modern Europe have ever maintained against despotism. " a 19. The history of the Crusades, which occupied a period of nearly two hundred years, from the close of the eleventh to the EFFECTS close of the thirteenth century, has been given in a OK THE former chapter, but their effects upon the state of Eu- CRUSADES ropean society remain to be noticed. From the seventh century Christianity had been engaged in a contest with Mohammedanism ; a. Sismondi's Italian Republics, cb. iii. 776 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. and throughout Christian Europe the strongest feelings of hatred and aversion were entertained towards the infidel believers in the Koran, so that when the first crusade was preached, the seeds of the great moral movement that followed had already been sown, and the crusades were but the continuation of the great struggle that had commenced several centuries before. They were the first great movement in which all Europe was influenced by one common senti- ment ; for all Europe joined in them ; and the redemption of the Holy Sepulchre was made the common cause of all Christendom. They were, therefore, the first enterprise that was, comprehensively, European in its character ; and they furnished the first opportunity of acquaintance among all the Christian nations of Europe. Their effects were similar upon the different classes of society ; for the king and the peasant, the lord and the vassal, the priest and thjB lay- man, all took the same interest and the same share in them 5 the first swarm of crusaders was composed mostly of bands t>f ignorant peasants, led by a hermit ; the second was led by a hundred thousand mounted and mailed warriors of the feudal nobility ; and afterwards, the greatest sovereigns of Europe were drawn into the general move- ment. The crusades were not only European, but eminently national, also, in their character ; and they were sustained by the strong hold which religious belief, or, rather, religious fanaticism, had taken of the human mind. 20. During the two centuries in which European society was con- vulsed by these mighty movements, the narrow horizon that had lim- ited the views of all classes was enlarged ; the mists that sectional prejudice and bigotry had thrown around existing institutions, and opinions, once dissipated, revealed still a world beyond ; and the new state of existence which was opened to the crusaders, the novelty, extent, and variety of the scenes displayed to their view, and the contact of mind with mind which they occasioned, contributed to let in more enlarged and liberal views than had hitherto prevailed, and to arouse society from the stupor and inactivity into which it had fallen. 21. The favorable change of sentiments and opinions occasioned by these holy wars is well illustrated by a comparison of the cotem- porary chroniclers of the first crusades with those who wrote towards the end of the thirteenth century. " The former," says Guizot, "are animated writers, whose imagination is excited, and who relate the events of the crusade with passion ; but they are narrow-minded in the extreme, without an idea beyond the little sphere in which they CHAP. XL] THE MIDDLE AGES. 777 lived ; ignorant of every science, full of prejudices, incapable of forming an opinion on what was passing around them, or of the events which were the subject of their narratives. In William of Tyre, one of the later writers, we are surprised to find almost a modern his- torian ; a cultivated, enlarged, and liberal mind ; great political in- telligence, and general views and opinions upon causes and effects. Other writers of this period do not confine themselves to what imme- diately concerns the crusades, but describe the state of manners, the geography, the religion, and natural history of the countries which passed under their notice. The first crusaders speak of the Moham- medans without knowing them ; they form no judgment of them ; they detest them, and fight them, and nothing more. The later cru- saders, even when fighting with them, no longer regard them as monsters ; they sometimes eulogize their conduct and manners, and exhibit an impartiality of judgment that would have filled the first crusaders with surprise and horror. There is, in short, an immense distance between the historians and people of the first and those of the last crusades ; a distance which indicates an actual revolution in the state of the human mind." 22. The social state also underwent an important change during the crusades. The expenses of the feudal proprietors, in furnishing and equipping themselves and their vassals for the wars, reduced many of them to the necessity of selling their fiefs to the kings, or their privileges to the cities ; and many of the nobles found, on their return, that a great portion of their power had been usurped during their absence. The number of petty fiefs, petty domains, and petty proprietors, was thus greatly diminished ; property was concentrated in a small number of hands ; and everything began to tend towards that centralization of power which characterized the monarchical sys- tem of modern Europe from the beginning of the sixteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. y. Attempts at Centralization of power. 23. Before this result was accomplished there had been various attempts to remodel society on the basis of some one or 1st. AT- all of the elements that we have mentioned : so as to TEMPT AT /. , ! , i m , THEOORATIO form one society under one central power. Theocracy, OROANIZA- or the Church, attempted to bring everything into sub- TI N - jection to the principles and dominion of ecclesiastical authority ; 778 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [*>AKT IIL and under the sway of Gregory the Seventh, in the latter part of the eleventh century, the plan of rendering the world subservient to the clergy, and the clergy to the pope, was fully developed. 81 The scheme was pursued down to the thirteenth century, when the incipient spirit of religious reform, and the numerous controversies between the popes and the European sovereigns, compelled the Church to relin- quish the design of forcing her system upon Europe, and to act only upon the defensive. 24. The causes of the failure of the attempts at theocratic organi zation were three-fold. The first was the purely moral and peaceful nature of Christianity, which eschewed force, and whose only legitimate conquests were over the souls of men. The second was the resistance the Church encountered from the feudal nobility, who, when sover- eigns and people had almost submitted to its domination, still pro- claimed themselves, with all the lofty pride of the conquering bar- barian, the legitimate possessors, proprietors, and rulers of the country. The third obstacle in the way of the Church was the celibacy of the clergy, who, unable to recruit their ranks from their own society, were forced to let in from the surrounding world the materials for the continuance of their order. With these, many discordant ele- ments gained admission ; and no society has suffered more from schisms, and internal dissensions, than the Church itself. Still the cause of theocratic organization seemed to prosper down to the mid- dle of the thirteenth century, when a popular reaction took place against the Church in almost every part of Europe. In the early part of the century, the Albigenses, a republican society of religious reformers in the south of France, who distinguished themselves by their opposition to the discipline and ceremonies of the Roman Church, had become so formidable that Pope Innocent III. author- ized a holy war or crusade against them. The Albigenses were over- powered, and nearly exterminated by their ruthless invaders, the king of France and his feudal nobility. But notions similar to those entertained by the Albigenses appeared in other parts of Europe ; the doctrine of papal supremacy was already on the decline ; and the a. See also p. 246. Pope Gregory VII., known before his installation by the name of Hildebrand, published a series of papal constitutions, in which he declared that the Roman pontiff alone can rightly be called universal that he, and he alone, has a right to depose bishops, prelates, and even emperors, and to use imperial ornaments that no book can be called canonical without his authority that his sentence can be annulled by none, but that he may annul the decrees of all that princes are bound to kiss his feet that the Roman Church has been, is, and will continue to be, infallible ; and that whoever dissents from it ceases to be a Catholic Christian. CHAP. XL] THE MIDDLE AGES. 779 arrogant pretensions of Pope Boniface VIII., which met with the most decided opposition from Philip IV. of France and Edward I. of England, were fatal to the papal power ; and at the opening of the fourteenth century the attempt at theocratic organization had utterly failed.* The tranquillity that followed the troubled life of Boniface, was, to the court of Home, a political death. 25. The democratic attempts to remodel society begin with the history of the free cities of Italy the Italian Republics. The feudal system was never so firmly established in Italy, as in 2n. AT- France and Germany : and to this circumstance may be TEMPT AT .. ., . , ,, . ., , - 7. , DEMOCRATIC attributed the superior strength and importance which ORGANIZA . the Italian towns acquired at an early period, over simi- TION. lar communities in other States of Europe. From the eleventh to the fifteenth century the municipal system prevailed in Italy ; and during this period many of the Italian Republics were blessed with a remark- able degree of commercial prosperity ; but their history abounds in po- litical dissensions, crimes, and misfortunes, which impeded the progress of liberty ; and the want of union among them, constantly threatened as they were by foreign sovereigns, prevented them from exerting any important influence upon other countries. In the south of France the overthrow of the Albigenses was not only the triumph of papacy over religious heresies, but also of feudalism over democracy. Among the mountains of Switzerland the republican organization succeeded better, the Swiss feudal nobility, allying themselves, for a. When Boniface haughtily required the kings of France and England to abstain from tax- ing the clergy, Philip spurned the demand ; and Edward, although complying, ordered his judges to admit no causes in which ecclesiastics were complainants, but to try every suit brought against them, averring that those who refused to contribute to the support of the State. had no claim to the protection of the law. This expedient succeeded, and the ecclesiastics hastened to pay their taxes without farther compulsion. In the long controversy between the pope and Philip the latter was supported by all classes of his people even the clergy. In a papal bull addressed to the French monarch Boniface says : " We desire you to know that you are subject to us in temporal as well as in spiritual affairs ; that the appointment to benefices and prebends belongs not to you ; that if you have kept benefices vacant, the profits must be reserved for the legal successors ; and if you have bestowed any benefice, we declare the appointment invalid, and revoke it if executed. Those who oppose this judgment shall be deemed heretics." Philip, after ordering this declaration to be publicly burned, published the following mem- orable reply. "Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to Boniface, claiming to be pope, little or no greeting. May it please your sublime stupidity to learn, that we are subject to no person in temporal atfairs ; that the bestowing of fiefs and benefices belongs to us by right of our crown ; that the disposal of the revenues of vacant sees is part of our prerogative ; that our decrees, in this respect, are valid, both for the past and for the future ; and that we will support, with all our power, those on whom we have bestowed, or shall bestow, benefices. Those who oppose this judgment shall be deemed fools or idiots." Boniface died in the year 1303. 780 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAKT III the most part, with the cities, and giving to the governments of the Swiss cantons that tincture of aristocracy which they retained up to the early part of the nineteenth century. In the free towns "of Flanders, and in the German Leagues along the Rhine, democracy triumphed in the internal government of the cities ; but feudalism pressed upon it from every side : in their struggles with the barons the free communities lent no assistance to one another, and most of these petty republics finally became absorbed in the principalities of the surrounding barons. 26. After the failure of the attempts at theocratic and democratic organization, there appears to have been a general tendency, for SD ATTEMPTS awn ^ 6 ) towards a union of the various elements of society, AT A UNION as observed in the rise of the States- General of France, VARIOUS tne Cortes of Spain, the Assemblies of the German States, ELEMENTS and the Parliament of England. In France, the States- OF SOCIETY. Genera^ fi rs t called in the year 1302, and discontinued early in the next century, composed of representatives of the " third estate," or of the people, together with the clergy and nobility, and corresponding to the English Parliament, never acquired any im- portance until it was summoned at the interesting period of the opening of the French Revolution, and accomplished but little towards organizing the elements of society into one united govern- ment. The Cortes, or representative assemblies, of Spain, composed of the nobility, dignified clergy, and representatives of towns, shared largely in the legislative authority during the fourteenth century ; and, down to the time of the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, enjoyed very extensive privileges. Unfortunately, however, although the crowns were united, the kingdoms were not ; for each preserved its own laws and institutions ; and their mutual jealousies were often converted to the destruction of the liberties of both ; and when, moreover, Granada, Navarre, and Naples, were subjected to the Spanish crown, the Spanish sovereign became, in a great measure, independent of the Cortes of his hereditary States. The reigns of Charles V. and Philip II., at a period a little later, completed the extinction of all constitutional control over the acts of the sovereign. The powers of the Cortes of Portugal corresponded to those of Spain; but here also royalty triumphed; and the year 1697 wit- nessed the last convocation of these early guardians of Portuguese liberties. The attempts made in Germany to unite the various ele- ments of society into one political organization were only partially CHAP. XL] THE MIDDLE AGES. 781 successful ; and although public affairs were transacted in diets or as- semblies of the great feudatories and the representatives of the free cities, yet the decisions of the diet were frequently disregarded, and the general government was little more than a league between many independent States, whose individual systems of local administration often differed radically from each other. 27. The attempts to unite the various elements of society into one government fully succeeded in England alone, where the legislative power has been vested, for many centuries, in the great council of par- liament, consisting of the king and the three estates, that is, of the king, the lords spiritual, the lords temporal, and the commons. The causes that led to this intimate union of monarchy, aristocracy, theo- cracy, and democracy, were gradually operating from the middle of the thirteenth century, when the burgesses first took seats in parlia- ment, down to the Revolution of 1688, when the principles of the constitution were clearly established. 28. Up to the beginning of the fifteenth century European nations and governments, apart from England, can hardly be said to have existed on a large scale ; but now, in place of the local 4TH guo interests, laws, manners, and ideas, that had so long held CBSSFUL AT- sway, more general views began to take possession of TEMPTS AT society, and that process of centralization began, which resulted in the reduction of all the elements of society TION - to two the government and the people and the establishment of the arbitrary monarchical system that prevailed over Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The fifteenth century may be regarded as the threshold of modern civilization as the dawn of the day in which we moderns live a day whose bright- ness seems only to render more intense the darkness of the night that preceded it. The developments that were made towards the centralization of the powers of society during the fifteenth century were but the germs of those political institutions which the three suc- ceeding centuries perfected ; and at the close of this latter period we shall see still another change commencing, which rapidly ushered in a revolution far more important than any that had preceded it. 29. At the beginning of the fifteenth century France and England, the two most important powers of Europe, were engaged in a war, which resulted, after an almost uninterrupted struggle of more than a hundred years, in the expulsion of the English from the continent, and the enlargement and consolidation of the French people and the 782 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAKT IIL French territories into one nation. Before this war France was di- vided into a number of almost independent feudal principalities, which, together with the provinces vacated by the English, were now united under a common monarchy ; a common patriotism had in- duced the nobles, the burghers, and the peasantry, to unite in repel- ling the invaders ; and France thereby gained the outer semblance at least of a strength and unity, which no other European nation, save England, then possessed. Internally also, at the end of this period of wars, considerable progress had been made in the develop- ment of the principal resources, and the regular organization of the chief powers, of government. Parliaments were called more fre- quently than before, the administration of justice was extended and organized, a 'standing military force was established, and a perpetual tax ordained for its support, an event fatal to the political influence of the nobles, and the liberties of the people, but one which contrib- uted powerfully to the permanency and strength of the government. 30. Events of a similar nature occurred in Spain. It was in the fifteenth century that Spain was consolidated into one kingdom, and the Spanish monarchy extended and confirmed by the conquest of Granada, and the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon. In Germany the crown was conferred upon the powerful house of Austria in the year 1438 ; and at the close of the century the emperor Maxi- milian had united the Low Countries, and the county of Burgundy, his wife's inheritance, to his paternal States of Austria ; so that over the whole of Germany he exercised the imperial authority, which had escaped from his predecessors. Although monarchy did not establish itself in Italy, yet the centralization of powers progressed there also ; and during the fifteenth century the numerous petty Italian Repub- lics were concentrated in the hands of a few ruling families, most of the Lombard free towns becoming merged in the duchy of Milan, and Florence falling under the dominion of the Medici. Soon after these events, the French, Spaniards, and Germans, overwhelmed Italy ; in their struggle for the spoils of that ill-fated country they deprived the Italians of the little remnant of their independence ; and henceforward the misfortunes of Italy are only episodes in the history of other nations. 31. The most important events in the history of England during the fifteenth century are the war with France, and the civil contest between the houses of York and Lancaster. The protracted foreign war contributed greatly to augment the powers of royalty, by keep- CHAP. XL] THE MIDDLE AGES. 783 ing the military force of the nation so long under the control of the king; while the civil wars of the two Koses, by diminishing the numbers of the nobility of the kingdom, who were decimated by bat- tles and wasted by proscription, and by ruining in fortune a large portion of the survivors, so effectually crippled the feudal aristocracy as to render it unable longer to resist the encroachments of royal authority. With the accession of Henry VII. , the first prince of the house of Tudor, begins the era of political centralization in Eng- land, and the triumph of royalty. 32. With the close of the fifteenth century the ancient liberties of Europe seem to have become nearly extinguished, while everything tended to the establishment of absolute monarchy. " Parliaments and diets, States-general, and cortes," says an English writer, " were gradually disappearing from view, or reduced from august assemblies to insignificant formalities ; and Europe seemed on the eve of exhib- iting nothing to the disgusted eye but the dead uniformity of imbecile despotism, dissolute courts, and cruelly-oppressed nations. " a Yet this revolution was not^without its benefits. The feudal system and the municipal system, theocracy, aristocracy, and democracy, separate and combined, had failed in the organization of a government truly national ; and monarchy alone seemed capable of bringing order out of confusion, and guaranteeing to society that security which the dawn of a brighter era in civilization demanded. Monarchy there- fore came in at the proper time, to contribute to the cause of civil- ization ; for it aided the progress of equality, by combating feudalism and aristocratical privileges, and by introducing some degree of unity in legislation, and in the administration of government. VI. 33. Passing from the political to the moral and intellectual world, we observe in the latter, during the fifteenth century, the MORAL AND beginning of changes and revolutions no less important INTKLLECT- .L! ^l f AT i ,1 . f f i UAL CHANGES than in the tormer. Already the spirit of reform began 1N THK to agitate the church itself; and about the middle of the CENTURY. fourteenth century John Wickliffe, an English divine, who has been called the morning star of the Reformation, boldly attacked papal usurpation and the abuses of the Church ; and although the pope insisted on his being brought to trial as a heretic, he was effectually protected by the English nobility. In the year 1378, six years be- a. Mackintosh. Hist Eng., i. 313. 784 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III fore the death of "Wickliffe, occurred what is called the great schism of the West ; when two popes were created, Urban VI., and Clement VII., one at Rome and the other at Avignon. The rival popes hurled anathemas against each other, and excommunicated the parti- sans of their adversaries as heretics ; the whole Christian world was divided by the schism ; and although rival councils in the Church in vain attempted reforms, and temporal powers succeeded little better in their efforts, yet more liberal views, and a general desire of ref- ormation, began to pervade all classes of society. In the early part of the fifteenth century, John Huss and Jerome of Prague, who had joined in spreading the doctrines of Wickliffe, were condemned to the flames as heretics and revolutionists. The Bohemian disciples of Huss revenged his death by a revolt from, and a long and bloody war with, the emperor Sigismund ; and although the revolt was sub- dued, the spirit of reform could not be extinguished, but only waited for an opportunity to break out anew, which it found at the begin- ning of the next century. 34. The age that witnessed the first efforts of the human mind to escape from the thraldom of religious despotism, witnessed also the revival of literature, and many important inventions * n m d ern science. Genius, despising the vain cavils of the schools, began to study truth in the volume of na- ture ; while Grecian and Roman learning were revived, and with them an admiration excited for the institutions, opinions, philosophy, and literature of antiquity. In the latter part of the thirteenth century Roger Bacon, an Englishman, and Franciscan friar, became famous for his discoveries in chemistry and mechanical philosophy. In Italy, during the fifteenth century, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccacio, distinguished themselves for the greatness and originality of their conceptions ; and devoting themselves with enthusiasm to the study of ancient models, gave to the Italian language, by the grace and elegance of their compositions, much of that refinement of which it now boasts. 35. Among the many important inventions that mark the devel- opment of mind in the closing period of the Middle Ages, and which tended greatly to accelerate the progress of modern civilization, may be mentioned the mariner's needle, which changed the art of navigation, gave to commerce a wonderful ex- tension, and opened the way to the discovery of a New World ; paper made of linen, a cheap substitute for the scarce and expensive CHAP. IX.] THE MIDDLE AGES. 785 material of parchment; painting in oil colors, which effected a change in the system and the principles of the art, and rendered the works of modern painters far more durable than those of the ancients; engraving on copper, which multiplied and diffused the master pieces of art ; the manufacture of gunpowder, which, equalizing the peasant and the noble on the field of battle, changed the whole system of war ; and lastly the art of printing, the greatest of all inventions, and the one which commemorates all others transmit- ting to posterity every important event immortalizing the actions of the great and, above all, extending and diffusing the Word of God to all mankind. 36. Among the discoveries of this period was the opening of a new route to India by Vasco de Grama, around the Cape of ~ , TT '* . * 11 A i T DISCOVERIES. (rood Hope, and, the most important of all, the dis- covery of America by Christopher Columbus, an event which burst upon astonished Europe like a new creation, and one that has opened for society a new field of development, where civilization may progress unimpeded by the many incumbrances of opposing elements, and systems, and castes, and classes, which, in the Old World, the wreck of ages has strewn in its way. 50 786 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL CHAPTER X. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. THE REFORMATION. ANALYSIS. 1. The era of the Reformation. Germany, France, and England, at thia period. The four aspects under which the Reformation may be viewed. I. The causes that led to the Reformation. 2. The events that opened the Reformation. The causes to which it has been variously and erroneously attributed. These not adequate to the effects attributed to them. The claim to spiritual domination over the human mind. The progress towards mental freedom, the true cause of the Reformation. 3. The reformers themselves had but little idea of the prevailing spirit of the age. The right of private judgment. 4. The subordinate causes which produced the crisis. Effects of the great schism of the West. The councils of Constance and Basil. Dissolute lives of the popes 5. Repugnant doctrines of the Romish Church. The influence of considerations not strictly religious. Immoralities of the clergy, &c. 6. Protection extend- ed to ecclesiastics guilty of crimes. Indulgences or pardons. 7. Riches and power of the clergy. General dissatisfaction with the Church, and general tendency to freedom. II. Progress and extent of the Reformation. 8. Establishment of the Reformation in the German empire. Its introduction into France. Opposition of the king, Francis I., to the new doctrines. John Calvin. Treatment of the Huguenots. Edict of Nantes. Its revocation by Louis XIV. 9. Adoption of the principles of the Reformation in England. The way previously prepared for them. 10. The immediate causes of their ascendency in England. 11. The design, the creed, and the intolerance of Henry the Eighth. The results of the position assumed by Henry. 12. Partial introduction of the Reformation into Ireland. The struggles through which it passed in Scotland. 13. Its princi- ples early introduced into the Northern kingdoms. Christian II., and Frederic I. of Denmark. Gustavus Vasa of Sweden. 15. Suppression of the Reformation in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. III. Character of the Reformation. 16. Intolerant spirit of the age. Both Protestants and Romanists involved in the charge. The merit due to Luther and bis coadjutors.]?. The right to propagate and defend opinions by force generally claimed by all parties. 18. Both Romanists and Protestants demanded the support of the civil power. Intolerance of Luther, Calvin, Craumer, Knox, &c. Extract from Hallam : Persecution, the Bin of the Reformed churches. 19. Luther more favorably distin- guished than the other reformers. Account of Calvin's intolerance. How viewed by the Romanists. 20. Intolerance of the English reformers. Henry the JMghth. His reign, how characterized. Protestant cruelties in the reign of Edward VI. Roman Catholic cruelties during the reign of Queen Mary. 21. The acts of "supremacy" and "uniformity" passed during Elizabeth's reign. 22. Roman Catholic martyrs in the reign of Elizabeth. Re- mark of Hallam. The pretence for the punishment of the Romanists. 23. The differences that sprung up among the reformers themselves. Exterior ceremonies. The course pursued by Cranmer and Ridley. The influence of the reign of Edward VI. Of Elizabeth. 24. At- tempt to enforce uniformity to the rites of the established Church, in 1565. The controversy with the English dissenters. Extract from Hallam. The two great branches into which the Reformation was divided. CHAP. X.] THE REFORMATION. 787 IV. Effects of tfe Rjefortnatwn. 25. Division of Europe into two classes of States. The Protestant States : Roman Catholic States. Effects of the Reformation upon the papal power. 26. The Church of Rome improved iu science and morals. The character of religion, so called, changed. 27. Effects upon the progress of civilization ; emancipation of mind. Extension of religion. Independence of the temporal power. Roman Catholic writers. 28. Progress of literature and the arts. Char- acter of the literature of the sixteenth century. 29. Philosophy, the natural sciences, and politics. The art of printing good and evil effects. 30. The great men of the sixteenth cen- tury. English writers French Spanish German Italian. 1. The Reformation was the great event that distinguished the sixteenth century. It originated at an era of great political im- portance in the history of Europe in the midst of the great struggle between Francis I. and Charles V., and at the moment when Eng- land, under Henry VIII., placed in a position to hold the balance of power between the rivals, began her first systematic interference in continental politics. The Reformation may be viewed under four different aspects: 1st. The causes that led to it : 2d. Its progress and extent : 3d. Its character ; and 4th. Its effects. I. The causes that Led to the Reformation. 2. The events that opened the Reformation, lying on the surface of history, are familiar to most readers ; but its causes have not un- frequently been confounded with the circumstances of its immediate origin. It has been variously and erroneously attributed, on the one hand, to the sale of indulgences, to the ambition of princes, who desired to escape from the sway of papal tyranny, to the avarice of the nobility, who sought to get possession of the property of the clergy ; and, on the other, to the pure desire of effectually re- forming the existing abuses of the Church. None of these causes, however, are adequate to the effects attributed to them ; and for the moving principle that urged forward so large a portion of the popu- lation of Europe to rebel against the authority which it had so long revered, we are compelled to look beyond accidental circumstances, and beyond individuals themselves, who were merely the instru- ments of a change that would ere long have been effected under the names of some other reformers, if such men as Luther, and Zuinglius, and Calvin, had never lived. If the spiritual power had yielded everything demanded by the early reformers, both in temporal mat- ters in exactions and tributes and in points of faith, but had still 788 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY [PAM III. retained its claim to spiritual domination over the human mind, there is no reason to believe that the religious revolution would have stopped short in its course. After having obtained reform, it would have demanded liberty. The true causes of the Reformation are to be sought for in that undercurrent of social progress in which the human mind had long been laboring to accomplish its freedom. We have alluded, in a former chapter, to the failure of the attempts at a theocratic organization of society, to the popular reaction against the principles and dominion of ecclesiastical authority that began in Europe as early as the middle of the thirteenth century, and to the spirit of reform that began to agitate the Church itself a century later, all indicating a tendency to an increasing exercise of private judgment, and a gradual progress towards the emancipation of human reason. The Reformation was the outward development of revolu- tionary causes that had long been operating to free the human mind from the bondage of spiritual despotism. 3. Yet the early reformers even Luther himself had but little idea of the prevailing spirit of the age ; and the principles on which the Reformation progressed were developed and perfected as circum- stances called them forth. The right of private judgment in religious matters was not contended for as an absolute principle, until long after it had been generally exercised in point of fact ; and even Luther, while appealing " from the pope ill informed to the pope better informed," repeatedly offered to submit himself to the decision of the Roman Church, when expressed under the authority of a gen- eral council. At a later period, however, the followers of Luther, and probably Luther himself, would have regarded the decision of a council of prelates as of no more binding authority in matters of faith and doctrine than a mere dictum of the pope himself. 4. The more immediate causes which produced the crisis of the Reformation, and that were subordinate to the general cause which we have stated, were of a character affecting the entire administra- tion of the government of the Roman Church, its doctrines, and the manners and morals of its priesthood. The great schism of the West, to which we have previously alluded, which divided the gov- ernment of the Church among two or three contending pontiffs, each excommunicating his rivals, and anathematizing those who adhered to them, had an astonishing effect in diminishing the veneration with which the world had been accustomed to view the papal dignity, and imposed upon community the necessity of the exercise of private CHAP. X.] THE REFORMATION. 789 judgment, so far at least as to choose, among these infallible guides, the one whose authority should be acknowledged. The councils as- sembled at Constance and Basil, by taking into their hands the authority of deposing and electing popes, spread the growing disre- spect for the Roman See still wider, and taught the world that there was a power within the Church superior to the Church itself; while the dissolute lives of some of the popes of this period, and the fraud, injustice, and cruelty of others in their administration, prepared the minds of men to listen to the bold attacks of Luther and his follow- ers against the high claims of papal prerogative. 5. Of the doctrines of the Roman Church, which the reformers declared to be repugnant to the spirit of Christianity, and destitute of any foundation in reason, in the word of God, or in the practice of the primitive Church, we have given elsewhere a brief synopsis, 3 - and we le'ave their discussion to ecclesiastical historians, to whose province they peculiarly belong. Considerations strictly religious, however, although having their full weight with the learned, were not more powerful in urging forward the Reformation than the gross immoralities and excesses which stained the character of a great portion of the Catholic clergy, from the pope downwards. When Luther declaimed against the voluptuous lives of the ecclesiastics, all his hearers were able, from their own observation, to confirm the truth of his invectives ; while only a few could, of themselves, form a satisfactory judgment of the points of religious faith which he assailed. 6. The scandal of the crimes committed by many of the ecclesias- tics, was increased by the facility with which such as committed them obtained pardon. Under the growing influence of the court of Rome, convents, monasteries, and all consecrated places of worship, had be- come general asylums, or places of refuge, to which criminals might escape, and be safe from the vengeance of the law. By another stretch of papal prerogative, all clergymen, and others set apart to perform religious services, were exempted from criminal process in the courts of law, and delivered over to the ecclesiastical judge; so that the Church alone took cognizance of the offence. As the avarice and corruption of the court of Rome went hand in hand, the next step in iniquity was for the officers of the Roman chancery to decree the precise sum to be exacted for the pardon of every par- ticular sin. A book was actually published by authority, containing a. Pp. 331-2. 790 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET IIL all the specifications. A deacon guilty of murder could be absolved for twenty crowns. A bishop or abbot might assassinate for three hundred livres. Any ecclesiastic might violate his vows of chastity, even under the most aggravating circumstances, for the third part of that sum. The doctrine of granting indulgences for crime, opened the way for a traffic still more profitable to the Holy See. Not only were indulgences, or pardons, granted for past offences, but if a man meditated any crime, he might, beforehand, purchase pardon, or ex- emption from the penalty. The gross immoralities and the wicked- ness which such a system introduced into society may be more easily conceived than described. 7. Next to the degeneracy of manners among the clergy, their ex- orbitant riches and power, when taken in connection with the manner in which the former were acquired, and the latter exercised, rendered them odious to the people, and objects of great jealousy to temporal sovereigns. During the long contests between the popes and the G-erman emperors, concerning the right of investiture, or the appoint- ment and endowment of bishops, the ecclesiastics seized a large por- tion of the Imperial domains and revenues, which the emperors were afterwards unable to wrest out of their hands, so great was the power of the Church ; and at the period of the Reformation it was com- puted that the German clergy had obtained possession, in various ways, of more than one-half of the national property. In England, the proportion was about one-fifth ; and throughout Christian Europe, the share belonging to the Church was everywhere prodigious. The avarice and extortion of the court of Rome were excessive almost to a proverb. As Church property was exempt from taxation, the laity were loaded with excessive impositions, while those who possessed the greatest property were freed from any obligation to support or defend the State. To so great a height had dissatisfaction risen concerning the dissolute manners, the exorbitant wealth, and the enormous power and privileges of the clergy, before the Reformation, and such was the general tendency of the period to freedom and in- dependence of thought, that the bold doctrines of Luther were pro- mulgated with almost the certainty of success. Other men had long before denounced the immoralities of the Romish clergy, had com- bated many of the peculiar tenets of the Church, and had declaimed against the tyranny of papal jurisdiction ; but the times were not ripe for the success of their efforts. But when Luther and his coad- jutors appeared on the stage, the minds of men had already been pre- CHAP. X.I THE REFORMATION. 791 pared, by a singular combination of circumstances, for receiving their doctrines ; and, through infinite wisdom, instrumentalities ap- parently the most inadequate, triumphed over a system of spiritual despotism the most deeply rooted, and the most powerful that the world has ever known. II. Progress and extent of the Reformation. 8. The final establishment of the Reformation in the German em- pire dates with the treaty of Augsburg in 1555 ; but even before this period its principles had been propagated, more or less, throughout nearly all the kingdoms of Europe. The Reformation was early in- troduced into France, where it was countenanced by Margaret, queen of Navarre, sister to Francis I. As early as 1523 there were in several provinces of France large numbers of those who had con- ceived the greatest aversion to the doctrines and tyranny of the Church of Rome ; and among them were many nobles of the first rank and dignity ; but, after troubles and commotions had been ex- cited in several places on account of religious differences, the king interposed his authority against the new sect, and caused many per- sons eminent for their virtue and piety to be put to death in the most barbarous manner. Although at times Francis showed a lean- ing towards the Protestants, probably with a view to please his sister, whom he tenderly loved, yet such was his abhorrence of the new doctrines that he is said to have declared, that if he thought the blood of his arm was tainted by the Lutheran heresy, he would have it cut off; and that he would not spare even his own children, if they entertained sentiments contrary to those of the Romish Church. The celebrated John Calvin, often called the second re- former of the sixteenth century, the founder of the Presbyterian form of Church government, was a Frenchman by birth, but, being compelled to leave France, he settled first at Basil in Switzerland, and afterwards at Genoa, at which latter place he possessed almost absolute power in religious matters. The treatment of the French Protestants, or Huguenots, as they were called by their adversaries, was exceedingly cruel ; and in no other part of the world did the re- formers suffer so much. In the year 1598, however, the famous Edict of Nantes seemed to place the Reformation in France on a firm basis ; but this act, after continuing in force nearly a century 792 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET IIL was revoked by Louis XIV., which led to a renewal of the persecu- tions and bloody scenes that had disgraced the kingdom during the reign of Charles IX. The profession of the reformed religion was at no time so safe in France as in most other countries of Europe. 9. The principles of the Reformation began to be extensively adopted in England as soon as an account of Luther's preaching was received there. The way for them had probably been better pre- pared in England than in any other country of Europe ; for almost a hundred and fifty years before the time of Luther, Wickliife had maintained nearly the same doctrines as those taught by the great reformer ; and his disciples, who were called Lollards, still existed in the time of Henry the VIII., as a numerous, although a proscribed sect, and among them the sentiments of Luther at once gained great credit. 10. The immediate cause that gave the principles of the R^forma- tion an ascendency in England was, undoubtedly, the king's passion for and marriage with Anne Boleyn, and the divorce of his first wife Catherine, in opposition to the counsels of the pope ; and such a mingling was there of motives, temporal and spiritual, in this mat- ter, that, as an able writer observes, " In England the interests of Anne Boleyn and of the Reformation were considered the same." a But although passion and policy were the leading motives that in- fluenced the sovereign, the people were moved by principles that had taken deeper root, and that honestly formed a part of their religious faith. 11. It was not, apparently, the design of Henry the VIII. to re- ject any of the doctrines, properly so called, or the most absurd su- perstitions, of the Romish Church ; and the most essential article in the creed of this monarch appears to have been his own supremacy, as protector and supreme head of the Church of England ; and whoever rejected this article of faith, whether Protestant or Papist, was sure to suffer the most severe penalties. As an instance of the impartiality of his intolerance, history relates that three persons convicted of disputing his supremacy, and three deniers of the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, were drawn on the same hurdle to execution. It was probably owing to the peculiar position assumed by Henry the VIII. , as the head of a Church independent of the Roman See, while he still, in other respects, avowed the princi- ples of a Papist, that the Church of England differs less than any a. Hallam's Const. Hist., ch. ii. CHAP. X.] THE REFORMATION. 793 other of the Reformed churches from the rites and principles of the Roman hierarchy. 1 2. The Reformation was only partially introduced into Ireland, although Henry the VIII. banished the monks from that country, confiscated their revenues, and destroyed their convents. In Scot- land the seeds of the Reformation were early sown by several pre- lates and noblemen who had resided in Germany during the religious disputes there ; but for many years the progress of the new doctrines was checked by the most inhuman laws against heretics, great num- bers of whom were burned at the stake. The most eminent of the Scotch reformers was John Knox, a disciple of Calvin, who intro- duced into Scotland the form of doctrine, worship, and discipline, that had been established by Calvin at Geneva. About the time of the accession of Elizabeth to the throne of England, civil war broke out in Scotland, occasioned by an attempt of the queen regent, the mother of Mary, to put down the Protestant reform ; but at last, through the assistance of Elizabeth, the Protestant party triumphed, and, after peace had been ^concluded, the Scottish parliament abol- ished the Roman Catholic form of worship, and prohibited the cele- bration of the mass, under severe penalties, (1560.) From this period the Presbyterian form of doctrine has maintained the ascend- ency in Scotland. 1 3. The principles of the Reformation were early introduced into Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, by the young men of those countries, who pursued their studies at Wittemberg and other German universi- ties. Christian II. of Denmark, who ruled these Scandinavian king- doms, although a heartless tyrant, received with joy the account of this new religious system, by which princes were enabled at once to correct the vices, and enrich themselves with the spoils of, the ancient Church ; and the monarch used the utmost endeavors to induce Luther to visit his dominions. 14. After the deposition and banishment of Christian II. in 1523, his successor Frederic I., who had previously secretly embraced the Protestant faith, conducted the religious affairs of his kingdom with much greater prudence than his predecessor ; but during his entire reign the Reformation was a continued struggle against the encroach- ments of the aristocracy. In the year 1527, however, Frederic, after much opposition, procured the publication of a famous edict, sanc- tioned by a general diet of the kingdom, by which every subject of Denmark was declared free to adhere to the tenets of the Church of 794 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [lAE-rlll. Rome, or to the doctrines of Luther. The Reformation owes it success in Sweden, in a great measure, to the wisdom, firmness, and prudence, of Gustavus Vasa, raised by his countrymen to the throne in place of Christian II. of Denmark, whose horrid cruelties lost him the crown. No opposition could deter Gustavus from encourag- ing and protecting the great work of the Reformation : he declared publicly that he would lay down the sceptre and retire from the kingdom, rather than rule a people enslaved by the orders and au- thority of the pope; and in the year 1527 he obtained from an assembly of the States the declaration that the Lutheran doctrines should be the established religion of Sweden. From this time the papal hierarchy in Sweden was entirely overthrown, and Gustavus was declared head of the Church. 15. In Italy, immediately after the rupture between Luther and the Roman pontiff, the doctrines of the Church lost ground, and great numbers of people of all ranks expressed an aversion to the papal yoke. In some places, and especially in the kingdom of Naples, violent commotions ensued, and the terrors of the inquisition alone were found adequate to put a stop to the progress of the Lutheran heresies. In Spain and Portugal, the reform principles encountered similar opposition, and were subjected to the same fate : even before the breaking out of the Reformation in Germany, the greatest cruelties were perpetrated in Spain, in the name of religion ; during the forty- three years that ended in 1524, eighteen thousand human beings were committed to the flames by the decisions of the Spanish inquisition ; and papacy has ever since reigned triumphant throughout the Spanish peninsula. III. Character of the Reformation. 16. At the time of the Reformation, very imperfect views pre- vailed of the right of private judgment in religious matters ; and even the early reformers themselves were far from being emancipated from the intolerant principles of the age. Yet the opinion is very prevalent among Protestants, that the Romanists alone inflicted the penalty of death for doctrines which they deemed heretical. The truth on this subject should not be concealed. A defence of the glorious principles of the Reformation does not require any palliation of the indefensible acts of its first authors ; and while we mourn- CHAP. X.] THE REFORMATION. 795 fiillj regret that any warrant should have been given for the taunt of the papists " that the reformers were only against burning when they were in fear of it themselves," we are still bound to accord to Luther and his coadjutors the merit of originating principles that have since emancipated Christendom from the monstrous absurdity of correcting and regulating religious faith by physical punishment. 17. During many centuries previous to the Reformation, Europe had been accustomed to see opinions propagated or defended by force ; so that, in the language of Robertson, " The charity and mutual for- bearance which Christianity recommends with so much warmth, were forgotten ; the rights of conscience and of private judgment were unheard of; and not only the idea of toleration, but even the word itself, in the sense now affixed to it, was unknown. A right to ex- tirpate error by force was universally allowed to be the prerogative of such as possessed the knowledge of truth ; and as each party of Christians believed that it had got possession of this invaluable at- tainment, each claimed and exercised, as far as it was able, the rights which this knowledge was supposed to convey. 18. " The Roman Catholics, as their system rested on the de- cisions of an infallible judge, never doubted that truth was on their side, and openly called on the civil power to repel the impious and heretical innovators who had risen up against it. The Protestants, no less confident that their doctrine was well founded, required, with equal ardor, the princes of their party to check such as presumed to impugn it. Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, the founders of the Reformed Church in their respective countries, so far as they had power and opportunity, inflicted the same punishments, upon such as called in question any article in their creeds, that were denounced against their own disciples by the Church of Rome. To their fol- lowers, and perhaps to their opponents, it would have appeared a symptom of distrust in the goodness of their cause, or an acknowl- edgment that it was not well founded, if they had not employed in its defence all those means which it was supposed truth had a right to employ."* Such were the principles, and such the spirit of the age, when the Reformation dawned upon benighted Europe. " Tol- erance in religion," says Hallam, " was seldom considered as practi- cable, much less as a matter of right, during the period of the Ref- ormation. The difference in this respedt between the Roman Catholics and Protestants was only in degree ; and in degree there a. Robertson's Charles V. p. 447. 796 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III. was much less difference than we are apt to believe. Persecution is the deadly original sin of the Reformed churches ; that which cools every honest man's zeal for their cause, in proportion as his reading becomes more extensive. " a 19. These are Protestant concessions, and they are highly credit- able to the fairness, candor, and liberality of their authors. The remark of Robertson, however, requires some qualification, as Luther should be favorably distinguished, on the subject of religious tol- erance, from most of the other reformers. " There are passages in his writings," says a late author, " with regard to the interference of the magistrate in religious concerns, that do him honor ; but he was favorably situated and lived not to see the temporal sword at his command. He was never tried. " b Calvin, on the contrary, the eminent Swiss reformer, cannot be so favorably noticed ; and his conduct to Servetus, whom he caused to be brought to the stake, has fixed an indelible stain upon his character. This Servetus had carried his inquiries far beyond other reformers, not only renouncing many of the opinions of the Roman Catholics, but going so far as to question the doctrine of the Trinity. Passing through Geneva, he was arrested at the instigation of Calvin, who prepared the articles of accusation against him ; and when the magistrates condemned him to the flames, even the mild Melancthon approved the act. The intolerance which Calvin exhibited in this matter gave the papists an opportunity to accuse the Protestants of inconsistency in their princi- ples, which they did not fail to embrace. " How could Calvin, and the magistrates of Geneva," said they, " who acknowledge no infalli- ble interpretations of the scriptures, condemn Servetus to death be- cause he explained them differently from Calvin, if every man has the privilege to expound the scripture according to his own judgment, without having recourse to the Church ? It is a great injustice to condemn a man because he will not submit to the judgment of an en- thusiast, who may be wrong as well as himself." 20. The early principles of the Reformation did not prevent the English reformers from practicing, upon the Roman Catholics, se- verities similar to those which the latter had inflicted upon the Protestants while the power was in their hands. The intolerant spirit of Henry VIII. was exercised towards both parties, as has been stated ; but this was doubtless more from political than religious intolerance ; and the reign of this monarch has been very justly char- a. Hallam'a Const. Hist. p. 63. b. Sinythe's Lectures on Mod. Hist. p. 292. CHAP. X.] THE REFORMATION. 797 acterized " as a bridge which the nation was to pass on its road to more complete reformation. " a In the Protestant reign of Edward VI. a commission was issued to archbishop Cranmer, " to inquire into heretical pravity," being nearly the same words by which the power of the court of inquisition is described ; and although many accused of entertaining anti-Protestant opinions, recanted them, one Joan Boucher was burnt at the stake for maintaining some meta- physical notions about the real nature of Christ ; and not long after, one Von Paris, an eminent surgeon in London, was condemned to death for Arianism. (1550-1.) While these two unfortunate and most unjustifiable executions are to be exceedingly regretted, we find that only a little later queen Mary, justly called the " Bloody Mary," caused nearly three hundred Protestants to be burnt during less than four years of her reign. (1555-8.) 21. In the early part of the reign of Elizabeth two important statutes were enacted by parliament, in restraint of the Roman Catholic doctrines and worship in England. The first, the act of supremacy, obliged all ecclesiastics, and all persons holding office under the crown, to abjure the spiritual as well as temporal juris- diction of every foreign prince or prelate ; and the second, the act of uniformity, prohibited, under severe penalties, any minister from using any other liturgy or form of worship than that of the estab- lished Church. Roman Catholic rites, however privately celebrated, were thus absolutely interdicted ; and although the oath acknowl- edging the queen's absolute supremacy was not fully enforced, yet the Roman Catholics were otherwise severely persecuted during this reign, and a systematic determination was evinced to extirpate their religion. 22. It is believed that the Roman Catholic martyrs, under Eliza- beth, amount to about two hundred, while many others died of hard- ships in prison, and many were deprived of their property ; yet it has been strenuously maintained by the apologists of Elizabeth, that no one was executed by her, for his religion. " There seems," says Hallam, " to be good reason for doubting whether any one who was executed might not have saved his life by explicitly denying the pope's power to depose the queen." b The persecution of the Roman ists was indeed carried on under the plea that the security of the government demanded it ; and although this is doubtless a very un- worthy pretence, yet it shows that the punishment of death for re- a. Mackintosh, ii. p. 202. b. Hallam'a Const. Hist, of Eng. 798 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAKT lit ligious opinions was already deemed indefensible, under the increas- ing liberality of the principles of the Reformation. 23. Any exposition of the character of the Reformation would be very incomplete without an explanation of the differences that sprung up among the reformers themselves. While Luther showed much indifference about retrenching exterior ceremonies, and allowed the use of crucifixes and images, tapers, and priestly vestments ; Calvin, Zuinglius, arid Knox, labored to eradicate them as remnants of popish idolatry and superstition. Archbishops Cranmer and Ridley, who gave to the English Reformation its character, deeming them- selves independent of any foreign master, adopted a course between the Lutheran and Calvanistic ritual, but adhered the most closely to the former. The influence of the reign of Edward VI. was favor- able to the simpler forms ; but Elizabeth, who loved a more splendid worship than had prevailed in her brother's reign, was not so averse to all the tenets abjured by Protestants : she retained the crucifix, images, and lighted tapers, in her own chapel, even after she had re- luctantly made the concession to have them taken away from the churches ; and so opposed was she to the Protestant view of the question relating to the marriage of the clergy, that she would never consent to repeal the statute of her sister's reign against it. 24. The external religious observances continued in an unsettled state in England until 1565, when the attempt was made to enforce conformity to the rites of the established Church. Those of the Puritan clergy so called because they aimed at what they deemed a purer form of worship who would not conform to the use of the clerical vestments, and other matters of discipline, were suspended from their ministry, and their livings or salaries taken from them. Up to the year 1570 the retention of superstitious ceremonies in the Church was the sole avowed ground of complaint among the English dissenters ; but when the Puritans were hunted from their private conventicles, and persecuted with the most unsparing rigor, they be- gan to consider the national religious system as itself in fault to claim an ecclesiastical independence of the English Church and to question the authority that oppressed them. A new feature in the controversy now began to be developed ; the hour for concessions had been suffered to pass ; political and religious principles began to be intermingled ] and in the language of Hallam, u the battle was no longer to be fought for a tippet and a surplice, but for the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy, interwoven as it was with the temporal con- OHAP.X.] THE REFORMATION. 799 stitution of England. " a Our attention will hereafter be called to the character and results of this controversy, as developed in the English Revolution of the seventeenth century. Suffice it here to remark, that we have followed the Reformation until we find it divid- ed into two great branekos, which were known as the Protestant Episcopal, and the Puritanical : in subsequent history, the former, which diverged least from the parent stem, will be found to continue its course with a uniformity which has witnessed few changes or in- terruptions ; the latter, more and more divergent, with the lapse of time, has been divided and subdivided, almost without limits, until a hundred homogeneous sects now make up the Puritanical party of the Church. IV. Effects of the Reformation. 25. The first striking effect of the Reformation was the division of Europe into two classes of States, Protestant and Roman Catholic. The former were England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Hol- land, Switzerland, and one-half of Germany : the latter were Italy, Austria, France, Spain, and Portugal. The defection of so many opulent and powerful kingdoms from the Papal See was a fatal blow to its grandeur and power, as it not only abridged the dominions of the popes in extent, diminished their revenues, and left them fewer rewards to bestow, but it also obliged them to adopt a different system of conduct towards the nations which still continued to re- cognize their jurisdiction, and to govern them by new maxims, and with a milder spirit. 26. But although the Reformation was fatal to the power of the popes, it nevertheless contributed to improve the Church of Rome both in science and morals ; as it created an emulation between the rival Churches, that compelled the Catholic clergy to acquire the knowledge requisite to defend their own tenets ; and moreover im- posed the necessity of greater decency of conduct ; where every irregularity was open to observation and censure, and was sure to be contrasted with that austere purity of manners that marked the lives of the Reformers. The Reformation, to a great extent, changed the character of religion, so called, by making it more an object of the understanding, and not of the eye ; of the heart, rather than of the memory. a. Hallam'B Const. Hist. p. 114, Am. Ed. 800 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART III 27. In its effects upon the progress of civilization, and in all its relations with civil order, the Reformation produced results of im- mense importance. By teaching man to think and reason for himself in religious matters, and to acknowledge therein none but a divine authority, it emancipated mind from the thraldom which ages of spiritual despotism had imposed upon it ; it extended religion be- yond the exclusive domain of the ecclesiastical order, and sent it forth into the wide world of humanity, where, before, it had scarcely been permitted to enter. This universality this general diffusion of religious knowledge, had a farther important result, by taking from a priestly caste and a corrupt hierachy the government of so- ciety, and giving back to the temporal power that independence which had been wrested from it. The Reformation purified religion and morals, improved the intellect, and guaranteed civil liberty. Roman Catholic writers, who impugn the faith and worship of the Protestant reformers, seldom deny the otherwise beneficial effects of the Ref- ormation. 28. The progress of literature and the arts during the sixteenth century was greatly favored by the spirit of free inquiry fostered by the Reformation, a spirit that extended beyond religion, and per- vaded, more or less, every form and feature of society. The litera- ture of this period begins to be distinguished by the first dawnings of a bold and daring spirit of doubt, examination, and originality ; a spirit that was partly arrested by a return to religious creeds in the next century, but which we shall see reappearing near the close of the eighteenth, and developing, with amazing energy and rapidity, the wonderful inventions and discoveries which give to our own a marked superiority over all former times. 29. Philosophy, which, during the Dark Ages, and down to the close of the fifteenth century, was cultivated only by the learned, now becomes more general, and extends its examination to every subject : the dogmas of the schoolmen begin to be abandoned ; the natural sciences leave chimerical systems, to enter upon the path of observa- tion and experiment ; and the theory of politics, discarding the rude maxim of a barbarous age, that " might makes right," begins to take for its avowed basis the principles of morality. The progress of the art of printing, took knowledge from libraries, convents, and monas- teries, where it was accessible to but few, and disseminated it among the people. The intellectual excitement thus occasioned had also its transient evil as well as its gbod effects ; knowledge, sought after at CHAP. X.] THE REFORMATION. 801 every hazard, and without method, was often necessarily superficial and partial in its results ; and many learned men, stopping short in their investigations, because all they desired to know was not unfold- ed to them, became the most daring sceptics. 30. Among the great men of the sixteenth century, whose names adorn the annals of literature and science, may be mentioned, as the most prominent, Shakspeare in England, the glory of the British drama together with Sidney, and Raleigh, and Drayton, and Spencer, and Hooker, and Coke the latter, the celebrated author of the In- stitutes, which are still the standard authority on English law. In France we meet with the name of Montaigne, the witty, but subtle and sceptical essayist ; and of Scaliger, the philologist, whom his friends denominated " an ocean of science," and " the masterpiece of nature." The most noted of the Spanish writers of this period are Herrera,' the historian, and Cervantes, author of the romance Don Quixotte. The German States produced many writers of celebrity in this period. Among theologians are the familiar names of Eras- mus, Luther, Zuingle, and Melancthon ; while Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler, have acquired an immortality of renown by their astronomical researches and discoveries. The sixteenth cen- tury has been called the golden age of Italian intellect ; and the era that gave birth to Ariosto and Tasso, to Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, Correggio, Titian, and Palladio, has nobly merited the title. Ariosto and Tasso are distinguished for those chivalrous poems, the " Or- lando Furioso," and the " Jerusalem Delivered :" the cotemporary artists, Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, Correggio, and Titian, form the most splendid group that the world has ever seen in the art of paint- ing ; while the most widely known of all modern names in architec- ture is that of Palladio. 51 802 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAM III. .: '. . :M > CHAPTER XI. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. ANALYSIS. 1. Failure of attempts to organize a government truly national. State of Europe at the close of the fifteenth century. The sixteenth century the Reformation and ab- solute monarchy. The contest that naturally followed the Reformation. The English Revolu- tion. 2. The two causes why the political revolution broke out in England sooner than on the continent. 3. How the Reformation in England had been accomplished. No changes in faith allowed by Henry VIII. The English Church, as established in the reign of Edward VI. The compro- mise effected by Cranmer. 4. How the Church of England was regarded by Luther and Calvin. Its doctrines imposed by the king's supremacy alone. Declarations of the Puritans. The com- promise effected by Cranmer regarded as only a partial reform. 5. The demand for farther reformation. Why political liberty was invoked. Persecution and its effects. The Revolution grew out of the partial suppression of the Reformation. 6. The second cause that hurried on a political revolution in England. The free institutions of England. Magna Charta. 7. The English House of Commons : under the Plantaganets under the Tudor princes. 8. Other liberal institutions, their tendencies, &c. The result. 9. The career of monarchy on the continent unchecked there, but resisted in England. 10. Arbitrary principles of the Stuarts. James the First, and his courtiers and counsellors. The views of the English people. 11. The demand for farther religious and political reforms at the time of the accession of Charles I. Arbitrary principles of Charles. The legal reform party in the House of Commons. Its character and objects. 12. The course pursued by this party the granting of supplies. The contests of Charles with his parliaments. Eleven years of arbitrary rule. A second reform party springs up. 13. Union and progress of the reformers during the first session of the Long Parliament. J 4. Schism in the constitutional party. Tories and Whigs. Views, arguments, and principles, of the two parties. 15. Two religious sects con- nected with the two political parties. Episcopacy supports the crown. Objects of the Pres- byterians. 16. Pacific hopes blasted by the rashness of the king. Civil war. 17. New and alarming doctrines. Appearance of a revolutionary or Independent party. Its political creed. Its religious creed. Its success, under Cromwell, and overthrow of the monarchy. 18. Over- throw of the Commons failure of all parties Cromwell at the head of the State. Character of Cromwell's administration. 19. Restoration of monarchy, without pledges. 20. The government returns to its old posi- tion, the ancient principles of the monarchy restored. 21. The reform party renews the contest, 22. General profligacy of manners and morals. The Cabal Administration. 23. Growing unpopularity of the king. Formation of a national party. 24. The national minis- tryits downfall. 25. Failure of all parties to afford a satisfactory government. Absolutism of the king. Character of his government. Royalty did not abate any of its pretensions. Arbi- trary character of the reign of James II. Coalition of parties, and deposition of the reigning sovereign. 26. Concluding event of the Revolution the crown settled on William and Mary. Change in the principles of the government. 27. The effects of William's elevation : freedom of par- liament the Commons, the paramount power in the State. Whig ascendency. Political sci- ence. 28. Connection of the English Revolution with the general course of European civil- ization. The course of monarchy on the other aide of the Channel. Coalition against Louis XIV. The great object of William of Orange. 29. The chief motive that prompted his ac- ceptance of the English crown to strengthen the coalition against the absolute monarchy of Louis. The English Revolution not an isolated struggle for liberty. CHAP. XL] ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 803 I. 1. In the brief sketch which has been given of the progress of European civilization during the Middle Ages, it was shown that the feudal system and the municipal system, theocracy, aristocracy, and democracy, separate and combined, had failed in the organiza- tion of a government truly national, whatever other good each of these powers may have accomplished ; and that at the close of the fifteenth century the ancient liberties of Europe seem to have be- come nearly extinguished. The following century witnessed, in the events of the Reformation, a great insurrection of the human mind against absolute power in the spiritual order, while at the same time the centralization of temporal power was progressing, and absolute monarchy triumphed throughout Christendom. But freedom of thought in religious matters, and the overthrow of the ancient eccle- siastical tyranny, very naturally led to inquiries into the basis of civil and political rights, and a desire for civil liberty ; and accord- ingly a contest between liberal principles and absolutism naturally followed wherever the Reformation had sown the seeds of freedom. The first shock between these powers took place in England ; and the struggle is known in history as the English Revolution, the great event of the seventeenth century, and, next to the Reforma- tion, with which it is intimately connected, the greatest event that had hitherto happened in Europe. 2. Two prominent causes may be assigned why a general political revolution broke out in England sooner than on the continent. The first is the partial suppression of the Reformation, before it had accomplished all its legitimate results, but not until the seeds of lib- erty had been sown broadcast over the land ; the second is the exist- ence of several important free institutions liberal maxims princi- ples and precedents far in advance of any existing on the continent at this period, and which gave a firm support to the reformatory spirit of the age, and furnished it with the means of making its in- fluence known. Let us examine these causes, and see how they oper- ated in bringing forward the great Revolution of the seventeenth century. II. 3. The religious reformation in England had not been accom- plished in the same way as on the continent : in England it was the work of the monarchs themselves, Henry the Eighth taking the lead, in an attempt to constitute an English Church differing from 804 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [Pxur IIL the Roman only on the point of supremacy, the king of England, instead of the Pope, being declared its head. No changes in faith were required or allowed ; and hence those who avowed the tenets of Luther were burned as heretics, and those who owned the au- thority of the pope were hung as traitors. But Henry's system, furiously assailed by the ardent reformers and the papists, died with him ; and under the reign of his son Edward, the tenets and homilies of the Anglican Church were established, essentially as they now exist. (1549.) They were drawn up chiefly by archbishop Cranmer, who was eminently qualified, in his double capacity of di- vine and statesman, to act the mediator between the sweeping spirit of reform, and that ecclesiastical organization which had admirably served the purposes of the Church of Rome during so many cen- turies. That the English Church still retains in its constitution, doctrines, and services, visible marks of the compromise effected by Cranmer, occupying a middle position between the Churches of Rome and Geneva, will not be denied at this day ; nor is it surpris- ing that it was denounced, at its origin, as retaining most of the abuses of the papal hierarchy. 4. The admirers of Luther and Calvin, in particular disliked the rela- tion in which the Church of England stood to the monarchy ; for as the king arrogated to himself the right of deciding what was orthodox in doctrine, and what was heresy, and claimed the supreme direction in spiritual as well as in temporal matters, they regarded him as the pope of his kingdom, and soon transferred to the new Church establishment much of that animosity which they had evinced towards the Papal See. The doctrines of the English Church, as set forth in the Articled of Faith, compiled in the year 1549, were never confirmed by an as- sembly of divines or by a convocation of parliament, but were im- posed by the king's supremacy on all the clergy and the universities. The Puritans declared that, on the point of supremacy, the king went even farther than the pope ; for the latter was in a degree sub- ject to the decisions of general councils of the Church ; whereas the former dictated articles of faith, and prescribed modes of worship, on his sole authority. The compromise arranged by Cranmer was re- garded, by a large body of Protestants, as a scheme for serving two masters : it had met with much opposition in the days of Edward the Sixth, as being but a partial reform, and much less than the in- terests of pure religion required ; and, in the reign of Elizabeth, the difficulties which it encountered were greatly increased. Elizabeth CHAP. XI] ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 805 was not disposed to make any concessions to her Puritan subjects ; and persecution was called in to enforce the observance of the estab- lished doctrines and worship. 5. The people declared that the Reformation had been forcibly arrested in its progress : their minds were left agitated and uneasy, craving still greater spiritual freedom than they had obtained, de- siring a still further reformation of abuses, and attributing their per- petuation to unauthorized assumption of power by the temporal sov- ereign. As the monarch necessarily required temporal aids to en- force his supremacy as head of the Church, so the religious reform party, aiming at the root of the evil, invoked political liberty to the aid of its faith and worship, against the whole system of absolute sovereignty which the Tudor princes had labored to establish. Per- secution produced its natural effects : it converted the Puritan sects into a political faction ; and the controversy of divines about religious faith and worship soon became a political contest between the crown and the people. It was thus that the partial suppression of the Reformation in England, and the measures adopted for the establish- ment of the English Church, formed one of the leading causes of the great political revolution that soon followed. The religious reforma- tion being checked by the hand of power, and the spirit of liberty which it had aroused being smothered, England rested on a vol- cano, whose pent-up fires only slumbered, to break forth in the de- vastating effects of a moral earthquake. III. 6. The second great cause that hurried on a political revolution in England, sooner than on the continent, was the support which the new spirit of liberty found among the English people, in the exist- ing free institutions of the country. The origin of the free institu- tions of England, as is well known, dates back to the year 1215, when a coalition of the great barons wrested Magna Charta from king John. The most important articles of this instrument, are those which provide that no freeman shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or proceeded against, " except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land," and that no aid or taxes shall be im- posed, unless by the concurrence of the common council of the king- dom. So important was the Great Charter deemed to the security of public and private rights, that the people obtained from their sov- 806 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL ereigns the confirmation of it upwards of thirty times between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. 7. From the time of the Norman conquest, indeed, there had ex- isted a " great council " of the kingdom, composed of the chief feudal tenants of the crown ; but it was not until after the reign of John that the House of Commons had been formed on the representative system, and taken its place among the sovereign institutions of the country. For a long time it exerted little influence in the govern- ment, afraid rather of bringing itself into trouble and danger, than desirous of augmenting its power and authority ; but under the Plantaganets, (from Henry II. to Richard III. inclusive, 1154 1485,) when private rights were invaded it showed itself the champion of the oppressed, and in its legal decisions and enactments gradually put forward and established those principles which have become the basis of the English constitution. Under the Tudors, on the con- trary, (from Henry VII. to Elizabeth, inclusive, 14851603,) so great were the encroachments of the crown and its officers upon pri- vate rights, and the difficulty of procuring adequate redress, that the general privileges of the nation were far more secure than those of private citizens. The House of Commons no longer defended indi- vidual liberties so successfully as under the Plantagenets, but it inter- fered to a much greater extent than formerly in the general affairs of the nation ; and this laid the foundation of the power which it has ^er since wielded in the administration of the government. 8. Other institutions pregnant with the seeds of liberty, and af- fording support and encouragement to the new spirit of reform, were found in the system of trial by jury, in the right of holding public meetings and bearing arms, in the privileges of chartered towns and the immunities of corporations, and in the precedents, favor- able to liberty, found in the decisions of courts of justice and the legal enactments of parliament ; although it is true that these decisions and enactments sometimes furnished examples of an op- posite nature ; still they were sufficient to countenance the claims of the friends of liberty, and to support them in their struggles against arbitrary and tyrannical government. Such were the two prominent causes that placed the English people in a state of readi- ness for a successful political revolution, whenever circumstances should urge it on ; they were the platform whence liberty unfurled her banners the fulcrum on which the lever of reform rested. CHAP. XL] ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 807 IV. 9. While this state of things existed in England, monarchy was running the same career there that it had pursued on the continent arrogating to itself all prerogatives, and allowing the liberties of the people to exist only as subordinate rights, or rather as concessions for which they were indebted to the sovereign's generosity. On the continent, monarchy found nations incapable of resisting its pre- tensions ; but in England the causes which we have mentioned had secretly undermined its foundations, and prepared its ruin, while it was still in the tide of apparently successful progress. 10. The princes of the Stuart family, still more than the Tudors, were imbued with the principles of absolute monarchy. James the First made no concealment of his sentiments ; he wished to be thought a despot ; the " divine right of kings" was his favorite max- im ; and his courtiers and counsellors, when forced to vindicate the measures of his government, such as arbitrary imprisonments and illegal taxes, alleged the examples of the monarchs of France and Spain. " The king of England," said they, " cannot be of lower degree than his equals ; and the dignity of the English prince re- quires that he should enjoy the same rights." The English people, on the other hand, had lived faster than their rulers : they had out- grown such arbitrary principles, and were unable to reconcile the arrogant assumptions of their rulers with the liberties of their country. 11. At the time of the accession of Charles the First the senti- ments of the people had become sufficiently developed to make known the general want of additional religious reform, and greater political liberty, both of which seemed arrested by the absolute monarchy now establishing its power. Charles had inherited his father's political maxim of the " divine right of kings ;" the archbishop of Canterbury was suspended from his office, and banished from London, because he would not preach the doctrine of passive obedience ; and in all things Charles sought opportunities of enforcing the principles of abso- lutism upon the nation. In the House of Commons arbitrary mon- archy encountered its first decided opposition ; and a party, consist- ing of the religious and political reformers, was there organized, having for its object the advocacy of legal, constitutional reforms, on the basis of the liberties guaranteed in Magna Charta, and con- firmed by the ancient laws, institutions, and usages of the realm. This party, the first that appeared in the field, although strongly at- tached to monarchy and episcopacy, yet wished to bring the former 808 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART lit back within the limits of constitutional power, by putting a atop to illegal imposts, to arbitrary imprisonments, and to all acts contrary to law and usage ; while it also desired to restrain the encroachments of the latter, believing that its jurisdiction was too extensive, and that it possessed far too much political power. 12. The legal reform party, which had the control of parliament, at once seized upon the only effective engine of opposition that it possessed ; and, determined to place the king in a position where he should rule in conformity with its wishes, or openly violate the most sacred principles of the constitution, sought to hold the king sub- servient to its wishes by voting supplies very sparingly, and, even then, only as the price of reformation. When the king demanded a subsidy, the House of Commons demanded a redress of grievances ; but the haughty spirit of Charles could not brook such presumption : his first parliament was quickly dissolved, and taxes were levied by the royal authority alone. A second parliament proved as intract- able as the first ; and in a third the opposition was stronger and fiercer than ever. Charles now changed his tactics : he agreed to a compromise of differences ; and by ratifying the famous Petition of Right, he bound himself to abandon forever illegal imprisonments and arbitrary taxation. The commons now granted an ample supply ; but in three weeks the royal promise by which that supply had been obtained was broken. A violent contest followed ; the parliament was angrily dissolved ; and during eleven years, from March 1629 to April 1640, Charles ruled without the aid or counsel of the repre- sentatives of the nation. During this interval of arbitrary rule it became more and more apparent that some new securities, some im- portant limitations of royal authority, were absolutely indispensable for the preservation of English liberties and privileges ; and by the time of the convocation of the Long Parliament', in 1640, a second party, more revolutionary than that which had hitherto opposed arbi- trary abuses, had grown up, and now had the ascendency in the House of Commons. 1 3. During the whole of the first session of the Long Parliament, these two parties still remained united, eagerly engaged in the work of promoting popular reforms, and in bringing the instruments of tyranny to justice. It was enacted that the interval between the assembling of two successive parliaments should not exceed three years ; and the people welcomed the act with bonfires, and every demonstration of joy. After laying this solid foundation for the CHAP. XL] ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 809 maintenance of the laws, the Commons abolished the court of the Star Chamber, and of the High Commission, and annihilated the ar- bitrary jurisdiction of several other irregular tribunals ; prisoners of State were released from confinement ; Archbishop Laud, one of the king's ministers, was imprisoned ; and Strafford was impeached, and at length brought to execution, as the chief adviser of the tyranny of the king, his master. 1 4. At the opening of the second session of the Long Parliament, in November 1641, the final schism in the constitutional party became apparent ; and from that day dates the corporate existence of the two great parties which, under the appellation, first, of Cavaliers and Roundheads, and subsequently, of Tories and Whigs, have ever since alternately governed the English nation. The early constitutional party, now the party of the court, still stood on its ancient ground, but pleaded strongly for conservatism, alleging that the rights of the nation had been vindicated, and surrounded with new securities by the recent enactments of parliament ; that the edifice of the constitu- tion which had received such violent shocks in the recent struggle now needed the most watchful care for its preservation ; and that the prerogatives with which the law had, for the public good, armed the sovereign, should be guarded from further encroachments, lest the victory over despotism should run into anarchy. Thus argued the enlightened royalists. Their opponents contended that good laws were not sufficient to stem the tide of despotism that the liberties which the English people enjoyed were rather apparent than real that unless more radical changes were made in the government, and the king restrained from the personal exercise of any effective power, the royal word was the only security for English freedom ; and it had been proved, in the case of the Petition of Right, that the royal word was not to be trusted. In fine, instead of acknowledging the absolute sovereignty of the crown, this party contended for the sov- ereignty of the House of Commons, the representatives of the nation, while behind this lurked the scarcely yet avowed principle of the sovereignty of the people. This has been called the political revolu- tionary party, although it sought only a legal reform, and professed adherence to the principles of a monarchy properly limited and controlled. 15. With each of the contending parties, a religious sect was closely allied the Episcopalians with the conservatives, and the Presbyterians with their opponents. Episcopacy had gained every- 310 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL thing from the crown, and she gave it a cordial support in return. The Presbyterians, on the other hand, wished to produce important changes in the Church, similar to what their allies were endeavoring to effect in the State to erect a system of Church government emanating from the people, composed of a series of assemblies, but without any gradation of orders in the priesthood, and without any preferences but those which should be constituted by voluntary agree- ment for the sake of order. 16. The first collision between the two parties in parliament was highly favorable, in its results, to the conservatives ; and the modera- tion which the king had now assumed promised well for his cause, when a single false step, his attempt to seize the five members within the walls of the House a placed all reconciliation at a hopeless distance, and rendered his affairs irretrievable by anything short of civil war. That fatal act showed the little regard of the king for the privileges of Parliament ; he had broken faith with even his own adherents, many of whom now deserted him ; and in the House of Commons the opposition became at once irresistible. Those who still adhered to the monarch withdrew the king quitted London civil war began, and two parties only were known, the party of the king, and the party of Parliament. 17. Before the war had lasted two years the most alarming doc- trines, both religious and political, began to arrest public attention. A third party, exchanging the watchword of reform for that of revo- lution, had grown up in the parliamentary ranks. In politics, this party would have swept away the ancient institutions of England, its judicial system and its administrative system, even monarchy itself placing all on a new basis, changing not only the form, but the foundation of the government and erecting a commonwealth or republic on the ruins of the old English polity. In religion, the men of this party called themselves Independents : they maintained the uncontrolled independence of every single congregation of Chris- tians, and condemned every national establishment of religion, whether Papal, Episcopal, or Presbyterian, as merely forms of one great apostasy. Under the banners of this party marched all the radical republicans of the day, and all the advocates of absolute liberty of faith and worship. The soul of this party was Oliver Cromwell ; and, under the guidance of his master spirit, episcopacy was repudi- ated, the act establishing presbytery as the national Church was a. See p. 364. CHAP. XLJ ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 811 rendered inoperative, in favor of the Independents ; and monarchy was overthrown, by the execution of the king. England was declared a commonwealth, and the republican party was left master of the field, and of power. 1 8. That portion of the republican party which filled the House of Commons, now reduced to fifty or sixty members, and forming what was contemptuously called the Rump, soon found its govern- ment of the country rejected, and anarchy, which it had not the power to restrain, everywhere prevailing. Ejected from their seats and the doors closed upon them, the Republican members resigned their power without a struggle. Thus King, Lords, and Commons, had in turn been vanquished and destroyed : the legal reform party, the political revolutionary party, and the republican party, had suc- cessively failed in conducting the revolution ; and Cromwell one of the master spirits whom revolutionary times produce who had done more than any other man to overthrow authority, was now the only man who could restore it. The country required a ruler ; and in the emergency Cromwell placed himself at the head of the State Although no party liked to see the government in his hands, and all repeatedly, and at the same time, attacked his power, yet to the last he was honored by the army, obeyed by the whole British population without having gained their affections, and dreaded by all foreign powers. His administration was arbitrary, of necessity, but not cruel and tyrannical ; property was secure, and justice was administered with impartiality ; while the foreign policy of Cromwell raised high the fame of the nation, and brought back the renown of the age of Elizabeth. V. " 19. Upon Cromwell's death, the government again fell into the hands of the republicans ; but they succeeded no better than before ; and a coalition between the old conservative party and those who separated from it in 1641, restored constitutional monarchy. Cava Hers and Roundheads, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, waving petty scruples and postponing to a more convenient season their dis- putes about reform, united to reestablish the old civil polity of the kingdom, as the only chance of escaping from the terrors of military despotism and civil anarchy. A prince of the Stuart family was restored to the throne of his fathers, without any pledges for the se- curity of those liberties which the nation had been striving, during twenty years, to establish. 812 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PART IIL 20. At the restoration, the government returned to the position in which it had been left when Charles the First, eighteen years be- fore, withdrew from his capital. The acts of the Long Parliament which had received the royal assent were evidently still binding upon the crown and the nation ; but all subsequent proceedings of the gov- ernment were regarded by the party of the court as the acts of a usurping faction. The complexion of the first parliament called by Charles the Second was decidedly Royalist ; and under the ministry of Lord Chancellor Hyde, soon created Earl of Clarendon, a man who venerated the royal prerogative, who was strongly attached to Episcopacy, and who regarded the Roundheads with political and personal aversion, the old ecclesiastical polity was revived, and the ancient principles of the monarchy restored. Again the doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of the king was placed at the head of the creed of the dominant party ; and although it was acknowledged that the royal prerogatives were limited by the House of Commons, as re- gards taxation, and by the judicial tribunals in matters affecting private rights, yet they still gave to the crown an almost complete independence in point of government, and a preponderating control over Parliament. 21. But notwithstanding the strong reaction at first in favor of royalty, the fundamental principles upon which the Clarendon min- istry was based had now become old and powerless ; twenty years of parliamentary rule had destroyed them forever : the coalition that had restored royalty terminated with the danger from which it sprung ; and the reform party, though trampled upon, and seemingly annihilated, again raised its head, and renewed the interminable war. 22. Meanwhile a general profligacy of morals and manners had grown up in the nation, and pervaded the court ; Clarendon, an un- flinching royalist, but a despiser of fashionable debauchery, became unpopular with both parties, and his administration odious ; a new party arose out of the discontented spirits who cared little about legal order, and were only anxious for their own success ; and from the profligates and libertines of the court, the Cabal administration was formed, an administration regardless of law, or right, or justice; and that sought the means of success by every tortuous policy, with- out regard to its own dignity, or the honor of the nation. 23. But corruption so glaring and so public ere long deprived the king of the whole stock of popularity with which he had commenced his administration : the national pride was wounded by the reverses CHAP. XL] ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 813 sustained in foreign wars ; a deep anxiety for civil liberty pervaded the nation, and alarming rumors of Popish plots, and of a design to restore the Roman Catholic faith, were industriously circulated. The Cabal ministry fell before the gathering storm ; a national party be- came gradually formed in the House of Commons ; and in 1679 the king was obliged to take the leaders of it into his council. 24. Although the national ministry consisted, in great part, of those eminent men, of pure intentions, who had headed the oppo- sition in both houses of parliament, yet the suspicions attached to the king's character greatly abated the public esteem for those who had gone into his council ; they could neither gain the confidence of the nation, nor manage the interests, habits, or prejudices of the king, who soon broke his faith with those by whom he had pledged himself to be directed. The national ministry, after holding power less than a year, was broken up, and the agitation became more violent than ever. 25. Thus the English restoration, like the English Revolution, had in a manner tried all parties ; and the Clarendon or legal ministry, the Cabal or corrupt ministry, and the national ministry, had suc- cessively failed to afford the nation a satisfactory government. As at the close of the revolutionary troubles in 1653 Cromwell turned the disordered elements of party strife to his own advancement, so Charles II. now turned them to the profit of the crown, by enter- ing upon a career of absolute power, although he seldom dared to infringe upon the fundamental privileges of the nation. The Anglican clergy of this period boldly asserted the doctrine of ab- solute non-resistance ; servile writers endeavored to show that Mag- na Charta, and other constitutional laws, were but rebellious en- croachments upon the prerogatives of monarchy ; and among the propositions which the University of Oxford denounced as damnable, was the republican doctrine that all civil authority is derived orig- inally from the people. Under Charles II. royalty had not abated any of its pretensions ; and under his successor, James II., it rapidly approached the despotic rule of the first Charles. But what hastened the crisis of the Revolution was the desire of James to achieve a triumph for popery as well as for absolute power ; and from the prospect thus presented, the nation shrunk with horror. Thus, as at the commencement of the Revolution, there was a religious struggle and a political struggle, both directed against the government ; and, as at the restoration, a coalition was formed between the two great 814 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET III. parties of the nation, the reformers and the conservatives, since better known as Whigs and Tories, and the result was a deposition of the reigning sovereign, and a change of dynasty by a transfer of the crown to William, Prince of Orange. VI. 26. The concluding event of the Revolution, the act by which the crown was settled on William and Mary, terminated a contest which had been waged ever since the reign of king John, between the crown and the people ; and which, under the last of the Stuarts, had been obstinately maintained by royalty against the liberties and the re- ligion of England. By the Act of Settlement, and the Declaration of Rights which soon followed it, all the arbitrary prerogatives of royalty were taken away ; and in place of the maxim of the " divine right of kings," and the doctrine of passive obedience, it was hence- forth conceded that the rights of the crown emanated from the par- liament and the people. The immediate beneficial effects of the es- tablishment of this just principle of government were not confined to the British islands ; they extended across the ocean, and relieved the British American colonies of much of that royal tyranny against which they had so long been struggling. 27. The effects of William's elevation went far beyond a mere change of dynasty. Placed on the throne by the nation itself, to the rejection of the claims of hereditary right, his title was bound up with that of the nation to its liberties. Chosen by the free-will of parliament, the freedom of that body became part of the royal creed ; its wishes the king was bound to conform to ; its support was ever necessary to his own security ; and henceforth the House of Com- mons, which now, for the first time, assumed the distribution of the revenue the regulation of the expenses of the army, the navy, &c. became the paramount power in the State. From the Revolution to the death of G-eorge the Second, a period of seventy years, the Whig party had the ascendency in the government ; and it was a funda- mental doctrine of that party, (however often they might depart from it in practice,) that power is a trust for the people, to be used for their benefit. Political science made a great stride during this period, producing its effects not only upon England, but upon France also, and through France, upon Europe. 28. It is at the point when the republican government of Holland was called to the defence of English liberties, that the English Revo- CHAP. XL] ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 815 lution links itself with the general course of European civilization. It would be a contracted view of this great event to regard it as ex- clusively English in its character, without showing the connection of its results with the great drama that was enacting on the broader stage of continental politics. While the struggle of absolute power against civil and religious liberty took place in England, pure mon- archy, in the person of Louis XIV., was waging a war against the lib- ties and the independence of States on the other side of the Channel. Against Louis a powerful coalition was entered into, in which the Pro- testant Republic of Holland, with William of Orange at its head, took the lead. To the one object of securing the liberties of his country and of Europe against the present aggressions of Louis, and his schemes for universal monarchy, the whole of the heroic life of William was devoted with undeviating firmness, and with an ardor and persever- ance that has scarcely a parallel in history ; and it was an important part of his magnanimous designs to place England in its natural position, as a party to the coalition which he had formed. Under Charles II. the English government had been treacherously sub- servient to the counsels of Louis, who had found in James II. a still more devoted adherent, and the liberties of England an enemy whose resentment could never be appeased, and whose power, consequently, must be taken away. 29. A deep feeling of enmity to France and her monarch, and the cause which he represented, had taken possession of William's soul ; and that feeling governed the whole of his policy towards England. His public spirit was European in its character ; and when the crown of England was tendered him, the chief motive that prompted his acceptance was not personal ambition, nor the interests of the people whose cause he served, nor the safety of his own country, but a de- sire to lay hold of England as a new force requisite to complete the coalition of feeble and dispirited States against their common enemy. With this view of the subject, the course which William pursued towards the contending parties in England appears far more uniform and consistent than when supposed to be restricted in its objects to the narrow theatre of English politics ; and the English Revolution, instead of an isolated struggle for liberty, becomes, independently of the influence of its example, an important act in the great drama of European civilization. . 816 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. [PAET IIL CHAPTER XII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. ANALYSIS. 1. The Frenck Revolution the great event of the eighteenth century. In what light we are at first disposed to view it. 2. A great development of the inconstancy of French character. An era in the page of history. 3. Previous inquiry into the state of civil- ization at the close of the fifteenth century. Farther examination of the state of French society. 4. GROWTH AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND NOBILITY. Political aspect of Gaul under its feudal lords. The chieftain Clovis. 5. Limited powers of the Merovingian kings. 6. Overthrow of the Merovingian dynasty. 7. Character, extent, and fall, of the Carlo- vingian dynasty. Increased power of the nobility. Why the Carlovingian dominion failed. 8. Election of Hugh Capet by the feudal lords, and gradual subversion of the power of the latter. Enlargement of the royal domain. 9. ORIGIN or THE THIHD ESTATE, OR COMMONS. The free towns, or municipalities, aid in the overthrow of feudalism. Change in the character of society. The municipal republics absorbed in the absolutism of Louis XIV. Subsequent reappearance of this part of the social system. 10. CHARACTER AND POSITION OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH. The Church early made de- pendent upon the crown. Pontifical decrees not binding on any Frenchman without the consent of the monarch. 11. Original jurisdiction of the French ecclesiastical courts gradually, but permanently impaired. 12. Church property not taxed without the free consent of the eccle- siastical order. Immense amount of Church property. Political influence of the Church. 13. PECULIARITIES OF EARLY FRENCH LEGISLATION. The parliaments of the feudal lords. The king's parliament. Enlargement of its powers by Louis VII., and origin of the French peerage. Enlargement by Louis IX. The French noblesse in the seventeenth century. Their mutual jealousies they are hated by the plebeian classes their exclusive privileges. 14. Origin and composition of the States-General. Its rights and powers. Previous to Louis XVI., France had no constitution, and the king was the real as well as nominal lawgiver. 15. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE RULING ORDERS AND TUB PEOPLE DURING THE CENTURY PRECEDING THE REVOLUTION. The English and French Revolutions, results of the workings of the same principles. Comparative suddenness and violence of the French Revolution. 16. First avowal of republican principles in France. How they were checked. Prevalent ideae respecting popular rights. 17. Character andresults of the Insurrection of the Fronde. Ab- solutism of Louis XIV., poverty of the people, and wealth of the nobility. 18. Exhaustion of the kingdom, by persecutions of the Protestants, and the wars of Louis. Expedients to re- plenish the treasury. Why the reign of Louis was, externally, one of glory to his country. Cause of decline. Absolute monarchy unfavorable to the development of the highest talent. 19. The regency of the Duke of Orleans. Iniquitous measures for removing the public debt. 20. Political and moral character of the reign of Louis XV. Degraded state of the nobility. Ecclesiastical tyranny and immorality. Low state of morals generally. General presentiment of an approaching revolution. The system of absolute power worn out, and nothing to take its place. 21. Struggle between the Jesuits and Legists. Abolition of the order of the Jesuits the people begin to make common cause against the monarchy. 22. CAUSES OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF FREE PRINCIPLES. Resistance to des- potism increases with the advance of civilization. The three forms of despotism in feudal France their contests with each other. Society afterwards divided into two classes the privileged few, and the laboring many. The mastery at first obtained by the former. Various ways through which the people strove for emancipation. 23. Opposition to sacerdotal tyranny : CHAP. XJL] THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 817 Calvinism, Jansenism, Infidelity. 24. Influence of general literature in advancing the Ravo- lution. Great activity of the human intellect. Disquisitions of the French philosophers. General tendency to republican principles. 25. Unhappy distinction of classes in France. Selfish zeal of the higher classes to limit the royal authority. The exclusiveness and pride of the aristocracy contrihuted to give to the Revolution its sanguinary character. Unyielding op- position of pa/ties and classes in France to the present day. 26. Wretchedness of the peasant population. City vagrants the part which they played in the Revolution. 27. Lons XVI. THE FIRST ACT IN THK DRAMA OF THE REVOLUTION. General restlessness of the French people at the time of the accession of Louis XVI. Effects of the American Revolution. 2d. Character of Louis. 20. His ministers, &c. Opposition of the clergy and nobility to reforms. Convocation of the States-General. Representation of the "Third Estate." Results of the elections. The opening of the Revolution. 30. Indication of a change of public feelings. 31. Unwise policy of the government. 32. Unwise policy of the nobility and clergy. The National Assembly. Its measures. Success of the Commons in opposing the royal edict. 33. Want of harmony in the Assembly. Formation of a monarchist party. The national party. 34. Reformation of abuses, and adoption of a Constitution. Appropriation of Church property. 35. The old Provinces changed into Departments, &c. Sovereignty of the people established. The acts of the National Assembly highly praiseworthy. Its great error, iu excluding its members from the next legislature. 36. CHANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION. Effects of the king's attempted escape, and the emigration of the nobility. Ultra character of the new Legislative Assembly. 37. Impolitic and vacillating conduct of the king. Important considerations that led the Assembly to contemplate his deposition. 38. Manifesto of the allies abolition of royalty the Girondists and the Mountuinists. The leaders of the latter. 39. Motives of the Mountainists in urging the condemnation of the king. 0. Sanguinary carreer of tbe Mountainists after the execution of the king. Successive fall of the Girondists and Dantonists. 41. Napoleon's po- litical sagacity compared with the course of the Dantonists. 42. Fall of the Mountainists, and retrograde movement of the Revolution. 43. TERMINATION AND RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION. Military despotism a relief from anarchy. Changes in public opinion. Beneficial effects of the Revolution. Onward tendency of liberal principles. The fate of France, a warning to rulers and people. 44. Important moral standing armies no security to arbitrary power. Good government : the people the only basis of power. 45. Salutary lesson to the friends of freedom. Unwise legislation what institutions only can be permanent. French infidelity. The English Rebellion contrasted with the French Revolution. Mild character of the former violence of tbe latter. The causes. 46, Ignorance the only reliable support of arbitrary power. Freedom naturally keeps pace with the progress of knowledge and virtue. Attempt to stifle necessary reforms. What qualities are necessary for the successful development of democratic institutions. What the French people have overlooked, and what they have still to learn. :.-tf is* .Jb&*Jfc$*^xHj to .> \ 'n> <4u >8K*k ( Baylen 489 Cappadocia Badajoz 493 Cat'ana 119 498 Cadmus 30 Barbary 509 41 Balkan, mts 522 Cap'ua . . 147 Banat 551 Caudine Forks 147 Bartfeld 556 Catalonia 258 Bethoron 114 Can'nse 158 Beachy Head Bender. .. . 384 413 Capreae 191 199 Berlin 426 Cadeaiah 249 Bellisle 432 254 497 Czesarea C>0 281 Calais 299 Bidassoa, 379 Calmar. TOR Biscay. 462 Castile 317 Blackheath 302 319 Blenheim 402 Cape Verd Isles JIQ 30 Carlowitz K!T| Bos'porua ... 219, 596 Calcutta 395 248 Cadiz 402 Bouillon 280 eio Bordeaux 300 470 . . . . 307 467 Bohemia 313 Cape Breton 422 Bourbon. .... 327 442 336 Ceres % Bombay 395 71? Borodino.... .. 495 166 GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX. PAGE Cerisoles 336 Ceylon 394 Chaeronea 97 Chalons 233 China 28t5 Cherbourg 301 Chatham 372 Cholet 459 Chateau Gonthier 459 Cimonian treaty 81 Cilicia 98 Cisalpine Gaul 143 Cimbri 171 Cintra 489 Ciudad Rodrigo 492 Clazom'enae 89 Clusiura 136 Clyp'ea 154 Clastid'ium 156 Clermont 280 Corinth 51 Corinthian Isth 46 Corcy'ra 82 Coronea 89 Collatia 133 Consuls 135 Corioli 139 Corsica 152 Copts 221 Cologne 254 Cor'dova A 269 Constance 331 Copenhagen 408 Courland 410 Coblen'.z 451 Corunna 490 Comorn 553 Crete 34 Crasus* 56 Creasy 299 Cracow 410 Croatia 542 Cronstadt 553 Ctesiphou 203 Cumae 115 Culloden 422 Cuba 432 Culm 498 Cyclopes 22 Cyclopean structures 28 Cyrenaica 70 Cy'prus 80 Cys'icus 86 Cyc'lades 522 Damascus 62 Danube, r 171 Dacia 200 Dalmatia 208 Damietta 286 Dauphin 304 Dauphiny 341 Dantzic 486 Delphi 47 Denmark 308 Delhi 350 Desna, r 412 Dettingen 420 Dennewitz 499 Derby 531 Debreczin 553 Diana PAGE . . 26 Gascony. PAGE 293 Dictator 137 Galicia 540 Dnieper, r 309 Gaeta 547 Doris ... 45 Gedrosia 101 Don, r. 71 Gela 115 281 Germania . . 200 Dominica . ... 438 539 Dogger Bank. 441 596 Dreux Dresden .... 341 359 Geneva Genoa 258 315 Druids . 195 68 Dunbar 295 Ghent 344 Durham 299 Ghibellines -ti'J Dublin 307 Giants 24 Dunkirk 372 Gilgal . 59 Dwina, r. 389 Gil boa 60 Dyrrach'ium .... 180 Gibraltar 403 Gloucester 301 Goshen 16 E 27 Ebro , .... 489 Goths Goa. 213 .... 349 Edinburgh Edom Edghill Egypt Egypt, pop. of Egeata E'lis Elateia 421 . ,, 63 364 13 469 119 50 .... 96 057 Gottingen Goodwin sands Graces Granicus Gracchi Granada Gravelines Grenada Granville 356 368 .... 26 98 170 .... 317 379 .,., 439 .... 460 Elba'. Emes'sa Emir Engen Epirus Eph'esus Eperies Eretria 500 .... 248 . , . 310 , , , , 477 . 44 ,, , 57 , 553 .... 85 Gross-Beren Guadalete r .... Guadalquiver Guinea Guienne Guadaloupe Guillotine , . 499 .... 251 . 251 , 320 .... 341 .,,, 4:32 .... 456 Ethiopia. 37 125 Euphrates 13 Euxine 34 27 Euboe'a 56 98 Eylau .. 486 Hastings . .... "90 Halidon Hill 299 Havre 339 Hanover. .. 482 Fates Falkirk Ferrara 26 ,, 295 544 407 Hanau Ham Herod' otus Hebe 539 .... 560 .... 14 .... 26 Florence Flanders Fontenoy Forum, Roman Franks Franconia Franche Comt6 Frankfort Frejus , 230 378 .... 421 ,.144 216 .... 270 . 379 419 .... 473 Helen Hebron Hermean, pr Herculaneum Her'uli Hesse Cassel Heidelburg Hermanstadt Hegyes .... 36 60 79 .... 154 , 200 334 , , . 539 .. 539 553 . 556 Frederickshall Friuli Friedland Furies , 415 268 487 377 . . . . 24 Hercules Him'era Him'era, r Hindostan Holland .... 22 117 120 . , . 253 .. 35 313, 592 * 377 ... 429 37 . 433 Gath... 60 .... 479 Gaul 232 Gaza. . . .. 157 Hudson's Bav. ter... .. 406 GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX. Hungary., PAOK ... 542 Lib'anus, mU I'AOK .... 282 Moii 3 iS ace r . . PAOB 138 llyphasis, r. . . ... 101 Lithuania 312 Montserrat. 28G I Iberus, r Iceland Jctni ,, 157 ... 320 ... 195 Lisbon .... 320 Moscow 287 Lisle. .... 406 Moldavia... 434 Livonia... 407 Moravia 313 Lissa Liegnitz ' Ligny 427 431 .... 501 Morgarten Morea Moluccas 313 316 393 Illyria Tngria Innspruck. 95 ... 153 ., . 89 411 ... 541 Locrians Lombardy Loire, r Lodi 92 216 257 422 466 .... 540 Montenotte Mount Tabor. Moeskirch Munda 403 .... 465 472 477 .... 26 182 Ipsamboul &:::::::::::::::: ... 19 ... 38 103 ... 26 Lusitanians Lucan Luxemburg Lusatia Lutter 166 , 194 .... 313 , . , , 313 256 Munster Mythology Myc'ale 247 .... 392 42(1 .... 22 80 I8SU8 Ith6me . .. 98 351 516 . .. 51 Lubec Lutzen Luneville. Lucca Lydia 257 , , . 359 479 . . . 544 56 Mysore N 443 Italy J Jabesh Gilead 578 . 59 Lyons M Mars Marathon .... 209 .... 25 75 Naxos Navarre .... 46 115 317 Nantes 347 Naseby 365 Namur .. 384 Janus, Temp. of. ... 129 395 Narva ... 408 Nazareth 472 164 Mantinea 90 Navarino. 517 455 .... 113 NapolidiRom 518 486 Malta 152 Naples, Kingdom of 54G 14 Marseilles .... 157 . 24 39 161 Neap'olis 115 fil 171 Neustria 272 *uppa 24 Marl us 174 Newbury 364 25 Msesia 200 New Netherlands. 373 Jupiter jf m., Temp of. ... 129 245 .... 245 Nerwinden 385 358 406 E Karaarina Kashgar 118 ... 350 Marston Moor 365 Neva, r 411 Madagascar . .. 394 Nile t 16 395 Nineveh 17 Madrid Malplaquet Manilla ... 404 .... 405 40n Nice Nice 281 .... 336 070 Katsbacb Kalamatia Khorassan Killiecrankie Kiev Kotzim 499 .. 517 , 267 376 287 ...386 Martinique Mans Malta , . . 432 .... 455 ... 4fiO 466 ... 469 Niemen, r Normans Normandy Nottingham 487 .... 262 272 .... 309 ,. . 364 Kolin Krasnoi Kurdistan L 426 497 222 35 Mahrattas Manchester Memphis Mercury ... 485 .... 509 14 25 Numantia Nuremberg Jfympki Nystad .... 166 ,.,. 359 .... 24 .. .416 Messenia 51 Oceanug . 28 Media f-9 Meg'ara 83 48 Melos 83 12i 115 Off'tipcs. . 29 Latium 126 Metaurus 159 Olmutz 542 129 17 Olympius 27 301 Mecca 247 90 384 Medina 47 Onod . . 556 515 Mer'ida. 52 Oporto . 489 Lesbos . 45 Minerva ... 26 .... 348 89 Minos . . 34 Orleans 301 91 Midianitcs 41 363 316 Miletus .. 57 Ostracism .. 77 Leon ... 317 Minden ... 430 Ostia .... 131 Leipsic ..'. .. 359 Millesaimo 465 .... 529 Libva... . 37 Moabites... . 40 Ondenarde. . . , . 404 GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX. FAGB Palestine 40, 57^ Paraisus 52 Pares Pannonia 105 Panor'mus 117 Parthia 179 Palmyra 216 Paris 255 Papal power 25(5 Papal States - . 544 Pavia 258 Pampeluna 258 Passau 337 Palatinate 384 Parma 544 Peneus, r 44 Persia 50 Persian Hist 572, 249 Persian Gulf 101 Per'gamus 162 Pelusium 250 Pesth 549 Peterwardein 551 Philistines 41 Phocis 91 Phrygia 103 Pharsalia 180 Pharos 181 Philippi 185 Pindus, mts 44 Picts . . 227 Pisa 319 Piedmont 421 Pluto 24 PlatJB'a 75 Placentia 280 Plantagenet 291 Potidae'a 82 Po,r 158 Pontus 173 Pompeii 200 Pollentia 229 Poictiers 852 Poles 311 Portugal 318 Pomerania 358 Podolia 390 Pondicherry 395 Prat'tor 156 Pratorian Guard* 192 Provence 27 J Prague 355 Pruth 414 Pragmatic Sanction 419 Preston Pans 421 Punic 152 Pultusk 4JO Pultowa 412 Presburg 555 Pyramids 16 Pydna 110 Pyrenees 252 Qiuitre Bras. ft 501 Rabbah 62 Raab 558 Raven'na 229 fcamilliei 403 Radstadt PAGE 406 Stockholm PACE 415 Raudian plain 173 St. Albans . 305 490 St. Just 337 Rhine, r 179 St. Germain 342 Rhone, r. 172 St. Quentin 339 Rhodes .. 250 St. Petersburg. 389 Rheims 272 400 Richmond Riga _, .... 30fi 407 St. Lucia St. Vincents. 438 438 488 St. Eustatia 439 258 St. Cloud 473 Roum 281 St. Bernard 477 Rochelle. . . 357 481 Roussillon 379 St. Helena. 501 Rossback. . . 426 230 Rome 58-2 Suabia . . . 270 Rubicon, r Russia. . .... 150 287 Surinam 393 Sussex 290 Riituli 314 Switzerland "6<> Ryswick 385 Syria . . 62 8 Saturn . 24 Syracuse 84 Syb'aris .. 116 Szeged in. . 554 T Tan'agra. . 88 Samothrace 34 Sardis 57 Samaria 64 128, 578 147, 578 152 116 Samnites Tarquin'ii . . 131 Sardinia . Tarsus 185 156 Teg'yra 91 Sarmatia 2f9 Ten' tones 171 224 Terouane ... 254 Saracen 248 Tewkesbury . ... 306 240 Teutonic Knightt 312 258 Tessino 515 Saxonv ... 270 Teil, Wm 314 Samarcand 310 Tenedos , . 519 355 Temeswar 554 Salonica 519 Thebes in Egypt.. 14 Salona 520 Thebes in Gr.. 30 Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. . 527 Thessaly 31 Saumur 459 Theseus.. . 33 460 Tlieban War. 33 Salamanca 493 ' Thrace 71 Sardinia, kingdom of. Scythia .... 515 71 Thermopylae . 71 Thracian Cher 96 Scone 295 Thera .. 121 518 Thapsus 183 Selinus 119 270 315 T-heiss, r . . . 548 Serbs 550 Titans 23 . . 443 Tiber, r 125 52 Tibur 218 Sidon 61 Ticinus 158 Sicily . 84 Tilsit 487 10" Tours 253 218 254 Sileucidts 249 Toulon 404 Silesia 313 Torgou 431 390 441 550 Torfou 459 Sleswick 407 Torres Vedras 492 Smolensko Solway Frith .... 412 204 Tokay Troy 556 35 . . 255 Trezene 79 . 333 Trib'unes 133 Spain .... 156 Tr6bia 158 Spires 334 158 479 Trajan's col 203 Strabo 111 Tripoli in Af. 250 Stirling . . 295 282 356 390 .... 365 TrafeRrar... .. 484 GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX. FAQE 509 ... 378 Waterloo Trieste. 516 . . . . 24 Tripolitza 517 Vesta ...... 26 Wallachs,. 553 150 Veil ... 142 Warwick 308 151 .... 145 Weaer, r. 257 .. . 157 Vesuvius ..... . 199 360 487 231 ... 215 Wickliffe. .1 331 Tudela* ... 490 Venice ... 233 Wittemberg . 339 Tvre . 61 Versailles ..... 380 Windsor 375 204 yendetm Leader $ .... ... 460 Wilna.... 495 lirol . 313 Viriathui . 166 Widdin 558 ... 386 Worms .... 314 .. 402 Wolsey 320 Vimiera ... 489 Ukraine Ulm Umbria .. 590 484 578 Vittoria. Volga, r ...494 ,, 137 ... 389 Y .. 240 Utica 22 159 344 Volhynia. . . 528 ... 25 York. 2QP W .. 100 V Wales 94 Zara ~. 280 Valencia. 116 Warsaw ... 410 Zenta 390 Vandals... .. 219 .... 491 Zorndorf. 429 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 25Mar60Tb RECTD LD MAR 9 S 1%fi IrlKH Iv7 JU T r 01 A s;nv, A 'KQ General Library "um^o^B ui^fgiitai. ; t> M114700 / THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY